In a season where baseballs are purportedly being juiced, hitters like New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge have seen a decline in power. Here’s why that’s about to change.
This season, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has experienced a bit of a power outage. After setting the home run record for a rookie in 2017 with 52 dingers, he followed that up in 2018 with 27 home runs in 112 games.
This season, Judge only has 13 homers in 70 games played. At this pace, if Judge plays every game until the end of the season, he’ll have played in 105 games and should hit around 20 home runs, which is significantly down.
Also this season, per StatCast, Judge has featured the highest exit velocity of his career (96.9 mph). On the other hand, his launch angle has decreased to 10.6° which is the lowest of his career.
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As a result, Judge has experienced an increase in his ground ball and line-drive rate. However, his flyball right has decreased this season.
- 2017 – 35.2 GB% / 26.3 LD% / 33.1 FB%
- 2018 – 41.7 GB% / 27.1 LD% / 28.6 FB%
- 2019 – 43.6 GB% / 31.9 LD% / 22.7 FB%
What’s more, even though Judge is barrelling the ball better than he ever has and his weak contact currently at a career-low, his batted ball profile is hard to make sense of. According to StatCast, Judge his hitting the ball straight and pulling less than he ever has before. His oppo numbers, however, are up.
- 2017 – 39.1 Pull% / 34.6 Straight% / 26.3 Oppo%
- 2018 – 37.2 Pull% / 35.3 Straight% / 27.4 Oppo%
- 2019 – 36.2 Pull% / 34.4 Straight% / 29.4 Oppo%
On Wednesday, however, in the series opener against the Oakland Athletics Aaron Judge did something he hasn’t done all season… he pulled a home run.
🚨 Aaron Judge just pulled a home run. I repeat, Aaron Judge just pulled a home run 🚨 pic.twitter.com/zzx125KgF5
— Baseball Bros (@BaseballBros) August 21, 2019
Conversely, in seasons past, according to FanGraphs’ spray charts, Judge was extremely good at spraying bombs over walls across the field.
This is a good sign for Judge, the New York Yankees, and their desperate fans.
For one, it’s a sign that Judge might finally be feeling better after suffering a left oblique strain that sidelined him for 2-months this season. It’s also a sign that there might be a power onslaught on the come.