Aaron Judge Free Agency Points To Consider

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by JustinD

Somewhat agree with the chance of San Fran, but still think there is no way he leaves New York.

He’s a bit of a one-trick pony like Bonds…he hits home runs. His Defense is not atrocious, but certainly not stellar. He’s going to a team with a short porch so he can stay relevant. He’s definitely not going to Fenway unless he wants to alienate NY completely, so New York is the logic.

He would excel in Colorado, but no chance. San Fran is the only other reasonable big city choice that would pay for a Bonds type for ticket sales.

Throw him in Comerica Field and he drops to maybe 40ish homers at best. My bet is on staying or a 15% chance of Giants.

Check out Judge's Home/Road splits. Being a right handed hitter in Yankee Stadium didn't help him in the slightest.

Judge didn't hit any cheapies. I believe he projected for 61 HR's based on the average dimensions of all major league parks and his HR distances and placements.

Now if you made the same argument about Anthony Rizzo, I'd be more inclined to agree with you.

[D. Bergin]

If the Yankees do lose him, it's going to go back to Cashman making the negotiations with him public last year.

While I thought it was a fair offer at the time given Judge's age and injury history, it was in poor taste for Cashman to take it public, and it could very well bite him in the ass after Judge's "See, I told you so" season he just had.

At this point, I'm not even sure money's going to be the main motivator with Judge. At a certain point hundreds of millions of dollars, is hundreds of millions of dollars, no matter the variance of top and bottom offers. Even if the Yankees offered him less then somebody else, the endorsement opportunities are obviously more lucrative playing for New York.

It might just come down to the cliche of "Respect".

[G1911]

Personally, with his size and injury history, he’s not likely to be a good sign at high in the sky pricing. Whoever signs him will probably be the loser, not the winner. That said, that he broke the marquee Yankee record kind of forces the Yankees politically to offer him an insane contract to retain. If he leaves NY it’s because he wants to leave NY.

Easy for me to say, but if I had a job offer for $250,000,000 and another for, say, $350,000,000 I would make the choice based on which one I liked more and afforded what I considered the better quality of life. When the sums get these big, the money only matters as an ego measuring contest. Either is enough for me, my family, and my pals to all live in ease for the rest of our natural lives.

[packs]

I get the injury concern but is it THAT much of a concern?

Even with the threat of injury you can't ignore what you get when he's on the field. Over his shortened seasons between 2018 and 2020 he played 242 games and put up an OPS+ of 146.

His injury risks may remove him from the field for stretches at a time, but nothing has really marred his performance.

[mrreality68]

this will make the off season interesting.
Injury vs performance
Age vs Years of Contract
Deep Pockets of LA and San Fran vs Yankees
Last Contract process and the public info of the contract (respect vs non issue)

Hopefully he stays

But it will be interesting either way