You Have Rocks For Brains If You Think What Shohei Ohtani Is Doing This Year Is More Impressive Than Aaron Judge

Happy "Stephen A. tries to talk baseball" day. An annual holiday that makes sports fans across the globe act like they're in the movie 'The Happening' and are being infected by the suicidal trees. He does it on purpose. He has to, and we're all fools for getting aggravated about it, but can't help it. Today this moron chose to dismiss Aaron Judge's greatness because Juan Soto is hitting behind him in the lineup and as a result Judge gets more pitches to hit. 

Goddamit is SAS good. Jordan in his prime of spewing nonsense sports takes to piss everybody off at home. He gets me every time. 

In theory, if Soto was hitting after Judge, Stephen A. would have a point about lineup protection. Unfortunately for him, Soto hits in front of Judge, thus destroying any sort of take he had. Judge had JD Davis protecting him in the lineup this year. In fact, Judge gets even less pitches to hit as a result of the lineup configuration, making his numbers even more impressive. It would require Stephen A. to do an ounce of research/watch a game for him to know this, but ESPN doesn't care for that kind of effort these days. They encourage the ol' hot take with nothing behind it strategy. 

The argument SAS was trying to tackle above, is the same that many others have decided to yell about: who is having the more impressive season, Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani? Despite BFW being a giant Yankee hater, he even found it in his heart to say it was Judge. It's that obvious. Troll Cat went contrarian to further trigger people like me. 

To try to answer Big Cat's leading question at the end of that clip, Aaron Judge has more homers on the road this year (26) than he does at home (25). Judge has the most no doubt home runs in the game, which means they would have been gone in every stadium in the league. 

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Actually if he played for the Dodgers he'd have even better numbers…

What's annoying about this stupid argument is when people limit the talk about Judge to just the homers. Yes, he's on pace to break his 2022 AL home run record mark of 62 which is fucking insane, but his season as a whole is so much more than that. Judge is in the midst of the 5th best offensive season in baseball history. 

He's flirting with an OPS of 1.200, something that hasn't been attained since 2004 Barry Bonds. We are actually watching one of the greatest hitting seasons ever, in a year against some of the best pitching ever, when offense is down across the league. 

Now this is no knock on Shohei Ohtani at all. He's going to win the NL MVP more than likely, and has already become the sixth player ever to join the 40/40 club. With a good September he has a very solid chance at becoming baseball's first ever 50/50 man. He's a freak and one of the game's greats, but when comparing Judge and Ohtani's seasons, the more impressive one is clearly Judge's. 

You have to understand how much easier stealing bases is now. Before the rule changes, Ohtani's career high in swiped bags was 26. Now with the pickoff rules and pitch clock, you can run wild. The changes were implemented to create more action on the basepaths. That's exactly what happened with Ohtani's game. I'm really not trying to shit on Ohtani, but 40/40 and possibly 50/50 ain't what it used to be. That's just a fact. Still impressive, but it doesn't blow my socks off like it used to. 

Appreciate Aaron Judge and what he's doing right now. Shohei too! These are all-time greats excelling to the best of their abilities in front of our eyes. Shohei's hitting ability by itself is incredible. When he's pitching also it's hard to believe. Judge is one of the game's greatest hitters and he's playing out of position this year in CF to try and help the team win. Making plays like this. 

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It's all great to see, let's just not listen to Stephen A on days he randomly decides to pretend to watch baseball. Our ears will be better for it. 

P.S. Remember when Mets fans tried to make Michael Conforto vs. Aaron Judge a thing? Then they tried the same with Pete Alonso. Good times.