Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 300th career home run Wednesday night, making him the fastest player to that mark in MLB history. It was only his 955th career game, while Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner got there in 1,087 career games.
Of course, the caveat there is a relatively late start and a bevy of injuries means Judge didn't reach his 955th career game until now, his age-32 season. Still, he hits home runs at such a furious pace, is so strong and is signed for so long (through 2031) that there's enough here to dream on just how far up the record books he can climb.
Before we get to projecting where he could end up, let's consider things like age and strength, in addition to injury history.
Age
Players these days tend to age better than in the distant past, relatively speaking. Hank Aaron's run in his late 30s used to be an outlier, but more and more we're seeing sluggers keep going later into their careers. Albert Pujols hit 228 homers after his age-32 season. David Ortiz hit 252 in the same timeline. Even dealing with all the injuries that moved his career from in the conversation for the best ever to merely all-time great, Ken Griffey Jr. hit 170 homers after his age-32 season, a span that included seasons of 35, 30 and 27 home runs.
The flip side to this would be Miguel Cabrera. He hit 38 homers when he was 33, but then only 65 combined in seven seasons after that.
It certainly feels like Judge will age well, but going back to 2016, did we all really expect Miggy to just fall apart the way he did? Time can be a cruel mistress like that, sneaking up on you.
Strength
Every home run hitter is strong, but Judge isn't garden variety strong. At 6-foot-7 and some 280ish pounds of chiseled physique, he doesn't have to get it all to hit a home run. When Judge does get it all, it's something to behold, like this monster shot:
Sure, they count just the same as the wall-scrapers. The thing that matters here is that when Judge only partially "gets" a ball and it goes in the air, he still sees them end up in the seats. For mere mortals in the majors, these would be doubles or deep flyouts or even shallow popouts. For Judge -- and with help from the short right-field porch in Yankee Stadium -- these are home runs:
This is one of the reasons I think he'll age well, at least in terms of home runs. I'm most inclined to say he follows in the footsteps of David Ortiz, who hit nearly the same number of homers after he turned 32 than before.
Injury history
There does have to be concern with Judge on the injury front. He's definitely been more durable in recent years, playing in 148 games in 2021, 157 in 2022 and 120 of the Yankees' 122 this year. But he missed 50 games in 2018 and 60 in 2019. He missed 56 last year with the big toe injury that he says will require "constant maintenance" for the rest of his career.
That was worrisome, for sure, but there haven't been on-field signs of the issue this year. Perhaps he was overstating it or has staved it off so far.
Projecting where Judge finishes
Judge is on pace for 57 homers this season, so let's stick with that. That would give him 314 in his career ahead of 2025. He'll then have seven years left on his contract.
If Judge does end with 57, he'll have averaged 48.75 home runs per year over the last four years. Due to age and injury concerns, let's bump that down a little moving forward to 42 per season over the next four. That's 168 in all, putting him at 482 for his career.
In this scenario, Judge would be 18 home runs away from 500 while heading into his age-37 season and under contract for three more years.
If anything, this feels conservative. I think he gets to 500 before the end of 2028.
It is awfully difficult to project how well Judge ages through his mid-30s. As noted, he could be Ortiz or he could be Cabrera.
Still, let's approach this from a glass-half-full perspective. Say he's at exactly 500 home runs with three years left on his deal (his ages 37-39 years). Even if he drops down to 25ish home runs per year, that's 575 total through age 39.
We can start to make some generalizations about where he'll wind up on the all-time list just with this framework.
Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714) are surely out of reach. If Judge finished with 57 homers this season, he'd have to hit 400 more to catch Ruth. It's hard to see Alex Rodriguez (696) or Willie Mays (660) being in play, either. Griffey at 630 also feels like a stretch.
Here's the part of the home run leaderboard where Judge might fall, though:
8. Jim Thome, 612
9. Sammy Sosa, 609
10. Frank Robinson, 586
11. Mark McGwire, 583
12. Harmon Killebrew, 571
13. Rafael Palmeiro, 569
14. Reggie Jackson, 563
15. Manny Ramirez, 555
16. Mike Schmidt, 548
17. David Ortiz, 541
18. Mickey Mantle, 536
19. Jimmie Foxx, 534
If we dial it back to 482 with three years left on his contract, I feel pretty good about him hitting 75 in the final three years of the deal. That would be 557 through his contract and, remember, he could still sign a one-year deal to play in his age-40 season. My hunch is he'll be productive enough that he doesn't retire after this deal.
I'll predict that Judge passes Robinson to get into the top 10 and falls short enough of 600 that he doesn't extend himself by another year in pursuit of that number. I'll go with 589.
Of course, the margin of error here is huge. He could end up around 650 or not even get to 500. It'll be fun to watch it all unfold, just as the first 300 home runs have been very enjoyable.
