Say what you want about Aaron Judge‘s postseason, but there is no denying that the man made history in 2022.
His 62 home runs broke the American League single-season record, previously held by fellow New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris in 1961.
For some fans, those 62 blasts even represent the real single-season home run record because they disregard what Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did while using steroids.
Judge probably would have wanted the Yankees’ postseason to end in a different way: they were swept in the AL Championship Series.
A Truly Stellar Season
However, nobody can take his regular season accomplishments from him.
Codify Baseball posted a video with all 62 home runs by Judge this season, so we can all admire them.
“The 62 regular season home runs Aaron Judge hit this season left his bat at an average velocity of 109 MPH!” they said.
The 62 regular season home runs Aaron Judge hit this season left his bat at an average velocity of 109 MPH! 🚀pic.twitter.com/z9na8wvfJr
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) November 9, 2022
A 109 mph average exit velocity is really something special: there are lots of players who didn’t even hit a ball that hard all season.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the video was the fact that Judge homered off pitches at nearly every quadrant of the zone.
Yes, lots of those homers were against pitches up in the zone, but he also knocked out some low ones, did his job against pitches on the inner part, and even homered off some in the low, outside corner that made him some vulnerable in the past.
It doesn’t mean he is not vulnerable to low and away sliders anymore, but he can make some damage on them, too.
Judge is now a free agent, and the Yankees (or other teams, for that matter) may need to pay him more than $300 million to get his signature.