SI.com | Tom Verducci: Aaron Judge’s upcoming free agency is about as unique a case as one will find. As Verducci notes, no Yankee in his prime has ever meant more to the identity of his own team at the time he hit the market. That’s one of the reasons why Judge is betting on himself after turning down the Yankees’ seven-year extension. There’s intrinsic value to him in the community and fanbase beyond his already-significant production on a baseball field. Judge is rolling the dice a bit based on the history of his body type, but if his worst-case scenario is winding up with a slightly lesser nine-figure contract, can you really blame him for trying to set a new standard?
Around the Empire: Yankees news - 4/12/22
