The Yankees and Aaron Judge have agreed on a $10.175MM contract to avoid arbitration, reports USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter link). That falls in line with MLBTR’s projected salary range of $9.2MM — $10.7MM. Judge is a client of PSI Sports Management.
This was Judge’s second of three trips through the arbitration process and marks a slight pay bump from last season’s $8.5MM mark (prior to prorating salaries). The power-hitting outfielder will be eligible for free agency after the 2022 season.
Judge was hampered by calf injuries last year but remained plenty productive when he was able to take the field. He popped nine home runs in just 114 plate appearances en route to a .257/.336/.554 slash line (140 wRC+). The 28-year-old figures to reprise his role as one of the sport’s most fearsome sluggers in 2021.
The Yankees’ arbitration cases will go quickly and relatively cheaply now. They’re gonna cry poor to everybody to stay just under the luxury tax line. Basically everybody is gonna take a $500k to $1M discount.
They just gave Judge 800K more than his projected salary.
*Projected*. if he’d been remotely healthy last year even with a reduced schedule, he’d have easily commanded $11M or so. I think they gave him $800k more because they’re gonna ultimately save $15M or more on Judge’s arbitrations if he had been healthy, so what’s $800k?
Yankees definitely have themselves budgeted tightly so this was calculated.
Like how they gave Phil Hughes $7.15M his final season coming off a $3.2M salary the previous year, because he ended up saving them like $15M in arbitration salaries, so what was an extra $2M?
But he was hurt, so that is built into the projections. I don’t think teams generally give out “extra” money because a player underperformed what was expected of them – health or performance. If that’s the case why stop at Judge? Sanchez, Montgomery, Gleyber all have arguments for that “you’re saving money on my projection anyway so give me a little more” mindset.
But that’s all kind of off track from my point. Basically just saying that their first reported arby agreement was above value, so I’m not sure the evidence that they’re going to pressure people into discounts exists.
TTO: your position is that Yankees should pay Judge an arbitration amount based on what he would’ve produced over the course of a shortened season if he were not hurt? And then call them cheap for giving him a 2 million dollar increase?
Listen, they’ve been unquestionably cheap this offseason, and I’ve been one of their most ardent defenders, but their excuses to stay under the CBT and not fulfill team needs with the talent that’s out there for relatively cheap is inexcusable. Judge’s salary, however, is not one of those moves.
Agreed. How many see Judge reprising his “role” when he’s consistently off the field? I hope I’m wrong but I just assume the most he’ll play is 110 – 120 games a full season.
Looie – Yes, the games continue to decline. He will end up being a DH at some point with the Yankees or another team.
2017 – 155 games – 96 percent of games
2018 – 112 games – 69 percent of games
2019 – 102 games – 63 percent of games
2020 – 28 games – 47 percent of games
A million here and a million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money. I agree, they aren’t being cheap.
I don’t know how your comment is relevant as the Yankees don’t have a history of taking their own players to arb. It’s usually settled at the deadline.
Yes, I don’t get where this is the NYY crying poor.
And Mr. Franco, you totally lost me with the following statement:
This was Judge’s second of three trips through the arbitration process and marks a slight pay bump from last season’s $8.5MM mark (prior to prorating salaries).
A slight pay bump? Judge got a 20% raise to the tune of $1.675 after an injury marred Covid shortened season. Going into another season that will be Covid affected, with resulting huge revenue losses.
20% raise when business is bad is hardly a slight pay bump.
Maybe they wouldn’t cry poor if they didn’t have to pay for your clubs sorry payroll as well as their own.
How about avoiding him totally. Guy is a walking injury.
This is not the comment in regards to Judge. While he has had his share of injuries, when healthy there aren’t too may similar players in the game. Also, he is now the face of the franchise. So, avoiding him is impossible at this point.
From my perspective, all Judge has to do is stay on the field and perform and everyone will shut up. If his injury streak continues then it’s probable the Yankees will let him go when he reaches free agency.
I wouldn’t have given him a raise he has 1 full season that’s all. he is hurt more than he plays.2 or 3 injured riddled seasons.
Judge looks like his parents are also his cousins.
I think he’s adopted.
Adopted people still have parents, dingbat.
We do.
You’re just jealous because you only needed 3 seats to host your father, grandfather, mother and sister for dinner.
Who told you these rumors
Based on your comments history, it’s not difficult to deduce.
The only thing fearsome about Aaron Judge is the amount of time he spends on the injured list. They should’ve non-tendered him.
I thought the cubs should have non-tendered bryant this year.
If Yankees don’t trade judge before next year.judge goes to the top of my list of players to be non-tendered.
I hope he spends at least 1% of that into a conditioning/physical therapist/yoga instructor to keep his legs for getting too tight
One of the most overrated players in baseball. So far, only one healthy season of even 150 games. By the time he’s a free agent, he’ll be going into his age 31 season, so hopefully the Yankees will continue to go only by sabermetrics and algorithms and let him go when he reaches free agency.
Yes, but I have this feeling that they will give him a stupid extension just because the fans love him. However, I am not right about everything that I say.
I fear you may be right. Hopefully they look at Stanton’s contract and tell Judge no thanks.
He’s got FA (22’) coming up so I predict he’s going to do everything he can to stay healthy the next year and a half to get a mega extension or to at least test the market.
Yankees need to trade him now before they get nothing during his walk year. He’s a walking DL. I’ll be shocked if he plays more than 130 games this coming year.
130 games? That would be about 6.5 WAR player, which places him north of $30M in value. They, and every other team, would take that.
I loathe the “trade Judge” stuff.
& that’s pretty much what I’m looking for from all the Yanks outfielders.
130 regular season games & healthy for the playoffs. That would be fine.
Ya know?
“Jon Heyman
@JonHeyman
Devers, Red Sox agree at $4.575M
2:02 PM · Jan 15, 2021”
….because Yankee fans love the Red Sox too…
Overpaid
wrong
He’s a 7-8 win player when healthy, which of course is the issue. He’s actually still worth $10M even if he only takes the field for 50 games. The Yankees are hoping that’s not the case.
The amount of stupid comments in this thread is bad even for MLBTR. You’re exactly right.
I am old (and old school), so somebody help me out. I love the home runs and his style, from all accounts, he is a team guy. But I personally don’t enjoy watching big strike out guys. How many strike outs does it take in a season to make a liability out of someone that hits a lot of home runs?
It’s an aesthetic issue.
By using three true outcome offenses scoring has actually increased in MLB.
I dunno though.
It’d be akin to “3 yards & a cloud of dust” having become the ultimate evolution in football.
LL, I hear you. Red Schoendist struck out 15 times in 695 plate appearances in 1957. He had 200 hits & hit .309. Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?
If I were the Yanks and someone called and asked to take Judge and Stanton as part of a package I’d drive them to the airport myself.
Judge is loved by the fans here. Yanks prob make triple his salary off his jersey sales. But they should look to move him while hes still worth a substantial return. Big guy power hitters usually break down early in their 30s. Just my opinion tho
Yanks avoided arbitration with all of their players, not just Judge, why wasn’t that newsworthy ?