New York Yankees outfielder and reigning AL rookie of the year Aaron Judge headed into the season with lofty expectations. The soon-to-be 26-year-old batted .284 with an American League-leading 52 home runs last season and was projected to hit 42 home runs in 2018, producing 4.3 wins above replacement, making him the 10th most valuable hitter in the league. So far, however, things aren’t going according to plan. Judge is 3 for 15 with no home runs and six strikeouts for the Bronx Bombers.
“It’d be nice if you were 15 for 15 but that’s just not how it is,” Judge told Mike Mazzeo of the New York Daily News. “It’s just about taking it one day at a time, and whether you start off hot or start off cold, the numbers are going to be there in the end.”
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Perhaps. Late last season, opposing pitchers reduced the number of fastballs thrown to Judge in favor of breaking balls, such as the slider and curve, causing a mini-slump toward the end of the 2017 season. Judge created runs at a rate that was 15 percent higher than the league average (115 wRC+ after adjusting for league and park effects) in July and 10 percent below average in August, significant departures from the out-of-this world production the Yankees enjoyed during the earlier parts of the season. Judge also struck out more than a third of the time in his July and August plate appearances before correcting himself in September.
| Aaron Judge, 2017 | Strikeout rate | AVG | OPS | wRC+ |
| March/April | 27% | 0.303 | 1.161 | 198 |
| May | 30% | 0.347 | 1.084 | 186 |
| June | 29% | 0.324 | 1.167 | 205 |
| July | 36% | 0.230 | 0.847 | 115 |
| August | 35% | 0.185 | 0.680 | 90 |
| September/October | 26% | 0.311 | 1.352 | 233 |
This year, opposing pitchers are largely staying away from Judge’s power zone, the portion of the strike zone that is slightly up and in, or to the left of the plate if looking at the zone from the catcher’s point of view. Judge had a 1.026 slugging rate with two-thirds of his home runs (34 out of 52) hit on these pitches last season.
This season, pitchers are targeting the upper part of the strike zone — outside of his power zone — more often. For example, in 2017, the average height of opposing pitches was 26.8 inches, with a high of 29.5 inches during August, Judge’s least productive month. This year the average height of a pitch to Judge is 30.6 inches. Looked at another way, 8.2 percent of pitches thrown to Judge in 2017 were in the top part of the strike zone; in 2018 that has doubled to 16 percent.
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The small sample size of just a few games is obviously at play here, the Toronto Blue Jays have clearly put this plan into action. Toronto not only made sure Judge saw pitches high in the zone during their matchup on Sunday, the Blue Jays was also diligent to keep pitches away from Judge’s hands. Pitches had an average of 4.1 inches to the right of the middle of home plate on Sunday compared with a season in which pitches averaged 2.9 inches to the right. In other words, Manager John Gibbons had no intention to give Judge anything to hit, and they held the Yankees slugger to a 1-for-3 day at the plate with two strikeouts.
To Judge’s credit, he isn’t flailing at these pitches out of the zone — he is swinging and making contact at the same rate as last season — however it is robbing him of his power. His average exit velocity has dropped from 94.9 to 92.7 mph with his average launch angle rising from 15.7 to 22.9 degrees, resulting in more infield fly balls and innocuous line drives rather than the moon shots we awed at in 2017. He has yet to hit the ball on the sweet spot after leading the majors in barrels hit (87) last season. His expected slugging rate in 2017 was .653, slightly higher than his actual slugging rate of .627. In 2018 his expected slugging rate is .380, on par with Dee Gordon’s performance (two home runs in 695 plate appearances) last season.
“I feel good. People are just making great pitches,” Judge said. “The biggest thing is I just have to stay patient and hunt those mistakes, not try to chase stuff out of the zone.
“When I get away from my approach, it doesn’t turn out too well. And sometimes you’ve got to tip your cap when they’re painting stuff on the corner. But you can’t give up, you’ve got to keep battling and make some adjustments.”
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