Ranking every New York Yankees MVP winner, from Babe Ruth to Aaron Judge

The Yankees have had 14 different players win the MVP award. Of the 14, seven are Hall of Famers, and one will be (Aaron Judge). It's an embarrassment of riches for the most successful franchise in sports history, notwithstanding what could become the longest stretch without a title if this goes beyond 2026.

Trying to rank the greatest Yankee MVPs is like ranking the Avengers. But we're going to attempt it anyway as fans ride the high of Judge's generational run atop Major League Baseball with Shohei Ohtani.

Complete history of New York Yankees' MVP winners, ranked

Spud Chandler (1943)

Spud Chandler is the only Yankees pitcher to win the MVP award, and he did so before the introduction of the Cy Young Award in 1956. Chandler was a Yankee for 11 years, his whole career, throwing 1,485 innings with a 2.84 ERA.

In 1943, the year he won the MVP, he won 20 games and pitched 253 innings with a 1.64 ERA, leading the Yankees to a World Series title — one of six that he won with the team. During the World Series, Chandler threw two complete games and allowed just one earned run. 1943 was also the first year Major League Baseball lost players to the war effort, so stars like Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Hank Greenberg did not play that season. However, Stan Musial did, and Chandler defeated him and the Cardinals it all.

Phil Rizzuto (1950)

Phil Rizzuto was a light-hitting shortstop who is now best known for his work as an announcer. Rizzuto was only 5'6", and he never hit more than seven home runs in a season, but that didn't stop him from making the Hall of Fame. In 1950, he won the MVP award, hitting .324/.418/.439 and playing stellar defense. It's a shame that Rawlings didn't introduce the Gold Glove award until 1957, a year after Rizzuto retired, because he was such a good fielder that he might have won every year of his career.

Rizzuto played 13 years all with the Yankees and batted .273/.351/.355. Like many other players, Rizzuto served in the military during World War II and missed his age-25, 26, and 27 seasons.

Elston Howard (1963)

Eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, Elston Howard was the first black man to play for the New York Yankees. During his career, Howard, a catcher, made 12 All-Star teams and won four World Series. From 1959 to 1962, to raise money for the players' pension fund, Major League Baseball held two All-Star games each season, and Howard played in seven of the eight games. Howard hit .274/.321/.427 during his career and won the MVP in 1963, slashing .287/.342/.528. The Yankees retired Howard's number, 32, in 1984.

Thurman Munson (1976)

Baseball fans are obsessed with offense, which can devalue the contributions of a catcher like Thurman Munson. He was a career .292/.346/.410 hitter, which is good, but also doesn't jump off the page. The Yankees drafted him fourth overall in 1968, and by 1970 he was starting and won Rookie of the Year.

Munson was known for his toughness, leadership, and defensive ability. In 1976, he became the first Yankees captain since Lou Gehrig. In 1977 and 1978, Munson led the Yankees to back-to-back World Series titles, and during the playoffs he was a career .357/.378/.496 hitter. In 1979, Munson's career was cut short by a tragic accident that also took his life — a plane crash.

Don Mattingly (1985)

Don Mattingly played in an era where there was no wild card or divisional series, so when the Yankees won 91 games in 1983, 97 games in 1985, 90 games in 1986, 89 games in 1987, and 88 games in 1993, they missed the playoffs each year. Mattingly didn't get a chance to play in October until 1995, the final year of his illustrious career, when he was already a shell of the player he once was, weakened by a congenital back injury.

For the first five seasons of his career (1982-1987), Mattingly looked like a Hall of Famer, slashing .331/.376/.543 and finishing top-10 in the MVP voting four times. He won the award in 1985. But in 1987, he had his first back flare-up, which sapped his power. From 1988-1995, he hit .292/.347/.424 and finished his 14-year career batting .307/.358/.471. He was also an excellent defender, winning nine Gold Gloves.

Roger Maris (1960-1961)

The Yankees brought Roger Maris over from the Kansas City Athletics before the 1960 season, and he won back-to-back MVPs in his first two seasons in pinstripes. In 1961, the M&M boys, Maris and Mickey Mantle, spent the summer chasing Babe Ruth's single-season home run record. By early September, Maris had hit 56 home runs, and Mantle was three behind him with 53. An injury forced Mantle to miss some time, leaving Maris alone to chase the record. On Oct. 1, the last game of the year, Maris hit his 61st home run, passing Ruth, and cementing his place in history as a Yankees legend. That earned him his second MVP award. The year prior, he led the league with 112 RBIs and won it too. Maris hit .265/.356/.515 in seven years with the Yankees, retiring in 1968.

Joe Gordon (1942)

Joe Gordon was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Veteran's Committee in 2009. When Gordon retired in 1950 after an 11-year career, he was second all-time among second basemen with 253 home runs. He might have been first had he not missed two years of his prime serving in the military during World War II. Gordon won the MVP in 1942, hitting .322/.409/.491, beating out Boston's Ted Williams, who won the Triple Crown that year.

During his career, he played seven years with the Yanks and four with Cleveland, slashing .268/.357/.466, in an era where most second basemen were offensively challenged.

Alex Rodriguez (2005, 2007)

One could argue that Alex Rodriguez is both the best shortstop and best third baseman in baseball history. If it weren't for his questionable off-the-field choices, it would be a slam-dunk case. Rodriguez had his best years with Seattle and Texas, but still hit .283/.378/.523 in 12 years with the Yankees. In 2009, he put the team on his back, slashing .365/.500/.808 and willed them to their first World Series win in nearly a decade. A-Rod also won the MVP in 2003 with the Rangers.

Yogi Berra (1951, 1954-1955)

From 1950 to 1956, Yogi Berra won three MVPs and never finished lower than fourth in the voting. He's the winningest player in Major League history with 10 World Series titles as well as the gold standard for Yankees catchers. Berra hit .285/.348/.482 over a 19-year career, all of which except for four games were played in the Bronx.

If the Yanks needed a big hit in a big situation, they could count on Berra. He seldom struck out and he had good power, so he was a tough at-bat for any pitcher. He was a great defensive catcher who threw out nearly half of the runners that dared to steal against him, and he was behind the plate for Don Larson's perfect game in the World Series.

Mickey Mantle (1956-1957, 1962)

The Yankees passing the torch from Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle is like the Green Bay Packers passing the torch from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers. Mantle filled DiMaggio's shoes better than anyone could have hoped for, winning seven World Series and 12 pennants in his 18-year career. Eyewitnesses claim he once hit a ball over 700 feet, and twice he almost hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium. During his career, he hit .298/.421/.557, made 20 All-Star teams, and holds the record for most World Series home runs with 18.

Joe DiMaggio (1941-1942, 1947)

Joe DiMaggio played 13 years for the Yankees, batting .325/.398/.579 and winning nine World Series titles, but his life wasn't perfect. He had a troubled upbringing and dropped out of school at 15. Six years later, he was the Yankees' starting center fielder, batting .323/.352/.576 and winning the World Series in his rookie year.

His career numbers would have been even better if he hadn't missed three years of his prime serving in the US military. DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is a record that nobody will ever break. He was so famous that there's an old joke where he's on TV shaking hands with the Pope, and two men are watching in a bar, and one says to the other, "Hey, who's that up there with Joe DiMaggio?"

Aaron Judge (2017*, 2022, 2024-2025)

Aaron Judge is at the peak of his Hall of Fame career. The Yankees captain is fresh off back-to-back MVP awards, putting up the offensive numbers like Barry Bonds in the early 2000s. Judge has no peers in the batter's box. He stands alone at the top of the game.

In 10 years with the Yankees, Judge is hitting .294/.413/.615, and during his four-year peak from 2022 to 2025, he's batting .311/.439/.677. All Judge needs to do to cement himself onto the Yankees Mount Rushmore is win a World Series title.

*Finished second to Jose Altuve who benefited from the Astros cheating scandal.

Lou Gehrig (1927, 1936)

Gehrig is the prototypical first baseman. A left-handed batter, he played 17 years with the Yankees, won seven championships, and hit .340/.447/.632. Gehrig is the Yankees' all-time leader in triples, RBIs, extra-base hits, and second in batting average, OBP, SLG, hits, doubles, total bases, and WAR.

Gehrig's farewell address, delivered on the infield at Yankee Stadium, is one of the most iconic moments in franchise history. He played in 2,130 consecutive games, a record broken by Cal Ripken Jr. in 1995, and hit 23 career grand slams, which was a record until Alex Rodriguez broke it in 2013. Because of his illness, Gehrig was elected to the Hall of Fame via a Special Election in 1939, the same year he retired.

Babe Ruth (1923)

Ruth was a Yankee from 1920 to 1934 — 15-year stretch where he hit .349/.484/.711 and won four World Series titles. He is the franchise leader in WAR, batting average, SLG, OBP, runs, total bases, home runs, walks, and at-bats per home run.

Before Babe Ruth, baseball was a stick-and-ball game known for its slaphappy, low-scoring contests. After Babe Ruth, it was a brawny gladiator match. Ruth was both a hitter and a pitcher, and it took 100 years for a player of that magnitude to appear in the game again. There is no contest, Babe Ruth is the most important player in the history of the franchise and the sport.