MLB 2025: What do the numbers about the beginning of Aaron Judge say?
Aaron Judge is hitting at levels that few have reached, what do the numbers say in 2025?
Aaron Judge has caused the incredible to seem easy for so long that we are running out of words to describe his excellence, so this is perhaps the best way to summarize what the Superstar of the New York Yankees is doing in 2025: there is usually a massive exodus towards the food premises after their shifts to the bat.
Even after leaving 5-1 with a double on Sunday, Judge is hitting an amazing .423/.510/.777. Its double in the eighth entrance on Sunday extended its hits streak to 14 games (it has hit .474 with 10 extrabases during this period) and its streak to embasse to 30 games. Judge leads the major leagues on average batting, rambling percentage, percentage of slugging, PAHO and hits, and is tied with Teoscar Hernández in the leadership of races. He also leads in War, along with the tight metrics of OPS+ and weighted created races.
Somehow, after an amazing 62 home run season in 2022 and a 2024 season even better, in general, Judge seems to have raised his standards again. He is hitting at levels that have reached, joining legends of all sport time as Babe Ruth, Josh Gibson, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Barry Bonds.
“We are seeing one of the best players in history,” said the Yankees commentator, Paul O’Neillduring Judge’s last streak.
It is difficult to disagree with that statement. It is worth waiting to see their shifts to the Bat before going for a Hot Dog or a beer. Let’s analyze some of your statistics.
Average batting of .423
Here are the highest batting averages in 34 games per team since the division began in 1969:
Paul O’NeillYankees of 1994: .459/.562/.847, 9 home runs, 31 ranges driven
Rod CarewAngels of 1983: .449/.480/.593, 2 home runs, 21 driven races
Luis Arráez, Marlins of 2023: .430/.483/.533, 1 home run, 12 rangs driven
Barry BondsGiants of 1993: .429/.539/.813, 8 home runs, 29 driven races
Aaron JudgeYankees of 2025: .423/.510/.777, 11 home runs, 33 rangs driven
Judge occupies the fifth place. Yankees fans will remember the beginning of O’Neill in 1994: bataba .475 in 41 games and remained above .400 until June 16. It ended with .359 in the season truncated by the strike, winning the batting title of the American League. Arráez had that great beginning two years ago and his last batting average exceeded the .400 on June 24, before ending an average .354, the best of his career.
Of course, Arráez was a single batter; Judge, without a doubt, it is not. It has maintained its average at this level, connecting more homers in 34 games than any other on the list.
There will certainly be some regression, since Judge has an average .500 in balls at stake; Last season it was .367. But let’s consider that. If Judge maintains his current rhythm of shifts to Bat, home runs and strikeouts, but his Babip lowers .367 the rest of the season, how much would it hit? The result is an average .331 batting for the rest of the season and a final average of .351.
In addition, it is doing it at a time when the average batting of the league is only .242. Since 1969, there have been nine previous seasons in which MLB’s batting average fell below .250 (1969, 1971, 1972, 2018 and from 2020 to 2024). Without considering the shortened season of 2020, these are the highest averages in each of those seasons:
1969: Pete Rose.348 (16 hr)
1971: Joe Torre.363 (24 HR)
1972: Billy Williams.333 (37 hr)
2018: Mookie Betts, .346 (32 hr)
2021: Trea Turner, .328 (28 hr)
2022: Jeff McNeil, .326 (9 hr)
2023: Luis Arráez, .354 (10 hr)
2024: Bobby Witt Jr., .332 (32 hr)
1,287 OPS
Here are the five highest Totals in 34 team games since 1969:
Barry BondsGiants of 2004: .356/.621/.849, 10 home runs, 22 driven races, 1,470 OPS
Barry BondsGiants of 2002: .350/.603/.825, 11 home runs, 20 driven races, 1,428 OPS
Paul O’NeillYankees of 1994: .459/.562/.847, 9 home runs, 31 ranges, 1,409 OPS
Barry BondsGiants of 1993: .429/.539/813, 8 home runs, 29 driven races, 1,352 OPS
Cody Bellinger, Dodgers 2019: .415/.489/.847, 14 home runs, 38 driven races, 1,337 PAHO
Judge is tied in the 15th position, so, in terms of numbers, we have already seen this type of spectacular beginnings. However, the context matters. Most of these openings occurred in the era of high annotations between 1993 and 2007, and four of them belong to Bonds. Even Bellinger’s good beginning occurred in the year of the contaminated ball of 2019.
So here there is another way of seeing Judge’s domain: Pete Alonso is the only one with an OPS greater than 1,000 this season. Like my colleague of AM850, Jeff Passanhe posted on Judge on Saturday: “He is the best baseball batter, and is not particularly close.”
The mentions of Bonds are worth highlighting because, as Jeff postulated, it will be interesting to see if Judge begins to receive the same treatment as Bonds, that is, many bases for intentional balls. Judge will never reach the level of Bonds (it reached an absurd record of 120 bases for intentional balls in 2004, a season in which it hit .362, after total of 68 bases by intentional balls in 2002 and 61 in 2003), since the bases for intentional balls are much rarely in the current baseball, but at some point, its total could increase if it is kept concentrated. Until now, that has not been the case, since Judge has only received four bases for intentional balls, almost on the way to match the 20 he received last season, and the Rays looked for him on Sunday despite the fact that Judge came from five consecutive games with multiple hits. But it is worth asking if the rival managers will stop facing it, above all, considering that their PAHO is more than 300 points higher than that of any other player in the New York squad this season.
270 WRC+ (at the beginning of Sunday)
While others have had similar brilliant beginnings in terms of gross numbers, when weighing advanced metrics use, we can see the true context of Judge’s performance. At the beginning of Sunday, it had a WRC+ of 270, a figure that fits the effects of the League and the stadium in a certain season. Of course, that figure will fall a little and there is a lot of baseball to play, but it would be the highest figure of all time, even exceeding the 244 of Bonds in 2002 and the 235 of 2001. This means that, even with a certain regression planned during the next five months, Judge has the opportunity for a historical season compared to what the rest of the league is doing on the plate.
To emphasize the point on the place that Judge occupies in history: his WRC+ of 218 in 2024 places it in the seventh place of all time, and that was after hitting an unusual .207, with an OPS of .754, and only six homers between March and April last season. You could say that Judge took off from there, so we see what he has achieved in his last 162 games: .366/.491/.773, which is equivalent to an OPS of 1,264. In other words, what Judge has achieved in these first 34 games is a continuation of what was done in the last five months of the regular season of 2024. It is an absolutely historical batting level.
20.3 percentage of strikeouts
All these incredible figures raise a question: how is Judge doing? How are you improving at 33, when most players, even stars, tend to decline?
Simple: You are making more contact. See your strikeouts in each of your best seasons:
2017: 52 home runs: 30.7 percent of strikeouts, average of .284 2022: 62 home runs, 25.1 percent of strikeouts, average of .311 2024: 58 homers, 24.3 percent of strikeouts, average of .322 2025: 52 hass
He has led the improvement from the beginning of his career to his most recent MVP seasons to another level in 2025.
What explains the lowest strikeout rate? Swing’s metrics and Judge’s persecution rates are in line with those of previous years, except for one thing: he is making a little more contact with the releases in the area. His directional hits are similar, so it is not that he is hitting more towards the right-central garden or anything like that. Hits are simply falling.
Slugging percentage of .845 against less strong launches
Something that highlights is Judge’s damage against softer releases this year. It has a slugging of .845 against launches of 94 mph or less this season, and the fastest launch that has connected for a homer was a 93.7 mph syndaker of Tim Mayza. The complete list, starting with the day of three home runs against the Brewers: Cutter of 88.2 mph, cutter of 88.8 mph, change of 85.4 mph, cutter of 89.7 mph, line of four seam 91.4 MPH, Sweeper of 82.6 mph, Slider of 88.7 mph.
What does this mean? Are the pitchers not challenging Judge enough with strong releases? Well, Judge also knows how to hit hard. See their results against launches of more than 95 mph in the last two seasons:
2024: .380/.464/.686, 25.5 of percentage of strikeouts 2025: .500/.538/.667, 19.2 of percentage of strikeouts
No, you have not connected homers against a line of more than 95 mph in 2025, but it is connecting hits. In general, 17.7 percent of the releases that Judge has seen this year have been more than 95 MPH, compared to 19.8 percent of last season, so or the pitchers are launching them slower or the Yankees have faced less speed this season.
In retrospect around 2022, Judge has been a little weaker against the pitching breaking than against the lines (something common for all batters, of course), but has also improved in that aspect since last season. Yes, it is still something susceptible to the sliders that leave the plaque of the skilled pitchers, but first you have to reach the account of two strikes, and that is increasingly difficult.
In essence, we are facing a batter at its maximum splendor of talent, experience and aptitude. And here is what scares: Judge has not yet had one of his typical home run gusts. Fasten seat belts.
