Aaron Judge keeps adding to his legacy. The New York Yankees outfielder was named the American League MVP on Thursday after an incredible 2025 season.
Already a two-time MVP winner, having taken home the award in 2022 and 2024, Judge posted another spectacular year in 2025. He finished the season at the top of the AL leaderboard in most hitting stats, including batting average (.331), on-base percentage (.456), slugging percentage (.688), total bases (372), runs (137) and all three major versions of Wins Above Replacement.
There were two notable exceptions, however: home runs and RBI.
Those titles went to Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, whom Judge beat out for MVP honors in one of the closest MVP votes in years after a run of unanimous or near-unanimous voting in the AL. Judge captured 17 of the 30 total votes, with Raleigh taking the other 13. No other player received a first- or second-place vote.
Stripping away fandoms and narratives, the race came down to what a person values. Judge had a significant advantage in overall offensive stats (the distance between his and Raleigh’s OPS was the same as the distance between Raleigh’s OPS and the 39th-best OPS in the AL), while Raleigh carried major defensive value as a Platinum Glove catcher, in addition to the historic nature of his 60 home runs.
Both were deserving winners in a race that has been, to put it politely, contentious for fans in the past several weeks. The BBWAA voters chose the elite offense, by a margin that would have seen a tie had two Judge voters changed their minds.
[Get more Yankees news: New York team feed]
Judge is only the third player in MLB history to win three MVP awards in the span of four years, joining Barry Bonds and Shohei Ohtani, his main competition for MVP until two offseasons ago.
Aaron Judge’s dominance can’t be taken for granted
Judge has demonstrated incredible consistency beyond 2025. This was his fourth straight season with an OPS above 1.000, and his 1.144 mark was far and away the best in MLB. Only two other players, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, have more than one 1.000 OPS season in the past decade.
The 33-year-old right fielder’s 137 runs were also a career high and the most the AL had seen from a batter since Alex Rodriguez in 2007.
That efficiency continued into the postseason (after votes were cast), as Judge hit an absurd .500/.581/.692 stat line across seven games. The outfielder batted in 13 hits, including a home run, for five runs and seven RBIs, ending the 2025 postseason with an OPS of 1.273.
Still, despite Judge’s best efforts, the Yankees fell to the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS; it turns out that even one of the greatest players of all time alone cannot lift a team further into the postseason. Raleigh’s Mariners ended up doing one round better but lost to those same Blue Jays in a seven-game ALCS.
Judge has already earned his seventh All-Star nod this season, plus his fourth Silver Slugger in five years. That Silver Slugger, Judge’s fifth in his career, ties him with four other Yankees legends — Robinson Canó, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Dave Winfield — for most in franchise history.
By earning his third MVP award, Judge joins a slew of MLB players (from active players like Mike Trout to legends like Mickey Mantle and Alex Rodriguez) to tie for third-most of all time, after Ohtani’s fourth MVP award puts him solo in second place. Barry Bonds holds the MVP record, earning the honor seven times in his career.
Read the full article here