Congrats to Aaron Judge, the rightful MVP. Now, will the Yankees step up and give him the support he deserves?

Congrats to The Captain - our Captain - Aaron Judge, who TOTALLY deserves to be 2025 AL Most Valuable Player, in the same way that Francis McDormand needed to win the 2017 Best Actress award for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, even though Meryl Streep was the secret crowd fave for portraying Katherine Graham in The Post. 

I know, I know... You're wringing your hands because, while McDormand delivered in the role of a guilt-distressed mom, so did Cal Raleigh for the Mariners. Damn, the guy hit 60 HRs and drove in 125, as a catcher.  Those are Jane Fonda numbers, maybe even Julia Roberts. And McDormand goes down as one of the greats - tied for second all-time, with three Best Actress Oscars, after Katherine Hepburn with four. (Nobody beats the Hepper. Not even Sally "You love me" Field.)

But let's be clear here: 

Judge is Nicholson, Hanks, De Niro...

Judge is Meryl Fucking Streep. (Two Oscars and 17 nominations.)

Any look at the numbers puts Judge in his own movie, maybe opposite Debra Winger. Seattle fans can extol Raleigh's values as catcher/team leader - won't deny them, definitely a Hillary Swank toughness vibe - but any Yank fan knows that, without Judge, that sorry lineup would have been the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, or maybe even Show Girls, barely winning more games than it lost, and it probably would have have missed the postseason. 

Wait. There's that word: Postseason.

Yeah. That's it, the word of 2025: To Yank fans, it beats "6-7" and "Gen Z Stare." And it sits in the abyss, at the underside of every award. 

It's hard to give a shit about anybody's trophy case after the Yankee clown car once again ditched itself in early October. Judge now has three MVP trophies. He's up there with McDormand, a great actress, for sure. He's a lock for Cooperstown. Someday, he'll have a burger kiosk in Monument Park. He'll host a podcast, joke with A-Rod in pregame shows, maybe get elected to Congress (running against Texiera?) He'll be a generational icon of New York City, a game show host, if not a talking head for Good Morning America, and he'll wind up among the greatest Yankees, the greatest HR hitters in history, the greatest stars of his time.

But will he have a ring? 

Starting to wonder.

The Yankees have now squandered three MVP seasons from Judge, and a Cy Young year from Gerrit Cole. At least, this time, Judge put together a worthy October - he hit .500, 13-for-26 prying that monkey off his back. Cole, on the other hand, must still exorcize the shame of not covering first on a routine grounder. You'd hate to see that in the permanent ledger.

All hail Aaron Judge! He deserves every plaque, every trophy, every Best Actor accolade. But he's starting to pinch. Without a ring, he's just an empty billboard outside Ebbing. He needs a supporting cast.