Controversial Aaron Judge take from Harold Reynolds has Yankees purists conflicted

Aaron Judge's third MVP trophy in a New York Yankees uniform has people wondering where he'll rank among Yankees greats when it's all said and done. Judge is already tied for the most MVPs in franchise history (with Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Joe DiMaggio), and he's still only 33 years old with six years remaining on his Yankees deal. MLB Network's Harold Reynolds recently said that Judge will "absolutely" finish his career as a top five Yankee of all time, which stirred up some delicious conversations.

Judge's elite production and future Hall of Fame status is officially beyond questioning, but there are two gigantic factors — unique to the Yankees franchise — that place Judge’s potential top-five status in serious doubt.

Harold Reynolds saying Aaron Judge will be a top-five Yankees player ever has opened up a fascinating debate

First of all, there are just so many legends in the history of the franchise for Judge to compete with. While Judge has leapfrogged many of those legends already (with a whole chunk of his career ahead of him), many Yankees fans would agree that six names remain either ahead of Judge or in the same stratosphere: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Derek Jeter, and the aforementioned Mantle, Berra, and DiMaggio.

For Judge to be considered a top-five Yankee, he'd have to surpass not one, but two of these immortal Yankees, which might create a very uncomfortable conversation for Yankees purists or baseball historians, in general.

It feels like Ruth, Gehrig, and Mantle are less attainable for Judge than Berra, DiMaggio, and Jeter. But could any lifelong Yankees fan really look in the mirror and put Judge above Jeter all-time? This leads to the second vital factor in this debate.

Aaron Judge's zero rings could end up hurting him in all-time Yankees discussions

What would make a Judge-over-Jeter argument sound absurd (despite Judge's superior individual stats and awards) is that Jeter won five championships in New York to Judge's zero (so far). Actually, the argument is even more difficult when you look at Berra's 10 rings (!), or DiMaggio's nine.

The six Yankees legends we are discussing as Judge's competition finished their careers with an average of 6.83 championships between them. Judge's zero World Series titles look heinous in comparison. For a franchise whose all-time greats each have a handful of rings, Judge is the obvious outlier. But is this simply an indication that we need to change the goal posts of the discussion?

MLB has been defined by parity over the last quarter-century like never before. The 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers just became the first back-to-back champ since Jeter's Yankees. Judge's lack of a championship needs to be judged within this new framework, doesn't it?

Landing somewhere in the middle of this detail feels fair in evaluating Judge's career within the Yankees' Mount Olympus. Here's a rational take: Judge isn't going to win five titles with the Yankees. He might not even win two. But if he fails to win one, you can't rightfully call him a top-five Yankee of all-time, no matter how many MVPs he stacks. For now, let the debate rage on.