Aaron Judge falling off 'cliff' already seems like a distant Yankees memory

New York Yankees megastar Aaron Judge went yard for the 12th time this season on Tuesday night in Texas. The 424-foot blast vaulted Judge into a tie with Chicago White Sox rookie slugger Munetaka Murakami for the most homers in MLB so far this season.

The Yankees were up 2-0 in the ninth inning on Tuesday when Judge obliterated a 2-2 four-seamer from Rangers reliever Cole Winn. In the first two games of a three-game set in Texas, Judge went 5-for-7 with two home runs, two RBI, and three runs scored.

Judge has tallied a .364/.548/.864 slash line with three dingers and more walks (eight) than strikeouts (six) in the last seven games. Over the last 15 games, he's slashed .308/.455/.846 with eight homers, and the Yanks went 12-3 over the stretch, which included an eight-game winning streak.

Aaron Judge has broken out of early-season "slump" that never was

Even as Judge struggled to get going immediately out of the gate this season (.185 batting average in his first seven games, 12-for-55 in his first 15 games), he was hitting homers, but his haters still wasted their time with embarrassing narratives about his supposed decline.

Ignoring the fact that Judge started similarly slow in 2024 on the way to a 58-homer MVP season, Judge's critics pointed to his "advancing" age (he turned 34 on Sunday) and his cold start to 2026 as evidence that the Captain was finally falling off from the peak of his prime. Now, all of those critics have already been silenced, and we're still only 30 games into a 162-game season.

Judge isn't the only Yankee slugging his way through the first phase of 2026. Ben Rice has 10 home runs, and the Yankees as a team led MLB with 48 entering Wednesday, with the Los Angeles Dodgers (45) and Atlanta Braves (41) not too far behind. Interestingly, the Yanks, Dodgers, and Braves were also the only three MLB clubs that had won 20 games entering Wednesday.

Aaron Judge is still in his prime, but for how much longer?

The eye-test evidence right in front of us in 2026 says that Judge is still at the height of his powers. At some point, presumably within the next half-decade, that will no longer be the case, but it's difficult to predict when exactly Judge will begin to drop off.

Historical comparisons are complicated by the HGH/steroid mess. For instance, Barry Bonds hitting 73 homers at age 36, as well as 45 homers at age 39 (!), would suggest that Judge's prime is not even close to being over, but we know that Bonds had plenty of chemical help that Judge doesn't benefit from. That being said, Judge is playing in a much later era than Bonds, wherein sports medicine, offseason training, nutrition, longevity tactics (legal ones), and all of that jazz is far more advanced. This could prolong Judge's prime more than we realize.

There's also the example of Hank Aaron to look at. Aaron's pre-steroid power didn't drop off until he was 40 years old. He hit 47 homers at age 37 and 40 at age 39.

On the other hand, there's Albert Pujols, whose last big HR season came at age 35, when he hit 40 blasts. The following season, Pujols hit 31, and the season after that, 23. Injuries prevented Pujols from eclipsing the 23-mark again until his age-42 season (not a typo), in which Albert hit 24 dingers for the St. Louis Cardinals. That feat, in and of itself, might be stronger evidence than any that Judge can keep looking like Judge into the 2030s. If a 42-year-old Pujols could pull that off, surely a 38-year-old Judge will still be a 45-homer threat.

But enough of that. For now, he's still a 60-plus homer threat. What "cliff"?

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