The Juan Soto effect on Aaron Judge’s MVP year for Yankees

There won’t be much drama regarding the announcement of the American League MVP award Thursday with Aaron Judge set to capture the award for the second time in three years.

In his age-32 season, Judge set career bests for games played (158), hits (180), doubles (36), RBIs (144), walks (133), batting average (.322), on-base percentage (.458), slugging percentage (.701), OPS (1.159), OPS-plus (223) and Baseball Reference WAR (10.8).

Somewhat alarmingly, Judge also set a career high by being walked intentionally 20 times as the Yankees struggled to find him protection from the cleanup spot.

Still, Judge had a lot more help in 2024 than he did in 2022, when Gleyber Torres was second in the lineup in bWAR at just 4.0.