There have been three players who won MVP Awards and then were playing for a new team by Opening Day of the next season. One was Alex Rodriguez, after he won with the Rangers in 2003. Giancarlo Stanton left the Marlins after hitting 59 homers in 2017. The third was Barry Bonds, who won with the Pirates in 1992 and was playing for the Giants in ‘93.

Rodriguez and Stanton were traded. Bonds is the only one who left as a free agent. Now, if Aaron Judge beats out Shohei Ohtani and wins the MVP Award in the American League, he will have the chance to leave the Yankees on his own accord after one of the great seasons any hitter has ever had and play somewhere else.

• The latest Aaron Judge rumors

There is that story in this baseball offseason -- unless Angels GM Perry Minasian changes his mind about trading Ohtani.

It means that after hitting 62 home runs and breaking the all-time American League home run record, after hitting more homers in a single season than Babe Ruth did and more than Roger Maris’ 61 in ’61, Judge remains the player to watch.

Here is what Brian Cashman -- someone else who is presently between contracts -- said at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas the other day about Judge:

“I have no confidence either way. You enter this process not assuming anything. The one thing I do know is I think [Judge] really enjoys the experience here. Those are his words. I know we certainly enjoyed the experience of having him and we’re proud of his career thus far, and we hope to be a part of his career the rest of the way.”

Then Cashman added: “We’ll make it tough [for Judge to leave]. I’m sure he’ll make it tough on us. That’s the nature of the beast.”

This all plays out after the beast of a season Judge had after rejecting the Yankees’ offer of a contract extension in the spring (seven years, $213.5 million). Judge hit 62 homers, knocked in 131, had an OPS of 1.111 and a slugging percentage of .636 -- numbers that have already won him the Hank Aaron Award as outstanding offensive performance in his league. His batting average was .311.

In Bonds’ MVP year with the Pirates in 1992, he also hit .311, with 34 homers, 103 RBIs, OPS of 1.080, and slugged .624. In 2017, Stanton hit 59 homers, knocked in 132, batted .281, had an OPS of 1.007 and slugged .631. Rodriguez, before being traded to the Yankees on Presidents’ Day weekend in 2004, hit 47 homers, knocked in 118, batted .298, slugged .600 on the nose and had an OPS of .995.

The Rangers wanted to get rid of Rodriguez’s contract at the time. Same for the Marlins with Stanton. The Pirates couldn’t afford to keep Bonds. It is different with Judge, who just had a historic season, is considered the face of the Yankees and who played for a team that has set records for spending across the last quarter-century.

You would think that money won’t be an object for the Yankees as Judge has set himself up for a “pot of gold,” as Cashman called it. Except money was very much an object back in the spring when Judge rejected the offer made to him by the Yankees. He decided to play out his contract and make a huge bet on himself. We all know how that turned out.

Judge is 30 years old now. The other three players in this conversation -- Bonds, Rodriguez, Stanton -- were all 28 when they changed teams. Rodriguez would go on to win two more MVP Awards with the Yankees. Bonds went to the Giants, the team for which his dad played, and won another MVP Award in ’93 after having an even better season than he had with the ’92 Pirates: 46 homers, 123 RBIs, .336 average, 1.136 OPS. He slugged .677.

Everything stopped in baseball at the end of the regular season as Judge chased Ruth and then Maris and finally passed them both. Now comes an entirely different turn at-bat, the spotlight still very much on him, an at-bat that will define the second half of his career.

Here is what Judge said after the Yankees were swept by the Astros in the ALCS:

"I’ve been clear about that since I first wore the pinstripes, but you know we couldn’t get something done before Spring Training and now I’m a free agent. We’ll see what happens.”

We’ll all see if he plays his whole career as a Yankee the way Lou Gehrig did, and Mickey Mantle, and Yogi, and Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, or if he is the first great Yankee who chooses to walk away from the uniform and the place and the tradition and all the rest of it.

Only one thing is certain right now: No. 99 is still very much in season. Still swinging for the fences.