Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Aaron Judge for the Yankees Losing the 2024 World Series

In spite of his unanimous selection as the American League's regular-season Most Valuable Player, I see a lot of people are still blaming Aaron Judge for that dropped fly ball in the World Series, questioning his clutch ability in the postseason.

It's time to let him off the hook.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Aaron Judge for the Yankees Losing the 2024 World Series

5. Aaron Judge. I'm not one of those people who uses "WAR" to judge a player's value. Because I'm not a simpleton who values "Wins Above Replacement," which is little more than a guess, over actual winning.

Nevertheless, the Yankees would not have won the American League Pennant without him. He hit 58 home runs. The only players who have hit more than that in a single season, without using steroids, are Judge himself (62 in 2022), his now (but not at the time) teammate Giancarlo Stanton (59 in 2017), Babe Ruth (59 in 1921 and 60 in 1927) and Roger Maris (61 in 1961).

Judge had 144 RBIs. That was the most RBIs by a Yankee since Alex Rodriguez had 156 in 2007, the most by a Yankee not suspected of steroids since Don Mattingly had 145 in 1985, and the most by a Yankee righthander not suspected of steroids since Joe DiMaggio had 155 in 1948.

He batted .322, thus coming within .010 of the AL batting title, thus coming that close to winning the Triple Crown.

It's true that he hit poorly in the postseason, but he did have 2 homers and 6 RBIs in the AL Championship Series win over the Cleveland Guardians. And, despite spending most of the year playing out of his natural position, he didn't make an error all season long -- until Game 5 of the World Series.

Suppose, for a moment, the Yankees' main center fielder in 2024 had half of Judge's production: 29 homers, and 72 RBIs. That would still have been a very good season. But lose the other 72 RBIs, and not only do the Yankees not win the AL East (the Baltimore Orioles finished only 3 games back), but maybe they win 8 fewer games, and don't even make the Playoffs. Certainly, they don't win the Pennant, and don't get into that World Series.

4. The Yankees Retook the Lead. Even after the worst inning in Yankee history -- aesthetically, and results-wise, if not by strict statistics -- the Yankees took a 6-5 lead in the bottom of the 6th. All they had to do was get 9 more outs, and the entire inning, including Judge's error, would have been a nervous footnote in baseball history.

Instead, that lead, and the previous lead, were lost, mostly due to...

3. The Yankee Pitchers. Gerrit Cole, alleged ace, managed to get 2 strikeouts. So it was 2 on, 2 out, and the Yankees still up 5-0. But then he gave up single, single, double, for 5 runs. Yes, they were to Mookie Betts (possible Hall-of-Famer), Freddie Freeman (ditto) and Teoscar Hernández (a 2-time All-Star) -- 3 men who, between them, had 263 RBIs on the season -- but Cole still should have gotten one of them out. And Tommy Kahnle blew the 6-5 lead in the 8th inning, making it 7-6 Dodgers, which turned out to be the final score.

And what about the other games? The Yankees won Game 4, but... In Game 1, Jake Cousins and Néstor Cortés both fell apart in the 10th inning. In Game 2, Carlos Rodón put the Yankees in a 4-1 hole after 3 innings. In Game 3, Clarke Schmidt put them in a 3-0 hole after 3. There was a lot of blame to go around on defense, starting with the pitching.

2. The Other Yankee Hitters. These were the on-base percentages for the 10 Yankees who had at least 1 plate appearance in the Series -- not the batting averages, the on-base percentages: Juan Soto .522, Aaron Judge .391 (not that bad, but from here on out, the numbers will be glaring), Anthony Rizzo .364, Alex Verdugo .350, Anthony Volpe .318, Jazz Chisholm .304, Austin Wells .263, Giancarlo Stanton .261, Gleyber Torres .143, Jose Trevino .000. Trevino made 3 appearances, in 2 games, and did not reach base. The other 9 each played in all 5 games. Stanton, Volpe and Verdugo each had 5 RBIs; the rest of the team, 7 guys combined, only 9.

It's worth noting that Torres,, Rizzo, Verdugo and Trevino were let go by the Yankees in the 2024-25 off-season.

Sounds to me like we need to credit the opposition, which is usually the case in these "You Can't Blame" stories:

1. The Dodgers Were Better. They won the 1st 3 games of the Series. No team has ever lost the 1st 3 games of the World Series and then come back to win it.

In the entire history of postseason baseball, only one team has trailed a series 3 games to none and come back to win -- and, as we Yankee Fans well know, they cheated to do it. 

It was completely unreasonable to expect the Yankees to come all the way back to win the Series. If the Yankees had hung on in Game 5, they would have had plenty of momentum going into Game 6. But they would still have had to win Games 6 and 7 at Dodger Stadium, with Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt as the prospective starting pitchers. My confidence would not have been high.

In other words, in the big picture of the Series, Judge's error should be treated as a footnote. At most, as a symptom of a larger problem. A problem wearing Dodger Blue.

VERDICT: Not Guilty.