Two sluggers, Paul Goldschmidt of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees, were named the MLB National League (NL) and American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) respectively, the MLB announced on Thursday.

Both won the award for the first time. In his 12th season in the major league, Goldschmidt led the NL in slugging (.578) and ranked third in batting average (.317), second (115) in runs batted in (RBIs) and fifth (35) in home runs. His on-base plus slugging (OPS) of .981 was also the best in the NL.

This incredible performance made Goldschmidt the fifth player in major league history to secure his first MVP at 35 years or above. He is also the first since Dennis Eckersley of the Oakland Athletics in 1992.

"I think definitely as you age, you have to adapt, and that's some of what I've tried to do. I've tried to get ahead of it," Goldschmidt told MLB Network. "You can't just try to do the same thing you did the year before. But yeah, kind of the stigma that as you get older, you're going to keep getting worse. I mean, nobody likes that. They don't like being told you can't do something, so it's definitely motivation."

Though the Yankees finished their 2022 season being swept by the Houston Astros in the AL Championship Series, the regular season was good enough for 30-year-old Judge (MVP voting ends before the playoffs). In his seventh season in the MLB, he became the AL leader in homers (62), RBIs (131), slugging percentage (.686), on-base percentage (.425), OPS+ (211) and total bases (391).

Judge also became the Yankees' first outfielder to win the MVP award since Mickey Mantle in 1962. The 62 home runs he hit are the fourth-most in major league history.

"It's tough to put in words. It's an incredible moment. A lot of hard work to get to this," Judge told MLB Network.

"For me, I want to win. I've come pretty close with the Yankees ... My ultimate, most important thing is I want to be on a team with a winning culture and a commitment to winning. First and foremost, it's a winning culture and a winning future," he added.