Comparing Aaron Judge & Juan Soto's starts to 2025: Who is struggling without the other?

Modified Apr 17, 2025 16:49 GMT

Yankee captain Aaron Judge (left) and Mets superstar Juan Soto (right) (Getty)

Once upon a time, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto arguably produced the most potent 1-2 punch in MLB history. The 2024 Yankees teammates had a season for the history books as both of them finished in the AL MVP voting podium spots with the Yankee captain coming out on top. However, as the 2025 season unraveled, it couldn't have been more of a "tale of two halves between the two."

Judge has come strong out of the gates as he had made the most out of the protection he's provided in the Yankee lineup. Soto, on the other hand, has struggled to adjust with the Mets despite the talent that Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso offers in the order.

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At the time of writing, Aaron Judge currently leads the MLB in base hits with 27 through 18 games. He also leads the league with a .409/.519/.803 slash line and a 1.322 OPS. The Yankee captain has tallied seven home runs, 21 RBIs, five doubles, and has drawn 13 walks not even 20 games into the new campaign.

As for Juan Soto, the newly-acquired Mets star is on a .231/.367/.431 clip with three home runs, seven RBIs, four doubles, and seven base-on-balls.

In contrast, when they were batting back-to-back in the lineup, Aaron Judge finished the season by leading all of the majors in fWAR with 10.8, home runs with 58, RBIs with 144, on-base percentage at .458, slugging at .701, and OPS at 1.159 amongst other statistics.

Soto, meanwhile, posted a .288/.419/.569 slash line with an OPS of .989 to go along with 41 home rus, 109 RBIs, and an AL-best 128 runs scored. Given the sample size, it's evident that the Dominican superstar has yet to hit his stride in Queens compared to his stint in the Bronx.

Juan Soto reveals feelings about hitting ahead of Aaron Judge

New York Mets superstar Juan Soto recently draw flak from pundits and Mets fans for his statement on the New York Post.

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“It’s definitely different. I had the best hitter in baseball hitting behind me. I was getting more attacked and more pitches in the strike zone, less intentional walks and things like that. I was pitched differently last year,” said Soto.

The former MVP candidate revealed that he was getting more hittable balls with Aaron Judge behind him rather than his current situation. While some pundits rained down on Soto's statement, MLB analyst Jim Bowden expressed his faith on the young star.

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It will be interesting to see how Soto responds to the criticism from both critics and fans as the season progress.

About the author

Daniel Santiago is a journalist who has been reporting on baseball at Sportskeeda since 2022. He was drawn towards the sport after the underlying statistics and the analysis surrounding it grabbed his attention.

Daniel particularly enjoys furnishing reports about historic events in baseball and analyzing the game through a statistic-based outlook, based on Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference. This is in line with how he enjoyed watching baseball as a pastime. As a writer, he is very particular about cross-checking from reputable sources and doing his due diligence.

He became a lifelong Hideki Matsui fan after his exploits in the 2009 World Series for the New York Yankees. Among the current generation, Daniel's favorites include Shohei Ohtani and Jung Hoo Lee. Daniel is a huge follower of Asian baseball and both Ohtani and Lee have been in the top echelon of their respective leagues during their time with the NPB and KBO.

His favorite moment as a baseball fan was the final at-bat of the 2023 World Baseball Classic between Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. He believes there aren't many words to fittingly describe the intensity of the moment.

As an avid sports fan, Daniel watches other sports and Esports when not writing about baseball.

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Edited by Daniel Santiago