Anyone discounting Aaron Judge’s MVP has a New York bias of their own

The American League MVP winner was announced on Thursday, and the winner was not what most MLB fans hoped for. At the end of the day, Aaron Judge wrapped up his second straight MVP win and his third in the last four years, winning this year's award over Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh.

Raleigh had arguably the best season a catcher has ever had, yet Judge still walked away with the win. This fact has many screaming New York bias, as Judge, the New York Yankees captain, won it by an expectedly small margin. The fact of the matter, though, is that the better player won.

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Aaron Judge had better numbers than Cal Raleigh

This is no slight to Raleigh, who, again, might've had the best season a catcher has ever had. He slashed .247/.359/.589 with 60 home runs and 125 RBI as a primary catcher, while hitting in the most pitcher-friendly park in the majors half the time. In addition to his offensive prowess, Raleigh was his usual sturdy self defensively.

Compare those numbers to Judge, though. Judge slashed .331/.457/.688 with 53 home runs and 114 RBI. Judge won the AL batting title while hitting 53 home runs and driving in 114 runs. Do you know how absurd that is?

Sure, Raleigh ended the year with more home runs and RBI, but does anyone think Raleigh's offensive numbers were better overall than Judge's?

Judge's numbers weren't just better, they were considerably better. His batting average and on-base percentage were nearly 100 points higher than Raleigh's. His OPS was nearly 200 points higher than Raleigh's. His wRC+ was over 40 points higher than Raleigh's. While Raleigh was obviously outstanding offensively, Judge was 104 percent better than league-average as a hitter. That's video game-like.

Again, I know that Raleigh did this as a catcher, but even with taking defensive value into account, Judge was still far better.

Cal Raleigh's added catcher value does not outweigh Aaron Judge's offensive advantages

Despite being forced to DH for 56 games this season, Judge still had an fWAR (10.1), a full win higher than Raleigh's (9.1).

No position gets more love from fWAR than the catcher position, and rightfully so. It's undeniably the toughest position to play in the sport. Even with that, though, Judge was worth a full win more than Raleigh. That is no small gap. This is even taking into account that a majority of Judge's games came in right field, one of the least valued positions.

This means that not only did Judge the hitter have a better year than Raleigh, Judge the baseball player did too. What's the argument for Raleigh then?

MVP vote tally featured New York bias, but an unexpected kind

If anything, the final vote tally shouldn't have been as close as it was. Judge only received 17 of the 30 first-place votes, meaning Raleigh was three first-place votes away from flipping the victor.

The vote being as close as it was, despite Judge having the clearly better year, is the only kind of New York bias prevalent in the MVP results. At the end of the day, this isn't supposed to be a narrative-based award. It's not about Raleigh playing a tougher position or having arguably the best season a player at his position has ever had. The award goes to the most valuable player.

By every measure, Judge, the player with the better statistics and much higher fWAR, was the deserving MVP. He would've won it whether he wore pinstripes or a Colorado Rockies jersey. Raleigh had a season for the ages and would've won it most other years. He would've won it had he been in the National League. Unfortunately, as tough as it might be to accept, Judge was simply better.

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