The Yankees have an arbitration hearing scheduled with Aaron Judge next week, an event both sides typically like to avoid, as it can sometimes cause a rift between player and team when there is often a mutual desire to remain with each other long term.
But Tiki says there is likely already some animosity from Judge toward the Yankees, who Tiki says has mistreated their biggest superstar since Derek Jeter.
“He’s been a star since he came up,” Tiki said during Tuesday’s show. “Yeah, he’s had a couple of injuries…he’s a baller. He’s a star. You know it. He became a household name...what the Yankees have done to him financially is egregious, and believe me, this pisses him off.
“They’ve mistreated him financially. He’s you’re star. You’ve got a Judge’s corner. You sell a million jerseys, No. 99. He’s been mistreated.”
Tierney countered that Judge is a household name thanks in large part to the pinstripes on his jersey that flies off the shelves, but Tiki believes another team will be ready to pay him his worth, and he’ll be a star and face of the league wherever he goes.
The Yankees don’t want that to happen, but Tiki says it’s time they prove that.
“You can do it at any time,” Tiki said. “If the Yankees truly value Aaron Judge, they have to consider trying to get him to come off his ‘I’m not negotiating through the regular season’ stance, and get a deal done now. It’s gonna cost them…but it’s worth it, if you ask me. How can you say it’s not?
“Aaron Judge needs to be clearly, without any kind of idea to the contrary, that he is the most important player on the Yankees. The only way to do that is to overpay him.”
The Yankees couldn’t come to an agreement with Judge before the season, and made it public that they offered him $30.5 million per year over a seven-year extension. Judge declined, and it has proven to be a brilliant move so far as he is now on pace to break the franchise’s single-season home run record. Even with his value at an absolute peak right now, Tiki says the Yanks need to make an aggressive move to lock up their homegrown star and amend for the years they capitalized on the league’s system by underpaying him since his historic rookie season.
“When it comes to the financial implications of his career. I can’t get past this. Aaron Judge, this is his eighth year in Major League Baseball. He’s made $17 million…he’s worth $25-40 million the last couple years,” Tiki said. “They haven’t paid him. Mike Trout got paid…the money doesn’t matter in Major League Baseball. I know we continue to say ‘They can’t go over this number.’ These owners are billionaires and making tons of money, more than we know, because you know what? The only sport in the county where they don’t open their books and say ‘This is how much we actually made, therefore you deserve this much as a player,’ is Major League Baseball.
“To even cry poverty to any extent when it pertains to Aaron Judge, or worse, to say, ‘You know what, arbitration allows us to screw you for seven years until you come free,’ it’s taking advantage of your superstar. That’s mistreatment. He’s 30 years old and he’s made $17 million.”
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