If Aaron Judge moves on from the Yankees, what does he have left to prove?

• Senior writer ESPN Magazine/ESPN.com
• Analyst/reporter ESPN television
• Author of “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty”

As the Yankees opened the 2022 Major League Baseball season Friday, all eyes were on Aaron Judge — but not for anything he did on the field.

In separate sessions with reporters, Judge and then Yankees general manager Brian Cashman revealed they had been unable to reach an agreement on a long-term contract. Without significant concessions from either the player or the team, it is all but certain that before Judge tests the free-agent market in the fall. And he will then find himself in a familiar position: the spotlight.

That’s nothing new. Five years ago, during a Yankees’ Sunday Night Baseball game in 2017, Judge, then a rookie, clubbed a late-inning homer in a one-sided game. (The Yankees play the Red Sox on Sunday Night Baseball again on ESPN tonight at 7 ET.) When a reporter asked Judge to stop for a postgame interview on the field, Judge demurred — stating that other Yankees had done more in the game and were more deserving of the camera time.

That’s not the point, he was told: “You’re the biggest star in the sport right now.” Eventually, he relented, only to bust out a joke just before the cameras rolled. Judge looked at the reporter and asked, “Do I have anything in my teeth?”

For some agents not involved in Judge’s negotiations, that interaction is indicative of so much that could separate the slugger from other players who have sought the kind of big deals that he seeks. He has already demonstrated a comfort in a big market — and proved that he can thrive as the face of a franchise in a market of any size, with an outward geniality and a resolute sense of self.

Heading toward free agency this winter, having turned down the kind of Yankees contracts of which most players dream, he will need all of that self-assuredness. Aaron Judge — at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, the largest position player in the history of major-league baseball — is betting big on himself.

Source: Read Full Article