Aaron Judge on mindset entering 2024 playoffs

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

NEW YORK — When the Yankees honored the most recent roster to win a World Series title this past August, Derek Jeter clutched a microphone in the heart of the infield grass and proclaimed to a nostalgia-bathed audience, “It doesn’t matter what you do during a 162-game schedule. It all boils down to the World Series. Win a championship, or it’s a failure.”

Aaron Judge was listening. The current Yankees captain subscribes to a similar belief, though that doesn’t stem from Jeter’s speech lauding the 2009 club, nor the inspirational phrases from military generals and others that George M. Steinbrenner once ordered tacked to the walls of the club’s training complex in Tampa, Fla.

“I think it’s just always how I’ve been,” Judge said on Friday. “I think how my dad [Wayne] taught me playing anything is, you’re going out here — even if it’s a pickup basketball game in the front yard — you’re here to win. That’s all that matters. If you don’t win, then what are we doing out here? I think it kind of started with that.”

That remains the mission for Judge and the Yankees, who are scheduled to open the American League Division Series on Saturday against the Royals. Right-hander Gerrit Cole will start in Game 1 for New York, set to oppose right-hander Michael Wacha at 6:38 p.m. ET (TBS).

“We want to win a championship,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I know that’s where his focus is, and I feel like he’s in a really good spot right now. It’s not about individual stuff at all. This is about us going out and doing things to try and win baseball games and compete for a championship.”

When Judge’s rookie season concluded one victory shy of the World Series in 2017, he believed there would be annual bites at the apple. To Judge’s surprise, they have not gotten closer than that night in Houston.

“It eats at me every time we don’t finish the job,” Judge said. “I take a lot of responsibility for that, being on the team. If we don’t win it all, I feel like it’s my fault.”

Missing the postseason altogether in 2023 (his first year as captain) especially chafed Judge, who reported to Spring Training weeks early, promising to everyone and anyone within the clubhouse walls that it would not happen again.

“Since Day 1, that’s all he wanted,” Juan Soto said. “He’s been talking about it since Spring Training. We were all talking about it because I want a championship, too. I feel like we have a lot of guys in here that want the feeling of winning a championship. Not only Judge, but everybody; that’s the only thing we’re talking about.”

The Yankees fulfilled the first objectives of Judge’s plan. For the second time in three years, they reigned as American League East champions, winning an AL-best 94 games to secure home-field advantage through a potential AL Championship Series.

Those are important stepping stones, but even as Judge squinted through a pair of celebrations in recent weeks, he reminded teammates that the most important games were still yet to come. It’s about 11 miles from Yankee Stadium to the Canyon of Heroes; they need 11 wins to get there.

“It’s an exciting time of year, where anything can happen,” Judge said. “You never know who’s going to step up, have that big moment, have that big play. I think everybody on this roster is primed to have a big moment like that. Over the course of what we’ve done this whole season, there’s been some good times and bad times, but I think that ultimately prepares you for the real season now — the postseason.”