At the plate, the accolades for Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees are endless. And they are justified. Judge is having a truly historic season, is a Triple Crown candidate, and no reasonable person could dispute he is the best hitter in baseball.
When he gets on base, though, he turns into the worst baserunner in the whole of the Major Leagues. This is not merely a statement of opinion, either, but the conclusion of a statistic designed precisely to calculate that.
BsR – an abbreviation of “base runs” – is an advanced statistic invented by sabermetrician David Smyth to estimate the number of runs a team “should have” scored. The methodology behind BsR is complicated – of note here, though, is that FanGraphs keeps track of Base Rate on all hitters in the league. And with a small yet discernible gap to the field, it reports back that Aaron Judge is the worst baserunner in the major leagues today.
The statistic Base Rate (BsR), invented by David Lynch, reveals that Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees is baseball’s worst baserunner.
Subjectivity Notwithstanding, Judge Ranks Last
With the exception of stolen base counts, the tracking of baserunning is subjective, more so than most aspects of the sport of baseball. However, on matters such as going from first to third, there are at least norms within that subjectivity. And BsR tries to capture them.
Furthermore, on the matter of the objectivity of the stolen base rates, Judge is having a bad season. His four steals have come on seven attempts, and while he was able to swipe ten bags last season without being caught, the surprise element played a part. A slugger without elite foot speed like him is never expected to run, or at least, was not expected to run. He is now, and it is not helping him or his team that he continues to do so.
One might think that the title of worst baserunner would go to an aged catcher such as Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals, or someone particularly big and slow like muscle-bound Tampa Bay Rays designated hitter Yandy Diaz, who runs like a duck trying on new shoes. However, per the above, Perez is only the fifth-worst baserunner in baseball as measured by BsR. And by not getting caught stealing or over-extending himself, Diaz – despite having all the foot speed of a cheese sandwich – actually measures out as the 53rd-best of the 169 players to have a Base Rate score. He is not fast, but he stays within those means. Judge, though, does not.
Fair To Say He Makes Up For It
There are, of course, more opportunities to mis-run the bases when on base as often as Judge is.
With his astronomical .485 on-base percentage so far this season, Judge is by far and away the leader in all of baseball. He is a full 50 points ahead of Freddie Freeman of the Los Angeles Dodgers in second place in this category, and more than 100 points ahead of fellow Dodger Shohei Ohtani in second place in slugging percentage. Judge’s current OPS of 1.242 is on track to the 25th-best mark of all time – apart from the anomaly that was Barry Bonds, all other seasons in that top 25 came before 1958, when baseball was very different.
No person of reasonable thinking would deny that Judge more than earns this imperfection back. He is a Hall-of-Fame hitter having his best season, who somehow is doing even better than a 2024 season in which he hit .322, had 58 home runs and drew 133 walks (only 20 of which were intentional). This is probably not something worth designating him for assignment over.
It would help, however, if Judge would calm down on the base paths somewhat. It is OK to be slowing down; just act accordingly.
Aaron Judge, Baseball’s Best Hitter, Is Also Its Worst Baserunner