I think, at this point, it’s inevitable. Carlos Beltran will not be on the Yankees’ 25-man roster on August 1, and Aaron Judge probably will be. There have been too many rumors surrounding Beltran, the Yankees’ playoff odds keep dropping to minuscule levels, and Judge is showing rapid improvement.
As it’s been talked about countless times here and elsewhere across the blogosphere, selling is probably the best course of action for the Bombers, and Beltran is the most ideal candidate. Between his expiring contract, his excellent offensive production this season, and the fact that he plays the same position as one of the Yankees’ top prospects, it only makes sense for him to go.
And as I mentioned earlier, Judge has been showing some real improvement recently. He had a blistering month of June, slashing .343/.477/.686 and even swiping four bags. We already knew that he had this kind of power spurt in him, and he seems like the kind of Justin Upton-type player in the MLB that will be maddeningly streaky throughout the season, yet finish with remarkably consistent end-of-year numbers. The more promising improvement than the offensive production, however, has been the plate discipline. After all, Judge is a big guy that won’t, you know, shrink. The power won’t be going anywhere. Whether he had a strong June or not, we always knew that he had that kind of power. However, plate discipline is one of those traits that can erode as a prospect climbs higher up the minor-league ladder and faces tougher pitching competition. The pitch recognition and discipline may be of the same quality for the hitter, but he’s now facing pitchers that have more enticing out pitches, better command, and better overall approaches. In fact, this exact thing has been happening to Judge, as his walk rates have consistently declined as he’s moved up the system…that is, until recently. Take a look:
| BB% | |
| 2014 | 15.8 |
| 2015 | 9.8 |
| April/May 2016 | 7.5* |
| June/July 2016 | 16.4* |
*approximated; within a plus-or-minus of about half a percent
Judge’s last month and a half has finally stopped the slide of his walk rate. Of course, the jump in walk rate coincided with his power surge, and it’s possible that pitchers are just pitching around him more while he’s hot. Nevertheless, it’s still encouraging to see, and he’s walked one-sixth of the time in July despite a .160 average and zero homers.
I’ve wasted too many words without even beginning to talk about the topic for this article — Judge’s strikeout rates. Judge’s strikeouts have improved slightly from last season, but only to the level of 2014. His career minor league strikeout percentage is 24.5 percent, which wouldn’t be terrible for a man of his power if he could sport that in the major leagues. Unfortunately, almost every hitter’s strikeout rate takes a jump in the majors. For reference, here are the top 10 strikeout percentage leaders over the last five years, along with their career minor league strikeout percentage.
| Player | MiLB PA | MiLB K% | MLB K% (2012-16) | K% Jump |
| Aaron Judge | 1473 | 24.5 | ??? | ??? |
| Chris Carter | 3647 | 23.5 | 33.3 | +9.8 |
| Chris Davis | 2011 | 24.6 | 31.1 | +6.5 |
| Mike Napoli | 2126 | 25.9 | 29.2 | +3.3 |
| Melvin Upton Jr. | 2248 | 19.8 | 29.2 | +9.4 |
| Colby Rasmus | 1800 | 19.8 | 28.9 | +9.1 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 1430 | 26.4 | 28.7 | +2.3 |
| Mark Reynolds | 1402 | 23.2 | 28.6 | +5.4 |
| Pedro Alvarez | 990 | 24.6 | 28.4 | +3.8 |
| Brandon Moss | 4131 | 21.8 | 28.1 | +6.3 |
| Marlon Byrd | 2761 | 17.1 | 26.6 | +9.5 |
At first glance this list may scare you, and it should, because Judge’s minor league strikeout rates are not appreciably better than the worst ones here, while they’re significantly worse than many guys. However, there are a couple of signs for optimism. Among the four guys with the smallest K% jump from minors to majors (Stanton, Napoli, Alvarez, Reynolds), three of them happened to be the three guys on the list with the fewest number of minor league plate appearances (Alvarez, Reynolds, Stanton). Among the three guys with the largest K% jump (Carter, Byrd, Upton), all three of them ranked in the top four on this list in terms of largest number of minor league PA. In other words, there is a very strong negative correlation here between minor league experience and jump in strikeout rate in the bigs. It makes sense that the younger players will have time to make strides and improve on their contact rates (or, prevent them from escalating), as opposed to the players who have had ample minor league at-bats, and whose skills and swings are more likely to be what they are, leading to a natural jump in strikeouts as they face tougher pitching in the majors. Thankfully, Judge is still young, having gone through the minors and knocking on the MLB’s door in just three seasons.
The other sign for optimism has to do with this same fact — Judge is still young and pliable. “Young” refers more to his total time in the professionals rather than his literal age (because he’s already 24), but as you’ll see in a bit, the former is far more important than the latter.
As you realize without a doubt, almost all of a player’s growth will come when they’re young and still developing. That’s pretty obvious and generally accepted. There are always exceptions, like Josh Donaldson and Matt Carpenter, who were such late-bloomers that their growth happened after their prime, but this trend is definitely not the norm.
Anyways, young sluggers George Springer, Joc Pederson, and Kris Bryant all provide optimism for the future outlook of Aaron Judge. This isn’t necessarily a direct comparison between them and Judge; after all, they were all superior prospects to Judge, although Springer was probably close. Actually, despite Springer’s minor league numbers being much better than Judge’s, Springer’s current level of play is probably a realistic best-case scenario for Judge as a prospect, and that’s a fantastic player.
All three of these guys got to the majors relatively quickly (fewer than 2000 minor league PA), and all of them are making rapid improvements in their contact rates at a young age, which as we mentioned, is quite important.
After posting a career minor league K rate of 26.4 percent (1291 PA), Springer posted an unsightly 33.0 percent mark in his rookie season, prompting some to proclaim that he’ll never make contact at the MLB level. However, Springer dropped it all the way down to 24.2 percent in his sophomore season, and he dropped it again to 22.0 percent this year.
Kris Bryant only had 773 career PA in the minors, but he posted a strikeout rate of 26.6 percent, remarkably similar to that of Springer’s. In his rookie season last year, Bryant struck out 30.6 percent of the time, but he has pared that down over seven full percentage points this year to just 23.4 percent.
Joc Pederson had a minor league strikeout rate of only 21.0 percent, but his rookie season represented a 29.1 percent mark. This jump was much larger than Springer’s or Bryant’s, and it concurs with our previous conclusion because Pederson had way more minor league plate appearances than either of the other two, coming to the plate 1965 times there. Just like the other two, Pederson has made major strides in making contact, dropping his K rate down to 25.2 percent. That drop isn’t quite as big, but his contact percentage and expected strikeout rate indicate that the drop should be much larger, and larger even than Bryant’s. Pederson’s contact percentage skyrocketed from an unsightly 66.7 percent to a very respectable 75.8 percent this year.
None of this is to predict that Judge will turn into any of those three; that isn’t the point. After all, I cherry-picked three names out of the hundreds of young players out there. But it does provide us with optimism in two senses:
1) Judge’s strikeout rate will probably not balloon out of control from his minor league marks, especially in the long-term.
2) If Judge does improve his contact rates, which is definitely a big if, it will likely occur very early on in his MLB career.
With all of this talk about improving and developing, it makes sense for the Yankees to start Judge’s MLB growth process as soon as possible. And with the July 31 trade deadline quickly approaching, if I were a betting man, that debut is to come very soon.
Photo: Jonathan Dyer / USA Today Sports