Aaron Judges Yankees season all comes down to fixing ugly playoff trend: Got to do more

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees from spring training TAMPA — Aaron Judge will attempt to improve upon an almost unprecedented 2024 season. And still, no matter what he does during the upcoming regular season, it will be mostly put aside if the Yankees make the playoffs, as the baseball world will wait to see how Judge does in October.Because when it comes to last year, two things stand out: Judge’s otherworldly performance during the regular season, in which he mostly put up the best numbers of his career, and then an ugly postseason, when Judge was mostly a mess at the plate. Judge is well aware of that second fact. “I’ve got to improve, definitely,” Judge said this week at Steinbrenner Field.

“Last postseason wasn’t the best.I know ’22 wasn’t that great, either.

I don’t want to think about the negatives, but it’s part of it.It’s the role I’m in.

When you’re at the top, that’s what happens.I’ve got to improve.

I’ve got to get better and I’ve got some ideas.We’ll see how it goes.” Asked to expand on those ideas, Judge declined, but he’s already talked about what he’s doing this spring to avoid another slow start to the regular season. Judge expects to take more at-bats in spring training games in an effort to be in top form beginning on Opening Day. But it’s unclear how he’ll be able to change his routine in the regular season. He stayed healthy last year, and if a 158-game workload took a toll on the 6-foot-7 Judge, it didn’t show late in the regular season, when he was just as dangerous at the plate as he was throughout much of the rest of the year. His struggles in October don’t just date back to last year or — as Judge noted, 2022 — but really to 2018, when he stopped hitting after slamming a homer in three straight games. Since Game 3 of the ALDS against the Red Sox, Judge has playe...