After wasting years of his prime vouching for his buddies to be his teammates, Aaron Judge seems to have finally realized that losing with your friends isn’t as enjoyable as potentially winning without them. Gone are the days of Judge’s best friends on the field with him as he will have to settle for Rangers and Knicks games to see them instead.
Judge spoke with the media this week at spring training about watching his team idly sit back throughout the offseason and do nothing other than trade for Ryan Weathers and bring back the entire position player roster from last season.
“Early on, it was pretty tough to watch,” Judge said of the Yankees’ lack of an offseason. “I’m like, ‘Man, we’re’ the New York Yankees. Let’s go out there and get the right people, the right pieces to go out there and finish this thing off.”
After sharing his actual feelings on the state of the team that has provided him little help in terms of an elite supporting cast in recent years, the alarm of a decade-plus of Yankees media training went off in his head and Judge swiftly reversed course on his words.
“Once we solidified getting Bellinger back, we’ve got Trent being our center fielder for another year, then we got a guy like Goldy back. … I think we’re in a good spot,” Judge said after calling out his front office and ownership.
When asked about “running it back,” Judge then responded, “I love it.”
“People might have their opinions on it because we didn’t win it all last year and we fell short in the Division Series,” Judge said, “but we get a chance to bring a lot of those guys back … I like our chances.”
So to recap: Judge was upset that the New York Yankees didn’t add the “right people” or the “right pieces” to improve upon their 94-win season. He didn’t like that the team was making smaller moves (like trading for Weathers and signing Amed Rosario) and “it was tough to watch.” But then, after realizing how his comments would be portrayed, Judge said once the Yankees finalized bringing back the same team, he nows think “they’re in a good spot.”
The first half of Judge’s statements are his true feelings and I’m happy he said what he said because if anyone who should be upset within the organization it should be him. He’s the one with the legacy at stake if he finishes his career without a championship. All of the individual awards he has accumulated and the all-time offensive seasons he has put together are nice, but without a single championship (and because his postseason OPS is 206 points lower than his regular-season OPS), he can’t be discussed alongside the Mount Rushmore Yankees.
“We’ll never be satisfied until we go out there and finish it,” Judge said. “No matter the awards — MVPs, All-Stars — that stuff doesn’t matter. What matters is putting New York back on top and putting this organization back where it belongs, which is being the best organization in the game.”
Judge will turn 34 a month into this season and who knows if his age 35 season will be played with the threat of an extended lockout. There’s a very real possibility he could lose next season and more. 2026 is his best chance to win a championship, just as 2025 was, and 2024 before that, and 2023 before that, and so on. Judge has already gone through two cores of teammates and the players and pitchers who were brought in in their mid- and late 20s during his major-league tenure are now in their mid- and late 30s without anything to show for it.
Judge should be pissed that the lineup lacks even an average right-handed bat beside his. He should be pissed at the continued failed development of the organization’s top prospects. He should be livid that a roster that wasn’t good enough last season is the one that’s going to surround him again this season. After hearing him speak this week, it sounds like he is all of those things.
Last modified: Feb 18, 2026
