Throughout the summer and fall, the American League MVP race was the biggest debate in baseball.

On one side was Seattle Mariners slugger Cal Raleigh, who shattered the MLB single-season home run record for a catcher and became just the seventh player in the sport’s history to reach the 60-homer club.

On the other side was New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, who hit .331 with 53 home runs to become just third player in MLB history to win a batting title and hit 50-plus homers in the same season.

Both had sensational campaigns, but Judge ultimately took home the prize on Thursday night.

Judge received 17 of 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America panel, which includes two voters from each AL city. Raleigh finished as the runner-up with the other 13 first-place votes.

Naturally, with an athlete from Seattle pitted against an athlete from New York, many throughout the Pacific Northwest claimed this was yet another case of East Coast media bias.

Was that actually what happened? Mike Salk and Brock Huard had a spirited debate Friday morning on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

The voting by time zone

As Salk pointed out, it wasn’t actually the East Coast voters who hurt Raleigh.

Raleigh had a 7-7 split among voters in the Eastern Time Zone and a 5-1 advantage in the Pacific Time Zone. But in the Central Time Zone, Raleigh received just one of the 10 votes.

“I’m not going to rant and rave about the whole Yankee, New York, East Coast media thing today, because I looked at the actual votes, and that’s not really the story,” Salk said. “I wish it was. Believe me, I’d be happy. But it’s not.”

Huard argued that regardless of whether a voter is in the Eastern Time Zone or the Central Time Zone, they likely aren’t watching many Mariners games. Even in the Central Time Zone, most M’s games don’t start until either 8:40 p.m. or 9:10 p.m.

Looking at it from that perspective, Raleigh got just eight of the combined 24 votes from the Central and Eastern time zones. Out west, where most Mariners games begin in a prime viewing window, Raleigh got five of the six votes.

“He hit .833 with the people that actually watched in our time zone on the West Coast,” Huard said. “… It’s 5 of 6 out west with people that could watch him play, people that had their eyes on him, people that saw what he did, people that put into perspective the offense and the defense and everything else.”

‘People voted on numbers’

In Salk’s view, the biggest story was the two Houston-area writers and the two Dallas-area writers combining to vote 4-0 in favor of Judge. Those two metropolitan areas, of course, are home to the Mariners’ biggest rivals – the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.

“The biggest problem is that your division rivals – the Rangers and Astros – both voted 100% for Aaron Judge,” Salk said. “That’s a problem. I mean, if those split, then it’s even. And if you win 75% of those, Cal wins.

“I mean, the Rangers and Astros media folks got every opportunity to see Cal,” he added. “They were not hurting for opportunities to see Cal Raleigh. And they decided 4-0 to vote for Aaron Judge. That, to me, is the story.”

Huard then asked if Salk thinks there was bias against Raleigh in those two markets.

“I don’t think so,” Salk said. “No, I just think that at the end of the day, more people voted on numbers. They didn’t look at the full picture. They voted on numbers. And I think that’s ridiculous, but that’s what they did.”

That’s where Huard agrees.

Aside from home runs, most of the offensive stats favor Judge. But as Huard argued, no number can truly quantify all the additional value Raleigh provided as a catcher.

There’s a reason, Huard said, that no catcher had ever come close to 60 homers before.

“Aaron Judge’s numbers – his OPS and his WAR and his wRC+ and all that – are outrageous,” Huard said. “He’s a tremendous hitter. He’s the best American League hitter, and there’s no debate about that.

“But you are not going to convince me even after this vote that he was more valuable to his team than the season that Cal Raleigh had.”

Listen to the full Brock and Salk conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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