In yet another absurd offensive season for Aaron Judge, it is only natural to assume that he should be the American League MVP.
Judge is leading the AL in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage -- a modern Triple Crown, of sorts. If you adjust his OPS for the league environment, he is literally twice as good as the average hitter. And this, despite a subpar second half (by his lofty standards) as he plays through a right elbow injury.
So yes, there’s an obvious argument to be made for the Yankees captain, gutting his way through pain to continue to anchor the lineup for the defending AL champs as they likely nail down a playoff spot. And it’s an argument backed by ample history of what voters value when they cast their ballots for MVP.
But this year? What can I say? It’s wrong.
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is more deserving of the AL MVP, as of now.
You don’t need me to tell you Raleigh is having a historic offensive season for a catcher. That said, there are different ways to word what he’s done in the home run category. Some say he’s “broken the record for homers by a catcher,” but that’s not technically true (at least, not yet). The Braves’ Javy Lopez hit 42 while in the lineup as a catcher in 2003, and that’s the actual record. Raleigh, as I write this, has 40 while actually situated in the catcher slot, with his other 10 coming as a DH.
But he’s still set the single-season homer mark for a primary catcher, he’s closing in on the more technical tater tally, and he’s joined Mickey Mantle (who, famously, WAS NOT A CATCHER) as the only switch-hitters in history with a 50-homer season.
And the calendar hasn’t flipped to September yet.
This is where Judge’s MVP voters will point out that the MVP does not default to the home run leader.
Correct!
This is where they’ll also point out that the Silver Slugger honor exists to salute a player like Raleigh, providing abnormal productivity for his position.
Also correct!
And again, if you think the MVP should go to the superior offensive player, regardless of any positional context, we’re going to have to agree to disagree.
But we have the Hank Aaron Award for the best offensive player, and it should absolutely go to Judge.
I’m talking here about the Most Valuable Player.
That’s Raleigh.
I am approaching this discussion from the following frame of mind regarding Raleigh’s position:
- Other than pitcher, there is no more important defensive position in baseball than catcher -- especially in the modern game, in which pitching changes are more rampant and more is asked of the catcher in terms of day-to-day game preparation.
- As intricate as defensive metrics have gotten in the last 10-20 years -- and for catchers, that includes publicly available pop times, framing, throwing and blocking data -- they still can’t possibly capture everything that goes into the value of a good catcher’s work with a pitching and coaching staff.
So yes, there’s some “trust me, bro” baked into my general thesis. I admit that.
But if you look at certain numbers, you don’t have to trust me. You can trust them.
Look at fWAR. That’s FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement model.
As I write this, Judge is at 7.5 fWAR and Raleigh is at 7.3 -- a virtual tie, given that those decimal marks fluctuate from day to day.
You can counter that with Baseball Reference’s model, which has Judge at 7.0 and Raleigh at 5.6 -- a much more substantial difference.
If the ballot were held right now, I’m guessing some voters would default to Judge not just because of the offensive numbers, but because of what B-Ref is telling them.
But it’s vital for voters and fans to consider what is baked into these WAR models, and it boils down to this:
FanGraphs incorporates catcher framing, while B-Ref does not. (You can see a more intricate breakdown of the differences here.)
We ought to be able to agree by now that framing is a pretty important skill for a catcher. So to evaluate Raleigh’s MVP case by harping on his bWAR compared to that of Judge is, to me, unfair.
On the other hand, the fWAR evaluation, while obviously not ironclad, ought to be alerting us to the possibility that there’s a lot more to this catching thing than meets the eye.
Think about it: Judge is having yet another stupendous offensive season. It’s a season only moderately less impactful than 2024, when he amassed the highest adjusted OPS+ EVER for a right-handed hitter.
This year, Judge could become just the eighth player this century to lead his league in the three triple-slash (AVG, OBP, SLG) categories, joining:
Todd Helton, Rockies, 2000
Barry Bonds, Giants, 2002
Barry Bonds, Giants, 2004
Joe Mauer, Twins, 2009
Miguel Cabrera, Tigers, 2013
Christian Yelich, Brewers, 2019
Juan Soto, Nationals, 2020
Truly special stuff, and I am not ignoring that.
But the fact that a guy with almost 170 fewer OPS points could be tied in a WAR calculation -- any WAR calculation -- with someone having the kind of offensive season that Judge is having should tell us something special is going on here on Raleigh’s side, too.
Judge has been hampered by his iffy elbow in the second half and therefore limited to DH duties. Raleigh has also readily mixed in DH duties this season to keep his body fresh. In terms of what these two players have contributed on the field, you can choose your own adventure and come up with any conclusion you want.
Want to suggest that Judge’s defense in right, when healthy, has added to his value? You can cite his 80th percentile ranking in fielding run value, per Statcast, along with his well-above-average range (77th percentile), arm value (91st) and arm strength (88th). He’s at two outs above average, which is not spectacular but is obviously a positive.
Other systems aren’t as kind to Judge. He’s at -0.4 defensive WAR, per B-Ref, and -2.5 in FanGraphs’ defense rating.
My eyes tell me Judge is a good and reliable presence in right with a monster arm. But obviously his MVP argument is primarily focused on his bat. Especially right now. And anyway, his position, when healthy, is right field, which is an inherently less difficult position for a team to fill than catcher.
How about Raleigh?
Well, he won the Platinum Glove last year, voted as the best defender at any position in the AL. He won’t be winning that this year. Might not win the Gold Glove, either. But at least we have some very recent history telling us, hey, maybe this guy knows how to play catcher, capeesh?
This year, Statcast tells us Raleigh is only in the 11th percentile in blocks above average and the 39th percentile in pop time. But he’s in the 82nd percentile in caught stealing above average and the 89th percentile in framing.
All told, he’s in the 87th percentile in fielding run value (Statcast does not yet tabulate outs above average for catchers). FanGraphs grades him at 13.4 in their defensive rating -- the seventh-best mark of any qualified player at any position in MLB.
On the flip side, Raleigh grades out at -3 in defensive runs saved and -0.2 in dWAR.
Do you want to argue that Raleigh’s defense hasn’t been as good this year as last? Go for it.
Do you want to argue that he’s somehow become a bad defender at catcher? Nay, I say. Nay!
Based on the Statcast data and conversations with Mariners people who absolutely swear by Raleigh’s impact on the pitching staff of their contending team, I feel fully confident in my opinion that Raleigh is, in fact, a very good defensive catcher.
And I know for a fact that the catcher position is a difficult place to find positive offensive production -- much less elite, lineup-anchoring production from both sides of the plate. Just last year, the leaguewide catcher OPS (.678) was one of the 10 lowest on record (Raleigh’s performance has helped bump it up over .700 this year).
So when you get 50 bombs and a .938 OPS from your switch-hitting catcher who also provides very good defense behind the dish, you have my attention.
And you ought to have MVP voters’ attention, too.
(By the way, I’m aware Raleigh’s .244 average would be the lowest for an MVP. And I simply don’t care, given the rest of his offensive complexion, which includes a .351 on-base percentage.)
I don’t think we’ll ever have this defensive stats stuff nailed down (as you can see above, what we have available now can vary widely from platform to platform), particularly for a position as intricate as catcher. And so I carry no delusions that the entire baseball world -- most especially Yankees fans -- will read this piece and come to the same conclusions about the current state of the MVP race that I have.
We historically tend to default to offense with the MVP, and Judge’s offensive season screams MVP. I get it. That’s why he’s probably the favorite right now.
But if we were going into a season, building our teams, and you gave me a choice of one player to build around -- a good defensive catcher giving you offensive performance that is 65% better than league average or a good right fielder giving you offense that is 100% better than league average) -- I’m taking the catcher, crazy as that might sound to some.
Because history tells us that kind of combination of value, offensive and defensive, is almost impossible to find.
(To wit, there are only 15 AL/NL catchers in history with a single-season fWAR higher than Raleigh’s current 7.3 mark … and we’ve still got a month of baseball left.)
It’s not a knock on Judge, a player I admire and have advocated for MVP in the past (and would have handed the award to, as of the All-Star break). It’s not “Judge fatigue” or “anti-Yankee bias” or any other nonsense I’ll be accused of.
It’s just appreciation for the catching position -- its ultimately unquantifiable importance, and for the history Raleigh has made at it in 2025.
(Of course, if Judge hits like 20 dingers in September and finishes with a 1.400 OPS while Raleigh falls apart from the weight of the catching grind, I’ll readily change my mind!)