![[object Object] Logo](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2020/04/22/e9ceb731-8b3f-4c60-98fe-090ab66a2997/screen-shot-2020-04-22-at-11-04-56-am.png)
The numbers are preposterous: Aaron Judge, captain of the New York Yankees, is hitting .333/.465/.736 with 51 home runs and 122 RBI this season. Fifty-one homers and 122 RBI have won guys MVPs, but it is only Aug. 26, and Judge still has another 31 team games remaining to add to his totals. This is one of the greatest offensive seasons ever.
"I'm kinda running out of words to say," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after Judge hit his 49th home run last Friday (via Newsday). "You're witnessing greatness. You really are. He's just kinda better than everyone."
Judge leads baseball in home runs, RBI, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, WAR, on and on we could go. He is on pace for 101 extra-base hits and 418 total bases. Only 15 times has a player recorded 100 extra-base hits in a season and only 29 times a player has reached 400 total bases. It's been done 13 times in the same season, and only four times in the last 76 years.
| Extra-base hits | Total bases | |
|---|---|---|
Barry Bonds, 2001 | 107 | 411 |
Luis Gonzalez, 2001 | 100 | 419 |
Todd Helton, 2001 | 105 | 402 |
Sammy Sosa, 2001 | 103 | 425 |
Todd Helton, 2000 | 103 | 405 |
Judge has hit seven home runs in his last six games and 19 homers in his last 36 games. He's on pace for 63 home runs, which would of course break his own American League single-season record (62 in 2022). Judge hit a then-rookie record 52 home runs in 2017 and it will be, at best, the third-best season in his career. It's remarkable.
The power and the home runs get all the attention and that's understandable, but there is so much more to Judge than homers. He's a great all-around hitter period, not just a great power hitter. In at-bats that don't end in a home run, Judge is hitting .250 with a .413 on-base percentage. This is not a home run-or-bust player.
Here are four ways Judge's season is impressive even beyond the home run total.
He started slowly
Relatively speaking, of course. On April 20, Judge went 0 for 4 with four strikeouts, and was booed on his bobblehead day at Yankee Stadium. That dropped his season batting line to .179/.323/.359. Three days later, he bottomed out at .174/.308/.337. In the 106 games since, Judge has put up numbers that are difficult to fathom. Look at this:
| Judge | Next best (min. 400 PA) | |
|---|---|---|
Batting average | .370 | Bobby Witt Jr. (.358) |
On-base percentage | .500 | Juan Soto (.426) |
Slugging percentage | .828 | Witt (.621) |
OPS | 1.328 | Soto (1.044) |
Home runs | 48 | Shohei Ohtani (36) |
This is not a two-week hot streak. That's more than four months of dominance. More than four months of reaching base as often as he made an out. Just to give you an idea how absurd a 1.328 OPS is, Judge's OPS would go down after a 1 for 4 night with a home run. Judge spotted the league the month of April, basically, and he's still running away with the title of baseball's best hitter.
He's cut his strikeouts
It has been eight days and 27 plate appearances since Judge last struck out. His last strikeout was last Sunday, in the Little League Classic against the Detroit Tigers. Judge has struck out in 23.4% of his plate appearances this season, well south of his previous career low (25.0% in 2021). The MLB average is 22.4%, so Judge is above that, but the guy is 6-foot-7 with a large strike zone. Strikeouts will always be part of his game. Judge had a 30.7% strikeout rate when he hit those 52 homers as a rookie in 2017. In 2022, the 62 homers came with a 25.1% strikeout rate. Now it's down to 23.4%. The game's best power hitter is also making more contact than ever.
This might be the best season by a righty hitter ever
Adjusted OPS, or OPS+, adjusts for ballpark, the league offensive environment, etc. It's the easiest and most straightforward way to compare hitters across eras. A 100 OPS+ is league average. The bigger the number, the better. Anything below 100 is below average. Here are the 10 best seasons in AL/NL history by OPS+:
| Player | OPS+ |
|---|---|
1. Barry Bonds, 2002 | 268 |
2. Barry Bonds, 2004 | 263 |
3. Barry Bonds, 2001 | 259 |
4. Babe Ruth, 1920 | 255 |
5. Babe Ruth, 1921 | 239 |
6. Babe Ruth, 1923 | 239 |
7. Ted Williams, 1941 | 235 |
8. Ted Williams, 1957 | 233 |
9. Barry Bonds, 2003 | 231 |
10. Aaron Judge, 2024 | 230 |
We're not playing small sample size games early in the season. It's Aug. 26. There's a little more than a month left in the regular season and Judge is flirting with one of the 10 best offensive seasons in AL/NL history.
Also, note that Bonds, Ruth, and Williams were all left-handed hitters. Judge is on pace to have the greatest offensive season by a right-handed hitter in AL/NL history. Right now that distinction belongs to Rogers Hornsby, who had a 222 OPS+ in 1924. Hornsby, Judge, Sosa, Jeff Bagwell, Jimmie Foxx, Nap Lajoie, Mark McGwire, Frank Thomas, and Honus Wagner are the only right-handed hitters in history with a 200 OPS+ season.
Furthermore, Foxx and Hornsby are the only righties with two 200 OPS+ seasons. Judge had a 210 OPS+ in 2022 and will almost certainly join those two in the club this year. Because he's a righty and most pitchers are right-handed, Judge has had the platoon advantage in only 26% of his plate appearances. There's more velocity and nastier breaking stuff in the game now than ever too. It's never been harder to hit, and yet Judge is putting together one of the all-time great seasons.
"I got to this point trying to be a good hitter and a good teammate, so that's what I'm going to try to do," Judge said Sunday (via MLB.com). "I feel like if I can do that, we can look up at the end of the year, and I think the numbers will be where they're supposed to be."
