When Might Aaron Judge Hit Some Milestone Homers? An Update

Last week, we at FanGraphs came up with a fun idea: we simulated Aaron Judge’s remaining games a million times to figure out if and when he’s likely to hit some milestone home runs: numbers 60, 61, and 62. At the time, the takeaway was clear: Judge was most likely to hit each of those milestone home runs during the Yankees’ series in Toronto on September 26–28.

Since that article was published, Judge has played six games and hit only one home run. That changed the odds significantly. More specifically, per my simulation, here are his odds of reaching at least 60, 61, or 62 homers, both now and six games ago:

Now, on to the question we set out to answer: if you’re trying to see Judge’s 60th homer in person, should you still head north to Toronto? Indeed you should:

The second-best series has changed, though. If you want to catch number 60 and can’t travel to Canada, your best bet is to buy tickets to Yankee Stadium for the subsequent series against the Orioles. It would be more fun to see Judge match Babe Ruth’s best home run season at home, after all. What’s more, you also stand a decent chance of seeing him match Roger Maris:

If you’re headed to that series against the Orioles — September 29 through October 1, just to put the dates to it — you also stand a 17.1% chance of seeing an AL-record 62nd homer. But that series isn’t your best chance to see that particular milestone. Despite a solid Texas pitching staff and a tough ballpark for home runs, that series has one very obvious thing going for it: an extra game. Though none of the individual games have the best odds, the series as a whole is your best bet if you’re going to see one complete set:

So there you have it: if you want to see some iconic home runs, you should head to Toronto. Or New York. Or Texas. I don’t have any single answer for you, but I can say that what Judge does over the next week has a lot to say about his odds of catching those former Yankees greats, and we’ll have another update ready for publication as he approaches both 60 bombs and the season’s end.