possibly standing between Judge and a third MVP award<\/a>. Judge leads MLB in on-base percentage (.458), slugging percentage (.687) and OPS (1.145).<\/p>\nHis approach is unique. While he swings-and-misses more than almost anybody in baseball (34.8 percent this season; 33.4 percent career), he doesn\u2019t have an ugly chase rate (22.6 percent; 22 percent). While he strikes out a fair amount (23.5 percent this season; 27.4 percent career), he\u2019s constantly among the league leaders in walk rate (18.4 percent; 16.4 percent).<\/p>\n
And Judge has done it despite getting more low strikes that should have been balls called against him than anybody else. Since his first full season in 2017, 2.8 percent of the pitches thrown to him out of the zone and low have been called for strikes. The next-highest percentage belonged to Matt Carpenter at 2.6 percent (minimum 10,000 pitches).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s super frustrating,\u201d Stanton said. \u201cBut that\u2019s a test in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boone said that though Judge understands his strike zone so well and often refuses to chase, it leaves him open to bad calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys that get a lot of bad calls are guys that control the strike zone because they lay off really close pitches,\u201d the manager said. \u201cGuys who don\u2019t chase a lot or control the strike zone are going to get a pitch called often that (less talented hitters), like me, are chasing and swinging at and trying to touch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had his fair share of bad calls throughout the year,\u201d Cole said, \u201clike he does every year, and like everyone does. But he\u2019s got a larger zone. He\u2019s more prone to having pitches called wrong, I think, sometimes. Even though his discipline is renowned among the league, and he handles situations with class every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mauer and Stanton said it helped them scout umpires. For Stanton, it\u2019s more about recognizing which umpires are outliers in terms of how they call particular pitches, such as borderline down-and-in sinkers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the game\u2019s changed a little bit even since I\u2019ve been out of it,\u201d said Mauer, who retired after the 2018 season, \u201cbut you really start to learn the umpires and their zones and what you can really get and have a good feel and be confident of where exactly that\u2019ll be. Certain guys might be in a little bigger zones, certain guys might be a little tighter. Having that knowledge and working with my pitchers (as a catcher), or having more looks at it, helped me out as a hitter in regards to what the zone looked like on any particular day.\u201d<\/p>\n
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At 6-foot-7, Aaron Judge will be the tallest batting champ ever. Five 6-foot-5 players have won a batting crown. (Dilip Vishwanat \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The Yankees drafted Judge in the late first round in 2013. Yankees primary hitting coach James Rowson was the organization\u2019s minor-league hitting coordinator from 2014 through 2016. Rowson said that back then, Judge \u201cwasn\u2019t as polished.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMost major leaguers, early in their career, you could do a lot to get them out,\u201d Rowson said. \u201cBut he\u2019s closed the gap on that rapidly. Right now, there\u2019s not much you can do to get him out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge does lots of homework on the pitchers he\u2019s set to face, including often studying team-issued iPads between at-bats while in the dugout, Rowson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis quickness,\u201d Rowson said. \u201cHis body control. There are things he does, and he does them so well \u2014 things that people don\u2019t do well. He controls the body well, which allows him to kind of be slow. He can see the ball as well as anybody. His reaction time is quick to the baseball. There are parts of that that come together that make him so special. But to watch it from going back years, the growth is immeasurable, to some extent. But it doesn\u2019t shock you because of who he is, and the work ethic and the drive. That\u2019s never changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole said that having an outsized strike zone can actually help Judge, too. It can mess with a pitcher\u2019s command.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a bigger nitro zone because he\u2019s bigger than everybody else,\u201d Cole said, \u201cand he\u2019s got better barrel accuracy than most people. (Pitchers) want to make sure that the pitch at the letters is another four inches higher than it would be on average. You want to make sure you recalibrate for that. You don\u2019t often get hurt too much at the bottom (of the zone). Slowly bringing the ball up is important, but there is going to be more damage not getting pitches elevated enough than there is leaving pitches at the bottom of the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cHis plate discipline is elite,\u201d Gerrit Cole said of Judge, who has hit over .300 in three of the last four seasons. (Al Bello \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Stanton said one of the things that impresses him most about Judge is his desire to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust never satisfied,\u201d Stanton said. \u201cUnderstanding that the best in the world fail seven out of 10 times. OK? That\u2019s still too much failure. There could always be improvements. Even when you get hits, you could have been more on time. That\u2019s nitpicking, but if you could always want to do better without driving yourself crazy, that\u2019s how you win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winning a batting title is a feat itself for Judge. But being the tallest to do it?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very impressive,\u201d Cole said, \u201cespecially when you put it in that context.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Athletic\u2019s Dan Hayes contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
(Top photo: Sarah Stier \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Aaron Judge is all but certain to win his first American League batting crown, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2704,85],"class_list":["post-173031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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