Major League Baseball needs a face, and two of the best candidates play for the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
With all due respect to Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout, the top two players to be the marquee superstar in baseball are Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts and Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge.
Betts is the reigning American League MVP, a three-time Gold Glove winner and a World Series champion. Judge is a towering figure at 6-foot-7 who hits massive home runs and has helped lead the league's most historic franchise to the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.
So, who's the biggest superstar in baseball? Former Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez recently gave his answer to WFAN's Mike Francesca, and Red Sox fans aren't going to like it.
If the competition for the league's biggest star was based on stats and winning, Betts probably would take the crown. The case for Judge improves if you include personality and other intangibles. Rodriguez is right about Judge being a "transcendant athlete." Judge's immense size and the power he brings to the plate play into that, and baseball would be wise to market those exciting attritubes he brings to the field.
Both Betts and Judge admitted recently they have a lot of respect for each other, and their emergence as premier stars has helped bring back the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry after it died down a bit following an intense 2004 season.
Boston Red Sox
Betts deserves to be the leader for the title of MLB's biggest star entering 2019 after he won almost every individual award and the World Series last year. But you can bet Judge will be highly motivated to knock his rival off that perch, especially after the Red Sox sent the Yankees home for the winter in the American League Division Series last October.
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