New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge would be the first to humbly tell you that he’s no Barry Bonds, the Bay Area behemoth he grew up idolizing and emulating.
But, after crossing a statistical threshold this week, he has the chance to be the first to reach a specific milestone since Bonds’ heyday back in 2004. Keyword being “reach.”
After Judge’s walk-filled weekend series with the Toronto Blue Jays (complete with two homers), he managed to hoist himself over the .700 SLG plateau by inches, reaching the .701 mark entering this week’s three-game Angels set. No MLB player has completed a full season over .700 since Bonds played an entirely different sport back in 2004.
Judge is still just under two months away from getting the bragging rights here, but if he does enter the .700 club, he’ll likely do so by a very slim margin. Bonds? He kicked the doors down, then got onto his hands and knees and continued mashing the doors with a hammer before dousing them with gasoline and setting them aflame.
2004 Barry Bonds slugged .812, after slugging .863 in 2001, his high-water mark. He also passed .700 handily in 2003 and 2002 in between. No wonder Judge grew up with this monster for an idol.
Aaron Judge is slugging .701 this season. 🔥
The last player to have a SLG% over .700 in a season with at least 300 PA was Barry Bonds in 2004.#Yankees | #RepBX pic.twitter.com/LIw4LLMlQl
— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) August 7, 2024
Judge is, in many ways, having a better season now than during his MVP-winning, AL-record-setting 2022 masterpiece. He’s doing so in a lineup that, outside of Juan Soto, hasn’t provided him with much reliable and consistent protection. He’s being walked intentionally at a rate that has some questioning whether there’s anything that can be legally done to excise boredom from the game.
And yet his unparalleled slugging (20 years running) has nothing on the torment Bonds used to inflict on opposing pitchers.
In other words, when Judge starts being intentionally walked with the bases loaded, then it’s fair to compare him to his childhood idol. Seeing as the Yankees don’t have another Blue Jays showdown on their schedule until next season, though, it’s fair to assume that’ll have to wait.