There are reminders each and every day of just how special Aaron Judge is.
The New York Yankees' 6-foot-7 slugger is truly one of the best players to ever step on a baseball diamond.
The latest example came this week, when Judge reached 60 career Wins Above Replacement. He's the 129th position player in MLB history to reach that number.
It allowed statisticians to start comparing how quickly various legends had gotten to 60 WAR, and as it turns out, Judge was one of the fastest.
The NY Yankees Stats account on X broke it down by WAR per 162 games, and in that stat, Judge ranks fifth in MLB history.
Here's the WAR per 162 leaderboard provided by NY Yankees Stats:
- Babe Ruth - 10.50
- Rogers Hornsby - 9.13
- Barry Bonds - 8.83
- Mike Trout - 8.68
- Aaron Judge - 8.68
- Ted Williams - 8.61
- Lou Gehrig - 8.51
Judge just misses out on being ahead of Trout by a tiny fraction.
To be just ahead of Williams and Gehrig is remarkable. They're two of the greatest hitters ever, from a bygone era when it seems like the best hitters in the game were more capable of putting up absurd numbers.
Now, Judge puts up those same kind of absurd numbers in an era when pitching is as filthy and dominant as ever, and when defenses are better-positioned than ever before.
Judge fits right in on the above list, in terms of production, with the last generation's top player, Bonds, and this generation's top player, Trout.
Baseball spans eras, and that's what Judge does, too. You can look as far back in the baseball history books as you want, and you'll continue to find that there have been few hitters ever as good as Aaron Judge.
MORE: Aaron Judge ties Yogi Berra on legendary New York record list