Yankees superstar Aaron Judge is in a home run flurry that has rarely been seen in MLB history. Through his age-29 season, he had 158 career home runs and on Saturday, at age 33, he hit his 350th career home run.
Judge homered 62 times in 2022, 37 times in 106 games in 2023, 58 times last year and so far this season has 35 homers in 95 games.
He is much more than a home run hitter, of course, as he’s overall hitting .358/.465/.739 with 6.6 WAR — tops in the majors. He’s well on his way to winning his third MVP in four seasons, too.
Watch as Aaron Judge makes three highlight defensive plays, including a HR robbery of Pete Crow-Armstrong
Dayn Perry
As a Hall of Fame voter who loves breaking down Cooperstown cases, I can’t help but marvel at how much Judge has likely altered his path these past four seasons. Through his age-29 season, Judge had the aforementioned 158 home runs, 571 hits, 93 doubles, 366 RBI, 402 runs and a career .276/.386/.554 line, good for a 150 OPS+. That is not a Hall of Fame track.
Through age 29, the most statistically similar players to Judge were Brian Giles, Teoscar Hernández, Khris Davis, Kevin Mitchell and Norm Cash. That’s a list of some very good sluggers. None of them are Hall of Famers.
On a rate basis, Judge was great. The talent was always there. He just couldn’t stay on the field enough. He averaged 7.5 WAR per 162 games but 4.4 per season (some of that was due to his late rookie season in 2016 and the COVID-shortened 2020 season, during which he missed a significant number of games due to injury).
Of course, this wasn’t simply a case of Judge avoiding injury in 2022, 2024 and, to this point, 2025. He’s taken his game to another level while staying mostly healthy:
- Judge had never hit .300 before 2022. He hit .311 that season, .322 last year and is hitting .358 this year.
- His career-high on-base percentage before 2022 was .422. He got on base at a .425 clip in 2022, .458 last year and .465 this year.
- His career high in slugging was .627 before he turned 30. He slugged .686 that year and topped .700 last year. He’s over .700 again.
- The 171 OPS+ in 2017 was his career high before 2022. In 2022, it was 210, then followed it up with 175, 223 and so far this year it’s 226.
- Judge posted 8.1 WAR in 2017, but otherwise never went above 6.0. He’s now pacing toward a third 10+ WAR season in four years in his 30s. This list of outfielders with three 10-WAR seasons isn’t long: Babe Ruth (nine), Willie Mays (six), Barry Bonds, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Ty Cobb. Even if Judge falls short this season, he joins Mike Trout, Tris Speaker and Carl Yastrzemski as the only others with two such seasons.
WATCH: Aaron Judge passes Lou Gehrig for Yankees home run history with another multi-homer game
R.J. Anderson
There is precedent for a slugger to look like he won’t be a Hall of Famer, only to pick up steam around age 30 and end up in Cooperstown. I found three good cases.
- Willie Stargell, through age 28, only had 13.4 WAR, 724 hits, 136 home runs, 478 RBI and while he was a three-time All-Star, had never finished higher than 14th in MVP voting. He would post 44.2 WAR with 339 homers, more than 1,000 RBI and four top-three MVP finishes (including a win in 1980) across the rest of his career.
- Edgar Martínez didn’t get good until age 27 and got awesome at age 29. Through his age-28 season, he only had 380 hits, 27 home runs and 131 RBI. For real. He’s now a Hall of Famer.
- David Ortiz started to get noticed at age 27 in his first year with the Red Sox. At that point, he only had 522 hits, 89 home runs and 339 RBI. He’d end up with 2,472 hits, 541 home runs, 1,768 RBI and permanent legend status in Boston.
Judge still has plenty of work to do on a counting-stat basis. After all, it’s only his 10th MLB season. But sitting at 1,151 hits, 197 doubles, 350 home runs, 797 RBI and 821 runs scored is decent shape given where he was just a few years ago. His value is heavily dependent on home runs, sure, but he’s a well-rounded hitter and home runs are the best possible thing a hitter can do. He’s hitting .294/.412/.616 (178 OPS+) now in his career with black ink all over his Baseball Reference page. If you want the star factor or like to think about how imposing or scary a hitter was in the box when considering whether a player is Hall-worthy, Judge is up in the… what? Top 1% in MLB history?
Furthermore, it seems clear that Judge is likely to win his third MVP this season. The only MLB players to win three MVPs are Bonds (seven), Shohei Ohtani (who is likely to win his fourth this year), Trout, Albert Pujols, A-Rod, Mike Schmidt, Mantle, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio and Jimmie Foxx.
Judge wasn’t on a Hall of Fame track through 2021. Even if you wanted to blame injuries, sometimes that happens. Ask Dale Murphy or Don Mattingly. But now? Yeah, Judge sure seems headed that way. He’s stayed on the field, channeled his talent and become a force who will rightfully sit in Cooperstown someday.
This news was originally published on this post .
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