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Two months into 2025, things are going quite well for the Juan Soto-less New York Yankees. The Yankees are 30-19 and riding a four-game winning streak, and they have a five-game lead in the AL East. New York’s plus-95 run differential is the best in baseball by 12 runs. Their Plan B pivot after Soto left is a major reason why (Cody Bellinger, Max Fried, Paul Goldschmidt, etc.).
“We’re certainly happy with the way this team is coming together,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman told the New York Post earlier this week. “They’re grinding on a daily basis. We’ve got a long way to go.”
The Yankees have, of course, been led by the peerless Aaron Judge, who is actually in a little bit of a slump as the team heads to Colorado for a weekend series with the rudderless Rockies. Judge went 6 for 22 (.273) with a homer during New York’s just completed six-game homestand. For most players, that’s a good week. For Judge, it knocked 49 points off his season OPS.
Judge leads baseball in the three slash line categories and not by a little either. Here’s what he’s done through New York’s 30-19 start:
JudgeRunner-upBatting average
.396
Freddie Freeman (.368)
On-base percentage
.486
Will Smith (.455)
Slugging percentage
.743
Freeman (.660)
OPS
1.230
Freeman (1.087)
OPS+
245
Freeman (204)
Judge had a 1.029 OPS through 49 team games in 2022 and a .988 OPS through 49 team games in 2024, his two MVP seasons. He’s comfortably ahead of the pace he set when he set an American League single-season record with 62 homers in 2022 and also the year he won his second MVP. Judge is, incredibly, getting better with age. He’s one of the greatest right-handed hitters ever.
“This week he’s Tony Gwynn. Next week he might be Hank Aaron,” Yankees starter Carlos Rodón joked last month (via MLB.com).
Judge’s Gwynn act has him striking out in a career low 22.1% of his plate appearances, almost exactly the 21.9% league average. For a 6-foot-7 hitter with long arms, striking out at a league average rate is impressive. Judge went from striking out in over 30% of his plate appearances early in his career to about 25% from 2021-24. Now he’s whittled his strikeout rate down even further.
No one in the game hits the ball harder and as consistently hard as Judge, whose average — average — exit velocity is 95.6 mph. (That’s actually down a tick from 96.2 mph last year.) Factor in the career low strikeout rate and Judge is putting more hard-hit balls in play than ever, and that’s how you get a .389 with a 1.230 OPS. Even in a 49-game sample, those are bonkers numbers.
The Yankees will play their 50th game of the season Friday and, if Judge goes 2 for 3 (with a walk or sac fly or whatever), his batting average will sit at exactly .400. Going 3 for 4 would push him up to .403. Here are the last four players to hit .400 through 50 team games. Not surprisingly, it is four Hall of Famers:
AVG thru 50 GFull season AVGChipper Jones, 2008 Atlanta Braves
.417
.364
Todd Helton, 2000 Colorado Rockies
.421
.372
Larry Walker, 1997 Colorado Rockies
.409
.366
Tony Gwynn, 1997 San Diego Padres
.404
.372
Gwynn, Helton, and Jones all went on to win the batting title (Walker finished second to Gwynn). It is not a coincidence two Rockies players are among the last four players to hit .400 through 50 team games. Helton and Walker were great hitters and deserving Hall of Famers, but Coors Field is a great place to hit, and they certainly benefited to some degree in those two seasons.
Coincidentally enough, Judge will look to join the “hit .400 through 50 team games” club at Coors Field on Friday. He has never played a game in Denver. The Yankees have visited Coors Field just once since Judge was called up in August 2016. That was a three-game series in July 2023. Judge was on the injured list with a toe injury at the time, and missed the series.
Judge is 6 for 19 (.316) with four home runs in six career games against the Rockies, though he’s never faced a team has bad at these Rockies. Colorado will go into Friday’s game with an 8-42 record. It is the worst record through 50 team games in the Modern Era (since 1901):
Only seven teams in the Modern Era have lost 42 of 50 games at any point in a single-season. Last year’s Chicago White Sox managed a 5-45 stretch spanning July to September en route to losing a modern record 121 games. Those White Sox were 15-35 through 50 games. This year’s Rockies are well behind that pace. They have barely half as many wins!
Anyway, getting back to Judge, he has eight zero-hit games this season and 23 multi-hit games this season, including seven three-hit games. Factor in Coors Field and the Rockies of it all — Colorado is expected to call up rookie righty Tanner Gordon to start Friday — and yeah, conditions are ripe for Judge to push his batting average up Friday. If not to .400, then at least up in general.
No qualified hitter has hit .400 since Ted Williams, arguably the greatest pure hitter ever, hit .406 with the 1941 Red Sox. Hall of Famer George Brett had a .400 batting average through 134 games with the 1980 Kansas City Royals, the deepest into a season a player has hit .400 since Williams. Luis Arraez got hit average up to .400 through 78 games with the 2023 Miami Marlins.
Judge has a long — very long — way to go before we can begin to talk seriously about chasing .400. He does have a chance to get to a .400 average Friday though, in his team’s 50th game, which is rarified air. The home runs get all the attention, understandably, but Judge is a tremendous all-around hitter. Average, power, walks, he does it all.
