Nick Selbe doesn't know what he's talking about, Pt. II

 

Okay, enough of running down Shohei Ohtani to show why he should not be the AL MVP in 2022. And believe me, I don't want to knock the guy. He's an amazing athlete, and what he does is a lot of fun. 

He's just not the greatest of all-time, and just not someone doing what has never been done before...none of which, by itself, makes Aaron Judge the MVP this year.

So, time for a positive argument for The Judge. Which can revolve around one statistic.

I'm talking about something called "Adjust OPS+." Sounds pretty wonky, I know. It is supposed to consist of a player's on-base percentage and slugging average—your basic OPS—plus adjustments to league averages and ballparks figured in.

Mr. Selbe, to his credit, notes that Judge this year, at 211—on't ask how these figures are figured because...you'll fall asleep before I'm finished explaining—is the highest total by any player since Barry Bonds ran up a 263 OPS+ in 2004.

But of course...

Mr. Bonds was cheating. Which is how he ran up the three highest, OPS+ season marks in major-league history.

Where does Judge's 211 rank on that all-time list? An impressive—if not spectacular—24th.

Baseballreference has begun to rank Negro League players in their all-time rankings—as well as 19th-century ballplayers—and with their inclusion, Judge's 2022 OPS+ season drops to 54th all-time.

Sorry, but it is simply impossible to compare the pre-1900 game to the one played afterwards. Nor, sorry to say, is it possible to effectively compare the haphazard, truncated seasons of the Negro Leagues to those of the majors.

Don't get me wrong. 

I think it's a nice tribute by baseballreference, and I think the exclusion of Black (and most Hispanic) players under Jim Crow baseball was atrocious. No doubt, all of the Black and Hispanic players in these all-time lists would have been major-league stars, and some of them—Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Satchel Paige, Martin Dihigo (Another guy who did what "only" Shohei Ohtani supposedly did, which was hit and pitch at a very high level. Only he also played almost every other position on the field, as well. But I digress!)—might have been the greatest of all time.

But to be completely fair, let's also throw out all the white guys listed here who played during Jim Crow baseball days. Indeed, let's eliminate, for the sake of argument, all the best, OPS+ seasons from:

—PED cheaters

—19th-century ballplayers

—Negro League players

—White players before 1947

Where does that leave Judge's 2022, single-season, OPS+ mark of 211?

Fifth, all-time—or maybe fourth, or even third best.

The only players to run up a better mark under the criteria stated were:

Ted Williams, 233, 1957

Mickey Mantle, 221, 1957

Juan Soto, 217, 2020

Frank Thomas, 212, 1994

But hold on a moment. 

Soto's mark, admirable as it was, was set during the 60-game, 2020 Covid season. The Big Hurt's big year was another truncated season, the 1994 lockout year. 

Throw them out as well, and Judge moves up to all third, all-time. And if you consider that the 1957 American League was still barely integrated...

Well, I'm not prepared to put even The Judge ahead of The Splendid Splinter or The Commerce Comet. 

But still. Intangible—or Nick Selbe's "vague definitions"—nothing. What Aaron Judge did this past season may—in a very real, very statistical way—be unprecedented.

I'd say that makes the case for him.