In 2024, the New York Yankees have had a great start. The Yankees, who currently hold a comfortable 25-14 record and are third in the league in home runs (51), fifth in OPS (.748), and sixth in runs (188), have turned their offence into a well-oiled machine that can produce runs with the best of them. The Yankees’ offensive productivity this season has been led by recently acquired superstar outfielder Juan Soto, but he hasn’t been the only active player; Oswaldo Cabrera, Alex Verdugo, Anthony Volpe, and Anthony Rizzo have all outperformed expectations.
Aaron Judge, a Yankee, is the player that many expected to be dominating with Soto but hasn’t done so yet. Judge hit.220 in 100 at-bats in April, with 6 home runs, 17 RBIs, and a.361 OPB. Judge, who leads the Yankees in strikeouts (46) right now, hasn’t looked like the offensive threat that this team and fan base are used to seeing, which has some worried about his future output.
In case some of you missed it, Judge agreed to a basic salary of $40 million annually under a massive 9-year, $360 million contract in 2023. And it makes sense that some are concerned about the 32-year-old because he had a quieter season the previous year after setting a record in 2022. Many people believed he would have a significantly stronger start than he has so far.
In the end, this raises two important queries: First, ought admirers to be concerned about Judge’s output? The second is: How can Judge improve going forward in the season? If you’re as curious as we are about these questions, check out our analysis of what we think will happen with Aaron Judge in the future.
The Yankees Judge get to bounce back
Yes, and he has done so since April, is the response. The most important query in this first one is how much will Judge improve? Judge has played in Major League Baseball for over eight seasons, starting his first 27 games in 2016. Fans and experts alike have seen his ability to produce a lot of base hits over that time, regardless of whether or not those hits turned into home runs.
Judge put up a fantastic.311 average throughout his season in 2022, which broke all records. Judge hit.287 in 2021,.278 in 2018, and.284 over that huge 2017 AL Rookie of the Year campaign even before that. Despite the usual baseball adage that one should not obsess over one’s batting average, Judge hasn’t been known to allow his hitting decline to this extent, especially for a powerful hitter like himself.
We can anticipate Judge to be back to full strength by the All-Star break, with a batting average above.260 and a 20–60 HR to RBI stat line to be envied.
