Unanimous: Aaron Judge's 2024 MVP Season and the October That Almost Erased It

Thirty ballots. Thirty first-place votes. On November 21, 2024, Aaron Judge became the first unanimous AL MVP of his career, and honestly, it felt less like an award and more like a formality nobody bothered to argue about.

Compare that to 2022. Judge hit 62 home runs, broke Roger Maris's record, and still lost two first-place votes to Shohei Ohtani (two voters who weren't wrong to love Ohtani, just wrong to rank him first that year). This time there was no debate. Bobby Witt Jr. put together a legitimate MVP-caliber season of his own in Kansas City -- a batting title, 32 homers, real defense at shortstop -- and every single voter still had Judge first and Witt second. That's never happened before in AL MVP history, a unanimous 1-2 finish, and it happened because Judge's season left no room for an argument.

The Numbers Only Ruth and Bonds Have Touched

Here's the part that should embarrass anyone who thought 2022 was the ceiling: 2024 was statistically better. Judge hit .322/.458/.701 with a 1.159 OPS, all of which top his 2022 marks (.311/.425/.686/1.111). Fewer homers this time -- 58 instead of 62 -- but everything else went up. His 223 OPS+ was the best mark by a right-handed hitter since 1900 and the best OPS+ by anyone since 1957. He became just the third player ever to post a 200-plus OPS+ with 50-plus homers in the same season. The other two names on that list are Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds. (Say what you want about the company Judge keeps historically -- that's not a knock on anybody, that's just what the stat sheet says.)

He led the majors in home runs (58), RBI (144, the most by anybody since Ryan Howard's 146 back in 2008), runs (122), walks (133), OBP, slugging, OPS, OPS+, and WAR (10.8 bWAR). He did all of it at 32 years old, a stretch of a baseball career when most sluggers are managing decline, not authoring the best offensive season of their life.

What he didn't do was win the batting title. Bobby Witt Jr. hit .332. Vlad Guerrero Jr. finished ahead of Judge too. Judge's .322 was good for third in the league, not the near-miss second-place finish he had in 2022 (when he lost the average crown by five points to Luis Arraez with nobody else close). This wasn't really a Triple Crown chase the way 2022 was -- it was something rarer, honestly: two categories dominated outright, a third finished well back, and an MVP vote that didn't care about the difference.

A Pennant, Finally

The team around him mattered too. The 2024 Yankees went 94-68, won the AL East for the first time since 2022, and rolled through October in a way that felt overdue. They knocked out Witt Jr.'s own Royals in the ALDS -- there's a small, quiet irony there, beating the guy who'd finish runner-up to your MVP season on the way to the pennant. Then came the ALCS against Cleveland, won in five games, punctuated by Giancarlo Stanton hitting a game-tying homer off Tanner Bibee in Game 5 that set up Juan Soto's pennant-clinching blast in extra innings. Stanton won ALCS MVP -- first Yankee to do it since CC Sabathia in 2009. The Bombers were headed back to the World Series for the first time in fifteen years.

Soto deserves his own paragraph here, because his fingerprints are all over this MVP race even though he didn't win it. In his one and only season in pinstripes before free agency, Soto hit .288/.419/.569 with 41 homers, led the AL in runs scored, and finished third in the MVP voting behind Judge and Witt. Judge said publicly that Soto had his vote too, for whatever that's worth from a guy who'd just won it himself. Having two top-three MVP finishers in the same lineup is the kind of thing that doesn't happen very often, and it happened in the Bronx for exactly one year.

The Inning That Undid It

Then the World Series happened, and here's where the story gets complicated.

Judge's own October was a mess. He hit something in the range of .140 across the whole postseason, striking out far more than he made contact, a jarring contrast to the historic regular season that had just ended. In the World Series itself against the Dodgers, he managed just four hits in eighteen at-bats.

And then there was Game 5. Yankees up 5-0 in the fifth inning, three outs from forcing a Game 6. Gerrit Cole cruising. Tommy Edman lifted a routine fly ball to center -- the kind of play Judge makes automatically, the kind that ends the inning. He lost it, dropped it, and the Dodgers had two runners on with nobody out. Five unearned runs later, the game was tied. Los Angeles took the lead in the eighth on back-to-back sacrifice flies and won it 7-6, clinching the title in five games. It was Judge's first World Series appearance. That dropped ball later sold at auction for $43,000 -- a strange little souvenir of the worst inning of his career, coming just weeks after the best regular season of his career.

That's the whole complicated shape of it. A unanimous MVP, the best rate-stat season a Yankee has ever put up not named Ruth, and a World Series defeat that a lot of people will remember before they remember the .322. Both things are true. The vote in November didn't erase October, and October didn't erase the vote. Judge just had to live with both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Aaron Judge win the AL MVP unanimously in 2024?

Yes -- all 30 BBWAA voters had him first. It was his first unanimous MVP; in 2022 he'd received 28 of 30 first-place votes, losing two to Shohei Ohtani. Bobby Witt Jr. finished second on all 30 ballots as well, making it the first time in AL MVP history that both the winner and the runner-up were unanimous at their respective spots.

Was Aaron Judge's 2024 season better than his 2022 MVP season?

By rate stats, yes. His 2024 batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, and OPS (.322/.458/.701, 1.159 OPS) all topped his 2022 numbers (.311/.425/.686, 1.111 OPS), even though he hit four fewer home runs (58 vs. 62). His 223 OPS+ in 2024 was the best by a right-handed hitter since 1900.

Did Aaron Judge come close to a Triple Crown in 2024?

Not as close as in 2022. He led the majors in home runs (58) and RBI (144), but finished third in the AL batting race at .322 -- Bobby Witt Jr. won the batting title at .332, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. also ahead of Judge. In 2022, by contrast, Judge missed the Triple Crown by just five points of batting average with no one else close.

What happened to Aaron Judge in the 2024 World Series?

He struggled at the plate for most of the postseason and hit just 4-for-18 in the World Series against the Dodgers. In Game 5, with the Yankees leading 5-0 in the fifth inning, he dropped a routine fly ball off the bat of Tommy Edman. The Dodgers scored five unearned runs to tie the game, took the lead in the eighth, and won 7-6 to clinch the title in five games. It was Judge's first career World Series appearance.

How did the rest of the 2024 Yankees roster perform in October?

The Yankees beat Bobby Witt Jr.'s Royals in the ALDS and the Guardians in five games in the ALCS to reach their first World Series since 2009. Giancarlo Stanton won ALCS MVP after homering four times in the series, including a Game 5 shot that set up Juan Soto's pennant-clinching 10th-inning homer. Soto, in his only season with the Yankees before leaving in free agency, finished third in the AL MVP voting behind Judge and Witt Jr.