And Now for Something Completely Different

Every once in a while social and political issues have to take a back seat.  For someone who grew up in the Yankee heyday, post-season baseball is that time, and the Yankees that historical lens (though I came to Boston in 1967 and defected immediately from the Bombers).

            Sports writers have been jumping all over themselves to praise Aaron Judge’s breakout in the middle of the ALCS, when he hit 3 home runs.  But where should we put Judge’s start among the Yankee greats?  The answer is simple: 5^th out of 5.  Take batting average:  Judge’s .118 is an embarrassment, compared to DiMaggio, Jackson, and Gehrig, all of whom hit over .300, and even Mantle’s .283.  In batting, Gehrig is the superstar – in his first 6 World Series he averaged .371, and even his last and lowest was .286.  (His highest was .545)

            (Note: Judge has only appeared in 2 rounds, but to get in the closest number of games to Judge’s 13, and at bats to his 48, I went to 3 series in a few cases.  Remember too that Mantle, Gehrig, and DiMaggio only played in World Series against the best of the NL, and Jackson in ALCSs and Word Series, while Judge had a play-in game against the 6^th best AL team, and didn’t get to play the best team in the NL.)

            Home runs look better.  Judge’s 4 put him with Mantle and Gehrig, though far behind Jackson’s 7 (DiMaggio 1).  His RBI’s however, leave him behind all but DiMaggio.  The other power hitters drove in 17 (Gehrig), 15 (Jackson), and 12 (Mantle) to his 11. 

            Then there are the strikeouts: 27 in 13 games.  It took Jackson 32 games in his Yankee career  (37 in his younger days with Oakland) to reach 27 Ks, and Mantle 39 games.  Neither Gehrig (34 total WS games) nor DiMaggio (an amazing 51 WS games) struck out that many times in their careers.

            So let’s rank them this way: 1 to 5 for each positive stat, with strikeouts reversed , so Judge gets the 5 there.  Lowest score wins:

                        RBIs   HRs    BA       SO       Tot.  RANK

Gehrig               1          2        1          2          6         1

Jackson             2          1        2          3          8         2

Mantle               3          2        4          3        12        3

DiMaggio          5          5        3          1        14        4

Judge                 4          2        5          5         17       5

One other tidbit: If Judge plays in as many games as each of the other 4, he would end up with between 71 and 160 strikeouts, the lowest total of which would still be higher than the highest total of any of the 4 (Jackson’s 65 in 77 games).  Having struck out 27 times in one post-season, he will only need 3 more to get to third.  First is not out of the question, as 6 post-seasons will get him there. On the other hand, he’ll need seven post-seasons to get to first in home runs, and 8 to get there in RBIs.   By the way, the guy ahead of him in RBIs is Bernie Williams, and though Derek Jeter is the #1 in Ks, he’s also the leader in plate appearances, and struck once every 5.4 at-bats to Judge’s once every 2.1.

However if Judge keeps setting strikeout records, his career may be shorter than anyone expects.  The 100^th best player all-time in AB to SO ratio in baseball history averaged 1 per every 7.67 at bats.  Judge so far is averaging one for every 2.5.  Of the Yankee greats mentioned, Jackson is the next worst with 1 SO per 3.8 ABs.  Only Jim Thome of the all-time Top 10  HR hitters ranks worse with a 3.3 average.   But some will say it’s a different game today.  Well, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Edwin Encarnacion, the most likely active players to break into the top 10 are at 8.5, 5.1, and 5.2 respectively, still twice to more than three times better than Judge.

So hold the Hall of Fame invitation for at least 15 years.