“What an at-bat,” Boone said.

What a night.

“This is a heavyweight game in May,” Boone had told his bench coach Carlos Mendoza.

It was won by a heavyweight hitter who will get his money, big money, before or after he becomes a free agent.

Judge said he was just trying to do his job up there, just trying to get a pitch to drive, just blah, blah, blah.

PS -- think of the hullabaloo if he wasn't allowed to play today.

The Yankees obviously are hoping for a discount based on Judge's obvious desire to spend his career in one uniform, and for once I side with management. Why guarantee many millions now if it's not at least a few million less than he'd get if he was a free agent now?

https://nypost.com/2022/04/08/yankees-offering-huge-deal-to-aaron-judge-with-talks-going-down-to-the-wire/

Are all teams this bad?

...The exact number of unvaccinated Yankees and Mets is not publicly known, but a number of stars had recently declined to reveal their vaccination status as concern grew over Adams insisting his decisions would not be dictated by the baseball schedule. The list of players who declined to say whether they were vaccinated included Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo on the Yankees and Jacob deGrom, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis on the Mets.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/yankees-mets-react-to-nyc-vax-mandate-change-to-come/

Joel Sherman in the Post this morning:

TAMPA — Let the negotiations begin.

Aaron Judge and the Yankees couldn’t come to terms on a new deal to avoid arbitration by Tuesday’s deadline, with Judge asking for $21 million and the Yankees offering $17 million, according to a source...

While Judge and the Yankees didn’t settle on a one-year deal on Tuesday, the team did come to agreements with their other arbitration-eligible players. Joey Gallo got $10.275 million, Gleyber Torres $6.25 million, Jordan Montgomery $6 million, Isiah Kiner-Falefa $4.75 million and Wandy Peralta $2.15 million. Chad Green, Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loaisiga and Jameson Taillon also came to terms on one-year deals.

Judge turns 30 next month and is coming off his best and healthiest season since his rookie year of 2017.

He made $10.175 million in arbitration last season and was projected by some to get north of $17 million this year. By comparison, the Nationals and star outfielder Juan Soto agreed on a $17.1 million deal on Tuesday.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/22/yankees-aaron-judge-unable-to-reach-deal-avoid-arbitration/

The low price is based on all the time he missed in 2018, 2019, and 2020. When I made the price I wasn't aware of the vaccine situation. While I wouldn't blame someone who wanted Judge to pay the $30 it's going to take, I think there's just too much risk there. His average earnings the last four years are $21 a year. I'm even more comfortable with that in light of the possibility he'll miss playing time because of the vaccine. I mean the lack thereof.

All the Yankee loony tunes (sorry -- no politics) willl be out on the field on Opening Day. If the New York Post has anything to say about it.

https://nypost.com/covers/

Peter, is your price building in a discount for Judge potentially missing games due to Pancho's point below? Seems low but also makes sense if that's the case.

Unvaccinated players on the Yankees and Mets would not be eligible to play home games under the current COVID-19 rules in New York City. (Those
athletes would also be barred from playing in Toronto unless that
city's rules soon change. Asked about his own COVID-19 vaccination
status on Tuesday in Yankees camp, Aaron Judge said this: "I'm so
focused on getting through the first games of spring training so I think
we'll cross that bridge whenever the time comes. But right now, so many
things can change so I'm not really too worried about that right now."
Expect this story to grab even more headlines as Opening Day (April 7-8)
draws closer.)

Statcast xBA: .306, tied for fifth in the majors.

2021 HardHit% has been corrected.