There is a pretty strong correlation between being named Most Valuable Player and winning the Hank Aaron Award, which is bestowed annually upon the best offensive performer in the American and the National League.
Of the 50 players who have won the Hank Aaron Award since it was established in 1999, 26 were celebrated as MVP in the same year. This year, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani seem to be the MVP favorites. Sure enough, those superstars were honored Thursday during the All-MLB Team Show presented by MGM Rewards as this season’s Hank Aaron Award winners.
The Hank Aaron Award recipients are determined by votes from baseball fans as well as from a panel of Hall of Famers and previous winners. This year’s choices likely weren’t too difficult considering that Judge and Ohtani achieved unprecedented feats. This is the second Hank Aaron Award for each of them; Judge won it in 2022, and Ohtani won it in 2023 with the Angels. And both of them were even better at the plate in 2024.
Here is a closer look at what made Judge and Ohtani so deserving of another Hank Aaron Award.
AL: Aaron Judge, Yankees
Can there be such a thing as a five-month hot streak in MLB? If so, the Yankees’ captain was on one this season.
Judge ended April batting just .207 and with a modest .740 OPS. The rest of the way, he batted .352 and posted an OPS north of 1.000 every other month. He launched 52 home runs over the Yankees’ last 127 regular-season games. By the time it was over, Judge had produced arguably the best offensive season from a right-handed hitter in AL/NL history.
You could fill a tome with the full list of MLB and AL leaderboards topped by Judge this season. His 58 home runs, .458 on-base percentage, .701 slugging percentage and 10.5 bWAR are a sampling of stats where there was no one better in the Majors. Judge’s 144 RBIs were the most from any player since 2008. His 1.159 OPS was the highest among qualified hitters over a full season since 2004. His .223 OPS+ was the best by a right-handed hitter in AL/NL history.
Judge may never surpass the AL-record 62 home runs that he hit in ’22, but he set a personal best in just about every other category during this season for the ages.
NL: Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers
Some people may have initially thought that Ohtani’s first season with the Dodgers would leave something to be desired since he’d be unable to pitch while recovering from right elbow surgery. The two-way star we had come to know and love wouldn’t be seen until 2025. What no one saw coming, however, is how Ohtani found a different way to be a dual threat.
His eye-popping power was still there, and it grew in Dodger blue. Ohtani crushed a career-high and franchise-best 54 homers for Los Angeles. Nine of those dingers traveled a Statcast-projected 450 feet or farther — the most from any player this season and more than any other team besides the Rockies, who had 10 such home runs.
Ohtani, who had not stolen more than 26 bases in any season of his six-year MLB career, complemented his thunderous bat with surprising speed, stealing 59 bases. He created the 50-50 club on Sept. 19 against the Marlins in one of the greatest single-game performances in big league history: 6-for-6, three homers, two steals, 10 RBIs. Prior to Ohtani, no player had more than 24 stolen bases in a 50-homer season.
Beyond the homers and the steals, Ohtani paced the NL in runs scored (134), RBIs (130), on-base percentage (.390), slugging percentage (.646) and OPS+ (190). His 99 extra-base hits were the most by a player since 2005, and he became the first new member of the 400 total bases club since 2001.
