Aaron Judge wins third MVP, but Yankees still searching for World Series ring during all-time great stretch

Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge won the 2025 American League MVP, cementing this as one of the greatest stretches in MLB history. And yet, there's something missing. This would go for any player having such a stretch, but it's especially magnified when we look through the lens of Yankees history. 

The Yankees haven't won the World Series since 2009. That's 16 empty seasons in the Bronx. They went 17 years between the 1978 and 1996 titles, but there wasn't a World Series in one of those seasons (the 1994 strike caused a World Series cancellation and the Yankees had the best record in the AL that year). Keeping this in mind, the Yankees have tied their longest stretch of World Series without winning one since their first in 1923. 

And, again, they're doing it with Judge on a historic individual run. This isn't recency bias or hyperbole. I'm not being a prisoner of the moment. 

Judge has now won three MVPs in the last four seasons. The one time he didn't win it, he missed 56 games due to injury and lost out to a historic Shohei Ohtani season.

Aaron Judge named 2025 American League MVP: Yankees slugger beats Mariners' Cal Raleigh in tight award race

Mike Axisa

Still, we're talking about a four-year stretch in which Judge has hit .311/.439/.677 (209 OPS+) with 210 home runs, 464 RBI, 471 runs and 35.9 WAR. The general guideline for WAR is that 8.0 is an MVP-caliber season. Judge is averaging just about 9.0 per season in the last four, even accounting for the extended absence for injury in 2023. He's also averaging 53 home runs, 116 RBI and 118 runs. 

How many players have won three MVPs in a four-year span? Not many. 

• Barry Bonds did it twice (1990, 1992-93 and then 2001-04)
• Shohei Ohtani is on a current run of four out of five

That's it. The other players to win three MVPs (Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout) did it with their hardware more spaced out. 

If we zero in on Judge's age, his feats become that much more ridiculous. 

The only players to ever hit at least 200 home runs from ages 30-33 are Aaron Judge and Sammy Sosa (1999-2002). The only players with at least 450 RBI and 450 runs from ages 30-33 are Judge, Sosa, Babe Ruth, Bonds, Foxx, Willie Mays, Jeff Bagwell, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Bill Terry and Charlie Gehringer.

How many players hit at least .300 with a .400+ OBP and a slugging percentage over .600 from ages 30-33? Just eight. Judge, Sosa, Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Manny Ramirez, Larry Walker and Ted Williams. 

How about an OPS+ over 200 in that age group? It's just Judge and Ruth. Ruth's Yankees won the World Series seven times. There were only 16 teams then and one round of the playoffs (straight to the World Series for each League Champion from the regular season), so it was much easier to win. 

Still, when it comes to the Yankees, more than any other team, the checklist includes one more element: a ring.

Look at the other three-time MVPs from the Yankees. DiMaggio won nine rings. Berra won 10! Mantle "only" won seven. A-Rod -- yes, one of his MVPs was with another team -- was a huge part of the 2009 championship. Even beyond those guys, Roger Maris won two MVPs and two rings with the Yankees. Gehrig won two MVPs and seven rings. Phil Rizzuto won an MVP and seven World Series. Spud Chandler won an MVP and six World Series. Joe Gordon won an MVP and five World Series. Elston Howard won an MVP and four rings. Thurman Munson won an MVP and two World Series before his tragic death in a plane crash at age 32. 

That leaves Don Mattingly, who won MVP in 1985, and Judge as the only Yankees MVPs without a World Series title.

Judge, again, has three MVPs in four years with one of the greatest four-year stretches we've ever seen. 

Some of this is on the current circumstances, given how many more playoff teams there are, meaning more rounds of advancement are needed before the World Series. Some of it is, frankly, on Judge. Though he was awesome this season in the playoffs, he was 1 for 12 with seven strikeouts through the first three games of the 2024 World Series; the Yankees lost all three. He also had a bad error that opened the doors to a huge Dodgers rally in Game 5. 

Still, there's only so much one guy should be required to do for a team, so we have to place a good amount of the burden on Judge's Yankees' teammates and the front office. 

We can't say the Yankees are wasting Judge's best years just yet, but the clock is sure ticking louder and louder. He's not going to be this awesome much longer.