In some ways, Aaron Judge and Alex Rodriguez are uniquely similar to each other.
Both are/were once-in-a-generation athletes that took baseball by storm. Each wowed fans with their exploits both at the plate and in the field, and that’s about where it ends. Except for one key area:
Much like Alex Rodriguez during his own time in New York, Aaron Judge is gaining a reputation for vanishing in the playoffs.
As things currently stand, with Judge’s New York Yankees tied 1-1 with the Royals in the ALDS, the likely MVP’s career playoff numbers are pedestrian. He’s a .208 hitter, albeit with 13 home runs and 25 RBI. His lone hit in the 2024 playoffs is a garbage-time infield single in Tuesday’s Game 2 loss.
Now, oddly enough, A-Rod’s career-playoff numbers aren’t awful. He hit .259 in October with 13 homers and 41 RBI, but that’s over 12 years and 19 series. Judge’s playoff stats only cover 13 series played over seven years.
That should make the Yankee captain’s playoff home runs look better, right? Well, that’s a tougher call. More than half of them were hit in 2017 and ’18, one of which was absolutely a juiced baseball season. Judge hit .253 across those years, not bad at all. Add another juiced ball year (plus another home run) in 2019, and that figure increases to .257.
It all goes downhill from there, both from MLB deadening the ball and Judge having no protection in the lineup for four years. Since 2020, Judge has hit five home runs in six postseason series. He has more than three times as many strikeouts as he does walks.
His batting average is a pitiful .142.
Now, let’s take a look at Alex Rodriguez’s general playoff legacy. He wasn’t awful on the whole but every Yankees fan remembers. 2009 was the only time he was truly great and came through when it mattered. Rodriguez hit .365 with six home runs and 18 RBI in 2009.
Subtracting that from his playoff resume, he’s suddenly just a .234 postseason hitter. Could be luck, could be steroids, but the fact remains that Alex Rodriguez was generally on the wrong side of streaky during the playoffs.
Judge, meanwhile, is knee deep on that wrong side, and what stings most is he has no excuses. Brian Cashman went out and got him Juan Soto, who slugged a career-high 41 home runs batting in front of Judge’s spectacular bat. Austin Wells, though tired now, blossomed as the new cleanup hitter.
In fairness to Aaron Judge, circumstances haven’t been ideal from an umpiring standpoint. Adam Hamari and Ryan Blakney both called low strikes over the first two games. Judge’s height alone means he gets burned on low calls, so he probably figures better to swing and hope for good contact rather than get caught looking.
It isn’t just Judge either. Kansas City’s star shortstop and AL batting champ Bobby Witt Jr. is 0 for 10 with four strikeouts in the series after batting .333 in the Wild Card. He too has gotten burned by low strikes, both looking and swinging, and the Royals hope he’ll soon break out of his funk.
Similarly, the New York Yankees need their captain. Aaron James Judge is the heartbeat of the lineup and always leads by example. A 1-1 tie means it’s now a two-game series, and a clean slate if Judge adjust accordingly.
It’s really simple: Just ignore pitches down in the zone and work the count accordingly. He’s already averaging nearly 4.5 pitches per plate appearance, so that’s half the battle won.
All season long, with every remarkable home run, Aaron Judge drew comparisons to seven-time MVP Barry Bonds. He too was an OK playoff performer, hitting .245 with nine home runs and 24 RBI. However, eight of them were hit in 2002 and drove in 16 runs, just one year after Bonds’ record-breaking 73-homer season and about two years into his steroid use.
Subtract that dream October, and the Aaron Judge-Barry Bonds comparison is almost too perfect.
Bonds only hits .198 with one home run and ten RBI.
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