After Aaron Judge hit 52 home runs in 2017 to set a then-MLB rookie record, one could be forgiven for thinking the Yankees outfielder had already had the best season of his career.
The same could be said after he set the American League single-season home run record in 2022 with 62 homers.
Yet in 2024, he might be having an even better all-around season. Through 111 games, he is hitting .322 with 41 home runs, 103 RBI, 92 walks, a .456 on-base percentage, 1.157 OPS, and 219 OPS+. He leads the Major Leagues in every one of those stats except for batting average, where he ranks third.
Even his former manager, Joe Girardi, is in awe of how Judge has continued to improve over eight MLB seasons. Now part of the YES Network broadcast team, Girardi was in the booth to see Judge smack a 2-1 fastball from Yariel Rodriguez into centerfield for a base hit against the Blue Jays over the weekend. The ball came off his bat at 104.4 mph.
“I mean, I don’t think he had the ability when he first came up to necessarily hit a fastball down and away for a line drive over the second baseman’s head like he did,” Girardi said. “But he does now, and you’re like, ‘Come on, man. Really?’”
Aaron Judge has evolved as a Yankees slugger
Girardi, who managed the Yankees from 2008-17, knew right away that Judge had the potential to be great. The Yankees captain broke into the Majors in 2016, when he hit just .179 in 27 games, but, appropriately, homered in his first MLB at bat.
“I remember how respectful he was and then just watching him hit, how the ball jumped off his bat,” Girardi recalled to Erik Boland of Newsday. “I remember thinking, ooh, this could be something.”
Girardi learned quickly that he was right. Judge hit .303 with 10 home runs the next April to kick off his historic rookie campaign. As lethal as he was at the plate, however, he still had his weaknesses. Judge struck out a league-high 208 times as breaking pitches continued to fool him.
“In 2017, he batted .212 on breaking balls with a .429 slug,” Girardi said. “He’s hitting .263 with a .609 slug [this year]. What I’ve seen is that he’s learned to lay off the chase breaking ball and swing at the hanger. And he’s very dangerous. He’s always hit fastballs, but to me that [adjustment to breaking balls] has been the biggest improvement.”
So far this season, Judge has homered 13 times off breaking pitches. Except for his historic 2022 season when he hit 21, he had never exceeded eight home runs in a season off breaking balls, according to Baseball Savant. Girardi indicated that one of the reasons for the improvement is because he's making more contact.
“What you’ve seen is that in 2017, his whiff rate on breaking balls was 50%,” he explained. “This year it’s 41%. But that’s a substantial difference. Because that means for every 100, he’s hitting nine more of them. And if he hits it, it’s damage . . . because he has learned to lay off pitches. This is the lowest his strikeout rate has ever been. And that’s scary. A guy with his power to have almost average strikeout percentage, that’s a scary thought.”
That scary thought may be why teams are again opting not to pitch to Judge. In three games against Toronto over the weekend, the Jays intentionally walked him four times and pitched around him two other times. Of course he still managed to homer twice in the series.
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