It’s hard to Judge Aaron’s potential
The potential is there. The power is, too.
Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge showed as much when he got called up to the big leagues last season, homering in his first at-bat.
But after accumulating seven hits (two homers) and six strikeouts through his first five games (18 at-bats), Judge began to struggle. In his final 22 games, before being shut down due to an oblique injury, he had eight hits (two homers) and 36 strikeouts (66 at-bats).
Three of Judge’s four homers traveled tape-measure distances of 457, 443 and 419 feet, according to ESPN’s tracker. More concerning, however, in his smallsample size was the 44.2% strikeout rate. By comparison, among qualifying players, Chris Davis struck out a MLB-high 32.9% of the time.
During the 2016 campaign, Judge used different leg kicks and placed his hands in different spots. And as he enters spring training prior the 2017 season, his swing remains a work in progress.
“The main thing with Aaron is — and it happens to a lot of young players when they came to the big leagues — they end up trying to do a little bit more and they get away from doing some of the things that got them here,” Yankees hitting coach Alan Cockrell said Thursday. “With Aaron, we’re just trying to get him into a good position to hit. He’s a big kid, 6-foot-7, so we’ve got to get him down in his legs.”
The Yankees hope is that Judge, entering his age-25 season, will adjust. His minor-league history in that respect gives them some optimism.
In 2015, following his promotion to Triple-A, Judge triple-slashed .224/.308/.373 with eight homers and a 28.5 strikeout percentage in 61 games. But in 2016, those numbers jumped to .270/.366/.489 with 19 homers and a 23.9 strikeout percentage in 93 games prior to his call-up.
Given that Judge is a big guy with pop in his bat, comparisons have been made between the Yankees youngster and Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who uses a toe-tap instead of a leg kick. In his seven seasons, Stanton has averaged around 30 home runs and 140 strikeouts in 426 atbats. “If you look at the evolution of what (Giancarlo has) done when he got to the big leagues to where he is now, he’s simplified a lot of things and it starts from the ground up,” Cockrell said. “Aaron is trying to do some of those things, too.”
The Yankees know Judge will strike out a lot. They just want it to be at a more reasonable rate.
Given that they ranked 12th in the American League in runs scored and 11th in homers, they would like Judge to win the everyday job in right. But he’s going to have to produce in the spring, because they do have the option to send him back down to the minors if he doesn’t.
Aaron Hicks, who drew frequent criticism from the fan base over his .617 OPS, is also in competition for the job.
“Hicksie has to be more consistent,” Cockrell said. “He needs to make sure that he’s getting his work in day in and day out. He doesn’t need to swing hard. He needs to kind of minimize his effort a little bit and trust that the quickness is enough to do what he needs to do offensively. He can hit balls hard, but at times this want to do more — we all have it, in a lot of areas in life we want more — and Aaron goes through that at the plate sometimes. He’s a quick-twitch kid, he’s a great athlete. He just has to trust that.”