Aaron Judge will soon have two MVP awards to his name, but he has a chance at immortality this October.
The Yankees slugger has perhaps the clearest path to the World Series he's had since arriving in the majors, and it comes after a season in which he led all of baseball in home runs, RBI, OPS, and WAR.
To put it simply, though, those results just haven't been there in the postseason at any point in Judge's career. While he's hit his share of home runs, Judge is still waiting for his October production to come close to what he's done in the regular season — and pressure is growing for that to change.
Here's a closer look at Judge's postseason stats compared to his regular season marks.
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Aaron Judge stats 2024
| Games | AVG | HR | RBI | H | OPS | fWAR |
| 158 | .322 | 58 | 144 | 180 | 1.159 | 11.2 |
Judge is coming off a stellar season in which he led baseball in a handful of offensive categories, including home runs and OPS. Judge's OPS was higher than it was in 2022, when he set the single-season American League home run record with 62.
Aaron Judge career postseason stats
| Games | AVG | HR | RBI | H | OPS |
| 46 | .208 | 13 | 25 | 37 | .760 |
A .760 OPS is considered fine, particularly in the postseason with pitching so dominant, but it's nowhere near the standard Judge has set in the regular season.
Judge's 13 postseason home runs are a 162-game pace of 46, so the power has largely been there in October for the former MVP, but he's barely hitting above .200 in his postseason career and has never had more than six hits in any postseason series.
Some of Judge's worst postseason performances have come after his best seasons. He hit .191 in the 2017 postseason, including .050 in an ALDS win over Cleveland. In 2022, Judge hit .139 over nine games including .063 without a home run in an ALCS sweep at the hands of the Astros.
Judge has started slowly again this October, hitting 1-for-7 without an extra-base hit over the first two games of the ALDS against the Royals. The Yankees enter Game 3 tied 1-1 in the series, so Judge still has a chance to deliver some clutch moments as New York chases its first championship in 15 years.
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Aaron Judge strikeout rate
Judge has a career strikeout rate of 33.8 percent in the postseason. He has struck out in 70 of his 207 postseason plate appearances.
The 32-year-old has always had a penchant for strikeouts, even in his most dominant seasons, but his postseason strikeout rate is well above his career regular-season rate of 28 percent.
Judge has done a better job of reducing strikeouts in recent years, bumping his rate down to 24.3 percent this season. A sky-high strikeout rate this October would be a major disappointment after that major improvement in the regular season.
Aaron Judge playoff home runs vs. Yankees all-time leaders
Judge has struggled in the postseason, but his power has been his best asset. With 13 home runs, Judge is fifth in Yankees postseason history. Here's the full list:
| Player | Postseason HRs |
| Bernie Williams | 22 |
| Derek Jeter | 20 |
| Mickey Mantle | 18 |
| Babe Ruth | 15 |
| Aaron Judge | 13 |
| Reggie Jackson | 12 |
| Yogi Berra | 12 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 11 |
| Jorge Posada | 11 |
The caveat, of course, is that the postseason has expanded over the years. The Yankees have 27 championships, but many of them came when the postseason was made up exclusively of the World Series.
Three of Judge's postseason home runs have come in either a wild-card game (2017, 2018) or a wild-card series during the expanded 2020 postseason. Those opportunities just weren't there for most eras of Yankees history.
With that being said, the Yankees can't complain much about 13 home runs in 46 postseason games. Consistently getting on base like he does during the regular season is what Judge has struggled the most with, but he has a chance at redemption in 2024.
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Has Aaron Judge won a World Series?
Judge has not won a World Series. The Yankees haven't won a championship since 2009, and Judge debuted in 2016.
Judge hasn't even played in a World Series yet, as the Yankees have fallen short in the ALCS three times during his career. All three losses came at the hands of the Astros, including a 2017 series during which New York had two chances to close out Houston and head to the Fall Classic.
No. 99 will be retired by the Yankees when all is said and done, but something will be missing if Judge doesn't help deliver a championship to the Bronx by the end of his terrific career.
