Alex Rodriguez thinks the failure of the Yankees to make Aaron Judge agree to a $213-million contract before this season’s opener will lead to higher costs for the team.
Judge, who is in the running for MVP and will become a free agent soon, hit his 55th home run of the 2022 season in the first game of a doubleheader between the Yankees and Twins on Wednesday afternoon. With that home run at Yankee Stadium, Judge passed Rodriguez as the Yankees’ player with the most home runs by a right-handed batter.
After that, Rodriguez congratulated Judge and told him what he could expect in terms of money.
“Doing this all in a contract year, too,” Rodriguez tweeted. He warned, “Like I said Opening Day, Judge could be the first $50 million a year player. The past 6 months will cost the Yankees an extra $150 million; what a performance.”
The 30-year-old outfielder rejected a contract extension before the season that would have paid him $213.5 million over the course of seven years. Time will tell if Judge comes anywhere close to prolific contract projections by Rodriguez. Considering add one, the now-rejected deal would have provided Judge with an annual salary of approximately $30.5 million a year on average.
Based on what he said in his tweet, Rodriguez thinks that Judge should get $363.5 million from the Yankees, but that would be about $52 million a year for seven years. As far as the Yankees are concerned, these numbers might be “unrealistic,” as Yankees president Randy Levine said on the “The Show” podcast of the New York Post.
“There’s venting and saying stuff that makes no sense at all in the real world,” Levine continued, “and then there’s the real effort, which we’re going to try and do to keep him a Yankee forever.”
No matter what Judge’s market is, he probably will get a better offer in the winter than he rejected in April, whether it’s from the Yankees or another team.
Do you agree with Alex Rodriguez? Will Aaron Judge earn $50 million a month next season?
