NEW YORK — From June to October almost every time he came to the plate, Aaron Judge heard the chants; "MVP, MVP, MVP." Thursday night, those chants became a reality. Judge’s remarkable 2022 season was capped with baseball’s highest award. The 30-year-old free-agent outfielder who led the Yankees this season was tabbed the American League Most Valuable Player by voting members of the Baseball Writers of American Association. Judge got 28 first-place votes, easily beating Shohei Ohtani’s two first-place votes.
He is the 14th Yankee to win MVP, the first since Alex Rodriguez won it in 2007. A Bronx Bomber has won the award 34 times in history and Judge joins the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, whose AL and Yankee single-season home run record Judge broke this year.
While the most intriguing question about Judge this winter is where he will wind up in free agency, there still was some curiosity about this MVP award. There was a very loud faction that campaigned for Angels pitcher/outfielder Ohtani, the 2021 unanimous winner.
