00:00Where are you at right now? Because this was a conversation in April, this was a conversation in May, tapered off a little bit, and here at the end of August, we're still having this conversation, and that should send shivers down Yankee fans and Judge Backer's fines.
00:13Oh, we're going to have this conversation until the last day of the regular season. That's how close it is. Both of these players have the same exact fan graphs war at 7.3. Now we can dive further into the numbers, but a couple of cool more stats about Cal Raleigh, and this comes to us from Peyton, aka Big League Analysis on social media.
00:37If Cal Raleigh hits one more home run from the right side, he'll become the first switch hitter ever to have at least 20 home runs from both sides of the plate. He's also five home runs away from the all-time switch hitter record, Mickey Mantle, back in 1961 with 54.
00:57Now, Mantle did hit 39 from the left side, so it wasn't exactly an even distribution by Cal, but there's no doubt about it. Cal Raleigh is putting up the most prolific season, slugging-wise, by a catcher in MLB history. He passed Salvador Perez, who hit 48 home runs back in 2021.
01:18Jack, we're talking at the end of August. This isn't, oh, he just passed him. That's so cool. Cal has so much more to go. That's why I wanted to bring up the all-time switch hitter stats.
01:29But here's the thing, what I keep going back to about this race. The slugging has been unbelievable, right, from Cal Raleigh.
01:36Judge is slugging 669 compared to Cal Raleigh at 593. Judge has about a 90-point lead in batting average. He's got nearly 100-point lead in OBP, 150-point lead in OPS. You look at OPS+, it's not that close.
01:55It's tough, because clearly the better bat has been Aaron Judge, but here's another wrinkle in this whole thing. Aaron Judge, since he hurt his elbow, has a 775 OPS.
02:09But here's the thing, Cal Raleigh in the second half has a 771 OPS. So both of these guys are having incredible seasons, but as the season unfolds, nobody wants to grab it.
02:21Yeah. When I look at something like win probability added, and that's something that I do really factor into an MVP discussion, I'm not sure how many people are truly factoring that into an MVP discussion, because it is an advanced metric, and it's kind of a homer in OPS award.
02:36But when I look at win probability added, Shohei Otani is number one, Freddie Freeman is number two.
02:42But here's the thing, before you even continue that, just the fact that those two are at the top of the stat that you love, you're in pretty good company.
02:49I'm in really good company, yes. And I will tell you the bottom, for the sake of this, among qualified hitters, Matt McLean, Nick Castellanos in Philly, Brian Reynolds in Pittsburgh.
02:58Ozzy Albee's down there as well, Eric Wagaman down there, Yiner Diaz down there, and so is Kibrian Hayes. A lot of Pirates are former Pirates down there, right?
03:06Shocker.
03:07Yeah, but Otani and Freeman are one and two. Jose Ramirez and Vladdy Jr. are five and six, Soto is seven, Tatis is eight. Cal Raleigh is number three, Aaron Judge is number four.
03:20So these two are effectively stacked in win probability added. And the reason I care about that is it kind of gives you the best idea of who factors the most into their team winning baseball games.
03:33And I think to the naked eye, you would be assuming, oh, the catcher, right? The catcher with 50 homers this year, win probability added backs it up.
03:42Obviously not by much because Aaron Judge, what he has done is generational offensively.
03:46But again, I will make the same case that I made in May on this show. You have to reward the best catcher season of all time.
03:55And at the end of the day, he is willing his team to a postseason spot as a catcher.
04:00And I know Brian Wu has been awesome. And I know Julio Rodriguez after the break has been one of the best players in Major League Baseball.
04:06But the only constant for them, and they're a team with legitimate World Series aspirations, the only constant aside from Wu going six is Cal Raleigh hitting dingers.
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