By Ryan Bologna
The 2022 MLB season has featured multiple historic home run chases. Albert Pujols was chasing 700 career home runs, and he got there with one of the best seasons he has had in about a decade. Aaron Judge is one home run away from passing Roger Maris’ American League single-season home run record of 61. Judge’s situation has created a hot topic. Is it wrong for pitchers to shy away from challenging a hitter that is in pursuit of history? I’m not only here to answer that question, but I’m going to tell you whether Judge is even being pitched around as much as people say he is in the first place.
Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way first. No one should expect pitchers to throw Judge a cookie so he can break the record. Not even myself as a Yankees fan could argue that. However, there is a difference between pitching around and not throwing competitive pitches. What has Judge really dealt with? Let’s find out.
Judge has a 16.2% walk rate and a .427 on-base percentage in 2022. An on-base percentage that high is nothing new for someone who is performing as well as Judge. The greatest hitters usually have a great eye and are able to take their walks when they are there. Anyone who has watched Judge since he has closed in on the record would see this. Albert Pujols posted an on-base percentage of .400 or higher in 10 straight seasons from 2001 to 2010. It comes with the territory of being a great threat.
Pujols’ 2022 numbers aren’t quite comparable, with an 8.1% walk rate and a .344 on-base percentage. But everyone knows that Pujols isn’t the same threat at the plate that he was during his prime, so let’s find a better comparison for Judge.
Many have (rightfully) claimed that Judge’s season is the best we have seen since prime Barry Bonds. First of all, the fact that we are even in a reality where we can compare someone to Bonds is ridiculous and should be appreciated. Let’s look at Bonds’ 2001 season when he hit 73 home runs. He posted a .515 on-base percentage with 177 walks. Judge has been walked 111 times.
Yes, Bonds was getting some artificial help in hitting home runs, but he hit 12 more than Judge currently has while seemingly being pitched around more.
The only thing that could potentially poke a hole in the argument is if Judge has been pitched around more as he has approached the record. The talk of Judge chasing the record ramped up at the beginning of September, so let’s look at his numbers since the beginning of the month. In that time Judge has a .556 on-base percentage and was walked 33 times in 27 games. If you extrapolate that over a 162-game season that’s 198 walks, more than Bonds in 2001.
Knowing this, the Yankees fan inside me wants to kick and scream about how Judge is facing a ridiculous amount of uncompetitive pitches and that it’s bad for baseball. It’s definitely the case a good amount of the time, but Judge is still getting some chances. For example, this at-bat against Bryan Baker of the Orioles on Oct. 2 that resulted in a foul tip:
Sure, the majority of the pitches are out of the zone, but number five is a good pitch to hit. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some plate appearances where pitchers are intentionally not being competitive. Like these:
I’m not ready to say that Judge is being pitched around to the point where it’s making it impossible for him to pass Maris. Records are meant to be hard to break. At the end of the day, pitchers and teams are trying to win. They’re not there to gift the record to Judge, even if those teams are mathematically eliminated. This season, the Yankees themselves walked Miguel Cabrera when he was one hit away from reason 3,000 in his career, because it was the right move when it came to winning the game.
As you can see in that clip, the fans were not happy with Yankees manager Aaron Boone’s decision. There have been similar reactions to Judge’s plate appearances at Yankee Stadium. All I have to say to those people, that is what you sign up for when you spend a bunch of money on tickets. There is no guarantee of anything.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison
