At age 33, Aaron Judge is elevating himself above the highest standard of hitting in the game today: himself. He is better than ever. He is redefining his legacy. So good has Judge been this month that we must begin talking about him not just as an all-time-great slugger but as an all-time-great pure hitter.
The New York Yankees right fielder is slashing .406/.500/.717. He has reached base 63 times in 28 games. Only Mookie Betts (72 in 2024), Cody Bellinger (67 in 2019), Albert Pujols (67 in 2008) and Barry Bonds (64 in 2004) reached base more times in March/April.
He is just the 20th player in his team’s first 28 games to reach base 63 times and drive in 27 runs, only the second in the past 23 years (Bryce Harper in 2017).
Judge is well known as the single season American League home run record holder and the fastest player to 300 home runs. But more and more, the best ways to define Judge as a hitter go beyond home runs. His chase rate, his strikeout rate and his two-strike batting average are all at career-best levels.
Judge is not having a “hot” month. He is continuing an amazing evolution that has been going on for years that is catapulting him from slugger into the best pure hitter in baseball. This snapshot tells his story better than his March/April slash line:
Judge by Age
Such growth charts may have been common in the Steroid Era, but they are much more unusual in the Testing Era. So why is this happening? Judge always has had the foundation of very good plate discipline. At 6' 7" and 282 pounds, he is a physical outlier with no real historical comps. Like taller, long-levered pitchers, he has needed time to hone his swing and approach, starting with famously overhauling his swing after hitting .179 in his first year in the big leagues.
Judge was once vulnerable to spin (.226 through 2020) but closed that hole (.261 since). When teams watched him rip fastballs into the short porch of Yankee Stadium, they began to pound him in with power sinkers. He responded by pulling the ball more.
What we’re witnessing now is the result of years of craftsmanship combined with the wisdom learned from knowing how pitchers attack him—while losing nothing from his extraordinary physical tools. Judge is the oldest of the only three players in MLB who have top-10 bat speed while also having one of the 10 longest swings. The others are Shohei Ohtani, 30, and Junior Caminero, 21.
This season Judge has closed the last obvious hole in his hitting game, small though it may be. It’s that tiny imaginary rectangle that is down and away, one-ninth of the strike zone. For someone of Judge’s height, that rectangle measures 5.66 inches by 6.98 inches. It is a bit smaller than one of those tablets in the dugout.
Until this year, if pitchers could slip a pitch into that small box, they would A) force Judge to make a swing decision and B) turn him into a .206 career hitter with almost no power. But now look how Judge has closed that hole: Pitchers are going to that spot more than ever and Judge is beating them there more than ever.
Judge vs. Down and Away Strikes
Judge’s evolution into closing the last hole in his offensive game deserves a closer look. Below you see four down and away fastballs to Judge, one from each year between 2022 and 2025. The first three are all swings and misses. The one this year is a single. All are at the moment of ball release.
The main difference is where he hovers that front foot as he reads the ball out of the pitcher’s hand. I’ve added a line from his toes to the ground to highlight the gradual adjustment. His foot has moved from well inside the inner chalk of the batter’s box to over the line (closer to the plate). You can see how as he loads on his back hip the front hip stays more closed.
Now let’s look at the moment the barrel meets the ball (2025) or misses it (2022–23). Pay attention to his spine angle. You can see how it becomes less severe over the years. Why? Look at his front foot. The open position years ago causes him to reach with his hands for the ball away, a weakened position. By maintaining a neutral stride, he is more upright and more balanced, eliminating the need to reach with his hands.
Judge has long been among the two or three best hitters against elevated pitches. That has prompted pitchers to keep the ball down against him. Almost half the pitches Judge sees are no higher than 27 inches off the ground—the bottom six inches of his strike zone and below.
Until this year, Judge hit .181 on all pitches that low. This year he has improved to .250. You still want to pitch Judge down in order to reduce his power. He does not have an extra-base hit this year on such low pitches. He has not hit a home run off a low fastball since September 2023. But Judge is better equipped than ever to get his hits when pitchers stay low against him.
Judge vs. Low Pitches (2.25 inches and below)
Judge saw a career high 47.9% pitches in the strike zone last year, when Juan Soto seemed to be on base all the time in front of him. Judge took 350 plate appearances with a runner on, a career high by 30. His rate of turns at bat with traffic has gone down this season, but incredibly, Judge is seeing even more pitches in the zone (50.2%). It makes you wonder when managers will start being more careful with Judge.
It’s only April. Judge is not going to hit .400 this year, so there is an inevitable correction over the grind of a season. His OPS+ is 246, a place where only the hitting gods live. Only three players ever posted an OPS+ of 225 or better over at least 502 plate appearances: Ted Williams (twice), Barry Bonds (four times; all the bigger, enhanced version of Bonds) and Babe Ruth (five times). The record for any right-handed hitter already belongs to Judge (222 last year) and Rogers Hornsby (222 in 1924).
Factor in his age and steroid testing, and Judge may be heading toward more history. Only Ruth, Willliams and Honus Wagner have exceeded 200 OPS+ at age 33 or older without a connection to steroids. Those are long-dead relics of the ancient past. This kind of head-and-shoulders above one’s peers is not supposed to happen in modern times with the depth of talent and wide access to training.
But here is Judge, continuing to get better, and making it possible, hitting .400 when the major league average is .240. He looks so polished and pure at the plate it’s time to regard him in a new light.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Aaron Judge’s Evolution Has Made Him the Best Pure Hitter in Baseball.