-Judge has higher WAR than Ohtani. Yes, this takes Ohtani's hiatting AND pitching into account
-Judge accounts for 21% of the Yankees' runs
-yes, the Yankees probably squeak into the playoffs without Judge thanks to their hot start, but they don't win the division and get a bye. Judge -carried- the team to the few wins they did get in August and allowed them to stay afloat in early September

There is NO good reason to vote Ohtani over Judge this year. Yes, Ohtani had an MVP-caliber year, but Judge's was better and he was more valuable to his team AND that value had relevance (unlike Ohtani's).

Gubbo: MVP is such a poorly defined term. The award is often, for all sports, better defined as the best player on the best team.

..except the best team in the AL is the Astros by a mile, I hate to say

LL316: Ohtani is the much better player and had the much better year. He should be MVP. Even if Judge hit 75.

objectively false

Dead for Tax Reasons: you know what's more valuable than getting in the playoffs? having one roster spot taken to do the job of two players and being at an all-star level for both

hermedwards.gif

so.. you're saying team payroll matters more than trying to win? Are you Bob Nutting?

Hillbilly Jim: He's for sure the most valuable monetarily speaking. It would cost more to replace Ohtani with two all star level players would be more expensive than Judge's upcoming salary.

Ohtani just last week signed a 1-year extension for $30M to avoid arbitration for 2023

ElwoodCuse: "making the playoffs" is a stupid requirement. no single baseball player can make a bad team into a good team. it's just how the sport works. it's not like basketball where a LeBron-level talent can carry four stiffs. 8 other guys have to bat and you can't do anything about that if they suck, or if you have no pitching.

The Yankees were playing Tigers-level baseball in the month of August and went 10-18. I watched nearly all of these games (in fact, the only games I missed all year were the Apple TV exclusives). Without Judge.. Judge specifically.. they probably go 6-22

Last Man on Earth: I don't disagree, but at the same time, it's "most valuable player," not "best overall player."  A lot of times those are the same, but sometimes they're not.  If a team is worthless with or without your involvement, have you really brought value to the team?  Even despite that, in any normal year, yeah, it's still Ohtani hands-down.  This was not a normal year for Judge, though.

This guy gets it.

Like I said, this was absolutely an MVP-caliber year for Ohtani.. in fact a better year than last year when he DID win the MVP. Judge this year, however, was that much better and meaningful to the Yankees.

ElwoodCuse: Last Man on Earth: If a team is worthless with or without your involvement, have you really brought value to the team?

Why are you punishing great players for having shiatty teammates, especially for an individualaward?

Ohtani was top 5 in the league in homers and pitching strikeouts. That hasn't happened since the 1800s

..and was still beat out by Judge in total WAR despite this

Look at it this way.. take two farmers.. they have hens to lay eggs and dogs to scare off foxes that steal eggs.

Farmer A has a pretty special hen that not only lays more eggs than most of his other hens, but is pretty feisty and scares off foxes on her own, better than the farmer's other dogs.

Farmer B has a hen that this season laid an absurd amount of eggs.

If Farmer A's hen laid 20 eggs and scared off enough foxes to prevent the theft of 5, but Farmer B's hen laid 30 eggs, which hen is more valuable?

puffy999: Give Ohtani those short f*cking porches in Yank Central and he'd have 50+ homers, too.

..and HERE's the easily debunked yet still trotted out park factor myth

Judge hit more on the road than at home

TDWCom29: And the only way it shouldn't be Ohtani is if you think "good defense at a non-premium position vs a guy who doesn't play defense" catches Judge up to him enough

we LITERALLY have a stat for this, and Judge beats Ohtani out this year.

The only.. ONLY argument for Ohtani is the "2-for-1 roster spots" thing, but considering that extra roster spot apparently didn't mean a thing for the Angels and their chances (yanno, despite having the OTHER top 3 guy in the AL on the team), that's a pretty weak argument.

OK.. I'll frame it this way..

Take everything you know about Ohtani and the year he's had.. everything that was pointed out in TFA... you look at that and say "wow.. that's an MVP, no question".  And I'd agree.. if Judge didn't have an even better year.

I'm not sure if its just general Yankee hate or maybe its a "oh, he plays in New York/for the Yankees, so the things being said about Judge must be overblown" or what that's blinding people to just what a ridiculous year Judge had. Or maybe people see the homers and just wrongly assume he was "just homers and that's it". I sort of wonder if Judge had managed to eek out those few points on AVG to get the Triple Crown if more people would be aware of the monster overall year he's had.

ElwoodCuse: "Judge had an even better year" is entirely subjective and you are stating it as fact because you're a Yankees fan

THERE. ARE. STATS. FOR. THIS.

You take Ohtani the hitter.. and Ohtani the pitcher.. and add them together.. their contributions to offense, defense and wins.. and they beat out every other player in baseball.. except Judge.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.. I'm trying to point out 2+2=4 and people are going "hmm.. nah.. that feels like 3, yanno? Besides, I've always hated 4."

"Well why don't we just hand it out to to WAR every year, hmmm?" Then what's your metric? How DO you measure who's the best if not for stats?

If we were voting for Most Exciting Player.. yeah, I WOULD vote for Ohtani.

..and yes, how the rest of the team does with and without the player in question IS relevant.
I guarantee you the Yankees don't win the division without Judge (and have stats and specific instances to back it up) and they maybe don't even make the playoffs. The Angels suck with Ohtani and suck harder without him. Isn't winning the point?

puffy999: The Bestest: puffy999: Give Ohtani those short f*cking porches in Yank Central and he'd have 50+ homers, too.

..and HERE's the easily debunked yet still trotted out park factor myth

Judge hit more on the road than at home

Switch parks and I'd wager their home run totals are pretty damn similar. Hitting more on the road doesn't mean he didn't benefit from an extremely short porch.

Switch parks and both hit more, but Judge hits -even more-. Judge hits primarily to the left.

this is Judge's spray chart:


and this is Ohtani's:

Hillbilly Jim: Monster year or not Ohrani did something no one else has ever done, not even Ruth as pointed out above by someone.

Great. So did Judge (I forget what exactly, but it was a homers/RBI/stolen bases combination or something). He was also a few points of AVG away from only the 19th Triple Crown in major league history (I think AVG should be retired in favor of OBP, but that's a whole other argument).

Ohtani had an amazing year. Judge's was even better.. and people are sleeping on it because its not as sexy as being a two-way player.

dark brew: But since we are doing hypotheticals, put Ohtani on the Yankees and Judge on the Angels.  Do the Yankees still win the division?  Do the Angels still suck?

This is actually a pretty good question.

I think the Angels do even worse and the Yankees do slightly worse.

The Angels do that much worse because of lacking Ohtani the pitcher, and Judge, for all his heroics, wouldn't be enough to carry the Angels past that.

The Yankees do only slightly worse because Ohtani the pitcher would somewhat, but not completely offset the gap in offense caused by trading Ohtani the hitter for Judge.

Rent Party: WAR sucks as a stat

definitely not perfect, but really the only way you can measure a "normal" player directly against a two-way oddity like Ohtani