Part 3: There Is No Anti-Yankees Bias in MVP Voting

by Paul Semendinger

November 20, 2025

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A note to start...

This series has generated some interesting discussions along with requests for more information. I am happy to oblige.

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In order to understand this article series, it is important to first read Part One and Part Two which describes the overall premise and some of the background.

In short, there are Yankees fans that believe that there is an anti-Yankees bias among the writers, decision makers, the league, or whomever, that prevents Yankees players from winning awards such as the MVP. This anti-Yankees bias, they claim, is the reason that Yankees do not win certain awards, in certain years, and why some Yankees don't get into the Hall of Fame, and the like. Each time a Yankees player fails to get an honor that some fans think he deserves, these fans claim, "It's the anti-Yankees bias."

I am putting this entire notion to rest, once and for all, by showing clearly, with facts, that there is no anti-Yankees sentiment that causes Yankees to not win awards or the honors they deserve.

As I note in Part One, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to argue that Yankees don't win awards like the MVP when more Yankees have won the award, by a significant margin, than the players from any other team. Yankees players certainly and absolutely win awards.

Similarly, more Yankees are in the Hall of Fame than any other team - including some of the most borderline candidates in the Hall.

Today's article examines another aspect of the argument - one that I feel is at the root of the issue.

In short, many Yankees fans see things only from their perspective as Yankees fans. They do not take the time to look outside their own fandom and see things from a broader perspective. Whenever something goes against the Yankees, they claim there is this anti-Yankees bias as the reason. They then collect these slights, gathered over decades, and use them to create a series of false narratives that they feel proves the bias they imagine.

In short, if things don't go the Yankees' way, they argue, then someone, or some group, is against the Yankees.

But here's the problem. Yankees fans aren't alone in thinking this way. Many fans of many teams think this way. For some, this is an essential aspect of being a fan.

Fans often feel that others are conspiring against their team.  Sometimes ball players themselves even feel that way.  When one loses, or is frustrated, it is often easier to assign blame to others or to search for and find nefarious reasons to explain when things don't go one's own way.

George Springer of the Blue Jays evidenced this approach last summer when he claimed during a game that the league was somehow conspiring against the Blue Jays and doing all they could to help the Yankees win. That turned out not to be the case, of course, but the fact that there is a perception that the league is actually for the Yankees should not be dismissed.

Take a moment to think about this for a moment because it illustrates the point exactly. 

While some Yankees fans insist and argue that there is a bias against the Yankees, other fans of other teams insist that the league and the writers are pro-Yankee.

It cannot be both.

We have heard the pro-Yankees argument for so many years that it is stated, almost as a fact, time and again in many various forms such as, "If Jeter was on the Royals (for example), no one would even know who he was" or "If Phil Rizzuto had played in Cleveland, he would never be a Hall of Fame." Those are just two such examples of that false narrative. Yet it persits. We hear it all the time. There is a very real and very pronounced perspective that baseball is pro-Yankees.

Again, some fans believe, and will always believe, that others (the nebulous and ever-changing others) are against them.

Some Yankees fans argue (unconvincingly) that the AL MVP writers are against the Yankees and/or Aaron Judge even though he has won three MVP awards.  Their "proof" of the bias this year is the fact that Cal Raleigh earned a good number of first place votes.  In these fans' myopic Yankees-first perspective, they cannot see, understand, or give any credence to any arguments for Raleigh.  It was said a number of times in the comments here that any voter that didn't vote for Judge is either stupid or biased. Some fans can ascribe only those two attributes to voters who vote in ways other than the way they themselves would vote. They see only those two possible outcomes.

One way to see that this anti-Yankees bias does not exist, is to see and read the claims made from others in other cities, to demonstrate that while the Yankees fans claim, "They are against us," fans of other teams, and even baseball in general, are claiming, just as passionately, that there is, and has been, a bias in favor of the Yankees.

For the record, neither claim is correct. But that does not stop fans, both Yankees fans and others, from making these claims over and over.

I encourage Yankees fans to step outside their own bubble to help them see the fallacy of their arguments. 

There were, in fact, very rational reasons for Cal Raleigh to earn MVP votes. Aaron Judge deserved the MVP, but had he not won the award, that would not have indicated a conspiracy or wide-spread bias. It would have indicated that the writers, as a collective body made up of individuals all looking at a collection of information felt that Cal Raleigh's historical season merited him the MVP Award. The Raleigh for MVP argument is logical. I believe that Judge was, and should have been the AL MVP. I also believe that the writers who voted for Cal Raleigh had fair points for their perspectives.

What follows are a host of articles to demonstrate this point very clearly and very factually. Please note the articles below are only a small sampling of the preponderance of articles over a long period of time that claim that the Yankees get special treatment. This is, by no means, an exhaustive list.

Why Cal Raleigh Should Have Won 2025 AL MVP Over Aaron Judge

Mariners’ Cal Raleigh finishes 2nd in razor-tight AL MVP voting

Mike Vorel: Mariners’ Cal Raleigh is rightful AL MVP over Yankees’ Aaron Judge

AL MVP vote reeks of Yankees bias

Longtime Blue Jays analyst dismayed by MVP decision, says league has pro-Judge bias

Andruw Jones' exclusion from Baseball Hall of Fame due to Yankees bias, claims ex-teammate Chipper Jones

The Predictable Bias of MLB Network

Orioles slugger just flipped the script on Yankees bias in latest All-Star count

Articles like the above are legion. Also note, I did not include posts from sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Tic Toc, among others, where fans and others can more easily voice their opinions.

Also, please, before one tries to argue the specifics in any one article above, to please remember the greater point - as much as some Yankees fans are certain that the league is against them, fans in other cities are just as sure that the bias is actually for the Yankees.

There cannot be a pro-Yankees bias by the writers while they at the same time have an anti-Yankees bias.

In short, there is no bias that is preventing Yankees from winning nor giving them undue recognition. This is what happens when individuals vote.

Cal Raleigh earned MVP votes in 2025, as he should have, but those votes took away from Judge's overall vote totals. There was no anti-Yankees bias there.

In 2022, Shohei Ohtani had one of the most amazing seasons a player ever had, but received very few first place MVP votes inflating Judge's overall vote totals. There was no pro-Yankees bias there.

One year, Judge's numbers are lower, in another, they're higher. This is how voting works.

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Tomorrow I will examine all of the A.L. MVP Awards from 1962 to 1999 (that involve Yankees) to show that there has been no anti-Yankees bias in the awarding of that honor in that time period.

I will demonstrate that the argument for Jim Rice for 1978 MVP was legitimate and very sound. Jim Rice deserved the award. (Ron Guidry did too, but the voting went against the Yankee that year, not because of bias but because the award went to a very deserving candidate in Jim Rice.)