Aaron Judge encounters roadblocks on his way to 60-homer club

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Aaron Judge may be the latest to join the 60-homer club. But it is not easy. The slugger is confronting more roadblocks compared to those who achieved it earlier. Perhaps, Judge is facing the toughest test on his way to the long-cherished milestone.

The 60+ home-run club remains exclusive and elusive. Babe Ruth of the Yankees did it first in 1927. Barry Bonds of the Giants and Chicago’s Sammy Sosa did it last in 2001. Between those 77 years, only eight players were able to surpass the prestigious mark of 60 home runs. But in the last 21 years, none was able to do.

Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees’ outfielder, came close in 2017 while he was with the Miami Marlins. But the five-time All-Star faltered with one short of 60 home runs though he bagged the NL MVP and the best offense award that season.

If Judge succeeds to hit 60 homers, he’ll join one of baseball’s most elite clubs. The history of baseball will see him alongside other great Yankees Babe Ruth who did it in the 1927 season and Roger Maris who hit 661 homers in 1961. In MLB, he will join an illustrious club led by Barry Bonds’ 73 homers in 2001 and includes Mark McGwire, who got 70 home runs in 1998 and 65 homers in 1999. Sammy Sosa, another member of this fabled five, did it three times – 66 home runs in 1998, 63 in 1999, and 64 in 2001.

If Judge makes it to the list, it could be nine times in the last 100 years. That’s it, in all of recorded history. Six players nine times.

But this time, it is not easy. There’s something different fans can feel, isn’t there?

Judge lacks what helped Ruth. Maris, McGwire, and Sosa, who played in the Major League’s expansion years. Plus, today’s offensive environment is nothing like the high-flying, controversial turn-of-the-century era, when home run records were regularly broken.

The AL East record of Maris remains stands since 1961 while no one was able to hit 60 home runs in the Major League in the last two decades.

Since 2001, 1961, or 1927, baseball has changed drastically. Almost everything has changed to make hitting more difficult, mostly due to velocity, pitch movement, and high-octane arms that don’t pace themselves to go deep into games. The increasing rate of strikeouts hints at how difficult it is now to hit like Ruth or McGwire, or Sosa. Today’s hitters find it much more difficult to hit as a batter did three to four decades ago.

This makes 60-homer seasons a unique achievement that has never been easy. Given that, and the fact that Judge has 55 in a season where no one else has reached 40, we wondered how much harder it might be for him to do it now than for them who did it in the past.

Judge won’t reach 73. He might beat McGwire or Sosa. In some ways, what he’s doing is more impressive than what others have done.

Let’s list the reasons why…

1) Ruth had not faced the best pitchers.

Ruth, alone among our five players, played pre-integration baseball; Judge did not. Most of the talented pitchers he faced were white and American-born. In 1927, Bullet Rogan, Bill Foster, and Satchel Paige pitched in the Negro National League. Ruth didn’t face them, but that’s not his fault.

In 1927, five players were foreign-born, who got into the United States only because of their ability to perform. In 2021 there were 418 who have the talent as their hallmark to compete. It’s not that Ruth didn’t face talented pitchers. There were good ones but many of those he did face were simply not as good as those he would have or could have faced had the integration barrier not stood.

Ruth hit 60 in 154 games. But compared to today’s talent base and athletic level, Ruth’s time didn’t even come closer to what kind of competition fans witness now. Judge, who would have not been in the game had it been Ruth’s time, has a much more difficult task.

2) Judge plays against better, more pitchers with a planned strategy to stop him.

Ruth faced 67 pitchers during the 1927 season. In his magic season of 1961, Maris faced 101.

Judge had already faced 225 pitchers counting the first game of Wednesday’s doubleheader. The latest to bat against was the Twins’ new boy Louie Varland. The slugger hit the rookie to his home run number 55.

The Yankees have two more series against Milwaukee and Pittsburgh after hosting the Rays at Yankee Stadium. This is set to up the number of those pitching to Judge this season to 240. Each of these comes with different arm slots, repertoires, and approaches. While the numbers are more than twice what Ruth saw, the strategic planning of today has become better technology to contain a hitter.

Ruth faced the seven teams in 1927’s eight-team American League before there was interleague play. Since those teams rarely used relievers and had no planning to replace injured players, Ruth used to see the same arms all through the season.

Video and modern scouting reports help Judge. But it also helps his opponent pitchers. Judge has to face many more pitchers than his Yankees slugging predecessors. Familiarity is more important than fatigue is sports and facing more than 200 pitchers every year robs one of that advantage.

3) Most pitchers are not starters.

But it’s not just pitchers, right? The pitchers’ usage is a factor too. During Ruth’s days, relievers were rarely used. Then, complete games account for over 50% of total games. Starters had to throw 88% of innings on average.

In 1961, 77% of innings were started by Maris. The 1990s and early 2000s, when Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa took the field, saw starters in 75% of innings. But Judge sees them 60% of the time.

A single player throwing makes it more effective to plan and counter than facing a flood of multiple pitchers.

4) Others face pitchers too often, but not Judge

To face a starter is one thing. It’s a different thing to face a starter for the third or fourth time, which Judge doesn’t get to do very often.

Even though this is a modern concept, the effect has always existed. John Smoltz’s OPS dropped 37 points the third time through and 96 points the fourth. Bob Gibson’s third-round score was 50 points lower. Decades earlier, Carl Hubbell scored 93 points lower the fourth time.

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson hit 15 more homers against third-time starters he faced despite taking 650 fewer plate appearances. Judge almost never does this in 2022.

Over the course of his career, he has a .526 slugging percentage when facing starters for the first time. He hits .664 when he sees them for the third time, which is why it doesn’t happen very often.

This table may be misleading. In 2021, the Majors had 526 plate appearances against a fourth-inning starter. With 14 fewer teams in 1927, there were 13,684 plate appearances. That’s 2,502% more often in 31% fewer games. Even then, OPS was 54 points higher than for first-time starters.

Ruth hit 12 homers off fourth-time starters in 1927. Sosa returned it five times in 1999 and Bonds had two years later. But this season, Judge has only faced Max Scherzer twice as a fourth-time starter.

Ruth hit nine homers off a second- or third-time reliever. More than half of his homers, 31, came off third-time starters or second-time relievers. But for Judge, it is 20%. If starters are used like the time of Ruth, Judge may cross 80 homers in 2022.

5) Time is not in favor of Judge.

In 2022, it is harder to hit than in 1927 or 1961. Why?

Between 1998 and 2001, three of four NL seasons saw massive hitting making it the best ever for sluggers. The 60+ homer-run milestone was reached six times in four years.

Judge can’t do that. The Majors’ .395 slugging percentage in 2022 is the second-lowest in the last 30 years. April’s slugging was among the lowest since the 1970s. This year, fans witnessed 4,404 home runs till now. These 2,300 homers short of 2019’s record haul of 6,776 homers with a month left.

In 1998, 1999, or 2019, it would have been easier to set this record. Three of the eight previous 60-homer seasons, all by Sosa, didn’t even lead the Majors in home runs, which tells you a lot about baseball in those days.

Judge is one of the six players left, and he has the most home runs ahead of the second-placed player.

Ruth was 13 ahead of Gehrig in 1927. Maris led 1961 by more than 7 homers. McGwire had 4 more than Sosa in 1998. It reduced to 2 between them in 1999. In 2001, Bonds topped Sosa by 7 more home runs.

Judge’s gap of 19+ home runs is the biggest in baseball history, even bigger than a few of Babe Ruth’s years, but not the 1927 season, which is interesting.

Judge won’t out-pace the AL homer list like Ruth did in 1927, but his.682 slugging percentage is huge. He’s out-slugging the league by 75%, the most since Bonds 20 years ago. It’s the most since 1927.

6) Travel takes a toll.

When Judge travels, he does so on a first-class airline, unlike Ruth a century ago. Ruth had his own private train car and never heard of “jet lag,” playing all but 22 games in the Eastern Time zone and never leaving St. Louis or Chicago.

Maris had to at least go to Los Angeles in the Angels’ first year, but those three three-game sets were the only games the Yankees played outside of America’s two more eastern time zones.

This year, Judge and the rest of the Yankees are to travel 32,755 miles, which is almost four times as much as Ruth’s team did in 1927, when they only went 8,960 miles.

However, this doesn’t make Judge much different from Bonds. The Giants went 41,042 miles in 2001.

7) Not an expansion year

Three expansion seasons had 60-homer years before. The 1961 Maris’ AL record coincided with the Angels and reborn Senators joining to compete with the Yankees. Sosa and McGwire joined the Majors in 1998 and hit 60-plus homers in 1999. Out of eight, five 60+ home runs came within two years of expansion, which added dozens of pitchers.

8) Pitches are far unfavorable.

Despite the lack of reliable pitch data before 2008, it is safe to say that pitches are more unfavorable now.

Today’s 50/50 fastball/non-fastball split was unthinkable for decades. Two-thirds of Judge’s career homers have come off fastballs, and his slugging percentage is 200 points higher against them.

But Judge is seeing them less. He still smashes what he gets. Imagine if he saw Maris, Ruth, or the turn-of-the-century trio pitching.

Babe Ruth hit 60 homers in 1927. 1961 Yankees outfielder Roger Maris hit 61 homers. Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has 55 homers in 2022. All true. Pinstripes and the home park name are the only similarities between the years. In many ways, Judge’s job is harder.

Do you agree with it? How far Judge can go this season?

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