Aaron Judge has been so great, so important, and so ignored while we’ve obsessed over some of the Yankees’ minor shortcomings (the rotation, the back end of the bullpen, the hustle), that I was going to wait to write about him on a Yankees off day, when he won’t be competing for space with our game coverage. But since the White Sox game is the closest thing to an off day, I’ll write about him today.
Oh, you’re saying Judge has already received a fair amount of praise?
I don’t think it’s enough yet. Not enough at all.
Judge has an OPS-plus of 219, which is the best approximation of batting value and means he’s more than double the league average. Barring Barry Bonds’s bigger, late-career player, this is the best since Mickey Mantle posted 221 in his 1957 MVP year.
“[Judge] “He put himself in the realm of Ruth and Gehrig,” Yankees great Reggie Jackson told The Post.
If Judge maintains his 200-plus streak, he’ll become just the third player in the past 50 years to reach 200 in a full 162-game season without any illegal assistance; the others are George Brett (203 in his 1980 MVP season) and Judge himself (210 in 2022). Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas did it in the strike-shortened 1994 season, and Juan Soto did it in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. (Bonds*, Mark McGwire* and Sammy Sosa* all did it with medical assistance.)
Plus, Judge gave everyone a month’s head start. His April was comparable to Alex Verdugo’s (Verdugo actually led in OPS, .804 to .754). Earlier this season, Judge ran into Jackson, now an executive with the Astros (he lost to the Yankees, but that’s another story). According to Jackson, Judge told him, “Reggie, you’re not doing well. But you’ll be fine.”
No joke. It took Judge a while to get back on track, but in his final 84 games, he’s been almost invincible: .382 batting average, 36 home runs, 88 RBIs, .513 on-base percentage, .826 slugging percentage, and a 1.339 OPS. He led the MLB in every category except batting average, and also led walks, intentional walks, total bases and a host of other analytical categories.
And he’s doing it while receiving sporadic coverage at the No. 4 position. The Yankees have been better at that position since Austin Wells was traded and Giancarlo Stanton was brought back, but for half a season, the Bronx Bombers had the worst record in the league at the No. 4 position.
Judge has 299 career home runs, and it would be a surprise if he doesn’t become the fastest South Side player to reach 300 (or reach base on balls). That record is held by Ralph Kiner, who reached 300 in his 1,087th game. Judge is on the cusp of reaching that mark with just 952 home runs.
Jackson is projected to reach 600 home runs.
“And I hope he does,” Jackson said. “He’s a good guy.”
Don’t bet on him.
“He’s never satisfied,” said former Yankees bench coach and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, “He wants to be better than the competition. But to him it doesn’t matter how good he is, it’s all about winning.”
That’s probably a big reason why he stayed here.
Judge is so good that his then-free-agent record $360 million contract looks like a rare bargain. But credit to Judge for turning down further offers from his hometown Giants (who eventually matched his initial $360 million offer) and the Padres (who offered $400 million or more but didn’t formalize it because Judge didn’t want to waste time). And credit to Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner, who made the right call by raising the bid from $320 million to eight players after serious internal debate by the club’s top brass. (Ultimately, it was Steinbrenner and Judge who closed the deal.)
The first decision Steinbrenner made about Judge, Jackson recalled, came in the spring of 2017, when Yankees officials were debating whether to give him a major league start after Judge struck out 44 percent of his times in a brief cameo in 2016. Steinbrenner gave the go-ahead.
According to Jackson, Steinbrenner polled his guys at the time about whether Judge was ready, and Steinbrenner told Judge, “Well, if you can survive 200 strikeouts, and he can survive 200 strikeouts, he’s going to hit 15 home runs and 15 more fly balls over the fence.”
Jackson recalled being badly deceived by him.
“He hit 26 and 26,” Jackson said, pointing to the 52 home runs that would have earned him a second MVP award (the award went to the great Jose Altuve a year before Yankees fans really started to hate Altuve).
As for this year’s award, Royals shortstop Bobby Witt would have been not just a strong but good candidate in any other season, as would Soto, but let’s be realistic: Judge’s OPS of 1.160 is 14 percent better than runner-up Soto’s 1.018.
Witt is the best defensive shortstop ever, but Judge still leads in WAR (8 and 8.3 WAR for both, in fact). Witt is a genius, but Judge is the best player of all time, and we need to stop taking that for granted.
