Is Aaron Judge a Top 10 player?

Aaron Judge is currently one of the most popular players in all of baseball and rightfully so. His rookie year was historic, as he hit an American League all-time record of 52 home runs as a rookie. He won the Rookie of the Year that season and was also robbed out of the MVP award by Jose Altuve who took part in the notorious Astros cheating scandal. While Judge has not had the quite the same year he out up his rookie season, he put up very impressive numbers in both 2018 and 2019. So the question is for the face of the Yankees, Is he a top 10 player in the league?

Critics look at Aaron Judge and will probably laugh at this assumption simply for two reasons he tends to strike out a lot and he does not hit for the best average. Neither of these statements is wrong, however, these are the only two flaws of Judge's game. While Judge is not seen as a contact hitter, he will hit around.270 each season, which is pretty great when you have the potential to knock out 50 home runs each season. Plus, his OBP is .394 so he is getting on base almost 40% of the time. The best stat to use for overall offensive value is OPS and Judge's for his career is .952 for his career. That number would be elite for a single season let alone an entire career.

However, Judge is not only elite at the plate. He is among one of the best defensive right fielders in the game too. While he has never won a gold glove in the outfield, Judge is a premier defender. Also, runners will also think twice before running on him as he has an absolute cannon. Now that Mookie Betts is a representative of the National League, Judge should be able to win the first gold glove of his career.

Now for good measure let's compare Judge to Nolan Arenado, who is regarded as one of the best players in the MLB. In the past 3 seasons, Judge has played roughly 100 fewer games and only has hit 10 fewer home runs. He also leads Arenado in stats such as WAR, DRS, UZR, OPS among others. While I'm not saying Judge is better than Arenado because durability is certainly a factor that should be considered, he certainly is among the best players in the league.