Yankees News: Only 2 MLB legends comparable to Aaron Judge’s current level, claims insider

New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge claimed his second AL MVP title last season and is the front-runner for the accolade again this year after a stellar start to the 2025 season.

Aaron Judge is batting at an incredible .387 with 21 home runs and is leading the MLB batting charts in several categories. MLB insider Jayson Stark highlighted a remarkable stat from Judge's season, claiming it's comparable to only MLB icons Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds.

In a conversation with Andrew Siciliano on the "Rich Eisen Show," Stark made the comparison, picking Judge over Shohei Ohtani, who is also having another MVP caliber season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He said:

"If I had to pick one, the year that Judge is having, I don't think we can say it's merely great, It's historically great. You're familiar with OPS+ right? Aaron Judge is rocking a 248 OPS+, means he's basically 150% better than the average player.

"In modern history, we've only seen two players have that season, one is Babe Ruth, the other is Barry Bonds. They both hit left-hand, so this is potentially the greatest season ever by a right-handed hitter."

MLB insider put highlights claim establishing Aaron Judge as greatest right-handed hitter

In the same segment on the "Rich Eisen Show," Jayson Stark highlighted Aaron Judge's stats from his last five seasons.

"A few weeks ago, in a column, Judge is the best right-handed hitter of the last hundred years because his OPS+ the last four seasons, 500 games now, has been twice as good as the average player. We haven't seen a right-handed hitter do that since Rogers Hornsby, that was kind of a while ago."

Aaron Judge ended his two-game hitless streak after going 2-for-4 on Wednesday against the Cleveland Guardians. However, the Yankees failed to capitalize on it, falling to a 4-0 shutout loss as Cleveland made it 1-1 in the series.

The Yankees captain would be hoping to get his team over the line in the series finale at Yankee Stadium on Thursday.

About the author

Chaitanya Prakash is an editor who covers US Sports at Sportskeeda. His first brush with sportswriting was in 2012 when the greatest football manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson, bid farewell to the beautiful game.

Although having started out professionally as a cricket writer in 2022, Chaitanya's curiosity and indiscriminate interest in all sports in general eventually introduced him to America's favorite pastime.

While Chaitanya's favorite player from the current crop is the dynamic Venezuelan Ronald Acuna Jr., his all-time favorite, however, is Pedro Martinez, for his self-belief and consistency. He also rates Jose Bautista's iconic bat flip in 2015 as his favorite moment in baseball history.

Chaitanya specializes in reporting on technical aspects of the game or analyzing patterns behind specific plays. He also likes pondering over players' self-assessments following the conclusion of a game as it helps him get an idea of how they think about the sport in general.

When not cheering for his favorites across sports, Chaitanya likes being transported to the past through a good war documentary or a historical documentary in general.

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Edited by Chaitanya Prakash