NEW YORK — The tee came first. Then soft toss. Then, this week, Aaron Judge‘s overhand batting practice that made Aaron Boone stop in his tracks on his way to the field.
Boone had walked out for the Yankees’ pregame routine when he caught a glimpse of his captain taking hacks in the cage. He watched half a dozen swings and moved on. The picture stuck with him.
“It’s like, ‘That’s Aaron Judge,’” Boone said of the session, which came Tuesday. “So it was encouraging.”
For a lineup that has scuffled for three months, the sight of Judge swinging freely again carried weight. He has not played since May 31, sidelined by a stress fracture in his first right rib. The Yankees have missed his bat badly, and every guidepost in his recovery now draws a crowd of reporters.
Speaking at his locker Thursday before the Yankees closed a series with the Houston Astros, Judge made a request that could shape the final stretch. He wants to skip a Minor League rehab assignment and return straight to the majors. His reasoning leans on his own history.
Judge leans on his own history to skip Minors
The stance puts Judge slightly at odds with convention. Most players who miss this much time build back up with at-bats in Double-A or Triple-A. For the Yankees, though, Judge argues that his experience makes those reps unnecessary.
He framed the case bluntly when asked whether machine work could replace live games.
The captain pointed to 2023, when he came back from a torn ligament in his right big toe without a single tune-up game in the farm system. He sees no reason to change the plan now, even after a longer layoff.
“I didn’t rehab in ’23 when I missed probably the same amount of time,” Judge said. “Why waste at-bats? Why waste anything down in a Minor League game? I’ve been doing this for a while now, and I’ve got a sense of what I need to do on the field and how to manage it. Why waste some at-bats in Double-A or Triple-A?”
Judge missed close to three months this time. In 2023, the toe injury cost him closer to two months. He did not expect the Yankees front office to push back hard on his preference.
“I feel like if I tell them I’m ready to go play, I think we’re ready to go play,” Judge said. “I’m not a pitcher. I’m a position player. I can get my reps down here in the cage.”
The bat speed question hiding behind the rib
One layer of this Yankees return has drawn less attention than the rehab debate itself. The injury sits in Judge’s rib cage, the part of the body that powers rotation and, by extension, bat speed and raw power.
His pre-injury profile shows why that matters. Through 59 games before the fracture, Judge hit .248 with a .907 OPS, 17 home runs and 38 RBIs, numbers dragged down by a rib he played through for weeks. The underlying contact data stayed elite. His average exit velocity sat at 94.1 mph, his hard-hit rate at 57.3 percent and his barrel rate at 21.7 percent, per Statcast. Those marks point to a hitter whose swing quality never eroded, only his results.
Judge said he has not asked doctors whether his power and bat speed will be there on day one. He is choosing to trust feel over another scan. His last imaging, in early August, showed the rib still healing.
“That’s why I was hesitant about getting a scan in the first place, because usually they base everything off that,” Judge said. “But I was kind of like, ‘Let’s base it off how I feel, and if I’m feeling good, why can’t we keep progressing?’ So we’ll just keep progressing.”
A stretch run raises the stakes on his glove
The timing sharpens the debate. The Yankees enter their weekend series against the Boston Red Sox at 75-58, four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East and clinging to the top wild-card spot. A healthy Judge in the middle of the order would reshape a Yankees lineup that has been among the worst in baseball in his absence.
There is still one box to check. Judge has not faced high velocity, and the Yankees’ trainers control when that step comes. He plans to return in right field rather than at designated hitter, a spot already crowded by Luis García Jr., Paul Goldschmidt and Ben Rice.
That plan carries a small risk. Judge traced the rib fracture to a diving attempt on April 26 in Houston, and Boone has said he does not expect his captain to dive when he returns. Judge, who is signed for $360 million, said he will pick his spots but would not promise to hold back entirely.
“I’m gonna play smart,” Judge said. “I’m gonna still try to go out there and make every play I can, but you gotta be smart, especially near the end of the year now. You know, if it’s Game 7 of the World Series, I’ll definitely be diving, so I don’t think that’ll ever change.”
Boone signals room for a creative buildup
The Yankees manager confirmed that Judge had already raised the idea with him directly. Boone did not commit either way, but he did not shut the door.
“The biggest thing sometimes with rehabs is just building guys up and getting them used to playing and stuff,” Boone said. “There’s also creative ways of doing that too, though. So as we get closer to that point, we’ll make that decision collectively.”
Judge laid out how that buildup might work without a farm stop. The Yankees own a Trajekt machine, which mimics the pitch shapes and velocities of specific big league arms. He could pair that with standard machine work and live at-bats against teammates who are themselves rehabbing from injury.
He described the timing challenge as familiar rather than daunting, comparing it to riding a bike. Judge said he is not expecting the process to drag, and the Yankees have injured pitchers who could soon supply those live looks.
For now, the Yankees wait on velocity and on their captain’s rib. Judge wants his next game to be a big league game. Whether the Yankees sign off remains the open question hanging over the Bronx.
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