New York Yankees 2020 Projections: Aaron Judge

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is poised and ready to have a successful 2020 season coming off of back to back injury-plagued campaigns. 

Due to the coronavirus outbreak throughout the world, sports have been takin a huge hit, the Yankees and major league baseball included. The rest of Spring Training was postponed and Opening Day has been pushed back until mid-May at the earliest which is highly unlikely.

In order to take your mind off of what has been going on outside, I will be going through the roster to give you what I am calling “the Yankee of the Day”. In this small excerpt, I will talk about their previous season’s stats as well as projections for this year.

Leading off is none other than #99, Aaron Judge. Judge is arguably the most popular player on the Yankees and has been the biggest fan favorite since Derek Jeter retired in 2014. Since August of 2016, Judge has been manning right field for the Yanks and he has certainly lived up to expectations. He got off to a dynamite start to his career in the Bronx by introducing himself with a home run in his first career at-bat.

The 2017 season was even more special for Judge as he smashed 52 home runs and drove in 114 RBIs earning himself AL Rookie of the Year and finishing second in the AL MVP voting. Injuries struck him in 2018 and 2019 shortening his seasons to just over 100 games in both seasons.

A fractured wrist limited Judge to 112 games in ’18 and really hurt the Yankees’ chances of dethroning the Red Sox to win the division that season. In 2019, an oblique strain kept Judge sidelined for 60 games and was one of 30 players that helped the Yankees break the record for most players on the IL in a single season.

Overall though Judge helped the team win the division and win 103 games securing their spot in the AL playoffs as the two seed. The Yankees looked unstoppable going into the playoffs but didn’t hit much in the ALCS against the Houston Astros and lost in 6 games.

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The page has turned to 2020 and even though no one knows when it will start it is probably for the better because Judge entered spring training camp injured. It took a while to figure out what was wrong with him but after much speculation Judge and the Yanks finally found out that he had a fractured rib. Then this past weekend he revealed he also had a collapsed lung but he’s fully recovered.

The delayed start to the season is extremely unfortunate but it’s probably a blessing in disguise because whenever it starts Judge should be 100% healed and ready to play. With a successful off-season and expectations even higher than they were for New York in 2019, the Yankees have a legitimate shot to win the World Series with Judge in the lineup. This should excite and motivate him to have his best season, consistently, since 2017.

He likely won’t pass 52 home runs, but if he’s healthy the numbers will be there offensively and you know we can count on him to play stellar defense as well. Overall, barring any injuries to Judge, I would fully expect #99 to show flashes of his 2017 season and lead this Yankees team to huge things in 2020.