To answer this piece's title in five seconds: probably not.
Aaron Judge is having a historic season, hitting homers in massive proportions and doing so on baseball's biggest stage on one of the best teams in baseball. His 223 wRC+ and 51 big flies are both leading the league by such a wide margin that the 0.5 lead over Witt, Jr. in WAR seems slightly underselling Judge's production. This brings up an excellent point to remember in these discussions: while WAR is a nice catch-all metric to try and evaluate a player's total production, it's not the end-all, be-all, especially if the margin between players is small.
So, while Bobby Witt, Jr. has had a historic-in-his-own-right season worthy of an MVP award pretty much any other season, unfortunately, Judge has him beat this year. But how has each player gotten to where they are?
Judge has done his usual thing, either leading baseball or being near the top in every quality of contact category. But what's set this season apart from previous years is his ability to command the strike zone. His 19.2 chase rate is one of the best in baseball, and it's something he's worked on every year, making steady improvements from his solid but not amazing 22.9 rate in that historic 2022 season.
He still strikes out a bit more than you'd like, and his contact rate isn't great, but when a guy's hitting like he is, his outs and swings and misses don't matter.
Judge's value as a centerfielder is surprisingly adequate, making up for his average athletic ability (well, for normal-sized people, incredible for someone his size) with seemingly fine reactions and a strong arm, posting a -4 outs above average and a 2-arm value (that -4 OAA might sound scary, but for CF it's fine).
He's been playing this relatively new position and mashing like steroid-era Barry Bonds, adding up to a no-doubt MVP season.
Now we get to the "runner-up," Bobby Witt, Jr. He's not nearly the disciplined hitter that Judge is, as his 33.1 chase rate is tough and surprising considering how productive he can be despite that flaw. How he makes up for it is by hitting the absolute crap out of the ball, as he's near the top of most quality of contact categories. He's a bit more apt at making contact than Judge, but the production still greatly favors Judge, with Whitt posting a 172 wRC+.
Witt makes his money with his vastly improved glove and otherworldly speed, both on the base paths and in the field. He's at a whopping 17 OAA and a decent arm, plus a +4 base running run value.
So, yeah, Witt is pretty darn good, but that gap in wRC+ is too large for Witt's massive advantage in glove and base running to make up for the advantage Judge, and it's going to be hard for that to change through the final month of the season.
Main Image via
Comments