New York Yankees: Aaron Judge Is the Next Giancarlo Stanton

The Yankees’ Aaron Judge has the raw power, the incredible size, and the batted ball velocity to join The Mighty Giancarlo Stanton in the tier of absurd power hitters.

We’re less than three weeks into the 2017 MLB season, but I feel confident in naming Aaron Judge Rookie of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-Star, Silver Slugger, MVP, and (solo) World Series winner.

All right, that was a bit facetious, but you get the point: Aaron Judge is having himself a moment. In just 14 games, the 24-year-old already has more home runs, runs, and RBI than he did in his 27-game debut in 2016. His strikeout rate is nearly half of what is was in 2016 and his walk rate has improved. His batting average is up nearly 100 points and his wRC+ is nearly triple what is was last year.

All those numbers are fun and all, but images, both moving

and otherwise

are really the best thing about Judge.

The 6’7” behemoth was going to draw comparisons to Giancarlo Stanton regardless of how he actually hit the ball, but Judge’s 2017 season has made the comparison a particularly apt one.

I could dance around the most amazing Judge stat for a while, but let’s just lead off with it, because I am so excited it is actually a thing: Of the 15 hardest balls tracked by Statcast this season, six (SIX!) of them are from Judge. No other player has more than one in the top 15, with The Mighty Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout being the only players with two of the top 21 recorded exit velocities this season.

Pretty soon, the Statcast leaderboard might need an “Aaron Judge filter” for exit velocity, similar to the “Aroldis Chapman filter” Statcast has for its fastest pitches tab.

Judge is averaging well over 400 feet on his five home runs (410.8), with the longest being the 451-foot demolition he put on a Dylan Covey pitch in Wednesday’s game. That home run came on a 78-mph curveball from Covey. Think about how hard it is to create the power necessary to send a baseball 450+ feet on a pitch that slow. We need a Sports Science segment on Judge and we need it yesterday.

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Moving back to the Stanton comp: In his rookie season, Stanton hit 22 home runs in 100 games, with a .507 slugging percentage. All of those numbers seem feasible for Judge in 2017 based on his start to the season.

However, if we cut it down even more, the comparison starts to get a bit unnerving. In his first 41 career games, Stanton slashed .221/.291/.450. Judge has slashed .214/.297/.458 through his first 41 career games. Eerily similar, right? Stanton had 15 walks and 58 strikeouts over those first 41 games. Judge? He has 15 walks and 57 strikeouts so far. This is like a lost episode of The Black Tapes.

Now Judge has been doing this at a slightly older age (24) than Stanton was when he made his debut (20), so maybe his ceiling is capped a bit, but being able to hit in Yankee Stadium for the next half-dozen years should do more than enough to cancel out the age edge for Stanton.

Despite the bravado of the first paragraph, we are obviously still well within the small sample size portion of the 2017 season. Judge could slip back into his high strikeout rate days, and he could end up disappointing a bit after such a fast start. However, Judge did just pass the stabilization point for strikeout rate, and he has drawn nothing but praise from coaches for his approach this season.

Next: How Kaprielian's Surgery Impacts Yanks

This is a player who most people thought was going to start the season in the minor leagues to continue refining his approach at the plate. Instead, he has blasted his way into the hearts of not just Yankees fans but fans of baseball in general. The 6’7” kid with the goofy grin may just be here to stay as one of the staples of the Statcast video montages, hanging alongside Giancarlo Stanton and whatever other cyborgs the U.S. government manages to create over the next few years.