Aaron Judge's 218 wRC+ is tops by a right-handed hitter in AL/NL history, with only Josh Gibson and Mule Suttles better in their best seasons. The gap between Judge and baseball's second-best hitter, Shohei Ohtani, was 37 points of wRC+. That's the same delta as exists between second and twelfth on FanGraphs' leaderboard, perhaps the best mark of how dominant Judge was this season.
With two Hank Aaron Awards, and a likely second MVP coming next week, we can begin to reflect on the peak of Judge's career, and what a peak it is. After 2024 he is the seventh-best hitter in baseball history by wRC+. Now, he's played in about half as many games as Ted Williams, so there's a downside coming and he will likely not finish his career quite this good.
We don’t know what the decline will look like for Judge of course, but as it stands, he is undeniably one of the very best hitters to wear pinstripes, and there have been a lot of 'em. The decline will come, but that 173 career wRC+ is now second.
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