Aaron Judge's injury could help José Ramírez make much-needed Guardians history

Earlier this week, the Cleveland Guardians picked up a huge series win against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. 

Although they dropped Thursday’s series finale (which would have given them their first sweep at Yankees Stadium since August 2017), they made a clear statement against the best team in the American League. 

But that series win came with a big Aaron Judge-sized hole in it thanks to Judge suffering a stress fracture in his right rib that could keep him out for most of the summer. 

Not only does that injury help the Guardians in the short-term (they avoided Judge in their series against the Yankees this week and won’t play against him next weekend), it also opens up the American League MVP race in a way we haven’t seen in six years thanks to the dominance of Judge and Shohei Ohtani.

That should be music to José Ramírez’s ears. While Ramírez got off to a slow start at the plate, he still has been worth 2.2 bWAR (the most among Cleveland position players) and just caught fire during Cleveland's series against the Yankees. 

Ramírez is clearly going to have a bit of an uphill climb to win MVP, but it’s now going to be less of an uphill climb thanks to Judge’s injury. 

José Ramírez has a better chance to win AL MVP thanks to Aaron Judge’s injury

Ramírez entered the weekend with a .245/.350/.430 slashline with nine home runs and 32 RBI. Solid stats, sure, but his .780 OPS would be the lowest mark of his career since 2015. 

But he’s still provided some value with his legs (MLB-leading 22 steals) and has 39 walks compared to just 36 strikeouts. All of his under-the-hood stats have been in line where they’ve been in years prior, so it seemed like those struggles were mostly due to bad luck. 

He took a huge step toward showing that during that series against the Yankees when he went 7-for-13 with three doubles, one home run, three RBI and two steals. It’s the kind of stat-stuffing performance that he’s become known for. 

A couple more series like that would provide a huge boost to his MVP case. 

But he’s still going to have to leapfrog some big names to make that happen. Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. arguably stands as the biggest beneficiary of Judge’s injury given his has such a strong all-around case. 

Witt has a .281/.356/.462 slashline with nine home runs, 26 RBI and 21 steals while being worth an eye-popping 17 Outs Above Average on defense. He came in fourth in MVP voting last season and is the favorite to win the award now that Judge is out. 

Houston’s Yordan Alvarez also has a solid case right now thanks to an AL-leading 21 home runs to go along with an MLB-best 1.077 OPS. He doesn’t have as strong of a traditional MVP case due to the fact he’s a full-time designated hitter, but he and Christian Walker have pretty much single-handedly carried Houston’s offense. 

Ramírez’s dip in production hasn’t been as big of a story thanks to the production from some of the unheralded players in Cleveland’s offense, but his strong series against the Yankees was a clear reminder of just how good the Guardians’ offense looks when Ramírez is clicking. 

If he keeps that up, it could end with him earning his first career MVP win.

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