Yankees' Aaron Judge Sets Retirement Timeline

At 33-years-old, New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge has a pretty good idea of how, and when, he'll finish his historic career.

While speaking with The Athletic's Ian O'Connor, Judge admitted that he has his sights set on playing into his 40s and remaining a productive player for New York the entire way through.

“When I signed this deal,” he said, per O'Connor, “one of the things I promised was that I wanted to come in and be a contributor all the way to the end of that contract. So hopefully we’ll continue that.”

Though it briefly appeared as though Judge would be heading to his hometown San Francisco Giants upon reaching free agency after the 2022 campaign, he opted to remain with the Yankees on a nine-year, $360 million deal.

To date, New York's investment in Judge has paid off in spades and looks like one of the organization's smartest decisions in quite some time. After winnng the second AL MVP Award of his career in 2024, he appears well on his way to a third this season while leading all of MLB in batting average (.354), on-base percentage (.460) and slugging percentage (.728) while trailing only Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh in home runs (35) and RBIs (81).

It's tough to quantify just how much Judge, the Yankees' 16th captain, means to the club and its fan base. He's set himself apart from the rest of the pack as the best player in baseball, and he's already clinched his spot in Cooperstown as a Hall of Famer despite not completing his first full major league campaign until he was 25-years-old in 2017.

One of the top right-handed hitters of all-time with a 1.0264 OPS throughout his career, Judge is also in strong shape to further etch his name into the Yankees' history book.

With 350 career home runs, the seventh-most in franchise history, O'Connor pointed out to Judge that he's on the precipice of passing Alex Rodriguez (351), Yogi Berra (358) and Joe DiMaggio (361) to move into fourth place in those rankings.

“To get near those guys, wow,” Judge said. “That’s a special trio right there. It’s kind of crazy to judge a career against somebody who did it for 20 years and had such a great career, so maybe when I’m done playing, I can look back and see the things that I’ve done. Any sentence with those three guys is special.

“I’m aware of a lot of Yankee history. I definitely pay attention to it, especially being in this organization and what we are built on. It’s about a lot of great pasts that we’ve had and also what’s to come.”

Judge would need 309 more homers to tie Babe Ruth's leading mark of 659, and while it seems improbable that he'll ever match The Sultan of Swat, there's no telling what he may accomplish should he remain active into his 40s.

Yankees fans are lucky to watch Judge on a nightly basis, and it doesn't seem as though he'll be hanging up his cleats anytime soon.

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