Aaron Judge contract, explained: Yankees star reaches settlement for 2022 salary to avoid arbitration hearing

Kevin Skiver

Aaron Judge contract, explained: Yankees star reaches settlement for 2022 salary to avoid arbitration hearing image

The Yankees and Aaron Judge were set to enter a salary arbitration hearing Friday after failing to reach an agreement between the $17 million salary the club offered him for 2022 and Judge's request for $21 million.

Ultimately, however, both sides were able to avoid the unpleasant process, settling on $19 million plus incentives before things got too hairy.

The Yankees have avoided arbitration since 2017, when things infamously got ugly with Dellin Betances. Yankees president Randy Levine not only won the hearing against Betances, he publicly humiliated the reliever in a call with reporters after.

“It’s like me saying, ‘I’m not the president of the Yankees; I’m an astronaut,’” Levine said at the time, per The New York Times. “No, I’m not an astronaut, and Dellin Betances is not a closer.”

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While the tone undoubtedly would have been different had the Yankees settled on $17 million with Judge, falling on the $19 million number will allow the Yankees to resume long-term contract negotiations with Judge in the offseason with a clean slate.

Judge is in the middle of what is shaping up to be one of the best contract years in MLB history, which he continued Thursday with a walk-off win over the Astros. It's the Yankees' ninth walk-off victory this season.

Aaron Judge 2022 contract details

In the wake of the settlement, Aaron Judge will earn a base salary of $19 million for the 2022 season, as first reported by MLB.com's Mark Feinsand.

He can earn additional incentives of $250,000 each for winning American League MVP and World Series MVP this year, and his scorching start to the season has him well-positioned to hit the first of those, at least. 

Judge is set to become a free agent after the season unless he and the Yankees agree to a new long-term deal.

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Aaron Judge stats for 2021 and 2022

Judge was impressive in 2021, but in 2022 he has been utterly absurd. Here's a look at his numbers year over year.

Year G BA OBP SLG HR RBI SO BB
2021 148 .287 .373 .544 39 98 158 75
2022 68 .304 .379 .658 27 53 74 34

As we near the midpoint of the season, Judge is approaching 30 home runs, five more than second-place slugger Yordan Alvarez. His OPS is over 1.000, and above all, he's been clutch. His heroics Thursday were just his latest walk-off hit, and earlier in the week he homered over the catwalk in Tampa Bay. He's doing things no other player in baseball is doing, so it's hard to look at him independent of this season.

In 2021, while he was impressive, Judge never got the buzz he's getting this year. Part of that is due to the utter brilliance of Shohei Ohtani, who sucked up all the air in the room of AL MVP discussion last season. Part of that is due to the fact the Yankees weren't the juggernaut they appear to be this season, even with several net negatives in the day-to-day lineup.

While Judge's numbers were strong in their own right last season, this year he's taken things to a different level. It's hard not to look ahead and wonder what his next contract will look like, independent of what the outfielder makes this year.

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Who does Aaron Judge's 2022 salary compare to?

With the settlement of $19 million, here's a look at players Judge's salary this year compares to.

  • Liam Hendriks -- $18 million
  • Charlie Blackmon -- $18 million
  • Eric Hosmer -- $18 million
  • Yasmani Grandal -- $18.25 million
  • Jose Berrios -- $18.7 million
  • Yordan Alvarez -- $19.2 million
  • Starling Marte -- $19.5 million
  • Kyle Schwarber -- $19.75 million
  • Hyun-Jin Ryu -- $20 million
  • Nick Castellanos -- $20 million
  • Alex Bregman -- $20 million
  • Xander Bogaerts -- $20 million

Judge falls tidily in this tier of players with his $19 million salary. While one can argue he's worth more, it behooved both the Yankees and Judge -- who previously stated he was anticipating his hearing -- to get this done so they could look ahead to his next deal, whatever it may be.

Kevin Skiver

Kevin Skiver Photo

Kevin Skiver has been a content producer at Sporting News since 2021. He previously worked at CBS Sports as a trending topics writer, and now writes various pieces on MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and college sports. He enjoys hiking and eating, not necessarily in that order.