New York Yankees star Aaron Judge won the American League MVP Award for the first time in his career.
He came really close in 2017 but lost to Jose Altuve.
Now, he finally has the award he deserves after hitting .311/.425/.686 with 62 home runs, a new American League record.
Judge took home 28 of the 30 first-place votes, and came in second in the other two ballots.
The split was reverse for Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who got two first place votes and 28 for second place.
Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez took most of the third-place votes.
Those three weren’t the only ones with votes in the top three though.
“The only players to get top 3 AL MVP votes this year: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Yordan Álvarez, José Ramírez, Andrés Giménez,” Codify Baseball tweeted.
The only players to get top 3 AL MVP votes this year:
Aaron Judge
Shohei Ohtani
Yordan Álvarez
José Ramírez 👀
Andrés Giménez 👀
cc: @CleGuardians— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) November 18, 2022
The Guardians Had Some MVP Love
Yes: the Cleveland Guardians, who won 92 games and took the AL Central crown this year, had the remaing two players receiving third-place votes in the MVP race: Jose Ramirez and Andres Gimenez.
At this point, we all know that Ramirez will be one of the AL’s ten most valuable players.
He completed another fine season with a .280/.355/.514 batting average, 29 home runs, 20 steals, and 6.2 Wins Above Replacement.
However, it’s was incredibly nice to witness Gimenez’s breakout this season.
He actually had a wRC+ (an offensive stat that helps us determine how a hitter performed relative to the league average) higher than Ramirez’s, 140 to 139.
Gimenez also finished with 6.1 WAR, slashing .297/.371/.466 with 17 round-trippers and 20 thefts.
With those two, the Guardians have a fantastic foundation for years to come.
They will be the most important players on the roster from a performance standpoint for a long time.
NEXT: Jose Ramirez Is Maintaining A Dominant Stretch In MVP Voting