Shohei Ohtani has had the greatest baseball season of all time, but Aaron Judge’s Yankee ties might decide MVP argument
- Not since Babe Ruth has a player dominated the game as a pitcher and a batter, but Ohtani can do it all
- Judge meanwhile has broken Roger Maris’ American League record with 62 homers this season
They don’t really get it in Japan. They can’t seem to understand how their prodigal son, who just finished arguably the greatest season in the history of major league baseball, may no longer be the most valuable player in his respective league.
In fact, when all the MVP votes are counted in the American League there is a pretty good chance that the pride of Oshu City, Los Angeles Angels unicorn Shohei Ohtani, will be a distant second to New York Yankees slugging behemoth Aaron Judge.
For all his greatness, Ohtani’s team finished well out of a playoff spot while Judge’s historical season, in which he hit 62 home runs to break the 61-year-old American League record of 61, has been the overwhelming impetus behind the Yankee’s first place finish.
I don’t have an MVP vote, however if I did it would be Ohtani-san all day, every day
“It’s not Ohtani-san’s fault that the Angels are a weak team,” said Tokyo native and baseball fanatic Yoshikazu Ozawa. “It’s not his fault that he doesn’t play in New York for the Yankees either.”
No, it certainly is not Ohtani’s fault that New York City always creates disproportionate hype. But while it is a very loud place full of very loud people, nothing is louder in the Big Apple right now than the bat of Judge. Beyond the home runs, he is having one of the greatest offensive seasons’ ever.
Winning MVP is completely subjective and a very nice distinction. Voted on by 30 baseball writers, it often inspires endless debate. It is not, however, the ultimate arbiter of peerless greatness.
While there are a number of elements that do contribute to baseball greatness, distil the game into its purest form and two essential functions emerge: pitching and hitting.
Throw the ball, hit the ball. Master one of those disciplines and you are setting yourself up for endless adulation and a lifetime of riches. Master both – and at the same time? You are freakishly freakish. You are Elvis Presley, Halley’s comet, and the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. You are something that only happens once every hundred years or so. Like Babe Ruth, the most storied name in the history of baseball.
Early in his career with the Boston Red Sox, Ruth was one of the best pitchers in the game. He hit a bit too, one year two home runs, another year three or four. But in 1919 the Babe became the Babe and hit 29 home runs, more than double anyone else.
The next season Ruth was sold to the Yankees and his pitching career ended while his hitting feats became legendary.
One hundred years later Shohei Ohtani arrived in America with a glove and a bat. He made it clear he was coming to use both. But unlike the Babe he kept at it and last year hit a remarkable 46 home runs while winning nine games pitching to be voted the unanimous MVP.
This year he is a much better pitcher, among the top five in the league in virtually every category while also being one of the top five hitters. Top five pitcher and top five hitter? Never, not even for the Babe.
I don’t have an MVP vote, however if I did it would be Ohtani-san all day, every day which has prompted a few wags to call me a Yankee hater. I can’t speak for the rest of humanity, but I save my hate for murderous dictators. Besides, what is there to hate about today’s Yankees?
With one World Series title over the past 20 plus years, they’re hardly the team of the 21st century. And there is even less to hate about Judge. In a sporting era drunk with self-promotion, Judge is the soberest guy in the room. He is unfailingly courteous, always says please and thank you and is Japanese-like in his respect for his opponents and reverence for his craft.
The Japanese guard their culture with great pride and a dogged stubbornness that can border on the illogical. But despite that, they still very much crave the acknowledgement of the United States. Ohtani unanimously winning the MVP last year was a huge deal at home, where all his games are broadcast nationally and his marketing visage is omnipresent.
Winning back-to-back MVP’s would be irrefutable evidence of his transcendent greatness, even in America.
“Nobody can argue that Ohtani isn’t the best player, nobody does that,” said Los Angeles Dodgers superstar and former MVP Mookie Betts. “But for me, I would say the best player and the most valuable player are two different things.”
Yes they are, at least this year. Judge had a historical season. Shohei Ohtani had the greatest season in the history of baseball. So rest easy Japan, your boy is still very much ichi-ban.
