For Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, it's World Series title or bust

Aaron Judge never played for George Steinbrenner, the win-the-World-Series-or-the-season-was-a-waste owner who died in July 2010.

But the Yankees outfielder, drafted into the organization out of Fresno State in 2013, just might be the closest thing in the organization in terms of bottom-line evaluation of a season to The Boss.  

“It’s a failure,” Judge said in a mostly silent visiting clubhouse at Houston’s Minute Maid Park after the Yankees were eliminated from the 2019 postseason with a 6-4 loss to the Astros on Jose Altuve’s walk-off homer in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.

That Yankees team won the American League East title that season with103 regular-season victories, a nice accomplishment to be sure, but not good enough in Judge’s eyes.

“In spring training we talked about winning the division, putting ourselves in a good spot in the postseason and the World Series,” Judge said that night. “And we came up short. So no matter how many games we won in the regular season or anything else we did, the season’s a failure.”

Judge’s perspective hasn’t changed.

The Yankees, who opened the best-of-five Division Series Tuesday night against the Guardians at the Stadium, are coming off a 99-win regular season that resulted in a second East title in three years and the No. 2 seed in the AL playoffs.

And, Judge, who debuted in 2016 and has been a franchise fixture since his AL Rookie of the Year season in 2017, carries all of the previous postseason disappointments into these playoffs.

“Definitely driven, just like everybody else in [the clubhouse],” Judge said Monday. “Had quite a few opportunities the past couple years to go out there and win a World Series, and we've come up short. So I think every single one of those times that we've kind of fallen on our face has been definitely a learning experience for me and a lot of guys in this room. And we are just excited to get back out there and hunt it down this year.”

Judge, who very much like Derek Jeter, has a steel trap memory, has no difficulty recalling how each of his postseasons as a Yankee ended. From the seven-game loss to the Astros in the 2017 ALCS to the four-game loss to the Red Sox in the 2018 Division Series to the ALCS loss again to the Astros in 2019 to the five-game ALDS defeat at the hands of the Rays in 2020 to the wild-card setback to Boston last season.

“The worst feeling in sports, besides having to walk off that field, either getting walked off or losing the [final] game, is coming back into the clubhouse and just having that silence,” Judge said. “Like, you don't know what to say, you don't know what to do. It's like, I've been working my butt off since November of the year before to get to this spot and all of a sudden now you're telling me it's over with and I've got to go home?”

Judge continued: “Just that feeling of coulda, shoulda, woulda. You're thinking back, if I had done this, if I had done that, we'd be in a better spot. Feeling like you let down your teammates. Feeling like you let down the city, the team. A bunch of different emotions after a loss in the postseason.”

Judge broke that silence in the cramped visitor’s clubhouse at Fenway Park after the 6-2 loss to the Red Sox in the wild-card game.

“That's one thing I said to the guys last year in Fenway,” Judge said. “We were all sitting there in silence looking at each other and nobody knows what to say. It's like, ‘hey, guys, don't forget this feeling. When you're working out this offseason and it's too early or you're too tired, think about this feeling right here and how sick you feel, how upset you are, how mad you are, and use that to get you out of bed. Or even when it's July and August, the dog days and you don't feel like doing that workout, you don't feel really like locking in for your fifth at-bat of the game, think about walking off the field and seeing the other team celebrate.’ It's little things like that. It motivates me and pushes me very single day. So I think it's definitely that silence in the clubhouse.”