Aaron Judge leads AL MVP, but is there an argument for another Shohei Ohtani win?

Aaron Judge is the current American League Most Valuable Player. He is on a historic run and is within striking range of a batting average. Shohei Ohtani is a two-way player for the Angels. He has a chance to win the award in 2022. The author will not take sides in the MVP discussion. It is not his opinion whether he would vote for Ohtor for AL MVP. he will discuss three over-arching points.

Aaron Judge is the American League MVP. Shohei Ohtani is a player who is not valuable to the Angels, who are struggling. Aaron Judge's Yankees are probably going to make the playoffs. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team game. The Yankees lost two of three games in Tampa Bay last weekend. They are 25-31 since July 8. It's a series of individual matchups. One player can't actually "carry" a teams. He can only bat once every nine spots in the lineup and play a few times a game on the field. On defense, he can impact the play when the ball is hit in certain places.

There's a certain simplicity to the argument that a player on a bad team can't be valuable. However, the best player is the most valuable, and Aaron Judge has become more valuable over the course of the last two months.

Ohtani is a pitcher and a hitter. He's 11-8 on a bad team and has a 2.58 ERA. His strikeout rate is the best in the league. Ohtani's workload is probably the reason he's not playing more often. Aaron Judge is leading the AL MVP race. He is hitting .267/.356/.536 with 21 doubles, six triples, 33 homers, 86 RBI, 79 runs and 11 steals. It's reasonable to conclude that Ohtsani ranks as a top-five hitter in AL. Babe Ruth was the only other player to do that.

Shohei Ohtani is a two-way player who plays both baseball and also as a pitcher. Aaron Judge is the current AL MVP. Ohtorani trails Judge in baseball-reference.com's version of WAR, but is ahead in Fangraphs' version.  Ohtani has 7.9 WAR compared to 9.1 for Judge. MLB players consider Ohtoani the best player in the game.

Ohtani is due bonus points for his performance. He's a player like one hitter and one pitcher.

Aaron Judge has been named the American League MVP.

Aaron Judge is the favorite for the American League MVP. He's having a much bigger year than Vladimir Guerrero. There's a difference between the two. If Ohtani was having his first two-way superstar season this year, the AL MVP debate would be much more hotly contested. The same TV show wins an Emmy every single season. Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, and Shohei Ohtsu won the award last season, but they were not as good as this season's.

The utopian version of the vote would be to decide who the best baseball player in 2022 has been.