"On what planet Shohei Ohtani is better than Aaron Judge?" - Yankees sportscaster rips into MLB rankings

LA Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani beat New York Yankees' Aaron Judge to claim the top spot in MLB’s Top 100 players right now — a result that left one sportscaster in disbelief.

Ohtani and Judge won MVP awards in their respective leagues last season after posting impressive numbers, even by their high standards. However, when Ohtani was named the best player in baseball, Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay was stunned and argued that Judge was the better player last year.

On "The Michael Kay" show, the broadcaster said:

"On what planet can you say that Ohtani is better than Judge? I don't understand it," he said (5:23 mark). "Are you projecting in 2025 that you think Ohtani is going to go back to being a dominant pitcher?"

"The one thing that he leads in of any substance to me, is stolen bases. But the other substantial analytic numbers, Judge leads in all of them. Again, WAR is the most important thing. They make decisions, they go to arbitration cases with WAR and Judge beats him. So how is Ohtani better? The only way he's better is if he in fact pitches."

While acknowledging Ohtani's talent, Kay said Judge’s superior statistics should be the deciding factor in any comparison.

"I think that everybody involved in MLB is absolutely in awe of the skill sets exhibited by Ohtani, and they should be. He's one of the best baseball players ever and so is Judge."

"So when they're that close, you've got to look at the statistics, that's the only thing that you have that can actually break a tie. Judge's statistics are far superior than Ohtani's."

Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge were two of the best players in the MLB last year, with both leading their teamds to the World Series, where the Dodgers ultimately won..

Ohtani led Judge in plate appearances, runs scored, strikeout percentage and stolen bases. Meanwhile, Judge outperformed Ohtani in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs and RBIs.

Dodgers president gives update on Shohei Ohtani's recovery and expected return to the mound

Shohei Ohtani is MLB’s only two-way player, but he has not pitched in 18 months as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. In a recent interview, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman provided an update on the team’s plan for Ohtani’s return to pitching this season:

"We're going to go through his progression and be able to read and react. It's not something that we're going to set like an arbitrary date."

Shohei Ohtani underwent his second Tommy John surgery in September 2023 and has not pitched in MLB since. With his recovery progressing well, he is expected to return to the mound sometime in the first half of the season.