The New York Yankees entered Tuesday with a 70-50 record despite enduring an ugly stretch in late June and a big part of July in which they dropped 21 of 30 games.
Of course, having not one, but two superstars can help a team get out of any slide. Not only are Aaron Judge and Juan Soto two of the best hitters in the American League – and all of baseball – but they’re also what you call historically great.
And there is some pretty compelling data to prove it.
Judge is well on his way to his second AL MVP award with a .329 batting average, 42 home runs, 107 RBIs and a 1.162 OPS. Soto, meanwhile, is well-positioned to sign the second-largest free agent deal in the history of the game with a .302 average, 30 homers, 82 RBIs and a 1.017 OPS.
Most players would kill for similar numbers throughout a season, and these two stars have achieved some lofty totals in mid-August while maintaining elite, mind-blowing rate stats.
Judge and Soto are like the modern version of the Bash Brothers, only much better. Maybe we should start calling them the Bash Buds, or the Bash Beasts if you are feeling adventurous.
What they have done as a duo transcends time and different eras. They’re the first teammates with at least 30 home runs, 90 runs, 90 walks, a .300 batting average, and a 1.000 OPS each in their first 115 player games in a season since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig both did it in 1931.
It’s fitting that 2024 marks the first time in 93 years that a pair of teammates have posted those stats and that this duo is, like the Babe and “Iron Horse”, also Yankees.
If sorted by date, Judge and Soto’s achievements to this point are even more impressive. They’re the first teammates ever to have those stats through games on Aug. 11.
It’s extremely rare to find a player with 30- or 40-home run power and the ability to draw 100 walks in a season while also being skilled enough in the art of contact hitting to log a .300 batting average. Well, the Yankees have two of those.
It’s fair to say they have done the heavy lifting in the offense to this point this year. You would think the Yanks should have a much better record with two all-time great campaigns, but they have had multiple aging stars get hurt or slump.
Still, with those two leading the way, it’s impossible not to think about them as real candidates to go really, really far in the postseason. According to our TRACR-powered projection model, the Yankees have the AL’s second-highest probability of winning the World Series.
The dominance of Judge and Soto goes well beyond traditional stats. Advanced metrics also show how they’re in a tier of their own when it comes to offensive production.
Soto paces the league by a wide margin with a total raw value of 71.2. Raw value is a comprehensive measure of a hitter’s performance in taking balls and swinging at strikes (discipline), making contact and inflicting damage upon contact.
Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani, the favorite for NL MVP, is second at 60.23, while Judge appears in third place at 60.21. The fourth-ranked hitter, Marcell Ozuna of the Atlanta Braves, is far behind at 47.0.
Raw value + (RV+) is the rate version in which 100 is considered league average. Anything above that mark is desirable for hitters, much like OPS+ and wRC+, but using the elements described above for total raw value. Soto, Ohtani, and Judge form, once again, the podium in RV+. Soto is at 212.2 (more than twice the league average), Judge is second at 198.4 and Ohtani is at 197.0.
It doesn’t take a baseball expert to know that Soto is the king of plate discipline. Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates leads all MLB with a 132.3 discipline+, but Soto is right behind at 131.1. Judge also rates well above the league average with a 117.0.
On the other hand, when it comes to raw power, there is no one in baseball like Judge. Absolutely no one. He unsurprisingly paces BIP+, which measures damage done upon contact, with a 288.0 mark that’s nearly three times the MLB average, while Soto is fourth at 212.5.
The Yankees are a flawed team with a mediocre bullpen and a lot of inconsistent hitters beyond these two all-time greats. However, as long as these two sluggers are both healthy and in the lineup, they will be a threat to win it all.
Research support provided by Tom Paquette of Stats Perform. Be sure to check out all our MLB, NBA, college football and NFL coverage. And follow us on X and Instagram for more!