TAMPA — Aaron Boone mentioned how much he appreciates having the retired celebrity coaches join Yankee camp.
Part of that is about his DNA. Boone is a grandson, son and brother of major leaguers, and enjoying and respecting the game’s lore is in his blood. Part of it is appreciating that those who are in uniform such as Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry, Andy Pettitte, Bernie Williams and CC Sabathia bring more than their legacy to Steinbrenner field.
They invest in the process and the product. It is hard to miss how even the oldest — Randolph, 69, and Guidry, 73 — still approach each day with enthusiasm. They are not here as hood ornaments. Their wisdom and accomplishments have value.
And baked into that is that they all share another quality — they have a place in both the Yankee canon and the fan base’s heart for being instrumental in thickening the championship numbers. They carry clout within the walls because they have experience traversing from pitchers and catchers to the Canyon of Heroes.
You don’t have to have a ring to be a forever Yankee. But no organization has retired the numbers of more players and managers than the Yankees’ 23. Of those, only Don Mattingly’s No. 23 belongs to a player who did not win it all as a Yankee. He remains beloved, but also remains the lone great Yankee in a link that began more than a century ago with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig not to win a ring in pinstripes.
It is what Aaron Judge is battling now. When Boone was asked if Judge can join the Great Yankee lineage with Ruth and Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle and Derek Jeter, the manager cited the Rookie of the Year and an MVP and the implications of 62 homers in 2022. But Boone also said, “He needs to win a title.”
Around the Yankees that has emphasis because they have even more of those, 27, than retired numbers.
So Judge needs to be a captain like Jeter, who won a World Series with the Yankees. Not Mattingly, who did not.
“With good health over the coming years, with longevity, he’ll start to pile up numbers that rival greats,” Boone said. “We just have got to take care of the championship part of the thing.”
That felt closer in 2017 than today. In Judge’s rookie season, the Yankees were eliminated in ALCS Game 7 by the Astros, whose sign-stealing deviousness would be revealed in later years. At that moment, though, Judge was just starting out within a young nucleus of Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez and Luis Severino — with Gleyber Torres nearly there. Great endings seemed near. But now only Judge, 32 in April, and Torres, in his walk year, remain.
For now, 2017 was no stepping stone. It was a peak. The closest the Yankees have gotten to the World Series not just in Judge’s years, but since the 2009 title. They also lost the ALCS to the Astros in six games in 2019 and via a four-game sweep in 2022 and then missed the playoffs last year, in part because Judge suffered a freak toe injury that cost him eight weeks. A Yankee offense that was struggling even with his brilliance collapsed.
The antidote is supposed to be the acquisition of Juan Soto — not to mention some rejuvenation among the older/injured set and rise of youngsters such as Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells. Soto and Judge are expected to form a power/on-base duet akin to Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, who finished 2-3 for the NL MVP last year as their Dodgers won 100 games.
The most immediate impact of Soto is that Judge likely will hit third regularly for the first time since 2021 and move to center often, as he did in his 2022 MVP campaign.
When asked if Soto could abet his best season, Judge said, “We’ll see. I think my best season will be when we’re holding up that trophy.”
He gets it. This is a talented roster — with lots of concerns about age, injury and handling New York well. The talent, though, sets up Judge for big things. A 43-homer season, for example, would give him 300 and catapult him pat Jeter, Jorge Posada and Williams — all retired numbers — into seventh place on the all-time Yankees list. That would likely keep him third in Yankees slugging percentage, behind Ruth and Gehrig and in front of DiMaggio and Mantle.
This is the pinstriped company that Judge is keeping these days. He can hold his own in many categories. But not the most vital one in The Bronx.
“That’s why we’re here [to win it all],” Judge said. “That’s why I get up every single day, that’s why I put in the work, not only at the field but in the offseason. It’s to bring a championship back to this city, back to this team. That’s why we’re all here. It’s been quite a long time since we’ve got to that finish line. But a lot of the pieces we’ve added to this room, especially a couple of changes we made with the coaches, guys we brought in, I think it’s going to all push us toward the right direction, which is ultimately being the last team standing.”
After all, as a Yankee, being central to the last team standing is how all the greats are Judged.
