"Aaron Judge is below league average center fielder" - MLB analyst makes strong case for Bobby Witt Jr. to win 2024 AL MVP
With less than a day away before the AL MVP is announced, the debate between New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge and Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. is taking the front seat among all things in baseball.
While Judge had power numbers, Witt has exceptional defense and AL batting title to keep up. Statistically, Judge should edge out Witt for his second MVP but one MLB analyst thinks otherwise. MLB Network's Brian Kenny broke down the AL MVP contender's performance this season.
"Aaron Judge is a below-league-average center fielder," Kenny said. "While he's a decent runner, he's about league average there too. Meanwhile, Bobby Witt of the Royals is an elite fielder and an elite base runner while playing shortstop. Witt played 161 games. He missed one day, slick-fielding, hard-charging. And he was second in the American League to Judge in slugging. He out-slugged Juan Soto. So let's match them up now."
He did statistical analysis while also talking about hidden factors of the game.
"Do it the same way, objective methodology. Weighted runs created plus (wRC+): Aaron Judge 218, Bobby Witt 168," Kenny added. "That's 50 points—a big gap for Aaron Judge. Fielding run value though, defense: negative three for Judge, and a plus 12 for Bobby Witt. Base running runs: Witt is at plus 4.5. Aaron Judge is just barely in the negative. That's about league average.
In the end, Brian Kenny concluded that though Aaron Judge is ahead in many metrics the competition is much closer than one might think.
"So you put it all together: Fangraphs WAR. It's 11.2 to 10.4, 11 to 10. This matchup is close. Aaron Judge had a 458 on-base percentage. He slugged over 700. He's a strong MVP. But this, this is very close," Kenny said.
Aaron Judge's teammate takes an indirect dig at Bobby Witt Jr. while hailing Yankees captain
New York Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole has no doubt Aaron Judge should win the AL MVP. In late August, the ace pitcher was asked to assess the competition and share his name for the MVP.
“I mean, it’s so impressive because when you look around the league and you see guys with high batting averages there’s a fair amount of bunt hits and infield hits. This guy is sitting at .330 and I’m not quite sure he has an infield hit all year. I mean, they’re all doubles and homers,’’ Cole said.
At the time Judge was hitting .334 while Bobby Witt Jr. was somewhere around in .330s. Judge's hitting deteriorated during the final stretch of regular season while Witt improved his average to finish the year .332. While Judge finished at .322.
However, as Cole said that none of Judge hits had any infield singles or bunt hits unlike Bobby Witt Jr. So he was clear why the Yankees captain seemed more deserving to him.