You really don't want to pick one or the other, but you have to.
Both Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani and New York Yankees star slugger Aaron Judge are coming off monstrous 2024 MLB regular season campaigns.
But whose season was better?
Starting with Ohtani, the Japanese two-way star didn't pitch in his first year in Dodger blue, but compensated for it with an incredible 50-50 home run-stolen base season. Incredible is an understatement considering he's the founder of the club.
With Judge, he may not have produced the same historic achievement Ohtani did, but his overall league-leading numbers were astounding as a total package.
The 32-year-old led the league in the following categories: home runs (58), RBIs (144), walks (133), on-base percentage (.458), slugging percentage (.701), OPS (1.159) and OPS+ (223).
Is there a case that one to had the better season than the other? MLB Network's Jon Morosi broke it down.
"With Judge, it's one of the best pure all-around seasons by any offensive player in the history of the game, comfortably if you look at the metrics, top 10 ever," Morosi started in an interview with NBC. "...He is swinging and missing and chasing less often...he is an even more dangerous player than he was back in 2022, which, again, is very scary for the other teams the Yankees will face in the postseason."
"With Shohei Ohtani, it is, quite simply, all around. Now, he is not playing defense this year, so that's where I do think in some ways you can say that because [Aaron] Judge is playing in the field for all nine innings and a physically commanding position, I would give the slight edge to Judge....But 50-50, my goodness you can't get any better than that, so it's almost like saying there are no wrong answers here."
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
Perhaps the ultimate deciding factor will come down to how the stars fare in the postseason, with Ohtani making his October debut in the NLDS and Judge being back after the Yankees failed to qualify in 2023.
Judge and Co. lost in the ALCS in 2022 in a sweep to the Houston Astros, as both he and Ohtani are still seeking their first World Series triumph.
