As expected, New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge won his second American League Most Valuable Player award on Thursday night. The star outfield slugger turned in yet another dream season, batting .322 with 58 home runs and 122 RBI. It’s enough to make the fans forget Judge hit just .207 over the first month of the season.
Well, almost.
In reality, Judge’s early season struggles were on full display again, except in the postseason. Judge hit .184 with just three home runs in the postseason. Worse yet, his crucial error in Game 5 of the World Series was the start of New York blowing both a 5-0 lead and the ultimately decisive game.
Such is the legacy of Aaron Judge thus far. A near-unstoppable hitter in the regular season who simply vanishes in the playoffs. And until he wins that ever-elusive World Series ring and ends the Yankees’ going-on-16 years’ drought, this will always follow him.
Granted, Judge isn’t the first to suffer this phenomenon. We’ve already discussed his October woes in comparison to former MVPs Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds. They too had a knack for struggling in the postseason when their teammates needed them the most.
And, in fairness to Judge, his recent playoff struggles have easy explanations: MLB stopped using juiced baseballs in 2021, and he essentially had no real protection in the lineup aside from streaky Giancarlo Stanton. That changed last season when New York acquired Judge’s eventual MVP co-finalist Juan Soto from the San Diego Padres.
And yet, Judge’s playoff struggles carried on more and more.
But at the end of the day, Judge’s playoff performance is overall meaningless in terms of his overall legacy. He’s still going to be remembered as, quite likely, the most dominant power hitter since Bonds. Players’ poor playoff performances have only been highlighted recently (and quite intensely) in the social media age.
What’s more, Aaron Judge isn’t the first to win an MVP and get as far as the World Series despite his playoff struggles, especially in the Wild Card Era. If anything, it’s quite common.
Take Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, who was the 2018 MVP and World Series champion with the Boston Red Sox. He hit .210 in the entire postseason. Similarly, Buster Posey hit an even .200 for the Giants when he took home both an MVP trophy and World Series ring in 2012.
And in 2010, Josh Hamilton’s MVP season was a big part of the Texas Rangers clinching the AL West and eventually the pennant. Hamilton contributed five home runs in the playoffs, but otherwise hit just .190 as Texas fell to the Giants.
That isn’t to say all MVPs who habe made the World Series in the last 30 years are doomed. Jose Altuve hit .310 in the 2017 playoffs, though he also got progressively worse in each round. Kris Bryant hit an impressive .308 in 2016 en route to breaking the Cubs’ World Series curse.
Oddly enough, we see less of this before the first Wild Card year in 1995. In MLB’s original playoff era beginning in 1970, most if not all MVPs who made and/or won the World Series produced in October. The only real exception is 1988, when an injured Kirk Gibson hit .185 for the Dodgers and Jose Canseco a meager .188 for Oakland.
Otherwise, Johnny Bench batting .214 in 1970 is about it. All others who meet this criteria—an MVP season in which said player’s team either made it to or won the World Series—hit quite well in the pre-Wild Card era.
But let’s take a look at some of these names and find a common thread: Thurman Munson (.475 in 1976), Willie Stargell (.415 in 1979) George Brett (.343 in 1980), and Rickey Henderson (.313 in 1990). Numbers aside, each of these players was a once-in-a-generation type.
So, what’s happened since then that could be affecting Aaron Judge in the postseason? Fatigue could definitely be a part of it, especially with the top-seeded teams basically getting a week off via the first-round bye. The best pitching in the league is also on full display in the playoffs, so hitting is generally tougher for everyone.
In a way, that’s just it. Perhaps we have finally reached another breaking point where the hitting can no longer keep up with pitching. This happened back in 1968; Carl Yastrzemski won the AL batting title with a whopping .301 batting average, and MLB lowered the mound the following season.
Is that what needs to happen for guys like Aaron Judge to find their stroke in the postseason and make columns like these completely unnecessary? Whatever the case, it’s worth discussing.
Because if the AL MVP Judge hit .184 in the playoffs and his NL counterpart Shohei Ohtani hit .230, and each only had three homers? That’s not the best look for MLB.
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