Why Aaron Judge might be having the best offensive season by a right-handed hitter ever

In 2022, Shohei Ohtani notched a career-best 2.33 ERA while leading the American League in strikeout rate, finishing fourth in Cy Young Award voting, mashing 34 homers and batting 44% better than league average. He did not win MVP. 

Instead, Aaron Judge bested the two-way sensation in a historic year in which the Yankees slugger set the American League record with 62 home runs. Two years later, in a season the likes of which Major League Baseball hasn’t witnessed since Barry Bonds’ unrivaled stretch in the early 2000s, Judge is even better. 

While this year doesn’t exceed what Bonds accomplished then, we have never seen a right-handed hitter produce the way Judge is this season. 

Through 130 games, the American League MVP front-runner is slashing .333/.465/.732 with 51 homers and 122 RBI. Entering play on Tuesday, Judge is on pace for 63 homers, 188 hits, 128 runs and 150 RBIs. Sammy Sosa is the only player ever to reach those totals in a season, doing so in 1998 and 2001. Judge’s 1.197 OPS, as well as his 229 OPS+ and 225 wRC+ (adjusted for park and league environments), far exceed Sosa’s totals in either of those years. 

In fact, no right-handed hitter in American or National League history has ever produced Judge’s current OPS+ or wRC+, much less while swatting 50 homers.

By wRC+, the only righty to even approach Judge’s mark is Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, who slashed .424/.507/.696 in 1924. Hornsby had a 214 wRC+ that year with half as many home runs as Judge. (It’s worth noting that Hall of Famers and Negro League legends Josh Gibson and Mule Suttles recorded a higher wRC+ than Judge has this year, albeit in far fewer games played and, therefore, without the same counting stats.)

Judge is the only right-handed