It’s the question that follows every transcendent Yankees player, and Aaron Judge is no exception: If he never wins a World Series, does it diminish everything else he’s accomplished?
On the latest episode of “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN New York, a caller from Miami posed exactly that question — and Yankees YES Network announcer Michael Kay gave his honest opinion.
The short version: Yes, it matters. Not because Judge isn’t great but because the absence of a championship will always hand his critics exactly the ammunition they’re looking for.
“But to say that it doesn’t affect his legacy, I think you’re being disingenuous,” Kay said, via YouTube. “It has to. It’s something that would be missing.”
Ted Williams — widely considered one of the greatest pure hitters — never won a World Series. Ernie Banks spent his entire career with the Cubs without a ring.
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Their greatness is unquestioned, and yet the conversation about what’s missing never fully goes away.
For Judge, the stakes feel especially high because of the stage he plays on. New York doesn’t quietly accept near-misses, and Yankee fans in particular grew up watching a dynasty — the Core Four of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada delivering championships on a near-annual basis in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The bar is set impossibly high, and Judge knows it.
“Does he have the core four? Does he have the great players that those Yankee championship teams had? No, he doesn’t,” Kay said.
As Kay noted, if you put Judge on the Chicago White Sox, the results would speak for themselves.
The comparison that gives Judge the most historical grace might be the simplest one: he is operating at an MVP-caliber level every time he takes the field, playing in one of the most pressure-filled markets in professional sports, and doing it with consistency that rivals anyone who has ever worn pinstripes.
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