*inhales AL MVP discourse … recoils in exasperation*

*looks around … leans in for more and smiles*

Such is life in 2025.

With just two games left on the MLB calendar, the AL MVP race remains one of the most compelling storylines of the season. The two front-runners, Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, are padding their résumés as the clock ticks down.

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On Friday, Judge went deep for the 52nd time this season in an 8-4 victory that kept the Yankees in contention for the AL East. It was his 84th extra-base hit of the year. Out west, Raleigh went 2-for-5 with a double in the Mariners’ 3-2 loss to the Dodgers. It was his … 84th extra-base hit of the season. On Saturday, Judge hit home run No. 53 to kick off the day’s baseball action.

The debate between these two colossuses feels particularly riveting because of how uninteresting recent MVP conversions have been. Since the shortened 2020 season, five of the eight MVP winners have been unanimous. Another, Judge in 2022, received 28 of 30 first-place votes. That makes this, by a substantial margin, the closest MVP race in some time.

There’s no question that Judge is the superior hitter, the best in the world, in fact. In that regard, despite Raleigh’s long-ball advantage, the numbers are unimpeachable. The Yankees captain is currently sporting a .331/.458/.692 batting line. That’s a 1.150 OPS. He’s in line to win the first batting title of his career, a preposterous accomplishment for someone who has also clubbed 53 homers. Only two hitters in baseball history — Mickey Mantle in 1956 and Jimmie Foxx in 1938 — have hit at least 50 taters while leading the league in batting average.

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Baseball Reference has Judge pegged at 9.5 Wins Above Replacement; FanGraphs at 9.9. By OPS+, he’s enjoying the ninth-best offensive season since integration. The only names ahead of him on that list are Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Mantle, Mark McGwire and … Judge. This is not simply an elite hitter; what Judge has done, is doing, continues to do, can be classified only as historic. He is an outlier, a unicorn, a generational force.

This is not meant to diminish Raleigh’s sensational campaign, singular in its own right, but the difference in raw production between the two is substantial. The gap between Judge’s universe-leading 215 OPS+ and Raleigh’s 171 mark, third-best in MLB, is 44 points. That’s the same gap between Raleigh and Yankees center fielder Trent Grisham, whose 127 OPS ranks 33rd. Raleigh has been incredible, but Judge is in his own stratosphere.

Evaluated solely on their offensive exploits, there is no comparison. But this delightful sport is more than just a hitting competition.

As such, the entire MVP debate boils down to one essential question: How much credit does Raleigh deserve for being a catcher?

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The answer, in the end, is pretty subjective.

Sure, there are ways to quantify Raleigh’s defensive contributions at the game’s most difficult and most demanding position. Baseball Savant has him graded as the sport’s fifth-best pitch framer, a slightly above-average thrower and a subpar blocker. His numbers are ever so slightly down from his Gold Glove season in 2024, but generally speaking, Raleigh is statistically regarded as a superb defensive catcher, a top-five glovesmith in the game. That’s why the WAR gap between him and Judge, despite the Yankee’s offensive advantage, isn’t enormous. FanGraphs has Raleigh at 9.1, just 0.8 points behind Judge. (Baseball Reference, which doesn’t include pitch framing in WAR calculations, has Raleigh at 7.2, 1.9 points behind Judge.)

That Raleigh has absolutely blasted past the previous single-season record for home runs by a catcher — his tally of 60 with two games to play is 12 clear of Salvador Peréz’s 48 in 2021 — exemplifies just how dominant a showing this has been.

And numbers alone cannot represent the full value of Raleigh’s season. They cannot properly summarize the stresses and responsibilities involved with being a catcher. There are too many soft factors. Too many foul balls off the mask or the thigh or the forearm. Too many hours spent crafting and implementing game plans. Too much time spent guiding the pitching staff through the contours of a ballgame. All of that, all that time-consuming and very important gobbledegook, that’s why major-league teams nowadays consider catcher to be a tertiary position group, altogether separate from hitters and pitchers.

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So how valuable is all that? Should Raleigh’s work behind the plate supplant Judge’s magnificence at the plate? It’s impossible to know for sure.

Therein lies the fun, the debate. Whom you’d vote for depends on what you value and what you prioritize, even though, on a practical level, it’s also about where you live and which team you root for.

Although I’m a member of the BBWAA, I don’t have a vote for AL MVP this year. If I did, I would lean, ever so slightly, for Raleigh over Judge. I think being a catcher in today’s game takes such an overwhelming mental and physical toll that Raleigh has the edge.

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Can I back that up with raw stats? Not really. Is that a knock on Judge’s season? Not in the slightest. Is it a defensible position? I sure think so.

Thankfully, no matter how the chips fall, there’s no wrong answer.

One of these two titans will be a worthy winner, the other a hard-luck runner-up. One fan base will rejoice; the other will recoil in disbelief. Either way, the baseballing world will remember both of these seasons, and the resulting debate, for quite a while.