Major League Baseball Midseason Awards: American League

Rookie of the Year: Aaron Judge
Stats (As of 7/29): 5.3 WAR, .308 Average, 33 HR, 74 RBI, .430 OBP, .644 SLG, 177 OPS+, .439 WOBA, 181 WRC+
As much as myself and most baseball fans have fallen in love with Judge, his other worldly 2017 probably won’t last forever.

With all due respect to this mountain of a man, he has been lucky this season.  His Batting average on balls in play is .395, which probably is not sustainable. Judge also has a strikeout rate of 30.1%. It would only be natural for these numbers will slow him down a bit as the season rolls forward. With that said, it’s hard to argue that Judge hasn’t been one of the best players in the American League to this point, and by far the best rookie in the junior circuit.

As is the case will all of the games best players, Judge is dominating in traditional baseball stats, as he leads AL in home runs and is 11th in batting average. His more advanced stats are also fantastic, as his WOBA(weighted on-base average) and wRC+(Weighted Runs Created plus) are pretty much insane.

Judge is also in the mix for MVP, along with Houston’s Jose Altuve, Boston’s Mookie Betts and, of course, the great Mike Trout. Although I don’t think he’s the best player in the AL quite yet, as far as junior circuit newcomers go, Judge is the cream of the crop.