The AL MVP race seems to have been whittled down to two major candidates, Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees and Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros. Both players have had fantastic seasons, and their respective stats bear that out. Here are the résumés:
Altuve: He leads the league in hits (203) and batting average (.350), has 32 stolen bases, a .415 on base percentage, 24 home runs and 81 RBI. He’s also an excellent defensive second baseman, whose WAR is 8.5.
Judge: He has broken the record for most home runs by a rookie in baseball history with an AL-leading 51 thus far, while also having 112 RBI, a .284 batting average, a .421 OBP and a 1.046 OPS. Although he leads the league in strikeouts with 205, he also leads the league in walks (125)
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Judge (6-foot-7) is one of the the biggest players in the league and Altuve (5-foot-6) is one of the smallest.
Although Altuve has power, he’s not intimidating. He’ll hurt you, but he won’t scare you. Judge is the most menacing figure in the game, as his stat cast home runs and exit velocity line drives are already legendary. Opposing pitchers know Judge is incredibly dangerous, which is why he draws so many walks, more than twice as many as Altuve (and Judge has 11 intentional walks to Altuve’s three).
Ask a baseball general manager which player he’d rather build his team around, and you’d probably get an even split across the board. Pick your poison; both players are still young and
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The Yankees probably aren’t a playoff team without Judge and his overall presence and power he delivered to their lineup all year.
Here’s another intangible in Judge’s favor: he came out of nowhere. It was very questionable in spring training if Judge would even make the Opening Day roster, much less carry the Yankees the way he has in 2017. Altuve, through no fault of his own, is a given. He’s going to be excellent every year. He’ll give the Astros 200 hits. He'll be dynamic, steal bases and play great defense. But, his consistency is what ultimately hurts him. His consistency is his curse.
This MVP race looks like a carbon copy of what happened in 2006. Derek Jeter had a great statistical year, eerily close to Altuve’s numbers in 2017, but it was what we all had grown accustomed to. Although Jeter’s year was better than his average excellence, it ultimately cost him the award. The Yankees would probably have still won without him. Justin Morneau squeaked by with the award that season because his power numbers made him slightly more valuable to the Central Division-winning Twins than Jeter was to the East Division-winning
batters away with his powerful pitch. He had a good couple of years but then got into a big slump – he
...merio should have been a Hall of Famer, but since he was linked to PEDs he will never be in the HOF, but should be. Players every year are slowly falling of the ballot because they were linked to PEDs, but should be in the HOF.
Greg Maddux has received four Cy Young Awards in his thirteen-year career. The Cy Young Award is the award that is given to the best pitcher for the year. Nolan Ryan never received a single Cy Young Award. This is an especially hard accomplishment now. The recent years in baseball have been the biggest offensive years that the sport has ever seen. There has been more batters with 30, 40, or 50 homeruns than there has any other time in history. Greg Maddux has to face at least one thirty-homerun man every time he pitches and still has a career e.r.a. (earned run average) of 2.75. Ryan’s career e.r.a. is 3.19 and he did not have to face as many hitters that could hurt a pitcher.
By the 1950’s the New York Yankees had already experienced previous decades of glory and high levels of success over the rest of Major League Baseball. However, the 50’s had began a new decade of a higher level of dominance. The Yankees were supported by big name players like Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio and a younger, less-experienced pitching staff. In this storied decade the Bronx Bombers were able to win eight American League Pennants and six World Series. (Yankees Baseball)
Babe Ruth. Hank Aaron. Nolan Ryan. Cal Ripken Jr. These outstanding Major League Baseball players deservedly earned their spot in baseball’s Hall of Fame. Hank Aaron held the league’s home run record with 755 for 33 years, until it was broken by Barry Bonds at the height of the steroid era (Andy). Aaron has never been accused of steroid use; however, Bonds has. Nolan Ryan can be found at the top of the all-time strikeout list, but Roger Clemens is not far behind. Once again, the former has never been proven to have been on steroids, while the latter was found guilty. It is not fair to the players who achieved their greatness on their own merit to be surpassed, or even grouped alongside, those who cheated the game. The Hall of Fame needs to
The game of baseball has changed ever since Babe Ruth has joined the league. He has changed the game with the amount of power he brings to the plate. Right now with the Yankees, he has showed how amazing he is and has helped make the Yankees popular by winning a few World Series and breaking many homerun records. For Babe to come into the league, it took a little help to get noticed.
...ar fans point of view, Bonds has ruined the modern era of baseball for fans in America. Barry Bonds should be extremely ashamed of himself and embarrassed for all of the hurt that he has caused to the game of baseball.
...igit numbers to players they expect to be great. Derek got number 2. His debut was the first game of the upcoming season. He impressed the Yankee’s with his phenomenal performance in his first season. He batted .314 with 10 home runs and 78 RBIs his first season.
...rst all time in total accumulated bases with 6,856. He was second all time in at bats with 12,364. He was third all time in hits with 3,771. He was third all time in runs scored with 2,174. He was also third all time in games played with 3,298. He was elected into the Hall Of Fame in 1982. His autobiography, I had a Hammer, was published in 1990. In 1999, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of breaking Babe Ruth’s record, Major League announced the Hank Aaron Award, given to the best overall hitter in each league.
Roger Clemens is arguably one of the greatest pitchers ever in Major League Baseball history. Clemens has built an astounding and exciting career filled with impressive statistics that may rarely be duplicated. His career extends from the early 1980’s into the new millennium, and continues today. During this stretch, nicknamed “The Rocket”, he won more Cy Young awards, seven, than any other pitcher in MLB history. The Cy Young award is given annually to the League’s best pitcher. In 2003 he won the 300th game of his career. He is only one of four MLB pitchers in all time to pass the 4,000 strikeout mark.
Baseball statistics are meant to be a representation of a player’s talent. Since baseball’s inception around the mid-19th century, statistics have been used to interpret the talent level of any given player, however, the statistics that have been traditionally used to define talent are often times misleading. At a fundamental level, baseball, like any game, is about winning. To win games, teams have to score runs; to score runs, players have to get on base any way they can. All the while, the pitcher and the defense are supposed to prevent runs from scoring. As simplistic as this view sounds, the statistics being used to evaluate individual players were extremely flawed. In an attempt to develop more specific, objective forms of statistical analysis, the idea of Sabermetrics was born. Bill James, a man who never played or coached professional baseball, is often credited as a pioneer in the field and for coining the name as homage to the Society of American Baseball Research, or SABR. Eventually, the use of Sabermetrics became widespread in the Major Leagues, the first team being the Oakland Athletics, as depicted in Moneyball. Bill James and other baseball statisticians have developed various methods of evaluating a player performance that allow for a more objective view of the game, broadly defined as Sabermetrics.
...n out of the ball park. Cobb batted a career .367, he hit 117 homeruns, he had 4191 hits and he stole 892 bags. Cobb is second in career hits and second in runs scored with 2245. Ty Cobb only batted less than .320 in his career once! Cobb holds five Major League records that still stand today and they’ll probably never be beat. Cobb holds the record of highest career batting average, most steals home in a single season, most career steals home, most batting title including 9 in a row from 1907 to 1915. Cobb also batted over .400 three times in his career.
Derek Jeter, one of the greatest shortstops of all time, once said, “There may be people who have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do- and I believe that” (“Jeter”). Sometime later the same man also said, “Your image isn’t your character. Character is what you are as a person” (“Jeter”). Jeter was obviously a guy that believed in hard work all the time, but also realized that he had to be great off the field as well. There have been some spectacular shortstops in the history of baseball, but none greater than the likes of Barry Larkin, Derek Jeter, and Cal Ripken, Jr. They all changed the game in one way or another, but every single one of them had great leadership abilities, a knack for coming
The highest paid baseball player in Major League Baseball history is a Latino. Alex Rodriguez signed a seven-year contract for two hundred and fifty-six million dollars in 2000. This not only made him the richest baseball player ever, but also the richest Latin American athlete in history. The signing of Alex Rodriguez proved that Latin American athletes deserved to sign big money contracts just like the other players.
should know Babe Ruth is for the most important reason, that being the way he