May 15, 2025 • 11 mins
Today we discuss New York Yankees Aaron Judge triple crown pursuit and chase to finish with a .400 batting average. Yes its early in the season but its fun to dream. We look into the history of the award and whether they should change the criteria.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to this is Baseball.
My name is Brandon Johnson.
Happy Thursday.
Today's episode is all aboutthe Triple Crown.
There's some Triple Crownfever going around right now in Major
League Baseball.
I know that it is May 15th.
May 14th is when I'm recording this.
(00:22):
So it's probably way too earlyto even be talking about it.
But Aaron Judge is on pace towin MLB's first Triple Crown since
2012.
And if you're listening andyou're not quite sure what the Triple
Crown is in baseball, let'sjust dive into that for a second.
So a simple definition is theTriple Crown is when a hitter must
(00:48):
lead the league in battingaverage, home run and RBIs.
And it has been that way since forever.
So as I said earlier, yeah,it's probably a little bit early
to be talking about this, butit is a topic right now and I want
to look at it.
So just based off of thosethree categories, for Aaron Judge,
(01:10):
he's batting.410 on May 15th.
Right.
So even if, let's say thatsome other players catch him in other
categories, I think it's safeto say that unless he just falls
off a cliff, Aaron Judge isgoing to at least win a batting title.
(01:35):
And even more fun, he'shitting 4.
10.
Like I said, we, we can sithere and dream about the possibility
of him hitting.400 at the endof the season.
That hasn't been done since 1941.
That was Ted Williams with theBoston Red Sox, finished with the.406
average that year hasn't beendone since.
The last person to even chasethat was George Brett in 1980.
(01:55):
He finished with a.390 batting average.
So just looking at theAmerican League right now, Aaron
Judge, he leads the AmericanLeague with 14 home runs.
Kyle Riley is right behind himin Seattle.
And then Trent Grisham alsohas 12.
That's a Yankee teammate of his.
So he's got a one home runlead there.
I would imagine since it isAaron Judge, he's going to create
(02:18):
quite the gap in that categoryhere soon considering he has led
the league in home runs two ofthe last three years.
Obviously in 2022 he hit 62home runs, which is the American
League record.
Now he had 58 last year andagain is up to 14 in 2025.
Now let's look where he's atin the next category, which is RBIs,
(02:40):
he has 40, which actuallyleads all of back baseball.
The next closest player in theAmerican League is Spencer Torkelson.
The Detroit Tigers first baseman.
He has 34 RBIs as it standsright now.
And then next closest is AlexBregman in Boston with 32 RBIs, so
has a good little cushionthere as well.
(03:01):
Now let's move to the thirdcategory, which is batting average.
He has a.14 average, like I said.
And in the American League,next closest is the athletic shortstop,
Jacob Wilson.
He's actually batting.363right now.
He has the same amount of atbats as Aaron Judge does.
And then Yankee teammate PaulGoldschmidt hitting.344.
(03:23):
339.
Jonathan Aranda in Tampa,Stephen Kwan.
333.
And then it just goes downfrom there.
But very comfortable lead inaverage, really close in home runs
in a nice little cushion for RBIs.
But honestly, if anybody intoday's game is going to hit for
(03:47):
the Triple Crown, and it's notShohei Ohtani, it makes perfect sense
that Aaron Judge is the guy toget it done.
So let's look at the TripleCrown because this is a major accomplishment
for a player in Major League Baseball.
So when's the last time this happened?
So it hasn't happened since 2012.
And that was when DetroitTigers Miguel Cabrera won it.
(04:11):
He ended with a.330 average.
He had 44 home runs and he had139 RBIs.
We all know how good of ahitter Miguel Cabrera was.
He was maybe the best hitterof his generation.
You could put him and AlbertPujols in that category together
and I'd say pick one and youprobably would be right either way.
(04:32):
And I think something that wascool about Miguel Cabrera's Triple
Crown was the Tigers came toKansas City for their final series.
And I went to the game thatMiguel Cabrera officially won the
Triple Crown.
I don't even think.
(04:52):
I think he got pulled from thegame because I think he went 0 for
2.
So they pulled him just toprotect him.
But.
But yeah, I was there whenhistory was made.
Miguel Cabrera was the firstplayer to win the Triple Crown in
45 years.
It hadn't been done since 1967.
(05:13):
That was when Boston's CarlYastr hit.326, 44 home runs as well,
and 121 RBIs to lead theAmerican League.
And.
And then Frank Robinson inBaltimore actually did it in 1966,
right before him.
316 average, 49 home runs, 122 RBIs.
(05:36):
Both Carl Ystremski and FrankRobinson were MVPs in their respective
Triple Crown seasons.
Which makes perfect sense.
Both of those players are alsofirst ballot hall of Famers, which
I fully anticipate.
Miguel Cabrera being a firstballot hall of Famer as well.
And Aaron Judge is, regardlessof whether or not he wins a Triple
(05:58):
Crown, is kind of on his wayto that as well.
But let's get back to AaronJudge for a little bit here.
And I just want to actuallyadmire the season that he's having
as a whole.
He's leading the league inbasically every offensive statistic
that you can have.
(06:19):
He's leading the league in warat 3.6.
Now I do have BaseballReference up.
I do know that there's B Warand F4.
So whichever one you look at,I am currently on Baseball Reference.
So leading in war, leading inruns at 39, 66 hits, 14 home runs,
40 RBIs, 410 batting average.
(06:40):
I think something that sticksout the most to me is actually his,
his on base percentage.
He has a.497 on base percentage.
He's on base half of the timeand half of his plate appearances
he's on base.
Like just, just think aboutthat for a second.770 slugging and
(07:01):
total base is.124.
Usually when you have a playerlike Aaron Judge and they have the
power that he does, it'salmost like you get one or the other.
They're either going to hit ahome run or they're going to strike
out.
Like these players don't comearound the Miguel Cabrera, the Albert
Pujols, Aaron Judges likeShohei Otani's.
(07:22):
These players are special.
And what Aaron Judge is doingis special.
I know he plays for the Yankees.
We're supposed to hate theYankees if you're not from New York,
but I think if you have thetime, you should just make, make
a point to, to watch AaronJudge play baseball and just kind
of follow his season becausehe might be doing something that
(07:46):
just doesn't get seen thatmuch when we get to the end of the
season.
For a couple reasons,obviously the Triple Crown and watching
his batting average, he'ssitting at.410.
Like I said, getting, I wouldsay hitting.400 might be harder than
getting the Triple Crown.
I don't know.
Having said that, I do want todefend the Triple Crown because there
(08:09):
are a lot of people thatthink, oh well, this, the stats that
they use for Triple Crown are outdated.
We don't really value battingaverage or RBIs or home runs that
much.
And I get where you're comingfrom, but I think that we try too
hard to discount batting average.
(08:31):
I know a lot of people look aton base percentage and on base percentage
is great.
It's a great metric.
And that's honestly like, I'mnot gonna argue with you too much
if you're an on basepercentage person over batting average
because it does tell a littlebit more of the story.
RBI.
The argument against RBIs isRBIs are dependent on players in
(08:56):
front of you doing whatthey're supposed to do in order for
you to drive them in.
Home runs are pretty coolthough, because that's all on you.
You do your thing, you're incontrol of that.
But I just think we shouldn'tchange this because it is simple
and it does, it does hold value.
(09:17):
It's not like it's an easything to do.
Like I said, it has.
It's been since 2012, sincethis has happened 45 years before
that where Yastrmsky won it.
So it's not like this ishappening every other year.
I'd get, maybe we need to lookat it.
But I think it's fine how it is.
I've seen some people, like Isaid, let's swap batting average
(09:40):
for on base percentage.
But I've seen some people getcrazy where they want to get into
advanced metrics and saber andsaber metrics and replace it there.
And I think that's where Idraw the line is I think advanced
metrics have, I don't want tosay ruined baseball, but they have
(10:05):
taken on too much and it'sover complicated and it turns, I
think new fans and casual fans away.
Like, I think if you can'tlook at a player's stat line or their
slash line or just thesestandard stats that you see on fan
graphs or Baseball Referenceand are able to tell how a player
(10:29):
is performing, whether it'sgood or bad, based off of these basic
standard stats, then I don'tthink that's a good thing.
I think advanced analytics arereally great for the players and
I think it should stick there.
And even then I, I do thinkthat there's too much information.
I do wonder if that's some ofthe reason for when players are slumping
(10:52):
is because they have too muchgoing on in their head instead of
just going up there and seeingthe ball and hitting the ball.
But anyway, back to the triple Crown.
I just pay attention to AaronJudge this season because he's on
pace for something special.
So thank you for listening tothe show today.
That's all I have.
(11:13):
I will see you next week.
Welcome back to this is Baseball.
My name is Brandon Johnson.
Happy Thursday.
Today's episode is all aboutthe Triple Crown.
There's some Triple Crownfever going around right now in Major
League Baseball.
I know that it is May 15th.
May 14th is when I'm recording this.
(00:22):
So it's probably way too earlyto even be talking about it.
But Aaron Judge is on pace towin MLB's first Triple Crown since
2012.
And if you're listening andyou're not quite sure what the Triple
Crown is in baseball, let'sjust dive into that for a second.
So a simple definition is theTriple Crown is when a hitter must
(00:48):
lead the league in battingaverage, home run and RBIs.
And it has been that way since forever.
So as I said earlier, yeah,it's probably a little bit early
to be talking about this, butit is a topic right now and I want
to look at it.
So just based off of thosethree categories, for Aaron Judge,
(01:10):
he's batting.410 on May 15th.
Right.
So even if, let's say thatsome other players catch him in other
categories, I think it's safeto say that unless he just falls
off a cliff, Aaron Judge isgoing to at least win a batting title.
(01:35):
And even more fun, he'shitting 4.
10.
Like I said, we, we can sithere and dream about the possibility
of him hitting.400 at the endof the season.
That hasn't been done since 1941.
That was Ted Williams with theBoston Red Sox, finished with the.406
average that year hasn't beendone since.
The last person to even chasethat was George Brett in 1980.
(01:55):
He finished with a.390 batting average.
So just looking at theAmerican League right now, Aaron
Judge, he leads the AmericanLeague with 14 home runs.
Kyle Riley is right behind himin Seattle.
And then Trent Grisham alsohas 12.
That's a Yankee teammate of his.
So he's got a one home runlead there.
I would imagine since it isAaron Judge, he's going to create
(02:18):
quite the gap in that categoryhere soon considering he has led
the league in home runs two ofthe last three years.
Obviously in 2022 he hit 62home runs, which is the American
League record.
Now he had 58 last year andagain is up to 14 in 2025.
Now let's look where he's atin the next category, which is RBIs,
(02:40):
he has 40, which actuallyleads all of back baseball.
The next closest player in theAmerican League is Spencer Torkelson.
The Detroit Tigers first baseman.
He has 34 RBIs as it standsright now.
And then next closest is AlexBregman in Boston with 32 RBIs, so
has a good little cushionthere as well.
(03:01):
Now let's move to the thirdcategory, which is batting average.
He has a.14 average, like I said.
And in the American League,next closest is the athletic shortstop,
Jacob Wilson.
He's actually batting.363right now.
He has the same amount of atbats as Aaron Judge does.
And then Yankee teammate PaulGoldschmidt hitting.344.
(03:23):
339.
Jonathan Aranda in Tampa,Stephen Kwan.
333.
And then it just goes downfrom there.
But very comfortable lead inaverage, really close in home runs
in a nice little cushion for RBIs.
But honestly, if anybody intoday's game is going to hit for
(03:47):
the Triple Crown, and it's notShohei Ohtani, it makes perfect sense
that Aaron Judge is the guy toget it done.
So let's look at the TripleCrown because this is a major accomplishment
for a player in Major League Baseball.
So when's the last time this happened?
So it hasn't happened since 2012.
And that was when DetroitTigers Miguel Cabrera won it.
(04:11):
He ended with a.330 average.
He had 44 home runs and he had139 RBIs.
We all know how good of ahitter Miguel Cabrera was.
He was maybe the best hitterof his generation.
You could put him and AlbertPujols in that category together
and I'd say pick one and youprobably would be right either way.
(04:32):
And I think something that wascool about Miguel Cabrera's Triple
Crown was the Tigers came toKansas City for their final series.
And I went to the game thatMiguel Cabrera officially won the
Triple Crown.
I don't even think.
(04:52):
I think he got pulled from thegame because I think he went 0 for
2.
So they pulled him just toprotect him.
But.
But yeah, I was there whenhistory was made.
Miguel Cabrera was the firstplayer to win the Triple Crown in
45 years.
It hadn't been done since 1967.
(05:13):
That was when Boston's CarlYastr hit.326, 44 home runs as well,
and 121 RBIs to lead theAmerican League.
And.
And then Frank Robinson inBaltimore actually did it in 1966,
right before him.
316 average, 49 home runs, 122 RBIs.
(05:36):
Both Carl Ystremski and FrankRobinson were MVPs in their respective
Triple Crown seasons.
Which makes perfect sense.
Both of those players are alsofirst ballot hall of Famers, which
I fully anticipate.
Miguel Cabrera being a firstballot hall of Famer as well.
And Aaron Judge is, regardlessof whether or not he wins a Triple
(05:58):
Crown, is kind of on his wayto that as well.
But let's get back to AaronJudge for a little bit here.
And I just want to actuallyadmire the season that he's having
as a whole.
He's leading the league inbasically every offensive statistic
that you can have.
(06:19):
He's leading the league in warat 3.6.
Now I do have BaseballReference up.
I do know that there's B Warand F4.
So whichever one you look at,I am currently on Baseball Reference.
So leading in war, leading inruns at 39, 66 hits, 14 home runs,
40 RBIs, 410 batting average.
(06:40):
I think something that sticksout the most to me is actually his,
his on base percentage.
He has a.497 on base percentage.
He's on base half of the timeand half of his plate appearances
he's on base.
Like just, just think aboutthat for a second.770 slugging and
(07:01):
total base is.124.
Usually when you have a playerlike Aaron Judge and they have the
power that he does, it'salmost like you get one or the other.
They're either going to hit ahome run or they're going to strike
out.
Like these players don't comearound the Miguel Cabrera, the Albert
Pujols, Aaron Judges likeShohei Otani's.
(07:22):
These players are special.
And what Aaron Judge is doingis special.
I know he plays for the Yankees.
We're supposed to hate theYankees if you're not from New York,
but I think if you have thetime, you should just make, make
a point to, to watch AaronJudge play baseball and just kind
of follow his season becausehe might be doing something that
(07:46):
just doesn't get seen thatmuch when we get to the end of the
season.
For a couple reasons,obviously the Triple Crown and watching
his batting average, he'ssitting at.410.
Like I said, getting, I wouldsay hitting.400 might be harder than
getting the Triple Crown.
I don't know.
Having said that, I do want todefend the Triple Crown because there
(08:09):
are a lot of people thatthink, oh well, this, the stats that
they use for Triple Crown are outdated.
We don't really value battingaverage or RBIs or home runs that
much.
And I get where you're comingfrom, but I think that we try too
hard to discount batting average.
(08:31):
I know a lot of people look aton base percentage and on base percentage
is great.
It's a great metric.
And that's honestly like, I'mnot gonna argue with you too much
if you're an on basepercentage person over batting average
because it does tell a littlebit more of the story.
RBI.
The argument against RBIs isRBIs are dependent on players in
(08:56):
front of you doing whatthey're supposed to do in order for
you to drive them in.
Home runs are pretty coolthough, because that's all on you.
You do your thing, you're incontrol of that.
But I just think we shouldn'tchange this because it is simple
and it does, it does hold value.
(09:17):
It's not like it's an easything to do.
Like I said, it has.
It's been since 2012, sincethis has happened 45 years before
that where Yastrmsky won it.
So it's not like this ishappening every other year.
I'd get, maybe we need to lookat it.
But I think it's fine how it is.
I've seen some people, like Isaid, let's swap batting average
(09:40):
for on base percentage.
But I've seen some people getcrazy where they want to get into
advanced metrics and saber andsaber metrics and replace it there.
And I think that's where Idraw the line is I think advanced
metrics have, I don't want tosay ruined baseball, but they have
(10:05):
taken on too much and it'sover complicated and it turns, I
think new fans and casual fans away.
Like, I think if you can'tlook at a player's stat line or their
slash line or just thesestandard stats that you see on fan
graphs or Baseball Referenceand are able to tell how a player
(10:29):
is performing, whether it'sgood or bad, based off of these basic
standard stats, then I don'tthink that's a good thing.
I think advanced analytics arereally great for the players and
I think it should stick there.
And even then I, I do thinkthat there's too much information.
I do wonder if that's some ofthe reason for when players are slumping
(10:52):
is because they have too muchgoing on in their head instead of
just going up there and seeingthe ball and hitting the ball.
But anyway, back to the triple Crown.
I just pay attention to AaronJudge this season because he's on
pace for something special.
So thank you for listening tothe show today.
That's all I have.
(11:13):
I will see you next week.
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