Is Judge having the greatest peak for a righty hitter ... ever?

Aaron Judge was welcomed into a certain guild of greatness when the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted him the 2025 American League MVP. Having also won the AL award in 2022 and 2024, Judge became just the 13th player with at least three MVP honors in his career, joining:

Jimmie Foxx, 3 (1932, ’33, ’38)
Joe DiMaggio, 3 (1939, ’41, ’47)
Stan Musial, 3 (1943, ’46, ’48)
Roy Campanella, 3 (1951, ’53, ’55)
Yogi Berra, 3 (1951, ’54, ’55)
Mickey Mantle, 3 (1956, ’57, ’62)
Mike Schmidt, 3 (1980, ’81, ’86)
Alex Rodriguez, 3 (2003, ’05, ’07)
Albert Pujols, 3 (2005, ’08, ’09)
Mike Trout, 3 (2014, ’16, ’19)
Shohei Ohtani, 4 (2021, ’23, ’24, ’25)
Barry Bonds, 7 (1990, ’92, ’93, 2001-04)

As special as that is, though, an award bestowed upon Judge by writers who just as easily could have given Jose Altuve’s 2017 prize to Judge or the 2025 honor to Cal Raleigh probably does not do enough to convey what we’ve witnessed from the Yankee captain.

Judge’s ample offensive output has earned him a place in the conversation not just among the most decorated MVPs, but also among the greatest right-handed hitters of all time. And there’s an argument to be made that Judge is in the midst of the greatest peak by any right-handed hitter in history.

First, to be counted among the game’s great righties at all is a very special thing. Because this is a sport made for lefties.

Though only 10-12% of the human population is estimated to be left-handed, more than 40% of Hall of Fame position players swung left-handed, taking advantage of the superior vantage point against a pitcher population that is predominantly righty, as well as their closer proximity to first base.

So for this discussion, with apologies to Babe Ruth and the boys, let’s just put all those lefties (and switch-hitters) off to the side (the left-hand side, of course) and focus firmly on righties.

Let’s use OPS+, a stat adjusted for league context, to drive this discussion, because it’s the fairest way to compare players across eras. For those unfamiliar, the league average OPS+ is 100.

If we set a minimum of 2,000 games played, career OPS+ gives us a pretty decent rundown of many of the greatest right-handed hitters ever:

1. Rogers Hornsby, 175 (or 75% better than league average)
2. Jimmie Foxx, 163
3. Frank Thomas, 156
4. Willie Mays, 155
5. Henry Aaron, 155
6. Manny Ramirez, 154
7. Frank Robinson, 154
8. Honus Wagner, 151
9. Nap Lajoie, 150
10. Jeff Bagwell, 149

You can, of course, use different stats to come up with different lists and get the likes of Pujols, Edgar Martinez and Miguel Cabrera in the mix. And though the nature of segregated baseball (and its incomplete stats) left him well shy of the 2,000 games played minimum, no conversation of great righties is complete without mention of Negro Leagues legend Josh Gibson (214 OPS+ in 602 logged games of Major League caliber).

At 1,145 games played, Judge does not yet have the longevity to justify an argument as best of the bunch. And as he enters his age-34 season, it’s fair to wonder how long he can keep up this level of production.

But it’s nevertheless notable that Judge’s 179 career OPS+ entering 2026 is the best of any right-handed hitter with 1,000 games played. That’s rooted in a productive peak that, no matter what happens with Judge from this point forward, already has earned him a special place in the record books.

From 2022 through 2025, Judge slashed .311/.439/.677.

Think about that: Judge’s .311 average in that span was second among qualified hitters only to three-time batting champ Luis Arraez’s .318 mark. Arraez, meanwhile, had a slugging percentage 260 points lower than Judge’s .677!

Judge’s .677 SLG in that span was the best in MLB by 68 points (Ohtani was second at .609). His .439 OBP was the best by 32 points (Juan Soto was second at .407).

Or to keep it simple, Judge had a 209 OPS+ over the course of four seasons, meaning he was 109% better than league average in that span.

A sprained toe limited Judge to 106 games played in 2023, and he finished that season with a 176 OPS+, which, for him, was somehow disappointing.

But in the other three years in this span, Judge’s OPS+ marks were 210 in 2022 (the year he hit an AL-record 62 home runs), 225 in 2024 (the highest for an AL or NL right-handed hitter since the Modern Era began in 1900) and 215 in 2025 (when he led the Majors in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage).

How many other AL or NL right-handed hitters have had at least three such seasons while qualifying for the batting title? Just one: Hornsby, the Hall of Fame second baseman who did it in 1922 (207), 1924 (222), 1925 (210) and 1928 (202).

In the time since baseball was integrated in 1947, Judge is the only right-handed hitter with three such seasons. As a matter of fact, since integration, there have only been four other 200 OPS+ seasons by a righty:

Jeff Bagwell, 1994 Astros: 213
Frank Thomas, 1994 White Sox: 212
Mark McGwire, 1998 Cardinals: 216
Sammy Sosa, 2001 Cubs: 203

So two guys did it in a season cut short by a player strike, and two guys tied to performance-enhancing drugs did it in the steroid era.

And that’s it. Those were the only instances of right-handed batters in the integration era performing twice as well as the average hitter … until Aaron Judge came along and did it three times within the last four seasons.

Before Judge, there had only been three seasons in MLB history in which a right-hander had an OPS+ of at least 200 with at least 50 home runs -- Foxx with the 1932 Philadelphia A’s, McGwire with the ’98 Cardinals and Sosa with the 2001 Cubs.

Now Judge has three such seasons all by himself.

Where Judge’s peak ranks all-time is ultimately up to the beholder.

You might prefer Hornsby’s run from 1920-25, when his 201 OPS+ was 43 points higher than that of any other AL/NL right-handed hitter and he won six straight NL batting titles.

Perhaps you prefer Gibson’s 1933-39, when the available totals credit him with a .375 average and .746 slugging percentage.

Or maybe it’s what Frank Thomas did from 1991-97, when he reached base 114 more times than any other hitter, right-handed or left-handed.

And Pujols has a place in the argument for an eight-season span from 2003-10 in which his OPS (1.067) was bettered only by the left-handed Bonds (1.193).

Again, though, OPS+ is the best way to appreciate what Judge has done. And as we enter 2026, it will be interesting to see if he can tie Hornsby’s “record” for most 200 OPS+ seasons by a right-handed hitter.

If he does, and we account for integration and how much more demanding the game is now than it was in Hornsby’s time, then Judge will have amassed an incomparable peak for a right-hander.

Oh, and in that scenario, he’ll probably have another MVP Award, too.