Aaron Judge and Roger Maris. Two Yankees with over six decades separating each of their playing careers. What do they have in common? They both have home run numbers in the record books.
Judge is on pace to not only claim the most home runs in a single season for the Yankees, but also potentially the American League record. Marist has the most in the AL for a single season with 61 home runs, while Judge is currently at 54 with several months still to go in the current season.
Judge is on record pace, and, while the Yankees team as a whole has seen some regression post the all-star break, he still has kept his dominance on the field up to the level that many fans have come to expect.
At the moment if projections hold true Judge is currently on pace for 65 home runs by the end of the season. This would place him with the 4th most home runs in MLB history, only behind Barry Bonds (73), Mark McGwire (70), and Sammy Sosa (66).
The interesting thing about these three is that each of their careers had
been in some way plagued with some issue of the utilization of performance-enhancing drugs to enhance their playing ability. Judge thus far has been clean as far as that is concerned.
If we take a look at home run leaders through the first 135 games of the season, all time, Judge sits in fourth with 54 thus far. The interesting thing here is that among the top five, only two of them have never had an issue with performance-enhancing drugs in their career: just the great Babe Ruth and Aaron Judge.
In addition to these home run numbers, Judge also leads the majors in Runs Batted In (RBIs) with 117. Now one would think that with all the prowess that Judge has acclaimed in this season thus far, the Yankees would be jumping on the opportunity to re-sign him to a longer contract.
This is not the case, however, as earlier in the offseason leading up to the 2022 season, Judge turned down a 213.5 million dollar con- tract extension offer from the team.
He and the team were lucky enough to agree to a one-year 19 million deal for the 2022 season. This would mean that he would be a free agent as soon as the
2022 season reaches its conclusion. The plan for Judge in taking this deal would be that he would play well enough that he could garner the extra money that he is looking for.
As far as the season has been so far, it looks like it has paid off quite well. Aaron Judge has been a fixture of Yankees baseball even for the few years that he has been in the big leagues.
He had somewhat of a breakout season in 2017, his second official year in the big leagues, so much so that Yankee Stadium added a new section of seats aptly named “The Judge’s Chambers.” These Chambers, as they are called, are a section of seats in the right outfield next to the bleachers. The section appears as a sort of jury box with faux wood paneling, so this section of the ballpark stands out from all the rest.
And while he has had his ups and downs from 2017 until the present, it is undeniable that he has become quite the fixture of Yankee baseball over the years. With this in mind, the Yankees will have quite the decision on their hands come this offseason, as there sure will be other teams looking to grab this superstar talent that is Aaron Judge.