Aaron Judge or Cody Bellinger?
There, atop the home-run leaderboard for the year, are two young stars on great teams in big media markets: Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger. That’s a match made in heaven, at least for barside arguments around the country. Which one would you rather have?
The question itself is vague enough that the our first argument would have to be about the argument itself. Define your terms! Do you mean right now? Because if you mean right now, there’s little doubt that the large man in the Bronx is having the superior season.
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Judge | 309 | 15.2% | 29.8% | 0.332 | 0.440 | 0.699 | 0.466 | 197 | -0.5 | 36.5 | 0.1 | 4.7 |
| Cody Bellinger | 240 | 9.6% | 28.8% | 0.274 | 0.342 | 0.679 | 0.408 | 157 | 2.8 | 20.5 | -3.3 | 2.5 |
Judge has the advantage in raw totals — which isn’t surprising, considering he’s also played more — but he’s also superior in the rate stats right now, both walking more often than Bellinger and offering greater defensive value so far.
It might be worth pointing out that Judge’s line is buoyed up by a .426 batting average on balls in play. There are a few modern ballplayers in the career leaders in BABIP (minimum 1000 plate appearances), but even the two at the very top — Miguel Sano (.365) and Mike Trout (.360) — are well below Judge’s current tally.
Andrew Perpetua’s xStats indicate that Judge’s combination of launch angle and exit velocity should have produced an .370 BABIP to date. So, even if Judge has been a little fortunate so far, he frequently makes hard contact in the good angles and should get more out of his balls in play than Bellinger (.325 xBABIP). Combined with the superior walk rate, that seems to tip the scales in his favor. And for xStats, it does: Judge has been 37% better than the league with the bat according to that metric; Bellinger, 30% better.
But that only addresses the present. Part of the allure of Judge and Bellinger is the promise each seems to possess for the future. And if we’re asking who we want in the future, we have another question on our hands — particularly if we ask some variant of “around which player would you rather build a team?” This is where their ages become more relevant — Bellinger is turning 22 this month, Judge just turned 25.
If there’s a flaw in either’s game that might be ironed out in the future, it’s the ability to make contact. So let’s consider the probability of each player improving in that area.
Look at how strikeout rate ages in today’s game, thanks to Jeff Zimmerman.
Today, your strikeout rate is likely to improve until you’re 25 and then get worse. Judge is already 25! What if he doesn’t improve his strikeout rate and Bellinger does? That aging curve suggests that Bellinger might be able to shave as much as two percentage points off of his strikeout rate by the time he turns 25.
In order to shave two percentage points off Bellinger’s current strikeout rate (before Monday’s game), we have to take either five strikeouts away (resulting in a 27.1% strikeout rate) or six strikeouts (resulting in a 26.7% strikeout rate). Let’s go with the latter. Now we can compare this fictional age-25 Bellinger — one who has just a 26.7% strikeout rate — to the current Judge using expected stats that normalize their balls in play based on comparable exit-velocity and launch-angle combos. More on how Perpetua calculates his stats is available here.
| Player | K% | xwOBA | xwRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real Aaron Judge | 29.8% | 0.441 | 189 |
| Fake Cody Bellinger | 26.7% | 0.428 | 186 |
Judge still comes out on top, even after accounting for Bellinger’s potential improvement in strikeout rate. However! We’ve done this without applying similar age-related improvements both in walk rate or power to Bellinger’s line. Given generic aging curves, he should see more walks (until age 26), a little more power (until age 23), and better fielding numbers (until age 25). Add those up and you might get an equivalent line between the two of them.
There’s one last thing to point out that may be interesting to our debate, considering we’re trying to decide how they will age. Judge may be older than Bellinger in terms of the age of his body parts, but in terms of playing baseball in the big leagues, they’re of equal age. Is it possible that players who debut later peak later because they get to make some of those same league adjustments, just later on?
I asked Jeff Zimmerman to run two aging curves, which he does using the Delta Method. One would look at the relative year-to-year overall improvement of players who debuted at 22 or younger, and the other would look at players who debuted at 24 and older. Here are those aging curves:
There’s little evidence that late debuts show an aging curve shifted to the right, with a later peak. By this curve, this year and next year are likely to be Judge’s peak years, and Bellinger still has five years to get to his peak. There’s a suggestion then that Judge could decline faster, if he ages like other late debuts. Look how that gray line is consistently below the orange one in the later years.
And that’s the simple fact that may push some to pick the Dodgers’ first baseman: those three years of catchup that Bellinger has on Judge are very valuable. Even if it looks like just a couple ticks of strikeout rate, a few more walks, and maybe a little better work in the field, it will all add up.
Consider this, though: it might all add up… so that Cody Bellinger is about the same as we’re seeing from Aaron Judge, right now.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Awesome article. This is going to be a fun debate to have for the next several years.
Also, Zimmerman’s k rate aging curve graph is really illuminating! Kudos to him as well.
Having been totally wrong about Aaron Judge busting, I should be a little gun-shy about picking against him. But aside from the logic in the article (which I more or less agree with), I’ll pick Bellinger for a different reason. Aaron Judge is not only older, but very tall and close to the heaviest player in MLB. While it’s not a given, I think his lower body is going to get beat up supporting him.
With a bat like his, I think it would behoove the Yankees to make Judge their fulltime DH sooner rather than later, and add a little preventative medicine to the mix.
He provides some positive defensive value, I’d say corner outfielders have a better chance of holding up than up the middle. Maybe leave the full time DH talk until he’s in his 30s?
To this end, is there actually a correlation between height/weight and time lost to injury for position players?
Judge is a fantastic athlete but you’d have to think all that added weight patrolling the outfield is going to wreak havoc on his joints at some point. Still, it would be interesting to see aging curves of all players who meet a certain height/weight threshold.
EDIT: Never mind, just saw the Pablo Sandoval article Eno linked to below. Thanks!
Didn’t read the article, but Dave Winfield and Frank Thomas seem like better comparisons for Judge than The Panda.
My understanding is that in the general population, people who are that tall and that heavy are more likely to have knee problems, and maybe also ankle problems. So if you see a guy who is 6 foot 7 inches and 275 lbs, his knees are more likely to be a problem than the guy who is 6 foot 4 inches at 210 lbs.
There are two caveats to this kind of argument. The first is that athletes are definitely not representative of the general population. There’s positive selection on durability into the sample of professional baseball players, so people like John Mayberry Jr and Aaron Judge may have unnaturally good knees because the other small-g-giants out there had their careers derailed already. If so, then the difference between their knee durability and Cody Bellinger’s might not be meaningful. The second caveat is a more general warning that this is a probabilistic argument and not a deterministic one, since lower-body joint health is a random variable (in the statistical sense).
Still, it’s enough that I’d rather have Bellinger three years from now.
Exactly! Lower body joint health is a random variable. In a large enough sample, you could make the argument that Judge will have knee problems and other lower body problems in a few years (my guess is that it will be more than three years from now).
It’s also instructive to remember that some guys are more injury prone than others, regardless of size.
So, it could turn out that Bellinger is the next Grady Sizemore and Judge is not.
There are just too many variables to consider right now. For example: who will run into walls more often? Who will attempt more diving catches and injure their wrists?
I think the better question is this: if Judge is moved to first base/DH and Bellinger becomes the regular first baseman for the Dodgers—a relatively safe position—who lasts and is productive for longer? Good luck with that!
All of that is true, but we’re interested in what is statistically most likely to happen. A roulette wheel could land on 00, too, but we can at least show why it is unlikely.
Yes, but what you can’t know is this: will a guy lose weight over time (perhaps because of better nutrition) and another go in the opposite direction?
When I was 25, I weighed 230 lbs. on a 6’4″ frame. But then I started an aerobics program and totally cut out junk food from my diet. I slimmed down to 195, but still could lift the same amount of weight as before. More muscle, less fat.
Also, adjustments are a big part of the game. Some batters make the adjustments to how pitchers have changed how they’re pitching to them and some don’t.
Also this anecdote from Eddie Murray: when somebody asked him in the 80’s: “Why don’t you lift weights like Bo Jackson and others?” He replied: home runs count the same whether they’re hit 370 ft. or 430 ft. Home runs are more about bat speed than strength.
I don’t know of any way of determining who’ll have the greater bat speed in 5 years. Do you?
Something tells me that Aaron Judge has already done the equivalent of your aerobics program. I don’t know if he’s going to be bigger or not, but I doubt he’d going to be much smaller. Not sure about Bellinger, but his body is a little less extreme and he’s younger.
Yeah for 275 pound guy, not very much of it looks like excess fat.
So I presume you had the dubious pleasure of seeing him in the nude? That’s interesting, since I didn’t know that readers of FG had access to the clubhouse.
Even Stanton has some body fat and he clearly has more muscle than Judge.
You can’t argue both “bat speed, not strength” and “wall scrapers count the same”. There’s no special bat-speed trick to hit wall-scrapers. If strength helps, it helps by creating more exit speed and shifting the distribution of hits further out.
If your logic is correct, then Stanton should be among the average exit velocity leaders, because nobody is stronger than he is. But looking at the leaderboard for 2017 doesn’t indicate that. http://m.mlb.com/statcast/leaderboard#avg-hit-velo
I think that demonstrates that bat speed is definitely a factor, unless you choose to believe that guys like Ryan Braun, Manny Machado and Jim Adduci (who in the heck is that?) are among the strongest guys in the game.
Does he really argue that? If so, I’d have to disagree.
I too remember that quote, but I also saw Bo Jackson hit a home run on a checked swing (in old Memorial stadium no less).
IMO he’s just arguing that bat speed is an important factor in hitting dingers—and Eddie Murray proved that. To the best of my knowledge, he never lifted a weight during his career, despite being implored by EBW to do so.
What about the unfortunate other party in the inevitable outfield collision?
Poor Aaron Hicks, who failed to call off Judge in time and is now two-dimensional.
LOL! If I had run into Judge in the outfield, I’d be one dimensional—flat as a pancake.
Even if pancakes are accepted to have zero depth, I think they still exist in the other two dimensions…
True. But it’s just a figure of speech. Hicks—no matter how hard the collision with Judge—will still be three dimensional.
“Well actually, physical objects remain three-dimensional” is the greatest “well actually” of all time.
I would be zero dimensional, having been reduced to microscopic debris. But at least the end would come quickly.
I was going to say something in disagreement about this comment. But I saw your other comment and I changed my mind.
I’d agree except his legs are freaking tree trunks.
Cool analysis, nice to see it compiled, but it seems to miss the basically proven point that all-star and up caliber players peak earlier than other players:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-do-star-hitters-age/ https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/5/27/8657581/aging-curves-mike-trout-bryce-harper-phenoms
That would suggest less room for dramatic improvement for Bellinger.
It’s also a real possibility that both Aarons – Judge and Altherr – are having their best seasons. It’s that old age 25 – 27 career year thing.
Bellinger is the correct choice here.
Let’s play Stump the Fan!
Who’s older? Bryce Harper, Aaron Altherr or Manny Machado?
Hint: It’s not close.
Phillies Rebuild!!!!!!
This is a trick question. So, Aaron Altherr.
(clutches throat, dies dramatically)
If Bellinger stays the same for three or four more peak years and Judge’s decline is worse because he’s big or a late debut, you’d still get more value from Bellinger that way, no?
No Poll?
added one!
Close but no Clay.
Also, Judge is a monster. He’s 280 pounds. Now, he’s obviously very fit, but that is still a lot of weight. His defense could go in the toilet very quickly, a la Adam Dunn.
great point, wonder if he’ll age like a big player. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/which-pablo-sandoval-did-the-red-sox-buy/
He’s definitely more athletic and fit than a normal baseball player. I think we should stop comparing Judge to past players, other than Winfield maybe, and start looking at how professional players his size age.
Take LeBron. Dudes in almost peak physical condition playing NBA for 20 years. What’s stopping Judge from investing in his body to continue his play?
“What’s stopping Judge from investing in his body to continue his play”
The Designated Hitter rule.
Sure but being a DH + investing in his body would be an added benefit. With all the tech and medicine we have, DHs don’t have to be Billy Butler-types anymore. These guys can be fit and hit massive dingers.
Bellinger feels too much like Schwarber for me. Insane k rate and unsustainable power numbers. I think he flames out like Joc or Schwarber sooner than later. His wRC+ with be below 125 by years end.
Your definition of “flame out” and mine are quite different apparently. Pretty sure the Dodgers would take anything 100+ from Bellinger RoS. No doubt he’s playing above his head…but frankly he’s not doing too much more than he’s been showing the last 12+ months in the minors.
He hasn’t hit anything roughly like this at any point in his career
Yes he has. He had a 170 wRC+ is AAA this year, 142 last year in AA, 130 is high A. He’s at 155 now with a K% higher than he’s had at any level (to be expected), his pre-season projected BB%, and a much higher than expected ISO.
But given the juiced ball theory, we’ve been observing major league ISOs that are greater than AAA due to a change in the ball. It’ll probably come down, but he’s absolutely hit “roughly” like this his entire minor league career.
Not to mention a .981 OPS in the AZ fall league.
I disagree. He has never hit for power even remotely like this. Try to move past the compound stats – so much gets lost in that type of “analysis”. He has never eclipsed 30 HR in a season. His ISO is near .400 – the only places he has gotten over .225-ish are high-octane environments.
I agree with the juiced ball theory, but there is little chance that he can continue anything near this pace for power, which is another way of saying that he probably won’t eclipse 50 HR… 60 HR would be to maintain the pace… When I put it that way, there is nothing bold about my take. 40 HR is probably 50/50 based on what he is. Perhaps Cody Bellinger of the past is long-gone, but that is more or less what I was saying in the first place, which is that this is without precident. If this is real, then it was not predictable and nobody saw it coming – its OK, that’s how the best stories go anyways.
As Eric is fond of saying, development is not linear (and he is very young).
He absolutely mashed at OKC before his callup. He has not had a cold stretch of more than about 4 games since Spring Training (he wasn’t great for a lot of spring training, says a person who watched many of the games).
Teams have tried the high and inside thing before: it was used a lot in spring training, and the giants went to it immediately when he was called up. He scuffled against it for his first few games, then adjusted his location in the box and started getting better results.
The problem is that the high and inside hole is not that large and if you miss it you miss into areas where he absolutely wrecks baseballs. He’s fine middle-inside and he’s fine high and in the middle of the plate.
The outside pitch hasn’t got as many strikeouts but he hasn’t hit as many for home runs because the margin for error is larger.
I’ve watched a pretty ridiculous percentage of his PAs in 2017, and he has made more visible and faster adjustments than a lot of players. He’s shown the ability to adjust his swing situationally in ways that Joc Pederson still can’t do.
He’s not the next coming of Babe Ruth, but he’s made a serious jump.
Another factor worth considering is that prior to 2015, he and his father completely reworked his swing to use the natural uppercut and hit for power, in response to his continued growth into a large human (that is after his age 18 season in Rookie ball).
Since that offseason, he’s wrecked A, AA, AAA and now MLB pitching and had basically no extended bad stretches and hit for power at every level.
But why wouldn’t Judge also fall into that category what with his insane K rate and probably unsustainable power (if Judge is a TTL 40% HR/FB guy, can’t Bellinger be a 30% guy)?
If I got to pick one in a vacuum, I’d pick Bellinger, just based on the age. But in reality, it would depend on the team’s situation – contending or rebuilding.
This is a fun exercise overall, but I’d use an extra big asterisk when talking about defensive value over such a small sample size.
UZR says Judge has been more valuable so far, but DRS has them about even (6 vs 5). And that’s not factoring in the value of Bellinger’s versatility playing multiple positions so far. Basically, I don’t think Bellinger (an elite defensive prospect at 1B) need an aging curve to be a more valuable defender than Judge — he just needs a bigger sample size.
I didn’t belabor the point for those reasons.
Judge’s BABIP does give me pause to his ability to sustain such high batting average.
Ultimately it’s the age difference that matters most. Judge may be better right now, but it’s not leaps & bounds far ahead of Bellinger to give up the hypothetical opportunity to have Bellinger for 3 extra “peak years.”
I would think the 24+ debut player stats are skewed by AAAA players who wallowed in the minors for years before getting their shots, probably due to finally having reached their peaks just to get to the majors and having nowhere else to go but down. Where as Judge was just an older college draftee who took a fairly normal, or one could argue accelerated, path through the minor league ranks, and still should/could have plenty of development left, and has shown a propensity for development.
” or one could argue accelerated, path through the minor league ranks”
Kris Bryant took an “accelerated, path through the minor league ranks”. Judge took a good long time and failed to distinguish himself as a hitting prospect.
Both reached the majors in their 3rd professional season, albeit Judge had a lot more minor league AB’s. Both were drafted in ’13, but Bryant played in his draft year, Judge didn’t. Still, wouldn’t call one accelerated and the other “a good long time”. If you look at the 2013 draft, very few of the 1st rounders are in the majors, let alone regulars in the majors. Judge got there faster than most.
Judge’s age at his debut is a result of his going to college, not the time it took him to get through the minors.
But the comparison was to Bryant, who also went to college.
Another great thing about Bellinger is his positional flexibility. The fact he can play all 3 outfield positions and 1B and not completely embarrass himself (he’s actually not too bad at CF) while doing it gives him the edge over Judge.
Do we not think Judge can play 1b if he was needed there, with some offseason work? And so far he looks like he can be a serviceable outfielder in either corners.
Yeah I think the idea that Bellinger offers more defensive flexibility because of 1st base is absurd, before the season everyone was wondering if Judge would be able to stick in the outfield and he was only there because Greg Bird was blocking him at first.
bellinger is exclusively a low ball hitter. he can’t do much with pitches up. this is a real vulnerability that may not be exploited sufficiently
Saw that vs. Nolasco last night.
LOL
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/228730996/cody-bellinger-hits-grand-slam-vs-padres/
that’s a different swing than his usual.
That seems wrong. Check out some of his heatmaps as far as ISO and pitches he’s hit for home runs. Low and away is the weak spot, he’s been pretty good on pitches up.
http://i.imgur.com/dYhNQKw.png
http://i.imgur.com/EkBE1ED.png
I lack the technical skills to post images…can you post a similar chart of ISO, GB%, AVG?
I could be wrong, but what I’m seeing indicates that he’s hitting hard grounders on low and away pitches that aren’t doing any damage. On the other hand, he seems to swing and miss at plenty of pitches up, but he’s done a lot of his damage up there.
look at the number of BIPs in those iso/slg zone charts, they are low. those charts are not a fair representation of production. all they say is that when he makes quality contact with pitches up, he can drive them, but the frequency of quality contact up in the zone is low.
That’s different from him being “exclusively a low-ball hitter”.
it’s a pretty extreme zone profile, so the hyperbole is pretty justified here.
I would bet on neither being among the game’s elite in a few years. It is easy to imagine how it will fall apart for both of them. One is a giant and the other has a giant uppercut. It would be cool if one of them could sustain elite production, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
A slight uppercut is actually a good thing.
Well then I will just throw away my lifetime of knowledge and experience. Like many things it is great when it works! The reason it is problematic is that it is not real sustainable, not because of its performance in a vacuum.
Please do
You wrote “Clay Bellinger” in the poll question.
Fixed.
Clay………..Bill Clay.
(yipee-ki-yay!)
Does power really peak at age 23? That seems crazy young.
Duh… All of the great HR seasons have been by 23 year-olds!
Eno, it looks like you may have mixed up the lines on the K% chart. You write that, “In today’s game, your strikeout rate is likely to improve until you’re 25, stay steady into your late 20s, and then decline.” But that is only true of the 1998-2005 data. In today’s game, your K rate is likely to decline until you are 25, and then start increasing (~ +2% from age 24-30). This may affect your analysis, since it means that Judge’s K-rate is more likely to get worse from here on out, than it is to improve or even stay steady, if you go by the aging curve.
Fixed the error. I don’t think it affects much, there are other places where you can see the possibility of a quicker Judge decline. Should’ve put in that big player aging curve though.
I’d just like to add one thing…I believe Judge’s strikeout numbers this year are unfairly inflated due to poor zone recognition by umpires. As the umps better learn his zone, not only will his strikeouts go down, but his walks and hits will go up (due to getting in better counts). I believe currently around 25% of his at-bats get to 3-2 counts, which is pretty crazy.
His SwStr% is only 12.9% which is pretty good for a power hitter, whereas Bellinger is 14.4%.
Why is this true of Judge and not another rookie?
Because Judge is an enormous human being who has a different strike zone from most. You might have misread that Judge is learning the zone, but what he said was that the UMPS are learning Judge’s zone.
This could also work against him. Umps aren’t used to calling that large of a strike zone.
To your point though, they did have an article on here about how Judge was getting an inordinate amount of bad called strikes against him. My guess is his K% stays about the same and his average falls a bit as his babip normalizes (hot take I know).
His career will certainly be interesting to watch that’s for certain.
So, then….I should trade my Judge for Bellinger in my 15 tewam dynasty eh? Interesting….. I’m not going to be competative for 2 years…would you try and do that?
Why would you do that? Trade the flavor of the month for a proven asset. Neither can improve or will increase their value ever.
Where do we think Bellinger’s true talent level is with respect to HR/FB. I’d argue that 32% is obscenely high. Even if we allow the 50% flyball rate to stick, I’d have a hard time putting Bellinger in the Nolan Arenado batted ball group (~48% FB; ~16% HR/FB).
For Judge, same question as he’s at 41% HR/FB albeit with something closer to a 40% FB rate.
I still don’t know what their true talent level is yet because of these small sample, outlierish batted ball distributions.
But I do love the Judge walk rate for MLB and Bellingers walk rate for 5×5 fantasy leagues (more ABs to drive counting stats)
While those rates do sound awfully high, the ball really is flying this season for whatever reason (perhaps the composition of the ball itself, as articles seem to be showing).
Eh, I’ll still take Judge. I’ve seen players like Bellinger before. I’ve never seen someone like Judge, and I want to see him hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium.
Agreed. He is the freak athlete.
Great provocative article. I have some difficulty with the average ageing curve – 3 being the average # of legs between a man and a horse. Comps are another approach. Judge has few comps but here goes:
Dave Winfield – peak WAR – 7.8/age 29 – last 3+ WAR season – age 40
“Hondo” (Frank Howard) – peak WAR – 5.6/age 33 – last 3+ WAR season – age 35
Tony Clark – peak WAR – 3.3/age 26 – last 3+ WAR season – age 33
Dave Kingman- peak WAR – 3.7/age 30 – last 3+ WAR season – age 30
One thing these guys represent that is clear with Judge is he will not lose power as he ages. Take 10-20% off, and he’s still a power hitter.
This will be fun to watch!
Andrew’s xStats+ are not on the same scale as wRC+ or OPS+. He does xwOBA/LgwOBA*100. Toget his numbers on the scale of wRC+ you simply do ((xwOBA/LgwOBA)^2*100)/Park Factor.
For Arron Judge this gets us to xwRC+ = (1.38^2)/1.01*100 = 189
For Bellinger this means: xwRC+ = (1.33^2)/.95*100 = 186
wRC+ is actually calculated using NL or AL wOBA for non-pitchers only, while Andrew’s work calculates xOBA+ based on MLB wOBA
Hey this is great. thanks! I knew that he didn’t park factor, and was going to take it out. This is great. I’ll put it in. thanks!!!
Sanchez (’16 vs ’17)
.299/.376/.657/1.032 (53 games)
.298/.382/.560/.942 (45 games)
Little less power but it’s not far off, especially as the league has adjusted. His career WAR is now at 4.8 and spans all of 100 games. Since his return on May 5th, he’s been on pace for about 146 games a season which equates to an MVP-esque 7.0 WAR
Judge is great and getting all the attention but Sanchez is a catcher and just a stellar player in his own right.
Yeah, if you asked me Bellinger or Judge or Sanchez I’m picking Sanchez every time. We haven’t seen a catcher with this kind of power since Mike Piazza.
It’s a dark time when we see the Yankees having two young and amazing offensive stars. Perhaps throw in Montgomery as well as he’s been great. Oh, and Severino. Dammit.
Dark time for the forces of light, yes :-). I hate the Yankees. OTOH, I hung out with my out-of-town Yankee fan friends this weekend though and they’re all ecstatic.
Do any of the stats in this article factor in the respective ballparks? To date, Judge’s PA/HR at home (in hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium, though more friendly to lefties) is 8.7, but on the road is 19.6. Bellinger is at 9.5 at home and 11.1 on the road, indicating that he’s not really benefiting from where he plays.
How are strike out rates actually calculated? because according to the MLB stats (http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/batting) Judge has been up to bat 261 times and struck out 92 times. Which means he strikes out 35% of the time. Bellinger has been up to bat 218 times and struck out 72 times, which puts him at 33%.
You’re using AB. Strikeout rate uses PA as the denominator.
K% uses PA as the denominator, not AB.
Bellinger: 72K / 244PA = 29.5%
Judge: 92K / 314PA = 29.3%
(My numbers include games on 6/26, which the article does not)
What does PA stand for?
Nevermind I found Plate Apperances
Not a comment I’d expect to read here.
As a hitter I like judge more because he is more versatile but I think Bellinger could have a better career due to his younger age and defensive versatility.
Just as a hitter I like judge right no because judge is more of an all field line drive hitter while Bellinger is mostly a pure pull fly ball hitter like jose bautista. Now that is good because pulled fly balls are the most productive balls if you have power but that approach is not conductive to high babips. Bautista always had low babips and bellinger also did not have the highest babip in the minors.
Now bautista was a great hitter but he also had much lower K rates and low babip and low contact could mean very low average. Now Bellinger probably has even more raw power than bautista to make up for some of it but I think if bellinger stabilizes his ks in the high 20s he will be an adam dunn kind of hitter.
Now people get insulted by that because they only remember declined dunn but prime dunn hit 250 with a 900 + ops. If you couple that with gold glove defense at first base you have like a 6-7 war player in his prime which is fantastic.
With judge I see a wider variety of outcomes. I think is offensive ceiling is higher than the rather one dimensional offense of Bellinger but he is also older and had more severe K trouble in the past. Despite the age difference bellinger has the better minors track record at higher levels and I think the chance is bigger that he gets figured out completely.
With bellinger I think you know what you get, 250-260 average with lots of walks and homers, basically the classic pull slugger. I don’t see him bust but I also don’t see him improve his Ks more than to like maybe 25-26% or his approach to more all field line drive heavy but neither shouldn’t he because that approach is effective for him.
Why do you think he has more raw power than Bautista? honest question.
I think bautista has good raw power but he is not as big as Bellinger and I think his game power almost played above his raw power because he was so good at pulling the ball in the air at the right angle.
Bellinger has the same skill but without bautistas bat to ball skill but with maybe even more batspeed.
I think Bellinger won’t be quite the hitter jose was but I could see him hitting at least at the same power level.
How about Mitch Haniger and Ben Gamel in Seattle right now? Neither have the qualifying PA’s yet, but these two are haven’t let up at all.
Bellinger will spend his entire career shafted by WAR due to playing first base. Statcast data shows Bellinger is the fastest sprinter on the Dodgers and comfortably faster than Judge. He also has experience at all three OF spots in the minors. Basically, there’s every reason to think Bellinger could put up better “Def” than Judge if his team let him.
Pujols and goldschmidt also put up very good WAR at 1b.
There is the positional adjustment that hurts 1b but the reason that many 1b have mediocre war is that they are also not so good defenders and very negative baserunners.
If Bellinger is a plus runner and defender his war will be good if he continues to hit.
By comparing early debuts versus later debuts, you’re comparing the career course of phenomenal talents against those of relatively more ordinary talents. Most people debut later because they’re not as good, not because they wanted to go to college. That’s going to skew your results.
Judge == Stanton 2.0
Bellinger == Goldy 2.0
Give me the later.
While Judge has posted the better defensive metrics to date, should we expect that to continue? Eric Longenhagen put a future 70 on Bellinger’s fielding, with a future 50 on Judge. They both received a 60 grade for their cannon.
Is 70-grade defense at 1B worth more than 50-grade in the OF? What happens when you mix in Bellinger’s defensive versatility?
One offensive factor that could work in Bellinger’s favor is that to date, he’s hitting far more fly balls and far fewer ground balls than Judge. Judge hits the ball so hard that a lot of hit line drives are probably leaving the park, too, but 70% of Bellinger’s hits so far are line drives or fly balls, vs 62% for Judge. They’re both hitting over .300 on ground balls, something that probably shouldn’t be expected to continue.
Great article. From a pure win standpoint, I can easily see why someone would prefer Bellinger based on age, if nothing else. But from my vantage point as a fan, I agree with Rex – I’d take Judge every day, for the same reasons I love Stanton. I have never seen anyone like him, he’s more fun to watch than almost any player I’ve seen in my lifetime. I would like nothing more than for them both to be terribly successful, but watching a man his size, with his character is a treat that Yankee fans are lucky to have.
Quick question on the second aging graph, comparing different debut ages: is runs really the best metric to look at there? Wouldn’t wRC+ or wOBA be better indicators of production? Maybe I’m missing something though, and that’s what runs stands for here.
Runs as the component of WAR, so basically WAR. All batting/fielding/baserunning runs.
Yeah, great stuff Eno. I love your stuff, both here and on the podcast with Sporer.
The only oversight here, in my opinion, is on your analysis of the aging curves. What’s missing is the fact that, in general, it’s more talented players that get the promotion to the Majors at younger ages, so of course their decline will be less dramatic, because they are simply more talented players. If for some reason, a player with exceptional talent (like Judge) gets promoted later, I don’t think they are more likely to follow the trend simply because of when they were promoted.
In short, I don’t think age of promotion is a factor on when a player will start to decline. Age of promotion is simply a result of talent – and that is the factor on when a player will decline.
This graph for aging curves for early debuts vs late debuts has been on my mind since I read this article several days ago. Perhaps this could be a whole new article in and of itself, but I have to wonder if teams are waiting too long to call up their prospects. I know we’re not comparing apples to apples as typically the players that get called up earlier are more talented than the players that get called up later, but in general, it seems like the most productive years of a baseball players life are between the ages of 22-29 and many players are spending nearly half that time in the minors. I wonder if there are any case studies between organizations that tend to call up their prospects quicker verse those that wait till they’re well seasoned in the minors. I would be curious to see the results.