Kurtz was just getting his feet wet in 2025
New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has won three of the last four American League MVP awards, and the one that he didn’t win in 2023 was claimed by Shohei Ohtani, who is now just winning the same award in the National League. So who can stop Judge? Seems like the easy answer is A’s rookie first baseman Nick Kurtz.
Not only did Kurtz put together a season in which he was named the unanimous AL Rookie of the Year winner, despite playing in just 117 games, but he was also the only player in baseball aside from Judge or Ohtani to notch an OPS above 1.000 in more than 400 plate appearances.
On the season, Kurtz ended up hitting .290 with a .383 OBP, 36 home runs, 86 RBI and 90 runs scored, all while finishing with a 1.002 OPS and a 170 wRC+. He did all of that not only as a rookie, but a year removed from college, while also not even playing a full season.
Now, there will still be an uphill climb to reach the Judge mountaintop. The Yankee slugger won the batting title, hitting .331 with a .457 OBP, 53 home runs, 114 RBI and 137 runs scored. He also held a 1.144 OPS and a 204 wRC+.
Some of the optimism surrounding Kurtz heading into 2026 is that he’ll be learning and growing with the more experience he gathers. After winning not only the Rookie of the Month honor, but the Player of the Month honor in July, pitchers were pitching him much more carefully the final two months of the season. It didn’t matter. He still caused plenty of damage.
In the second half of the season he ended up hitting .322 with a .429 OBP, 19 home runs, a 1.107 OPS and a 199 wRC+. That’s a second half of production that is more or less on par to Aaron Judge’s full season. The question will be whether or not he can continue at that same clip.
The reason for optimism here is that his splits suggest plenty of room for growth in year two. Against right-handers on the whole year, he was batting .336 with a .439 OBP, a 1.153 OPS and a 211 wRC+.
Against left-handers, he was actually below league average and struck out 35.3% of the time. He ended up batting .197 with a .261 on-base, a .685 OPS and an 83 wRC+. In other words, he’s better than Aaron Judge when he’s facing right-handers, and Anthony Volpe against lefties.
If there is one thing that Kurtz will be laser focused on this offseason, it’s going to be improving against left-handers. Now, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to cut out any flaws against southpaws entirely heading into 2026, but he should at least be above league average to some degree. He’s just too much of a competitor not to make big strides this winter.
So if you’re looking for one big yet simple reason why Nick Kurtz will win the American League MVP instead of Aaron Judge in 2026, that would be it. He’s going to continue to rake against righties, and will be a much tougher out against the lefties.
