{"id":99045,"date":"2025-08-26T19:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/99045\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T19:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:44:07","slug":"poll-al-mvp-race-check-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/99045\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: AL MVP Race Check-In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in June, MLBTR conducted a pair of polls checking the temperature on the two MVP races, and both polls saw the league\u2019s reigning MVP earn a dominating majority. Aaron Judge<\/a> pulled in 55% of the vote<\/a> in the American League poll, while Shohei Ohtani<\/a> did even better as he commanded 57% of the vote<\/a> in the National League\u2019s poll. Since then, Ohtani has broken away from the pack in the NL as he\u2019s more fully resumed two-way duties. While other players like Trea Turner<\/a>, Kyle Schwarber<\/a>, and Pete Crow-Armstrong<\/a> have put together excellent seasons of their own in the NL, it\u2019s hard to see that race as anything other than Ohtani\u2019s to lose headed into the final month of the season.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the AL MVP race has tightened considerably over the past two months. A big part of that is the fact that\u00a0 Judge hasn\u2019t looked like his usual superhuman self lately. The 33-year-old is still slashing an absurd .323\/.439\/.667 (193 wRC+), a figure that leads the majors by a substantial margin. However, Judge\u2019s numbers have come down quite a bit in the past two months. Since the day our last AL MVP poll was published, Judge has hit \u201cjust\u201d .240\/.385\/.540 with 12 homers and a 26% strikeout rate in 192 trips to the plate.<\/p>\n

That lack of volume is thanks to a flexor strain<\/a> in Judge\u2019s elbow that sent him to the injured list for a minimum stint a few weeks ago, and his .210\/.380\/.403 slash line since returning from the injured list only underscores that he\u2019s not playing at full strength. He\u2019s also been relegated to a DH-only role for the month of August and has no timetable for his return to the outfield, though he\u2019s already begun making throws<\/a> to the infield in pregame workouts.<\/p>\n

Of course, Judge looking mortal for a month or so wouldn\u2019t be terribly noteworthy without someone mounting a substantial challenge for his league\u2019s MVP award. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh<\/a> is doing exactly that. Raleigh\u2019s phenomenal season has earned him plenty of attention all year, but he\u2019s only garnered more attention as an MVP candidate in the weeks since Judge\u2019s injury. Interestingly, Raleigh\u2019s offensive numbers have slumped a bit right alongside Judge. While he was slashing .278\/.383\/.665 at the time of our last AL MVP poll, he\u2019s hit a less robust .204\/.311\/.498 in 235 plate appearances since then. That includes a .202\/.302\/.524 slash line in August that isn\u2019t all that far ahead of Judge\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n

Even with the pair both cooling at the plate, Raleigh has still been playing catcher regularly and hasn\u2019t missed time on the IL like Judge has. Raleigh, who secured just 37% of the vote in our last poll, now has eight more games played and 31 more plate appearances than Judge. It\u2019s a small gap, but in a close race, an increased defensive workload and slight lead in terms of overall volume could be key differentiators.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the factor of history to be considered. Judge managed to surpass Ohtani in the 2022 AL MVP race in part because he set the AL home run record that season. Raleigh would need to hit 13 homers before the end of the season in order to take the title of AL home run king away from Judge, but his prodigious power has already secured him one piece of history that Judge has no hope of taking away: last night, he became the first catcher in MLB history to slug 50 homers in a season. All of that comes together to make Raleigh a legitimate contender for the award alongside Judge, and the fact that the pair are tied at the top of the MLB leaderboard with 7.3 fWAR a piece only further speaks to the viability of both candidates.<\/p>\n

Few players in the AL have a realistic shot of challenging these two titans, but one player who could make an interesting case for himself with a strong September would be Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a>, who finished second for the award behind Judge last year. Witt only received token consideration for the award in our last poll, garnering just 2.3% of the vote two months ago. Since then, however, he\u2019s outperformed both Judge and Raleigh with a .313\/.370\/.524 slash line, a 13-for-14 record on the bases, and defense at shortstop that should make him a lock for his second consecutive Gold Glove award at the position. Witt\u2019s 6.5 fWAR and 130 wRC+ both substantially trail Judge and Raleigh at this point, but if those two continue trending downward while Witt continues trending up, it\u2019s at least possible that we could be in for a three-horse race.<\/p>\n

Who do MLBTR readers think will ultimately win this year\u2019s AL MVP award? Will Judge hold onto the title for the second year in a row? Will Raleigh\u2019s historic season behind the plate be enough? Could Witt\u2019s second-half surge be enough to overcome both of them? Have your say in the poll below:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in June, MLBTR conducted a pair of polls checking the temperature on the two MVP races, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[465,488,49,496,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-99045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-aaron-judge","9":"tag-bobby-witt-jr","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-cal-raleigh","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}