This season, two players in the MLB have set themselves apart from the rest. Aaron Judge has been dominant for the Yankees, and is clearly going to win the MVP in the American League. In the National League, Shohei Ohtani is looking like he is going to run away with the MVP as well. With both players having amazing seasons, it begs the question of who has been the best?
The argument for Judge is a good one. Judge has probably been having the greatest season of his career to date, and he has had an MVP season before. This year he has a batting average of .321, an on-base percentage of .453, a slugging percentage of .687 and an on-base plus slugging percentage of 1.140. All of these mark career highs for him, and he leads all of baseball in all of these numbers except for batting average. He also leads all of baseball in home runs, with 53, and runs batted in, with 132. Judge is about 10 points away from leading the league in batting average as well, and if he could do that he would win the coveted triple crown. This is when a player leads the league in home runs, runs batted in and batting average. This has not happened since 2012, and before that the last time was 1967, so he would truly be in rarified air. Judge is genuinely having one of the greatest hitting seasons a player has ever had.
With the season that Judge is having, it is hard to believe anyone could compete with that, but Ohtani has been putting up impressive numbers of his own. He is batting .289, has a .373 on-base percentage, a .610 slugging and a .983 on-base plus slugging. He, in his own right, has also hit a lot of home runs, with 47, and has 104 runs batted in. Judge does have Ohtani beat in all of these categories, and likely will at the end of the season, but Ohtani has also stolen 48 bases. If he has a strong end to the season, he could be the first player to ever hit 50 home runs and have 50 stolen bases in the same year.
The downside for Ohtani is that he is only hitting this season. He has not been a pitcher and a hitter like in previous seasons, and he is not even playing in the field. Judge, on the other hand, plays defense and hits, and while he is not considered an elite defender, it still makes a difference.
The final stat to judge these two players by is their wins above replacement (WAR). WAR puts together all aspects of a player’s game, and equates it to how many more wins that player is worth than a replacement level player at their position. Judge has a WAR of 9.7, while Ohtanis is 7.4. Judge’s WAR is actually hurt by his defense, as his offensive WAR is an astounding 10.6. This marks his offensive value at over three points higher than that of Ohtani.
At the end of the day, the stolen bases from Ohtani are not enough to put him above the monster offensive numbers that Judge has been putting up this season. Judge’s offensive WAR puts him as having a top 20 season for a hitter of all time. If he finishes the year strong, he will certainly have been the best player in the majors this year.
