The 60-homer mark remains a magical threshold in baseball.
Babe Ruth was the first hitter to reach it in a season, and nobody else did until Roger Maris 34 years later. Then it was another 37 years until Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa surpassed 60 home runs in 1998, part of a power surge in which there were six 60-homer seasons between ’98 and 2001.
After that, it took over two decades before New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit 62 in 2022. Now Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh has 60 this year, and fittingly the American League MVP race is coming down to him and Judge.
As of Thursday night, Raleigh (-220) was a slight favorite for the award over Judge (+165) according to BetMGM Sportsbook. But 60 homers is no guarantee of anything. In 1999, both McGwire and Sosa surpassed 60, but Chipper Jones was the National League MVP. McGwire hit a then-record 70 home runs in 1998 but lost out to Sosa, who hit 66.
While Raleigh tries to add to his home run total, Judge has 51 of his own — and he’s closing in on the AL batting title. So the only thing that’s clear about the MVP race is that everyone else is fighting for third.
Advanced stats favor Judge
Entering Thursday’s games, Judge led the American League in Baseball Reference’s version of wins above replacement (bWAR) — and by a pretty healthy margin of 9.3 to 7.2. The FanGraphs version (fWAR) is closer, with Judge up 9.6 to 9.1, but the New York outfielder also has significant leads in batting average (.330-.247), on-base percentage (.457-.360) and slugging percentage (.683-.594).
Judge and Raleigh both play for teams headed for the playoffs. Raleigh’s role on a Seattle club that has won its division, but was also in danger of missing the postseason until recently, could weigh in his favor. But Baseball Reference has a stat for that, too: Championship win probability added (cWPA) measures how much a player’s contributions have increased his team’s chances of winning the World Series. Judge has the edge there too, with a cWPA of 3.8% to Raleigh’s 3.0%.
How much does WAR affect the voting?
Quite a bit, seemingly.
From 2012 to 2015, Mike Trout led all AL hitters in bWAR every season but only won the MVP once. He was beaten out twice by Miguel Cabrera and once by Josh Donaldson — most contentiously in 2012 when the Triple Crown-winning Cabrera beat out Trout despite the latter’s 10.5-7.1 advantage in WAR.
But since 2016 across both leagues — and not counting the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign — only five of 16 MVP winners failed to lead his league in bWAR. Those were:
— Christian Yelich in 2018 was fourth in the NL in bWAR, but the only three players ahead of him were pitchers, who often face an uphill climb in MVP voting.
— In 2019, Trout somewhat ironically beat out Alex Bregman despite a bWAR deficit of 8.9-7.9.
— In 2021, Bryce Harper (5.9 bWAR) won MVP honors in a year pitcher Zack Wheeler led the NL in bWAR. Juan Soto had 7.3 bWAR, but his Washington Nationals lost 97 games.
— In 2022, Paul Goldschmidt (7.7) beat out Manny Machado (6.8) and Nolan Arenado (7.9) in the MVP race. Pitcher Sandy Alcantara (8.0) led the NL in bWAR.
— In 2023, Ronald Acuña Jr. (8.4) beat out Mookie Betts (8.6) for NL MVP.
It’s Acuña’s MVP that might be most analogous to Raleigh’s bid this year. Acuña in 2023 had a unique statistical accomplishment on his side — he’d become the first player to reach 40 homers and 70 steals in the same season.
Raleigh makes history
The question for Raleigh is whether Judge’s advantage in many key stats is small enough that more subjective factors can tip the race to the Seattle slugger. The Mariners just won their first division title since 2001, and Raleigh’s role as a catcher presumably includes contributions that stats have a hard time measuring. With Judge no longer playing center field — he’s been exclusively at designated hitter and in right field this year — it’s fair to say Raleigh has the tougher job.
No catcher — and no switch-hitter — has ever hit as many homers as Raleigh in a season. In that sense, he’s had a more historic year than Judge.
Now it’s up to the voters to decide if it was more valuable.
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