{"id":414466,"date":"2025-11-30T06:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T06:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/414466\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T06:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T06:01:10","slug":"here-comes-the-judge-ballnine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/414466\/","title":{"rendered":"Here Comes the Judge – BallNine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of the issue, no doubt, in Judge\u2019s case, is that he plays for the Yankees. The pressure to win every year, and basically never go through a rebuild, looms large for both the front office and the team. Hence, roster construction around Judge is always a patchwork of current, sometimes aging, stars; a few kids brought up from the minors who may or may not be really ready for Broadway; and one or two offseason trades that may or may not work out.<\/p>\n

Probably not unrelated, Judge is known for being a superstar offensive performer during the season; but (and many people do not like this comparison to another, former superstar) somehow his performance in the postseason, year after year, resembles that of Alex Rodriguez, or A-Rod, who also won multiple MVPs \u2013 but struggled to play even to his own standard in the playoffs, for many years.<\/p>\n

Now post MLB career, A-Rod has publicly confessed that as one of its main superstars, in his day he thought he had to carry the Yankees. That the pressure got to him in the postseason, and deeply impacted his performance. That if he had it to do all over again, he would\u2019ve consciously been more aware of all the talent surrounding him in his teammates; and taken some of the pressure off himself. That the only year in which he finally managed to relax and enjoy the World Series was 2009 (\u201cAlex vs. A-Rod,\u201d TV Mini-Series, 2025, HBO-Max: Episode 2, November 13, 2025).<\/p>\n

Not ironically, Alex had one great postseason, and it was in 2009. And the Yankees won the championship that year. And that is the last World Series they have won.<\/p>\n

Imagine the kind of pressure Aaron Judge now feels that puts on him.<\/p>\n

No great superstar athlete as humble as Judge will admit that he puts the pressure on himself to carry the team because of his personal player profile; and most especially not during their career, with other teammates present. But Judge is a vastly different person than is A-Rod in any event; and his quiet humility combined with his leadership is legendary in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to describe,\u201d Judge said of the team\u2019s feeling after the loss. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do our job, didn\u2019t finish the goal. Had a special group in here, lot of special players that made this year fun. But we didn\u2019t get the ultimate prize, so we came up short.\u201d (All quotes from https:\/\/sny.tv\/articles\/yankees-aaron-judge-disappointment-eliminated-playoffs-2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This year was a bit better for the Yankee captain in the postseason, facing the Toronto Blue Jays. He actually improved on some of his historical postseason numbers, and yet he still did not carry the team to victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think once again it comes down to the little things,\u201d Judge said. \u201cMaking the little plays, coming up with the big hit. If you don\u2019t do that, give teams extra outs, they\u2019re going to capitalize on it. What a season for the Blue Jays, doing their thing, winning the division, winning the DS (Division Series).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, we got to clean a couple things up and we\u2019ll be right back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same comments could have been made about the postseason Yankees in 2024 \u2013 and indeed, they were.<\/p>\n

Sloppy play cost them significant innings; and though they made it all the way to the World Series for the first time in Judge\u2019s career, the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 talent and postseason experience dwarfed the Yankee clumsiness and inexperience \u2013 and, once again, the Yankees fell short.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s what you play for, you play to win. And when you don\u2019t win, it\u2019s not a good year,\u201d Judge said. \u201cJust got to put in more work, review the season, see what I can keep doing to try to help this team, put them in the best position to win every single night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does that sound like a guy who doesn\u2019t put pressure on himself to carry the team to victory in every series, including in the postseason?<\/p>\n

Alex Rodriguez won a World Series. If he doesn\u2019t make it to the Hall of Fame, it\u2019ll be solely due to his use of steroids and his facilitation of other players\u2019 such use. Judge will almost definitely make it, however \u2013 at least because of all the records he\u2019s broken and his other career achievements.<\/p>\n

When Judge signed a multi-year extension with the Yankees instead of the San Francisco Giants or any other team that made him explicit offers, it was at least in part because he wanted to win. Winning in MLB baseball ultimately means only one thing: winning a World Championship. That is every player\u2019s goal: pitcher or catcher, infielder or outfielder, offensive genius or multi-use utility man.<\/p>\n

Thus, here comes the Judge. And he\u2019s not done yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part of the issue, no doubt, in Judge\u2019s case, is that he plays for the Yankees. The pressure…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":414467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[3090,12859,1266,194537,2228,62,67,132,68,25454],"class_list":{"0":"post-414466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-aaron-judge","9":"tag-alex-rodriguez","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-mlvp","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115637130778512733","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}