BRONX, NY — Forced to sit helplessly in the Yankees’ dugout and watch the Tampa Bay Rays execute a dominant ALDS sweep, another year of Aaron Judge in Pinstripes has come and gone without a championship.
Granted, this year was a little different. The 34-year-old slugger missed 96 games with a fractured rib and strained calf — the latter of which held him out for the entire postseason, regardless of his pleas to be included on both the Wild Card and ALDS rosters.
As this series against Tampa progressed, it became increasingly clear that even a 50% Judge would have been a better option than most of what manager Aaron Boone trotted out in each of the three games. The Yankees scored just five runs in three games, and the lineup construction fell under considerable fire, especially toward the end of Game 3 when Trent Grisham, who inexplicably was put in the lead-off spot, went down swinging to end the season with slugger Ben Rice standing on the on-deck circle with his bat on his shoulder.
Now, imagine if that was Rice leading off (and playing first base) and Judge in the DH spot?
“Look, it’s Aaron Judge, the greatest player in the world,” Boone said. “And that’s a huge person to be missing. But every team tends to deal with different attrition that they gotta face every year, and unfortunately that was for us much of this year.”
Judge had made it known in recent weeks that he was unhappy with some of Boone’s phrasing regarding his moderate calf strain, even the disclosure of the extent of his injury. Yet the two-time defending AL MVP is still riding with his manager, regardless of how hot people hope his seat might be.
“Yeah, he’s our manager,” Judge said. “He’s running this ship. He puts us in the right position to go out and succeed, especially a season like this where I’m banged up and missing 100 games, you miss [Giancarlo Stanton], [Gerrit] Cole, [Carlos] Rodon… For him to manage it the way he did and put us in the best position to get into the postseason and get an opportunity to win a World Series, he’s definitely had our back.”
The problem is that the Yankees’ roster simply was not good enough to be the best — or second, third, maybe even fourth team — in baseball. Owner Hal Steinbrenner’s frugality has constructed a roster with strong pitching, but poor defense and a lineup that offers virtually no support around a healthy Judge.
Rice is a great supporting piece, but there has to be far more than Cody Bellinger or Jazz Chisholm, or Austin Wells.
When asked whether or not Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman have gone all-in enough in hopes of breaking a now 17-year World Series drought, Judge came within a few feet of laying the blame on their shoulders, saying, “It’s tough to say.”
“I want to trade for everybody, sign everybody every single year,” Judge said. “But I know that’s not realistic. They give us a winning team every single year, but that’s not good enough here in New York. We’re the Yankees. You’ve got to go out there and expect championships and go all-in every year.”
The hope is that the philosophy finally changes this winter. There are not going to be any excuses after asset firm Apollo Financial provided a $2.6 billion cash infusion.
“We’re the Yankees. I feel like they should go all-in and do what they need to do,” Judge continued. “If we’ve got holes, if it’s finding certain players or personnel, whatever we need, you’ve got to go out there and get it. That’s why I signed back here to play with the Yankees, to fight for a championship every single year and to go all-in. That’s what I do every offseason: get ready to give this team and this city everything I got. I expect them to do the same.”
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