Yes, that is correct, Aaron Judge and his teammate Tyler Austin had the best welcome party in MLB history.
Judge is the more heralded prospect and he’s been ridiculously hot since being called to the majors, so we’ll focus on him. Judge is a mountain of a man who hits the ball really hard and really far. He hit 19 home runs in Triple-A this season before his MLB promotion.
He reminds baseball fans of a mountain-sized man who hits balls really hard and really far. The Minnesota Twins’ Miguel Sano put on quite a power display in his rookie season in 2015, hitting 18 home runs and slugging .530 in 80 games. He was promoted straight from Double-A, where he was slugging .544 with 15 home runs.
These two hitters are almost clones. Check out their batted ball and plate discipline profiles from prior to their promotions: (Figures are from StatCorner and FanGraphs.)
|
Fly Ball % |
Line Drive %
Strikeout Rate
Walk Rate
BABIP
Isolated Power
Sano, AA
33.7 25.3 23.8 13.3 0.315
0.274
Judge AAA 32.8 24.6 23.9 11.5 0.319
0.219
That’s not all. Over the course of his minor league career, Sano slashed .278/.372/.563 with a 26.0 K% and 12.1 BB%; Judge slashed .279/.373/.471 with a 24.3 K% and 12.4 BB%.
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That’s crazy similar production, but the one difference is that Sano hit for a bit more power. Sano homered once every 18 plate appearances while Judge homered every 27. Working in Sano’s favor is that he has been playing professional baseball since 2010 and had almost 300 more plate appearances under his belt, while Judge wasn’t drafted until 2013.