Ex-Yankee Sabathia picks Ohtani for MVP, ignores home-run king Judge

Tuesday September 13, 2022

The the American League MVP race is down to a two-man rivalry between Aaron Judge, a big hitter for the New York Yankees, and Shohei Ohtani, the Angels’ pitcher. To the dismay of fans, former Yankee ace CC Sabathia has voted for Ohtani over Judge for the Most-Valuable Player award.

Judge is getting a lot of attention as he chases to break Roger Maris’ 1961 record of 61 home runs in a single season. He has already hit 57 homers and is on his way to reach the magic 65 mark. But Sabathia thinks that the American League MVP award should go to someone else.

A six-time All-Star, Sabathia was with the Yankees for 11 seasons starting from 2009 and was a part of the 2009 world champs.

When asked about the current Yankees slugger, Sabathia answered that Los Angeles’ Ohtani, who is a dual-threat player for the Angels, should have a better chance to become the American League Most Valuable Player this season.

“He’s the best player to ever play baseball,” the former Yankees star justified his choice of Ohtani and continued, “He’s the MVP every year that he’s healthy; he continues to get better as a pitcher and you have to give him the MVP.”

Sabathia’s choice Ohtani has a 12-8 record, a 2.55 earned run average, and 188 strikeouts as of Tuesday. Ohtani’s 188 strikeouts and 10th-lowest ERA in all of the baseball games put him in eighth place in the Major League. Ohtani, on the other hand, has a batting average of .267 and has hit 34 home runs and 88 RBIs this season. The big hitter for the Angels is tied for fifth in baseball for home runs.

Judge is hitting .307 right now and has the most home runs and RBIs in the MLB with 55. With 21 games left in the regular season, it’s likely that the Yankees‘ power hitter will break Maris’ record of 61 home runs.

“He’s having a better year than last year. I understand everything that Judge is doing,” Sabathia told about Judge and went on saying, “I think it’s going to be incredible to watch him chase down 61 home runs in a Yankees uniform; if it wasn’t for him, they probably wouldn’t be in the playoff picture; but this guy Ohtani is literally the best player that we’ve ever seen.”

Sabathia is placing more stock in Ohtani’s ability to be excellent in both hitting and pitching, even though Judge’s season has been more impressive this year.

Do you agree with Sabathia? Is he right in not supporting a Yankees’ leading star? Who is going to win the MVP award in 2022?