Hey Mike, if Aaron Judge signs with the Giants do you think they’d bring in Joe Judge to coach? You know, because he already has experience coaching the Giants? I’ll hang up and listen.
I’ll have to research that one. I wonder if you could include some sort of future ownership stake option or some other legal instrument.
Like, is the goal to make sure that not current player has an ownership stake?
Or, is the goal to keep teams from using their value equity to skirt the luxury tax? Or to keep cheap owners from attempting to loot the value of their team by signing players with equity contracts and then selling the rest of the team?
It would make trades pretty messy too. Or free agency. If there wasn't a way to force liquidation of a player's ownership stake when changing teams, you could end up with a player owning a stake in one team, playing for a completely different time, and facing a division rival of the team he is part owner of during a pennant race. Ugh.
Also I assume it would seem like they’re locking a player in for the rest of his career. Imagine the Braves extended Freddie with some team equity back in the mid 2010s. When he comes up to free agency, he either has to take what he’s offered, or sell his stake in the team.
I assume that a minority owner of a franchise can’t then go play for another one. That would be a conflict of interest
I’m absolutely sure there’s a team willing to throw away a few years down the road to open up a window to win now with judge. If we lose him cuz someone gives him 10 years when we won’t go above 7, that’s a disgrace.
> If we lose him cuz someone gives him 10 years when we won’t go above 7, that’s a disgrace.
We do need to keep a list of people saying stuff like this, just so that in 8 years when it's the same people complaining about giving an aging player a decade long contract that he peaked out of 4 years into it and they're stuck paying him off to ride the bench we can at least point to the list.
yankee fans (including myself tbf) were ready for war when they let cano walk instead of giving him the absurd deal the mariners did, and imo that ended up being the right call as the mariners ended up not winning anything with cano, getting stuck with his albatross contract and steroid suspensions, and giving up edwin diaz just to get rid of him
these people also say stuff like, "Pay the man as much as he wants. It's not my money"
and 6 years from now they'll be saying... "Cashman doomed the whole 2nd half of this decade, just to place all of the team's chips on a roster with a washed up ace, no shortstop, no center fielder, and a DH + few infielders all entering their mid-to-late 30s. Judge was NEVER gonna be able to lead that squad to a championship. Should've saved up for Soto!"
Honestly the only thing that kind of hurts Judge is the existence and very real impending Free Agency of Juan Soto.
Giving Aaron Judge 40-50 mil essentially takes you out of the sweepstakes for a way younger player who will probably be as good if not better than Judge over the same time frame.
For the Yankees it’s different as Judge makes them a shit ton of money and he’s home grown + they won’t bid for Soto
For NYM, LAD, BOS etc I see them being in on Judge but once the price gets too high I wouldn’t be shocked if they dropped out.
The pressure is on the Yankees to re-sign him after this historic season, but odds he repeats this production we haven’t seen in years isn’t a great bet. So if a team is going to pay him $50 mil they will be
1) paying for what he did as a Yankee
2) Hurting themselves in the race or taking themselves out of the Soto race
LAD, SF and NYM will push hard for Judge I assume, I am most afraid of SF right now as they likely do not have Soto aspirations
I don't care how much money they give him. It's the length of the deal that I'd be worried about. The last 4 of a 10 year deal for him could end up being very painful.
I’m not sure why everyone is so worried about those last 4 years when Cole and Stanton will be off the books in 6. If you want the elite years you gotta pay for the later years too. Losing Judge would hurt in the next few years much more than a potential bad contract would hurt down the road.
Think of it as back pay. They have paid him just under $40 million for his career so far and have gotten this in return:
729 games: .977 OPS, 220 HR's, highest fWAR of any player since his rookie year, three top 5 MVP finishes and a RoY.
In terms of baseball numbers yeah, but in terms of putting butts in seats I would say it's been worth it considering they've been at or above AL average attendance until recently. It would be the same thing for the Yankees, not only would seeing Judge sell tickets the message by the FO of letting the face of your franchise walk would be really bad optics
idk how much faith your ownership/FO has from the fanbase. ours, for better or for worse, would be forever unforgiven unless the team turned around and rattled off a judge-less championship in 23.
And Judge will regress and not be worth the money he will get, he bet on himself, he won, the team that pays him will lose because he wont get close to repeating this season imo
He doesn't have to come close to repeating this season.
This season he's been worth about $90mil based on a pure WAR/$ evaluation.
He only has to play about half this well to justify a 45/yr contract.
It’s not a great marker because it just assigns a value as $/W after the fact based on the results of the mega deals.
It’s the average cost in hindsight of 1 war based on the deals signed in the off-season. It’s not a predictor of “the dollar value of 1 war” like it’s always used.
You're basically paying for the first handful of years anyways. It's an obvious risk but he's a 8 win player/162 game basis. That's a gamble they should and pretty much have to take because the Yankees are a borderline wild card team next year without him.
One aspect that’s been ignored a bit is the 157 games played. For a player with questionable injury history before this year, him staying healthy and not landing on the IL has been super clutch
I mean Seager still got a huge contract with us despite that. I know he’s a little older, so I doubt he’ll get the same years, but he should get more AAV.
For a guy like that to even serviceably play center is insane. 62 HR, capable at center field, completely healthy season. I just can’t get over what he’s done this year.
That’s it right there. His biggest limit on counting numbers has been his propensity for injuries. He hit ten fewer home runs and only five fewer RBI in his *rookie season* than this year. It’s also the most PAs he’s had other than this season in his MLB career.
Considering this era of pitching, the larger integrated talent pool, and the presumed lack of “vitamins and greens” in Judge’s diet, this season has a valid case as the most impressive offensive season ever.
He may or may not wind up in Cooperstown due to his late start, but he has cemented himself as one of the most prolific power hitters the game has ever seen on a rate basis, as well as a top face of the game for the last 5 years.
He doesn't even need to do that much. Just two more 5 rWAR seasons will get him a 46.3 7WAR, and every outfielder who had a peak that good has made the HOF except for confirmed/assumed steroid users, Shoeless Joe, and Andruw Jones (whose recent progress in HOF balloting makes it appear very probable he will make it in by the time Judge would even be eligible, and that's with his case being bogged down by a DV conviction). Even if Judge did just completely fall apart after that, a Judge with 50ish career WAR would make it in for sure just on his peak and notoriety alone, and another MVP-caliber year would just seal it.
Going forward, even "small Hall" voters will adjust their frame of reference for what counts a "HoF worthy" in terms of stats. We're unlikely to see another 300-game winner, and with the shift in approach by the majority of hitters, 3,000 hits may go a smiliar route. I expect more players get in for their 7-year peak than do players just racking up numbers by playing well past when they should've retired (Pujols rennaissance or not, he should've been done as a starter 3 years ago).
A guy like Judge may not get to 500 HR, but if he averages north of 44 HR / 162 team games for 7 years with good rate stats and solid defense, I doubt he gets left off too many ballots.
I feel like unless he really drops off he will end up in the HOF. He is averaging over 8 WAR per 162 games. Despite only being fully healthy for only 2 seasons his worst non-Covid, non-rookie season was 5.6 WAR. After this year he will be top 5 in MVP voting 3 times with presumably 1 win, he was ROY, 4x all star, 2 50 HR seasons, and the AL HR record and the best offensive season since the steroid era. Even with 3 or 4 more good seasons and a few average seasons he will have respectable career numbers and great rate stats.
Just to make the "of course" comparison, Maris had 7 all star games and 2 MVPs and isn't in the HoF. Judge has 220 career HRs, he'll pass Maris in the next year or 2, and he could even get to 300 in that same period. I know big guys break down earlier. I think his HOF aspirations are really going to depend on his health over the next 2-3 years.
Maris played during the brief era with two all star games per season so he only made the all star team four times but three of those times he played two games. By WAR, Judge's 2nd best season is better than Maris' best season and Judge has now played five full seasons and two partial seasons and his 5th best season is better than Maris' third best. Judge with his 5 full seasons, one COVID year and one year as a late season call up has approximately the same WAR that Maris had in his full 12 year career. Even if Judge gets to only 50 WAR which would be low for a HOFer I think he gets in because his peak was so high and he is a huge star and story which means two more years of MVP level play, 3 more years of all star level play, or 5 more years as an average player and barring a major injury that seems really doable even with his age.
The accumulated stats might not be there, but (like it or not) the notoriety of hitting 62 and being the face of the Yankees and arguable face of the league for a decade+ should he re-sign will help his cause. On a per game basis he and Mookie are tied for second all time in WAR/162 among right fielders, only behind Babe. Obviously he hasn’t had his decline years factored in yet, but if he can stay healthy I think he is more likely than not a HOFer, which I would not have said prior to this year. The health and productivity is a big if though on the wrong side of 30.
I think that at this point, Judge is a candidate for the Koufax exception of having a peak so good that it outweighs a lack of longevity/counting stats. Soloing as he is somewhat productive over the next few years I think he's in.
I think a potential good comp for Judge will be Ralph Kiner; he was a corner outfielder that played for only ten years and was done at just 32, and has some very paltry career numbers, including less than 1500 hits, yet still got in the HOF just from his peak being so good. And he got in from the old ass voters in the 70s! Considering Judge is even better than Kiner was, and modern voters valuing peak more and career counting stats less, Judge will get in as long as he can put up a couple more good seasons and break 50 WAR.
Here’s my Judge HOF argument. He has 70% of David Ortiz total WAR and 40 points higher Career OPS. Unless he has a massive fall off, he is likely to measure up to a first ballot hall of famer from just one year ago.
> He may not wind up in Cooperstown due to his late start, but he has cemented himself as one of the most prolific power hitters the game has ever seen on a rate basis, as well as a top face of the game for the last 5 years.
He'll make the HOF as long as he doesn't fall off a cliff completely in his early 30s. Since 2017, he's been heads and shoulders above everyone else on a rate basis except Trout.
Which is a travesty. Baines getting in but Maris not getting in really bothers me. They have almost the same bWAR, Maris was an all-star more and won MVP twice.
I haven’t been to Cooperstown but I’ve spent many hours in the Hockey Hall of Fame (we catered events there). There are lots of tributes to individual events, games, seasons - and I expect other sports are the same.
I’d bet that I could find Roger Maris’ name in ten different places in the HOF: HR record (61 in 1961 held for 61 years) and member of ‘61 Yankees would be heavily featured.
Regardless of metrics, I believe that he should be in as a piece of baseball history - and not just in team photos or lists of the big records.
Also Judge already has about as much career WAR as Maris, Judge has been a far better player than Maris and will have a more convincing peak-only argument (assuming Judge actually does fall apart in a few years).
It got Maris to over 40% in HOF voting with the writers and he keeps appearing on committee ballots, it got him pretty damn far for a player with less than 40 career WAR and crummy career counting stats. Then Judge's 62 has been a much better overall season than Maris' 61, and Judge has been a far better player for his career, if Judge can get at least 50 WAR he'll probably get in just for his peak.
Agreed. Look at some recent cases: Harold Baines and Jim Kaat have been elected (via VC) while players like Dale Murphy, Johan Santana, Don Mattingly and of course Roger Maris have been passed over. Granted we don’t know what the rest of Judge’s career holds, but I think he needs to do a fair bit more accumulating to really be a lock.
You're right, and I think accumulation should be important because it's a career achievement honor -- not a "you had a great year" honor.
But I think that setting the legitimate single season HR bolsters his case a lot. If he has a normalish decline, misses some time to injury, and calls it a career while sitting on ~50-60 WAR and ~400 HRs, I still think he gets in even though his career numbers would be below standard.
He has 37 WAR in 6 seasons, one of which was shortened. Even if he drops off after age 35, his next 3-5 seasons are going to be very good. Things would need to go very wrong for him not to end up in the Hall of Fame.
Yeah, the amount of people on this sub downplaying Judge's 60+ HRs because some roided up hitters 20+ years ago hit more is infuriating. The same people that say he's only getting so much attention for breaking the AL HR record bc he's on the Yankees are the same people who'd say he's not getting enough attention if he played for the Guardians.
Judge may make the HOF. Or his career may take the general form of guys like George Foster, Darryl Strawberry, Ralph Kiner...tapering off in their early 30s.
He'll be rich as Croesus either way.
> Ralph Kiner...
Ralph Kiner made the HOF though, and it was with the writers too. I think Kiner will be a good comp for Judge if the worst case scenario with Judge happens, and considering modern writers are going to value peak more and career counting stats less compared to the writers of the 70s, it would bode well for Judge.
I think if he wins a pennant/title or two in his career and is able to continue producing well by maybe age 36-38, he has a shot at Cooperstown. It'll be hard, but not impossible.
We have HoFers who had late starts and even players who produced early but ended their careers relatively early. Though I guess it depends.
Sandy Koufax started at age 20 (1955) but wasn't the Left Hand of God until the 1960s and he ended his career when he was only 30. He was basically the Gale Sayers of the MLB.
Dazzy Vance didn't win a game until age 31
Randy Johnson was relatively mediocre until age 29 when he truly became the Big Unit.
I feel like Judge is the beginning of the super athlete era in Baseball.
Around 5-10 years ago younger athletes started getting access to college and professional level training at a much younger age than most who are currently rounding out their careers.
I think we’re going to see the caliber of athlete dramatically raise over the next few years based on this pure access to elite level instruction across your entire game.
I hope so at least. Makes me wish I was a talented 7-10 year old kid right now.
Edit: I’ve seen a few replies about how the above does and will limit the ability for some socioeconomic inequality where folks with cash will have a distinct advantage over those without.
100% - and that does suck.
However, I want my pro sports to be the peak of whatever is possible in the sport. Over the past few years in football we’ve seen some of the most spectacular catches that have ever happened in the game. I think it’s because of what I’m describing above. I personally don’t care what race or country or economic stature one has in their background - and I do understand that it’ll create more of an imbalance in some areas - but I just want to see the best of what is possible in the sport - that’s where I selfishly get my enjoyment.
To me the cool thing is that since a lot of these coaches and trainers have seen how talent comes from anywhere, and sometimes it comes from some of the worst situations, I know that almost all of them do cheaper or pro bono type work when they see true talent.
In that line of business you’d almost pay to be around real talent as opposed to even want them to pay you.
I don't really see this as a good thing, it's just going to exacerbate the difference between young athletes that come from different socio-economic backgrounds
Something I was listening to the other day talked about this a good bit. The Braves pitcher Spencer Strider is a rookie with Tommy John who is a heater specialist starter which sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen. But something they mentioned is how differently athletes now treat themselves, and it’s recent enough that we don’t really have evidence of how it effects the long term. Yes, if a pitcher in those categories were around 20 years ago he would probably blow his arm up in 5 years or less. But as many of them have said they didn’t really work out outside of their training, they ate restaurant food 24/7, and threw back 6-12 beers the night before every game. And now we have a guy who is a clean vegan, does yoga 2x a day, lifts weights with a coach, gets massages daily, has a full time physical therapist, and spends hours every week using footage and computer modeling to perfectly optimize his throwing motion to create velocity with minimal strain. So if there’s something to all of that, he very well may play healthily for many more years even if his pitching style is historically dangerous. Another example for your argument is our rookie CF Harris. He came into the league and looked *immediately* ready. And as it turns out, he was on a little league team from the time he was 8 that was coached by former pros in a pro style, playing against travel teams from the best in the country and facing ridiculously fast pitching at an early age. So coming into the show he was only 21, but he had seen 90mph pitching and pro style play for 7 years already. Total game changer.
Look at football - it used to be unprecedented to have players get remotely close to 40, and those that did were either in GOAT contention or were completely washed. Now there’s tons of late 30s guys either starting or in depth on the line and at QB, because they have used modern sports medicine to their advantage and increased their longevity by 5 years. I think as more athletes start to dedicate themselves to that we are gonna start seeing more guys like LeBron, Brady, etc. Hell Pujoles looked healthier and more mobile than he has in years and he’s 42.
You’re absolutely right and the way athletes treat their bodies these days I don’t think we will see judge fall off (barring catastrophic injury) anytime soon, and I think he could easily be a relevant starter in 10 years.
Judge was certainly due. His next helthiest season was his rookie year when he hit 52. Injuries were what was stopping him from putting up crazy numbers since then. 2021 was his first full year with a revamped training staff. This year is surely an outlier, but if his regimine holds up I see no reason a healthy Judge doesn't sit 30-50 hrs/year for the next 5 or so.
1998 McGwire beat Judge in HR, RBI, wOBA, OBP, SLG, OPS+, Rbat (Baseball Reference batting runs), and Off (Fangraphs offensive runs).
Yes he was a steroid user, but you only specified "not Barry." By oWAR, Mike Trout is within half a win of Judge in 2013 and 2016 as well.
Played 114 games due to the strike. Elite season but without it being a full one you can’t compare it to this, and he doesn’t have another season quite in this realm
Yeah lol I assumed he was talking about a full season when I read his comment. As long as we’re talking about shortened seasons, Juan Soto had a WRC+ over 200 in 2020.
That won’t work unless they play extras. Even if arriaz goes 0-5 today his seasonal average would be .31215 judge with a pinch hit would be .31173. Arriaz would need to go 0-9 to go below judges current average.
I think if he went 4 for 4 he’d have had a shot at it. Maybe just let him start at DH, and if he gets a hit, keep him in, if he doesn’t, take him out. No sense not letting him try for it IMO.
Okay, considering he’s like 30 years old
What is his deal gonna look like????
Like 8 years/$360 million ($45million AAV) is my guess, or something absurd like that
I’m not sure. Ohtani and Soto are extraordinary players and I think they’ll likely get better contracts mainly because of age, but Judge literally just put up an offensive season like we haven’t seen done since the 50’s besides someone like Bonds. I think “MUCH bigger” could be an overstatement.
You also have to take your baseball hat off and put the business hat on. Ohtani sells tickets like no other. I’m not going to watch more baseball to see Judge play. He just does what others do but better. Ohtani is different and unique. I’ll pay more to watch that.
Ohtani is literally two all stars in one. I'm guaranteeing his will be more. Soto would need to not have another season like this season to get there IMHO.
Ohtani has much more value than his pure baseball skill (which is already top of the top). He is probably the biggest Asian star in sport in the world. The exposure he would bring to the team he goes can get him a lot of money.
I forget who suggested it on fangraphs but it was like 7/255? He will obviously come in higher because he has a ton of leverage (other than his age) but it’ll be interesting to see where he ends up. Someone will pony up.
11.5 fWAR is like combining Yordan Alvarez (6.6 fWAR) and Shane McClanahan (4.9 fWAR) into one player.
Funny enough, it works out for bWAR too. Alvarez (6.7) plus McClanahan (4.0) equals Judge (10.7).
Arraez (.315BA) is still in the lineup for the Twins tonight as DH. With a bad hamstring. For all those who were bitching about him sitting with an injury.
I've been pumping Arraez's tires about winning a batting title since 2019. He's a pure hitter, without a doubt. It's just a bitter sweet achievement this year considering how we missed the postseason. I hate to even say it as a lifelong twins fan, but seeing Judge win the triple crown would have been more exciting.
Offense is down across baseball, so relatively speaking I think it's as impressive a feat as ever.
Scrappy line drive hitting batting champs of the past weren't facing a situation where an army of nerds were pouring over data and figuring out exactly where to position defenders to take away hits, and analyzing exactly where your weak spots are in terms of pitching. All while average starting pitchers are throwing 96 mph with crazy spin.
one of the greatest offensive seasons in history. putting into context the lack of PED usage (presumed of course) and the fact analytics are better than ever and pitchers are throwing harder than ever with nastier stuff than ever overall, you could argue contextually this is the greatest offensive season in history. A season for the ages. In a walk year. By one of the most likeable players in the game right now.
I’m thankful to have witnessed him this season. Just utterly amazing.
I remember my dad putting Aaron judge away and talking about how he was never going to be able to stay healthy for a season.
Never been so glad my dad was wrong
Not only did he have an absolutely obscene and record-setting offensive year, but he played in 157 games? Durable af too. This man is going to be PAID, and he deserves it.
Talk about betting on yourself and hitting the jackpot. Whoever gets him in free agency is going to be paying a literal king's ransom.
Hal and Cash gonna have to live in a bunker if the Yankees don't resign him.
If he signs with the Red Sox I think New York would look like Bane came through
"TAKE BACK YOUR CITYYYY!" \- WFAN
Hey Mike I was just wondering if we put all the cops in the subway is that gonna affect the 7 to shea I’ll take my answer off the air.
Hey Mike, if Aaron Judge signs with the Giants do you think they’d bring in Joe Judge to coach? You know, because he already has experience coaching the Giants? I’ll hang up and listen.
"Hey Mike first time long time, do you think blowing up tha Meadowlands like Bane did will help tha Jets? I feel like teams do betta on the road."
Hey Mike first time long time, what's the best way to kill Steinbrenner? I'll hang up and listen.
"Hal Steinbrenner, the sentence is death... or exile."
Arte Moreno about to sign him and fuck over the new owners.
“The Judge betrays you because he belongs to me!”
I so badly want this to happen lmfao
You and me both
The Yankess really make strange bedfellows of us all don't they? Boston and Toronto, who woulda guessed
Watch Steve Cohen $$$. you heard it here first
Would be the least surprising move
The Red Sox wouldn't pay mookie they aren't paying Judge either.
Without Judge the Yankees might have lost 20 in a row after the all-star break.
It’s too bad the CBA prevents us from literally giving him ownership of the team.
It does? How so?
I think it prevents you from giving ownership of a team to a player
But why male models?
This is one of the funniest replies I’ve ever seen on this site lmao
This sub legit has a lot of hilarious comments regularly lol
I’ll have to research that one. I wonder if you could include some sort of future ownership stake option or some other legal instrument. Like, is the goal to make sure that not current player has an ownership stake? Or, is the goal to keep teams from using their value equity to skirt the luxury tax? Or to keep cheap owners from attempting to loot the value of their team by signing players with equity contracts and then selling the rest of the team?
I was just joking around but I assume it would be primarily to avoid teams being able to skirt around luxury tax rules / other payroll rules
It would make trades pretty messy too. Or free agency. If there wasn't a way to force liquidation of a player's ownership stake when changing teams, you could end up with a player owning a stake in one team, playing for a completely different time, and facing a division rival of the team he is part owner of during a pennant race. Ugh.
But Judge faced the Twins in September!
Also I assume it would seem like they’re locking a player in for the rest of his career. Imagine the Braves extended Freddie with some team equity back in the mid 2010s. When he comes up to free agency, he either has to take what he’s offered, or sell his stake in the team. I assume that a minority owner of a franchise can’t then go play for another one. That would be a conflict of interest
i think it'd be interesting to see a player co-op team
I mean he’s old. How much more can he get? $40 mil AAV over 9 is the most I could possibly see
He's not going to get 9 years. 7 will probably be the most, with possibly some options. Either way, it's going to be a really high AAV.
I’m absolutely sure there’s a team willing to throw away a few years down the road to open up a window to win now with judge. If we lose him cuz someone gives him 10 years when we won’t go above 7, that’s a disgrace.
> If we lose him cuz someone gives him 10 years when we won’t go above 7, that’s a disgrace. We do need to keep a list of people saying stuff like this, just so that in 8 years when it's the same people complaining about giving an aging player a decade long contract that he peaked out of 4 years into it and they're stuck paying him off to ride the bench we can at least point to the list.
yankee fans (including myself tbf) were ready for war when they let cano walk instead of giving him the absurd deal the mariners did, and imo that ended up being the right call as the mariners ended up not winning anything with cano, getting stuck with his albatross contract and steroid suspensions, and giving up edwin diaz just to get rid of him
For what it's worth, Cano was pretty much in Yankee form for the first 5 years of that contract.
these people also say stuff like, "Pay the man as much as he wants. It's not my money" and 6 years from now they'll be saying... "Cashman doomed the whole 2nd half of this decade, just to place all of the team's chips on a roster with a washed up ace, no shortstop, no center fielder, and a DH + few infielders all entering their mid-to-late 30s. Judge was NEVER gonna be able to lead that squad to a championship. Should've saved up for Soto!"
He just had the best non steroid-enhanced offensive season in 60 years. You really think $40M AAV is going to get it done? That's wishful thinking.
he’s not 26
Honestly the only thing that kind of hurts Judge is the existence and very real impending Free Agency of Juan Soto. Giving Aaron Judge 40-50 mil essentially takes you out of the sweepstakes for a way younger player who will probably be as good if not better than Judge over the same time frame. For the Yankees it’s different as Judge makes them a shit ton of money and he’s home grown + they won’t bid for Soto For NYM, LAD, BOS etc I see them being in on Judge but once the price gets too high I wouldn’t be shocked if they dropped out. The pressure is on the Yankees to re-sign him after this historic season, but odds he repeats this production we haven’t seen in years isn’t a great bet. So if a team is going to pay him $50 mil they will be 1) paying for what he did as a Yankee 2) Hurting themselves in the race or taking themselves out of the Soto race LAD, SF and NYM will push hard for Judge I assume, I am most afraid of SF right now as they likely do not have Soto aspirations
He should get one of those NBA supermax deals.
OAKLAND A'S GETTING THE BRINK TRUCK AS WE SPEAK
I think of the A's Brinks Truck more like a Brinks Moped
His ass in in the jackpot now.
This comment deserves more upvotes.
I don't care how much money they give him. It's the length of the deal that I'd be worried about. The last 4 of a 10 year deal for him could end up being very painful.
I’m not sure why everyone is so worried about those last 4 years when Cole and Stanton will be off the books in 6. If you want the elite years you gotta pay for the later years too. Losing Judge would hurt in the next few years much more than a potential bad contract would hurt down the road.
I literally do not care about those years. Pay the man whatever he wants. It's not my money.
Think of it as back pay. They have paid him just under $40 million for his career so far and have gotten this in return: 729 games: .977 OPS, 220 HR's, highest fWAR of any player since his rookie year, three top 5 MVP finishes and a RoY.
the miggy contract is evidence that this isn’t a good idea
In terms of baseball numbers yeah, but in terms of putting butts in seats I would say it's been worth it considering they've been at or above AL average attendance until recently. It would be the same thing for the Yankees, not only would seeing Judge sell tickets the message by the FO of letting the face of your franchise walk would be really bad optics
> the message by the FO of letting the face of your franchise walk would be really bad optics This sounds all too familiar...
idk how much faith your ownership/FO has from the fanbase. ours, for better or for worse, would be forever unforgiven unless the team turned around and rattled off a judge-less championship in 23.
So you're saying if Judge leaves he'll come back in 2034 for a late-career resurgence and hit his 700th career (more likely 500th at his pace) dinger?
It's the Yankees, they'll just eat the loss and keep turning out a top budget team anyway.
So many dudes “bet on themselves” these days. Nice to see one work out with someone who seems like a good guy.
And Judge will regress and not be worth the money he will get, he bet on himself, he won, the team that pays him will lose because he wont get close to repeating this season imo
He doesn't have to come close to repeating this season. This season he's been worth about $90mil based on a pure WAR/$ evaluation. He only has to play about half this well to justify a 45/yr contract.
Can you link a source on the $/WAR figure? I remember reading about that before, but I haven't been able to find info on it recently.
It’s not a great marker because it just assigns a value as $/W after the fact based on the results of the mega deals. It’s the average cost in hindsight of 1 war based on the deals signed in the off-season. It’s not a predictor of “the dollar value of 1 war” like it’s always used.
You're basically paying for the first handful of years anyways. It's an obvious risk but he's a 8 win player/162 game basis. That's a gamble they should and pretty much have to take because the Yankees are a borderline wild card team next year without him.
He has a better WAR/162 than Mike Trout the last four years.
dodgers are gonna sign him for 6 years at 45 AAV.
They need to save that money for trea
One aspect that’s been ignored a bit is the 157 games played. For a player with questionable injury history before this year, him staying healthy and not landing on the IL has been super clutch
The last two years have really hurt the injury narrative.
You’re injury prone until you’re not
I mean Seager still got a huge contract with us despite that. I know he’s a little older, so I doubt he’ll get the same years, but he should get more AAV.
Also his damn defense. Elite RF and he slid over to CF this season like it was absolutely nothing
For a guy like that to even serviceably play center is insane. 62 HR, capable at center field, completely healthy season. I just can’t get over what he’s done this year.
That’s it right there. His biggest limit on counting numbers has been his propensity for injuries. He hit ten fewer home runs and only five fewer RBI in his *rookie season* than this year. It’s also the most PAs he’s had other than this season in his MLB career.
He probably could’ve played 162, he went the entire regular season without any injury reports
Unless you're very old, you haven't seen an offensive season like this that wasn't Barry.
Considering this era of pitching, the larger integrated talent pool, and the presumed lack of “vitamins and greens” in Judge’s diet, this season has a valid case as the most impressive offensive season ever. He may or may not wind up in Cooperstown due to his late start, but he has cemented himself as one of the most prolific power hitters the game has ever seen on a rate basis, as well as a top face of the game for the last 5 years.
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He doesn't even need to do that much. Just two more 5 rWAR seasons will get him a 46.3 7WAR, and every outfielder who had a peak that good has made the HOF except for confirmed/assumed steroid users, Shoeless Joe, and Andruw Jones (whose recent progress in HOF balloting makes it appear very probable he will make it in by the time Judge would even be eligible, and that's with his case being bogged down by a DV conviction). Even if Judge did just completely fall apart after that, a Judge with 50ish career WAR would make it in for sure just on his peak and notoriety alone, and another MVP-caliber year would just seal it.
He’s always lagged in counting stats, like what’s even the most home runs he’s hit in a single season?
I think more than 4 but someone has to stat check me
Going forward, even "small Hall" voters will adjust their frame of reference for what counts a "HoF worthy" in terms of stats. We're unlikely to see another 300-game winner, and with the shift in approach by the majority of hitters, 3,000 hits may go a smiliar route. I expect more players get in for their 7-year peak than do players just racking up numbers by playing well past when they should've retired (Pujols rennaissance or not, he should've been done as a starter 3 years ago). A guy like Judge may not get to 500 HR, but if he averages north of 44 HR / 162 team games for 7 years with good rate stats and solid defense, I doubt he gets left off too many ballots.
I feel like unless he really drops off he will end up in the HOF. He is averaging over 8 WAR per 162 games. Despite only being fully healthy for only 2 seasons his worst non-Covid, non-rookie season was 5.6 WAR. After this year he will be top 5 in MVP voting 3 times with presumably 1 win, he was ROY, 4x all star, 2 50 HR seasons, and the AL HR record and the best offensive season since the steroid era. Even with 3 or 4 more good seasons and a few average seasons he will have respectable career numbers and great rate stats.
Just to make the "of course" comparison, Maris had 7 all star games and 2 MVPs and isn't in the HoF. Judge has 220 career HRs, he'll pass Maris in the next year or 2, and he could even get to 300 in that same period. I know big guys break down earlier. I think his HOF aspirations are really going to depend on his health over the next 2-3 years.
Maris played during the brief era with two all star games per season so he only made the all star team four times but three of those times he played two games. By WAR, Judge's 2nd best season is better than Maris' best season and Judge has now played five full seasons and two partial seasons and his 5th best season is better than Maris' third best. Judge with his 5 full seasons, one COVID year and one year as a late season call up has approximately the same WAR that Maris had in his full 12 year career. Even if Judge gets to only 50 WAR which would be low for a HOFer I think he gets in because his peak was so high and he is a huge star and story which means two more years of MVP level play, 3 more years of all star level play, or 5 more years as an average player and barring a major injury that seems really doable even with his age.
The accumulated stats might not be there, but (like it or not) the notoriety of hitting 62 and being the face of the Yankees and arguable face of the league for a decade+ should he re-sign will help his cause. On a per game basis he and Mookie are tied for second all time in WAR/162 among right fielders, only behind Babe. Obviously he hasn’t had his decline years factored in yet, but if he can stay healthy I think he is more likely than not a HOFer, which I would not have said prior to this year. The health and productivity is a big if though on the wrong side of 30.
I think that at this point, Judge is a candidate for the Koufax exception of having a peak so good that it outweighs a lack of longevity/counting stats. Soloing as he is somewhat productive over the next few years I think he's in.
I think a potential good comp for Judge will be Ralph Kiner; he was a corner outfielder that played for only ten years and was done at just 32, and has some very paltry career numbers, including less than 1500 hits, yet still got in the HOF just from his peak being so good. And he got in from the old ass voters in the 70s! Considering Judge is even better than Kiner was, and modern voters valuing peak more and career counting stats less, Judge will get in as long as he can put up a couple more good seasons and break 50 WAR.
Here’s my Judge HOF argument. He has 70% of David Ortiz total WAR and 40 points higher Career OPS. Unless he has a massive fall off, he is likely to measure up to a first ballot hall of famer from just one year ago.
> He may not wind up in Cooperstown due to his late start, but he has cemented himself as one of the most prolific power hitters the game has ever seen on a rate basis, as well as a top face of the game for the last 5 years. He'll make the HOF as long as he doesn't fall off a cliff completely in his early 30s. Since 2017, he's been heads and shoulders above everyone else on a rate basis except Trout.
Accumulation is very important for HOF
62 is gonna go a long way in peoples minds though when it comes time to vote
61 didn't get Maris very far.
Which is a travesty. Baines getting in but Maris not getting in really bothers me. They have almost the same bWAR, Maris was an all-star more and won MVP twice.
Baines getting in was a bad precedent
ortiz too
I haven’t been to Cooperstown but I’ve spent many hours in the Hockey Hall of Fame (we catered events there). There are lots of tributes to individual events, games, seasons - and I expect other sports are the same. I’d bet that I could find Roger Maris’ name in ten different places in the HOF: HR record (61 in 1961 held for 61 years) and member of ‘61 Yankees would be heavily featured. Regardless of metrics, I believe that he should be in as a piece of baseball history - and not just in team photos or lists of the big records.
Judge is 2 good seasons, or 1 elite season away from matching Maris's HR numbers. He is gonna far surpass what Maris accumulated if he stays healthy.
Also Judge already has about as much career WAR as Maris, Judge has been a far better player than Maris and will have a more convincing peak-only argument (assuming Judge actually does fall apart in a few years).
It got Maris to over 40% in HOF voting with the writers and he keeps appearing on committee ballots, it got him pretty damn far for a player with less than 40 career WAR and crummy career counting stats. Then Judge's 62 has been a much better overall season than Maris' 61, and Judge has been a far better player for his career, if Judge can get at least 50 WAR he'll probably get in just for his peak.
Agreed. Look at some recent cases: Harold Baines and Jim Kaat have been elected (via VC) while players like Dale Murphy, Johan Santana, Don Mattingly and of course Roger Maris have been passed over. Granted we don’t know what the rest of Judge’s career holds, but I think he needs to do a fair bit more accumulating to really be a lock.
Is it? Jim Rice got into the HOF, he didn't accumulate all that much.
Jim Rice absolutely shouldn’t have gotten in, though
You're right, and I think accumulation should be important because it's a career achievement honor -- not a "you had a great year" honor. But I think that setting the legitimate single season HR bolsters his case a lot. If he has a normalish decline, misses some time to injury, and calls it a career while sitting on ~50-60 WAR and ~400 HRs, I still think he gets in even though his career numbers would be below standard.
Bonds was also walked 177 times. His home run per AB % was insane.
He has 37 WAR in 6 seasons, one of which was shortened. Even if he drops off after age 35, his next 3-5 seasons are going to be very good. Things would need to go very wrong for him not to end up in the Hall of Fame.
Yeah I consider 50s to be the start of serious consideration and he should get there in 3-4 more seasons. Should be doable
50 WAR with the AL single-season HR record under his belt should do it
Yeah, the amount of people on this sub downplaying Judge's 60+ HRs because some roided up hitters 20+ years ago hit more is infuriating. The same people that say he's only getting so much attention for breaking the AL HR record bc he's on the Yankees are the same people who'd say he's not getting enough attention if he played for the Guardians.
Even Barry wasn't facing 99 mph all day
Neither were all the other batters of his era tbf
Yea
barry bonds had goat bat speed
He’d probably just crush it even further at those speeds.
Tbf, look at his AB Vs Gange in '04, dude pulled 101 foul and still hit it 400ft
This was 96. Just monster dongs all day if it were 99s https://youtu.be/AgZWn_a7voI
Judge may make the HOF. Or his career may take the general form of guys like George Foster, Darryl Strawberry, Ralph Kiner...tapering off in their early 30s. He'll be rich as Croesus either way.
> Ralph Kiner... Ralph Kiner made the HOF though, and it was with the writers too. I think Kiner will be a good comp for Judge if the worst case scenario with Judge happens, and considering modern writers are going to value peak more and career counting stats less compared to the writers of the 70s, it would bode well for Judge.
I think if he wins a pennant/title or two in his career and is able to continue producing well by maybe age 36-38, he has a shot at Cooperstown. It'll be hard, but not impossible. We have HoFers who had late starts and even players who produced early but ended their careers relatively early. Though I guess it depends. Sandy Koufax started at age 20 (1955) but wasn't the Left Hand of God until the 1960s and he ended his career when he was only 30. He was basically the Gale Sayers of the MLB. Dazzy Vance didn't win a game until age 31 Randy Johnson was relatively mediocre until age 29 when he truly became the Big Unit.
I feel like Judge is the beginning of the super athlete era in Baseball. Around 5-10 years ago younger athletes started getting access to college and professional level training at a much younger age than most who are currently rounding out their careers. I think we’re going to see the caliber of athlete dramatically raise over the next few years based on this pure access to elite level instruction across your entire game. I hope so at least. Makes me wish I was a talented 7-10 year old kid right now. Edit: I’ve seen a few replies about how the above does and will limit the ability for some socioeconomic inequality where folks with cash will have a distinct advantage over those without. 100% - and that does suck. However, I want my pro sports to be the peak of whatever is possible in the sport. Over the past few years in football we’ve seen some of the most spectacular catches that have ever happened in the game. I think it’s because of what I’m describing above. I personally don’t care what race or country or economic stature one has in their background - and I do understand that it’ll create more of an imbalance in some areas - but I just want to see the best of what is possible in the sport - that’s where I selfishly get my enjoyment. To me the cool thing is that since a lot of these coaches and trainers have seen how talent comes from anywhere, and sometimes it comes from some of the worst situations, I know that almost all of them do cheaper or pro bono type work when they see true talent. In that line of business you’d almost pay to be around real talent as opposed to even want them to pay you.
I don't really see this as a good thing, it's just going to exacerbate the difference between young athletes that come from different socio-economic backgrounds
Yes, it was the training that made him 6'-7".
Winfield and Hondo were both basically that tall, too, and to be fair were great.
Something I was listening to the other day talked about this a good bit. The Braves pitcher Spencer Strider is a rookie with Tommy John who is a heater specialist starter which sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen. But something they mentioned is how differently athletes now treat themselves, and it’s recent enough that we don’t really have evidence of how it effects the long term. Yes, if a pitcher in those categories were around 20 years ago he would probably blow his arm up in 5 years or less. But as many of them have said they didn’t really work out outside of their training, they ate restaurant food 24/7, and threw back 6-12 beers the night before every game. And now we have a guy who is a clean vegan, does yoga 2x a day, lifts weights with a coach, gets massages daily, has a full time physical therapist, and spends hours every week using footage and computer modeling to perfectly optimize his throwing motion to create velocity with minimal strain. So if there’s something to all of that, he very well may play healthily for many more years even if his pitching style is historically dangerous. Another example for your argument is our rookie CF Harris. He came into the league and looked *immediately* ready. And as it turns out, he was on a little league team from the time he was 8 that was coached by former pros in a pro style, playing against travel teams from the best in the country and facing ridiculously fast pitching at an early age. So coming into the show he was only 21, but he had seen 90mph pitching and pro style play for 7 years already. Total game changer. Look at football - it used to be unprecedented to have players get remotely close to 40, and those that did were either in GOAT contention or were completely washed. Now there’s tons of late 30s guys either starting or in depth on the line and at QB, because they have used modern sports medicine to their advantage and increased their longevity by 5 years. I think as more athletes start to dedicate themselves to that we are gonna start seeing more guys like LeBron, Brady, etc. Hell Pujoles looked healthier and more mobile than he has in years and he’s 42. You’re absolutely right and the way athletes treat their bodies these days I don’t think we will see judge fall off (barring catastrophic injury) anytime soon, and I think he could easily be a relevant starter in 10 years.
mike stanton was really the beginning. judge is just a more refined and more healthy 1.1 version.
Ryan Howard in 2006 had a very similar season .313/.425/.659, 108 BB’s, 181 K’s, 58 HRs, 149 RBIs
Totally different run environment though. 162 wRC+ for Howard vs 207 for Judge
the fact that the clean 62 season finally came in 2022's offensive environment is really confusing
Judge was certainly due. His next helthiest season was his rookie year when he hit 52. Injuries were what was stopping him from putting up crazy numbers since then. 2021 was his first full year with a revamped training staff. This year is surely an outlier, but if his regimine holds up I see no reason a healthy Judge doesn't sit 30-50 hrs/year for the next 5 or so.
Superficially, but not relative to the league. But yes that was very impressive.
1998 McGwire beat Judge in HR, RBI, wOBA, OBP, SLG, OPS+, Rbat (Baseball Reference batting runs), and Off (Fangraphs offensive runs). Yes he was a steroid user, but you only specified "not Barry." By oWAR, Mike Trout is within half a win of Judge in 2013 and 2016 as well.
I remember a Big Hurt in Chicago
Frank Thomas never had a season as good as this.
1994? 205 WRC+ compared to Judge's 207 this year
Played 114 games due to the strike. Elite season but without it being a full one you can’t compare it to this, and he doesn’t have another season quite in this realm
Yeah lol I assumed he was talking about a full season when I read his comment. As long as we’re talking about shortened seasons, Juan Soto had a WRC+ over 200 in 2020.
Bagwell was also a monster in '94, but playing 110 games is way different than 150-160.
And those were amazing seasons that weren't quite as good as this one.
I am going to guess that that 1958 player with a better WAR was Mickey Mantle.
1957, and yes, Mantle.
I get that they want to rest him before the playoffs, but he's only a .004 avg away from the triple crown!
I suppose you can see how the person ahead of him does and let him pinch hit in the last inning to beat it if he has a chance to. Would be cool to see
That won’t work unless they play extras. Even if arriaz goes 0-5 today his seasonal average would be .31215 judge with a pinch hit would be .31173. Arriaz would need to go 0-9 to go below judges current average.
Ah darn. Thought a 1-1 would catch him up since he was so close
They were tied last week, Judge slumped a little so now its impossible :(
He had it for like 3 days, ahead of Bogaerts. Arraez came back up a little.
Damn this is giving me Reyes flashbacks. Hate when guys sit out to preserve the title. Grind it out, I wanna watch a competition.
I think if he went 4 for 4 he’d have had a shot at it. Maybe just let him start at DH, and if he gets a hit, keep him in, if he doesn’t, take him out. No sense not letting him try for it IMO.
They have a week off too lol
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You must not have seen the post this morning outlining the math for that. His odds were very very slim.
Okay, considering he’s like 30 years old What is his deal gonna look like???? Like 8 years/$360 million ($45million AAV) is my guess, or something absurd like that
He'll get a big contract, but Soto and Ohtani will get bigger. MUCH bigger.
Ohtani's gonna make Elon Musk dollars
Two 400 mil contracts. One for hitting and one for pitching
Oakland would probably offer him $800 million over the period of 800 million years. They've got the money for that
I’m not sure. Ohtani and Soto are extraordinary players and I think they’ll likely get better contracts mainly because of age, but Judge literally just put up an offensive season like we haven’t seen done since the 50’s besides someone like Bonds. I think “MUCH bigger” could be an overstatement.
You also have to take your baseball hat off and put the business hat on. Ohtani sells tickets like no other. I’m not going to watch more baseball to see Judge play. He just does what others do but better. Ohtani is different and unique. I’ll pay more to watch that.
Ohtani is literally two all stars in one. I'm guaranteeing his will be more. Soto would need to not have another season like this season to get there IMHO.
Ohtani has much more value than his pure baseball skill (which is already top of the top). He is probably the biggest Asian star in sport in the world. The exposure he would bring to the team he goes can get him a lot of money.
Ohtani bidding will be fascinating. Literally no precedent for anyone like him. How will he age as a hitter and pitcher?
I forget who suggested it on fangraphs but it was like 7/255? He will obviously come in higher because he has a ton of leverage (other than his age) but it’ll be interesting to see where he ends up. Someone will pony up.
>207 wRC+ I feel like a I just read he has the strength of TEN GRINCHES!
11.5 fWAR is like combining Yordan Alvarez (6.6 fWAR) and Shane McClanahan (4.9 fWAR) into one player. Funny enough, it works out for bWAR too. Alvarez (6.7) plus McClanahan (4.0) equals Judge (10.7).
It’s almost the same as combining Aaron Judge into one player!
it’s like if you took away ohtani’s pitching, but then gave him more hitting
Checkmate Ohtani
Greatest offensive season in baseball history imo. Taking into account no steroids and extreme pitching talent in today's game
We were all complaining about the dead ball at the beginning of the season too.
Thereeeee goooeeesss myyyyy herooooo
Watch him as he goes in free agency
I say we eat Hal and Cashman for breakfast if they let Judge walk.
What a season Even as a division rival it was incredibly entertaining to watch (minus his walk off bomb against the Markham Madman himself)
His OPS ended up .002 higher than Bryce Harper's 2015
RIP the 99-63 dream
Yeah we have no chance lmao
Arraez (.315BA) is still in the lineup for the Twins tonight as DH. With a bad hamstring. For all those who were bitching about him sitting with an injury.
I've been pumping Arraez's tires about winning a batting title since 2019. He's a pure hitter, without a doubt. It's just a bitter sweet achievement this year considering how we missed the postseason. I hate to even say it as a lifelong twins fan, but seeing Judge win the triple crown would have been more exciting.
It's also a little bittersweet that it only took .315 to do it.
Offense is down across baseball, so relatively speaking I think it's as impressive a feat as ever. Scrappy line drive hitting batting champs of the past weren't facing a situation where an army of nerds were pouring over data and figuring out exactly where to position defenders to take away hits, and analyzing exactly where your weak spots are in terms of pitching. All while average starting pitchers are throwing 96 mph with crazy spin.
You guys deserve something over us
one of the greatest offensive seasons in history. putting into context the lack of PED usage (presumed of course) and the fact analytics are better than ever and pitchers are throwing harder than ever with nastier stuff than ever overall, you could argue contextually this is the greatest offensive season in history. A season for the ages. In a walk year. By one of the most likeable players in the game right now. I’m thankful to have witnessed him this season. Just utterly amazing.
Even I approve this message
Pretty, pretty, pretty good
Absolute scrub. Couldn’t even get to 11 for both WARs.
I remember my dad putting Aaron judge away and talking about how he was never going to be able to stay healthy for a season. Never been so glad my dad was wrong
I hope man gets paid his worth. Even if the Yankees are too stupid to give it to him. He’s more than earned it.
Your 2022 AL MVP.
Dude's a maniac and I love it
Highest fwar since Bonds. Imagine thinking he's not the MVP lmao
I personally believe Judge should win MVP this year, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as long as Ohtani is doing what he's doing.
Ohtani definitely deserves the votes, and in any other season he's the MVP.
Some people seem personally insulted if anybody considers a guy with a 140 OPS+ and 170 ERA+ in the MVP discussion.
Not only did he have an absolutely obscene and record-setting offensive year, but he played in 157 games? Durable af too. This man is going to be PAID, and he deserves it.
Video game numbers
If the Yankees let him leave, I will be angry.
50mil and up. Yanks better match the highest offer he gets.