Baseball fans have a healthy impulse to embrace homegrown players, like members of an extended family. Yankees fans of my vintage felt a familial bond with Ron Guidry or Don Mattingly. Younger fans felt a special kinship with Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera or Jorge Posada.
Conversely, we find fans regarding imported players with less prudence or patience. You see them more as mercenaries, rentals who care more about the cotton in their wallet than the cloth on their back. So we're quick to bang on Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Pavano, and slowly we've become increasingly anxious about Giancarlo Stanton — all of whom have disappointed us through incessant injury or inconsistent play.
So how do you feel about Aaron Judge? The hulking, homegrown Yankee hit the ground running and swinging during a record-setting rookie season. He's an impossible hybrid of size, dexterity and modesty, his Bunyanesque contours making him the perfect, pinstriped hero playing right field at Yankee Stadium.
His first full season in pinstripes, Judge produced 52 homers, 128 runs scored and 127 walks -- all led the American League. It was good enough to make him an All-Star, American League Rookie of the Year and MVP runner-up. Judge was also an All-Star in his second season, but it was truncated by injuries. He scored 51 fewer runs, clubbed just 27 homers and posted 67 RBIs. Last year, Judge played 102 games — again thwarted by an injury — swatting 27 homers and driving in 55 runs. There was no talk of All-Star games, nor of MVP or Silver Slugger awards. (And whatever thin slice of vanity resides in Judge must be vexed by the fact that Pete Alonso has leapfrogged him as the slugger du jour in the Big Apple.)
Judge isn't a kid anymore. He turns 28 in April and is older than Bryce Harper. We've often dismissed Harper as a pampered and petulant star who hasn't always lived up to his teenage hype, yet he has twice as many homers as Judge, more than double the runs scored and runs batted in, and has nearly 700 more career hits. Harper is also a six-time All-Star who's averaged 136 games per season. Judge has averaged 123 games, and is playing fewer games by the year, a troubling sign of someone struggling to stay on the field..
The comparisons to Harper were simply for context at Judge's age. If we look at Stanton instead, the media and masses have been much harder on his brittle limbs precisely because he's an import and thus not a true Yankee. Plus when you consider Stanton's $325 million contract, you expect Ruthian deeds on the diamond. By contrast, Judge is still on a rookie deal that paid him $684,000 last year. He will make over $8.5 million this year — tip money for the top-tier MLB players. And Judge isn't arbitration eligible until 2021 and can't hit free agency until 2023.
So between Judge's smile, swing and salary, Yankees fans are far more forgiving of his growing bumps and bruises. But the list is getting disturbingly long. In 2018, he had a chip fracture in his right wrist, which cost him about 50 games. Last year, he suffered an oblique injury that put him on the injured list and a shoulder injury, both of which cost him around 55 games. And now we hear of more shoulder troubles, which are being tested by every machine outside of NASA. Even worse, he hasn't swung a bat in live action — or even taken batting practice — so far in spring training, just 24 days before opening day.
The Yankees have had an uncanny gift for getting the right guys to replace injured players. They set the MLB record with 39 separate stints on the IL last year and still won 103 games while moonwalking to the AL East crown. But it's not the kind of wand you'd care to wave every year. Already, it's not absurd to project an opening day outfield featuring Mike Tauchman, Brett Gardner and Clint Frazier, instead of Stanton, Judge and Gardner.
Maybe Judge's shoulder and robust pectoral muscle will heal just in time for the first pitch of the season. The Yankees have too much talent and depth to pound the panic button in March. But they will need Judge's bat to help mask the injuries to starting pitchers James Paxton and Luis Severino, plus the gaggle of everyday players sure to tweak a tendon or tear a ligament.
So if Judge wants to remain the face of the Yankees, we need to see his face on the field.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel.
