TAMPA – Aaron Judge is looking to improve the almost unprecedented 2024 season.
Still, no matter what he does during the upcoming regular season, it's pretty much put aside as the Yankees make the playoffs and waits for the baseball world to see how the judges do it in October.
Because last year, two things stand out. The judge's otherworldly performance during the regular season is mainly an ugly postseason where judges were mostly at the highest numbers of his career, and then the judges were mostly confused at the plate.
The judge is well aware of that second fact.
“We definitely need to improve,” the judge told Steinbrenner Field this week. “The last postseason wasn't the best. I know '22 wasn't that great either. I don't want to think about negatives, but that's part of it. That's the role I'm in. When you're on top, that's what happens. I have to improve. I have to get better, and I have some ideas. I'll see what happens.”
He was asked to expand on these ideas, but the judge declined, but he has already spoken about his current spring to avoid a slow start to the regular season.
The judge hopes to win more at-bats in the spring training game.
However, it is unclear how he can change his routine into the regular season.
He stayed healthy last year and didn't show it later in the regular season when he was equally dangerous at the plate throughout the majority of the rest of the year, if his 158-game workload hit a 6-foot-7 judge.
His struggle in October not only went back to last year, but as the judge pointed out in 2022, he actually stopped hits in 2018 after hitting Homer in three consecutive games.
Since ALDS's Game 3 against Red Sox, the judge has played 42 playoff games, putting out 0.657 OPS with nine home runs in 191 plate appearances, doubles, 25 steps, and 57 strikeouts.
And last year, the Yankees led the Yankees mainly with an OPS of 1.102, reaching the World Series behind the scenes of Fan Soto, who led the Yankees in Giancarlo Stanton's Team High 7 Homer.
The judge's disappointment is more in that the Yankees were short on the Dodgers in five games than his own stats.
“It means we didn't get the job done,” the judge said. “I had a good postseason and we didn't get out of it [division series]. So, what are there to talk about there? There may be one good game, but then I'm sitting at home. All that matters is that the team wins.”
And like the other Yankees, he is still waiting for his first title – and it doesn't matter how they lack.
“It's the same as every other season, whether they make a postseason or lose in the World Series,” the judge said. “It's going to sit with you and you have to deal with it. But you can't stick with it.”
But you can think about it, and it is something that remains in the judge's mind.
“When I signed here again [as a free agent]championships, multiple championships,” the judge said. “Money and that's great, but I want to win. We have to do more to make sure that happens.”
And he repeated his plan to make sure he was part of it: “I have some ideas.”
