New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge accomplished something only Barry Bonds has done this century.
Sep 24, 2024; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge (99) celebrates while running the base after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
Now that all 162 regular season games have been played, we can now attach a final stat line to New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge's truly historic 2024 campaign.
The 32-year-old massive AL MVP favorite finished the regular season with a .322 batting average, a 1.159 OPS, 58 home runs, 144 RBIs, and 10 stolen bases.
While all of those statistics are staggering, there's another one that puts Judge in a club with a man who many consider to be the best power hitter in MLB history.
Judge finished the season with a .701 slugging percentage. That makes him the first player since San Francisco Giants legend Barry Bonds in 2004 to finish a season with a slugging percentage over .700, according to the Talkin' Yanks X account.
For reference, Bonds' slugging percentage that season was .812.
While this insane metric cements Judge's 2024 season as one of (if not the) most impressive offensive seasons this century, another statistic that surfaced on social media Sunday shows that it's also one of the best offensive seasons in baseball history.
X user @YankeeWRLD posted a screenshot of Judge's wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus) on Sunday alongside that of other MLB greats with the caption, "Aaron Judge has officially finished 2024 with the 7th best offensive season in the history of Major League Baseball".
For those unaware, MLB.com says that the wRC+ statistic, "takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for important external factors -- like ballpark or era. It's adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average and 150 would be 50 percent above league average."
In other words, it puts all hitters throughout MLB history on the same playing field. And Judge's 218 wRC+ ties him with Babe Ruth for the 7th-best season ever produced in the sport.
While we could go on forever about what Judge accomplished during this regular season, both he and Yankees fans would agree that the conversation would be made a whole lot sweeter if it ended with a World Series ring.
