Yankees Fans Shouldn’t Be Concerned About Austin And Judge’s Slumps

Yankees rookies Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin made history in their MLB debuts by becoming the first teammates in history to hit back-to-back home runs in their first big league at-bats, but have cooled off significantly since then.

Not every Baby Bomber is finding the transition to the big leagues as easy as Gary Sanchez, who added two more home runs to his ever-growing total in the Yankees 7-5 loss to the Seattle Mariners. Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge found themselves out of the lineup Monday following mini-slumps by the pair of rookies.

Judge and Austin ignited the Yankees fan-base with their historic first game in pinstripes, but have looked a little lost at the plate since then.

After going 2-for-4 with a solo shot the day he was promoted, Austin has gone 1-19 with no walks and eight strikeouts. A lone single is his only offensive production in those last five games.

More from Yankees News

• Aaron Judge Time interview scared Yankees as much as it scared you
• Why weren’t Yankees in on Kodai Senga now that we know the price?
• Baseball Reference proves Yankees’ Aaron Judge lives rent free in Boston
• Yankees’ Clay Holmes trade just became even bigger disaster for Pirates
• Mets stealing New York Post’s entire Yankees offseason plan is hilarious

Judge also went 2-for-4 with a homer in his first game. Since then, he’s fared better than his teammate Austin, but has certainly not been the immediate sensation many expected. He’s racked up a worrying 10 strikeouts in his last 29 plate appearances, going 6-for 26 with a double, a homer, and three walks.

The big man has not been awful by any means, but pitchers have begun feeding him a steady diet of off-speed stuff. When he gets a fastball, he can drive it like no one else in the Yankees lineup, but those are becoming rarer and rarer. He will need to adjust if he’s going to take advantage of his immense power potential.

Should Yankees fans be worried? Absolutely not. Rebuilding takes patience. Not every young guy the team promotes will be a superstar overnight, although Gary Sanchez shows us that some will. Aaron Judge was always seen as a guy who would take his lumps at the big league level.

Before the season, Dave Szymborski’s ZiPS projection system pegged Judge to hit 30 home runs if the Yankees gave him a full season’s worth of plate appearances, but also expected him to strike out 35% of the time. Both of those numbers look about right at this point, but Judge has shown the ability to successfully make adjustments to more advanced competition in the past.

In 2015, Judge hit .224/.308/.373 (98 wRC+) following a promotion to Triple-A. This year, in his second time through the International League, he raised his slash line to .270/.366/.489 (147 wRC+), drastically increasing his power and cutting down on his Ks by almost 5%. The Yankees need to give him time to struggle now so he can learn from it and be a monster next season.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Tyler Austin couldn’t crack it as a major league regular. His eye-popping numbers with Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre were extremely surprising after several seasons of mediocre performance and injuries. He looked ready to be cut loose as recently as last fall.

That doesn’t mean New York shouldn’t give Austin every opportunity to see what he can do down the stretch. Whether he ends up the long-term solution at first base, a platoon partner for Greg Bird, a useful bench piece, or a complete washout, the 24-year-old former top prospect has enough talent that the Yankees have to give him a chance and see what happens.