Aaron Judge is the two-time reigning Most Valuable Player of the American League. But the New York Yankees’ superstar believes there’s a way in which even he can improve this season.
Judge is almost a maxed-out player in terms of attributes. He’s got the best home run power in the sport, but he also won the AL batting title last season, and is a shockingly good defender in right field for a 6-foot-7, 282-pound man. However, he ranked in the fifth percentile of baserunning run value last season, per Baseball Savant.
On Monday, when asked if he was working on adding anything new to his game this season, the slugger said he intends to be a bit more aggressive on the basepaths and try to add some value by stealing some bags and/or picking up an extra base on occasion.

“Baserunning’s on my mind this year a lot,” Judge said, per SNY on X. “I saw a lot of guys around the league with 40, 30 bases that you don’t usually normally expect to be running that much. Especially with how the game’s changed with the pickoffs and the pitch clock, I think that’s one way we can utilize, or, at least, I can utilize some of my skills a little bit more, getting into scoring position.
“With the lineup we have, this was probably the best offense in all of baseball last year. If I can find a way to get myself in scoring position, if they’re going to walk me or do something, then some good things are going to happen.”
Is Judge going to suddenly become Bobby Witt Jr. or Corbin Carroll on the basepaths? Almost certainly not, but he’s got a bit more sprint speed than he let on last season. Savant had him in the 42nd percentile of all position players with an average sprint speed of 27.1 feet per second.
Certainly, the Yankees don’t want Judge overexerting himself on the basepaths when his job is to be the game’s most feared player in the batter’s box. However, great players are always striving to be a bit greater, so if he can balance his longevity with taking the occasional extra bag, no one will complain at all.
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