Aaron Judge returns to Yankees in $360 million deal

SAN DIEGO — Aaron Judge’s record-breaking year ends with another big swing. Like no other, it sends smiling Yankees to tomorrow.

Nine months after turning down a $213.5 million contract extension from the Yankees, Judge, who proceeded to set an American League single-season record with 62 home runs, was awarded the largest free agent contract in baseball history. Two people familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the deal, which is pending physical examination, will be for nine years and $360 million.

The deal will go down as one of Best bets in the history of sports. On Opening Day, the Yankees announced to the media that Judge had rejected the team’s offer of a seven-year extension. Judge, who has been one of the best outfielders in Major League Baseball since his rookie season in 2017, chose to forgo immediate financial security in hopes of earning more as a free agent. He then broke Roger Maris’ AL record with 62 home runs, won the league’s Most Valuable Player award, and now has the money-making deal two years longer and carries an additional $146.5 million in guaranteed money.

The agreement came after some tense days for the Yankees here at baseball’s Winter Meetings. The San Francisco Giants, whom Judge had rooted for growing up, made an enthusiastic bid to sign him. With negotiations coming to a head, the Yankees were unsure if Judge, a native of California, might choose to play on the West Coast, leaving them with a huge hole in their home court and a public relations disaster.

Instead, the 30-year-old Judge, who captivated the baseball world with his pursuit of Maris, will now have a great opportunity to secure a lasting legacy as one of the Yankees’ greatest—perhaps even as a successor to Derek Jeter as team captain.

“We like to continue to call him our player every step of the way because he follows what appears to be, as long as nothing happens, a career path to Cooperstown,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Monday. “We like to be planned every step of the way.”

To keep him, the Yankees not only had to fend off the Giants and others, but they also had to use some of their massive resources. The deal will surpass the free agent contracts of Philadelphia’s Bryce Harper (13 years, $330 million), Texas’ Corey Seager (10 years, $325 million), Gerrit Cole (nine years, $324 million) and San Diego’s Manny Machado. (10 years, 300 million dollars).

In terms of gross dollars, Judge’s deal would trail only those of the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout (12 years, $426.5 million) and Mookie Betts from the Los Angeles Dodgers (12 years, $365 million). Both of these deals came via contract extensions, not through free agency.

Speaking Tuesday before the judge made a decision, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he’s kept in touch with the outfielder this winter but didn’t have a good feeling about how his decision would go. When rumor swept through the winter meetings Tuesday that Judge was about to sign with San Francisco, Boone, who was in his hotel room, said he immediately called Cashman to ask what he knew.

“Nothing,” Cashman said, according to Boone.

From a long and wide-ranging conversation with the judge at the end of the season, Bunn said he knew the impending free agent had been affected by the club’s decision in April to reveal details of negotiations between the player and the squad.

“He and I talked a little bit about it right at the end of the season, we kind of went through it a little bit,” said Boone. “So I knew he was a little frustrated about it.”

Why that came up during their discussion at the end of the season, Boone said, he didn’t know.

“We talked at length that last night. Of the general nature of the negotiations, it’s just one of the things we talked about, but I don’t think anything was supposed to be tactical or anything else,” Boone said. “It was meant to be, because we knew It would be constantly speculated upon, and we didn’t want that to be the case. We kind of wanted to run into the situation.”

Instead, as the season progressed and home runs began to pile up, leverage shifted to Judge. However, team owner Hal Steinbrenner said in November that he believed Judge wanted him to remain a Yankee, and Boone agreed.

“I always felt that way with Aaron,” Boone said. “And I always feel he definitely belongs on the pinstripes, and hopefully a man of his stature and greatness will spend his entire career in Monument Park and the Hall of Fame as a Yankee.”

A Yankees first-round pick in the 2013 draft, Judge hit 52 home runs in 2017 and won the AL’s Rookie of the Year Award. It was a huge season for the huge (6 ft 7 in, 282 lbs) pool player. After five seasons, he’s produced an even bigger and better season in every way.

In addition to his 62 home runs, Judge was in the running for the Triple Crown until the last week of the season. 311, led the majors in runs scored (133) and tied Pete Alonso of the Mets for the major league lead with 131 runs batted in. He also led the majors in on-base percentage (. 425), slugging percentage (686), and total bases (391). He was smart on the bases (16 steals) and flexible on the field (74 starts in center field and 54 in right field).

It was a magical season in many ways, the only blemish being that judge and the Yankees They couldn’t write the ending they wanted. The organization that prides itself on World Series titles was swept by eventual World Series champion Houston, in the AL Championship Series, and Judge batted just . 063 (1-for-16) with no homers and no RBI in those four games.

With the Yankees scattering for the winter, they had no idea if Judge, their prized player, would be back with them in 2023.

Cashman admitted this week that the club “wasn’t flying the plane,” but that “we’d like to land the plane on a positive note here in New York.”

On Wednesday, they did. And now, as Steinbrenner suggested last month, there is a belief that Judge will follow in the tradition of Jeter, Don Mattingly, Turman Monson, and others and be the next Yankees captain.

Benjamin Hoffman And the Tyler Kepner Contribute to the preparation of reports.