Aaron Judge's stature has never been higher

TAMPA, Fla. — Yankees position players officially report to camp Sunday, with the first full-squad workout to follow on Monday.

And when Aaron Judge reports, he’ll do so in a position no Yankees player has since Derek Jeter in spring training 2014:  that of Yankees captain.

“He knows, without a doubt, this is now his home. And in a lot of ways, his team,” Aaron Boone said Saturday, a reference to Judge signing a nine-year, $360 million free-agent deal in December to stay with the club. “I don't think you'll see that big of a change in the person and who he is and how he goes about things. But I do think there's that incremental step probably of leadership that he assumes a responsibility. He takes a lot of pride in that.”  

When Judge made his big-league debut in August 2016, the primary clubhouse voices belonged to CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner, both of whom had played with Jeter.

Judge hit a then-rookie-record 52 homers in 2017 and slowly started emerging as a clubhouse voice as that year progressed, with his influence growing incrementally thereafter.

After Sabathia’s retirement in 2019, the clubhouse belonged to Judge and Gardner, whose final year in pinstripes was 2021. Judge and Anthony Rizzo have held the most clubhouse sway in 2021-22; the two of them very much were unofficial co-captains of the group.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner — with whom the ultimate decision lies in such matters — officially made Judge the club’s 16th captain during the Dec. 21 news conference formally announcing the outfielder’s new contract (a news conference Jeter attended).

"I was taken aback. You look at this list of individuals who have this title, it's such an honor," Judge said that day.

In spring training 2015, months after Jeter retired, general manager Brian Cashman said he thought the number of club captains should stay at 15.

“As far as I’m concerned, and I’m not the decision-maker on this, that captaincy should be retired with No. 2,” Cashman said then. “I wouldn’t give another captain title to anybody else . . . [Jeter] was so good and so perfect for that.”

Until Judge, drafted into the organization in 2013, came along.

Steinbrenner’s decision to bestow the title upon Judge certainly was one Cashman supported.

“Out of respect for Derek Jeter and the career he had and the legacy he left, certainly felt it was appropriate to state I’m not sure if we ever need one [a captain] again,” Cashman said at this year’s winter meetings when asked about his 2015 comments. “But that doesn’t mean if someone else worthy emerges, and clearly in Aaron Judge’s case, he is spectacular . . . I’m for, any time a decision like that they [ownership] want to make, I support that decision 110% . . . Aaron Judge has been a leader of this franchise in every way, shape or form. Ultimately that’s a decision that gets made from them, and I have no issues with it whatsoever. Again, he’s been our leader.”   

Judge maintains a home in the Tampa area, and for more than a few years, he has been a consistent offseason presence at the club’s minor-league complex starting in mid-January. Boone said Judge has been a go-to player for him for several years.

“He's been the leader, or one of the main leaders on our team now, for a number of years,” Boone said. “He's always one of those guys that I go to, talk to, confide in, as well as some other guys on the team, when we're considering different things. And probably, again, incrementally that way too; go to him about certain things that I'm thinking about, especially big-picture with the team.”

No one in the sport last season performed bigger than Judge, who won the American League MVP award in a runaway after hitting an AL-record 62 homers and batting .311 with 131 RBIs, a .425 on-base percentage and a 1.111 OPS (Judge led MLB in the latter three categories, among others).

What would be a fair measure of success for Judge in 2023 after his historic 2022? 

“To continue to be one of the best players in the sport,” Boone said. “He is obviously highly competitive. And he is one of those guys, certainly since I've known him, and even my understanding going back before me, the way he was in the minor leagues coming up in his early career here, a guy that's always trying to get better. That’s why he's so good at the little things within the game, the little details, how under control he is and how fundamentally sound he is, for example, on the defensive side of the ball.

"He's always looking for ways to be a little bit better. And I think that's what most great players, most great athletes do. They're never really satisfied and know that there's always room to get incrementally better. And that's something he's done a great job of really his entire career.”