Aaron Judge’s American League Home Run Reign May Be Short-Lived
Last season, Shohei Ohtani had one of the greatest seasons in history that did not result in taking home an MVP trophy. His misfortune in 2022 was running into one of the best offensive campaigns that anyone living can remember, with Aaron Judge putting up a 207 wRC+ and 11.5 WAR without any known pitching skills to utilize. Most writers still don’t vote entirely or even primarily based on WAR-type metrics, so Judge setting a new American League single-season home run record, with 62, was also quite helpful. Fast forward to 2023, and Judge’s toe injury has basically ended any chance of him repeating his MVP feat, but Ohtani has been doing his best to ensure that even a healthy Judge would have had trouble doing so.
Ohtani’s never been a shabby hitter, with a .265/.364/.554 line, 146 wRC+, and 80 homers over the last two seasons. Those are star-level numbers, but not historic ones. This year is another matter entirely. He’s cranked his offense into overdrive and now stands at .306/.390/.670 with 31 homers as the Angels have played past the halfway point of the 2023 season. Over at Sports Illustrated, Emma Baccellieri made a solid argument that Ohtani’s June may have been the best month by an individual in major league history. He has crushed 10 homers in his last 16 games and now leads all of baseball in round-trippers, three more than Atlanta’s Matt Olson.
With a few exceptions — he’s not stealing 131 bases, and Chief Wilson can rest comfortably with his 36 triples — achievements of the past aren’t safe from Ohtani’s onslaught. And with the recent surge in his power numbers, he is now on a real approach pattern to eclipsing Judge’s AL home run record. This mark has been in Yankees pinstripes in one form or another since 1920, when Babe Ruth broke his own record that was earned wearing a Red Sox uniform.
So will Ohtani pass Judge? Well, I’ve got a projection system, and it would be a crime to not ask it.
The full-version of the ZiPS in-season model gives Ohtani a final projection of 53 home runs, based on him hitting home runs in 22 of 303 projected plate appearances (7.3%). That rate would not be enough in itself, but as I discussed when talking batting average and Luis Arraez last week, we don’t actually know what the “true” underlying probability is; we can only guess at it afterwards, aided by the actual results. That uncertainty is what gives Ohtani the chance to break some records. ZiPS is only 95% sure that the underlying probability for an Ohtani home run over a half-season is between 5.5% and 9.6%, with even greater rates possible when he’s both underrated by the model and fortunate. Crank out a million simulations, and ZiPS can give an estimate as to Ohtani’s overall outlook:
Ohtani is not yet a slam dunk to catch Ruth or Roger Maris, let alone Judge, but based on the projections, he’s got a fighting chance. ZiPS estimates he has a 15% shot of matching Ruth’s 60, 11% to catch Maris at 61, 8% to tie Judge, and 5.5% to put the AL record in Angel red. Catching the major league records for home runs is a bit more challenging, and he’s a little too far behind the pace at this point. Sammy Sosa‘s 66 is reachable (1.5%), but the numbers drop off quickly from there, as ZiPS thinks he’ll run out of calendar. Mark McGwire’s 70 was caught about once per 10,000 seasons; to equal Barry Bonds, Ohtani has to match his June total of 15 in each of the last three months of the season, which he did nine times in a million sims.
It’s not just home run records that are vulnerable to Ohtani. It hasn’t gotten as much attention, but winning the Triple Crown is yet another plausible feat available to him. The home run part is relatively easy, with ZiPS projecting a 16-homer final edge over Luis Robert Jr. The projections have him third behind Rafael Devers and Adolis García in RBI, but by fewer than five runs each. Batting average looks to be the toughest of the three. ZiPS sees Corey Seager as the most dangerous competition to Ohtani in the BA race, but while Seager is hitting .351, he doesn’t appear on the leaderboards since he’s 23 plate appearances short of the minimum requirement right now. Adding 23 hitless at-bats drops him to .317, but if he remains healthy, he’ll be on track to qualify or come very close to 502 plate appearances and not have his BA reduced. ZiPS projects Ohtani to finish ninth, but with Arraez in Miami, nobody is projected to lap the field.
By the end of the season, ZiPS projects a 2.3% chance that Ohtani wins the batting average title in the American League. In the scenarios in which he finishes with a high batting average, he’s almost always going beat expectations in homers and RBI, which makes his shot at the Triple Crown very close to his BA title chances, with an overall 2.1% projected shot. The major league Triple Crown is, sadly, almost certainly out of reach; even with Arraez falling off his .400 pace in the last week, he has such an edge in the BA race that injury is nearly the only obstacle, in which case, Ronald Acuña Jr. becomes the odds-on favorite.
But maybe Ohtani will end up hitting that 74th home run in the final days of the season. His last few years have made the implausible seem possible, and it would be hubris to suggest it can’t happen again.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Ohtani winning the Triple Crown and the Cy Young Award in the same year would be kind of like Secretariat winning the Triple Crown and the Heisman Trophy in the same year.
Just neighing.
Greatest account in FG history
I dunno, I kind of miss the unhinged “FELONY FRAUD” guy
Yeah unfortunately Rendon has been batting behind him which normally would be great but he’s been seriously stinking it up lately!!!
Aaron Judge had the best walk year in the history of MLB’s free agency last year with 11.5 fWAR, and the best year by a non-steroid position player since Mickey Mantle. But Ohtani is on pace (using the not-as-sophisticated “Games Played %” tab here on FG) to also have 11.5 fWAR. What a great time to be a baseball fan (except for the ticket prices, which are criminal).
Ohtani isn’t doing anything to keep his price tag under that half a billion mark, that’s for sure.
I remember scoffing at that when Kiley McDaniel reported that almost every team executive expected him to get at least $500M but that (1) I think I was convinced by that and (2) that was before this latest explosion.
If he just decides to take the highest offer, which he might not do because he might have teams in mind he wants to play for, I think he could break $600M. I read an insane quote from an anonymous Padres executive who basically said “we’re going to make the largest offer and make it hard for him to turn us down” and I whatever that number is it is going to be very large.
I’m still skeptical he gets anywhere near $500 million.
Based on his actions when he first came over it seems pretty unlikely he wants to leave the west coast. If that’s true, it will probably keep his contract from getting too insane. Not only just because fewer bidders but he would be obviously cutting out many of the richest/highest spending teams in baseball.
It also honestly seems like he doesn’t much care about money. I mean, he could have stayed in Japan, made millions and been a national hero for a few years then came over to MLB and gotten a monster free agent deal like his predecessors. Instead he came over early when his earnings were capped.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he just re-ups with LAA for “less” money.
Kiley said in the same report that some teams believe he has already decided he wants to sign with the Dodgers and other teams don’t have a chance. If so, then he probably doesn’t break $500M simply because the Dodgers are usually pretty cautious…but I bet he would still come close.
But I would not be surprised to see both the Padres and Giants top $500M, and maybe also the Angels / Dodgers / Mariners so if he wants to stay on the west coast and break $500M he should be able to do it.
He seems certain to eclipse Mahomes 10/$450M (~$142M guaranteed) and Trout’s 12/$426.5M (all guaranteed) secure the largest total value contract in North American sports. He might match Damian Lilliard’s AAV of almost $61M that he got on his extension, but that was only for 2 years.
The only thing preventing a 10 year deal would be his age, but I think teams will prefer length to amortize the deal, even knowing that he might not play it all out or decline at the end.
Teams seemed pretty willing to give out deals up to age 41 this past offseason. At least the Padres did. I had been under the assumption that he would get the largest AAV and the biggest total dollars, which would be something like 10 years and $484M (44M AAV).
That was about what I thought he would get before the season started. And that might be what he ends up at, but if it is it will be because he desperately wants to play for a team that is unwilling to break $500M. Now, if your offer isn’t at least $475M I don’t think it’s even worth making it; you won’t get called back. His best offer could be as high as $600M (12 years, $50M AAV). He might not break Judge’s home run record but he is going to shatter his contract, and some of the offers are going to be outrageously high.
Ohtani is going to get many offers and they are more going to reflect “this is how much we are willing to pay a single player” than anything else. Barring injury, $500 million is toast. No question, no doubt.
I wonder a little bit whether Ohtani could break $500 million without even signing a deal that takes him near 40. Often times teams extend out the deal in a way that is more akin deferred salary, but if Ohtani asks for $500 million for 8 years, wouldn’t someone say yes to that? That could allow him to take another bite at the apple if he ages uncommonly gracefully (and who would put that past him?). Again, I just wonder what the highest total amount teams will be willing to go is, and if a team won’t go so high simply because they aren’t willing to pay any player that much, Ohtani could counter with “okay, fine, but for fewer years.”
I do not think he will be looking at another contract. It would be a short term deal 8 or 10 years from now and guaranteed money or money now is worth more than maybe money later. I think it is more likely he signs a longer term deal so teams can stay under the CBT. Maybe even a Bonilla style deal or a 15 years ago NHL deal for 15 or 20 years with a long tail.
If he is looking at another contract, he is better off getting an opt-out after 2 – 5 years, but if you are already looking at the biggest, longest, highest AAV in North America, how much better can you do in the future? Do you take $600M guaranteed now, or do you accept $500M guaranteed with an opt out in two or three years? What are the odds you will make up that $100M? Especially since a lot of your value is in pitching and pitchers get hurt.
So, I have to be right about the first thing for the second thing to make sense. I believe that Ohtani’s contract will be constrained by baseball owners unwilling to go above a certain overall commitment to a single player at a single point in time. I’d be interested to see what Zips says. My point is that if owners are simply unwilling to go above a certain amount, the way to make their offers more attractive would be to shorten them (could still have deferrals too).
A shorter contract, if for the same or similar money, is obviously better. And yes, this runs counter to conventional wisdom, but you just don’t have a player like Ohtani come around ever.
It could also be more likely that it is opt outs instead. Again, if a team has a dollar limit, how aggressively they grant opt outs could be a way to make the offer more attractive.
But again, all of this is predicated on the theory of an invisible “max contract” amount.
Glad you mentioned Lillard. I’d love to see Ohtani’s agent kick off the bidding like this: “We are not asking for much, just give us the same AAV as the NBA’s maximum rookie extension, for the most years possible”.
I’d love to see the look on some owners’ faces when they learn that the NBA rookie extension is now worth $52 million a year. In other words, Desmond Bane and Tyrese Haliburton each make more per season right now than anyone in MLB or NFL history.
I remember back when one of the NBA union presidents discovered how incompetent Billy Hunter was, fired him, and hired Michele Roberts and suddenly the salaries exploded. The NBA was freaking out and asked Roberts if there was any way to phase in the salaries more gradually and she was like “why would I do anything like that?” She did super impressive work.
I think 600m is underselling what he is going to be offered.
We have to consider that the biggest guaranteed deals that even the biggest spending teams have only given out guarantees that cover FA years of about $350M. The biggest deal for a position player and for pitcher combined is something like $700M. If we are setting a hard cap on his biggest offer, it will probably be that. But it is hard for me to think any team will effectively want to double the salary of the highest paid player on the team.
Without ever wanting a single dollar to be transferred from players to owners if it could be avoided, there were real equity issues with the cap spike–specifically, all of the benefits accrued to the players who were free agents they year of the cap spike.
Kevin Durant being able to go to Golden State was the transaction everyone harped on, but the deals of greater significance were the deals for a ton of money to mediocre, if not bad, players.
The impact was such that in this round of collective bargaining the players were on board with a smoothing of the cap hike to ensure that the benefits did not simply accrue to one season’s free agent class, but to three seasons’.
Because, in the NBA, the share of revenue between owners and players is fixed, I don’t believe that players receive less in aggregate, although you’d have to seek out exactly how they’re balancing out the reduced spike (it may be reflected in an increase in the escrow money being returned to players, but I’m not sure).
The rookie extension is only ~$41M a year, so they aren’t quite beating Scherzer and Verlander, but they are close. The median NBA team salaries are pretty close to MLB, it is just getting spread around to fewer players so the individual high salaries are much higher (also the minimums are higher).
Great article, Dan, and Emma Baccellieri’s piece that you linked is also a great read well worth the time to check out.
I know you know this, but it is absurd even mentioning “74.” Barring injury, I see the over/under more around 50…Ohtani tends to be relatively streaky, and he’ll almost certainly slow down and/or slump. Maybe he enters the ASB with 32-33 HR…with only 71 games in the second “half,” I’d expect something more in the 15-20 HR range.
Ohtani is on pace for 408 Total Bases. That’s a big number. Judge “only” had 391 last year and his numbers were bonkers. There have only been 29 seasons (by 18 players) of 400 TB. The vast majority of those were in the 20’s/30’s (19) or the late 90’s/early 2000’s (7). The only 3 seasons outside those eras were Musial in 1948, Aaron in 1959 and Jim Rice in 1978.
TB is an interesting stat. Can’t take too many BB and you can’t just hit HR. You have to get that BA up high enough by also cranking out plenty of other hits as well. The BB is probably what cost Judge a shot at 400 TB since he had 111 BB last year. Ohtani is only on pace for about 85 BB.
Similarly, Ohtani is on pace for about 96 XBH. So he’s a little off the pace for 100 XBH which is another number that has rarely been achieved – 15 times by 12 players. But even 96 has only been done 32 times. Judge “only” had 90 last year.
I find “total bases” to be kind of a ridiculous name for it, since it doesn’t include walks. Are those not bases? The name is a lie!
In the modern game, it’s just hard to imagine anyone saying “let’s come up with a number that’s like slugging percentage, but without a denominator.”
Total bases captures volume in an important way.
Completely agree with trombone that it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t factor walks at all, but at the same, if a guy hits 400 TB, you don’t need to know anything else to know that he’s had an absolutely monster offensive season.
The best example might be Hank Aaron. If you’re looking at a lifetime achievement award for hitting a baseball, how about a guy who had over 700 HR and over 3,000 other hits that stayed in the ballpark. Aaron holds the career record for total bases by over a 10% margin, and that makes him a far better candidate for best hitter of all time than say Pete Rose.
Total bases is a more useful omnibus stat than hits, but even total bases understates his offensive prowess because he played in an era that was so low offense. The more you dig into Hank Aaron’s performance the more absurd it is. He played for something like 20 years in an era where he had to deal with pitchers throwing spitballs off a higher mound while playing a pretty solid right field and dealing with a hundred death threats a week, and he was more or less the second best hitter in MLB for 15 of his 20 years.
And to top it off, Milwaukee was a poor hitters park for its era when Aaron played there in his prime.
To your point, here is the top 5 in career total bases:
Aaron 6856
Pujols 6211
Musial 6134
Mays 6080
Bonds 5976
Baseball Reference has a set of “neutralized” stats for every player, taking into account the run scoring environment of that player’s era, league and home ballpark. Here is what the total base career top 5 would look like on an era/park neutral basis:
Aaron 7168
Mays 6328
Pujols 6263
Cobb 6245
Musial 6147
(BTW – Aaron would have remained the all time HR king under the neutralized metrics, beating Bonds 787 to 765.)
So, in a number of ways, Hank Aaron was what we all believed Mike Trout would become if his 30’s were healthy and productive.
Now I got curious about this. He played 22 seasons. He finished 1st in wRC+ in 1959, 1963, 1971, and 2nd in 1962 and 1965. So I exaggerated a bit. Some of that was that he stopped qualifying for the batting title; he would have been second in 1973 with another 50 PAs.
Still, 5 times in 18 seasons is pretty good. What really is important, though, is that he topped 142 wRC+ every single season from 1955 through 1972. In addition to his 5 seasons where he was one of the two best hitters in baseball, he 3 had seasons where he was top 5 (1956, 1957, 1970) and another 7 seasons where he was top 10 (1955, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1964, 1967, 1968). He was a middle of the order wrecking ball for 15 times in 18 seasons he qualified for the batting title. And in one of those that he didn’t, he slammed 40 homers.
I do generally prefer rate stats but that is not my main objection to total bases. At least slugging percentage is labeled accurately and does a decent job of capturing power (even if there are better measures). Total bases can be the result of duration or power, except it doesn’t capture one of the things it explicitly purports to get.
@sadtrombone – I don’t know if you’ve heard of Thomas Boswell’s “total average” stat, but if you haven’t I think you’d love it. The numerator is “bases”, which includes total bases + walks + HBP + stolen bases, and the denominator is “outs”, which includes hitting outs + GIDP + caught stealing. (You could easily remove the SB/CS components to make it a purely hitting measure)
It’s the stat that actually got me interested in sabermetrics, in part because of the simplicity of the concept: total average = bases gained per out made. The fact that this was around almost half a century ago is a little mind-boggling, but when I think about how long it’s taken to get OPS into the mainstream I’m not surprised.
Have MVP’s ever been set in stone at the 81 game mark? Barring huge injury, Acuna and Ohtani can’t lose
If Carroll has a second half like his first and Acuna hits his projection it will be close. But yes, it seems likely.
Nothing is ever over at the halfway mark with these kind of things. Acuna currently has a 1 fWAR lead over Betts with Carroll and Soto right behind. If he plays the rest of the season at his ZiPS projection, he will finish with 7.5 fWAR. If Betts matches his first half, he will finish with 7.4 fWAR. If Acuna underperforms his projections and any of Betts, Carroll, Soto, Freeman, or Tatis has a 2nd half on par with their best half season stretches, they will pass Acuna with a little breathing room and have all the momentum. I probably would take Acuna over the field at this point, but it is far from a slam dunk.
Just to use 2021 at an example, on July 1st Tatis had a league leading 4.5 fWAR with no one within 1 fWAR of him except Acuna at 3.9. Harper was way down at 1.8 fWAR and Soto at 1.7 fWAR. Neither one quite caught Tatis in fWAR for the full season, but on the backs of 4.8 and 5.4 fWAR second halves they passed him in MVP voting. FWIW, Tatis had a second half that looked pretty much like Acuna’s ZiPS ROS projection with about 10 fewer SB.
“Nothing is ever over at the halfway mark with these kind of things. Acuna currently has a 1 fWAR lead over Betts with Carroll and Soto right behind.”
I know you were just giving a true, factual account of the current fWAR leader board, but I have the exact same chance of winning MVP as Juan Soto does this year 😀
(My acceptance speech is ready to go thank you very much ChatGPT)
This comment is exactly why Soto has a chance. If the Padres go on a run with Soto leading the charge, then the narrative will be compelling. “Braves coasted to a division crown with a team of 8 all-stars, while Soto carried the Padres to the playoffs.”
Yeah if Soto goes on a heater like 2020 or the 2nd half of 2021 and the Padres make the playoffs then Soto has all the momentum. His slow start got a lot of press, but since May 1st he is leading the NL in wRC+ and the difference between him and Acuna in WAR is just Acuna’s baserunning.
I’m curious to hear your reasoning. I don’t see how someone can say the guy with the 4th most WAR in the NL has a 0.0% chance of winning the MVP
Reminds me of a comment here a couple days ago about Ohtani peaks and valleys. And he has always had absurd peaks, and some bad valleys. And I know we are doing this sss thing but for the fun of it ohtani is hitting 071/188/286 this month for a 26wrc
Someone call manfred and telling him to start giving ohtani the same juiced balls they gave judge last year.
Just make sure they aren’t using those ones when he’s pitching
if only Ohtani would use his powers for good
instead of playing for a team other than the Yankees
I’ll never forget Pedro Guerrero’s June 1985 15 homers. That team went 15 – 10 and on to the playoffs. Angels 14-13 and ?
I don’t doubt for a moment that Ohtani is going to receive a contract the likes of which has never been seen before and I most certainly concur with everybody that he is the true unicorn. He is the only baseball player in history to play two positions in the same game simultaneously, which almost appears to be mutually exclusive, approximately 25 times a season, and both at a level seldom seen. He has provided us with the opportunity to watch something never done before and whatever he receives is fully deserved.
As a Yankee fan I found myself almost rooting against Ohtani last year because of the preposterous debate about who deserved the MVP award. Thankfully, it went to the deserving person and was decided by a proper margin.
This year, I am in complete awe of what Ohtani is doing. Wow. With Judge out there will be no competition for the MVP. But what a shame we don’t get to see them compete again. Despite Ohtani’s impressive HR total, Judge was on a significantly better pace. He’s hit a HR in 9.04% of his PA’s, to Ohtani’s 8.04%.
At first I was puzzled by all the thumbs down. Then it hit me. It’s about my comment on the MVP vote totals last year.
Look, in my defense I was trying to be magnanimous. I know that Judge should have been a unanimous pick and that Ohtani didn’t deserve a single vote but it’s in the past. I let it go, you probably should too.
Don’t worry I’ll downvote this one too
In terms of the potential contract for Ohtani, people sometimes forget how huge he is in Japan and the marketing potential for whichever team acquires him.
The few Angels games I have attended have at least 30-50% of the stadium wearing 17 gear if not more and his picture on banners and such was everywhere. When people were asking last year if the Angels were going to trade him, I said to myself “no way” because the Angels weren’t going to give up on the merch revenue stream regardless of the potential prospect haul. Whatever the number is on the contract he signs, a LOT will be brought back in merch and marketing exposure.
At this point MLB should just give Ohtani his own franchise
The Messi treatment
The Oakland Ohtanis?
The Oregon Ohtanis?
The San Jose Shoheis?
The Shoakhei Oaktanis
Man, imagine the 2018-20 A’s if Ohtani had picked them over the Angels…
Give him the Messi-style deal. $60M/year for 10 years, after he retires he gets a stake in ownership, and a cut of the team’s cut of MLB.TV/jerseys/etc (assuming that’s legal in the CBA).
I dont know about the other stuff but definitely not allowed a stake in ownership. Its very specifically stated that players/managers cannot own part of the team.
Like most weird rules it can be traced back to the early days of baseball. Rogers Hornsby owned part of the team he played for (St Louis i think?) but then half way through the season he got traded to another team. So you had a guy playing for one team while being part owner of another. Not surprisingly MLB was like “uhhhh….this probably shouldn’t be allowed” and forced Hornsby to sell his stake and made a rule against player/manager ownership.
Does it extend to offers for after retirement? As described an offer for, say $600m/10 and a stake in the club after they retire doesn’t seem to run afoul of the Hornsby rule. He’d no longer be a player/manager at the time the ownership stake comes into effect.
I imagine that this isn’t allowed because it hasn’t been tried before; I find it hard to believe some team didn’t think to try it with some other super-talented and valuable player. Just curious.
I’m not a lawyer, but I think the language precludes an existing contract for future ownership.
“No manager or player on a Club shall, directly or indirectly, own stock or any other proprietary interest or have any financial interest in the Club by which the manager or player is employed except under an agreement approved by the Commissioner, which agreement shall provide for the immediate sale (and the terms thereof) of such stock or other proprietary interest or financial interest in the event of the manager or player’s transfer (if a player or playing manager) to or joining another Club. A manager or player having any such interest in the Club by which the manager or player is employed shall be ineligible to play for or manage any other Club in that League while, in the opinion of the Commissioner, such interest is retained by or for the manager or player, directly or indirectly.”
The fact that it’s something they’ll receive in the future as a contractual benefit doesn’t strike me as a workaround. But again, not a lawyer.
I would be interested to know if a player would even want/accept such a deal. Obviously it would depend on the % they were offered and the structure of the deal but it seems like it would be easier just to get paid normally (with an opt out to protect against future salaries outpacing yours) instead of trying to figure out some convoluted ownership deal that may or may not work out.
A lawyer’s eyes go straight to the “except” clause.
Who knows, maybe next year he’ll decide to hit 36 triples anyway, just to mix things up.
It’s not that hard to do for a player of Ohtani’s caliber, either. All he has to do is hit 36 home runs and forget to touch home on any of them.