It is accurate to say that Aaron Judge is doing stuff that hasn’t been seen since Babe Ruth, from a clean player.
The New York Yankees star became the fourth player in MLB history to post four seasons with at least 50 home runs on Wednesday, joining Ruth, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Obviously, those McGwire and Sosa feats come with asterisks.
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Judge got there with a three-run homer against the the Chicago White Sox. The effort earned Judge a standing ovation from the Bronx faithful as he took the field in the third inning.
It’s been another stellar season for Judge, one that has him in contention for his third MVP award in four years. His only competition at this point is Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who’s ahead of him in home runs and RBI but not many other offensive categories.
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Raleigh does have the argument of a more demanding defensive position, and while there is the team success narrative with the upstart Mariners on the verge of their first AL West title since 2001, the Yankees entered Wednesday with one more win than them.
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Judge was the heavy favorite to win the award as recently as last week, but BetMGM’s John Ewing noted Wednesday morning that the odds have shifted toward Raleigh in a near pick ’em. Raleigh held -120 odds, while Judge was -110.
Judge’s other 50-homer seasons are his rookie year in 2017, his first MVP year in 2022 (when he broke the AL record with 62, also considered the clean record) and last season’s second MVP year.
In addition to Judge and Raleigh, Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber have also crossed the 50-homer threshold. Before 2025, the only seasons with more than two 50-homer campaigns were 1998 and 2001, making this the first non-steroid-tinged year to see this kind of power display. If Eugenio Suarez (47 homers) has one last power burst, it will be the first season to have five such players.
It might be a while before we see a run like the one Aaron Judge is currently on. (Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
It’s hard to overstate just how impressive Judge’s run over the past four years have been. Entering Wednesday, Judge was hitting .310/.438/.673 since the start of 2022. The next-closest MLB player to his 1.110 OPS was Ohtani, at .996. The distance between Judge and Ohtani was greater than the one between Ohtani and the seventh-best player on the list, Bryce Harper.
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In a world where seemingly every hitter seemingly has to choose between contact and power when facing today’s velocity-driven pitching, Judge is a unicorn. And he’s about to get another crack at the playoffs after reaching the World Series last year.
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