For years, the Yankees have survived by leaning entirely on Aaron Judge.
When Judge is healthy, there are a few players in baseball who can carry an offense as he can. He is one of the greatest right-handed hitters of this generation. He’s putting up seasons that share real estate with legends. Now, the New York Yankees are lifeless without him. They’re not just in a slump. They’re spiraling out of control, letting the division slip away.
Judge has been out of the lineup since May 31st with a right rib fracture. While lingering with the injury since late April, the three-time MVP still slugged out 17 home runs in 59 games this season. Though he wasn’t having his expected season of pure dominance, the Yankees were 36-23 up to that point.
Since being put on the injured list, they are 14-17. Without him, the lineup looks completely lost. An offense built on the shoulders of a giant is crashing down rapidly.
Worst of all, Judge isn’t even close to returning. ESPN’s Buster Olney said on Just Baseball Media that, “If you told me that he played next in mid-August or the beginning of September, that wouldn’t be a surprise,” when discussing Judge’s timeframe to return.
A Judge-less Offense
The Yankee offense has declined so much that it’s impossible to ignore how desperately they rely on Judge’s presence. Over the past two weeks, they have been the worst offense in baseball. Every team slumps, but fans are watching a team completely forget how to hit in real time.
Up until the time Judge went on the IL, the Yankees were bludgeoning opponents. They were averaging 5.32 runs per game while posting one of the best run differentials in the league. Since their loss to the Cincinnati Reds on June 20th, their runs per game have evaporated to just 2.88.
Worst of all, they’re not even running against a gauntlet of elite teams. The Yankees have faced one team with a winning record in this 16-game stretch and still managed to go 4-12.
An Offensive Coma
This miserable 16-game stretch consists of the Yankees having the worst average, on-base percentage, slugging, runs scored, strikeouts and wRC+. They are dead last in every offensive category.
Top sluggers in the lineup have simply not shown up. Out of 189 qualified hitters since June 20th, the Yankees have seven players anchoring near the bottom of the leaderboard by wRC+. The best hitter in this scenario is shortstop Jose Caballero, who ranks 158th with a 70 wRC+. His two-homer game on Monday boosted him up a few spots, but this team hasn’t had one above-average hitter in over two weeks.
The worst among Yankees is Cody Bellinger, who posts a bleak 16 wRC+ and ranks 187th of 189 players. In that mix are everyday players such as Ben Rice, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe who have fallen victim to the team’s power outage.
Even in Monday’s win in Tampa, they struck out 17 times. Every game feels like there is a mandatory script for them to either trail early or get no-hit for the first five innings. A lineup-wide paralysis has taken hold, and there is no end in sight.
Deja Vu of 2023
This isn’t the first time the Yankees have been forced to survive without Judge for an extended period. Back in 2023, Judge missed 42 games after running into, and through, the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium.
Eerily similar to this season, the 2023 Yankees were 35-25 before Judge went on the injured list. Judge would miss almost the entirety of June and July just like he will this season. Without him, the team cratered, going 19-23 over a 42-game stretch.
The parallels don’t stop there, though. The Yankees in May that year were a juggernaut, going 19-9. The team as a whole hit 53 home runs and had an OPS+ of 112. Then it all came crashing down without their captain as the offense vanished. Over the stretch of June and July, the Yankees hit just 59 homers with an OPS+ that was 30 points below their May total. It’s exactly what fans are seeing today with the offense.
Not to scare Yankee fans, but when Judge came back in August, he did not cure the summer swoon. If anything, it got worse. Judge struggled mightily, putting up horrific numbers. He hit just .196 in 28 games that month. The team went on to lose 18 games, completely crushing their playoff aspirations. The 2023 collapse should serve as a warning that big names need to step up, as no savior is coming anytime soon.
Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger Must Step Up
In this abysmal offensive stretch, both Rice and Bellinger have gone ice cold at the worst possible time. These were the Yankees’ lifelines for a scenario where Judge gets injured, but neither has answered the call yet.
Baseball is analytically driven, but no analytics can show how much a player like Judge protects these guys from their flaws. Without Judge looming in the heart of the order, pitchers can expose hitters. They don’t need to force strikes to Rice or Bellinger and essentially can minimize any threat they possess at the plate. So, since Judge has been out, Rice and Bellinger have felt the domino effect of not having him protecting them.
Before the collapse, Rice was in MVP form, hitting for a .303 average with 17 home runs. Since Judge landed on the IL, however, he’s hitting just above .200 in this grueling stretch of 31 games. The same goes for Bellinger, who was red-hot, showing that his new contract was worth every penny, but now can’t put solid contact on pitches.
If the Yankees want to get out of this rut, both Rice and Bellinger are going to have to find it at the plate sooner rather than later. This historically bad slump can’t last forever, but these two are the key to making sure that it ends quickly. The more time these two take to get out of their funk, the more games the Yankees and the Rays will be separated by come Judge’s return.
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