As a diehard Yankee fan, this week my life has been consumed by furiously refreshing Twitter for Aaron Judge news. I went to bed last night resigned to the fact that he was going to the San Francisco Giants, only to learn this morning that he decided to remain with the Yankees for nine years and $360 million — a staggering commitment for a soon-to-be 31-year-old slugger with a patchy injury history.
Thanks to General Manager Brian Cashman’s mishandling of Judge’s contract negotiations while he was under team control, the Yankees faced a no-win situation this off-season. Either they pay a king’s ransom to retain Judge, or lose the face of their franchise, the successor to a long line of Yankee legends. Judge made one of the all-time best bets when, on opening day this past season, he rejected a seven-year, $213 million offer from the Yankees. Had he taken that deal, he would have earned about $10 million more in 2022, but would currently have six years and about $180 million left on the contract. By rejecting it, and having a historic 62-home-run MVP season, he netted $170 million.
On top of the incredible season he had, Judge was incredibly lucky that the deep-pocketed suitor hoping to lure him away from the Yankees happened to be his childhood team when he was growing up in Northern California. It isn’t often that players walk away from the allure of the Yankees and all its history, but it was plausible enough that he’d want to return home, and be near his family, to give the Yankees a legitimate reason to fear that he would walk if they didn’t pony up.
Letting Judge leave would have been unthinkable. Great homegrown talents leave other teams to come to the Yankees — not the other way around. Losing Judge and seeing him produce MVP numbers and win championships elsewhere would have changed the image of the franchise. It would have also deprived the Yankees of their biggest draw and really the heart of their team. He has also proven to be able to handle the New York spotlight and to be great with fans (one habit he has is to sometimes warm up between innings by playing catch with children seated near him in the outfield). Go to a Yankees game, and most of the jerseys you see in the stands are his 99. On the other hand, this contract will almost certainly come to punish the Yankees by tying their hands in future years. Even if he stays healthy — a big if — Judge likely has three to five solid seasons left. In the last years of his contract, Judge will likely be a banged-up DH who strikes out a ton. There is also the worst-case scenario that his big body breaks down earlier than other players and he returns to having long stints on the injured list, and the contract becomes a burden well before that.
All of that said, all this week, it was crushing to think about what it would have been like to watch the coming season without the excitement of Aaron Judge’s at bats. So, I rejoice.