Home NYC Teams New York Yankees

10 ‘Ifs’ That Can Turn The 2017 New York Yankees Into Champions

10. If … Aaron Judge Figures Things Out

An Aaron Judge at his greatest potential could help the Yankees’ lineup become an inexhaustible one. The catch is, Judge still has some proving to do.

Along with striking out in exactly half of his at-bats, the monstrous slugger set the Yankees’ record for the most strikeouts (42) within a player’s first 27 games. But my goodness gracious when he made contact …

Judge’s average exit velocity on batted balls, according to Statcast, was 96.82 miles an hour. MLB’s average for 2016 was 89.57. The average distance his batted balls traveled was 249.67 feet while the average in baseball was 218.08. His average generated velocity was 8.00 m.p.h. The league average was 1.45.

Aaron Judge’s power can be confused with the power of “The Incredible Hulk,” but translating that into major league success is his contemporary hindrance.

Which is why this offseason is huge for him. Whatever transpires from now until he arrives in Tampa this spring will have a huge bearing on the Yankees’ 2017 season.

If he takes this failure in his first go around in the show like he did in Triple-A, where he struggled in 2015 but adjusted flawlessly in 2016, then nothing but a turnaround should be expected.