Yankees Aaron Judge Has Realistic Shot at American League Triple Crown

New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is the leader in the clubhouse for the American League MVP award. With 55 home runs, 118 RBI and a .302 batting average, the Yankees slugger has a realistic shot at becoming baseball's second Triple Crown winner in 45 years.

Aaron Judge has all but clinched the American League home run crown for the 2022 season.

The New York Yankees outfielder cranked his 55th homer of the season Wednesday, and leads the American League in home runs by a significant amount. The next-closest on the home run leaderboard is the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim's Shohei Ohtani who has 33. Judge is up 22 home runs on the next-closest challenger.

Judge currently leads the American League in RBI, as well, with 118. The margin between Judge and his next-closest challenger is much smaller than it is in the home run race, however.

Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez is within striking distance of Judge, with 108 RBI. Still, Judge is in pole position with four weeks remaining in the regular season to claim both the home run and RBI titles.

In order for Judge to claim a historic American League Triple Crown, he would also need a batting title.

Judge currently stands at seventh, among American League players in batting average, behind Boston Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts (.315), Minnesota Twins utility man Luis Arráez (.315), Chicago White Sox first baseman José Abreu (.309), Yankees outfielder Andrew Benintendi (.304), Texas Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe (.304) and Guardians second baseman Andrés Giménez (.303).

Judge, batting .302 this season, has greatly improved his batting average over the last month and a half.

Entering play July 16, just before the All-Star Game, Judge was hitting .274 on the season. He has since upped his batting average 28 points, slashing .362/.500/1.368 with 23 home runs and 51 RBI in that time.

Meanwhile, Arráez, who was the runaway leader in the category for much of the season, has seen a significant drop-off in performance in roughly the same amount of time.

Entering play July 10, Arráez was hitting .355 in 2022. Since, he's slashing just .250/.369/.664 with four home runs and 16 RBI. As Judge has ascended, Arráez has declined.

Arráez is now tied for the AL-lead in batting average with Bogaerts, who has remained remarkably steady over the past two months.

Bogaerts was batting .317 at the All-Star break. Since, he's slashed .310/.362/.849.

In order for Judge to claim the AL batting title, completing the Triple Crown, he will need Bogaerts to enter into a slump for the final month of the season and need Arráez to continue on his current pace. Judge would also need to remain on his own current pace, and potentially get some help from the other four hitters in between him and Bogaerts/Arráez.

The last player to win a Triple Crown — American League or National League — was Miguel Cabrera, who did so as a member of the Detroit Tigers in 2012. Prior to that, the last time anybody had won a Triple Crown was when Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski achieved the honor in 1967.