With the news over the weekend that former Mets outfielder Michael Conforto underwent major shoulder surgery and will miss the entire 2022 season, I got to thinking about 2017 and the year that Aaron Judge had. It was historic, record-setting, and perhaps ultimately defined by the MVP race, where Jose Altuve beat out Judge for the award despite Judge being better in almost every major statistic.
But there was a stretch — especially in the first half of the season — when the conversation wasn’t Judge vs. Altuve, or Judge vs. Mark McGwire’s rookie home run record, but rather whether he or Conforto was the corner outfielder worth building around.