Aaron Judge is at it again. A season after running away with AL MVP honors, the New York Yankees superstar is off to the best start of his career, batting .412 and already producing 4.0 WAR a quarter of the way into the 2025 season.
Can Judge keep this up? Will he top his own AL record for home runs? And can anyone keep him from winning a Triple Crown or repeating as unanimous MVP?
We set over/unders based on Judge’s ridiculous pace and asked our MLB experts to predict where his otherworldly season will go from here.
Aaron Judge’s expected batting average is .362. Will his actual BA for the season be over/under that?
Jorge Castillo: Under. One player has batted at least .350 over a full season since 2010: Luis Arraez, whose contact-first approach is so extreme that he has drawn comparisons to Tony Gwynn. Not one player has finished a season .360 or better since Joe Mauer in 2009. In short, it’s just super difficult to sustain such a high average nowadays when hitting is harder than ever.
Judge’s .481 BABIP is significantly higher than his career mark of .344 entering the season, which strongly suggests a regression in this department is coming. Simply winning the batting title would be an extraordinary accomplishment for the 6-foot-7 slugger.
Bradford Doolittle: Under. All told, Judge’s xBA is .340 since he changed his batting stance last season. Month by month, he has topped .362 twice — the current month and last May — post-tweak. He has mostly been over .300 each month but has been as low as .277. So .362 is too high, but .340, a realistic target, is pretty amazing itself.
Jeff Passan: Under. He is currently batting .410 — with a .481 average on balls in play. Judge’s lifetime BABIP is .351. Even if he winds up hitting .400 on balls in play, the sheer volume of strikeouts — he’s punching out in 20.9% of his plate appearances — severely limits anyone’s ability to post an average as high as .360. The highest K rate ever for a hitter over .360 was Andres Galarraga at 14.4% (when he hit .370 for the 1993 Rockies). It’s foolish to doubt that Judge can do anything, but the numbers simply don’t support this being a reality.
David Schoenfield: Under. For all the reasons Jeff outlined. The best chance for Judge to hit .360 would be to draw a lot of walks and thus make each hit count more, but he’s walking less often than last season. Then there’s just the sheer difficulty of hitting that high in this era. Not counting the short season of 2020, the last right-handed batter to hit .360 was Magglio Ordonez at .363 with the Tigers in 2007 — a year in which the AL average was .271, almost 30 points above this year’s average of .242.
Judge’s current OPS+ is 257. Will he finish the year over or under his career high of 225 set last year.
Castillo: Over. Around this time a year ago Judge was just beginning his historic five-month onslaught after a sluggish April, and he still finished with the highest OPS+ since Barry Bonds’ ridiculous 2004 season (263). Offensive production across the majors is down (slightly) from last season so far, making Judge’s sustained excellence even more mind-blowing. And that context is necessary when evaluating his OPS+ prospects. Judge would have to experience a significant dropoff to not eclipse last season’s number.
Doolittle: Over. It’ll be close, but I’ll take the over. His expected stats supported an even higher OPS+ than he finished with in 2024 and those numbers are on target to at least repeat that level. I don’t see the league levels spiking, which matters a lot in the OPS+ calculation. The higher the league level, the more air has to come out of raw OPS figures. I think he’ll land at around 230.
Passan: Over. This is the best version of Judge yet in his illustrious 10-year career. He’s striking out less than ever and continues to hit the ball with his typical velocity and ferocity. And with offense around the sport as weak as it is, a number like OPS+ — which is measured by a player’s numbers compared to league averages — is ripe to be exploited.
Schoenfield: Over. Last year, he had a slow start when he had a .754 OPS in April and still finished with that 225 OPS+. This version of Judge appears slump-proof. Even when he had a stretch in April when he homered just once in 20 games, he managed to hit .425/.528/.546 to keep that OPS high.
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Passan: ‘This is the best version of Aaron Judge that we have ever seen’
Jeff Passan joins the “The Pat McAfee Show” to talk about Aaron Judge’s hot start to the season for the Yankees.
Judge is on pace for 56.5 home runs. Will he go over/under that total?
Castillo: Over. Between cold temperatures and consistent rain, the Yankees have dealt with some miserable weather — home and away — in the early going. It’s only a matter of time until the weather warms up. Judge will take advantage when it does.
Doolittle: Over. He has actually been hitting the ball on the ground much more than usual with his flyballs being reduced. That may be an evolved approach, but I still expect that distribution to level out closer to his career norms — which means more fly balls. Judge’s fly balls tend to leave the ballpark, so I think he’ll get to 60 again.
Passan: Over. Judge has yet to go on one of his home run jags — during a 20-game stretch in April, he hit just one — and when that happens, it’s going to put him in position to make a run at the 62 he hit in 2022.
Schoenfield: Not including June and July of 2023, when he hurt his toe and played just five games, Judge has averaged 10 home runs per month — with half of May still to go. Give him five more home runs in May and 40 from June through September and we get 59. Over.
Judge has already posted 4.0 FanGraphs WAR in 2025. Will he surpass his career high of 11.2 from last season?
Castillo: Over. He’s on pace to smash 11.2. If he stays healthy, he’ll threaten to surpass Bonds’ 11.9-WAR season in 2004 and enter the top 10 of all time in the category.
Doolittle: Over. At Baseball-Reference (not the WAR number cited here), his individual winning percentage, based on wins above average, is .568; last year it was .554, so there’s a buffer there against some regression. Playing exclusively in right should boost Judge’s fielding plus/minus metrics and at least offset any hit he might take in positional value. He just needs to stay healthy and he’ll get to 12 wins, at least.
Passan: Over. This is a tough one because of the whims of single-year defensive and baserunning metrics. Judge last season was considered a below-average defender and slightly below-average baserunner. Thus far this year, he is an average defender and poor baserunner.
The offense is always going to be there. The question is the marginal elements that can earn those differentiating tenths of a WAR. It would be his third season with a WAR of 11 or higher in four years, by the way. The only players ever to do that are Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds.
Schoenfield: He’s on pace for nearly 14 WAR. We just said he seems slump-proof. Over 11.2 WAR.
Judge currently leads the league in all three Triple Crown categories. Will he finish atop the AL in over/under 2.5 of them?
Castillo: Over. See above: If Judge stays healthy, he’ll put together one of the greatest seasons ever and it’ll come with a Triple Crown. Batting average is the tallest challenge and RBI totals always depend on teammates being on base. But he already holds a near-50-point lead on the competition in batting average and the Yankees’ offense is good enough around him for consistent RBI opportunities.
Doolittle: As long as teams don’t start doing ill-advised, peak-Bonds stuff like walking Judge whenever someone is on base, I’ll take the over — even though winning a Triple Crown is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I just think this is where Judge is at this point of his career, which is a place few others have been to in the history of the sport.
Passan: Under. He’ll lead in home runs. The batting average element is scary, though — Judge’s career high to this point is .322 — and RBIs are so lineup-dependent. If Judge finds himself in the 3-hole more often, that element becomes less of a concern, but the combination of two categories not being stone-cold locks makes this a cautiously pessimistic bet. If anyone is going to win the Triple Crown, it’s Judge.
Schoenfield: I’ll go with the Triple Crown. He might not drive in 144 like he did last year with Juan Soto hitting in front of him, but these Yankees are scoring at a higher clip than last year’s Yankees, so he should have enough RBI opportunities.
Judge is a runaway favorite for AL MVP. Will over or under 0.5 ballots have someone other than Judge as the AL winner?
Castillo: Under. And that doesn’t mean there won’t be worthy players in the AL. Bobby Witt Jr., Cal Raleigh and Alex Bregman rank in the top 10 in WAR across the majors. Most years, they’d be among several legitimate early MVP contenders. But Judge has just been that good. He’s levels above his peers. It’s his award to lose.
Doolittle: Under. But if I’m picking a team from scratch, I’m still taking Bobby Witt Jr. and you can’t talk me out of it. Still, if Judge doesn’t get hurt, he’ll be a unanimous pick.
Passan: Under. If Judge stays healthy, he will be a unanimous MVP. He’s that much better than everyone else in the AL — which is saying something considering Witt is in the league, too.
Schoenfield: Under. Even when Shohei Ohtani had an amazing two-way season in 2022, Judge still received 28 of 30 first-place votes. And Ohtani is in the NL now.
Backed by a raucous crowd of 40,895 at Wrigley Field, Chicago used its stellar defense to advance in the postseason for the first time since 2017. Michael Busch hit a solo homer, and Jameson Taillon pitched four shutout innings before manager Craig Counsell used five relievers to close it out.
“This group’s battle-tested,” Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson said. “This group can grind it out. This group never backs down from and shies away from anything. This is such an amazing thing to be a part of.”
Next up for Chicago is a matchup with the NL Central champion Brewers in a compelling division series, beginning with Game 1 on Saturday in Milwaukee.
Counsell managed the Brewers for nine years before he was hired by the Cubs in November 2023, and he has been lustily booed in Milwaukee ever since he departed.
“It’s going to be a great atmosphere,” Counsell said. “It’s Cubs-Brewers. That’s going to be as good as it gets. It’s always a great atmosphere when the two teams play each other.”
It was another painful ending for San Diego after it made the postseason for the fourth time in six years but fell short of a pennant again. The Padres forced a decisive Game 3 with a 3-0 victory on Wednesday, but their biggest stars flopped in the series finale.
“There’s a lot of hurt guys in that clubhouse, but we left it all out on the field, and there’s no regrets on anybody’s part,” manager Mike Shildt said. “Just disappointed.”
Tatis went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, including a fly ball to right that stranded runners on second and third in the fifth. Machado, who hit a two-run homer in Game 2, bounced to shortstop Swanson for the final out of the eighth, leaving a runner at third.
“It’s not fun at all. We definitely missed an opportunity,” Tatis said.
Darvish also struggled against his former team. The Japanese right-hander was pulled after the first four Cubs batters reached in the second inning, capped by the first of Crow-Armstrong’s three hits.
Jeremiah Estrada came in and issued a bases-loaded walk to Swanson, handing the Cubs a 2-0 lead. Estrada limited the damage by striking out Matt Shaw before Busch bounced into an inning-ending double play.
Taillon allowed two hits and struck out four. Caleb Thielbar got two outs before Daniel Palencia wiggled out of a fifth-inning jam while earning his second win of the series. Drew Pomeranz managed the seventh before Keller worked the eighth.
The Cubs supported their bullpen with another solid day in the field. Swanson made a slick play on Luis Arraez‘s leadoff grounder in the sixth, and then turned an inning-ending double play following a walk to Machado.
Crow-Armstrong, who went 0-for-6 with five strikeouts in the first two games, robbed Machado of a hit with a sliding catch in center in the first.
“It’s just the next step for us,” Busch said. “You set out a goal before each and every year to do stuff like this, and you celebrate it, and it’s been fun to celebrate and continue to celebrate it tonight, but there’s a lot of work ahead.”
NEW YORK — Rookie right-hander Cam Schlittler struck out 12 in eight dominant innings and the New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox4-0 on Thursday night to win their AL Wild Card Series in a deciding third game.
Taking his place in Yankees-Red Sox rivalry lore, the 24-year-old Schlittler overpowered Boston with 100 mph heat in his 15th major league start and pitched New York into a best-of-five division series against American League East champion Toronto beginning Saturday.
“A star is born tonight. He’s a special kid, man,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He is not afraid. He expects this.”
Amed Rosario and Anthony Volpe each had an RBI single in a four-run fourth as New York became the first team to lose the opener of a best-of-three wild-card series and come back to advance since Major League Baseball expanded the first round in 2022.
“It felt like the most pressure-packed game I’ve ever experienced — World Series, clinching games, whatever,” Boone said.
Schlittler, who debuted in the majors July 9, grew up a Red Sox fan in Walpole, Massachusetts — but has said several times he wanted to play for the Yankees. He had faced Boston only once before, as a freshman at Northeastern in a 2020 spring training exhibition.
Ex-Yankees great Andy Pettitte gave Schlittler one piece of advice Wednesday: Get a good night’s sleep.
“I woke up and I was locked in, so I knew exactly what I needed to do to go out there, especially against my hometown team,” Schlittler said.
He outpitched Connelly Early, a 23-year-old left-hander who debuted Sept. 9 and became Boston’s youngest postseason starting pitcher since 21-year-old Babe Ruth in 1916.
Schlittler struck out two more than any other Yankees pitcher had in his postseason debut, allowing just five singles and walking none. He threw 11 pitches 100 mph or faster — including six in the first inning, one more than all Yankees pitchers had combined for previously since pitch tracking started in 2008.
Schlittler threw 75 of 107 pitches for strikes, starting 22 of 29 batters with strikes and topping out at 100.8 mph. David Bednar worked around a leadoff walk in the ninth as the Red Sox failed to advance a runner past second base.
Bucky Dent threw out the ceremonial first pitch on the 47th anniversary of his go-ahead, three-run homer for New York at Fenway Park in an AL East tiebreaker game, and the Yankees went on to vanquish their longtime rivals the way they often used to.
New York, which arrived packed for a late-night flight to Toronto, won its second straight after losing eight of nine postseason meetings with Boston dating to 2004 and edged ahead 14-13 in postseason games between the teams. The Red Sox cost themselves in the fourth with a defense that committed a big league-high 116 errors during the regular season.
New York’s rally began when Cody Bellinger hit a soft fly into the triangle between center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, right fielder Wilyer Abreu and second baseman Romy González. The ball fell just in front of Rafaela, 234 feet from home plate, as Bellinger hustled into second with a double.
Giancarlo Stanton walked on a full count and with one out Rosario grounded a single into left, just past diving shortstop Trevor Story, to drive in Bellinger with the first run.
Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s single loaded the bases, and Volpe hit a grounder just past González, who had been shifted toward second, and into right for an RBI single and a 2-0 lead.
After a catcher’s interference call on Omar Narváez was overturned on a video review, Austin Wells hit a potential double-play grounder that first baseman Nathaniel Lowe tried to backhand on an in-between hop. The ball glanced off his glove and into shallow right field as two runs scored.
“We didn’t play defense,” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “They didn’t hit the ball hard, but they found holes and it happened fast.”
Yankees third baseman Ryan McMahon made the defensive play of the game when he caught Jarren Duran‘s eighth-inning foul pop and somersaulted into Boston’s dugout, then emerged smiling and apparently unhurt.
Count Xander Bogaerts among those looking forward to Major League Baseball’s new challenge system for balls and strikes next season.
The San Diego Padres shortstop just wishes it were in place a little earlier.
Bogaerts struck out looking on a pitch that appeared out of the strike zone during the ninth inning of the team’s 3-1 loss to the Cubs in Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series on Thursday in Chicago.
The call came at a critical time.
The Cubs carried a 3-0 lead into the ninth inning, but Jackson Merrill led off with a home run off Brad Keller to cut San Diego’s deficit to 3-1 and bring Bogaerts to the plate. On a 3-2 count, Keller’s 97 mph fastball appeared to miss the zone low, causing Bogaerts to crouch down in disbelief at the call and Padres manager Mike Shildt to race out of the dugout.
Keller then hit Ryan O’Hearn and Bryce Johnson with pitches. Had Bogaerts walked, the Padres could have had the bases loaded with no outs. Instead, Andrew Kittredge came on with two runners on and one out and retired the next two batters, allowing the Cubs to advance to play the Milwaukee Brewers in the next round.
Bogaerts didn’t mince words after the game when asked about the apparent missed call by plate umpire D.J. Reyburn.
“Talk about it now: What do you want me to do?” Bogaerts said, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. “It’s a ball. Messed up the whole game, you know? I mean, can’t go back in time, and talking about it now won’t change anything. So it was bad, and thank God for ABS next year because this is terrible.”
The automated ball-strike system will be implemented in the majors next season after years of testing in the minors as well as during spring training and at this year’s All-Star Game. The MLB competition committee voted last month to give teams two challenges per game using ABS if they believe a call by the plate umpire is wrong.
Thursday’s ending soured a 90-win season for San Diego, which made the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons. It has not made it past the NL Championship Series during this recent run.
“We had a lot of fun,” Bogaerts said. “We competed with each other. We had guys that got injuries, a lot of guys stepped up. We traded for some really great people at the deadline. … It was fun until today.”