With the 2028 Olympics set to be in Los Angeles, baseball will be returning to the fold.
Whether Major League Baseball will allow its players to participate in the event is another question entirely — and one that likely won't be answered until the new CBA comes around in 2026.
Even so, dreaming up a team to represent the United States is always a fun idea. The World Baseball Classic gives us a glimpse of that every three years, but the Olympics is something different entirely.
When projecting the starters for a potential Team USA in 2028, Dayne Perry of CBS Sports included Aaron Judge, superstar and captain of the New York Yankees, despite the fact that he'll be 36 at that time.
"Since his 30th birthday on April 26, 2022, the California slugger has an OPS north of 1.100, and he's racked up 137 homers in 363 games," Perry wrote. "In other words, he's been better than he's ever been and as such hasn't shown the faintest hint of a decline phase. We'll bet he's still a force by the time the Games come to L.A."
Judge is an outlier when it comes to metrics so it's best not to bet against the likely 2024 American League MVP. He's only gotten better with age so there would be no surprise if he's still among the elite players in the league in four years.
Judge himself has spoken about the desire to represent his country in the Olympics.
“I’d love to play,” Judge said via The Post. “If they give us the opportunity — I don’t know what the ruling [is] or [if] anything has come out about that. But I’m all in on that.”
Judge is the only Yankee that appears on this list. Maybe Gerrit Cole could make the cut, but he'll also be 37 years old so there's no telling what his game looks like at that point.
The Yankees roster could — and likely will — look very different in four years but with Judge at the helm, there's a good chance the captain is part of the Olympic squad if MLB allows it.
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