World Series
This is a rare WS matchup of the unquestioned best players of the era: Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge.
It’s not unknown for the two best players to meet in the World Series: e.g., third basemen Mike Schmidt vs. George Brett in 1980 when they both enjoyed career years. But it’s rare: I can think of Mickey Mantle vs. Willie Mays in 1962, Ted Williams vs. Stan Musial in 1946, and Ty Cobb vs. Honus Wagner in 1909.
So, it’s fun that the two best players of the last few years, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees are in the World Series together after phenomenal offensive seasons:
Ohtani’s 411 total bases (4 for a homer, 3 for a triple, etc.) is only the third time since WWII outside the 1997-2001 steroid era peak that anybody broke 400 TB: Stan Musial in 1948 and Jim Rice in 1978 were the others.
Judges 223 OPS+ (onbase percentage plus slugging average adjusted for home field and league norms) is the highest since Barry Bonds trolled the steroid era in 2001-2004. Other than that, you have to go back to Ted Williams’ 233 in 1957 when he hit .388 at age 38. And before then, leaving aside short Negro Leagues seasons, back to 1941 when Ted hit .406 for an OPS+ of 235. Before Ted’s .400 year, you have to go back to Babe Ruth’s 60 homer year of 225 (Lou Gehrig was just behind Aaron at 220 for the 1927 Yankees.) Before then, just Ruth’s 1920, 1921, 1923, 1924, and 1926 seaosns. So, we are talking about only the most famous hitting seasons in baseball history exceeding Judge’s 2024 on this metric.
The only players with better seasons since 1900 than Aaron Judge’s 2024 by OPS+ are Barry Bonds 2.0, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams.
If you add together runs and RBIs, Judge had 266 and Ohtani had 264. Judge got on base 322 times compared to 284 times for Ohtani, but Ohtani scored 134 runs to Judge’s 122 because he was batting leadoff, stole 59 bases in 63 attempts, and had better hitters coming up behind him. Judge was 10 for 10 in stolen bases, which isn’t bad.
However, it’s unlikely that both will have good World Series simultaneously: baseball is just too random for that.
> It’s not unknown for the two best players to meet in the World Series: e.g., third basemen Mike Schmidt vs. George Brett in 1980 when they both enjoyed career years
They shared the cover of the April 13, 1981, issue of Sports Illustrated, with the headline of Hot Shots at the Hot Corner. Then, in a nod to the recently-ended MLBPA strike, SI reran the picture on August 10 with the headline of Here We Go Again!
While there is a bias in MVP voting, and the "two best players" is subjective, the last time both MVP's met in the World Series was 2012, when Buster Posey's Giants defeated Miguel Cabrera's Tigers.
Going by pure statistics, I would say the last time was the 1989 Earthquake Series between Rickey Henderson's Athletics and Kevin Mitchell's Giants, with the latter having a career year without being the best player in the NL per se.
Bill James, who I used to respect more, Tweeted late last night that he is skeptical that the upcoming World Series will get high ratings, as both teams are "hard to root for". I tend to think that this will be the highest-rated World Series in quite some time, as it involves the two largest markets and will also attract fans who like to root against them. In the last 20 years the two highest-rated World Series have involved teams breaking long droughts: 2004 (Red Sox/Cardinals 15.8) and 2016 (Cubs/Indians 12.9). The lowest-rated one was the most recent between the Rangers and Diamondbacks; even though the Rangers were going for their first win ever, it didn't captivate America as it rated 4.7.
https://x.com/billjamesonline/status/1848246821308535192
A few hours ago he backpedaled a bit, saying that he has "no idea"; coward
https://x.com/billjamesonline/status/1848375006469800133