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Friday is ‘Aaron Judge Football Jersey Night’ at Yankee Stadium, where the first 18,000 arrivals will receive a gridiron-inspired keepsake from the legendary slugger’s greatest season – a development that may surprise casual fans.
Somehow, Judge has managed to improve upon his 2022 MVP campaign, when he broke Roger Maris’ American League record with 62 homers on the year. This season Judge has posted career highs in batting average (.333), on-base percentage (.467), slugging percentage (.731) and a host of advanced analytics all while blasting 51 homers over 132 games.
And he still has another month to go.
But while Yankees faithful may clamor for No. 99 collectibles in the Bronx on Friday (and again during Sunday’s ‘Aaron Judge Tall Order Socks’ promotion), his historic ascent has failed to generate nationwide interest like his nearest competitors.
For instance, fans were lining up in Los Angeles six and seven hours before Shohei Ohtani bobblehead night on Wednesday amid his widely celebrated first season with the Dodgers. And whereas Judge got all but two first-place votes for American League MVP in 2022, he’s now facing a serious challenge from Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. this season.
Aaron Judge celebrates with teammates after a first-inning home run on Sunday
Judge has one month to break his own American League record of 62 home runs in a season
Judge’s 2024 is even more impressive considering his slow start. He entered May 5 hitting just .209 with a paltry (for him) .409 slugging percentage.
But Judge tweaked his stance while homering off Tigers ace Tarik Skubal that day and has not looked back.
Since May 5, Judge has hit a remarkable .381 while reaching base on more than half of his plate appearances. In fact, Judge’s .513 on-base percentage over his last 97 games is 87 points better than his closest rival, Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez.
Along the way, Judge became the first player in MLB history to hit .375 or better with 45 home runs over a 100-game span. Remarkably, only 11 players ever have produced that much over an entire season.
And On August 15, in a 10-2 win over the lowly Chicago White Sox, Judge smacked his 300th career home run in just his 955th career game – the fewest of anyone to reach that plateau.
Aaron Judge is doused with water after hitting his 300th home run on August 14 in Chicago
In traditional Judge fashion, he undersold the accomplishment when speaking with reporters.
‘It’s a great achievement,’ he said. ‘Like I said a couple days ago, I was hoping it would come in a win. It came in a big win for us. We were down for a little bit, couldn’t get much going, so I was just excited it was there in a big moment.’
Judge’s humility notwithstanding, the California native has absolutely slugged his way into baseball history, even if the numbers can be difficult to parse at times.
As with other sports, baseball statistics are not easily comparable across generations. Generally speaking, the 60s were considered a golden age for pitchers, while power hitters famously enjoyed historic success during the steroid-tainted late 1990s and early 2000s.
There are also issues with comparing hitters and pitchers who play home games in dramatically different ballparks. For instance, Yankee Stadium’s famously short right-field porch serves as a tremendous crutch for power hitters, while sabotaging even the best pitchers in the game.
To account for these discrepancies and to avoid unfair comparisons, a statistic known as ‘Adjusted OPS+’ was developed.
Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth sit by the batting cage at League Park in Cleveland in July of 1927
Essentially, OPS+ allows fans, historians, and reporters to compare players without any statistical noise from park factors or generational trends. A league-average OPS+ is 100 in any given season, whereas an OPS+ of 150 indicates the hitter was 50 percent better than a league-average batsman.
That means Judge’s career-best, MLB-leading 229 OPS+ in 2024 is 129 percent better than a league-average hitter this season. Most importantly, that figure accounts for any advantage Judge receives from Yankee Stadium’s aforementioned short right-field porch.
Not only is Judge’s current OPS+ superior to his 2022 mark by 19 points, but it’s among the greatest in baseball history. Josh Gibson, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and a handful of early 20th century hitters boast better single-season production, but only Bonds has done so this millennium.
If Judge has any current rivals in terms of offensive skills, it’s the Dodgers’ Ohtani and his own teammate, Juan Soto.
The first-year Yankee and soon-to-be free agent is second in baseball with an OPS+ of 180, and should he decide to re-sign in the Bronx, would preserve the game’s most formidable offensive duo since, arguably, Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
Not convinced?
Ruth and Gehrig were the only two teammates in baseball history to each post a 180 OPS+ and 35 home runs in the same season until Soto and Judge did so over the first five months of 2024.
And when it comes to Wins Above Replacement – a stat known as ‘WAR’ that serves to measure how many victories a specific player is worth in a given year – Soto and Judge are on pace for a combined 21.0.
Should they reach that mark, the duo would become the first teammates in MLB history to do it since Ruth and Gehrig did so with the 1927 Yankees.
Of course, the Yankees won the World Series that year, which remains the one area where Judge fails to compare with Ruth, Gehrig and the other team legends.
Even for a late bloomer (his rookie year was delayed until he was 25), Judge’s career statistics should be more than enough for him to qualify for Cooperstown. But to Yankees fans, who have enjoyed 27 World Series crowns, the game’s greatest hitter can only be judged by what he does in October.
And in the end, that’s the only statistic that Judge is still chasing.
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