Yanks: Aaron Judge is GOOD

When the Yanks used one of their rare first round picks last year, the words you'd hear most were "raw" and "ceiling."    In other words, he had big potential but an extra long way to go to reach it.  But here's the thing:  he's not raw.

The Yanks have drafted their share of "advanced college bats" over the last several years, like Bradley Suttle,  David Adams, and Eric Jagielo.   But folks, Aaron Judge is the real thing (Jagielo could be too, but he's been out since the second week of May and is currently hitting .750 with a homer in GCL rehab).  

Because Aaron had a quad problem after he signed last year, he didn't get a partial season, and the Yanks didn't get a look at him with wood, or really anything.  So they sort of conservatively started him out in the Sally.   In college, Judge mostly played CF, but in the Sally, they slid him over to RF and he's played it like Dave Winfield or Dave Parker  or Dwight Evans or like a guy who's always played it, and he's showed the big RF arm right away.

So, unlike guys like Montero, Tyler Austin and O'Brien, the Yanks aren't going to have any positionality issues with this kid.   He's put his flag in one.  You know it.  It's Babe's old job, and Tommy's,  and Roger's, and Reggie's and Dave's, and Paulie's, and Sheff's...

Now, an interesting thing both at Charleston and now Tampa is that Judge's at bats have been anything but raw.   He works counts and takes his walks.  He hits the ball where it's pitched, and gets all of those fundamentals going for him consistently--

--And then his massive power comes into play.    I've actually watched or listened to a bunch of the games at Charleston (watched) and Tampa (listened) and like clockwork, just when the announcers start wondering where the home runs are, they start.

For Tampa this week he homered Monday, hit a Grand Slam Tuesday, was rained  Wednesday, then hit a 3 run Jack last night.   He also walked twice last night.   I can't wait to see what he does tonight.

There is a bit of a log jam on the horizon, though, and that's that we currently have an all prospect OF at AA, perhaps the trade line will open that up a bit, because if he keeps OPS'ing over 1.000 for the rest of the month, they should probably promote him again.  

That could really move his ETA up to next year, although, it might be anyway.

I guess the lesson here is that the pundits aren't always right a "raw" is sometimes the farthest thing from it.


Happy 4th Everyone!