TAMPA — The numbers and the noise were on display here Wednesday at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Man, this Yankees lineup can be scary good.
So good that Aaron Judge can register, let’s say a 20 percent dropoff from his marvelous rookie campaign — shoot, his value could get slashed in half — and the Yankees could still field the sport’s best offense.
Yet with Judge ranking as such a special player, his strong mind complementing his massive tools, it’s fair and fun to wonder: Can he actually top his 2017 here in 2018?
“You always want to improve,” he said Wednesday, following his ’18 Grapefruit League debut. “So I’m just going to go in there and keep working hard and see what happens. You never know what’s going to happen.”
After taking an extra five days to rehabilitate from offseason left shoulder surgery, Judge started at designated hitter against the Tigers and went 0-for-2, striking out and grounding out hard to Detroit third baseman Jeimer Candelario, who made a nice scoop. He’ll be the right fielder Friday here against the Braves, manager Aaron Boone said after the game.
“I don’t feel anything,” Judge said of the shoulder, which was often packed in ice in the second half of last season. “It feels great. That’s the kind of progress we wanted. Now we’ve just got to build on that and bring it into our next game.”
Let’s talk about progress, and about history. Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index, we can see that Judge registered the fourth-highest Wins Above Replacement for a rookie position player (8.1), trailing only Mike Trout (10.8) in 2012, Shoeless Joe Jackson (9.2) in 1911 and Dick Allen (8.8) in 1964.
Of that trio, only Jackson performed even better in his sophomore season, slightly elevating his production to 9.6 WAR. Trout and Allen were both excellent in Year 2 even as they dipped to 9.6 and 6.4 WAR, respectively.
Working within that tiny sample size of three, a Judge uptick would impress, whereas a complete cratering would surprise.
Asked if he held any goals, be they results- or process-oriented, for this season, Judge said, “I’ve got some stuff. I just kind of keep that to myself.” When The Post suggested Judge share that stuff with the public on Opening Day, the 25-year-old grinned and said, “I probably won’t even let you guys know then.”
Fair enough. Via his spectacular rookie season, in which he set the first-year record for homers (52), prevailed in the Home Run Derby, unanimously won AL Rookie of the Year honors and placed second to Houston’s Jose Altuve in the AL Most Valuable Player race, Judge showed off not only his sky-high ceiling, but also his ability to work through adversity. After all, he put together his .284/.422/.627 slash line for the year despite going .179/.346/.344 from July 14 (the first game after the Derby) through Aug. 31, rebounding with a superb September and also providing several big hits, if underwhelming total numbers, in the postseason.
“I was able to make the moves I want to now,” Judge said. “No restrictions, no pain. Get back to where I was earlier [last] year.”
The crowd here offered an enthusiastic ovation upon hearing public-address announcer Paul Olden announce “Number NINE-ty NINE,” and then Judge wound up getting upstaged by his fellow beasts. Giancarlo Stanton contributed a bloop single in the first and a double off the right-center-field wall in the fourth. And after Stanton’s first-inning single, Gary Sanchez crushed a two-run homer over the towering scoreboard in left-center.
“I’m surrounded by so many good players, I feel like the pressure’s kind of off of me,” Judge said. “I can just go in there, get some quality at-bats, do my job and help the team win any way I can. I’m not too worried about stats and stuff like that.”
The new guy Stanton said his only goal is to “put the barrel on the ball. That’s hard enough.” Sure. When you have great players, though, you wonder whether they can top themselves.
No pressure on Judge. Just more excitement to see his second act, now that it has launched, and contemplate the possibilities.