TOWER OF POWER
YANKS’ MONSTROUS JUDGE A BIG-TIME HIT: KERNAN
BIG men. Big power. And big problems when all those big parts are not moving in t he same direction. The home runs are more majestic when a big, tall slugger crushes the baseball — and Aaron Judge is living that life now, beginning Thursday as the major league’s leader in home runs (13), and tied for the AL lead in RBIs (27), a kinetic-motion MLB marvel.
Judge is 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, and has given new meaning to the term huge hit. But it’s not just the style in which he is bashing baseballs, shattering flat screen TVs and setting rookie records, Judge is a hitter who uses all fields as well. There is power and precision. If he continues to take that approach, he will continue to succeed. There is a rather small list of big success for sluggers 6-6 or taller, putting up 100plus home runs, with ex-Yankee Dave Winfield at the top of the mountain with 465 home runs. In all, eight players 6-6 or taller have topped 100 career homers, according too the Elias Sports Bureau.au.
E x -- Ya n - kee and ex-Met Tony Clark is on the list, too, with 251 home runs, and Clark, 6-7, 245, did it as a switch hitter, so he had to keep a big swing together from both sides of the plate, making it that much more difficult.
“The game is not really made for guys our size with the larger strike zone, so I’ve really enjoyed watching Aaron Judge do what he is doing,’’ Clark, now the executive director of the MLBPA, told The Post on Thursday.
“With big guys it’s always a challenge to repeat our swings. We have so many moving pieces that often times when it’s good, it’s really good and when it’s off, it’s really off, so getting our bodies in a position that affords us an opportunity to match up what we’re seeing with what we are trying to get our body to do is difficult, a challenge larger than most. “That’s why as we watch
some- one like Aaron, who is ... bigger than I was,’’ Clark said, “doing what he’s doing, it can’t help but bring a smile to my face knowing the work he must be putting in to be as comfortable as he looks right now.’’
That is the key, from last season to this season, Judge has rebuilt his swing and now is so relaxed at the plate, he is having the kind of success no one could have dreamed of after watching him struggle last season.
One of Judge’s strengths is that he stands so far off the plate, opposing pitchers can’t really get inside on him, and because of his long wing-span, she still possess-es tremendous plate coverage. He has made those adjustments from last year and you can be sure there will be another round of adjustments made by the pitchers. Judge, 25, is not fishing for the baseball, not expanding the strike zone and is taking his walks.
In 27 games and 84 at- bats last season, Judge struck out 42 times with only four home runs. This season he has those 13 home runs in 88 at-bats with only 27 Ks. His OPS has gone from .608 to 1.251. His slugging has zoomed from . 345 to .818. His batting average has rocketed from .179 to .330.
Judge’s f irst hit Wednesday night against the Blue Jays was a ground ball past second that beat the shift. Credit GM Brian Cashman and his staff for not only drafting JuJudge 32nd overall in 2013 — that first-round compensation pick came as a result of Nick Swisher sign- ing with the Indians — but all the work done in building this mighty swing.
“From an analytic standpoint you try to make safe bets, and Judge coming out of college was 6-7, and he had a lot of strikeouts, and from a historical standpoint in this game, being 6-7, is obviously a detriment,’’ Cashman said.
Cashman pointed to a FOX Sports column by Ken Rosenthal that noted only 12 hitters in major league history, 6-6 or taller, have achieved 1,000 career plate appearances, according to MLB Network research.
“Judge was 6-7. You have that history of only 12 players who ever played the game for an extended period of time at the major league level, so that’s a salmon swimming upstream,’’ Cashman said.
“There’s a long history of people that size and what they can’t do,’’ Cashman added. “[Yankees VP of domestic amateur scouting] Damon Oppenheimer and his tremendous amateur scouting department believed in this player’s athleticism, and his makeup and his abilities that he would be
an exception rather than part of the rule. So we were all in.’’
Then there was the work with Judge’s swing with the help of hitting coach Alan Cockrell.
“Aaron has worked hard,’’ Cashman said, also pointing to the likes of James Rowson (now with the Twins), Tommy Wilson and (assistant hitting coach) Marcus Thames, “and there are a lot of people who have worked hard with him.’’ Now, the fans are all in as well. “I just walked up the block to get a sandwich and I got stopped four different times,’’ Cashman said. “People want to go out of their way to tell me how exited they are about this team, these players, Judge, and it is just awesome watching them play.
“With [Gary] Sanchez last year, and Judge doing what he is doing this year, it just continues to energize. It’s been amazing.’’
Again, it doesn’t just happen. It’s about work.
“Sometimes,’’ Clark said, “I worked to a fault trying to get my body to work the way I wanted it to, but Aaron’s approach is tremendous. He tends to hit extended line drives that land on the other side of the fence. It really looks that he understands and appreciates his leverage and power. I’ve seen him get balls in, hit balls away out to right-center and pull his hands in and hit balls in off the plate to left-center.
“So he is using the whole field that allows you to appreciate not only the power, but the quality of his approach that he has right now,’’ Clark said.
In what proved to be prophetic comments from Winfield back in March 2015, the Hall of Famer offered a game plan for Judge’s success.
“Statistically and historically it shows that it’s difficult for big men to be good hitters in this game,’’ Winfield told me at the time. “Bigger strike zone, the linkage of your body. Don’t get caught up on it just because you are big to go for home runs.
“For me, I chose to be an RBIguy first because you are important to a team and that is part of the mental approach, it helps you focus and you want to bring value to the team.
“No. 2,’’ Winfield continued. “I wanted to hit for average because when you are a young man, and you don’t hit for average, you’re gone. If you hit for an average, they can’t get rid of you.
“And the third part, home runs will come.”