Who Is Better: Ohtani or Judge?
Three questions about New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge.
The two best baseball players of the 2020s have been the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, a unique big leaguer who both pitches and bats as the Designated Hitter, and the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge, a gigantic outfielder. But now Judge has sat out the last three games as doctors try to figure out what is physically wrong with him. The most worrisome possibility at present is thoracic outlet syndrome, which tends to plague muscular ballplayers (typically pitchers).
That got me wondering over a few questions about the 34 year old Judge.
First, if he never plays again, is he worthy of the Hall of Fame?
The answer is: of course.
Granted, Judge’s career hasn’t been that long. At 6’7” and 282 pounds, he was something of a project, so his rookie year came at age 25 in 2017 when he hit 52 homers. Then he had four straight fine but not great seasons in his late 20s, before turning into an all-time great at age 30 in 2022 when he broke Roger Maris’s famous American League homer record by hitting 62.
Judge has had four great seasons: 2017, 2022, 2024, and 2025, with over 50 homers in each. 2023 might have been a fifth great season, but he crashed his toe into the stupid concrete lip around the Dodger Stadium outfield:
The Dodgers actually have enough money to fix Dodger Stadium so that it doesn’t injure players like this.
Judge hits for power, walks, and (unusually in the current era) batting average, leading the majors last season with a .331 average. (He doesn’t steal much, but he has been a pretty good outfielder, sometimes switching to center from right field.)
He’s already over the usual Hall of Fame benchmark of 60 Wins Above Replacement with 64.5 for his career.
Wins Above Replacement is a synthetic measure intended to quantify all aspects of winning baseball games, although who knows how scientific it is? I’m using the Baseball Reference version of WAR (bWAR), although experts seem to prefer the Fangraphs version (fWAR).
And Judge’s four peak seasons have been heroic, accounting for 39.5 WAR compared to, say, Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax’s four season peak of 36.4. (The peak in this century since steroid testing was introduced for top four seasons has been Mike Trout’s 40.3.)
Second, are contemporary ballplayers on PEDs like the stars of 30 years ago were?
Paywall here.
