by While MLB and many national baseball media are still fixated on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani narrative as the best player in the league, real ones know that Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is far and away the best player in the game right now.
Ohtani is no slouch, of course. The reigning NL MVP is having a fine season, slashing .307/.411/644 with a 1.056 OPS, hitting 13 home runs and 22 RBI. He may return to the pitching mound later this season, but there’s been no timetable offered. But even if he does, it’s clear that Judge’s 2025 season to date makes him more worthy of praise.
Judge is currently slashing .412/.497/.782 with a 1.279 OPS and 15 home runs and 41 RBI.
Though by today’s standards, batting average has been devalued (we don’t agree), Judge’s .412 BA is significant. First off, he’s no longer protected by Juan Soto in the lineup, so teams are trying to attack other players in the lineup. Will he stay above .400 for the season? If so, he would be the first to do so since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.
According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, Judge is now ranked with baseball legends with players hitting above .400 with 15-plus home runs in their first 43 games of the season, joining Mickey Mantle (.419, 20 HR) in 1956, and Jimmie Foxx (.415, 18 HR) in 1932.
His latest homer came in the eighth inning of Wednesday night’s 3-2 win at Seattle, which gave the Yankees the lead and would prove to be the difference.
“Every time he comes up, I think he’s going to hit a home run,” Yankees’ starting pitcher Will Warren told reporters after the game. “It’s crazy, but he puts in the hard work every day, shows up the same guy every day, and I think that’s why he gets the results he does.”
Judge is working toward his third MVP season, and wouldn’t it be even better if he could win a Triple Crown in the process?
He’s come up shirt in the Triple Crown race twice before, as The New York Post’s Gerg Joyce points out:
In each of Judge’s MVP seasons, he has made a run at the Triple Crown before coming up short both times in batting average. In 2022, his .311 was just shy of Luis Arraez’s .316. In 2024, he improved to batting .322 but was overtaken by Bobby Witt Jr. (.332) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.323).
But for all the accolades, Judge says he is laser-focused on winning the World Series, but to do that, he has to get better in October.
In 2024, Judge went just 4 for 18 (.222) in the World Series and slashed .184/.344/.408 in 14 postseason games. In 2022, Judge set an AL record with 62 homers in the regular season, then hit .139 with a .490 OPS in the postseason.
“It definitely eats at you,” Judge told reporters after Game 2 against the Dodgers. “You want to contribute and help the team, but that’s why you’ve got to keep working and you’ve got to keep swinging. I can’t just sit here and feel bad for myself. Nobody is feeling bad for me, so you’ve just got to show up and do the work.”
Judge isn’t the first Gotham star to struggle in the postseason, and it certainly doesn’t take away the fact that right now, he’s the best player in all of baseball.
