Hitting coach Kevin Long: 'I saw the superstar' in Aaron Judge

Kevin Long remembers the day well, the first time he saw Aaron Judge swing a bat.

And the longtime hitting coach recalled one specific impression.

“I saw the superstar in him, I really did,” Long, the Phillies current hitting coach said Tuesday.

It was June 11, 2013 in Oakland.

About a week after the Yankees picked Judge 32nd overall in the 2013 draft, they brought the native of Linden, California – which is a little less than two hours from Oakland – to the Oakland Coliseum.

The massive slugger took some early batting practice that afternoon with the Yankees, a club at the time featuring established major leaguers like Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira and Brett Gardner, among others.

“Just the body [size], how the ball came off his bat,” Long, who at the time was Joe Girardi’s hitting coach, said of what he most remembered about the day. “I really liked his swing from day one. I thought he had a really good swing and I felt like he was going to be a big-leaguer for a long time.”

Long, fired by the Yankees after the 2014, never worked with Judge but, as someone who has studied hitting pretty much his entire adult life, he said the outfielder’s swing has always stood out.

“I see a guy who understands his swing and what he's trying to do up there,” said the 56-year-old Long, who has won two World Series as a hitting coach (with the Yankees in 2009 and with the Nationals in 2019) and was the Mets' hitting coach when they made the World Series in 2015. “You can tell he's worked very hard at his craft. Whatever thoughts he has, they're becoming better and more precise and clearer. The confidence is there. It's not wavered at all. He trusts what he’s doing and he believes in it. And he believes in the adjustments that he's made have made him more of a complete hitter and you can see it.”

Judge, who went 1-for-4 in the Yankees’ 8-1 victory over the Phillies Monday night and came into Tuesday 7-for-17 (.412) with two homers and a 1.209 OPS over his first four games of the season, has always talked about his goal of being as “complete” a hitter as possible. His hitting idols have always been players who have power but also the ability to hit for average – Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols just two examples he’s mentioned over the years.

“As a kid, you look up and you see Albert Pujols hitting .330 every year and consistently put up the RBI numbers and stuff like that,” Judge said during his 62-homer season in 2022, one in which he also hit .311 and nearly won the AL Triple Crown (Cabrera was the last AL Triple Crown winner in 2012). “So for me, grading the hitter has always been about average. I might be a little old-school, but can you hit or can you hit? It’s always been a goal of mine to try and get to that point and do that.”

Long said in watching Judge from afar he’s seen a technically sound hitter, one constantly trying to get better.

“He's repeating his swing, he's not over swinging, he's seeing the ball well. He's controlling the strike zone. He's hitting the ball to all different parts of the field,” Long said. “I thought early on (when Judge came up in 2016) it was too much rightfield oriented. And you can see now he’s learned how to pull. His base hit [Monday] was to the pull side. He's hit more home runs to the pull side. And it's opened up all these home runs that you're seeing, I think that's really factored into it for him.”

Long, who has worked with some of the best hitters of the last 25 years – including Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez during his time with the Yankees – wasn’t surprised to hear Judge say early in the spring there was still room for improvement in his game. Even after his AL MVP season.

“He has that mentality,” Long said. “Most of the great ones do.”