Aaron Judge and the 600 Club

While he went 0-for-3 in New York’s shutout loss, the Yankees breathed a sigh of relief last night as Aaron Judge returned from the IL after a mercifully short stint. Since debuting in the majors, Judge has been an offensive powerhouse, but one who got off to a relatively late start and endured plenty of injury misfortune. Go back five years, and the big question was whether he could stay healthy enough for the Yankees to plan around him, not what the numbers on his Cooperstown plaque would be should he manage a long big league career. Now, the idea of him not making the Hall of Fame seems like a charmingly naïve anachronism, a bit like wondering if Netflix would be able to survive the shift to streaming.

In the last four-plus seasons, Judge has hit 233 home runs, almost tripling his career total, and has seemingly destroyed what appeared to be the modern ceiling for obtainable WAR from a hitter who doesn’t also pitch in his spare time. It now looks like Judge may be up to 400 career homers well before the end of next season. So just where is his ceiling now? And can anyone challenge him as the Chief Justice of the Longball for this generation?

Let’s go back to 2020 for a minute. I fired up the ZiPS projection system and asked the computer to provide me with Judge’s career projections after that season. While he had always been a feared hitter, winning AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2017, he was just finishing his age-28 season and had only played one actual full season in the majors. And despite having a 52-home run campaign in his rear view, his career total of 119 homers was relatively pedestrian, behind players like Maikel Franco, Rob Deer, and Randal Grichuk through the same age. Judge didn’t do any better by the fancy-pantséd numbers, ranking 488th all-time in WAR through age 28, and that’s just the position players. The ZiPS projection for him at the time told the tale of an extremely talented slugger who couldn’t stay on the field, one who, if he proved especially unfortunate in the years to come, might not get the 5% of the vote necessary to stay on the Hall of Fame ballot.

Note that these projections contain the improvements to the model I’ve made over the last five years, but they do not “cheat,” and are unaware of any performance after 2020:

Those aren’t bleak projections, in that they see Judge staying an offensive threat for quite a while, but the numbers were not bullish about his health. That makes sense; historically, players who are injured a lot in their 20s don’t become models of health in their 30s. ZiPS thought he’d be good enough to finish with 53 WAR and threaten the 400-homer mark, but that’s a career similar to Lance Berkman, not an inner-circle Hall of Famer. Now, there’s a good chance that I would have voted for this version of Judge, but I’m also far more of a peak guy at most; I likely would have voted for the actual Berkman to make the Hall, and I would have been an easy nod for Johan Santana.

Well, Judge has eviscebliterated those projections (sorry, I needed a new word). Indeed, without the injured toe in 2023, Judge may already have reached the home run total that’s projected for the entire rest of his career. At 58.4 WAR — ZiPS did not see Judge’s stint as a shockingly competent 6-foot-7 center fielder coming — he’s already eclipsed his previous career WAR projection. He’s not even finished with his age-33 season, yet he already ranks higher all-time in home runs among players in their 30s (tied for 88th) than he did among players in their 20s (tied for 212th).

Rolling a new projection for Judge through Tuesday’s games shows just how much his career projections have changed the last few years:

Decline is an inevitability for Judge, as it is for every player (and for all of us), but with better health and a higher peak, his glide through his 30s looks a lot more gentle. With another 16 homers projected in 2025 in the full ZiPS model, the system now projects Judge to finish his career with exactly 600 home runs (ZiPS gives him almost no chance of retiring with 590-599 homers since it’s milestone-aware). Hitting 442 home runs from age 30 on would be the second-most in history, behind only Barry Bonds, and 92.8 WAR is Hall of Fame shoo-in territory. And there’s even a 12% chance that Mike Trout falls short of Judge on the WAR front despite the massive head start!

Who else is likely to join Judge in the home runs list? Here’s everyone the projections see with a 15% chance of getting to 500:

Only three players, including Judge, project as having at least a 50/50 chance of passing 500 home runs. Despite his age, ZiPS now thinks there’s a reasonable chance that Judge just keeps mashing and passes the 700 homer mark, something that would have seemed absolutely fanciful during the darkest days of COVID. They aren’t perfect contemporaries given their ages, but Judge vs. Soto might end up being one of the biggest internet flame war arguments of the 2030s! (I’d recommend staying out of it.)

Judge’s return from the injured list on Tuesday came at just the right time for the reeling Yankees, who have lost five straight and are now three games out of second place in AL East. But if anyone can set fire to the pennant race, it’s the man sometimes accidentally known as Arson Judge.