Aaron Judge's Injury: What It Means for Yankees' Season
Dive into baseball's season's highlights thus far, and get the scoop on Aaron Judge's injury—what it means for the Yankees and their postseason hopes!
Video Transcript
We gotta get to the big news of the week here at this point.
We were wondering, is something wrong with Aaron Judge?
What could it be?
And if you watched anything from any of the post-game press conferences here, Aaron Boone, he's bewildered at the answers that he's having to give to the people asking the questions, only to find out, oh boy, Aaron Judge down possibly four to six weeks with a stress fracture on his first rib on his right side.
Devastating news to Mr. MVP, Craig.
Yeah, and, and it's devastating, but I think it sounds like it could've been worse, at least if you're- Yes a Yankees fan.
It does appear that, you know, there were some a- at least things thrown out with the possibility of thoracic outlet surgery, which would mean, Donnie, he would absolutely miss the year if that is the case.
And by the way, I'm still not so sure that at the end of those four to six weeks, what will happen here, because maybe there is more to it.
It's, it's impossible to speculate with injuries and stuff like this.
And if I'm not mistaken, the injury diagnosis is to get more imaging after that time is over, and so that's not even a return to play, it's just that.
I'm sure the Yankees, if you look at their squad, you look at their team, they're a team that obviously is built to win, and get to the postseason.
Their starting pitching is strong enough.
That's a massive hole not having him there.
Can they temporarily replace him with somebody via trade?
I think the Yankees probably will explore that.
But I, I think if you told Yankees fans, Donnie, and you told the Yankees, "We'll get Judge back in August or September for a postseason run," I think they would take it right now.
I mean, I think that you should wanna take it right now, because it's sort of scary when you see an injury like this.
Yeah, thinking about that same injury to what we saw in Zach Wheeler in Philadelphia last year, which wiped out the rest of his 2025, and t- to be quite frank, a lot of people were thinking that might be the end of his career.
Now, he worked through it, pitched extremely well so far, and we'll see if that works out.
But I think you're right about this one thing, Craig, where the information was fluid.
We don't really know what's wrong.
And if it was the worst case scenario, is that the end of the season or maybe the end of the career for Aaron Judge?
So I think most Yankees fans, you are correct, thinking like, "Wait a second.
Woo, we dodged a bullet here.
Only a stress fracture in the ribcage, four to six weeks."
But also, Craig, like, we see, deal with so many pitchers like, "Hey, shoulder's down."
Well, sit out for a month.
Like, you gotta ramp back up.
Same thing with Aaron Judge.
This is a guy that's big in the weight room here, taking your cuts every single day, and what are they telling him, Craig?
"Hey, we'll get back to you about a month.
Don't do anything at this point."
So there will be a ramp-up period as well.
Yeah.
That, that's why I just don't see this as a four to- Yeah six-week injury.
And again, it's, it's hard to speculate on some of this stuff, as we'll talk about with another injury to Schoop who, you know, was supposed to be out a long period of time, now is coming back maybe a little bit sooner.
We really don't know.
But that's just the thing, Donnie, with injuries.
So I, I think what you do is you check back after the All-Star Game, honestly, and, and you see where Judge is at.
And then if you find out that with any of the medical imaging that he's not ready to return, then I think the alarm at that point goes off, because anything that doesn't heal right now that has to be done after these four to six weeks are over, I think that could be season ending at that point.
So I guess we'll just have to see.
And we will have to see.
And also, if you tell Yankees fans, like, "Okay, he is gonna be back and he might not win the MVP," sure, they're gonna take that, 'cause the end ultimate here is to win a World Series, have your players healthy and hitting well into the month of September.
But also, Craig, you take a look at those odd shifts here.
Yes, Aaron Judge, multi-time MVP, expected to be the MVP again this year, and he was the favorite before the rib injury.
Now you see a Jon Ewing tweet here.
Minus 125, Craig, before the injury.
100 to 1 now if he does miss the month here, and that turns into the favorite.
Always creeping up top there is Bobby Witt Jr. at a plus 145.
But I do find it so interesting right behind here on Live Odds.
Yordan Alvarez also up there as one of the leaders to win the AL MVP, Craig.
And the question is, is he even gonna be in the American League by the time we get to that trading deadline?
But understand this, they're only, the Astros, four and a half games back in the West.
I don't know if they give up on the season just yet, Craig.
Yeah, they, they've made a little run to kind of keep themselves in it.
Yeah.
And that's despite all of the injuries that they have had, with Correa and Altuve.
Yep.
And now we'll talk about Hader and some others.
You know, I, I get the sense if the Astros are going to do some sort of reset, Donnie, or some sort of rebuild, maybe it would make more sense for them to do this after the season, you know?
Even, even if they're not in it, because then what you're doing with a player like this, I don't know if you would call Alvarez a generational player.
I know he hit another grand slam over the weekend too.
But, but what you do is you're limiting yourself right now, Donnie, to about 8, 10 teams that would take him on.
Yes.
In the off-season, you're opening it up to, like, 25, and maybe some team that we don't even know about that wants to make a big push for next year.
So if, if they were to do something like that, I would anticipate he's the kind of player that gets moved in an off-season.
But certainly, Witt is one of those guys for the MVP.
Alvarez has to be, too.
It's a wide open field right now for that award.
