Aaron Judge Is the Greatest Dodger-Killer of All Time

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Let me be very clear: This doesn’t matter. What I’m about to show you is small sample size theater. It’s not statistically significant. It has no bearing on what’s actually going to happen in the World Series. We are here for a fun fact rather than a learning opportunity. Are we all in agreement? Okay, then let me show you something wild. Here are Aaron Judge’s career numbers against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

These Are Some Humongous Numbers, My Friends
PA HR AVG OBP SLG OPS wOBA wRC+
41 8 .389 .463 1.111 1.575 .621 312

So, uh, yeah. A .389 batting average is good. A slugging percentage in the thousands is good. A wRC+ over 300 is also good. Just in case you were wondering how good those numbers are, here’s a table that shows the best career numbers against the Dodgers, minimum 40 plate appearances, courtesy of our splits leaderboard.

Splits Leaders Against the Dodgers (Min. 40 PA)
Name PA AVG OBP SLG OPS wOBA wRC+
Aaron Judge 41 .389 .463 1.111 1.575 .621 312
Joe Mauer 61 .529 .590 .667 1.257 .537 243
Nick Johnson 60 .415 .483 .792 1.276 .531 231
Cody Bellinger 58 .326 .466 .783 1.248 .503 227
Tyler Fitzgerald 45 .325 .400 .725 1.125 .465 202
Jack Suwinski 61 .314 .417 .667 1.083 .455 191
Eric Chavez 54 .319 .407 .681 1.088 .458 189
Mike Lieberthal 111 .373 .423 .686 1.110 .467 189
Barry Bonds 340 .289 .524 .644 1.168 .458 188
Jake Burger 74 .273 .351 .697 1.048 .436 182

As you might have noticed, the leaderboard only goes back to 2002, so all we can say for sure is that Judge’s numbers are the best of the past 22 years. Let’s venture over to Stathead, where we can look at OPS going all the way back to 1900. This time, we’ll use a minimum of 30 PAs.

All-Time Dodger Destroyers (Min. 30 PA)
Player From To PA HR BA OBP SLG OPS
Aaron Judge 2016 2024 41 8 .389 .463 1.111 1.575
Frank Thomas 2003 2007 35 4 .357 .486 .857 1.343
Nick Johnson 2005 2009 60 5 .415 .483 .793 1.276
Joe Mauer 2005 2017 61 0 .529 .590 .667 1.257
Cody Bellinger 2023 2024 58 6 .326 .466 .783 1.248
Edgar Martínez 1997 2001 39 1 .423 .590 .654 1.244
Tripp Sigman 1929 1930 38 2 .438 .526 .688 1.214
Delmon Young 2007 2013 30 1 .500 .533 .643 1.176
Brad Fullmer 1998 2003 83 6 .356 .434 .726 1.160
Jimmy Outlaw 1937 1939 30 0 .517 .533 .621 1.154
SOURCE: Stathead

So yeah, we can honestly say that Judge is the greatest hitter of all time against the Dodgers, and it’s not remotely close. We should still give a couple major caveats, though. First of all, the numbers above are just for the regular season, because that’s how Stathead’s split searches work. Second, there’s a reason eight of the 10 names on this list belong to players from this century: Back when there were fewer teams, players faced each team a lot more often, and numbers like these are impossible to sustain over a large number of plate appearances (unless you’re Gary Sheffield, who somehow had a 1.093 OPS against the Dodgers over 318 PAs). Judge has only played 10 games against the Dodgers.

That said, it’s not like Judge is hanging on by the skin of his teeth here. He’s got more than 230 points of OPS on the Hall of Famer in second place! If he were to strike out six times in a row the next time he faces the Dodgers in the regular season, his OPS would still top the list. I know that 30 PAs is a small sample size, but Judge would still be in first place if we dropped the minimum to 25. Or to 20. Even if you drop the minimum to just 15 plate appearances, Judge still has the highest OPS of all time by a margin of nearly 100 points. It’s not like he’s wildly overperforming his peripherals either; in the Statcast era, his .582 xwOBA is the highest of any batter, as is his 65.2% hard-hit rate (minimum 25 PAs).

Once again, none of this matters. It’s a statistical fluke. The numbers are tiny, and unless there’s a sweep, Judge will nearly double the sample size during the World Series. If he comes anywhere close to replicating these numbers, it will constitute the greatest World Series performance of all time. The Dodgers pitchers Judge has faced most often are Tyler Glasnow and Joe Kelly, neither of whom will be playing in the World Series. He’s never faced Jack Flaherty at all. Besides, the Dodgers aren’t even the team that Judge has hit the best. With a 381 wRC+, he’s also the greatest hitter ever against the Giants. No wonder they tried so hard to sign him and his brother Arson.

Over the course of his career, Judge has a 173 career wRC+. That’s the third-highest mark in AL/NL history, behind Babe Ruth (194) and Ted Williams (187) and just ahead of Bonds. Of course one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game is going to be the greatest against a couple of teams. Just to hammer that point home, Judge came into the ALDS with a 159 career wRC+ against the Guardians, and he ended up going 3-for-18 in the series. This is no guarantee of anything. But it’s pretty fun, right?





Davy Andrews is a Brooklyn-based musician and a contributing writer for FanGraphs. He can be found on Twitter @davyandrewsdavy.

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computersBaseball
1 month ago

Judge’s numbers against Glasnow mostly aren’t against the Dodgers anyway, those are from his Rays days, and he has a .644 OPS against him.