I like Ohtani better and think that what he's doing is more special, but both are very good. Historically good. Since MVP is voted on and doesn't have standardized criteria I'm actually OK with it being awarded to Judge simply for the sake of variety, considering both have earned it.

If Judge wins Triple Crown, despite the trivial difference of finishing first or a close third in BA, I give it to him, because MVP is more about sentiment than analytic value anyway.  If he doesn't, I think I still give it to him but could be persuaded either way. 

If only Ohtani could spend his non-pitching days fielding a position, even first base, that could be enough to tip my choice his way.  He's a fine DH but not other-worldly at that specific job, where the bar for hitting performance is very high.  Yordan Alvarez is a better DH, for instance.  Ohtani's a unique combination of talents, but Judge's monster year is hard for me to snub.

Said another way, using the analytic approach, looking at aggregate WAR they are extremely close, but using the higher bar of Wins Above Average, Judge noses ahead.

I love Ohtani but if Judge doesn't win it, it'll be a travesty. He's having a historic season.

Judge should be the MVP, leads in almost every offensive category and is leading his team to wins and the postseason. Ohtani is a great player, and the most valuable player on the Angels, but not the AL.

Ohtani-san is loved in Japan and by my wife in particular, but the Angels are terrible as usual, so it has to go to Judge for that reason alone IMHO. On the other hand, who would I rather have on the Twins? Ohtani-san because of the dual threat...I'd take Judge though in a heartbeat.

BTW, Ohtani-san is an excellent outfielder, but even in Japan, they limited his appearances in the OF once he became a regular player for Nippon Ham.

Judge.  Ohtani is the "best" player in MLB, imo, but not the Most Valuable Player

1 hour ago, tfbw said:

Judge.  Ohtani is the "best" player in MLB, imo, but not the Most Valuable Player

That may very well be true, but you are right about not being MVP.   The MVP is solely, SOLELY, for the most VALUABLE player.  Would the Yankees win the division without Judge?  Would the Angels be........oh, I don't know, in 4th place instead of 3rd, if they didn't have Ohtani?  This is NOT the player of the year award, it is the most valuable.  Where would this player's team be without him?  I don't know how this is even a discussion.  

2 hours ago, Mark G said:

That may very well be true, but you are right about not being MVP.   The MVP is solely, SOLELY, for the most VALUABLE player.  Would the Yankees win the division without Judge?  Would the Angels be........oh, I don't know, in 4th place instead of 3rd, if they didn't have Ohtani?  This is NOT the player of the year award, it is the most valuable.  Where would this player's team be without him?  I don't know how this is even a discussion.  

Jay Leno may have a world class collection of cars, but if I have a $28M Rolls Royce Boat Tail* parked in my garage next to my 2010 Subaru Forester, I might have the Most Valuable Car regardless of whether people scoff at my bizarre overall roster of rolling iron.

PS: I don't.

*Or, if you prefer, the DeLorean from Back To The Future that really could time-travel -  what would someone pay for THAT?

11 hours ago, ashbury said:

Jay Leno may have a world class collection of cars, but if I have a $28M Rolls Royce Boat Tail* parked in my garage next to my 2010 Subaru Forester, I might have the Most Valuable Car regardless of whether people scoff at my bizarre overall roster of rolling iron.

PS: I don't.

*Or, if you prefer, the DeLorean from Back To The Future that really could time-travel -  what would someone pay for THAT?

Point well taken, and it is true.  But your car being valuable in and of itself doesn't get you anything but offers for that car.  It doesn't take you anywhere else.  A car that leads a fleet, and leads it to the winners circle, will get the award because without it, the fleet finishes lower.  Your collection is what it is, even with the best car; it will never win anything as a collection.  Being the best (which I don't give to either one because their roles are completely different and they both excel at their roles) individual doesn't make you the most valuable leader, leading your team to heights higher than they would have reached without you.  The whole time Trout was considered the best player in the game the team didn't win, anymore than they are winning now.  I could make a case that without Clase, Cleveland wouldn't be in the playoffs.  Houston, on the other hand, is stacked; no one player is making a difference because their talent runs too deep.  Without any one of them the team still wins.  The Yankees can't say that about Judge, and Cleveland can't say that about Clase.  Just being the best is not what the award is about; again, it's not the player of the year award.  It is supposed to go to the player who was the difference maker between where they are and where they would have been, and without Ohtani they would have finished below Texas and still above Oakland.  Not much of a difference.  Judge may have literally carried his team to the division title.  Without him they would still have made the playoffs in some manner, but without him they do not win the number of games they did.  As much as I love to have a give and take, I learn a lot from all the articles and feedbacks, this one is such a no brainer I don't get why it came up.  

The question is how do you determine MVP.  Most will look to say, if we took player x off the team where would they be.  The Angels would be terrible either way, as they were terrible this year after their hot start.  Yankees most likely would have still competed for title even without Judge.  Personally, I would take Ohtani on the team over Judge, but Judge will win the MVP based on what he has done and where his team is.  Also, in the second half, if Judge was not playing the Yankees may have played themselves out of the playoffs, despite having a huge lead at one point.  In the second half Judge was the only hitter doing much for Yankees on regular basis. 

Ohtani is crazy good, and his next contract will be crazy to value.  I mean he can be a top of rotation arm, which is worth nearly 30 mil a year generally, but then you add in fact he will also hit at near elite level.  If he was just the DH he would still look to pull in close to 20 mil a year I bet.  His bat would earn him more if he played defense, which I bet he could but team keeps him at DH to protect arm and less possible injuries.  Does that mean he will earn close to 50 mil a year?  It will be fun to hear the numbers for him.  I sure wish the Twins could be in on that, but no way they will. 

10 hours ago, Mark G said:

Point well taken, and it is true.  But your car being valuable in and of itself doesn't get you anything but offers for that car.  It doesn't take you anywhere else.  A car that leads a fleet, and leads it to the winners circle, will get the award because without it, the fleet finishes lower.  Your collection is what it is, even with the best car; it will never win anything as a collection.  Being the best (which I don't give to either one because their roles are completely different and they both excel at their roles) individual doesn't make you the most valuable leader, leading your team to heights higher than they would have reached without you.  The whole time Trout was considered the best player in the game the team didn't win, anymore than they are winning now.  I could make a case that without Clase, Cleveland wouldn't be in the playoffs.  Houston, on the other hand, is stacked; no one player is making a difference because their talent runs too deep.  Without any one of them the team still wins.  The Yankees can't say that about Judge, and Cleveland can't say that about Clase.  Just being the best is not what the award is about; again, it's not the player of the year award.  It is supposed to go to the player who was the difference maker between where they are and where they would have been, and without Ohtani they would have finished below Texas and still above Oakland.  Not much of a difference.  Judge may have literally carried his team to the division title.  Without him they would still have made the playoffs in some manner, but without him they do not win the number of games they did.  As much as I love to have a give and take, I learn a lot from all the articles and feedbacks, this one is such a no brainer I don't get why it came up.  

We all get the logic, but it's a dead end.  Keep going and you'll reach it. The ultimate MVP by this view is to pick the lowest-seeded team that barely made it as a wild card (usually a close race, maybe just one game in the standings), pick an average guy who played full time for them (Gio Urshela, say, had we been so lucky), and boom, he's your league MVP - he provided a couple of wins that a AAAA replacement wouldn't have.  Without Gio, or his clone on that team, the team misses the post-season.  Actually, he's co-MVP with presumably several players on the same team better than him - lose any one of them and they miss the playoffs - but none of them is more valuable than Gio.  Dead heat for MVP.

Okay, let's look at what you specifically suggested.  Imagine the Yankees calling up Cleveland's FO and says, "hey, we really like Clase.  We'll give you Judge for him."  Ignoring contract considerations (which MVP voting certainly does), can you imagine the Guardians saying no?  Trading away an MVP to get someone even better makes no sense.  And New York wouldn't offer that trade anyway.

Historically, MVP votes count heavily in the arguments for a player eventually making the Hall of Fame.  The MVP is shorthand for future generations to know: "this guy was as good as it got, that year."  If MVP were done your way, you'd have a Hall full of players who earned Brownie points with the voters through freak arithmetic where they were on teams that were good, but not too good.

For folks who dislike cultural relativism, this is just another example: demonstrable worth taking a back seat to outside factors.

Being the best is mainly what the award is all about, plus some sentiment as a tie breaker.  To do otherwise gets you lost in a corn maze of faulty conclusions.

One doesn't need to explain their MVP vote. It is all their favorite, in the end. I bet Judge will win. 

On 9/25/2022 at 3:46 PM, gunnarthor said:

I love Ohtani but if Judge doesn't win it, it'll be a travesty. He's having a historic season.

And Ohtani isnt? I guess technically someone had a similar season last year, but they also won the MVP for that...

I heard somewhere (online or some MLB talk, i cant remember), someone was listing off all of Judges stats and ranking this year offensively, and the retort was "and what's his ERA?". 

I think Ohtani deserves it more, but I think Co-MVPS would be very appropriate this year. 

How to honor Ohtani is a dilemma, because the Cy possibly is destined for Dylan Cease (with Alek Manoah as a dark horse coming on strong down the stretch), and best hitter is Judge by far.  If there were more guys like Ohtani they'd have to devise something different, possibly 3 awards, where MVP (call it the Babe Ruth Award) really does give pitchers and hitters equal footing, and you have a Ted Williams Award to go with a Cy Young for the best position player and best pitcher.  As it is, someone is getting a significant snub in the 2022 AL, but unavoidably as I see it.

14 hours ago, ashbury said:

How to honor Ohtani is a dilemma, because the Cy possibly is destined for Dylan Cease (with Alek Manoah as a dark horse coming on strong down the stretch), and best hitter is Judge by far.  If there were more guys like Ohtani they'd have to devise something different, possibly 3 awards, where MVP (call it the Babe Ruth Award) really does give pitchers and hitters equal footing, and you have a Ted Williams Award to go with a Cy Young for the best position player and best pitcher.  As it is, someone is getting a significant snub in the 2022 AL, but unavoidably as I see it.

"How to honor Ohtani is a dilemma, because the Cy possibly is destined for Dylan Cease (with Alek Manoah as a dark horse coming on strong down the stretch)"

I'm kind of thinking Verlander, myself.  Where am I going wrong?

Good idea about the 3 different award categories.  Without some kind of a change it is always going to be the same debate:  is it the player of the year award, or the most valuable player award?  And I already won that debate.      

Just kidding.    

6 hours ago, Mark G said:

I'm kind of thinking Verlander, myself.  Where am I going wrong?

He's got as strong a case as anyone and I'm not sure why I didn't include him in my comment.  Leading in ERA but with fewer starts is a strong but not decisive case to be made, while the W-L (albeit for a strong team) may be what pulls him across the finish line.  In fact now that I think again he may win in a landslide, but I personally see it as a lot closer than that.  Cease may be more impressive to me because that Chicago defense almost certainly did him no favors over the course of the season, while Houston's defense is pretty good.  Verlander'll be a worthy winner, if he gets it.

On 9/25/2022 at 8:38 AM, Unwinder said:

 doesn't have standardized criteria 

The position player with the highest WAR has been awarded the AL MVP in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2021. That's pretty much the criteria nowadays. 

On 9/27/2022 at 12:19 PM, Mark G said:

That may very well be true, but you are right about not being MVP.   The MVP is solely, SOLELY, for the most VALUABLE player.  Would the Yankees win the division without Judge?  Would the Angels be........oh, I don't know, in 4th place instead of 3rd, if they didn't have Ohtani?  This is NOT the player of the year award, it is the most valuable.  Where would this player's team be without him?  I don't know how this is even a discussion.  

If Judge is traded for Ohtani the Yankees win the division and the Angels don't make the playoffs. Value isn't determined by how good your teammates are.

On 9/30/2022 at 1:36 PM, ashbury said:

 If there were more guys like Ohtani they'd have to devise something different, possibly 3 awards, where MVP (call it the Babe Ruth Award) 

It's called the Hank Aaron award.

Hank Aaron Award | MLB.com

Judge