Aaron Judge's postseason career stats: Inside the Yankees star's strikeout struggles in the playoffs

Aaron Judge will soon receive two MVP awards, but he has a shot at immortality this October.

The Yankees slugger has perhaps the clearest path to the World Series he has had since arriving in the majors, and it comes after a season in which he led all of baseball in home runs, RBI, OPS and WAR.

To put it simply, these postseason results have never occurred at any point in Judge's career. While he's hit his share of home runs, Judge is still waiting for his October production to come close to what he did in the regular season — and pressure is growing for that to change.

Here's a closer look at Judge's postseason stats compared to his regular season marks.

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Aaron Judge Stats 2024

Judge is coming off an outstanding season in which he led baseball in a handful of offensive categories, including home runs and OPS. Judge's OPS was higher than in 2022, when he set the American League single-season home run record with 62.

Aaron Judge's postseason career stats

An OPS of .760 is considered fine, especially in the postseason when pitching is so dominant, but it's nowhere near the standard Judge set in the regular season.

Judge's 13 postseason home runs are a pace of 46 over 162 games, so the former MVP largely had the power in October, but he rarely hit better than .200 in his postseason career and never had more than six in any postseason Hit series.

Some of Judge's worst postseason performances came after his best seasons. He hit .191 in the 2017 postseason, including .050 in an ALDS win over Cleveland. In 2022, Judge hit .139 in nine games, including .063 without a home run in an ALCS sweep against the Astros.

Judge has gotten off to a slow start again this October, going 1-for-7 without an extra-base hit in the first two ALDS games against the Royals. The Yankees enter Game 3 of the series with a 1-1 tie, so Judge still has a chance to provide some key moments as New York seeks its first championship in 15 years.

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Aaron Judge's strikeout rate

Judge has a career strikeout rate of 33.8 percent in the postseason. He recorded a hit in 70 of his 207 postseason plate appearances.

The 32-year-old has always had a penchant for strikeouts, even in his most dominant seasons, but his postseason strikeout rate is well above his career regular-season rate of 28 percent.

Judge has done a better job of reducing strikeouts in recent years, dropping his rate to 24.3 percent this season. A sky-high strikeout rate this October would be a huge disappointment after that big improvement in the regular season.

Aaron Judge playoff home runs against the Yankees' all-time leader

Judge struggled in the postseason, but his strength was his greatest asset. Judge is fifth in Yankees postseason history with 13 home runs. Here is the full list:

The caveat, of course, is that the postseason has expanded over the years. The Yankees have 27 championships, but many of those came when the postseason consisted solely of the World Series.

Three of Judge's postseason home runs came in either a wild card game (2017, 2018) or a wild card series during the expanded 2020 postseason. These opportunities simply didn't exist in most eras of Yankees history.

Other than that, the Yankees don't have much to complain about hitting 13 home runs in 46 postseason games. Judge struggled most with getting on base consistently like he did in the regular season, but he has a chance at redemption in 2024.

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Did Aaron Judge win a World Series?

Judge didn't win a World Series. The Yankees haven't won a championship since 2009 and Judge debuted in 2016.

Judge never even played in a World Series, as the Yankees fell in the ALCS three times during his career. All three losses have come to the Astros, including a 2017 series in which New York had two chances to shut out Houston and head to the Fall Classic.

No. 99 will ultimately be retired by the Yankees, but something will be missing if Judge doesn't help bring the Bronx a championship at the end of his great career.