The season ended officially shortly before midnight on Oct. 30 when Alex Verdugo was easily struck out by Walker Buehler and in the immediate aftermath the season was deemed a failure for the New York Yankees because they fell three wins short of winning their first World Series since 2009.

The sting still remains but this week brought a reminder in the context of reaching the World Series the season was a success and also brought pleasant memories of notable performances during the 94-win regular season.

And perhaps nobody signified it like Aaron Judge, who was unanimously named the AL MVP Thursday, winning the award for the second time in three seasons and doing so after a massive power display.

Judge won the award after hitting 62 homers to break the AL record set by Roger Maris. Symbolically he broke the mark 61 years after Maris connected into the lower right field seats off Boston’s Tracy Stallard to finish with seven more than Babe Ruth in 1927.

While Ruth’s and Maris set those records in championship seasons, Judge MVP seasons occurred when the Yankees fell short and Judge did not his consistently well in the postseason, especially in 2022.

Judge’s second MVP season saw him finish with 58, though for a while he was on pace to break his own record. He reached 50 on Aug. 24 and then hit his 51st in the same game but any chance at surpassing 62 was done in by a career-worst 16-game homerless drought.

Still even with falling slightly short of his own record, Judge’s overall numbers eclipsed his 2022 season.

Judge was a .322 hitter and supplemented his best career average with a .458 on base percentage, .701 slugging percentage, a 1.159 OPS and was well above the league average with a 223 OPS+ (100 is league average). He also set a career with 133 walks while getting the Barry Bonds treatment on occasion late in the season and his 144 RBIs were 13 more than 2022.

“I was talking to [two-time MVP Bryce] Harper a lot this season and telling him, ‘Man, I’m going to try to catch up to you in these MVPs here,’” Judge joked on his interview with MLB network. “It means a lot [to win another]. Just a lot of hard work in the offseason, during the season, the ups and downs throughout it. Just the constant support from my teammates, the fans in New York, just everybody to help me get to this spot.”

Among “everybody” was Juan Soto, whom he often watched take at-bats from the on-deck circle as the Yankees’ regular second and third place hitters combined for 99 homers.

“Seeing the pitches,” he said. “We all know this guy’s gonna be on base 50 percent of the time, if not more. But just the quality of every single at-bat. It didn’t matter if he went up there and flew out or struck out. If you’re going to strike out Juan Soto, it’s going to take 10-12 pitches to get it by him. It’s impressive. I get to see how the pitcher’s feeling today, what pitches are working, is he going to the two-seamer now, is he trying to go to his wipeout slider now. So it just gave me a better picture of what to expect stepping into the box.”

Judge’s MVP and Luis Gil winning Rookie of the Year on Monday officially closed the door on a 2024 season that had plenty of good stretches but not enough in the World Series, especially in the fifth inning of Game 5 which the Dodgers enjoyed talking about knowing the Yankees might struggle if a ball gets put in play.

Now the focus can fully shift to making sure Soto continues to see pitches ahead of Judge. Soto is up to the taking a meeting phase of one of baseball’s biggest free agent sagas that is perhaps is seeing more details than the pursuit of Shohei Ohtani, who went from allegedly signing with the Toronto Blue Jays to actually joining the Dodgers on a massively deferred deal.

The team, we needed somebody to play center, and I felt it was best for the team,” Judge said. “So I said, ‘I’ll play center field, as long as you guys need me out there. I’ll play left, I’ll play right. Whatever gives us the best lineup.’ Especially when you go out and get a guy like Juan Soto, the most important thing is making sure he’s comfortable. And when he’s comfortable, you can see what he does and what he did this year.”

The Yankees are hoping Judge is able to mention Soto as a teammate next season and managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner was part of the contingent meeting with the theatrical slugger in California with agent Scott Boras

“Our fans really enjoyed having him in New York,” Steinbrenner told reporters after the owner’s meetings in Manhattan on Wednesday. “He’s definitely a significant part of why we got to the World Series. I’ve got ears. I know what’s expected of me. It’s been a priority. Wouldn’t have gone out to the West Coast if it wasn’t.”

In a few weeks, the Yankees will present the dollar figures and hope it is enough to retain a generational left-handed slugger. In the meantime, they will appreciate his entire of body of work and what the pairing with Judge looked like.