Aaron Judge Sets Rookie HR Record

NewAgeOutlaw

Belie Dat!
Jul 15, 2011
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I love watching Judge. The fact that the league juiced the balls seemingly to return to the video game power is strange indeed, but Judge cannot be discounted for being built to exploit such a change.

Gotta defend my boy Big Mac though. He was clean as a whistle and much smaller than Judge when he set that record as a rookie. He gets too much flak for doing something that a large percentage of players were doing all the same.

Another dirty secret nobody cares to mention is that the greats of the pre-steroid era were notorious amphetamine users. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle all confirmed that they used greenies but nobody is calling them cheaters or putting an asterix by their records.
 

Machinehead

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Jan 21, 2011
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This year has smashed the season record for homeruns. If anything, the conditions are very similar to the late 1990s but instead of all the top players being juiced, it's the balls. Very impressive for Judge, but he's not hitting 50 homeruns as a rookie if this is 2007.

114 years - nobody did it, and then you wanna cry "context."

"Conditions are similar to the late 90's." Cool. Which rookie hit 52 homers in the late 90's, again?
 

Bjorn Le

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May 17, 2010
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114 years - nobody did it, and then you wanna cry "context."

"Conditions are similar to the late 90's." Cool. Which rookie hit 52 homers in the late 90's, again?

Not the point, and by the late 1990s most of the leagues premier power hitting talents were veterans.

I'm not crying anything. The point is, people are acting as if Judge is doing this in a lower scoring, less juiced era and he's not. He's hitting in the best environment for homeruns ever, which explains his astronomical HR/FB%. What he did was extremely impressive regardless of era, but Judge is being compared to Mantle, Ruth, etc.

Another dirty secret nobody cares to mention is that the greats of the pre-steroid era were notorious amphetamine users. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle all confirmed that they used greenies but nobody is calling them cheaters or putting an asterix by their records.

People do mention it, just not a plurality of the media who seem to think their childhood heroes played without performance enhancing aids. Some who have voted in Clemens, Bonds, McGuire etc., have mentioned the amphetamine double standard, but it doesn't get addressed and if it does, the argument is rather bad.
 

Machinehead

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Not the point, and by the late 1990s most of the leagues premier power hitting talents were veterans.

I'm not crying anything. The point is, people are acting as if Judge is doing this in a lower scoring, less juiced era and he's not. He's hitting in the best environment for homeruns ever, which explains his astronomical HR/FB%. What he did was extremely impressive regardless of era, but Judge is being compared to Mantle, Ruth, etc.

He deserves the comparisons and in fact he deserves to be called the first Aaron Judge. He broke a Major League record.

I'm not saying you specifically, but it's amazing to me how this forum tends to jump to the defense of steroid era players, but we have to defend the validity of what Judge did.
 
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Filthy Dangles

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Home runs are up because of philosophy not 'juiced balls'. with the advent of shifts stealing singles and doubles, guys go over the shift

lol @ the implicaiton that Judge has gotten cheap home runs at Yankee Stadium. his HR/FB% is so high because he hits the ball literally 3-5 MPH harder ON AVERAGE than anyone else in the league.

He is breaking statcast with his exit velos.
 
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Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
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Home runs are up because of philosophy not 'juiced balls'. with the advent of shifts stealing singles and doubles, guys go over the shift

lol @ the implicaiton that Judge has gotten cheap home runs at Yankee Stadium. his HR/FB% is so high because he hits the ball literally 3-5 MPH harder ON AVERAGE than anyone else in the league.

He is breaking statcast with his exit velos.

Exactly. Nobody is taking into account how the game has changed in other ways.

You used to get blackballed for striking out 200 times. Now it's normal.
 
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Bjorn Le

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He deserves the comparisons and in fact he deserves to be called the first Aaron Judge. He broke a Major League record.

I'm not saying you specifically, but it's amazing to me how this forum tends to jump to the defense of steroid era players, but we have to defend the validity of what Judge did.

No one deserves comparisons to Ruth, Mantle, etc., until they're well into their careers. There is one player you can make the argument for being better than Ruth (Bonds), that's it, And he's played one season with a 30%+ strikeout rate and high luck statistics. He doesn't deserve the comparisons. He deserves recognition for one if not the best rookie season ever, but he does not deserve comparisons to the greats of all time.

Home runs are up because of philosophy not 'juiced balls'. with the advent of shifts stealing singles and doubles, guys go over the shift

lol @ the implicaiton that Judge has gotten cheap home runs at Yankee Stadium. his HR/FB% is so high because he hits the ball literally 3-5 MPH harder ON AVERAGE than anyone else in the league.

He is breaking statcast with his exit velos.

I provided sources for the suggestion that the balls are juiced, where is your evidence for it being because of a "philosophy" changed. Philosophy changes happen overtime, but the homerun explosion has occurred too quickly (up from 0.86 HR/G in 2014 to 1.26 in 2017). That is too big to be explained by shifts, especially when there is strong evidence to suggest the balls are different.

No, the implication is not that Judge is getting cheap homeruns. The implication is that since the balls are juiced, fly balls that normally would have died on the warning track (and yes, Judge does hit deep fly balls that don't go out) now go out. Average homerun distance is up 5 feet from 2014. Judge would have a high HR/FB% in any year because of his raw power, but a 35.6% HR/FB% is abnormal for every player, in every year. He was over 20% in only one MILB season (which is considered a normal number for an excellent power hitter). 35% is insane and points to environmental factors like park factor, or in this case, juiced balls. For example, when Alex Rodriguez hit 57 in 2002 and 54 in 2007 (for the Rangers and Yankees respectively), his HR/FB% was 25.9 and 27.3. Those are "normal" numbers for 50+ homerun hitters. For comparison sake, Stanton's HR/FB was 34.3%. If you want a similarily powerful hitter, there's Ryan Howard, who hit 58 in 2006 with a 31.5% HR/FB%, which is one of the other highest in the past 10/15 years. Stanton and Judge are much more.

Stanton and Judge have huge raw power, but they're not significantly stronger than past raw power hitters. Their HR/FB% shouldn't be significantly above similar players with similar HR numbers.
 

Machinehead

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30 homers in a season in Yankee Stadium: Aaron Judge, Babe Ruth.

40 homers by a Yankees 25 and under: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Aaron Judge.

50 homers by a Yankee: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Roger Marris, Alex Rodriguez, Aaron Judge.

50 homers by a rookie: Aaron Judge.

He's on these lists whether you've decided he "deserves it" or not.
 

Filthy Dangles

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Your "evidence" of balls being juiced is HR/FB%. lol.

If the balls so juiced actually like you say, a simple test such as Coefficient of restitution to test elasticity would reveal this. it's been tested and it has been shown to be false. time and time again. people can't cope with not being able to pinpoint an uptick in a trend as shown by your posts.

also, flyballs as a total event relative to total PA is down because strikeouts are up and balls in play are down. a smaller sample size of flybals means that the HR/FB% will be higher.

your entire premise is flawed and incorrect and quite laughable too.
 
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darko

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30 homers in a season in Yankee Stadium: Aaron Judge, Babe Ruth.

40 homers by a Yankees 25 and under: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Aaron Judge.

50 homers by a Yankee: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Roger Marris, Alex Rodriguez, Aaron Judge.

50 homers by a rookie: Aaron Judge.

He's on these lists whether you've decided he "deserves it" or not.


The comparison is still stupid.
 

darko

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Feb 16, 2009
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He deserves the comparisons and in fact he deserves to be called the first Aaron Judge. He broke a Major League record.


Doesn't deserve comparison. He did it for season. It's an insult to Ruth and Mantle
 

darko

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Feb 16, 2009
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So we'll just pretend it didn't happen because he "doesn't deserve" the stats being acknowledged?

The stats are there they aren't going away. I do like to see players back it up again and again before placing labels on them. Ruth had a whole career of doing what Judge did this year.
 

Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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The stats are there they aren't going away. I do like to see players back it up again and again before placing labels on them. Ruth had a whole career of doing what Judge did this year.

Nobody is suggesting otherwise.
 

Quid Pro Clowe

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Dec 28, 2008
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There were literally ct scans of the balls from the steroid era and those of the era just before. The cores of the steriod era balls were obviously bigger than those of the prior era. This isn't a philosophy.

The balls seem to be flying out similarly to the steroid era. A lot of balls that looked like fly balls were traveling out frequently. That said, until they test these balls it's only debatable.
 

Bjorn Le

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May 17, 2010
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Your "evidence" of balls being juiced is HR/FB%. lol.

If the balls so juiced actually like you say, a simple test such as Coefficient of restitution to test elasticity would reveal this. it's been tested and it has been shown to be false. time and time again. people can't cope with not being able to pinpoint an uptick in a trend as shown by your posts.

also, flyballs as a total event relative to total PA is down because strikeouts are up and balls in play are down. a smaller sample size of flybals means that the HR/FB% will be higher.

your entire premise is flawed and incorrect and quite laughable too.

No, I have a lot more than that. I posted three sources on the last page, but here are them again. Three articles from credible sources arguing the balls are juiced. They're not the only ones.

Washington Post
Sportsnet
FiveThirtyEight

Yes, there is absolutely a philosophy shift but it alone does not account for the numbers. The shift to power happened probably in the early 2000s, but only with a combination of factors has homeruns exploded by almost 50% in three years.

Whose tested this? Provide sources if you're going to say something has been done "time and time" again or don't post it at all.

If balls in play are being reduced, homeruns should be reduced as well. Small sample size doesn't mean that the numbers immediately go up from the mean, small sample size could also lower the numbers from the mean. Yet that's not what we've seen. HR/FB% has gone up, it's not fluctuating. That indicates something else is going on. People are striking out more, but your average fly ball is going out of the ballpark more often, which is why the average distance of a homerun is 5 feet more than it was in 2014. If philosophy alone accounts for the increase in homeruns, we wouldn't be seeing homeruns go farther, we'd be seeing more homeruns at the same distance as prior. Juiced balls make the balls go farther, different philosophy means players hit more fly balls than line drives/slapped hits.

Read the FiveThirtyEight article. They're an analytics focused website that presents an analytics/evidence based argument for why the balls are juiced.
 

King Mapes

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Feb 9, 2008
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Fair enough. Perhaps a poor choice of words on my part.

Backtracking. Smart.

What he did was impressive, same with their catcher Sanchez who I actually think did something even more impressive, but people have argued he just wouldn't have hit 50 in a different era. But I like the idea of juiced balls. Gives a level playing field and the "can Stanton his 60?" made for excitement in the final few days. The late 90s was an awesome time to be a baseball fan until you find out many were cheating so I like that it's back without the cheating.
 

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