Regular season 2024 MLB awards: Aaron Judge gets MVP edge over Bobby Witt Jr.

I kept trying to get there.In my baseball soul, I believe that the total player is the most valuable element in the game.

I favor the guy who helps every day in some way.And there were moments late this season when I thought Francisco Lindor and Bobby Witt Jr.were the MVPs.

If you were an executive and I told you nothing else about your roster except you could take everything Lindor has brought in 2024 (hitting, fielding, baserunning and off the field) or Ohtani in the same categories and the same for Witt vs.Judge, who would you take?If the answers were Lindor and Witt, shouldn’t that make them the MVPs?But then Lindor got hurt and somehow Ohtani got more magical.

And Aaron Judge kept ending up in sentences with Babe Ruth — and if you are dueling Babe Ruth historically, you probably have it over Bobby Witt Jr.this year.Ultimately, I just came to believe when we think of the 2024 season, Shohei Ohtani’s name will come up first and then Judge.

Perhaps that makes them Most Memorable, but there are plenty of valuable reasons for that.I actually think Witt has a great case, and picking him second to a player whose 226 OPS-plus is bettered in the Integration Era (since 1947) by only Barry Bonds and Ted Williams is not like saying he is a White Sox utility infielder.Witt is everything the game should aspire to — the top 1 percent as ranked on Baseball Savant in batting and baserunning value and the top 5 percent in fielding value (all stats are entering the weekend).If you want to close some of the hitting edge enjoyed by Judge: Witt was plus 19 in stolen bases (31 steals, 12 caught stealing) and Judge was plus 10 (10-for-10) — imagine that gap of nine between the two being added to Witt’s slugging percentage.Witt has hit into four double plays, Judge 22 — imagine adding 18 extra outs to Judge’s batting average.So it narrows a gap.But not enough.

Not in an age when it is hard to hit as ever, and Judge’s OPS-plus was 126 percent better than league av...