Yankees: Aaron Judge and his record-breaking rookie year

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge should easily set the rookie record for walks and strikeouts in a season and hit the second-most homers ever by a rookie.

In Major League Baseball, the phrase “three true outcomes” refers to the combination of home runs, bases on balls and strikeouts. A 2000 article by Rany Jazayerli at Baseball Prospectus identified Rob Deer as one of the early heroes of the three true outcomes (TTO) movement. In his career, Deer hit a home run, struck out or walked nearly 50 percent of the time based on the Jazayerli formula: (HR+BB+K)/(AB+BB).

Deer wasn’t the only TTO star. There were some good players who specialized in eliminating the need for defensive players, including Jim Thome, Mark McGwire and the incredible Bo Jackson, who flashed across the baseball universe like a glowing meteor before injuries prematurely ended his career.

Not every player who specialized in the three true outcomes was as successful as the trio mentioned above. Sam Horn couldn’t ever put together a full season’s worth of at-bats, but did inspire the birth of a passionate website devoted to the Red Sox called Sons of Sam Horn. Billy Ashley had some powerful minor league seasons in the Dodgers organization, but couldn’t find the same success against big league pitching.

Jazayerli’s article at BP was 17 years ago, which is eons in baseball years. At the time, there was a slow but steady increase in the three true outcomes across the sport, but there’s been a dramatic increase since then. Strikeouts are the main culprit, with home runs also being a big factor. Hitters are striking out and hitting home runs at rates never seen before.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as far as production is concerned. One of the top practitioners of the three true outcomes is Yankees rookie Aaron Judge, who is third in the AL in Wins Above Replacement (WAR, per FanGraphs). Among qualified hitters, only Joey Gallo (60.0 percent) has a higher TTO rate than Judge (56.4 percent). This is the modern game. Many players want to hit the ball as hard and far as possible and if they strike out, so be it.

When it comes to the three true outcomes, Judge is having a historic rookie season. In Monday’s game, Judge walked four times, bringing his total to 103 walks this year. That places him tied for third in walks in a season by a rookie. Only Les Fleming (106 in 1942) and the great Ted Williams (107 in 1939) walked more times as rookies than Judge has this season, and the Yankees have 25 more games to play. He should obliterate the rookie walk record.

Most baseball fans know who Ted Williams was, but Les Fleming is not a well-known name. His best season was that 1942 rookie year in which he walked 106 times. This was during World War II when many MLB players were fighting overseas. It was also the only season in which he was a full-time player. The team’s regular first baseman the previous season was Hal Trotsky, but migraines forced him to retire and Fleming took over the position in 1942. Trotsky would make two comebacks from the migraines later in his career, but was never the player he’d been as a young man.

Fleming was mentioned in Pride Against Prejudice, a biography about Larry Doby, who was the first African-American to play in the American League. Doby joined Cleveland later in the same season that Jackie Robinson broke the modern color barrier. Robinson did so with the Dodgers in the National League; Doby was the trailblazer in the AL.

In the book, author Joseph Thomas Moore writes that Doby claimed two players rejected his hand when he was introduced to the team. One was Eddie Robinson and the other was Les Fleming. Robinson later claimed he did not remember this happening and Fleming died before the book was written, so he could not verify if the story is true.

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Judge shouldn’t have any trouble taking down the rookie strikeout record either. Kris Bryant holds the rookie mark for strikeouts, with 199 in 2015. Pete Incaviglia is second, with 185 in 1986. Judge currently has 181. He could pass Incaviglia by Friday. He’s projected to strike out another 32 times, which would give him 213 for the season. That would easily top Bryant’s rookie record, but still leave him 10 short of Mark Reynolds’ MLB mark of 223, set in 2009.

While Judge should easily set the rookie record for both strikeouts and walks, his second-half slump will likely prevent him from setting the rookie record for home runs. When he finished the first half with 30 dingers in the Yankees’ first 86 games, he was on pace for a total in the mid-50s. That would have easily bested Mark McGwire’s rookie mark of 49, set in 1987.

Since then, Judge has hit eight home runs in the 51 games the Yankees have played. He’ll need 12 more in the Yankees’ last 25 games to beat McGwire’s mark. Unless he has a Giancarlo Stanton-like finish, he won’t get there. Of course, he only needs one more big fly to break out of a three-way tie for second all-time in homers by a rookie. He’s currently tied with Wally Berger (1930) and Frank Robinson (1956).

Judge will set some rookie records this year, but his second-half slump has taken much of the air out of what could have been one of the 10 best rookie seasons ever. Judge had 5.4 WAR at the All-Star Break. A 7-WAR season would have put him 10^th in history for a rookie. If he had finished with 7.5 WAR, he’d be among the top five rookies ever.

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Now, with the way his second half has gone, Judge is looking more like a 6-WAR player, which is still terrific for a rookie. If he finishes with 6 WAR, Judge will be tied with 2001 Ichiro Suzuki for the 23^rd-best rookie season ever. Interestingly enough, it would probably be difficult to come up with two recent players more different than Ichiro and Judge. Judge’s 56.4 percent TTO rate is more than four times the 12.6 percent TTO rate that Ichiro had in his rookie year. It just goes to show that there are many ways to create value on the field. Judge is doing it in the most 2017 way possible.

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