MLB: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
- 615 PA, .257/.370/.539, .910 OPS—Average of all sources
- 549 PA, .272/.393/.565, .958 OPS—Best projection (Marcels)
- 625 PA, .249/.350/.509, .859 OPS—Worst projection (Davenport)
As good as Aaron Judge was last year when he had an on-base percentage over .400 and a slugging percentage over .600, you have to remember how bad he was in a 27-game stint in the big leagues in 2016. That year, he hit .179/.263/.345 and struck out 44.2 percent of the time in 95 PA. Before playing in the bigs, he’d hit a good-but-not-great .270/.366/.489 in 93 Triple-A games. In 2015, Judge hit well in Double-A but struggled in Triple-A as a 23-year-old.
Even during last year’s terrific MLB season, Judge had a hideous 49-game stretch from July 8 to September 3. He hit .181/.338/.351 and struck out 77 times in 213 plate appearances (36.1 percent strikeout rate). Then he righted the ship and crushed baseballs for the rest of September. We’ve seen the best of Judge and the worst of Judge, not only over the last few years but in a single season.
So put it all together and what do you have? You have some disagreement among the projections for the big outfielder in the Bronx. Most of the projections have Judge hitting in the .255 range, but Clay Davenport has him at .249 and Marcels has him at .272.
The consensus on his on-base percentage is in the upper .360s, but Davenport has him at .350 and Marcels has him at .393. For slugging percentage, there’s a range from the .509 projected by Davenport to .517 projected by Steamer to .557 projected by ZiPS and .565 projected by Marcels.