Aaron Judge is About to Get PAID

Controversial statement here, I know. A player who is 100th percentile in the league in xwOBA, xSLG, xISO, exit velocity, and barrel rate, as well as having 55 home runs on the morning of September 8th, not to mention playing in the brightest lights in MLB, is going to be sent a boat-load of money when he becomes a free agent this off season. But will that unbelievable amount of money be warranted? Well, I'll be the Judge of that (haha get it?). All jokes aside, Aaron Judge profiles as one of the more interesting free agent cases we've seen in recent years. What makes Judge so interesting? Roughly how much money are we talking? And will the team that signs him be the big winner, or will they be shooting themselves in the foot down the road? Let's work backwards with this one.

Judge was born and raised in Linden, California; about an hour outside of Sacramento, and a couple from San Francisco (he grew up a Giants fan, if anyone was wondering). He was drafted out of high school in the 30th round by the Oakland A's, but he bet on himself and attended Fresno State to play ball. He then was drafted in the first round of the 2013 draft by the New York Yankees, and by 2016, he got his call and debuted for the Bronx Bombers. He didn't do much of note in his inaugural season, but in his true rookie season in 2017 he completely broke out; Judge won rookie of the year, was an all star, led the AL in homers, and slashed .284/.422/.627, good for a 174 wRC+ and an 8.8 WAR. However, throughout 2018-2020, he was hindered by injuries, playing only in 63% of his total games over those three seasons. Last year he only missed 14 games and earned a 5.5 WAR, but going into the 2021-22 offseason, Judge was 2 for 5 on healthy seasons in his big league career. While his talent was and still is undeniable, Yankee fans were wary of his ability to stay on the field, and I don't blame them one bit. Despite this, the Yankees were still willing to commit to him long term, offering him a 7 year, $213.5 million extension before the beginning of the 2022 season. Judge, exactly as he did when drafted out of high school, opted to bet on himself and settle for a comparatively measly 1 year deal for $19 million. That would mean, of course, he'd be set to become a free agent as soon as the 2022 season ends. We all know the bet on himself was an incredible decision on Judge's part; he is set to make a ton of money this offseason from one team or another. That's not what's in question, rather, is the investment in the Yankees' slugger a sound one?

Again, the talent Judge possesses is not up for discussion. No one player has had a barrel rate above 22% on the entire season, except Judge, who's done it twice (2017, 2022). The highest xISO in the statcast era belongs to 2022 Aaron Judge, at .410. Second place in this stat is 2017 Aaron Judge, and 3rd place is 2019 Mike Trout, with .368; that just shows how much this 2022 season separates from the rest. It isn't simply an amazing season. It's a historic one. His xwOBA this season is also 3rd place in the statcast era, but in all honesty should be first place, considering the top two were both in the shortened 2020 season.

Now that that's out of the way, we can get into the more complicated stuff: injuries. I'm far from a medical professional, so I won't be attempting to quantify his risk of injury in any way. Shoulder surgery, calf strains, oblique strains, and even a collapsed lung is the basis of what Judge has had to go through as a professional. I will say this, though. From 2018-2020, even when Judge missed 38% of his potential games, he was still top 15 in MLB in WAR, 4th among outfielders. Obviously, the more he's on the field the better. But a couple 90-100 game seasons for him wouldn't be detrimental in the slightest to a team looking to invest in 7+ years of Judge. As long as he doesn't miss a huge chunk of games, he should honestly be fine.

The one thing I'm much more worried about with him, is how he profiles as a hitter. A lot of his hitting ability relies on pure power and strength. And he's 30 years old right now. What happens five or so years down the road if he loses his power and strength? What will he have left? This question is hard to approach. There are few, few seasons comparable to what we are witnessing Judge accomplish this year. Most of the similar seasons to 2022 Aaron Judge were either PED users or players from nearly 100 years ago, both of which wouldn't be very wise comparisons (Sammy Sosa in particular is a comparison I'd love to make but his production dropped off completely when MLB began PED testing, so that drop off isn't in play for Judge). One player I'd love to look at, however, is Jim Thome. Thome hit from the other side of the plate but was still a terrific power hitter that pitchers feared, and had a similar profile to Judge in many ways. From 2001-2002--Thome's age 30 and 31 seasons--he had an 18% walk rate, and a 25% strikeout rate. His ISO was at .352, hitting 49 bombs in 2001 and 52 more in 2002, and slashed .297/.430/.649. This is compared to Judge's 14% walk rate, 25% strikeout rate, .382 ISO, 55 home runs, and slash line of .301/.407/.683. Additionally, Thome became a free agent after the 2002 season as a 31 year old, which is very similar to Judge's situation. His production declined steadily since his 2001-02 peak, but he still managed a 139 wRC+ from his age 32-39 seasons, a .283 ISO, and a 16% walk rate to pair with a 25% strikeout rate. The last bit is something I want to focus on; even if Thome's ISO dipped even more, his plate discipline would virtually remain the same. Thus, at his absolute worst, he'd still hover around being a league average hitter, simply due to his ability to take walks and get on base. The same should apply to Judge. What's most impressive to me about Thome is his age 39 season, taking place in 2010 with the Minnesota Twins. He had a 177 wRC+ and a .344 ISO, which is right up there with his .352 ISO and 178 wRC+ from 2001-02. Considering Judge's talent, it wouldn't be unheard of for him to follow right in Jim Thome's footsteps.

Many will point to the feared Albert Pujols level drop off and say Judge profiles similarly, and thus is an extremely risky signing for this offseason. Pujols and Judge are different hitters, however. Pujols, while being a power hitter, never had a season where he hit for power like Judge is doing this year. His batting averages were significantly higher than that of Judge, and had way lower strikeout rates.

(From left to right: Season, age, G, PA, HR, R, RBI, SB, BB%, K%, ISO, BABIP, AVG, OBP, SLG, wOBA, wRC+, BsR, Off, Def, WAR)

Courtesy of fangraphs, we have the first image displaying Pujols's first stint with the Cardinals, the obvious height of his hall of fame career, as well as the image below it, displaying his disappointing stint with the Angels. There's a lot to unpack here. First, Pujols's ISO dropped nearly 100 points, if Judge had that bad of a decline, he'd still be a .280 ISO guy. Second, Pujols experienced a rare and unusual change in plate discipline, headlined by his walk rate decreasing by 6 percentage points, and his strikeout increasing by nearly 3 percentage points. And lastly, the stark drop in BABIP, from .311 to .252 was unlucky and only added insult to injury. All of this is quite odd, which is part of the reason why so many people talk about the stark drop in production for Albert. It was pretty much unheard of. He was a hall of fame hitter who simply stopped playing the part of one. Seemingly out of nowhere. And at the end of the day, this further proves that Judge's absolute floor would be around a league average hitter. In the absolute worst case scenario, for a hitter who was already worse off than Judge, he still sat just above league average (wRC+ 106). Not ideal for the contract Judge gets, but still a viable everyday starter.

My projection for Judge would be pretty similar to the Jim Thome route, and maybe even less of a decline than Thome is facing. I mean, Judge is statistically 103% better than league average. It would take almost everything going wrong to become a 100 wRC+ hitter even by his age 35 season. Will he keep at this insane pace? No. But around the 170-180 wRC+ range for the next couple seasons, and then somewhere around 10 point drop offs in each season following would be around my projection. This guy is a generational talent.

So we've talked about injuries, we've talked about past comparisons to evaluate Judge's potential drop off, what's left? I coded a simple model containing contract data for every hitter who signed in the 2021-22 offseason, following the lockout. I didn't want to include any pre-lockout signings, because most of those signings were made in a haste to avoid the impending lockout, so there could've been some overpays. The post-lockout signing period projects a lot more similarly to what I think the 2022-23 offseason should look like. Additionally, only hitters were included in the model because our man, Aaron Judge, is a hitter. A very good one, in fact. So comparing him to pitchers using pitcher stats would be comparing apples to oranges. Additionally, my model ended up with an r-squared value around 0.73, meaning 73% of potential variability of players' contracts can be predicted by my model. Not too bad. The model ended up predicting Judge to get a deal for $42,000,000 per year, over 7 years. That would total up to $294 million for 7 years for Judge. That would be significantly more money than what Judge declined before this season (7 years for $213.5 million), and would have him making more money on a per year basis than everyone in MLB outside of Max Scherzer. There is some margin of error here, but I'd say that prediction seems reasonable. As for who grabs this sensational talent, I would say the Giants, Cubs, and Mets make the most aggressive plays for Judge. As always, the Dodgers will be in the mix, and the Cardinals are the one other team I wouldn't mind throwing in there. And then of course, there's the Yankees, desperately trying to retain the face of their franchise.

The Yankees, Dodgers, and Mets would make the most sense to me, considering they're all in win-now mode, and have lots of money to spend, as always. The Cardinals are also in win-now mode, but their strategy is a lot more complicated than throwing money at the best guys, unlike the Yankees, Dodgers, and Mets. Judge, being 30 already, doesn't make a crazy amount of sense to end up on a team looking for someone to completely build around (say, the Reds), but a direction-less team such as the Giants or Cubs could make some sense. Both of those have a pretty good amount of pieces, and need a face of the franchise to be thrust into contention. The Marlins also fall into this category, but they're another team that doesn't love spending money. I do think, however, that if any of the Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Giants, Cardinals, or Cubs ends up landing Judge in a $294 million deal, it would be worth it. He's coming off of a potential 10 WAR, 60 homer season. Even when he's hurt, he's a top 5 outfielder in the game. His decline shouldn't be too severe, as evident by the statistical comparison to Jim Thome, among other guys who haven't lost their hit-for-power abilities. Given the right team fit, I wouldn't be opposed to any 7-8 year deal for Judge south of $45 million per year. When you have a superstar of Judge's caliber, a difference maker to Judge's degree, you do everything in your power (within reason) to acquire him.