Our undisputed MLBbro MVP Aaron Judge was the story of Major League Baseball taking us on a magical ride where he overtook Roger Maris’ American League home record tallying 62 dingers. Judge’s accomplishments which almost landed him baseball’s vaunted “Triple Crown” got him the AL MVP in landslide fashion.
What you are witnessing here is the physical aspect of Aaron Judge’s game, what is shown on game day. What gets ignored at times is the mental aspect of the game of baseball that our MLBbro is starting to master. Not since Derek Jeter, have we seen a player in a Yankees uniform be able to focus on a game with distraction behind the scenes.
It’s amazing looking back now that Aaron Judge might not have been in New York!
After the New York Yankees rebuffed Judge’s request to get a deal done before Opening Day with a final offer of $213.5 million over seven years before the arbitration phase, it would have been easy for our MLBbro to be distracted at the plate and fall into a slump, shut down and distance himself from the franchise and teammates or just demand a trade like superstars from other sports have done. But look at where things are with Aaron Judge today after showing the blueprint of what professional superstars should do.
He ended up signing the largest free agent contract in baseball history at nine years and $360 million guaranteed.
He’s now the captain of the New York Yankees.
More importantly he has the chance to cement his legacy as not only one of the greatest Yankees of all-time but players of all eras.
But to accomplish the last part of this list, Judge needs to continue the work he has done and build on that. Our MLBbro’s preparation principles are second to none and he showed recently to Harold Reynolds, former MLBbro player and now broadcaster for the MLB Network.
How does @TheJudge44 get ready in the batting cage?
The AL MVP and @Yankees Captain took Harold through his pregame preparations and which fellow stars he likes to study.
Full feature 👉 https://t.co/kWt6pnFB8Y pic.twitter.com/FH75azxufL
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) March 30, 2023
MLBbro.com studied deeper into the conversation breaking down the preparation of Aaron Judge to not only get ready for the game, but to sharpen the mechanics to make sure that the swing and body movements at the plate are always in sync.
Aaron Judge’s pre-game preparation in the batting cage.
Baseball players grew up on working out in a cage before every game or to practice. During the interview, our MLBbro does not over do. Instead he does other things to practice his hand-eye coordination.
Aaron uses a baseball batting tee to start his workouts. With the tee, it enables him to go back to the basics working on his mechanics of his swing while monitoring his body movement while the ball is not moving.
The position of the tee is moved to numerous areas to emulate the type of pitches he would get in a game.
First the tee is in the middle of the plate for a fast ball. This position also allows Aaron to get a feel on how his body is progressing preparing for a game and make adjustments based on the opposing pitchers.
Aaron has a diagonal system with his tee work, so he will move the tee to the right to keep his head down through the contact to finish the swing. In the cage, he’s working on his opposite field hitting. The discipline also helps him if he gets jammed on an inside pitch.
Then he takes that momentum and adds movement to the baseball with side tosses. This exercise locks in his hand eye coordination. Aaron’s goal for this exercise is to in his words…”take the head off of the second baseman.” In other words, guiding pitches on the outside corner and away to become a better opposite field hitter.
Judge’s meticulous exercises at the tee led to an adjustment to his bat positioning that has cut down his strikeout totals. He used to be vulnerable to quick inside pitches due to holding his hands high around his head leading to a longer swing.
Now he has lowered his hands to hear the chest area so his swing is quicker and smoother to be able to pull the ball even when the pitch is inside. He eliminated a step to get to the ball quicker. In a game that is getting faster and faster, this adjustment is huge.
The entire mindset of Aaron Judge when it comes to hitting is the target is at the second baseman with the goal of placing the ball in the New York Yankees bullpen. Then he adjusts accordingly on the pitching situation
Now that you have seen all of the work behind the scenes in the offseason to the first part of the season, his reward came in like 15 minutes of game time in the first game?
ALL RISE! 👨⚖️
Aaron Judge hits the first home run of the 2023 season! 🔥
(via @Yankees)pic.twitter.com/Wg03Jn0lRi
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 30, 2023
A perfect example of how our MLBbro’s ascension to greatness is having talent and the willingness to do the hard work. His proper preparation prevents poor performance.
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