Throughout his emergence as the most prodigious power hitter since Barry Bonds, throughout multiple historic home run seasons, Aaron Judge set up in the batter's box more or less the same way -- with the same "open" style of batting stance.
He had the open stance in 2017, when he hit 52 home runs and set the MLB rookie home run record. He had the open stance in 2022, when he hit 62 home runs, passed Roger Maris and set the American League home run record.
He had that open batting stance, homer after homer, until May 5, 2024. And then, he changed it.
That day at Yankee Stadium, facing the eventual AL Cy Young Award winner in Tarik Skubal and having spent the first month of the season mired in one of the worst slumps of his career, Judge started to square up his stance.
It was a very subtle change at first, barely discernible to the naked eye. But Judge shifted the placement of his front foot ever so slightly toward the pitcher. He hammered a home run and a double off Skubal that day. He broke out of his slump. So he kept going. Over the coming months, Judge's stance continued to close. And by the end of the season -- 58 home runs later -- Judge was almost completely square to the pitcher.
"It's honestly just a feel thing," Judge told MLB.com. "It just felt good. I felt like I could balance, like I could be in control. And I stuck with it."
Now, a month into a new season, Judge has kept that square batting stance. Today is Judge's 33rd birthday ... It's also been almost a full year since he changed his stance and triggered his latest historic run.
We can show Judge's evolution with Statcast's new batting stance data. In April 2024, Judge was 20 degrees open, his front foot near the outer edge of the batter's box and his legs angled toward the pull side. In May, that shifted to 9 degrees open. By September, Judge was down to 2 degrees open -- an almost perfectly square batting stance, with his feet connecting on a line pointing straight toward the pitcher.
This April, Judge's stance is 5 degrees open, a far more straight-up stance than it was at this same point a year ago. And his start to 2025 is the polar opposite of his start to 2024. Judge is batting .408. He has a 1.222 OPS. Oh, and his last calendar year has arguably been the greatest slugging stretch in baseball history. Judge has been a force equal to Babe Ruth at his peak.
And so the trend in his batting stance has stuck, not just from month to month throughout 2024, but from season to season.
"If it feels good open one day, it'll be a little more open. If it's closed, it's closed," Judge said. "But for me, I feel like it helped keep me on the baseball a little longer, especially the away pitch. And I still feel like I can be in a strong position to handle the inside pitch -- two-seamers, changeups, anything like that."
Judge's batting stance angle by month
Since 2023 All-Star break
- July 2023: 26 degrees open
- Aug. 2023: 20 degrees open
- Sept. 2023: 19 degrees open
- April 2024: 20 degrees open
- May 2024: 9 degrees open (change starts)
- June 2024: 2 degrees open
- July 2024: 2 degrees open
- Aug. 2024: 5 degrees open
- Sept. 2024: 2 degrees open
- 2024 Postseason: 6 degrees open
- April 2025: 5 degrees open
Of course, it is Judge's swing, not his stance, that actually produces his home runs. His stance is merely the starting point, how he sets himself up to unleash his "A" swing. Judge's swing itself -- the elite bat speed and the steep swing path that combine to obliterate the baseball -- has stayed functionally the same.
Judge's bat speed has sat between 76 and 78 mph in every month since the start of Statcast bat tracking at the 2023 All-Star break. The tilt of his swing path has remained right around 40 degrees (compared to a perfectly flat swing, which would be zero degrees). Judge has, consistently, one of the fastest and steepest swings in MLB, designed for max power. No matter where he puts his feet.
"Well, for me, my swing is my swing," Judge said. "You know, I think really the setup can be whatever. You look around the game, there's so many different guys with different setups. But we all get to the same positions throughout our swing -- before we launch our swing, when our foot lands, we're usually all in similar spaces. I could pick any way in the setup, just as long as I get to the right position before I swing, and then I'm gonna be in a good spot."
Still, when one of the game's biggest superstars changes, well, anything, you take notice.
The batting stance, the starting point, is about the hitter's comfort in the box. Getting off a successful "A" swing and getting the barrel of the bat to the baseball against a Major League pitcher is not easy.
When Judge made the change to his stance last May, he felt he was pulling off pitches and landing too far toward the third-base side of the batter's box. The adjustment in his batting stance was meant to cue him to step straighter and stay in against the pitches he was seeing.
"I always want to get back to square when I land," Judge told The Athletic's Brendan Kuty last year after he made the change. "But sometimes if I'm starting way out there, sometimes I feel like I never got back to being square, so that pitch away felt even farther. So if I start more square, you have a better chance to stay on some balls."
The square stance reduces the movement Judge needs to make with his stride. Judge's leg kick requires accurate timing, because his front foot traces a semicircular path through the air during his swing, hovering over the inside edge of the batter's box at pitch release before coming back to his landing point.
The more open he is in his starting stance, the farther in and out Judge's foot has to travel, and in a more horizontal direction, before landing. When Judge is more square, his stride is shorter and directed more through the middle of the field.
"It definitely simplifies things," Judge said. "Especially being a bigger guy, I've gotta have the simplest mechanics in the game. But I think at the time [I started experimenting with it], I was trying to really think about striding toward the second baseman. So I think being a little closer to that helped me out."
While it continues to help him get in the right place at the right time to fire off his best swing, while he continues to hit with Ted Williams' batting average and Babe Ruth's slugging percentage, Judge continues to deploy the square setup.
That's not to say Judge's even batting stance will last forever. The results he's gotten using his signature open stance over the years speak for themselves. Last May wasn't even the absolute first time in Judge's career that he tested out a more even batting stance, it's just the first time the tweak has stuck for a prolonged period. When he's toyed with stance changes before, he's always gone back.
If you watch star hitters around the Major Leagues, you'll see that batting stance changes fluctuate. Sometimes they stick. Sometimes they don't. Judge's own Bronx Bomber teammates are proof.
Cody Bellinger, for example, tinkers with his stance constantly. Giancarlo Stanton, on the other hand, changed from an open to a closed stance in 2017, hit 59 home runs, won an MVP Award and never looked back. Now he's the most closed-off hitter in the Major Leagues, with a batting stance that was 12 degrees closed as of his last game action in 2024.
For Judge, it's about whatever makes him feel the most natural in his swing at any given time. After all, he's had 50-homer seasons with both versions of his batting stance. No matter which one he uses, he's one of the great home run hitters of all time.
"Really, it's just about making sure I can get into a good position to make my move," Judge said. "That's what it comes down to. Today I'm a little more closed or a little more even. It's all feel. That's what this game is."