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Aaron Judge

AL West Notes: Judge, Angels, Athletics, Kelenic

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The Angels had trade talks with the Yankees about Aaron Judge this winter, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports, though it sounds as if the discussions were little more than due diligence.  “It was the lightest of flirtations,” as Olney put it, “and perhaps a door-opener for other names.”  No details about the specific nature of the talks were mentioned, though it’s safe to assume the Angels explored some bigger outfield names like Judge before eventually landing Dexter Fowler in a salary-dump of a trade from the Cardinals.

Needless to say, a Judge trade would have been arguably the offseason’s biggest blockbuster, and it’s fun to speculate about what exactly Los Angeles would have had to give up to land the slugger.  (Cue the inevitable “Judge for Trout and Ohtani sounds about fair” jokes in the comments section.)  The Angels and Yankees were somewhat imperfect trade partners since both shared a need for starting pitching, which could be one of the reasons negotiations didn’t get very far.  Since getting under the luxury tax threshold seemed to be the Yankees’ primary offseason goal, finances would likely have played some factor in a hypothetical trade, though obviously the Yankees wouldn’t have just given Judge away to clear his relatively modest $10.175MM salary.  Olney also observed that discussion about Judge’s future in the Bronx will soon become more prominent, as Judge is only under team control through the 2022 season.

More from the AL West…

  • In figures released on Friday, the Athletics’ plans for their new ballpark at the Howard Terminal site in downtown Oakland will cost $1 billion for the stadium itself, and roughly $12 billion for development projects in the surrounding area.  (Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times has the details.)  The bulk of the costs would be covered by the team and private developers, though the A’s asked the city to provide $855MM for infrastructure improvements.  That money would come from taxes related to the project, but a statement from Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf said that while “the city is willing to bring to bear its resources to help make this vision a reality…today’s proposal from the A’s appears to request public investment at the high end for projects of this type nationwide.”  The Athletics have requested that Oakland’s city council vote on the project before the end of the summer.
  • Mariners star prospect Jarred Kelenic will make his MLB debut at some point this season, though while GM Jerry Dipoto told MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand that Kelenic “is going to get here soon…I don’t expect that’s going to be in a matter of days.”  Enough time has passed in the season that the Mariners have gained an extra year of control over Kelenic’s services, a tactic mentioned as part of the infamous comments made by former team president/CEO Kevin Mather during a rotary club speech in February.  As expected, Dipoto made no mention of service time considerations, noting that the M’s wanted to see Kelenic get more experience facing left-handed pitching.  The GM also said that “when you break camp with a team, committing to those players for the first 30 or 40 games, it would be unfair to judge what they do without giving them that sample to work with.”  Looking at Seattle’s current outfield options, Mitch Haniger is off to a red-hot start, Taylor Trammell hasn’t hit but has looked strong defensively, and Kyle Lewis only just returned from the injured list.  Ty France is also hitting well and has taken most of the DH at-bats, but France could also see more time at first or second base when the time comes for Kelenic’s promotion.

AL Injury Notes: Judge, Mariners, Orioles

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A few injury updates from the American League:

  • Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge wasn’t in their lineup against the Orioles on Wednesday because of soreness in his left side, Bryan Hoch of MLB.com writes. Manager Aaron Boone doesn’t seem all that concerned, as he said, “With the off day tomorrow I don’t want to take any chances.” Still, it’s notable in light of Judge’s extensive injury history. He missed a large amount of time in 2018 after suffering a fractured wrist on a hit by pitch, which was obviously just a bad break, but then sat out a combined 92 games from 2019-20 because of oblique, rib and calf problems. Judge has been excellent when healthy, though, and has begun this season with an eye-popping .364/.391/.636 line with two home runs in 23 plate appearances.
  • Mariners center fielder Kyle Lewis is progressing in his recovery from a bone bruise in his right knee and could make his season debut during the team’s April 16-20 homestand, Corey Brock of The Athletic tweets. The injury has prevented Lewis from building on last season’s American League Rookie of the Year-winning campaign, in which he batted .262/.364/.437 with 11 home runs and five stolen bases over 242 plate appearances. The Mariners have mostly used Taylor Trammell in center during Lewis’ absence.
  • Sticking with the Mariners, first baseman Evan White exited their game against the White Sox on Wednesday with tightness in his left quad, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times tweets. The team replaced White with Jose Marmolejos. White was off to a less-than-ideal start to the season even before the injury, as the 24-year-old has collected just three hits in 24 plate appearances and struck out seven times. The Mariners signed White to a six-year, $24MM extension before last season, but he wound up struggling to a .176/.252/.346 line with a 41.6 percent K rate in 202 PA as a rookie then.
  • Orioles outfielder DJ Stewart might be back in their lineup this weekend, according to manager Brandon Hyde (via Joe Trezza of MLB.com). Stewart hasn’t played yet this year on account of a hamstring issue that has shelved him for a little over a month. The 27-year-old lined up in the corner outfield in all 31 of his appearances in 2020, and he put up an unusual .193/.355/.455 batting line with seven home runs 112 trips to the plate. Despite a low batting average and a 33.9 percent strikeout rate, Stewart’s ability to draw walks (17.9 percent) and hit for power (.261 ISO) carried him to an impressive wRC+ of 124.

Yankees, Aaron Judge Avoid Arbitration

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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.

Yankees Activate Aaron Judge

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The Yankees announced Wednesday that right fielder Aaron Judge has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list. His activation from the IL comes just one day after Giancarlo Stanton and Gio Urshela also returned from injury.

Calf injuries have limited the 28-year-old Judge to just 18 games in 2020, although he’s been as dangerous as ever when healthy enough to take the field. Through 71 plate appearances, the 2017 Rookie of the Year has slashed a Herculean .292/.343/.738 with nine homers and a pair of doubles. Unfortunately for Judge and for the Yankees, he’s now in his third straight season that has been considerably shortened by injuries. Judge went down with a calf injury in early August and returned about two weeks later. However, he aggravated that calf issue in his first game back and landed right back on the injured list.

Judge joins the Yankees amid a six-game winning streak that has all but eliminated any possibility of the team missing the playoffs. At 27-21, the Yankees are a virtual lock for a postseason berth — it’s now just a matter of which seed they’ll land in this year’s expanded format. They’re four games back from the Rays at the moment, which makes it unlikely that they’ll take the top seed in their division. But New York is also just a half game up over their current opponent, the Blue Jays. There are two remaining games in that series, which will prove pivotal as the two clubs jostle for the better postseason standing.

The Yankees will follow that series up with three games in Boston before traveling to Buffalo for four more games against the Blue Jays at their makeshift 2020 home site. They’ll close out the year hosting the Marlins for three games. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, play four against the Phillies this weekend, four against the Yankees next week and finish the season by hosting the Orioles for three.

Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton Likely To Return This Week

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The Yankees seem set to get a pair of important reinforcements back, as manager Aaron Boone told Jon Morosi of MLB Network Radio on Monday that sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are likely to return from the injured list this week. Judge resumed swinging Monday, while Stanton did so on Sunday.

The Yankees have gone almost the entire past month-plus without Judge, who has been on the IL twice since Aug. 11 because of calf issues. He returned from his first stint Aug. 26, but Judge didn’t last the full game and went back on the IL after that. The injury problems cut off what was an excellent opening to 2020 for Judge, who has slashed an elite-level .292/.343/.739 with nine home runs in 71 plate appearances. The Yankees have primarily turned right field over to Clint Frazier, who’s having a terrific year at the plate in his own right, in Judge’s absence.

Stanton, meanwhile, hasn’t played since Aug. 8 on account of a left hamstring strain. Like Judge, Stanton got off to a great start this year with a .293/.453/.585 mark and three home in 54 trips to the plate. A corner outfielder for most of his career, Stanton saw all of his action at designated hitter this year before winding up on the shelf. New York has used various players at DH as subs for Stanton.

In spite of prolonged absences for Judge and Stanton, the Yankees have put up above-average offensive numbers this year, as they rank ninth in wRC+ (107) and 12th in runs (223). They were supposed to boast a stacked offense, though, and the fact that they haven’t has led to a relatively disappointing 26-21 start and a four-game deficit in the American League East. But if Judge and Stanton are their usual selves when they return, they could help the Yankees lock down a playoff spot and perhaps make a serious World Series run in the postseason.

Boone Provides Updates On Judge, Stanton, Paxton

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The Yankees’ season has again been punctuated by injuries for high-profile players, but manager Aaron Boone tells reporters that both Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton could get at-bats at the alternate training site this weekend and return “shortly after that” if all goes well (Twitter link, with video, via SNY). On a less-optimistic note, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch tweets that Boone also acknowledged it will be “challenging” for lefty James Paxton to return this season.

Judge missed nearly two weeks early last month due to a calf injury and returned for just one game before heading back to the IL with further troubles in that same calf. Stanton, meanwhile, has played only 14 games in 2020 due to a hamstring strain that has sidelined him for more than a month now.

It’s the second consecutive injury marred season for the pair of former 50-homer sluggers. Both have been excellent when on the field — Judge is hitting .292/.343/.738 and Stanton .293/.453/.585 — but they’ve combined for only 125 trips to the plate. The timing of their return next week is pivotal. The Yankees are set to host the Blue Jays for three games beginning Tuesday, and they’ll travel to face them in a four-game set the following week. The Jays recently leapfrogged the Yankees in the standings and now hold a two-game lead over Boone’s club, which is clinging to the No. 8 seed after dropping seven of its past ten contests.

The news on Paxton isn’t good but also isn’t unexpected after last night’s update that he’d be shut down from throwing for a few days following soreness in his most recent throwing session. Paxton, who also underwent back surgery in February, has been limited to five ineffective starts for the Yankees so far in 2020 and has been out since Aug. 21 due to a Grade 1 flexor strain.

Boone didn’t completely rule out a return in 2020, and a lengthy postseason run for the Yankees would obviously improve his odds of healing up enough to make it back to the mound. However, the uncertainty surrounding his return date also creates the possibility that Paxton, a free agent this winter, has thrown his final pitch for the Yankees.

Injury Updates: Hamels, Soler, Rays, Ramirez, Yankees

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Cole Hamels will throw a live batting practice session on Sunday, as the injury-plagued southpaw might yet still have a chance to factor into the 2020 season.  Braves manager Brian Snitker told MLB.com’s Mark Bowman and other reporters that “We’re just looking to get through a couple live BPs and see how he is,” perhaps wisely not setting even a speculative timeline given that Hamels battled shoulder issues during Spring Training and is currently on the 45-day injured list recovering from left triceps tendinitis.  Bowman speculates that Hamels likely won’t start pitching in simulated games until next weekend at the earliest, so the left-hander might not be able to join the Braves until roughly the last 7-10 days of the regular season.

It makes Hamels into a total wild card for Atlanta’s playoff drive, though with the club looking to have a good shot at the postseason, it isn’t out of the question that Hamels could be part of a playoff roster.  Having a former World Series MVP coming out of the bullpen would be quite an interesting wrinkle for Atlanta, though Hamels has only worked as a reliever twice in his 439 career games in the regular season and postseason.

Some more injury situations from around baseball…

  • Jorge Soler left tonight’s game due to what the Royals described as right oblique soreness.  This is the second time in four days that Soler has exited a game due to such an injury, and perhaps on a related note, Soler is hitless over his last eight plate appearances.  Soler has been a few steps behind his big 2019 numbers this season, though he is still hitting a solid .237/.333/.459 with eight homers over 159 PA.
  • The Rays have been plagued by pitching injuries this season, and two more hurlers ran into potential issues on Saturday.  Newly-acquired southpaw Cody Reed left tonight’s game during the eighth inning with an injury to his pinkie, though manager Kevin Cash told MLB.com’s Jose Toribio (Twitter links) that the problem doesn’t appear to be serious.  The news isn’t as good for left-hander Shane McClanahan, as the prospect will miss around two weeks after suffering a hyper-extended left knee during a fielding play at the Rays’ alternate training site.  The 31st overall pick of the 2018 draft, McClanahan got some top-100 prospect attention from Baseball Prospectus and Baseball American prior to the season, and there was some speculation Tampa Bay might give the 23-year-old his first taste of big league action sometime in September.
  • Marlins outfielder Harold Ramirez had to be carted off the field tonight after suffering what the club described as a left hamstring strain.  Ramirez suffered the injury while trying to beat out a grounder during the fifth inning of Miami’s 7-3 win over Tampa Bay.  Playing in just his third game of the season, Ramirez was only activated off the injured list today, as he was one of the many Marlins players sidelined after positive COVID-19 tests.
  • Yankees manager Aaron Boone provided reporters (including ESPN’s Marly Rivera) with updates on injured sluggers Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, saying that Judge will increase his baseball-activity work on Monday.  Stanton, who Boone feels is “a little ahead of Judge” in terms of readiness, has already been taking part in baseball activities and is now running at 80 percent as he continues his recovery from a hamstring strain.

Aaron Judge Headed Back To Injured List

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The Yankees are placing Aaron Judge back on the injured list with a similar low-grade calf strain to the one that shelved him earlier this month, manager Aaron Boone tells reporters (Twitter link via James Wagner of the New York Times). Judge only just came off the injured list this week, but he exited his first game back with tightness in his problematic calf muscle.

There’s little doubt that Judge is among the game’s best all-around offensive performers when he’s healthy enough to take the field. He’s batting a ridiculous .292/.343/.738 with nine homers through 18 games and 71 plate appearances so far in 2020 and owns a career .274/.392/.556 line. But injuries have continually hampered Judge since his incredible rookie season in 2017.

The fractured wrist that Judge suffered upon being hit by a pitch back in 2018 can be chalked up as a fluke, of course, and the same could perhaps be said about the cracked rib and subsequent punctured lung he sustained on a bid for a diving catch last September. However, Judge has also now had multiple IL stints for oblique and calf injuries alike. In all, he missed 50 games in 2018, 60 games in 2019 and will now be sidelined for a yet-to-be-determined period in 2020 (already having missed 15 days with the first calf injury).

As has become typical in recent years, a resilient Yankees club has found a way to weather the storm in light of injuries to Judge and several other key players (Luis Severino, James Paxton, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres). Still, it’s a staggering amount of talent to be shelved simultaneously, and the Yankees are beginning to show the effects; they’ve dropped five straight games and now trail the Rays by two and a half games in the AL East. At the moment, they’re closer in the standings to the third-place Blue Jays than to Tampa Bay.

Injury Notes: Judge, LeMahieu, Yankees, White, Puk, Bowden

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The latest on multiple injury situations throughout the game…

  • Aaron Judge’s most recent calf injury “seems like a recurrence of what he had before,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said during an interview with WFAN (hat tip to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch).  Judge re-injured his calf in his first game back from a minimum 10-day stint on the injured list, and Boone suggested that this latest issue “does seem minor in nature again, but certainly something that could turn into an IL stint again.”
  • While Judge is a question mark, the Yankees could potentially have DJ LeMahieu back for this weekend’s series against the Mets.  Boone said that LeMahieu took batting practice today at Yankee Stadium and will now report to the club’s alternate training site.  Assuming the second baseman is indeed able to return against the Mets, it would represent a slightly early return from the initial 2-to-3 week timeline projected after LeMahieu was initially placed on the injured list with a thumb sprain on August 16.  In other Yankees injury news, Boone said Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring) also took on-field batting practice today, and that Gleyber Torres (quad/hamstring) is making good progress.
  • Evan White left during the third inning of the Mariners’ 10-7 loss to the Padres due to what the M’s termed as right shoulder discomfort.  After the game, Seattle manager Scott Servais told the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish and other reporters that White initially suffered the injury while diving for a ball in Tuesday’s game and was trying to play through the pain.  The rookie first baseman entered today’s game with only a .168/.238/.379 slash line through his first 105 plate appearances in the big leagues, though White had begun to heat up over the last week.
  • The next step in A.J. Puk’s rehab will take place Friday, as Athletics manager Bob Melvin told the San Francisco Chroncile’s Susan Slusser and other reporters that Puk will throw 30 pitches over two simulated innings against live batters.  This will be the second time that Puk has faced actual hitters during his recovery from shoulder woes that have plagued him since Spring Training.  There is still no clear timetable on when Puk could make his return to the A’s, though the club has already said that he will be deployed as a reliever in 2020.
  • Rockies pitching prospect Ben Bowden isn’t likely to make his MLB debut this season, manager Bud Black told The Athletic’s Nick Groke and other reporters.  Bowden suffered another injury he was already recovering from a back problem that sidelined him during Spring Training.  A second-round pick out of Vanderbilt in the 2016 draft, Bowden didn’t have a great performance in the hitter-friendly environment of Triple-A Colorado Springs in 2019, though the southpaw has a 3.60 ERA, 13.1 K/9, and 3.15 K/BB over 127 1/3 total minor league innings, all as a reliever.

Aaron Judge Exits With Calf Issue

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8:17pm: Judge left after experiencing tightness in his “calf area,” manager Aaron Boone told James Wagner of the New York Times and other reporters. Asked about a potential MRI for Judge, Boone said, “We’ll see.”

8:06pm: Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge didn’t get through his entire first game in his return from the 10-day injured list Wednesday. Judge departed after five innings against the Braves, Bryan Hoch of MLB.com reports. It’s unclear why Judge exited, but the team replaced him with Clint Frazier while nursing a 1-0 lead.

Judge’s latest IL stint came as a result of a mild right calf strain that shelved him for the minimum period of time. Yet another notable injury for Judge would be a significant blow to an injury-battered New York club that entered Wednesday night with four straight losses and now sits a game and a half back of the Rays in the AL East. The Yankees do own a wild-card spot right now, but they’re in a weakened state with DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres, James Paxton and Zack Britton on the IL.

As has been the case throughout his career, Judge has been one of the driving forces behind the Yankees’ success this year. The hulking slugger has slashed .292/.343/.748 with nine home runs in 71 plate appearances a month into 2020. There’s no realistic hope of replacing that production, though Frazier, Aaron Hicks and Mike Tauchman have also provided above-average numbers from the Yankees’ outfield. On the other hand, the long-steady Brett Gardner has gotten off to a woeful start this year.

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