A decade in, Judge exemplifies Yankees' arc

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch's Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The year 2016 is trending, with social feeds flooded by decade-old throwbacks to a time when Pokémon Go took over city streets, Hamilton tickets were nearly impossible to score and the Cubs finally won a World Series.

Though the 84-win Yankees did not reach the playoffs, it was still a year of seismic shift in the Bronx. The effects still ripple through the organization today, nowhere more clearly than in Aaron Judge's career arc.

The hinge point came in late summer, when general manager Brian Cashman made a call once unthinkable inside the executive offices. Surveying a roster that bore his fingerprints, Cashman was unable to forecast a sunny outcome. There were too many aging pieces, too much underperformance.

Cashman would later say his conversations with managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner were among the most difficult of his career. The Yankees were not good enough to win the 2016 World Series, Cashman told Steinbrenner, while acknowledging ownership would never authorize a total rebuild like the Astros and Cubs had recently gone through.

His suggestion was a compromise: flip recognizable names to contenders, seeking prospects who could help accelerate the reset. They hadn’t acted as midseason sellers since 1989, when they dealt future Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson back to the Athletics.

"The Yankees have acted a certain way for a long time, and trying to change course from that was difficult,” Cashman has said. “But at the same time, it’s continuing to remind everybody that the chessboard that we’re playing is way different than the one their dad was playing.”

Within weeks, Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Ivan Nova and Carlos Beltrán were gone. In return, the Yankees added fresh faces, most notably Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier. Then, they continued to clear space for the future, while Chapman would return that winter after helping the Cubs win a title.

Two days after Mark Teixeira revealed his plans to retire at the end of the season, the Yankees announced they would release Alex Rodriguez, who had more than a year remaining under contract. A-Rod’s playing time had dwindled, and there was little need to carry a 41-year-old designated hitter.

More than 46,000 fans witnessed Rodriguez’s final game on Aug. 12, an on-field ceremony interrupted by a torrential downpour that sent everyone scrambling into the dugout for cover. Rodriguez filled his back pockets with infield dirt on the way out, leaving only two active representatives from the Yankees’ most recent championship roster: Brett Gardner and CC Sabathia.

History was thick the next day, as Old-Timers’ Day honored the 1996 club, but it would be a day for the future. Their next captain was in a Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Rochester, N.Y., demolishing a bacon cheeseburger with sides of beans and macaroni.

Spotting Judge eating with his parents, Al Pedrique – then the manager of the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders – delivered the message.

"He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’d better hurry up with this meal. You’ve got to be up in New York tomorrow,’” Judge recalled.

The Judges piled into a rental car and, with the 6-foot-7 slugger folded awkwardly into the back seat, drove through the night to cover the 300-plus miles to the Bronx. They pulled into a New Jersey hotel around 6 a.m., where a fire alarm kept Judge from sleeping. He took it as a cue to keep moving.

Also en route to make his debut was first baseman/outfielder Tyler Austin; manager Joe Girardi’s lineup against the Rays slotted Austin seventh and Judge eighth. In the second inning, Austin lifted a Matt Andriese fastball down the right-field line, barely clearing the wall.

Standing on deck, Judge said he was “ecstatic” for his teammate and friend, while also thinking: “Oh man, I’ve just got to make contact now.”

Andriese got ahead of Judge with two strikes, missed outside, then tried to float an 87-mph changeup by him. Judge crushed it. The ball sailed to center field, clipping a small ledge atop the restaurant before dropping onto the netting covering Monument Park.

Statcast calculated the blast at 446 feet, with Austin and Judge becoming the first pair of teammates to homer in their first at-bats in the same game. Hundreds of barreled drives later, that first one still stands apart for Judge.

“Probably my biggest home run was my first one in the big leagues,” Judge said. “You finally make it to The Show, and you don't know if you're good enough or not. No matter what happened after that day, I could say I hit a homer in the big leagues. I think the first one is always the best one.”