When he was named the 2022 American League MVP on Thursday night, Aaron Judge became only the sixth player in MLB history to become a free agent in the same year as he won an MVP Award. It isn’t often that the best player in either league is on the open market — it happened just once before Judge in the last three decades.
As the baseball world watches with bated breath as Judge mulls over where he will sign what is sure to be an enormous contract after he set a new AL record with 62 homers, here’s a look at where the previous MVP winners who were free agents ended up the following year:
2007: Alex Rodriguez re-signs with Yankees
Rodriguez launched 54 homers, drove in 156 runs and posted a 1.067 OPS for the Yankees to win his third AL MVP Award in 2007. That was the seventh season of a then-record 10-year, $252 million contract he signed with the Rangers prior to the 2001 campaign (Texas traded A-Rod to New York in 2004). But it was also the first time Rodriguez could opt out of the deal, and he did so.
Although it seemed that Rodriguez’s time with the Yankees was at an end given that his agent announced the opt-out during the World Series, the Yanks inked a fresh 10-year, $275 million deal with the superstar slugger that broke his own record for largest MLB contract in history.
Due to injuries and a suspension for violation of the MLB Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment program that cost him the entire 2014 season, Rodriguez only played in more than 150 games in a season once over his remaining nine with the Yankees.
1992: Barry Bonds signs with the Giants
Bonds’ departure from Pittsburgh, where he won two National League MVP Awards and rose to the stature of best position player in baseball, was all but a foregone conclusion given the Pirates’ inability to afford a superstar of his caliber once he hit free agency.
Following a 1992 campaign in which he put up the best numbers of his career to that point — a 1.080 OPS, 34 home runs, 127 walks — and led the Pirates to their third consecutive NL Championship Series, Bonds signed with the team on which his father, Bobby, became a star two decades earlier. Bonds inked a seven-year, $43.75 million deal with the Giants, returning to the city his father and godfather — Willie Mays — had called home.
From there, Bonds won five more MVP Awards in 15 years with San Francisco.
1989: Robin Yount re-signs with Brewers
Yount won his second career MVP Award by posting an .896 OPS with 21 homers and 19 steals for Milwaukee in 1989. He became a free agent that offseason, but re-signed with the only Major League organization he had ever known, inking a three-year, $9.6 million pact.
The future Hall of Famer played another four Major League seasons, all with the Brewers, before calling it a career. He hit .257/.330/.381 with 43 homers and 45 steals over that span.
1987: Andre Dawson re-signs with Cubs
When Dawson famously sent “a blank contract” to the Cubs in 1987, asking them to fill it in with whatever the club felt was fair, no one knew just how great of a signing he would turn out to be, even after his great 11-year run with the Expos.
Dawson went on to smash a career-high 49 home runs while driving in 137 and accumulating 353 total bases, also career bests. He also won the seventh of eight career Gold Glove Awards in the outfield. After signing “The Hawk” for a $500,000 base salary in 1987, Chicago inked him to a three-year, $6 million deal the following offseason.
Dawson was an All-Star again in each of the next three years and was signed to an extension during that period that kept him on the North Side of Chicago through the 1992 campaign.
1976: Joe Morgan re-signs with Reds
Morgan won back-to-back NL MVP Awards in 1975 and ’76, helping the “Big Red Machine” win the World Series in both years. But in the offseason after his second MVP honor, he had the opportunity to leave Cincinnati as a free agent if the Reds didn’t sign him by March 10, 1977. Negotiations dragged into Spring Training, but the two sides finally reached an agreement on a three-year, $1.3 million deal.
Morgan did not replicate his MVP-level performances of 1975-76, though he was still productive, posting an .801 OPS with 44 homers and 96 steals over that period. When that contract was up, the veteran second baseman signed with Houston, the club with whom he made his MLB debut in 1963.
The Astros released Morgan following the 1980 season. He signed with the Giants, and after two seasons in San Francisco, he was traded to the Phillies. He finished his playing career with his hometown club, the A’s, in 1984.