A few weeks ago, it appeared the American League MVP debate was going to be an epic three-way battle between Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez and Shohei Ohtani, perhaps one of the best three-player races of all time.
Judge had 33 home runs at the All-Star break as the Yankees were steamrolling through the league, giving him a season pace of 58 and a chance to hit 60. Alvarez was arguably having an even better offensive season, hitting .306/.405/.653 with 26 home runs at the break. His weighted runs created plus (wRC+) figure was over 200, a number reached just nine times in a full season since 1950 -- four of those by Barry Bonds.