Yankees' Aaron Judge Getting Closer to MLB History

New York Yankees superstar slugger Aaron Judge has the opportunity to do something no Major League Baseball player has done in 84 years: finish a full season with a batting average above .400. The last player to do so was Ted Williams in 1941.

Of course, other pros throughout history have had .400, or even greater, batting averages at the beginning of a season, but none have played the same number of games as Judge inevitably will during the Yankees' 2025 campaign.

After the Pinstripes' runaway win against the Los Angeles Angels, Judge's batting average sits at a tantalizingly close .398. He's the American League leader in not only batting average, but on base percentage (.492) , runs (51) and home runs (18), tied with Philadelphia Phillies Kyle Schwarber for second-most in the entire league). If Judge can maintain his momentum through the rest of the season, he may just play a full season with the elusive .400 or greater batting average.

While the more games he plays, the more likely it becomes that Judge's hot streak cools down, he started off the 2025 season by making history. According to OptaStats on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, at the beginning of the month:

"Prior to 2025, no AL player had ever collected 50 hits in a season before May. Neither had an AL player reached base 70 times (H/BB/HBP) before May, nor amassed 85 total bases before May. Aaron Judge of the @Yankees did all three this year."