The Grand Canyon may be as old as 70 million years, but not a day goes by when somebody is not awestruck by it. Celebrated in song, verse, poetry, acrylics, oils and, of course, selfies, we never stop finding ways to appreciate this natural wonder.
Aaron Judge is baseball’s natural wonder. We know he is good. We know he is the greatest slugger of this generation. We should never take such greatness for granted. Instead, like sunset over the East Rim, we must find new perspectives to appreciate the natural wonder in our midst.
Last week was as good a time as any to be awestruck. Judge played six games at Yankee Stadium against the Cleveland Guardians and Colorado Rockies. He hit 21 fair balls. Seven of them were home runs.
Here is your East Rim-at-sunset mind-blowing perspective. At the Home Run Derby in July, Pete Alonso of the New York Mets connected on 37 fair balls. Twelve of them were home runs.
Alonso hit a home run on 32% of the balls he hit fair. He was swinging the bat against a 67-year-old man, Dave Jauss, lobbing 50 mph cookies over the plate.
Judge hit a home run on 33% of the balls he hit fair. He was swinging the bat against 16 different pitchers throwing seven kinds of pitches at speeds ranging from 74 mph to 100 mph.
For a week Judge treated major league pitching like it was coach-pitch from a 67-year-old. He is making baseball look easy in one of the most difficult hitting environments since the mound was lowered in 1969.
The barrage leaves Judge with 51 home runs with 31 games to play in the regular season. He needs 12 home runs in those 31 games to break his American League and non-PED-tainted MLB record of 62 home runs in a season, set in 2022. What are his chances? Put it this way: he has homered 17 times in his past 31 games. He can cool off and still go for 63.
By the way, did you notice that in the six games last week with all that damage that Judge did not strike out? That had never happened before. Judge had never gone more than four straight games within a season without striking out.
We are watching an all-time great slugger at his all-time best. So, let’s take a moment to sit back and enjoy the view: here are nine more perspectives on the magnitude of Judge. Please set the lens to wide angle to take it all in.
1. The swing that changed his season (updated)
I told you weeks ago about the turning point. Judge was hitting .209 on May 5 when he stepped in to bat against Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers. He changed his set-up. He closed his feet to a neutral position after struggling the first 35 games with an open set-up. He promptly walloped a home run off a 97-mph heater.
From that moment, we are witnessing one of the greatest extended displays of pure hitting any of us have ever seen. These numbers are ridiculous:
Judge Since May 5
Take a look at that again.
Judge is on base more than half the time spanning almost four months.
He has hit 45 home runs in 94 games, a 78-home run pace over 162 games.
2. 99’s 94 measured against Babe and Barry.
Neither Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds had a 94-game span within a season with the home run and RBI thresholds Judge has reached this year:
Best 94 Game Spans Within a Season
3. An economy of greatness: A huge year in 100 games or less
How impressive is it that Judge hit 45 homers and drove in 103 runs while hitting above .333 just in the past 94 games? Only 11 players in history have done that over a full season. The man still has an entire month to play.
Judge became the fifth player to hit 50 home runs in three seasons. Three of the previous players are tainted by PED associations: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez.
That leaves only two players who hit 50 three times without such taint: Judge and Ruth. That’s it.
5. Chasing ghosts
Don’t overlook how Judge is hitting for an insanely high average. Judge is hitting .333: 89 points above the MLB average.
Only three players ever hit for such a high average while also hitting more than 50 homers: Ruth (three times), Jimmie Foxx (twice), Mickey Mantle and Hack Wilson. Nobody has done it in 68 years.
Ruth, Foxx and Wilson did so when the MLB batting average soared between .273 and .292. Mantle did it when the league hit .258. At .244, this is a much tougher hitting environment—the second worst since the mound was lowered in 1969.
6. An OPS+ Plus
When it comes to measuring a hitter against the environment he plays in, you don’t have to do the math. Adjusted OPS does it for you: on-base plus slugging adjusted to the player’s ballpark and league norms. One hundred is average.
Judge’s OPS+ is 230. Much more than twice as good as the average player. That means Judge is far better than his peers than has been any right-handed hitter in baseball history (min. 129 games, Judge’s total thus far). He would replace Rogers Hornsby, whose OPS+ of 222 has held up for 100 years until Judge came along.
Only three left-handed hitters have been more of an outlier than Judge: Bonds (four times), Ruth (three) and Ted Williams (two).
7. A Ruthian Feat
Home runs in the past 30 days:
• Aaron Judge in 97 at-bats: 16.
• The entire Chicago White Sox team in 879 at-bats: 17.
8. Closing the last hole
Until last week, pitchers had only one safe zone to attack Judge in the strike zone: down and away in the area the size of a composition notebook. Judge was hitting .208 in that small box with only one home run.
And then last week happened. He went 2-for-4 in that area. Both hits were home runs.
All year he sees 202 pitches in that tiny pocket and hits only one home run. And then last week he destroys two for home runs.
Time to rip up the scouting report. The entire strike zone is now a no-fly zone.
9. The New King of New York (Sorry, Babe)
Entering last week, Ruth homered more frequently than any player in any New York ballpark: one homer every 10.9 at-bats at the original Yankee Stadium. Judge was second with one homer every 11.0 at-bats at the third version of Yankee Stadium.
But after the madness of last week, Judge just overtook the Babe when it comes to the frequency of going yard in his own yard. After 90 years as The King of New York, Ruth is dethroned.
Roll that around your brain: Judge hits home runs at Yankee Stadium more frequently than Ruth did in the House That Ruth Built.
Here are the top 10 career home run hitters in any New York ballpark with their rate of at-bats per home runs.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nine Ways Aaron Judge Continues to Inspire Awe.
