Is Judge Better Than We Realize?

A post about how insanely great a baseball player Aaron Judge is may seem superfluous to some…but not to the folks associated with MBP!

Prior to Tuesday’s game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that he wasn’t trying to “sound silly” but he believed Judge wasn’t particularly hot. As good as Judge had been, he hadn’t truly been squaring balls up consistently according to Boone, and when he did, it was going to be scary. (For what it’s worth, I agreed with Boone’s take…)

Since then, Judge has been a little hot (he typed, understatedly…). He’s reached base in eight of his last nine plate appearances, and in the six ABs he wasn’t walked, he collected five hits – three of them struck at over 100 mph and two of them went over the wall.

There’s no need to get wordy today, so let’s keep it short and sweet and take it from there…

• In Judge’s last 162 games, he’s posted 14.3 fWAR. Over the same period, Shohei Ohtani and Bryce Harper have combined for 13.9, while Juan Soto and Jose Ramirez have combined for 13.1.
• Judge has posted a 249 wRC+ over his last 162 games – Barry Bonds’ single season high was 244.
• Over that same period, Adley Rutschman has the 88^th highest wRC+ in MLB with 100. At number 88, Rutschman is closer to number two – Ohtani with 174 – than Ohtani is to Judge at number one.
• Josh Gibson is the only right-handed batter to even come close to what Judge has done over his last 162, posting a 250 OPS+ over 146 games at one stretch in his career.

As I discussed in a Bluesky thread recently, the scary part is that Judge may actually be getting better and may not have hit his peak yet. Judge just turned 33 – Henry Aaron and Willie Mays had their best offensive seasons at ages 37 and 34 respectively.

Even if this is an aberration of a three plus season hot streak, and Judge does begin to decline, consider this: His 2025 production could drop by 33% and he’d still be the best hitter and best player in MLB.

All rise kids – this is going to be fun to watch.

Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments, or yell at me on the “My Baseball Page” on Blue Sky.

Recommended reading: “62: Aaron Judge, the New York Yankees, and the Pursuit of Greatness”.

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