Aaron Judge is Chasing Down More Than Just an MVP
We are witnessing one of the greatest seasons in the modern era.
On April 25th, 27 games into the season, Aaron Judge was batting .178, had a wRC+ of 91 (9% below the league average of 100), and ranked 120th out of 183 qualified players in Wins Above Replacement with 0.2.1 Most expected the six-time all star centerfielder, 2022 MVP, and Yankee captain would snap out of his slump, but few could have predicted what would come. Since that day in April, Judge is batting .369 with an OPS of 1.321 and a wRC+ of 256 (156% higher than the MLB average of 100).2 He has accumulated 9.5 WAR, which is 1.8 more WAR than the next highest, Bobby Witt Jr. He leads the league in all of those aforementioned stats, in addition to on-base percentage, slugging percentage, wOBA, home runs, RBIs, and win probability added (WPA)…just to name a few.3 There is a reason my MVP prediction model gives Judge a 92% chance to take home the American League award, even when considering the stellar seasons Juan Soto and Bobby Witt Jr. are putting together. What we are witnessing, however, is more than just an MVP season. We are witnessing one of the greatest single seasons in the history of baseball.
History’s Greatest Sigle Seasons
Baseball has has provided us with some incredible years by all time legends. Babe Ruth was decades ahead of is peers while Barry Bonds - regardless of whatever asterisk you want to bestow upon him - was one of the most dominating figures in sports history. Aaron Judge, however, is holding his own among the greats. Below is a table of the top 100 single seasons since 1900 by Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement. Judge’s stats are projected out the full 2024 season based on current on-pace stats and FanGraphs projected games played.4
Assuming Judge continues on his 2024 pace through the final month of the season, he will end with 11.4 WAR, tied for 12th-most in a single season in baseball history. Notice, though, the years in which most of these seasons occurred. Ten out of the top sixteen occurred before 1930, when black and Hispanic players were barred from the league and the AL and NL had just eight teams each. This surely watered down the competition, and in all likelihood made it easier for the more dominant players to rack up big numbers. When thinking about baseball history as it compares to today, I personally like to go back just as far as integration - in 1947 - to attain a more realistic comparison.
The Best Since Integration
Aaron Judge is on pace to have the 5th-best season ever by WAR since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and enabled the true best of the best to play in the league. We would, however, be undermining Judge’s incredible year if we only looked at it in the context of WAR. If we examine how Judge ranks all time - that is, since 1947 - in terms of four of the most all-encompassing and value-quantifying stats - OPS+, wRC+, WAR and WAR/162 games - we can get a holistic view of how great his season has actually been. The table below shows each players ranking - since 1947 - in each of those stats. The final “overall score” is the geometric mean of those rankings.5
Only two men, Barry Bonds and “The Mick”, have put up better seasons than Judge’s 2024 campaign. Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto also land a spot on this list at 43rd and 48th, respectively. Unfortunately for them - and their AL MVP hopes - they’ve had Judge to contend with this year.
No Signs of Slowing Down
Since Judge snapped out of his early-season slump, he has been tearing it up at an ever-increasing rate. Below you see how Judge’s on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and batting average have swollen as the season has progressed.
While many players fall victim to the dog days of summer - seeing their stats slowly regress as the wear and tear of the season begins to take its toll - Judge has simply continued to get better and better. This can be seen to an even greater extent when examining his home run rate.
While his rate of home runs per plate appearance began to level off around July 1st, he has had a power surge over his past 30 games.
On July 24th, Judge was averaging 7.8 home runs per 100 plate appearances. Since then, he’s been homering at a rate of 11.5 dingers every 100 times he comes comes to bat, which has bolstered his season-long rate to 8.7/100PA.
Finish Strong!
While Bonds’ 2001 and 2002 seasons (insert asterisk here if you wish) are likely well out of reach, based upon the way Judge has been playing lately, he has the potential to land in third place on the list of best single seasons since integration. There are a number of ways in which he could do this, but just for example, if he raised his OPS+ five points to 235 and grabbed 11.6 WAR (0.2 WAR higher than his current projection), he would finish with an overall geometric mean score of 5.3 and edge out Mickey Mantle for third place.
It wouldn’t be fair to expect more from the man who is literally having a season for the history books, but based on how he’s been playing of late, nothing would surprise me. Only time can tell how utterly dominating the presumptive AL MVP’s 2024 will wind up being, but one thing is for certain, no matter what happens, we’ve witnessed a truly remarkable season.
The geometric mean was used to neutralize the average being skewed by a single ranking being extremely high or low relative to their rankings in the other two metrics.