The MLB All 21st-Century Team: Aaron Judge
The two-time MVP slugger for the Yankees has managed an elite career, despite a late start to the league.
I’ll give you a peek behind the curtain here: Ranking outfielders in baseball is tricky. There’s so many of them, it’s hard to keep track. The four other outfielders on my list I managed to think of pretty handily, but the fifth spot bugged me for quite a while. Bryce Harper was certainly on the list, but two others surged ahead: Barry Bonds and Carlos Beltrán.
Bonds only played eight seasons during this century, but put up a Hall of Fame career in doing so. He accumulated 59.1 WAR, and the average HOFer hovers around 60; that includes 2005, when he only played 14 games, yet still managed to garner 0.6 WAR. He accumulated 1,128 walks, which would be 79th all-time, just behind Cal Ripken Jr., who played in over 3,000 games in his career, three times as many as Bonds post-2000. His 390 intentional walks would still rank him first all-time, ahead of Albert Pujols’ 316. Throw in 317 homers, and you’ve got yourself a pretty dang good eight years, including the single-season record in 2001.
One problem: Bonds was on the juice.
Yes, Bonds was a great player well before the steroids. Would he have been in the Hall without them? More than likely. What we have, though, is someone whose latter career is laden by an asterisk. He was great, but no 73 home runs great, and I can’t reward that. So, what about Beltrán? He had himself a great career, too, with some 2,700 hits, and is one of five players with 400 homers and 300 steals. His own scandal, though, costs him here, as he was heavily involved with the 2017 Astros’ sign-stealing scheme.
In my mind, that leaves Aaron Judge, which is undoubtedly coming from a great source of bias, of which I care little about. I’m allowed some favoritism once in a while.
Judge has only played nine seasons, seven of which were eligible full seasons, three of which he’s missed 50 or more games. Availability matters; that’s why Giancarlo Stanton isn’t anywhere near this list. When he is on the field, though, Judge hits like nobody since the juiced guy I left off of this list.
His rookie season, 2017, saw him lead the Yankees into a deep playoff run; while he performed miserably then, and has in every postseason, he also set the then-rookie record for most home runs in a season with 52, breaking Mark McGwire’s mark (pun intended) of 49. He led the American League in WAR (8.0), runs (128), homers (52), and walks (127), but did lead the majors in strikeouts, with a whopping 208. That is far and away his career high, though, and while he consistently strikes out a lot, it is mitigated somewhat by his high walk rate, too.
He earned Rookie of the Year honors, and he would have won MVP too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids (Jose Altuve) and your dumb dog (banging trash cans). This is purely my own angst; Altuve had a great season, and, in a retrospective analysis compiled by Foolish Baseball, was shown to be the Astro who utilized sign-stealing the least. You can find that video here:
Judge spent the next two seasons putting up nearly identical numbers, and while they were impressive seasons—he averaged a 146 OPS+—they weren’t necessarily the crème de la crème in terms of offensive performance. He hit 27 homers in both seasons, which is a cruel joke, and averaged .275/.387/.534, and even played an elite right field, totaling 37 DRS over that span. Again, these were still solid numbers, but were certainly down from the high bar set by his rookie season. Still, his BAbip being as high as it was, an average of .364, gave a good sign, too: When he put the ball in play, Judge was getting on base.
He also, you know, struck out a lot. A combined 293 times between 2018 and 2019, both after leading baseball in K’s his rookie season. That’s probably the biggest knock on his game, but for contemporary baseball, he’s not out of the ordinary.
2020 was rough for everyone, baseball players included. Luke Voit led the majors in home runs, and Kyle Lewis was the unanimous rookie of the year. Neither of them played in the majors in 2024. In an already shortened season, Judge’s was shortened even more, as he appeared in only 28 out of 60 games, yet somehow still managed a 143 OPS+ with a .257 average and 9 homers. For context, OPS+ accounts for external factors like ballpark dimensions and how the rest of the league played. This means that, for that season, Judge hit 43 percent better than the average player, average being 100. If that doesn’t paint a clear enough picture on the state of MLB offenses in the 2020s, I don’t know what will.
2021 lies somewhere between his rookie season and those three subsequent years. Not bad again, with 39 round trippers, a hard-hit rate of nearly 60 percent, and his highest batting average to that point, but the walks were down, and the strikeouts were up a tad. It was mainly most of the same. For Judge, that still meant being 54 percent better than the average player—his OPS+ averaged to 154 over those five years—but it pales in comparison to what came in 2022.
I’ve written about Roger Maris and his chase of Babe Ruth; I’ve also written, alongside other great hitting seasons, about Judge in 2022, and plan on giving that season its own full piece. I’ve made this piece a little less robust as a result-I want to save the bulk of my Judge talk for there. It was a season for the ages nonetheless, Bondsian in nature, one that will be talked about by both Yankees and baseball fans in general for years to come. His 10.5 WAR is 30th all-time in a season, and third amongst active players, just behind Mookie Betts in 2018. His 62 home runs are (obviously) an AL record, and the seventh most in a season. His 210 OPS+, making him over twice as good as the average player in 2022, is the third highest amongst active players, behind Juan Soto’s 2020 campaign. And watching number 62 fly into the stands in Texas is one of those baseball moments that sticks with you. Derek Jeter’s 3000th hit, Freddie Freeman’s grand slam this World Series, they’re the moments baseball fans live for. 62 is in that regard.
I mentioned that some of Judge’s numbers in 2022 were third highest amongst active players, but only named one for each stat. Well, surprise! Judge came out in 2024 and somehow played even better than 2022. I mean, he legitimately one-upped himself in every major statistical category that wasn’t homers. Hits, RBIs, walks, batting average, OPS, total bases, intentional walks, WAR, rOBA, even exit velocity. He also legged out a triple, an impressive feat for a 6-foot-seven, 280 pound man.
If that 2024 season hadn’t been as impressive as it was, I don’t know that I would have included Judge. His 2023 was great to start, until he injured himself crashing through a gate at Dodger Stadium. If he wasn’t hurt so much, he’d be even more incredible. As I mentioned earlier, he’s only played four full seasons out of nine (2017, 2021, 2022, and 2024), and in each of those seasons he’s managed to finish top-five in MVP voting, winning twice. His unanimous win in 2024 is the second in Yankees history, joining Mickey Mantle. The injuries are a knock, and a very reasonable one at that. There’s nothing more valuable in a baseball player than being on the field. But when he is, Aaron Judge is the most valuable man in baseball.