Nobody asked the New York Yankees to produce a 6-foot-7 right fielder who would hit 52 home runs in his first full season, win the Home Run Derby, get every single AL Rookie of the Year vote, and make grown men in Boston nervous. But here we are.
Aaron Judge didn't just have a great rookie year. He had one of those seasons where you kept checking the stats because you thought there was a typo.
The Backstory Nobody Quite Remembers
Judge was the 32nd overall pick in the 2013 draft -- a compensation pick the Yankees got for losing Nick Swisher in free agency. (Yes, they got Aaron Judge in exchange for losing Nick Swisher. The universe has a sense of humor.) He came out of Fresno State, tore a quad in a base-running drill before he threw a professional pitch, and spent the next three years grinding through the minors. He got a cup of coffee in 2016 -- 27 games, 4 homers, looked like he might be something -- but nobody was booking hotel rooms for a ticker tape parade yet.
The 2017 Opening Day lineup card listed him as the starting right fielder. He was 25 years old. The bullpen was going to be great. Gary Sánchez was going to hit. Luis Severino was going to emerge as an ace -- and he did, 14-6, 2.98 ERA, 230 strikeouts, one of the better pitching seasons a Yankees starter had in years. But the thing nobody planned for was Judge.
April and the 10-Homer Mess
He went absolutely berserk in April. Ten home runs in the first month, which tied the rookie record at the time. The ball was leaving the park at angles that made the Statcast team check their sensors. On April 28 against the Orioles he hit two in the same game -- his first multi-homer game in the big leagues. He was named AL Rookie of the Month before May had even started.
Here's what was genuinely weird: he was also striking out. A lot. He'd finish the year with 208 -- a rookie record at the time, a number that would make most hitting coaches develop a tic. But the walks were piling up too (127, an actual freakin' MLB rookie record), and the home runs kept coming, and pretty quickly the conversation shifted from "he strikes out too much" to "oh, this is just how he plays baseball."
It's a bit like complaining that a hurricane is too wet.
The Derby: Something Nobody Had Seen Before
The 2017 Home Run Derby at Marlins Park in Miami was when the rest of the country caught up to what Yankees fans were watching every night.
Judge hit 47 home runs total in the bracket -- the second-most ever in a single Derby -- and the first round was the thing. He hit 23 home runs to beat Justin Bour's 22, the fourth- and fifth-highest round totals in the event's history. The ball kept going, and going, and going. A 501-footer that cleared the home run sculpture in left-center. Back-to-back shots of 504 and 513 feet in the semifinals against Cody Bellinger. (The Marlins' outfield dimensions are a comical 392 feet to center, and Judge was still clearing sections.) He beat Miguel Sano in the final, 11-10.
He was the first rookie to ever win the Home Run Derby. Ever. In the history of the event.
The Slump, Because There's Always a Slump
Late June into July, Judge hit a wall. His average dipped down around the .170s for a stretch -- teams had noticed he liked his fastballs up and in and his breaking balls away, and they started going after him differently. He looked human for a month, which, given what came before, felt almost shocking.
He came out of it. He always came out of it.
By August he was mashing again. By September he was chasing history.
52
On September 25th against the Royals he hit his 49th and 50th home runs, with number 50 passing Mark McGwire's 30-year-old rookie record of 49 set with Oakland in 1987. Home run number 52 came September 30th, the final weekend of the season -- 52 homers, the new AL and MLB rookie record. Judge wasn't just having a good rookie year -- he was putting up the best rookie power season in American League history.
(The record didn't last forever -- Pete Alonso hit 53 for the Mets in 2019. But for two years, it belonged to Judge.)
He finished the year slashing .284/.422/.627 with 128 runs scored, 114 RBI, 127 walks, and 8.1 WAR. The 127 walks set the major league rookie record. The .422 OBP was absurd for a guy swinging for the seats every time up. The 208 strikeouts were real and nobody cared.
Postseason: So Close, and Also the Astros Were Cheating
The Yanks went 91-71, finished second in the AL East behind Boston, and grabbed the Wild Card. They beat the Twins 8-4 in the Wild Card game. Then they knocked off the Cleveland Indians in five games in the ALDS, a series where Judge went deep multiple times and the Baby Bombers -- Sánchez, Didi Gregorius, Brett Gardner, the whole ragtag roster -- looked like they might actually make a run.
The ALCS was the Houston Astros, in seven games. Home team won every game. Yankees won Games 3, 4, and 5 at the Stadium, went up 3-2, and then Houston won Games 6 and 7 to close it out. Judge later said he was "sick to his stomach" when the sign-stealing scandal broke in 2020. His exact quote, when asked about the Astros' 2017 title: "You cheated and you didn't earn it."
That's not bitterness. That's the accurate read. The Astros were stealing signs electronically throughout that ALCS. Judge knew what pitches were coming on his side. They knew what pitches were coming on their side. That's not a fair competition -- it's a rigged one, and the Yankees have every right to still be angry about it.
The Stanton trade came in December, after the season ended. This story ends in October.
ROY: All 30
The Rookie of the Year vote was unanimous. All 30 ballots, all 30 first-place votes. Andrew Benintendi of the Red Sox finished second. Trey Mancini of the Orioles was third. The gap between Judge and second place was so wide that the vote was genuinely a formality -- the BBWAA writers were just agreeing with everyone else on the planet.
Judge also finished second in AL MVP voting behind Jose Altuve. Given what we now know about Altuve and the sign-stealing operation, I'll leave the implications of that for you to work out yourself.
The 2017 Yankees didn't win a championship. The 2017 Astros won one that a lot of people think they shouldn't have. But the 2017 Aaron Judge season -- 52 home runs, a unanimous ROY, a Home Run Derby win, 8.1 WAR, and a rookie HR record that stood for two years -- that one's clean.