The weird and complicated captaincy of Aaron Judge

Surprising no one, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday that star outfielder and team captain Aaron Judge would not be available until at least the ALDS. Judge is currently on the injured list with a strained calf, suffered barely a week after he returned from missing three months with a broken rib.

As a result, along with both Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger missing extended time, the Yankees’ midsummer slump cost them again. For the second year since winning the AL pennant, the New York Yankees are the No. 4 seed in the American League and the No. 1 Wild Card seed. For the second year in a row, they will host the rival Boston Red Sox at home.

And unlike last season, Aaron Judge won’t be there to suddenly get hot in October.

It kind of makes you take a long hard look not at Aaron Judge the player, but Aaron Judge the Yankee Captain. Hal Steinbrenner notably bestowed the title upon him at the press conference announcing Judge’s nine-year, $360 million deal in 2023. And, in fairness to Judge, he notably delivered in the four years since. Back-to-back MVP trophies, an AL batting title, and a trip to the World Series aren’t exactly pocket change. Even with the Dodgers manhandling New York in five games, Aaron Judge has been a pretty solid captain.

On paper at least.

Maybe fans are more spoiled than we realize. Old and young, they got to witness three unicorns of team captains. Thurman Munson’s blue collar toughness. Don Mattingly’s lunchbox mentality as the Yankees battled through some of their worst seasons. Derek Jeter’s unmatched stoicism.

Judge, by comparison, doesn’t look like much. In fact, he seems more an obligatory captain. Some might even say a novelty, years down the line.

What’s sad is that Judge is not the first Yankee captain to be cut from this cloth and, based on history nor will he be the last.

Time for a Yankees history lesson. People seem to think that before Aaron Judge, there was an absolute Rushmore of Yankee captains: Lou Gehrig, Munson, Mattingly, and Jeter. In that order. Enter Judge taking baseball by storm in 2017, and his captaincy would probably spur a new era.

Not so much. More likely that the Aaron Judge captaincy will be one that reads more symbolic or, as we said before, obligatory.

Let’s start at the beginning, back when the Yankees were the New York Highlanders and played in Washington Heights instead of the Bronx. Here, we have names literally scattered over twenty years for one reason: every team back then had a captain. Both the good and bad teams.

And, in New York’s case, some notable folks held the title through these rough early years. Clark Griffith was a pitcher and the first Highlanders captain before owning the Washington Senators years later. So were Hall of Famers “Wee” Willie Keeler and former Cubs star first baseman Frank Chance. Although, Chance was technically a player-manager and largely unable to play in games after too many beanballs led to blood clots in his brain that required surgery. Even notorious gambler and game-fixer “Prince” Hal Chase was captain for two years, and Babe Ruth too captained the team in 1922.

The Yankees were then captain-less until Gehrig was named such in 1935 through his retirement in 1939. It would be nearly forty years before the Yankees named Munson the captain in 1976, his MVP season.

So, given how we can really call Gehrig and Munson the first “true” Yankee captains? Judge is still in pretty good company! Gehrig’s legacy speaks for itself. Munson was the first spark that ushered the Yankees out of nearly a decade of mediocrity and led their rebirth in the mid-1970s. After his tragic death in 1979, the Yankees dared not name a successor.

That is, until 37-year-old third baseman Graig Nettles was named captain three years later. This was largely a seniority hire after the Yankees lost the World Series the previous year. Nettles was on the decline despite a fairly average bat. Add that George Steinbrenner dissed him at the end of the 1982 season, and Nettles was a Padre by 1984.

The Yankees went without a captain again for two years before veterans Ron Guidry and Willie Randolph were named co-captains in 1986. This was clearly a vibes move by new manager “Sweet” Lou Piniella, a popular player from the Munson Era. Naming two aging-yet-popular veterans as co-captain’s was clearly meant to motivate a roster featuring stars like Don Mattingly and Rickey Henderson. Guidry retired after 1988, and Randolph signed with the Dodgers in free agency.

Again, by now? Judge is still in pretty good company with Gehrig and Munson. Nettles, no disrespect to the guy, was a good-but-not-great player and well past his prime when he was named captain. Same for Guidry and Randolph, who retired with the Mets in 1992 before joining the Yankees’ coaching staff in 1994.

All the more interesting when Mattingly received the captaincy in 1991. This wasn’t prime Donnie Baseball, not he of the 1984 AL batting title and 1985 MVP trophy. No, by now, chronic back troubles zapped Mattingly’s power and had turned him into a pure contact hitter. However, his constantly showing up, turning in MVP-caliber seasons while the Yankees constantly fell short in the ’80s, and not complaining once? And then silently stepping away without a fuss after the Yankees opted to not re-sign him after 1995 and instead traded for Tino Martinez?

In a way, Mattingly is almost like a reverse Thurman Munson. He wasn’t a spark that saved the franchise, but rather a perfect example of how to lead by example. Remember, the Yankees never won a World Series in the 1980s, but had more wins than any team in the decade.

Which leads us to Derek Jeter. El Capitan himself. The CAPTAIN captain. A tenure so revered that it’s almost mythological.

That’s because…it kind of is. We quickly forget Jeter wasn’t given the title until two months into the 2003 season. He’d already won four of his five World Series rings, even if he was the de facto captain for much of that stretch. His 2009 World Series ring, by comparison, was largely an aging veteran squad hitting the free agency jackpot.

Plus, with what we know now about Jeter’s obsession with winning leading to him not exactly being a welcoming captain? Even as Steinbrenner splurged in free agency? It certainly makes you look at Jeter the Captain in a different light, though it’s hard to knock a guy who played at such a high level up until the end.

So where does that leave Aaron Judge? Again, still in pretty good company. It certainly helps that he’s the most dominant hitter since Barry Bonds, at least when healthy.

Another key word here. Healthy. For all three of Judge’s MVP seasons, there are three that have been derailed by injuries: 2020, 2023, and now 2026. We’ll exclude the time he missed during the juiced baseball campaigns of 2018 and ’19. Too many of his teammates overachieved enough to cover his absence, win or lose.

His production is a mix of Gehrig and prime Mattingly. He’s injured to the point of frustration, much like Mattingly’s sudden loss of power in the ’90s. Judge himself seems to live by his own version of “speak softly, carry a big stick” in that he lets his work on the field speak for him. He’s not particular verbose on the mic, though not quite as stoic or monk-like as Jeter.

It’s been a weird, complicated New York Yankees captaincy for Aaron Judge. Even in comparing him to past captains, he truly is his own man. For all we know, the Yankees will rally without him all the way to winning the World Series, thus making this discussion moot. Maybe he’ll come back with a fourth MVP campaign in 2027, even as he turns 35 in April.

Aaron Judge’s legacy is still in progress. Far from it. He still has five years left on his contract, plenty of time to change the story.

But we cannot deny that as fans crave and clamor for the next Jeter Era, when who they really want is Munson? Judge now looks more and more like a Mattingly than either of his World Series-winning predecessors.