A week-and-a-half ago, before the Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh became just the seventh player to reach the 60 home run mark, a baseball writer with a vote in the American League MVP race made what they thought would be a binding pledge. If Raleigh reached the milestone, the thinking went, that would be enough to pass the Yankees’ Aaron Judge.
“To me, if he gets there,” said the voter, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, “it has to be him.”
Raleigh got there, swatting a pair of homers Wednesday to reach 60. And yet, the voter couldn’t shake the thought of not recognizing what Judge has done to capture what would be his third MVP.
“You look at it and can you really deny a player who has the highest batting average, highest on-base percentage, highest slugging percentage, highest OPS and is leading the league in WAR?” the voter said. “Even when I thought there was a threshold and if Raleigh got over it, it’s very tough.”
Tough was the prevailing sentiment amongst five American League MVP voters — all of them still undecided — who were granted anonymity to discuss a race that has become more intriguing. As the final weekend of the baseball season looms, the race seems to have become a choice between stat vs. squat.
Raleigh, a durable catcher, stands just three homers away from eclipsing the single-season American League record set in 2022 by Judge. That’s despite playing a defensive position that is both a mental and physical drain — a consideration that seems to be resonating with voters.
But Judge, the Yankees’ stellar outfielder, spent this season deepening an already impressive track record of offensive performance. He has 51 homers and 109 RBI, with a league-best 1.140 OPS, to go along with an average of .330.
The last would add yet another notable accomplishment for Judge, who is at no risk of getting caught: American League batting champion.
“Of all the votes I’ve been involved in, this one is by far the hardest,” said one veteran voter, who expressed relief at having a few more days before ballots are due.
Both Judge and Raleigh have delivered impact seasons. Both have propelled their respective teams to the postseason. But the 30 voters for the award — all members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America — rank their top 10 players for MVP. They can choose only one for first place.
“It’ll be sad that one of them doesn’t get recognition,” said the voter who thought that Raleigh reaching 60 homers would be a deciding factor. “Because they both deserve it.”
Judge’s most notable statistical advantage is WAR, or wins above replacement. The catch-all metric, though imperfect, arguably measures a player’s value better than any other. Voters in recent years have become increasingly reliant on it to contextualize a player’s contribution.
Judge has 9.3 WAR this season, according to Baseball-Reference. Raleigh? 7.2. One voter lamented just how much that discrepancy could matter.
“I don’t think defensive WAR for a catcher can truly calculate value,” the voter said. “How well is the catcher working with his pitching staff? How many meetings is the catcher in on a daily basis that is detracting from time he could be spending in the batting cage? All these things matter.”
What’s made Raleigh’s case so unique is how he’s accumulated that win value. Defense has always been the backbone of how a catcher is measured, with offense the separator between good and great. There’s just never been offense like this.
“Hitting 60 homers for a catcher is just outrageous,” the veteran voter said. “Whatever bar guys like Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench and Mike Piazza created for what was possible for an offensive catcher, this guy has jumped several feet over it.”
Raleigh’s ability to provide this level of plate production against the backdrop of an already demanding day job, is why at least one voter doesn’t want to let WAR get in the way of this great battle.
“In many ways,” they said, “you can’t quantify what a catcher does for his team.”
To a lesser degree, other factors could sway the vote.
Judge could benefit from playing in the nation’s biggest media market, though that impact wouldn’t come directly from the distribution of the ballots. As with the other regular season awards given by the writers, the voting bloc is made of two members from chapters spread around the league. In this system, New York gets the same number of AL MVP votes as Seattle: two.
Raleigh could theoretically benefit from voter fatigue. Among the voters polled, however, there are differing views about any actual impact.
“While I don’t think that’s necessarily fair, there is a part of me that thinks this in the back of my head,” one voter said about voter fatigue. “Judge will probably win another two or three MVPs in his career. He is already locked in as an all-time great. Cal Raleigh is never going to have a season like this again. I believe it is possibly a once-in-a-generation season offensively for a catcher.”
But the voting process can act as a safeguard against the influence of so-called fatigue. Voters typically change awards assignments from year-to-year, so an MVP voter one season might be a Cy Young Award voter the next.
“From my perspective, every year is fresh, every year is new,” said one writer, who for the first time in years has an AL MVP vote this season. “You don’t discredit someone just because they’ve won a couple of years in the past. So, I don’t really buy into that, partially because of the voter turnover.”
Raleigh’s work behind the plate, more than voter fatigue, seems to carry outsized weight in making the race feel as if it has drawn close.
“I’m leaning toward voting for Raleigh over Judge,” another veteran voter said. “Not because Raleigh reached the 60-homer mark, but because he has put up monster power numbers, with considerably more homers and RBIs than Judge, while playing perhaps the most physically demanding position in all of sports.
“And it’s not like Raleigh has caught half of his team’s games; he’s made 120 starts behind the plate, guiding a pitching staff that ranks 10th in MLB with a 3.87 ERA and dealing with all the bumps and bruises that come with the job.”
It’s possible that WAR carries the day and that Raleigh’s late push to history — combined with Judge’s advantage in more statistical measures — proves enough to make the vote convincing. But the betting odds have shifted away from predicting that outcome. And, at least for now, it seems that a portion of voters also see a race that has gotten tight.
Typically, one voter said, they’ll spend the Sunday night after the final games of the season agonizing over the last few spots in their 10-man ballot. Not this time, the voter said, “because I’m going to be so focused on one and two.”
“It’s been fun,” the voter continued. “But it’s also been kind of stressful.”
It’s common due diligence among many voters to solicit opinions from the clubhouses they cover, hoping for insight from players. They technically don’t get a say in who wins, but they certainly take an interest in the results. And in a close race, who they favor might provide valuable insight for a writer making a tough choice.
One voter recently made the rounds looking for those takes. What they got was a clubhouse full of big leaguers split evenly. And at least one player, sensing the dilemma, seemed to be in the mood to do some trolling.
“One guy was like, ‘Probably Judge or Raleigh,’” the voter said with a laugh, “and that didn’t help me at all… Nobody seems to have an answer and I don’t think there is a right answer, but it does feel very like, ‘Oh my god.’”
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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