Judge is far from the only player to denounce the Astros. Mike Trout on Sunday told reporters he had “lost some respect” for some of Houston’s players, and the Braves’ Nick Markakis said he thought that “every single guy over there needs a beating.”

Shortly after Judge spoke, a Yankees fan named LeBron James, a winner of a handful of M.V.P. Awards in his own sport, posted his thoughts on the scandal consuming baseball. “Listen I know I don’t play baseball but I am in sports and I know if someone cheated me out of winning the title and I found out about it I would be irate,” he wrote on Twitter, adding a censored expletive.

But the Astros’ scheme may have affected Judge uniquely. The Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger said last week that Altuve “stole an M.V.P.” from Judge, who said Tuesday that he agreed with a lot of Bellinger’s comments — but stopped short of making the same accusation.

“The biggest thing is, I’ve got to make sure next time I don’t keep the vote so close,” Judge said. “I’ve got to go out there and win it outright so there’s no question. He won it and that’s how it is.”

Altuve actually trounced Judge in the balloting, with 27 first-place votes from baseball writers to Judge’s two. (The other first-place vote went to Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez.) More important, Judge said, was that the Astros’ cheating might have cost the Yankees a pennant. The Yankees have not been to the World Series since 2009, when Judge was in high school.

“I was pretty mad, pretty upset to know that we were probably cheated out of the possibility of making it to the World Series,” he said. “To hear that you got cheated out of that opportunity, that’s tough to let go.”