Remember Aaron Judge? The guy who hit 58 home runs? Had the highest single-season WAR for a New York Yankees player since 1957? Had a 50-game stretch in which he hit .403 with 26 home runs? With the Most Valuable Player Award being announced today, here's a reminder that Judge had a season for the ages and that he will win the American League award for the second time.
While the lasting memory of his season will be his struggles in October, when he hit .184 with three home runs in 14 games, Judge had an amazing regular season -- and that's all that counts in MVP voting. He hit .322/.458/.701 with 58 home runs and 144 RBIs. For the second time in three years, Judge topped 10 WAR and advanced metrics point to the historic nature of his 2024 performance: the highest adjusted OPS ever for a right-handed batter, the highest adjusted OPS ever for a center fielder, the highest adjusted runs created for any hitter besides Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds.
With his third career 50-homer season, Judge became only the fifth player to do that at least three times, joining Ruth and three others whose numbers now exist in a cloud of suspicion (Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez).
It's this fact that raises a fun question as we await the MVP announcement: Is Judge the greatest pure home run hitter of all time? Let's put his numbers into perspective and compare him to some of baseball's greatest sluggers.