Infuriating Aaron Judge reveal makes Yankees' Bryce Harper silence more frustrating

We've seen superstar players try to play GM in the past with disastrous results. Heck, Aaron Judge made one of those critical blunders when he advocated for the New York Yankees to acquire Alex Verdugo ahead of the 2024 season.

As Team USA began preparing for the start of the World Baseball Classic, we learned about one of Judge's earlier forays into playing house in the front office, and if it had worked, it could have been a game-changer.

As the Captain and Bryce Harper traveled from Tampa to Phoenix to join the rest of Team USA, Judge dropped a nugget about how their friendship began. According to Ken Rosenthal's report, Harper, who first met Judge at the 2017 All-Star Game, said the Yankees right fielder is probably the opposing player he speaks with most. Judge said their relationship formed after the 2018 season, when he was trying to get Harper, then a free agent, 'to be in pinstripes.'"

“We chit-chatted about that a little bit. I tried to find a way,” Judge said following a Team USA workout. The Yankees didn't listen. During the 2018-2019 offseason, they didn't just whiff on Harper;they declined to pursue him entirely.

Yankees declined to pursue Bryce Harper in 2018 despite Aaron Judge begging. Can they still trade for him?

Harper has made a lot of comments this offseason about how excited he is to play with Judge in the WBC, while simultaneously getting dragged into a contentious war of words with Phillies' lead executive, Dave Dombrowski.

That has generated some whispers that Harper might force a trade and/or the Yankees could pounce and swipe him away. Those whispers grow a bit louder each time Harper speaks.

If the Yankees were to pull off a trade for Harper at some point in 2026, they'd still be getting a very good player. But there's a difference between getting a phenom going into his age-26 season, and trading for him now at age-33 when his MVP days are behind him.

Harper wouldn't have come cheap. He signed a 13-year, $330 million contract with Philadelphia, and the Yankees had just come off trading for Giancarlo Stanton and the remaining balance of his 13-year, $325 million deal. In the back of their minds, they also knew they'd have to pay the piper for Judge.

But when you look at all of the money they've wasted over the years on the likes of DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Hicks, and others, it's clear that if they had allocated their funds more wisely, they could have afforded the superstar.

Instead, they decided to spread the wealth among a variety of players who were occasionally good, but were never as impactful as Harper would have been. Their insistence on stretching out those deals to lower the tax hits made them horrible investments in the end.

But at the end of the day, we're left to consider what could have been. A lineup that consisted of prime Judge, Harper, and Stanton (when healthy) could have been a very scary thing. Had the Yankees listened to their superstar, we might see a couple of rings on the table by now. Instead, we're closing in on the longest championship drought in franchise history.