JUDGE:
Aaron Judge is without question in a severe slump.The start of the slide seems to have coincided with the All-Star break. Some felt that the home run derby could ruin his swing. I for one, thought going into the event that Judge could handle it, and he would not change his first-half approach that yielded 30 homers and a .329 BA. While Aaron was living up to the hype on a national stage, I was glad to see him win the home run contest in epic fashion, but more importantly, I was pleased/relieved to see him spray homers from gap-to-gap and not being top-hand dominant, where he would have tried to pull everything to left field. But there are a few things from the Derby and All-Star game that may have contributed to the current slump. One was the energy and emotion exerted during the Derby. Judge hit a total of 47 home runs that night (July 11th) including 4 homers that each traveled over 500 feet and were the farthest hit balls ever tracked by statcast !! He did it in a hostile environment where the Miami fans were booing him, and rooting for their home town favorites Giancarlo Stanton & Justin Bour who put 1st round pressure on Judge by hitting 22 long balls. That had to be draining at a time when most players were home resting up for the 2nd half of the season. Sometimes we forget but Judge is a rookie, and rookies tend to hit-a-wall late in the year because they are not used to playing such a long season in high school, college or even the minor-leagues. Joe Girardi who is usually very good at resting his players, did not seem to feel he had to worry about potential fatigue when it came to Judge. I think Joe was wrong. Aaron needed more games off &/or more games at DH than he received. In addition Judge may have developed a mechanical flaw due to the Derby. Since the break, he seems to have developed a more pronounced uppercut swing. Evidence of that is the increase of hit-able pitches he is “getting under”. Balls he is popping-up and fouling back, that he was driving in the first half in the gap and over the fence. Girardi finally admits it’s “mechanical”, but Alan Cockrell Yankees hitting coach says “you can’t pin it on mechanical issues”.
As Judge goes, so go the Yankees. Judge carried the Yankee offense to a large degree in the first half, hitting for power and average. The Bombers lead the AL East by 2 games in the loss column at the end of July despite Aaron slowing down a little. But now the Yanks trail the 1st place red Sox by 5 games, and Judge has struck out in 37 straight games (an MLB record), and has a .169 BA since the All-Star break
Now the good news .. Aaron Judge is very “fix-able”. Here is my plan :
- Give him a day or two to REST & recharge his batteries
- Change his daily BATTING PRACTICE routine. It seems like more and more emphasis has been put on not only hitting home runs but loooong tape measure home runs. BP for Judge has turned into a daily HR Derby for the fans to marvel at. The Yankees have shown footage of BP homers quite often during game telecasts. This is what is leading to the uppercut. Trying to hit the ball 500+ feet each time. The uppercut is a problem not only because too many hitable pitches are being popped up, but also imo it leads to the false sense that one can hit balls up above the strike zone. When you have a level swing you tend not to chase balls that are up above the letters. That is exactly the area pitchers are exploiting. Here is an idea for a practice drill that will hit the reset button to get back to his first half success. Start each batting practice by intentionally trying to hit 10-20 ground balls to 2nd base. This will over-exaggerate the feel of a level swing and also remind him to hit to the opposite field. After that try to hit line drives only. Practice hitting line drive home runs gap-to-gap. Do not uppercut the ball at all during batting practice. This will quickly translate to line drives not pop-ups during games.
- Go back to the HITTING APPROACH that generated 30 first-half home runs but more importantly a .329 BA. Here is my analysis on that hitting approach.
Aaron Judge is slumping, he’s a bit fatigued and banged up (he wears an ice pack on his left shoulder after games), but if he just fine-tunes his mechanics and goes back to his 1st half approach, he will go right back to being one of the most feared hitters in the entire league.
JURY:
The jury is still out on Gary Sanchez behind the plate. He leads the league in passed balls. He has difficulty blocking balls in the dirt. This is a bigger deal than some might think. During the Red Sox series over the weekend the Yankees nearly got swept. The one game they won was vs. Chris Sale. Nursing a one run lead, Sanchez let a 3rd strike get past him allowing the batter who struck-out to reach base safely in the 8th inning AND 9th inning. The Yanks managed to work out of trouble both times thanks to DRob & Dellin and come away with the win but the problem continues. Joe Girardi & Tony Pena have worked hard to teach proper blocking technique but the defensive flaw has not been corrected and is a major issue imo. Here’s why I feel it’s so important. Not only do passed balls allow runners to get on and/or advance, but more importantly it affects pitch selection. A pitcher might shake off the curve ball, sinker or splitter for example because he’s concerned Gary won’t block it. Even if he doesn’t shake-off, and he does throw it, he might not bounce it, and might intentionally leave it slightly higher in the zone. That is a bigger issue and an unacceptable scenario. Gary has a cannon of an arm and hopefully will eventually be a complete defensive catcher, but for now the Yanks might want to consider Sanchez more often at DH, especially while Holliday is still out of the line up. Pitchers need to feel 100% confident in their catcher at all times. Pitching wins championships. Period.
As always,
GO NYY
