00:00It's staggering that a catcher in this age when I think catching has never been harder, both mentally and physically, because of how the ball moves and the rigors mentally that are put on game planning for each individual hitter, inning after inning, that a catcher in a tough ballpark to hit has 56 homers.
00:20And yet Aaron Judge is having another kind of also historic year. He's off by, I think, one point on his OPS plus from when he hit 62 homers.
00:32John, we got two more weeks to figure this out. I am not a voter for this award. What do you think with two weeks left here for ALMVP?
00:42Yeah, I'm not a voter either. And a lot of people probably be happy about that. But, you know, I've been saying I just felt all along that the catchers are overlooked.
00:53You know, I thought Posada should be in the Hall of Fame. I think Munson should be in the Hall of Fame. And no, I'm not a Yankee homer. I just feel like we really.
01:02Well, you're clearly not a Yankee homer. You're making a case for the catcher of the Seattle Mariners.
01:07Well, I have been. Yes, I had been. And for weeks I was doing that. And, you know, a lot of that was during when the Yankees were disappointing and when Judge was out.
01:18And now Judge is back and he's doing his thing again. So if I had to vote today and I'm not voting even on the proper day to vote, I probably would vote Judge at this moment.
01:29I want to draw attention to the catchers. I think this is an incredible season to be able to do this while squatting.
01:37Beyond the fact that maybe the catchers aren't as good offensively, they put more effort into defense and all that.
01:46It's a very wearing position. It's very difficult. The catcher offense in the second half is usually even worse than the first half.
01:53This guy is putting up an amazing season to have more home runs than Ken Griffey in his best home run hitting season, have more home runs than Mickey Mantle in his best home run hitting season to do it in that ballpark.
02:06It is amazing. It is a flip of the coin at this point because Judge, an all-time great, is having his usual year.
02:13So I'm glad I don't have this vote right now. I was really supporting Raleigh. I felt that it needed more attention.
02:20Well, he's getting attention now, but Judge is back and he's doing his thing. He's even playing some right field.
02:27So I get it either way. Like I said, if I was forced to vote today, I'd probably vote for Judge. I'm not voting.
02:34So it's not my vote. But if you vote for Raleigh, I certainly understand that I was with him all the way.
02:41But now the Yankees are back to being the Yankees and Judge is back playing in right field and, you know, 11-27 OPS.
02:53It's pretty tough. It's pretty good. Raleigh is amazing. But, you know, I think Judge is an all-time great.
03:00Yeah, I do think Judge is an all-time great. And we'll see if we say that about Raleigh in the years to come.
03:06And, I mean, he has Raleigh's second in the American League in OPS. He's 176 points behind Judge.
03:12And yet today, and again, I'm not a voter, so nobody should get upset. I'm not trying to switch anybody's mind.
03:18But a few years ago when Judge, as an outfielder, started to move towards 60, 61, and 62 homers,
03:26I mean, we made quite a deal about that. This is a catcher who's making a move towards 60, and 61, and 62 homers,
03:34which is staggering to me. And I know that people love to make war arguments, but they always make the war argument they want, right?
03:41Baseball reference war, Judge, 8.4, Raleigh, 6.5. Fan graphs is 8.8 to 8.4, which is negligible.
03:49If you're going to go by that, the baseball reference one, then the guy who's leading the National League in war
03:58is Geraldo Perdomo. So that means you have to, you gotta, like, if that's your rule, if that's your Bible,
04:05he's gotta be your MVP if you're taking nothing else into account. And, John, as you said,
04:10the Yankees are back to being the Yankees. The Mariners have as good a record as the Yankees.
04:14They don't ever make the playoffs. They don't ever win their division.
04:17But right now, a division leader, where this guy is clearly carrying them in so many ways,
04:26it is hard for me. I get the historic greatness of Judge and the 2025 greatness of Judge,
04:33but it's a right fielder DH against a catcher, sometimes DH doing all this. It is a flip of a coin.
04:40And here's the last thing I just want to say about it, because you and I are of a certain age.
04:43We used to take into account winning. Like, did a team get to the playoffs? How much did you matter?
04:50And valuable really mattered. Well, these two weeks will be interesting. You know, the Mariners
04:55could win a division. They could fall out of it. They could, the Yankees could be the number one
05:00seed. Like, let's see what happens in these last two weeks and what these guys do to it. I am tired
05:05of people who make up, like, numbers that could be different on war telling me to ignore winning.
05:12And these guys have clearly had a lot to do with winning through 24 of the 26 weeks. I'm going to
05:17take the full 26 weeks to see their final numbers and their impact on winning.
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