About Spring Training: Slipping Away

About Spring Training: Slipping Away

By Tim Kabel

February 20, 2026

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The Yankees open their Spring Training schedule today against the Baltimore Orioles. The regular season opens on March 25th against the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco. It is easy to be optimistic and excited at this time of the year. All baseball fans should be. Yankees fans certainly should be. One reason for that is that the Yankees have arguably the best player in the American League and possibly the best player in baseball on their team. Aaron Judge is a New York Yankee and will most likely be one for the rest of his career.

Aaron Judge made his Major League debut in 2016. He has played ten years in the Major Leagues. He is a seven-time All Star and a three-time American League Most Valuable Player. Judge holds the American League record for most home runs in a season with 62. He was also Rookie of the Year in 2017 and a five-time Silver Slugger Award winner. Aaron Judge has hit 368 home runs in his career. He is currently in 87th place on the all-time home run list.

Aaron Judge has already had an amazing career. He will turn 34 years old in April. He has six years left on his contract, including this one. Everything looks great. However, the unfortunate reality is that Aaron Judge has already completed the majority of his career. Most of the great accomplishments of his career are in the past.

Let me be perfectly clear, I am not saying that Aaron Judge is on the downside of his career. I am not saying that he is unlikely to put up MVP caliber numbers again this season, next season or even for four more seasons. He very well might. The simple reality is that at age 34, with 10 years in the books, most of his career has been played. That is not being negative; that is not being cruel. It is being realistic. When I blew out the 61 candles on my birthday cake last year, I realized that I have celebrated more birthdays in the past than I will in the future. Unless I make it to 122 years old, that is just reality. Does that mean that I curled up in a fetal position and sobbed for three hours? Of course not. It's just the reality that we all must face.

Regarding Aaron Judge, he has played ten years and appeared in one World Series, which the Yankees lost to the Dodgers in a rather embarrassing fashion. Aaron Judge does not have a World Series ring. The Yankees have not won the World Series since 2009.

Obviously, Aaron Judge would like to win at least one World Series before his career is over. I'm very certain that the Yankees as a team and as an organization, would like to win at least one more World Series before Aaron Judge’s career ends. After all, he is their best player and their captain. He is also one of the best players in the history of the team.

My point is that the clock is ticking as far as the Yankees and Aaron Judge winning the World Series. The Yankees cannot afford to fritter away Aaron Judge’s career, particularly the prime years of that career. The recent pattern of taking half measures by signing players off the scrap heap and settling for players rather than going all out is not the direction to take if they truly want to win a World Series and take advantage of Aaron Judge’s magnificent career. Bringing Angel Civilli in as the answer is not the answer.

Many Yankees fans, me included, believe that this year's team will not be good enough to win the World Series. That will be another year of Aaron Judge's career, the 11th year of his career and ironically the 9th year with Aaron Boone as the manager, in which the Yankees do not win a World Series. Do the Yankees owe Aaron Judge a World Series victory? Of course not. There is no way that that could be guaranteed anyway unless Arnold Rothstein makes a return. Do they owe Judge and the fans and the other players the opportunity to win a World Series by putting the best team possible on the field? I believe they do.

When you are watching Aaron Judge this season and in the next few seasons my advice is, don't blink. His career will be over before you know it. It is hard to believe that ten years have already passed. I would love nothing more than to see the Yankees win a World Series with Aaron Judge front and center. However, after ten years of not getting it done and only six years left, the odds are not in favor of that happening, particularly when the Yankees brought back the same team that couldn't get it done last year.

We do not want Aaron Judge to be seated alongside Don Mattingly someday at a banquet identified as two Yankees captains who never won a World Series.