Aaron Judge: ROY & MVP?

Judge leads the AL in home runs, and is tied for the lead in RBIs. He leads the league in slugging percentage and OPS. He’s fourth in OBP and seventh in batting average—he has not just been a one-dimensional slugger. He has, not for nothing, also played an excellent right field.

Judge says he hadn’t been this hot at the plate since “maybe tee-ball.” It was not supposed to be this easy, and maybe it never will be again.

The Yankees took Judge at No. 32 overall in the 2013 draft, a compensatory pick for Cleveland signing Nick Swisher. He wasn’t an obvious pick—his size a mark against him. Now listed at 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds, if Judge can merely stay in the majors for a couple of seasons he’ll join some elite company. Only 12 hitters in MLB history 6-foot-6 or taller have recorded more than 1,000 career plate appearances. But eight of them were All-Stars.

A big man’s swing is going to take longer, and his strike zone is going to be bigger, and he’s going to be prone to getting busted inside. But the Yankees gambled that judge’s athleticism could make up for some of those natural holes—the fact that Judge played center field in college was their first piece of evidence that this wasn’t some hulking stiff.

Judge, who turned 25 last month, had to win the right field job out of spring training, and while everyone’s a little pleasantly baffled by the intensity of the turnaround, they point to one recent adjustment—cutting down on his leg kick—as a big reason for his improved contact. By keeping his lower half quiet rather than propelling his body forward, he’s able to keep the barrel of his bat in the zone longer, and his timing and patience seems better. “I think he’s in his legs more,” Girardi said, which is a very baseball sort of phrase, but you can tell what he means.

None of any of this is to dare imply that Aaron Judge will be donging moonshots for the next decade. A team that’s seen luminaries like Kevin Maas, Shane Spencer, and Shelley Duncan rapidly flame out knows this. Major League pitchers figure out hitters. They adjust, and then it’s on the young slugger to adjust right back. The Yankees are especially optimistic that Judge will be able to make those adjustments because he’s already had to make significant ones just to get to the majors. He’s a great athlete who’s not stuck in his ways, and shouldn’t be wedded to the long ball to be effective.