Aaron Judge or Cal Raleigh for MVP? Ranking 5 best AL candidates

There are a lot of “American League MVP Rankings” out there. But none of them are going to be as honest with you as I will be.

It’s an interesting race, but only two guys have a chance: Cal Raleigh and Aaron Judge. If we collected everyone’s chances into a pie chart, with Judge’s chances in blue, Raleigh’s in red, and everyone else’s in yellow, the pie would be visibly half red and half blue; you’d need an electron microscope to see the yellow. And I’m not going to sugarcoat it: I don’t really know who should win.

But not every “American League MVP Rankings” has to be about winning the argument. It doesn’t have to land on a final conclusion and get aggregated by the aggregation gods into the spreadsheet of baseball knowledge, forever collecting the souls of those that choose Judge or Raleigh. Sometimes, you just want to have a conversation, advance society’s understanding of itself, and let the people decide for themselves which banner they will flock to.

So if we’re doing that, I can also rank everyone behind them for no other reason than the love of the game. So without further ado, here are some brutally honest, Top 5 AL MVP Rankings. It won’t solve any problems, but here’s hoping we all get a little bit smarter

Team: Cleveland Guardians

Chances of winning AL MVP: 0%

Fun fact: Despite playing in the same league as Aaron Judge, he led the AL in intentional walks in 2022 and 2023

What does Jose Ramirez do?

He plays for the Cleveland Guardians, and has for 13 years. Each of the last four of them he’s played 150 or more games, and is on pace to five-peat this year. He hits for average, and for power. He makes All Star teams, every year. He steals bases. He plays a value position. Everyone knows how good he is, but he may not be remembered as one of the iconic players of his generation, even if he should be.

Ramirez probably won’t make the Hall of Fame, since the Baseball Writers of America have made it their mission to ensure basically no one does. But Ramirez has simply been one of the best players of the 2020s, and was possibly even better before that — he put up 7.6 WAR in 2018.

30-something year old infielders aren’t usually a safe bet, and who knows what kind of money Ramirez will earn (or where) when his deal expires in 2027. But he deserves the fifth spot on everyone’s ballots, and the appreciation of everyone who isn’t familiar with his game.

Team: Kansas City Royals

Chances of winning AL MVP: 0%

Fun fact: Played 161 games last year and hit .332 with 211 hits. Those are literally just stats, but aren’t they fun?

If you asked a little leaguer to build his ideal MLB player, he would probably make Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge. But if you asked his coach? He might make Bobby Witt Jr.

Playing against Bobby Witt Jr. must feel like playing against five of him, because he does everything well. Last season was like watching the baseball messiah remind us all what “five tool” meant, except a few of those tools got touched by the heavens and injected with nitro boost. Witt Jr. slashed completely absurd numbers while winning a Gold Glove at shortstop. And he’s straight up the fastest player in baseball per Statcast. What more do you want?

This year hasn’t been nearly as ridiculous, but it’s… still pretty ridiculous. Witt Jr. hasn’t hit nearly as many home runs this season, but everything else still works perfectly fine. He’ll probably notch a clean 20-30 season batting at or near .300 and go home still only 25 years old. What a concept.

Team: Detroit Tigers

Chances of winning AL MVP: 0%

Fun fact: Somehow, he doesn’t have the AL Cy Young locked up — Boston’s Garrett Crochet hasn’t been quite as good, but it’s close enough to leave it up to September.

The existence of Aaron Judge makes Skubal’s case for ever winning AL MVP hard to make. He can grab the AL Cy Young every year going forward if he wants, but he’d probably have to do something ridiculous like go 16-0 with a 1.31 ERA and a billion strikeouts to get both. But man, watching Skubal is like watching the evolution of pitching in front of your eyes.

Skubal’s value goes beyond his stats, though. He’s the cornerstone of a Tigers team that has clawed its way out of the dark ages, and much of their national recognition has come from exalting this unhittable beast. Had he not given up a series-losing Grand Slam to the Guardians last year, his postseason would have looked even better than it already does. And he’ll have a chance to do even better this time around.

Pitchers have a hard time winning MVP always because of the Cy Young, but Skubal could maybe be the next to join Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw to get both if he goes nuclear one of these years.

Team: Seattle Mariners

Chances of winning AL MVP: 49.95%

Fun fact: Raleigh seems to be getting faster as he gets older — he stole only one base in his first three MLB seasons, and 20 (so far) in his last two.

Cal Raleigh is forcing us to ask an existential question about the MVP award: if you can hit more home runs than the greatest hitter in the game, and one of the greatest power hitters of all time, shouldn’t you just automatically win MVP?

Raleigh has been the subject of major national attention since he started hitting a homer every game leading up to the All Star break. Now, he’s a lock for 50 bombs and pretty much has the AL lead locked up because of Judge’s injury absence. Oh, and he could be your Gold Glove catcher while we’re at it — not as guaranteed as that HR title, but he won it last year.

Narratively, this is your guy. He’s the core of a Mariners team that is trying to kick off the yoke of a tragic history and finally get this thing done. He’s a catcher slugging like a peak designated hitter. He’s got an awesome nickname, and he’s got the shiny new name for voters to write in. Surely they must be getting bored of Judge by now?

The uh, problem with that, is while Raleigh leads the AL in home runs and RBIs… that’s about all he leads it in. Judge, on the other hand, has a stranglehold on every other batting statistic, not just in the AL but in the MLB. I’ll let the Judge section spell that one out for you.

Team: New York Yankees

Chances of winning AL MVP: 50.05%

Fun fact: I was at a game in Boston when hit a home run off Garrett Crochet that went so far it probably landed in Connecticut.

The modern-day WAR machine, this man has been racking up wins-above-replacement like he’s got nothing better to do. We all remember his home run chase, and while an injury robbed us of a true battle for the title with Raleigh this year, Judge has already won every other title.

Average? Leads the MLB. OBP, SLG, OPS? Leads the MLB. Walks, total bases and total runs? Leads the AL. It is illegal how good a hitter Judge is, and even more illegal that he plays for my least favorite team. But we are all going to have to live with it.

Judge may just edge out Raleigh at the end of the day if he has a strong finish, simply because if the Yankees called the Mariners and offered a one-for-one trade, the Mariners would say yes without even having a meeting, and Judge in five years older. That line of argumentation isn’t always fair — especially with NFL quarterbacks — but it works when the two have such complimentary stats.

I’m not going to tell you Judge or Raleigh is the right pick. The MVP isn’t a statistical nor narrative award. It’s just the “most valuable player” award, whatever that means to everyone. If nothing else, I hope I’ve given the tools to appreciate this race more than to end it.