Aaron Judge Put a Ball into Orbit Last Night
Aaron Judge is large. He’s 6-foot-7 and 275 pounds of human. A lean, mean slugging machine. He is one of, if not the, largest players in the game right now, and we are blessed to be able to watch him ply his craft in the big leagues. It doesn’t hurt that he plays in Yankee Stadium, which is essentially the size of a thimble, but Judge doesn’t exactly need shallow walls to do his thing.
That’s 443 feet of dinger. You can fit 67.3 Aaron Judges into that distance. It’s easy power from an easy swing, because turning baseballs into FAA-sanctioned aircrafts is one of the perks of being the size of the Incredible Hulk. It’s also worth noting that Judge did this on a cold, damp night. That’s not an environment that’s conducive to monster bombs. The ball tends to fly further when it’s warm out. This leads us to a very important question: what the hell is Aaron Judge going to be doing a month from now? Are the Yankees going to need to install some sort of protective awning over the bleachers? Is he going to be peppering the middle of the upper deck? Is that beer stand in danger?
We live in strange times, times where the Yankees are laden with exciting rookies and not relying on golf shots into the first few rows of the short porch. It stands to reason that the Yankees used their considerable funds to grow Judge in a lab somewhere, that they stole some of Giancarlo Stanton’s DNA to create their own homer-hitting Mewtwo.
But no, Judge is for real. He’s really got a 181 wRC+, and it’s really fueled by a .660 slugging percentage. He’s almost certainly not going to keep that up, but Judge has proven that he can hit for more than enough power. He’s a force of nature, even if he ultimately produces a lower batting average and homers less frequently. The Yankees have spent a lot of their season so far facing some not-great pitching, after all. But that easy natural power can’t be denied. A normal man’s fly ball to the track is an automatic threat to go out off the bat of Judge. He’s got 13 hits so far, and five of them have gone over the fence.
If all goes well, we’re going to be blessed with these sorts of bombs for years to come.
Yeah. Same.
Nick is a columnist at FanGraphs, and has written previously for Baseball Prospectus and Beyond the Box Score. Yes, he hates your favorite team, just like Joe Buck. You can follow him on Twitter at @StelliniTweets, and can contact him at stellinin1 at gmail.
After the highlight for this homerun ran on sportscenter, my sister called me to ask who this Aaron Judge kid was. I answered truthfully: Evidence that the Yankees have begun to experiment with genetically enhanced humans.
Any fans of Warhammer 40K would take one look at this kid and think, yeah, he would fit in with a squad of Ultramarines.
I thought it was 448 ft, but that’s okay 😉
That look on Austin Romine’s face is priceless
I was yelling at the TV when he hit that. So beautiful to see.
All that off a 78 MPH breaking ball. The Judge certainly supplies his own power.
Alan Nathan has shown that (1) only about 20% of the total exit velocity of a struck baseball is supplied by the pitcher, and (2) a breaking ball (rather than a fastball) may provide optimal (back) spin for maximizing distance.
I love when the pitcher doesnt even turn around
This one is especially good. Covey enacts an entire personal drama with his back to the house. You can see three or four different emotions working through him without ever getting a look at his face.
The Pokémon reference got me to grin. Missed opportunity to have a Gif of Mewtwo using the Home Run Bat in Super Smash Bros., though.
Ah cripes I really should’ve. Good call.
I remember David Brooks once wrote an article about the ideology of the different teams. He described the Yankees ideology as:
“All shall bow before the Glory that is Rome.”
Seems fitting.
On a warm day in Coors that is 500 ft, right?
All rise
I understand the idea, but I don’t think you should call RF porch home runs “golf shots”. This Judge home run went as far as an 8 iron.
Maybe watch the swing instead of the distance?
I think my point was missed. What makes a cheap home run to RF a “golf shot” any more than any other home run?
Maybe chip shot is more apt.
I wanted to point out that baseballs fly further in wet air because water is less dense than air.
You are 100% right, but:
– it’s only true as long as there is no actual precipitation (rain or fog)
– the difference is nominal and not worth considering
– good luck convincing people of that. It’s been accepted wisdom that the ball flies farther in dry air for so long that most people won’t accept it
But on a damp day there’s probably more moisture in the ball, which would mean it would be slightly heavier, and therefore wouldn’t travel as far. There’s a reason people think the ball travels further in arid conditions. It’s because it does, not because of the air density, but because the ball is lighter and has a higher coefficient of restitution when it’s more “dried out”.
The YES team has been peppering in some video of his shots from the day’s batting practice during his at bats, and boy it is going to be fun to watch him in the HR derby this year. Everyone knew he had this type of raw power but to see this type of game power while running an 86% Z-Contact rate (which is league avg) and SwStrk of 11.3% after looking so lost last year is truly astounding.
Compared to someone else who has unreal raw power like Joey Gallo, who is running a Z-Contact rate of 74% and 15.6% SwStrk. To be fair, Gallo is a year and a half younger.
I’d love to see something different in the HR Derby…to me anyways, more interesting than “who hits the most HRs” is “who hits the longest HR”.
You can fit 80.5 Jose Altuves as compared to 67.3 Aaron Judges