The Passans: 2024 MLB season awards, with a twist - ESPN

With another two months until baseball writers name the Most Valuable Players, Cy Young Award winners and Rookies of the Year, now seems the perfect time for a far wider-ranging set of honors for Major League Baseball's 2024 season.

The second Passan Awards build upon the inaugural prizes handed out to not only the best players in MLB but also those who did cool things. The purpose of these is to celebrate the most enjoyable elements of a season and recognize that even those who aren't the best of the best deserve acknowledgment.

There are nevertheless some familiar names in the mix here, too, and the first two awards cover the game's crème de la crème rather well.

Aaron Judge has been the best hitter in baseball this season, and based on bat alone, there's a good argument that Juan Soto ranks second. New York has an unquestionably impressive concentration of hitting excellence. But how impressive compared with other hitting duos throughout the years?

The best pair of hitters ever in one lineup, based on average weighted runs created plus, is a familiar one: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Even nearly a century later, they are the prime example of a duo who thrive at the same time and provide the foundation for a huge competitive advantage.

That's what these Yankees have with Judge and Soto. Either is the sort of hitter who can carry a team throughout a series — and the kind of player a team should cherish as long as he's around. Thinking about what this lineup looks like without Soto in there, it's obvious why it's so imperative to re-sign him this winter.

Soto slash line is .287/.417/.576. He has the second-highest wOBA and wRC+ in MLB. He has hit 40 home runs and driven in well over 100.