The Cleveland Guardians swept the Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend in their best-of-three American League Wild Card Series, thereby advancing to the next round of the postseason. The Guardians can thank their pitching staff for the wins. Cleveland's arms limited the Rays to one run in 24 innings; they struck out 29 batters and they surrendered only nine hits and six walks. They did not give up a single extra-base hit throughout the 15-inning marathon that capped the series.
It's been said that no good deed goes unpunished. Guardians pitchers are learning that for themselves. Their reward for shutting down the Rays is a new, more burdensome challenge: figuring out how to navigate Aaron Judge ahead of Tuesday, the start of their best-of-five Division Series versus the New York Yankees.
Judge, of course, just authored one of the greatest offensive seasons in league history. Not only did he homer 62 times, breaking the longstanding AL and franchise single-season records, he hit .311/.425/.686 and nearly won the Triple Crown. To put it another way, Judge's worst month came in June, when he posted a .922 OPS. How good is a .922 OPS? He would've ranked third in the majors among qualifiers if that had been his full-season mark, behind only Yordan Alvarez and Paul Goldschmidt.
No gameplan formed against Judge has prospered to date, but the Guardians have to try if they want to advance. So, just how might they approach Judge's at-bats? Let's break down what his seasonal data suggests they should (and shouldn't) do.
1. Does he like to swing on the first pitch?
Given that Judge walked 111 times during the regular season, you might expect the answer to be "no." On the contrary, his swing rate on first pitches (31.7 percent) was more aggressive than the league-average mark, putting him in company with the likes of Willy Adames, Yuli Gurriel, Hunter Renfroe, and Trey Mancini. Take a gander at the heat map below and you'll notice that Judge's preferred first-pitch location is often middle-in. He's willing to pull the trigger throughout the zone, however:
TruMedia2. Does his approach shift as he gets deeper in the count?
It goes about how you would expect it to go. Judge becomes more selective if he gets ahead in the count, and he becomes less selective if he falls behind. His swing tendencies in plus counts shift toward the inner third of the plate:
TruMedia3. Is there a pitch type he struggles with?
Keep in mind that "struggle" is a relative term. Judge posted a wOBA of .300 or better on every pitch type that he saw at least 100 of this season, including a .509 mark on two- and four-seam fastballs. No other hitter was within 50 points of that figure.
Fastball
.509
34
Slider
.488
17
Curveball
.406
5
Changeup
.325
5
Cutter
.314
1
Splitter (fewer than 100)
.274
0
The pitch types that caused Judge the most trouble -- again, relatively --were changeup and cutters. While he still ranked in the 70th percentile in the majors in wOBA versus changeups, he dipped to 45th against cutters. He faced fewer than 200 of them this year, so that could be an artifact of a small sample size as much as anything.
4. How about a location?
There's a saying in baseball that home runs are pitched, not hit. Judge torched his share of mistakes this season, homering 14 times (and doubling on six other occasions) on balls located middle-middle. If you break down the zone into a quadrant, his best area was up and in and his worst was down and away. The latter should come as no surprise: that's where good sliders and/or changeups are thrown to him. The former does break from the stereotype often associated with tall sluggers that has them struggling to get their levers through the hitting zone in time to handle inside heat. Judge ranked second in wOBA in that area (behind teammate Matt Carpenter), which speaks to how compact his swing is for someone of his size.
5. Will defensive positioning help?
Judge was shifted in nearly half of his plate appearances this season, according to Statcast's definition, with teams often stationing three infielders on the shortstop side of the second-base bag. It didn't help. Instead Judge had a .470 wOBA against modified defenses and a .447 wOBA when the defense was not shifting. Unfortunately for the Guardians and other foes, there is no shift to protect against home runs.
6. Have the Guardians had success against him?
Nope. Judge terrorized almost all of the 20 teams he faced this season, and Cleveland proved to be no exception. In six games vs. the Guardians, he batted .235/.409/.706 with two home runs and five walks in 17 at-bats. His 1.115 OPS against Cleveland was rght in line with his overall season mark of 1.111. Only four clubs played Judge more than a handful of times and held him to an OPS below .900: the Blue Jays, Athletics, Rangers, and Astros.
7. Who has, and how?
Keeping in mind that pitcher-versus-batter matchups carry minimal predictive value, the two individuals who did the best job against Judge this season were arguably Orioles lefty Bruce Zimmermann and Blue Jays ace Alek Manoah. Combined, Zimmermann and Manoah held Judge to three hits in 20 at-bats with one home run and three walks (versus nine strikeouts). How'd they do it? Zimmermann threw him more breaking and off-speed pitches than fastballs, and kept the ball down and away. Manoah peppered him with a combination of hard sinkers in and sliders away. Luck played a role, too: Judge faced Zimmermann five times in 2021 and homered twice.
8. Should the Guardians just walk him every time?
After witnessing Judge wreak havoc all season, it may seem like a reasonable question to ask. Intentionally walking him certainly makes sense situationally, but it's a losing proposition on a macro basis. The nature of baseball means the defense always has the advantage, even when tasked with an elite hitter like Judge. Think about it this way. For as much damage as Judge did, he still made an out in more than 57 percent of his plate appearances, and for as many home runs as he launched, they accounted for fewer than 10 percent of his trips to the plate. You don't want to end up on the wrong end of one of those home runs -- especially not in October -- but giving him an automatic free pass would drastically increase the frequency with which the Yankees' other good hitters bat with a runner on base, and would thereby increase the chances of realizing the outcome you were trying to avoid to begin with: surrendering runs.
