New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is enjoying the best season of his career, and is in pursuit of home run history despite being in the final year of his contract, and now the Yankees are making it known that they want to secure Judge to a long-term deal.
Yankees president Randy Levine said during a recent interview that Judge is “an all-time Yankee” and emphasized that the organization “will be extraordinarily competitive” in their approach in re-signing Judge this offseason.
Judge declined the Yankees’ seven-year, $213.5 million extension offer earlier this year, betting on himself to land a more lucrative deal. The result is a historic season that likely boosted Judge’s value beyond even his perception.
“We know his worth and what he means,” Levine said, during an appearance on “The Show” podcast. “I don’t know what’s in his mind. All we can do is show him how much we’d like him to remain a Yankee.”
Judge, who currently leads the majors with 117 RBI, is on pace to hit 65 homers which is four more than Yankees legend Roger Maris’ American League record in 1961.
“We think Aaron Judge is an all-time Yankee,” Levine said. “We think he’s a great player, beyond a great player. We think he’s a great person. That’s why we offered him the highest position player contract in the history of the Yankees.
“I admire him that he went out and took this upon his shoulders and we’ll sit down with him and hopefully figure it out. I think there’s no question we want him back and no question we value him.”
“There’s no issue about, ‘Do we want Aaron Judge back?'” Levine said. “There’s no issue [with] ‘How much we value him.’ It’s a negotiation. What we’ll talk about with him and his representatives in the offseason is, ‘How do we keep him?’ And then it will be up to him to see, does he want to stay here [or] does he want to go someplace else? Is somebody offering him a better deal?”
“Like with all free agents, being a Yankee is really important,” Levine said. “It brings a lot that, maybe, a lot of other locations don’t. Now we’re talking about the home run chase with Babe Ruth and Roger Maris — two Yankees.”
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