Is Aaron Judge worth $300M?

Published: 7/12/2022 9:42 pm

Since 2017, Aaron Judge has been the face of the biggest franchise in the sport. In his first full season in the Bronx, Judge smashed 52 HRs, drove in 114 RBIs, and had a batting slash of .284/.422/.627. Judge finished 2nd in AL MVP voting, narrowly losing the award to Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros, all while leading the Yankees to 91 wins during the regular season. Aaron Judge and the Yankees eventually lost in the American League Championship Series to the 2017 World Series Champion Houston Astros, despite the loss, the future looked bright in the Bronx.

The most impressive part of Judge’s rookie year was his advanced hitting stats, like Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) and Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA). His .430 wOBA was over 100 points more than league average in 2017, and his wRC+ was 174, meaning he created 74% more runs than the average hitter. All of his advanced and traditional statistics led to him having a 8.8 Wins Above Replacement (WAR). This shows that Judge’s value as a player added 8.8 more wins than a replacement level Minor leaguer or free agent would’ve produced in the same position as Aaron Judge.

After an amazing rookie campaign, Aaron Judge’s hitting slightly digressed. His digression can be mostly attributed to his inability to stay healthy. Between 2018 and 2020, Judge suffered from multiple injuries in his wrist, shoulder, and lower body. During this time Judge was unable to play more than 70% of the season in each of those three seasons. Despite this, Judge’s numbers were phenomenal, with a batting slash of .274/.381/.536 with a wRC+ of 145, and a .386 wOBA. In the time Judge was able to stay on the field, he proved that he can be a difference maker and a potential cornerstone of the franchise.

His advanced numbers like wRC+, and wOBA were still very good but definitely not what they were back in 2017. His power numbers seemed like they were on the decline. Isolated Power (ISO) is a simple method used to measure how hard a player hits by only accounting for extra-base hits. If Judge went 1-for-5 with a HR then he would finish with an ISO of .800. If he went 2-for-5 with a HR and a single, his ISO would still be .800. Judge’s ISO was a .262, which was lower compared to his .343 he put up in his rookie year. Even though his ISO was lower, Aaron Judge had the 11th best ISO between 2018 and 2020. But if you take a deeper look into Statcast, you’ll see that Aaron Judge’s power dip wasn’t as significant as ISO makes it seem.

Statcast was introduced to the MLB in 2015, Statcast is tracking technology used by the MLB to collect and analyze baseball data on a scale like nonother before it. Up until 2019 Statcast was primarily made up of cameras and radar systems, then the Hawk-Eye was introduced to the system which allowed the MLB’s Statcast tracking percentage go from 89% to 99%. With Statcat the MLB has completely changed the game of baseball.

Aaron Judge in 2017, had a Hard-hit Rate of 55% and a Barrel Percentage of 24.9%. These two statistics show that Judge was able to absolutely crush the ball and he was able to get good contact on it as well. During the years of 2018 through 2020, Aaron Judge’s Hard-hit Rate was slightly lower at 53.7% but his Barrel Percentage was 16.7%. Barrel Percentage is very important when it comes to hitting and especially power stats. Barrelling the ball is when a batter hits a ball with an exit velocity of over 98 MPH, as well as in a specific angle range, for 98 MPH that range is between 26 and 30 degrees. In 2021 barrelled balls had a batting average of .772 and a wOBA of 1.342, meaning that if you barrel the ball you have an extremely higher chance of getting on base or even hitting a home run. After looking at more advanced metrics Aaron Judge’s more traditional power numbers are dropping because of his Barrel Percentage. Aaron Judge’s Barrel Percentage of 16.7% is still elite, it just isn’t what we’re used to seeing from Judge.

After a bounceback 2021 season, Aaron Judge exploded in 2022. Judge has been looking like the MVP we all thought he’d turn into after his rookie season in 2017. Just looking at Judge’s traditional numbers shows you that he is having an out of this world season. Judge leads the league in homeruns with 30, and he’s on pace to break 60 and possibly break the Yankees franchise record of 61 Home Run record set by Roger Maris in 1962. All while leading the Yankees to a league best 61-25 record. The most important turn around for Judge was his Barrel Percentage, in 2022 his percentage is at 24.7%, almost exactly what it was in 2017. When you combine this with his Hard-hit Rate being 59.9%, it makes for some good hitting.

The best part of Judge’s play this season in my eyes is his xwOBA.Weighted On-Base Average or wOBA is like On-base Plus Slugging (OPS). The difference is that accounts for the actual value of every type of way to get on base in relation to projected runs scored. This is better than OPS because On-Base Percentage (OBP) and Slugging (SLG) are valued the same but statistically OBP is worth roughly 1.8x more than SLG. Expected Weighted On-Base Average or xwOBA is another new statistic from Statcast. xwOBA shows how well a player would hit without the defense affecting the play. For example, if Judge were to hit a ball with an expected batting average (xBA) of .500, that .500 would be counted to his xwOBA. But if that same ball with a xBA of .500 is caught then his actual batting average (AVG) would be .000 and that would be counted to his wOBA. xwOBA can be a better way of indicating someone's batting skills. Teams in the MLB are playing their players in very different places on the field depending on the players hitting tendencies, allowing defenses to make easier plays. So if a player tends to hit the ball to the right side of the field then the defense would stack the right side, which makes it easier for the defense to make plays. Meaning that xwOBA can sometimes be a better indicator to skill of a hitter, because sometimes the defense is just phenomenal and they take away hits from batters.

In 2017 Aaron Judge had an amazing .430 wOBA and an even better xwOBA of .452. Now in 2022 Judge has a wOBA of .405, which is still extremely good, but his xwOBA is .448 meaning he’s getting the same quality of contact when he was hitting back in 2017. The only difference between the two is the defense. After being in the league for 5 seasons teams have been able to properly shift their fielders around to be in the areas of the field that Judge hits to the most.

As I explained earlier, wRC+ is a metric used to determine how good a baseball hitter is with league average being 100. In 2022 Judge’s wRC+ is 169 so far, only 5 points lower than his 2nd place MVP finish in 2017. wRC+ is able to quantify run creation and is able to normalize it over different eras and factor in different ballparks, with league average being 100. This can be useful when comparing it to wOBA, since the league average wOBA changes from year to year, a .350 wOBA in the 2000s is extremely different from a .350 wOBA in the 2010s. A 100 wRC+ in the 2000s is essentially the same as a 100 wRC+ in 2020s, wRC+ can be used to see how good a batter is compared to the average MLB batter. Another statistic I mentioned before was Wins Above Replacement (WAR), in 2017, Aaron Judge’s WAR was 8.8. So far in 2022 Judge has a 4.3 WAR through 83 games. According to FanGraphs Aaron Judge is projected to finish the season with a WAR of 8.0 in 156 games. Anyway you want to try and look at it, the stats show that Aaron Judge has finally been able to replicate his 2017 success and stay healthy at the same time.

Even with a lot of his numbers not being what they used to be back in 2017, Judge can be considered an even better hitter now in 2022. As players get older they tend to know the game and who they play a lot better than they did in their early years. Since Judge has entered the league his one weakness was his strikeouts. In 2017, Aaron Judge had a Strikeout Rate of 30.7%, in 2022 it’s down to 25.5%. Judge has been able to master the zone and lower his strikeout rate, making him an even deadlier hitter. Judge also has worked on his contact, with his contact percentage going from 67.6% to 74.9%, when you combine all of these stats it shows that Aaron Judge is almost right back to the standard he set for himself with his 2nd Place MVP finish in 2017.

It’s now finally time to answer the question, is Aaron Judge worth $300 Million? Back in April Judge rejected a 7 year $213.5 million contract extension, it was reported that he told the Yankees that he wanted his contract to be at least 9 years and that he wanted more money than the $30.5 million per year average. Aaron Judge seems to expect to get a 9 year $325 million contract like his teammate Gerrit Cole, and I also expect him to get one. With a potential 60 home runs and MVP season, teams will be flocking to sign arguably the biggest name in baseball. Aaron Judge is playing lights out and leading his team to the best record in baseball. With Judge’s skill and popularity there’s no doubt in my mind that at least one team is going to offer him what he wants, and he’ll be the MVP he was projected to be. Whether he’s playing in Yankees Stadium or in Angels Stadium, Aaron Judge will dominate with the bat and sell tickets, and that to me is worth more than $300 million….