aaron judge needs his own thread

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/will-aaron-judge-gets-his-300-million-deal/

judge is having an all-timer season but i feel sorry for whichever team takes his next contract

(although, maybe i don't. everyone and everything has so much money now. maybe "losing" on a contract isn't a big deal like it used to be)

Before we go, however, there’s one other factor to consider that does help Judge’s cause, and that is Mets owner Steve Cohen. The parsimonious nature of owners hasn’t yet hindered Cohen and while he hasn’t been explicit, hints have dropped about the team’s payroll reaching anywhere from $300 million to $345 million. That leaves room for the Mets to get into a Judge bidding war, and I doubt the idea of signing the crosstown rival’s MVP winner makes that prospect less enticing.

yeah, money is no longer a factor. it matters, but not really. i need to update the way i think about contracts

(xposts) Would seem to be in an ideal spot to chase the TC.

1) Big HR lead, doesn't matter if he's walked or pitched around a lot.

2) Big RBI lead, people getting on base ahead of him doesn't matter.

3) Team has basically clinched the division.

So two doubles and a walk is a great game.

i think he should hit some more dingers

bit of a fuss because friday’s yankees game is exclusive to apple tv, seriously restricting the audience for potential record tying/breaking

classic mlb, really

you only need an apple tv login (which is free) to watch those games, you don't have to be paying for the service. which seems less restrictive than paying for mlbtv or espn or cable

literally the only ways i can watch a baseball game on tv without paying for it in chicago are apple TV, youtube broadcasts, and the free games on mlbtv

oh maybe you're just saying fewer people watch games on apple tv? sorry if i'm misinterpreting the issue

ya it's a real problem. I have a good streaming plan but Brewers games aren't a part of it since they got moved to Bally Sports, so I don't really follow them anymore. instead I just get my updates from 3-4 Brewers accounts on Twitter, which isn't exactly an engaging way to follow the sport. I don't really know who half the players are on the team anymore. even when I just had it on in the background I'd at least watch certain at-bats, hear certain names over and over, get engaged by the last few innings, etc. etc. feel like one of MLB's top priorities should be to get the games in as many homes as possible and for some reason they seem to be doing the opposite.

the current leadership are fucking morons if you hadn’t noticed and it’s been this way for some time

Re: his upcoming massive deal, I don’t see Judge turning into a Pujols type as he ages, he’s a more athletic player than Pujols, and seems like a guy with a skill set that will age gracefully rather than depressingly. Not saying he’ll ever do this again obv, and also obv anything can happen.

that said i kinda like the appletv deal, it makes mlb “cool” in a way and apple has to be pretty thrilled at the coincidence of this game being important in some way. but yes in general linear tv still matters and the rsns aren’t doing a good enough job either with their coverage or promoting it (with a few exceptions)

i have good memories of watching pretty much every yankees game of the 1998 season on wpix for free, it just became part of my life

xpost agree but the history of tall dude hitters isn’t usually one of graceful ageing

i think he will hit 50 HR at least once more again. 60 probably not, that doesn't happen much

you only need an apple tv login (which is free) to watch those games, you don't have to be paying for the service. which seems less restrictive than paying for mlbtv or espn or cable

(this is hypothetical for me) but if i were a yankee fan who shelled out for YES on cable all season, i would be bitter that, at best, i had to jump through hoops to see tonight's game

i didn't know that you could watch free on apple tv! but i'll bet a lot of other people don't know that either, or aren't prepared for the setup, or only discovered the issue tonight

it's just really poor that you can pay for cable or for mlb.tv all season long and now there's a different scenario for possibly the biggest regular-season game of the year

the main problem with apple tv is that the broadcast is just awful. maybe i'm being too critical but the games i saw with newport, young and keyser were catastrophically hard to watch. actively making it worse with every word, and constantly talking. there's also a west coast apple tv team that includes hunter pence (?!). i haven't heard them before but the cards/dodgers game tonight is also on apple tv, so i think that'll probably be them.

also it's a minor thing but the apple games use some sort of machine-learning probability thing that is constantly telling you weird things in the corner of the screen that technically make sense but are not illuminating or thought provoking at all, like:

RBI PROBABILITY: 19%

like, who the fuck cares about that? and i'm a stat nerd, relatively, i think?

it's besides the point, but also i think fangraphs did a short article looking into how accurate the apple probability shit in the corner is, and found that it was uh not good at all lol

oh dear i actually know keyser and had no idea she was doing this

i have no opinion on her work in general but was unaware that she had any background in broadcasting

(iirc she was one of the female reporters in front of whom that one *especially* assholish astros exec made a point of celebrating roberto osuna)

I was interested to see what sort of innovation Apple would bring to the table for the broadcast. Apart from the hilariously austere Apple graphic sensibility - which sat strangely in a sport better known for its love of retro baroqueness - that 'on base probability' text was the only really noticeable attempt at doing something different. Strangely they removed it for the Judge ABs I saw. Might have been funny to pop up "HR probability" for him. Start him out at 8% or whatever. I don't think it added much - although for newbies it might have been illuminating? Though if that were the point, a graphic might have been more effective. Like a bar that rises and falls, changing color as a hit gets more likely or less likely. But a real innovation for an interactive service surely should be the ability to turn this stuff on or off?? I would love to be able to turn on or off the strike zone box, for instance. Or call up all manner of stat-head nonsense - launch angle, spin rate etc - when I want, turn it off when I want. Seems like a real missed opportunity for Apple to show what a tech-first company can bring to live sports.

"Unfortunately I am unable to celebrate the successes of ANY Yankees, but I do have to grudgingly admit that Aaron Judge is perhaps the greatest player I have ever seen. PERHAPS; I said. Don't take it to the bank."

A guy who used to be in the Red Sox analytic department...He also calculates Judge at 43 Win Shares, best non-PED-related total this century.

Six walks in two games now. The IBB last night, sure--otherwise, hate that Toronto's doing this.

so lame

It was weird - a bunch of those ABs they got him to two strikes and then decide to start playing hard to get with the strike zone. I don’t know what’s up with that, but if they’re going to pitch to him, fucking pitch to him

I just checked. He has a .699 OPS on the season with two strikes - so I have no idea why they starting acting like they’re too shy to ask strike three to the dance all of the sudden.

Mandatory “Judge is unreal,” but …

I’m fascinated by the number of articles written on the premise that Judge isn’t using PEDs. I don’t know whether he is or isn’t but I do know I wouldn’t trust MLB’s drug testing program that much to a frame a story like that.

And please don’t read that as a sly defense of Bonds or whoever. It isn’t.

Long Judge piece by Robert Christgau of Fangraphs:

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/awaiting-62?s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Judge will probably get two more home runs this season by accident so I think 62 or more is happening.

Bill James is crazy w that opinion upthread which isn’t to say this single season couldn’t be easily argued as the best he’s witnessed.

wow that’s a sentence i never thought i’d read.

xpost

#61

61 years since 61.

Aaron Judge has written his name alongside Roger Maris in baseball's record books. pic.twitter.com/1V4Gums34C

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 29, 2022

Generic lefty with one man on base = that secret sauce

angry some random torontonian won't be able to sell it for $3 million

So who was on the phone in the next room trying to get a lost debit card locked?

Was that the longest gap between home runs this season for him?

Nine games.

I find it interesting that people still make such a big deal about "league records" after 25 years of interleague play and the universal DH, not to mention that players jump between leagues all the time now.

journalists make a big deal out of it because it gives them something to write about, absolutely no one else cares

?? 37,000 people were screaming their heads off last night when Judge tied--not even broke--the record. Were they all journalists? (Not to mention that that this particular league record, whether you agree or not, takes on added significance.)

well you've answered your own question - it's because it was maris, the fabled mark of 61, another yankee. you know how many people discount bonds (and mcgwire and sosa) - in their minds 61 is still the real mark. plus those other guys weren't yankees so they don't really count lol

absolutely zero to do with 'the AL record'

Roger Maris Jr. owns a sports apparel store called 61 Outfitters that according to his LinkedIn was "created for hunters and fishermen who strive to Bag, Catch and Be the Best."

— Bradford William Davis (@BWDBWDBWD) September 29, 2022

Okay. I'd like to put that to the test with another league record as prominent as the HR record, but I don't think there are any other categories as prominent.

I think if any of McGwire, Bonds or Sosa were in the HoF (that is, if it weren’t for their association with PEDs) then that would be the big number (73, 70, or 66) Judge would be looking to break. Many people (including me) care more about 61. I agree that any hysteria around it has little to do with it being a league record.

In other words, if Maris would have hit 61 in the National League rather than in the AL, his 61 would still be the big number for Judge to eclipse (in the minds of people like me).

Possibly feel like I’m just saying what everyone else is saying but also I just woke up

(I think bonds 73 is the record in the same way that if a pitcher set an ERA record during the 2020 pandemic season, that would also be a record. It would count, and yet most people would want to see it broken under normal circumstances)

I think of 60+ HR as more of a neat thing like the 50/50 in hockey

I think Bieber and Bauer both set records during the pandemic season that most people either discount or aren't even aware of.

Got my head around what I wanted to say. I think you're 99% right about league records, with one exception: the A.L. home run record. Even if steroids had never existed, and Bonds and the rest had done what they did, I still think the A.L. HR record would be a big deal because of its association first with Ruth, and then with the fabled/sad Maris/Mantle story. And Judge's stature will, I think, add to that. Otherwise, I agree, no one much cares about league records.

you really think that if it was jose canseco hitting 65 ‘roided home runs for the a’s it would be a different story?

I'm trying to look at this in the absence of steroids, which complicate everything; in such a world, yes, I think the A.L. HR record would still resonate.

I'd extend that to the career record, too; if Mike Trout were to ever approach 714 HR (probably unreachable by now), I think it would be a very big deal.

ruth only hit 708 in the AL, which is among the reasons it makes even less sense to divide career records by league

60+ homers is/was incredibly rare for 100s of years of baseball history except during a brief blip in the late 90s/early 00s (what could've possibly caused that blip?).

it's a very cool achievement, and i find it funny that all of the "baseball can't market its talent" people are all of a sudden grumpy because the person they're marketing is on the yankees

(xpost) Forgot about that...

hey I dislike the Yankees too but if someone on say the Marlins hit 60+ HRs I bet a lot of people wouldn't even hear about it