NEW YORK — Aaron Judge enters the 2026 season with a resume that already reads like a first-ballot Hall of Fame case. Three AL MVP awards. An AL record 62 home runs in a single season. A career OPS of 1.028 that sits above Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio on the Yankees’ all-time list. A batting title. Seven All-Star selections. The captain’s C on his chest.
And yet, as the Yankees prepare to open the season Wednesday night against the Giants in San Francisco, the conversation around the Yankees captain is not about what he has done. It is about what he still needs to do. The 33-year-old is chasing milestones that could separate him from every right-handed hitter in baseball history. But the pressure surrounding his Yankees legacy has never been louder.
The milestones within reach for the Yankees captain
Judge enters the season with 368 career home runs. He needs just 32 more to reach 400, a milestone he is on pace to reach in fewer games than any player in MLB history. He hit 300 in just 955 games, shattering Mark McGwire’s previous record of 1,412. If Judge hits 32 home runs in his first full season and a half, the record will be his.
A fourth AL MVP award would put the Yankees star alone at the top of American League history. No one has ever won four. Only Barry Bonds and Shohei Ohtani have won four or more total. Judge won the award in 2022, 2024 and 2025, and was widely considered the 2017 winner before the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal tainted Jose Altuve’s trophy.
Judge also has a shot at posting his sixth career season with an OPS above 1.000. Only 21 players in history have done that. He would be the first since Albert Pujols. For context, Hank Aaron reached the mark five times in 23 seasons. Ken Griffey Jr. did it four times.
On top of that, Judge could pass three Yankees legends on the franchise’s all-time walks list this season. And a poll of 57 MLB.com staff members picked the Yankees slugger as the landslide favorite to reclaim the AL home run crown after Seattle’s Cal Raleigh slugged 60 last year.
The pressure on Judge’s legacy has never been higher
None of those milestones will matter as much to Judge as the one that has eluded him his entire career: a World Series championship. And the people closest to the Yankees know it.
New York Post insider Joel Sherman made the case bluntly on the “Pinstripe Post” podcast.
“Judge kind of needs it for his legacy,” Sherman said. “I don’t think there’s any question we’re going to remember him as one of the great … not only a great hitter of this era, but like he’s sitting with three or four 200 OPS+ seasons, three MVPs, Yankees record for homers in a season with 62. This is a historic hitter who I expect will probably do this for a few more years, but I think he’s 34 now, and the window is going to close on him and, you never know, on the Yankees.”
The criticism grew louder after the World Baseball Classic, where Judge went 6-for-27 as Team USA’s captain before going hitless with three strikeouts in the championship game loss to Venezuela. He was booed during a Yankees spring training game days later, a moment that shocked even longtime observers of the Yankees franchise.
Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay did not hold back.
“What’s the purpose of booing a guy in spring training? What are you trying to accomplish?” Kay said. “Of all the people in baseball, you’re going to boo Aaron Judge? Are you out of your minds?”
Judge is not letting the noise reach him
Judge himself addressed the backlash with the kind of composure that has defined his time as the Yankees captain.
“I see the bigger picture. I’ve got a job to do,” Judge told the New York Post. “I’ve got things to do, so I’m not going to be bothered by criticisms. If I was, I’m never going to accomplish what I want to do.”
He then laid out his priorities for the 2026 season in terms that left no room for misinterpretation.
“There are so many things I’ve got to do,” Judge said. “I’ve got to lead this team. I’ve got to win the division. I’ve got to win a championship here.”
The Yankees open the season Wednesday at Oracle Park, where Judge grew up rooting for the Giants before Sacramento gave way to the Bronx. He is healthy, motivated by the WBC loss, and entering a Yankees season where every milestone he reaches will be measured against the one he still does not have. For a player who has already rewritten the record books for the Yankees, the hardest chapter may be the one he writes this October.
Can he achieve? What do you think?
