Aaron Judge
Aaron Judge is the New York Yankees captain whose 62 home runs in 2022 broke the American League single-season record on his way to three AL MVP awards.
Aaron Judge is the captain and right fielder of the New York Yankees, and the author of the most prolific home-run seasons the American League has ever recorded. In 2022 he hit 62 home runs to break a league single-season mark that had stood since 1961, and he has since paired that peak with three Most Valuable Player awards and a batting title. A 6-foot-7 power hitter who spent the whole of his career in pinstripes, Judge is measured less against his contemporaries than against the franchise’s and the sport’s historical leaderboards.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 26, 1992, Sacramento, California |
| Position | Right fielder |
| Teams | New York Yankees (2016–present) |
| Draft | 2013, 1st round (32nd overall), New York Yankees |
| Contract | 9 years, $360 million through 2031 (signed Dec. 20, 2022) |
| Number | 99 |
Fresno State and the draft
The college bat. Before professional baseball, Judge played three seasons at Fresno State, where his size and raw power made him a prospect despite a swing scouts flagged as long. The Oakland Athletics had drafted him out of Linden High School in the 31st round in 2010, but he did not sign and went to college instead.
The Yankees take him. New York selected Judge with the 32nd overall pick in the 2013 MLB draft, a compensation choice in the first round. He climbed steadily through the minor leagues over the next three years, projecting as a power corner outfielder whose chief questions were contact and strikeouts.
The breakout (2016–2019)
The debut. Judge reached the majors on August 13, 2016, homering in his first big-league at-bat but hitting just .179 across 27 games with a high strikeout rate that left his place uncertain entering 2017.
The Rookie of the Year. The 2017 season answered every question at once. Judge hit 52 home runs with a .284 average and a 1.049 OPS, won the AL Rookie of the Year award unanimously, finished second in MVP voting, and carried the Yankees to within a game of the World Series. The two seasons that followed, 2018 and 2019, were productive but shortened by injuries, each ending with 27 home runs across fewer than 115 games.
The record season and the captaincy (2020–2022)
The interruption. The pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign and injury-marred stretches kept Judge from a full season, but his rate production never dipped. He returned to 39 home runs and a .916 OPS over 148 games in 2021.
The record. The 2022 season stands as one of the great individual years in franchise history. Judge hit 62 home runs, breaking the American League single-season record of 61 that Roger Maris had set for the Yankees in 1961, and surpassing Babe Ruth’s franchise mark of 60. He added a .311 average, 131 RBI and a 1.111 OPS, won his first MVP award, and did it in the final season before free agency.
The payday. That winter, the Yankees re-signed Judge to a nine-year, $360 million contract on December 20, 2022, and named him the 16th captain in club history the next day — the first since Derek Jeter’s retirement.
MVP encore and the batting title (2023–2026)
The second MVP. A toe injury limited Judge to 106 games in 2023, but 2024 produced a season to rival 2022: a unanimous MVP on the strength of 58 home runs, 144 RBI and a 1.159 OPS. On August 14, 2024, he became the fastest player in history to reach 300 career home runs, doing it in 955 games.
The batting title. In 2025 Judge won his third MVP award and added a dimension to his résumé, leading the majors with a .331 average to capture his first batting title — at 6-foot-7, the tallest batting champion in MLB history — alongside 53 home runs. A 2026 season shortened by a stint on the injured list left his career totals, through that season, at 386 home runs and a .291 average.
By the numbers
| Season | GP | HR | RBI | BA | OBP | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 27 | 4 | 10 | .179 | .263 | .608 |
| 2017 | 155 | 52 | 114 | .284 | .422 | 1.049 |
| 2018 | 112 | 27 | 67 | .278 | .392 | .919 |
| 2019 | 102 | 27 | 55 | .272 | .381 | .921 |
| 2020 | 28 | 9 | 22 | .257 | .336 | .891 |
| 2021 | 148 | 39 | 98 | .287 | .373 | .916 |
| 2022 | 157 | 62 | 131 | .311 | .425 | 1.111 |
| 2023 | 106 | 37 | 75 | .267 | .406 | 1.019 |
| 2024 | 158 | 58 | 144 | .322 | .458 | 1.159 |
| 2025 | 152 | 53 | 114 | .331 | .457 | 1.144 |
| 2026 | 66 | 18 | 41 | .241 | .360 | .871 |
Per Baseball-Reference, through the 2026 season.
Career totals
Ranks
- 1st American League single-season home runs (62, 2022)
- 1st Yankees single-season home runs (62, 2022)
- 4th MLB single-season home runs, all-time (62, behind Bonds, McGwire, Sosa)
Honors
- 3× AL MVP (2022, 2024, 2025)
- AL single-season home run record (62, 2022)
- 2017 AL Rookie of the Year
- 8× All-Star (2017, 2018, 2021–2026)
- 5× Silver Slugger (2017, 2021, 2022, 2024, 2025)
- 2025 AL batting title (.331)
- 3× AL home run leader (2017, 2022, 2024)
Per Baseball-Reference and Wikipedia, through the 2026 season.
The arguments
The October question. The most durable debate around Judge concerns his postseason record. In the 2024 World Series, a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games, he went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts over the first three contests, extending a narrative of regular-season dominance that has not consistently translated to the playoffs. Defenders note that his sample of October at-bats is small, that he hit well in earlier rounds, and that teammates and pitching shortfalls shaped those series as much as any one bat; critics counter that a captain paid as a franchise cornerstone is judged by exactly those moments.
The peak-value question. A second argument concerns where Judge’s best seasons rank historically. By career OPS+, analysts have placed him among the greatest right-handed hitters on a rate basis, with only names like Ruth, Williams and Gehrig ahead over comparable early-career spans. Skeptics point out that such comparisons lean on rate statistics and that injuries have repeatedly cut his seasons short, leaving his counting totals behind the all-time leaders despite the elite production.
The durability question. The third debate weighs that production against availability. Judge has twice lost large portions of a season to injury — in 2023 and again in 2026 — and reached 150 games in only a handful of campaigns. One side frames this as the predictable cost of a 282-pound frame playing a demanding outfield position; the other argues that the per-game excellence is precisely what makes the missed time the central limit on his legacy.
Why it matters
Aaron Judge matters because he reset what a single season could look like in the sport’s most storied franchise, taking a home-run record held by Maris and Ruth and putting his own number on it, then refusing to let 2022 stand as a one-year outlier. Three MVP awards, a batting title and the fastest climb to 300 home runs in history place him among the defining hitters of his era, while the open questions — October, durability, his standing against the all-time greats — are the kind that attach only to players whose peaks are large enough to argue about.