Perhaps the best way to explain Aaron Judge is that you always have to keep track of him.
Increasingly, this has been true of big league managers That’s where Judge’s career is right now, on the day he reached the 300 career home runs club in fewer games — by far — than any player in history.
Zipping to 300 homers does not guarantee future career records. The record Judge set (300 homers in 955 games) previously belonged to Ralph Kiner, who needed 1,087 games. Kiner finished with 369 career home runs.
Judge is the 162nd player to reach 300. At 32, he is at an age creeping toward old for a baseball player, yet he’s still young enough to tack on a whole lot more dingers.
How many home runs might Judge end up with? It’s harder to guess than it is for other power hitters who have reached the 300 level. Why? Simply put, we’ve just never seen a career quite like the one Aaron Judge is putting together.
Judge first appeared in the majors in 2016 when he was already 24, making his New York Yankees debut on Aug. 13, almost precisely eight years from the time you are reading this. He homered in his first game, off Matt Andriese of the Tampa Bay Rays. In fact, he homered in his first MLB at-bat, right after teammate Tyler Austin did the same thing. Then he homered in his second game, too, going deep off Jake Odorizzi.
Judge ended up hitting just two more homers in 2016, so after his age-24 season, he was at four for his career. He was just getting started, but historically great players tend to debut well before that, sometimes before they hit 20. Eddie Mathews had 190 homers by that age, the age-24 record, followed by Alex Rodriguez (189) and Mel Ott (176). Babe Ruth, who had not converted to full-time hitting by the end of his age-24 season (though he was getting close to it) still had managed 49 homers.
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