Even though the New York Yankees have gone back to their winning ways, a new challenge has emerged for them, in particular around superstar outfielder Aaron Judge, which has caused the Yankees to reportedly consider swapping him and fellow superstar Juan Soto in the lineup.
Teams are taking the bat out of Judge’s hands
Aaron Judge has been so good this season that teams are now simply refusing to pitch to him. Over his last five games, Judge is 8-for-15 with two home runs, but he has walked nine times including five of which being intentional. At least two of those intentional walks occurred with two outs and nobody on base. The problem really became apparent when the Toronto Blue Jays intentionally walked Judge three times in one game in their series finale on Sunday.
Despite that, Yankees manager Aaron Boone is hesitant to make the change, but he said before Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Los Angeles Angels that he has at least considered the idea for some time.
“I look at it as a lineup as a whole and what makes the most sense for us scoring runs,” Boone said via The New York Post’s Greg Joyce. “Scoring runs, we’ve been doing a really good job of that, whether they’re putting on Judge or not. So it’s more just — I obsess on trying to have as much balance as I can. So that’ll factor in. Getting [Giancarlo Stanton] back into the mix and getting him going again could factor into that too, when you look at those first four or five hitters in the lineup.”
This isn’t the first time that the idea of swapping Judge and Soto in the order has been floated around, as it first came about earlier in the season when Judge was struggling through the month of April, though Boone elected not to make a change. The two superstars are currently the top two in OPS this season and are two of just four players overall to have an OPS over 1.000.
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The Yankees batting behind Judge are underperforming
With the Yankees’ cleanup hitters collectively underperforming this season, opposing teams are willing to take a chance with them even with a guy on base instead of dealing with the imposing Judge. Overall this season, Yankees cleanup hitters are batting just .220 and rank 25th in OPS from that spot of the order with it being .624. Yankees catcher Austin Wells has started to make them pay in recent weeks, as he is hitting .358 with a .976 OPS and two home runs batting in the cleanup spot this season, but that hasn’t stopped teams from giving Judge the free pass.
Judge could end up seeing more pitches to hit if he and Soto switch places in the lineup, but then that leaves the possibility of the same effect occurring for Soto. Judge has walked 95 times this season and Soto has 93 times, which are the top two in MLB by a wide margin, with Phillies’ slugger Kyle Schwarber being the next highest with 82 followed by Dodgers’ star Shohei Ohtani with 63.
Therefore, a swap might not do much in terms of improving the stability of the lineup as a whole, so the guys behind the two superstars will have to deliver better overall results if the Yankees want to fix this new problem.
There is no indication that a change in the lineup is imminent, but if this issue persists, it is possible that a shakeup will occur to get their superstar more pitches to hit in games.
