Should Aaron Boone do more to protect Aaron Judge?
Aaron Judge continues to get the short end of the stick from umpires, so maybe Yankees manager Aaron Boone should step up and protect his star slugger.
Aaron Boone is enjoying an excellent first season as the manager of the New York Yankees. He has his club leading the AL East with the best record in baseball. He isn’t perfect, though. Boone needs to do more to protect one of his best hitters.
Aaron Judge has been the Yankees’ best hitter on the season. His .281 batting average doesn’t jump off the page at you, but his team leading 19 home runs certainly does. Judge also has a healthy .OBP of .398 despite striking out 98 times in just 319 plate appearances.
Clearly, his performance can improve if he can cut down on that strikeout total. While a certain portion of his K’s are unavoidable due to the big swings he takes, that doesn’t completely explain what’s going on with the talented slugger.
The rest of the story is that Judge continues to get more strikes called that are actually out of the strike zone than any other hitter in the majors. In fairness to umpires, it’s difficult to judge balls and strikes for such a tall hitter. In particular, it can be tough to figure out what pitches are too low and which catch Judge at the knees.
Per FanGraphs, Judge’s percentage of borderline pitches called at strikes is 32.5 percent. That’s significantly higher than the league average of 23.1 percent. Feel free to dig deeper into the numbers for yourselves, but the conclusion here is that Judge is suffering from a lot of pitches being called strikes that are outside the zone.
Judge shouldn’t have to simply accept that his height makes it difficult for umpires to call balls and strikes against him accurately. Instead, he and the Yankees need to go on the offensive to correct this issue. Rather than putting the onus on Judge to speak on the issue, his manager should take up the task for him.
It wouldn’t take much for Boone to bring the issue to light. He could go about bringing attention to the manner in a couple of different ways. The most effective way would probably be to get himself thrown out of the ballgame the next time Boone’s rung up on a borderline pitch. That, in and of itself, won’t be quite enough to get the job done, though.
To really make sure the problem is corrected, Boone is going to have to make it an issue in the press. Umpires are people too. They can be influenced by the court of public opinion. Boone might have to incur a fine from the league to really make his point emphatically, but that’s something the Yankees should be willing to take care of on his behalf. The team might not choose to do that overtly, but there are subtle ways they can make sure Boone makes up any cash he might lose.
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Taking issues to the press isn’t always going to be the right move with Boone, but in the case of Judge’s questionable strikes, it’s the right play. Boone has the unique opportunity to help his slugger’s performance and earn real trust in the clubhouse with one set of coordinated actions. Time will tell if Boone has the nerve or sophistication to use the New York press to he and his player’s advantage.