MLB’s Hottest MVP Duel Won’t Pad Judge, Raleigh Contracts

A Most Valuable Player award race for the ages is dominating the final week of Major League Baseball’s 2025 regular season, but there isn’t any immediate money in it for either of the two main competitors.

Yankees superstar Aaron Judge and Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh each provided dramatic touches Wednesday night to their American League MVP candidacies as the high-profile race escalates. Judge hit two home runs and became just the fourth player in MLB history with four 50-homer seasons. Raleigh, one of MLB’s foremost breakout players this season, hit two more of his own to reach 60 on the season, becoming the seventh player in league history to do so. He now trails the AL single-season record set by Judge three years ago by just two.

Both those individual performances on Tuesday also helped solidify their team’s playoff positions. The Mariners clinched their first AL West division title since 2001, while the Yankees tied the Blue Jays for the AL East lead after spending 83 days trailing Toronto. 

Betting odds in many sportsbooks slightly favor Raleigh for AL MVP, as he has already set records for the most home runs in a season by a catcher and by a switch-hitter, is chasing additional history, and he plays a more premium defensive position. Judge, however, easily bests Raleigh in many other measures, including batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and wins above replacement (WAR) as he looks to add a third win to join MVP awards in 2022 and last year. Judge also has more intentional walks than any other team as a whole, showing the degree to which opponents fear him. 

Prestige, Not Payouts

As a result, this year’s race could be the closest since the 2017 National League MVP race in which Giancarlo Stanton, then with the Marlins, beat the Reds’ Joey Votto by two voting points. 

Regardless of who wins, there will not be a financial windfall coming with the award. Judge’s nine-year, $360 million deal signed in late 2022 does not include a separate bonus for winning MVP. 

The contract situation for Raleigh, who also claimed a $1 million bonus in July for winning the Home Run Derby, is much more nuanced. He signed a six-year, $105 million extension with Seattle earlier this year, and that deal calls for a seventh-season player option for 2031 at $20 million with a $2 million buyout. That option escalates by $3 million and the buyout by $1.5 million if he finishes twice in the same season as a Gold Glove finalist and in the top 10 in MVP voting—something certainly achievable given Raleigh’s defensive prowess beyond his hitting. If he does that a third time, the option escalates by another $2 million and the buyout by another $1.5 million.

Indirectly, though, an MVP win could fuel further endorsement activity for either player. 

October Glory in Sight

MLB’s final week of the regular season, meanwhile, continues to have high levels of drama as the full playoff field draws closer to being set. 

The NL has one last available playoff spot, with the Mets, Reds, and Diamondbacks competing for the final wild-card position, and each lost on Wednesday. 

The AL, meanwhile, has the Guardians, Tigers, Red Sox, and Astros vying for three still-unclaimed spots. Cleveland has pulled ahead of Detroit in the AL Central after previously trailing by 15 and a half games, and if it holds, it would represent MLB’s largest comeback since the beginning of divisional play in 1969.