Yankees' Aaron Judge, Astros' Justin Verlander Headline MLB Nominees at ESPY Awards
With the MLB All-Star festivities officially wrapped up, the league's top ballplayers have one more big event to attend before the second half of the season gets underway.
The 2023 ESPY Awards will be given out in Los Angeles on Wednesday, and a handful of sluggers and aces are in the running for individual honors. ESPN's Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award nominees are selected by sportswriters, broadcasters and executives, while the winners are decided by a global fan vote.
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is nominated for Best Male Athlete, while Seattle Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez is nominated for Best Breakthrough Athlete and New York Mets pitcher Justin Verlander is nominated for Best Comeback Athlete. As for the Best MLB Player award, the nominees are Judge, Verlander, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and Los Angeles Angels pitcher and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani.
No MLB clubs are nominated for Best Team, nor did the sport break into the Best Play, Best Championship Performance or Best Record-Breaking Performance categories.
In the Best Male Athlete category, Judge is going up against Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Argentina/Paris Saint-Germain forward Lionel Messi.
Judge won the 2022 American League MVP after breaking the AL single-season home run record with 62. The 31-year-old superstar also lead the league in runs, RBI, OPS, walks, total bases and OPS while finishing five points shy of the batting title and Triple Crown. This season, injuries have limited Judge to 49 of the Yankees' 91 games, but he still has 19 homers, 40 RBI a .291 batting average and a 1.078 OPS.
Rodriguez, meanwhile, won AL Rookie of the Year and finished seventh the MVP voting last fall. The centerfielder from the Dominican Republic hit .284 with 28 home runs, 75 RBI, 25 stolen bases and an .853 OPS. So far this year, Rodriguez has 13 homers, 49 RBI, 22 stolen bases, a .249 batting average and a .721 OPS to go along with an All-Star Game appearance and a record-breaking outing in the Home Run Derby on his home turf.
The other nominees in the Best Breakout Athlete category are Iowa women's basketball guard Caitlin Clark, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and LSU women's basketball forward Angel Reese.
Verlander is going up against UFC fighter Jon Jones, Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray and Connecticut Sun guard Alyssa Thomas in the Best Comeback Athlete category.
The current Met and former Houston Astro pitched just six innings in 2020 and missed the entire 2021 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Verlander bounced right back in 2022, going 18-4 with a 1.75 ERA en route to his third career Cy Young award. In 12 starts this season, the 40-year-old Verlander is 3-4 with a 3.60 ERA.
Judge and Verlander will be going head-to-head with Goldschmidt and Ohtani for the MLB-specific award of the night.
Goldschmidt won National League MVP last season after racking up 35 homers and 115 RBIs with a .317 batting average and a .981 OPS. Although he did not make the All-Star Game this season, he still has 15 homers, 46 RBI, a .284 batting average and an .844 OPS at the midway point.
Ohtani is the presumptive favorite to win the 2023 AL MVP, as he continues to break records at the plate and on the mound. The Japanese-born two-way player finished runner-up for MVP in 2022, going for 34 homers, 95 RBI, a .273 average and an .875 OPS to go along with his 15-9 record, 2.33 ERA and 219 strikeouts.
This year, Ohtani is hitting .302 with 32 homers, 71 RBI six triples, 11 stolen bases and a 1.050 OPS. Ohtani also owns a 7-4 record and 3.32 ERA with 132 strikeouts.
The ESPY Awards will begin at 8 p.m. ET at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The show will be televised on ABC.
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