Last night was just another game for Aaron Judge, but those watching his 469-foot blast in the Yankees‘ 10-2 win over the Royals found themselves utterly speechless once again.
It was his 24th home run of the season, and he finished the game with a 247 wRC+, a mark so high that even Barry Bonds hasn’t matched it over a full season.
While I was not alive for Bonds’ all-time great peak, we can acknowledge that his use of PEDs inflated the numbers he posted, even if he’d be an inner-circle Hall of Famer without them.
No one ever believed we’d see a hitter mirror what Bonds did, and yet here we are discussing a season that could go down as the greatest ever.
Pitchers are throwing harder, sequencing better, and training more effectively than they ever have before; it’s never been harder to hit at the Major League level, and yet Aaron Judge is playing at the highest level we have ever seen.
The Yankees Continue to See Aaron Judge Get Even Better
It would not have been crazy to think that 2017 would be Aaron Judge’s peak season; he was entering his age-30 season in 2022 and the consensus opinion was the late start to his career would hinder his Hall of Fame chances.
He’d go on to break the AL home run record with 62 blasts, putting up 11.1 fWAR with a 206 wRC+, one of the greatest seasons we’ve ever seen.
A toe injury in 2023 would limit him to just 4.7 fWAR and a 172 wRC+, but the underlying data suggested that he had another all-time great season in him.
2024 would come with an ice-cold start, but Judge being ejected for the first time in an afternoon game against the Tigers seemed to wake him up.
Since his first (and only) ejection, Aaron Judge has hit 76 home runs in 188 games with a 248 wRC+, meaning he has been better than peak Barry Bonds (244 wRC+) for his last 188 games.
What’s even crazier is how good the Yankee captain has been relative to his competition:
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The closest hitter to Aaron Judge in OPS is Shohei Ohtani, but the Japanese phenom is closer to 81st ranked Gavin Lux than he is to the reigning AL MVP.
When Barry Bonds set his career-high in OPS (1.381), it was 0.259 points better than second place, Aaron Judge is up to 0.256 this season.
What we are seeing is only matched by the best season ever from the HR champion while they were using performance-enhancing substances.
Aaron Judge regularly undergoes PED testing and has not tested positive once, and pitchers are both better and smarter than they were back in 2002.
Pitchers throw everything harder than they did back when we first got velocity tracking data in 2007, they move more too which doesn’t help hitters.
The technology we have now allows pitchers to try a new grip in a bullpen session, throw it 10 times, and get instant feedback to see how good that pitch is.
Organizations are building frontline starters and high-leverage relievers in labs, teaching them to develop arsenals that can get any kind of hitter out.
That’s not all; defenders are more skilled than they have ever been at any point in the game’s history, as reflected in the league-wide BABIP dropping to new lows in the 2020s.
It’s much harder to hit the ball now than it was in 2007 when the average fastball velocity sat at around 91 MPH, and when you do make contact, guys are better at getting to the ball too.
Hitters have such a difficult time picking up hits and that’s why teams have placed a heavy emphasis on quality of contact, and Aaron Judge is the very best at generating quality contact.
The power numbers are obviously insane, but the most impressive thing about Aaron Judge is that his ability to hit for average is quite literally unprecedented.
Hitting .396 is insane in it’s own right, but when you adjust for the league environment using AVG+, Judge is on-pace to do something historic.
Aaron Judge currently has a 167 AVG+, which is higher than the current all-time best mark for any hitter with at least 500 Plate Appearances, meaning there’s a real chance he sets a new record.
Not only is he one of the greatest home run hitters on a per-rate basis that ever lived, but Aaron Judge might also be the league-adjusted batting champion when the 2025 season is over.
We’ve never seen anyone like him, and just like it was said about Barry Bonds two decades ago, we may never see anyone like Aaron Judge again.