Once The New York Yankees Re-Signed Aaron Judge, The Captaincy Was Apparent

The road to Aaron Judge being named captain of the New York Yankees seemed apparent two months ago – assuming he re-signed after hitting free agency.

Which is why it was hardly surprising Judge was anointed captain about 25 minutes into Wednesday’s press conference to officially announce his nine-year, $360 million deal.

Before the captaincy could be offered there was the matter of finalizing negotiations which were so urgent that managing general partner pulled over at a rest stop somewhere in Italy to finalize the largest contract in the history of the Yankees.

“The last month, it was difficult to imagine the New York Yankees without Aaron,” Steinbrenner said. “One of the conversations we had two weeks ago, I actually said to him, ‘As far as I’m concerned, you are not a free agent, as far as I’m concerned you are a Yankee, and we need to do everything we can to make sure that remains the same.’

And when Derek Jeter appeared on the dais, it seemed this was not only a briefing about a new contract but also the captaincy. Soon after the introductions were made, Judge was anointed the 16^th captain in team history and the first since Jeter held the role from June 3 2003 through the end of his career in 2014.

“Getting a chance to be the captain of the Yankees now, that goes without saying what an honor that is. I looked back at the list — Thurman Munson, Lou Gehrig, Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly,” Judge said. “That’s a pretty good list right there, not only great baseball players but great ambassadors of the game and great ambassadors of the New York Yankees . This is an incredible honor that I don’t take lightly.”

During various points of the 2022 postseason, various teammates ran a campaign where they could have handed out literature, buttons, bumper stickers or any kind of other materials.

If players like Nestor Cortes did more campaigning beyond the podium for a pregame interview ahead of a playoff game to provide material for an early story or notebook items, he would have been handing things that read: “Aaron Judge for Yankees captain.”

“He’s meant everything,” Cortes said nearly two months ago ahead of Game 3 of the ALCS. “I think I’m able to say that if he’s back here next year, he’s our captain; he’s the next captain. We follow everything he does. He leads by example. He’s not really a guy that comes out and screams at anybody. But if he has to, that’s his job. I think he’s earned that right to keep us in check.

Given how teammates spoke glowingly of him in all circumstances, it was apparent that another benefit of Judge winning his gamble with the Yankees was the captaincy.

Judge’s gamble on himself resulted in one of several big contracts handed out by New York teams recently. It was a pact the Yankees needed to complete given what unfolded after he turned down the $213.5 million contract in the hours before Opening Day on April 8.

In review, Judge set an American League single-season record by blasting 62 home runs, eclipsing Roger Maris’ 1961 total of 61 while making $19 million after a June settlement before the sides reached the point of stating their cases in front of an arbitrator.

Judge batted .311/.425/.686 in 157 games, leading the Majors in runs (133), homers (62), RBIs (131), slugging percentage, on-base percentage, OPS (1.111), OPS+ (211) and total bases (391).

Those are the numbers that enter players into the world of long-term contracts and not only because of their talent and track record but also because the mere thought of a roster without Judge made the Yankees shudder.

The captaincy is not as a big of a thing in baseball as in other sports such as hockey with the example of the word being mentioned as the end of a sentence in Rule 4.01 about batting out of order: “Obvious errors in the batting order, which are noticed by the umpire-in-chief before he calls ‘Play’ for the start of the game, should be called to the attention of the manager or captain of the team in error, so the correction can be made before the game starts.”

It is more of a honorary thing with some teams going throughout their history with one player holding the designation but with the Yankees it is a source of higher status with the team even though there was no captain from 1940 through 1975, a stretch where the Yankees won 12 of their 27 championships, including six in the 1950s when New York was the center of the baseball world with the Dodgers, Giants often serving as the opponent for those Yankee World Series appearances.

“I’m going to try to be the same leader that I’ve been the past six years,” Judge said “Continue to lead by example. And I know there’s probably going to be a couple more responsibilities with this. I’m here to embrace every single obstacle and continue to lead this team and lead this city to not one, but multiple championships down the road.”

Whether or not the Yankees get those multiple championships is unknown but even as their last title pursuit crashed and burned in the ALCS, it was obvious Judge would get anointed the captain, the Yankees just needed to re-sign him before moving onto making the designation.