Aaron Judge’s legacy took a hit in World Series with no guarantee Yankees star will be able to redeem himself

NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Dodgers are the 2024 World Series champions and, for the 15th consecutive season, the New York Yankees are not the last team standing. The Yankees ended their pennant drought this year but they remain titleless since 2009, which is eternity in this town. The 2025 season will be yet another year touting 27 championships, not 28.

The Dodgers beat the Yankees because, simply put, they were the better team top to bottom. Their offense was better, their pitching was better, their defense was way better, their baserunning was better, their managerial decisions were better. The differences between the two teams was staggering. The Dodgers have elite talent, elite execution, and elite game planning. The Yankees are undisciplined and sloppy.

Presumptive AL MVP Aaron Judge had a wretched World Series. He went 4 for 18 (.222) in the five games against the Dodgers and slashed .184/.344/.408 in 14 postseason games. Judge also made a crucial error that opened the door for Los Angeles to erase a 5-0 deficit in the fifth inning of the decisive Game 5:

“I just didn’t make the play,” Judge said after the game about dropping that ball.

Judge was hardly the only Yankees hitter who underperformed — basically everyone except Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton should feel bad about themselves after that showing — but Judge was the biggest culprit because he is New York’s best player.

There is no sugarcoating it: Judge’s legacy took a hit in the World Series. A big hit, too. Come up that small in the World Series and yeah, you don’t get looked at the same way. It is the way of the sports world. Judge is a Yankees great already, truly one of the most productive players in franchise history, but the Yankees are judged on championships. They tell you that themselves.

“Ever since I’ve been a Yankee, getting drafted in 2013, all that was ever engrained in my head or what we were taught is win in New York,” Judge said prior to this year’s regular-season finale. “Be a winner. Championship mindset. It’s just always been the way I was raised, even before I got here it was: If you don’t win, what’s the point?”

Judge said throughout the World Series that he’s let his team down, something his teammates refuted — “His presence, who he is in the clubhouse, what he brings to all of us, he’s never let us down,” Anthony Rizzo said before Game 4 — but the facts are the facts. The Yankees lost, Judge had a bad World Series, and as the team’s best player and captain, he shoulders the blame. He’s not naive. He understands that. Judge knows what his responsibilities are.

History is littered with postseason redemption stories. Alex Rodriguez was known as a postseason choker early during his tenure with the Yankees, then he carried the 2009 team to the World Series title. Tino Martinez was terrible in the playoffs his first few seasons with the Yankees, and now he has a plaque in Monument Park. As long as the bat is in your hands, you can flip the script.

That said, Judge is pushing the limits of the idea that, given enough time, players will revert to their career norms in the postseason. He keeps getting worse in October. From 2017-19, Judge slashed .257/.375/.535 in 27 playoff games. That’s not regular-season Judge, but it is very good. You can win with your MVP candidate doing that in October.

Since 2020 though, Judge is a .147/.250/.336 hitter in 31 postseason games. It’s almost like things have snowballed on Judge. Like he experienced postseason failure, tried even harder to perform for his team, and made things worse. You can never truly know what’s going on in someone’s head. Clearly though, the ball on postseason failure got rolling, and Judge has been unable to stop it.

The Yankees have, by and large, been a very successful team over the last 15 years. They haven’t won a championship but they are in the race just about every year, and they give themselves a lot of bites at the postseason apple. Still, the 15-year drought is a reminder that Judge is not guaranteed to get a chance to redeem himself in the Fall Classic. I imagine that will eat at him this winter.

Judge’s legacy took a hit this World Series, but the final chapter has not been written. Or at least he hopes it hasn’t been written. The Yankees as an organization need to do some self-reflection this offseason after the Dodgers exposed them every which way in the World Series. They showed the Yankees what an elite team really looks like. 

Judge too will self-reflect. Why has he not performed in October? How can he be better moving forward? Don Mattingly never won a World Series ring but is beloved in the Bronx. Judge will be beloved too. There’s a reason Mattingly gets introduced before Derek Jeter and Paul O’Neill on Old Timers’ Day though. Judge has not had a legacy moment and he may never have a better chance to have one than he just did these last five games.

“I think falling short in the World Series,” Judge said after the Game 5 loss, “will stick with me until I die.”