Aaron Judge powered his way from Double-A to Triple-A in 2015 and is now one step away from the Bronx. He played 63 games with Trenton before being promoted and playing 61 with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He had a .284/.350/.516 slash line with the Thunder, blasting 12 homers, collecting 44 RBIs and scoring 36 runs. He forced everyone to take notice and the Yanks had no choice but to promote him. However, his RailRiders numbers didn’t quite match the ones from Trenton. He hit just .224/.308/.373 with 8 homers, 28 RBIs and 27 runs. A lot of people started talking about his less then stellar Triple-A numbers, but The 6’7 behemoth is not too worried.
“It’s a learning process, and just making adjustments,” Judge said. “I really didn’t make enough adjustments that I needed to. Pitchers made adjustments. That’s what the game of baseball is, just little adjustments to fine tune your swing, your approach, and I’m still trying to get ready for the 2016 season.”
Judge is currently the Yankees top prospect on MLB.com and third overall according to Baseball America. With Carlos Beltran’s contract up after the 2016 season, he knows he needs to be Major League ready. Assistant hitting coach Marcus Thames pointed out that he had trouble identifying breaking balls in Triple-A, so he has been in Tampa working on improving pitch recognition. Joe Girardi stated earlier this month that the youngster doesn’t need to put too much pressure on himself.
“You see some guys develop late. I wouldn’t put that kind of pressure on him. This kid is going to be a big league player in New York,” Girardi said.
Seeing his buddies Refsnyder, Bird and Severino get the call in 2015 has given the 23 year old some extra motivation.
“Once Bird got up there, Severino and all those guys were doing well, that helps the other guys like us in Triple-A and Double-A, like, they’re going to give us a shot. They went up there and produced and did well, so maybe next year or the year after that the rest of us will get a shot.”
Judgement day is coming.
