Former Giants quarterback Eli Manning throws the first pitch at Yankee Stadium
Former Super Bowl champion and Giants quarterback Eli Manning throws the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, August 4, 2024.
New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge made history on August 14 when he hit his 300th career home run in a 10-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Judge became the 162nd player in MLB history to hit 300 home runs in his career, completing the feat in 955 games, the fewest games he’s ever played – almost a full season (132 games fewer) than Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner, who held the previous record of 1,087 games.
Now the question remains: How many more goals can Judge score in the final 40 games of this season?
Will the Yankees hitter break his record of 62 home runs for the most home runs hit by an American League player? Here’s how many home runs Judge expects for the 2024 season:
How many home runs does Aaron Judge have this season?
Judge’s milestone longball was his 43rd of the year and his fourth this month.
That kind of performance from Judge seemed like an afterthought after a disappointing April in which the 2022 AL MVP hit just .220/.361/.450 in 27 games to start his 2024 season.
Since May, Judge has been undoubtedly the best player in baseball. In his last 89 games, he has a batting average of .381 with 37 home runs, 92 RBIs, 118 hits and 83 runs scored.
Aaron Judge’s total home run prediction for the 2024 season
Judge, the clear favorite for his second AL MVP award in his nine-year career in the Bronx, is on pace to finish the season with 57 home runs, 146 RBI, 189 hits and 135 walks.
That puts him very close to his record-breaking 2022 year of 62 home runs. However, if Judge were to reach those projected numbers, that would be 15 more RBIs (131 in 2022), 12 more hits (177 in 2022) and 24 more walks (111 in 2022) than two seasons ago, when he received the MVP award.
If Judge stays healthy for the rest of the game and hits the expected 50-plus home run mark, it would be the third time he’s done so in his career, but more importantly, he’d have done so in three of the four seasons in which he’s played in 148 or more games.
The only exception where he didn’t hit those high numbers was 2021, when he hit “only” 39 home runs and 98 RBIs while hitting .287/.373/.544, good enough for fourth place in the American League MVP voting.
Where does Aaron Judge rank among active players in terms of home runs?
Judge is the 13th active MLB player with at least 300 home runs. Next on the list is his Yankees teammate Anthony Rizzo, who hit 303 home runs in 7,252 at-bats, nearly 3,000 more at-bats than Judge (4,157 career at-bats).
Judge and Rizzo aren’t the only Yankees on the list, as Bronx Bomber hitter Giancarlo Stanton has the most home runs of any active player with 422 home runs in his 15 major league seasons.
Prediction of how many home runs Aaron Judge will hit in his career
If Judge finishes 2024 with 57 home runs and averages 40 home runs for the remainder of his contract, which ends in 2031 in his 39th season, he would come in just under 600 home runs with 594, overtaking Hall of Famer Frank Robinson (586) and rank 10th for all-time home runs in MLB history.
