00:00Joel Sherman back with three things. Look, I'm going to do something more full for this on Monday. I'm writing an awards article over the weekend who I think should win the eight major awards. That obviously will include AL MVP, and I promise I'll do this fuller on Monday.
00:19But just to start here with number one, it's impossible to ignore. Cal Raleigh hit homer number 59 and 60 yesterday. Aaron Judge hit number 50 and 51. The race is clearly down to them. I always tell people from fan bases, act like the guy is on the other team.
00:39If you're a Yankee fan, for example, act like you have a catcher who hit 60 homers. And I didn't tell you anything else. And I just told you that guy didn't win the MVP. You'd go crazy.
00:49So when people say it's not even a race, I think that's ridiculous. I don't think catching has ever been more difficult, both physically because of the demands of how pitchers throw now with such velocity and movement, and mentally because each batter comes with an individual scouting report as opposed to whole teams like they used to.
01:08So I think what he's done is remarkable and MVP worthy, but so is Judge. I think that this is a real race. And just, again, I'll go into this in more detail on who I think should win.
01:20There will be an article posted over the weekend at nypost.com. It will be in the physical newspaper on Sunday, and we'll do this further on Monday.
01:27But I'll just want to give you two statistics on Judge that I find remarkable.
01:32There was a time where Babe Ruth used to out-homer teams when home runs were rare.
01:36I know this is going to sound silly, but you know what's rare today? Intentional walks.
01:40Teams don't believe, and the analytic teams do not believe, that intentional walks make sense.
01:45So this is an historically low period for intentional walks.
01:50Aaron Judge not only leads the major leagues in intentional walks at 34,
01:54no other team has as many intentional walks as Judge does by himself.
02:00The other 29 teams, nobody has more. Judge has 34.
02:04So he is a cheat code. Other teams are showing you the fear factor of this player is like nobody else.
02:11And just, I'll leave you with this also, is there have been, in this century,
02:17eight 200 OPS-plus seasons.
02:21The first five were tainted to some degree. Four by Barry Bonds, one by Sammy Sosa,
02:27and then you have three by Aaron Judge. And the third one is this year, and of course,
02:30he's not just clearing the bar. He's up at about 213, 214, which means he's 113,
02:35114 percent better than the league average.
02:38We're watching one of the greatest hitters of all time
02:41compete against a catcher who's having probably the greatest catching offensive season of all time.
02:48I think that's pretty obvious. And just one of the greatest seasons of all time.
02:52And you have to, it's going to be a tough decision.
02:55I promise you'll read about it over the weekend,
02:58and I'll go deeper on this on Monday on why I made the choice I made.
03:02And by the way, I don't have an actual vote.
03:04BBWA, I don't have a vote this year in any category.
03:07Rookie, Cy Young, manager, MVP. I don't have a vote.
03:10So it will just be me.
03:12Number two, when the Yankees signed Max Free, the comparison I made was to Jimmy Key.
03:21Athletic left-hander, had already won the clinching game of a World Series by the time he came to New York.
03:28Completely unflappable, and it's all turned out to be true.
03:33Jimmy Key was one of the great change agents in Yankee history.
03:36He was signed after the 1992 season.
03:40The Yankees were particularly awful in 1989, 90, and 91.
03:45They got a little better in Buck Showalter's first year in 92.
03:48But 93, they went over 500.
03:50They have not gone below 500 since then.
03:54And Jimmy Key, back then, 34 starts, 236 innings.
03:58To me, it looks a lot like Max Free.
04:00They asked different things this year.
04:0232 starts, 195 in the third innings for Freed.
04:05And I just point out, ERA plus, 139 for Key in 1993.
04:12And it is 142 for Max Free this year.
04:16And just like Key, there was nobody else.
04:19If Key doesn't pitch the way he does, those Yankees don't challenge the Blue Jays to kind of the end of September to try to win the AL East.
04:26And if there's no Freed this year, the Yankees aren't challenging the Blue Jays in the AL East.
04:30They might not even be a 500 team without Max Free this year.
04:34With Garrett Cole gone all year, with Clark Schmidt lost a couple of months in, with Luis Hill not pitching the first four months, with having to lean on rookies, Will Warren and Cam Schlittler, with Marcus Stroman never kind of figuring it out here this season, Freed, in some ways, was just as valuable as Aaron Judge for the 2025 Yankees.
04:58Last thing, just because I didn't get to it yesterday, I want to talk about Robo-UMPs.
05:02They're coming in 2026.
05:07I think that this is the right format.
05:10Players, managers, umpires, fans, nobody wanted at a high percentage the automatic ball strike for every pitch.
05:19Uh, if you've been in a ballpark for the challenge system, uh, you know, where the catcher, pitcher, uh, or hitter could tap their head and ask for a challenge, uh, you know that, that, that it's fun.
05:30It goes up on the board, whether they do it, it's strategic when you should use it.
05:34And remember, we want to keep the game moving.
05:36These last about 10 to 15 seconds, there's an average of about four a game.
05:41So we're talking about less than a minute a game added this way.
05:44It brings some drama.
05:45And what you're trying to do is get the egregious call out.
05:48Look, there's one other thing you can't ignore that they're trying to get out.
05:51Gambling has been mainstreamed in our society.
05:54Lots of people do it.
05:56As we know, uh, Emmanuel Classe and Ortiz, Luis Ortiz from the, uh, Guardians are in big trouble.
06:02They're being investigated.
06:04The questions are about individual pitches like ball strikes, velocity, et cetera.
06:09When you could bet on ball strikes in a, in a conspiracy theory age, you better have a way to make people believe that the umpire isn't in on it or the pitcher isn't in on something and that you're playing a legitimate game.
06:22And I think ABS gives us a better chance for people to believe in the product.
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