Aaron Judge is hitting like Barry Bonds, so where are all the intentional walks?

Aaron Judge, a childhood Giants fan, knows all about Barry Bonds.

The Yankees slugger was raised in the small California town of Linden, about two hours from San Francisco. Like many area ball-lovers his age, Judge stayed up past his bedtime to witness Bonds chase history. He remembers it all: the towering blasts, the sheer dominance, the smothering fear Bonds brought to each plate appearance, the intentional walks.

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“He’d get intentionally walked, then walked again, walked again,” Judge told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2022. “Next night, couple more walks, then all of a sudden, in his third at-bat, they’d maybe throw a changeup on the corner, and he’d drive it out to the opposite field.”

Two decades later, Judge has become MLB’s modern analog to the Home Run King.

The Yankees' slugger is currently in the midst of a most Bonds-ian year. Over his past 162 games, Judge has a 1.264 OPS, the sport’s best season-long stretch of the post-Bonds era. Entering play Wednesday, the two-time MVP leads baseball in every significant offensive category: home runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, total bases and wins above replacement.

Judge is not just the best hitter going; he’s the best we’ve seen since Bonds. Yet despite all the similarities, one massive piece of Bonds’ game hasn’t carried over to Judge’s: intentional walks.

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In 2004, at the peak of his powers, Bonds was intentionally walked a record 120 times. The three seasons prior, all of which were MVP campaigns, Bonds averaged 55 intentional walks per year. Compare that to Judge, who over his 162-game run of brilliance has been intentionally walked just 24 times.

The disparity is even more glaring in high-leverage, late-game scenarios. Over his past 162 games, Judge has had 47 plate appearances as the tying or go-ahead run in the seventh inning or later. He has been intentionally walked just eight times, or 17% of those instances.

Bonds, during his 2004 reign of terror, came up in 64 such scenarios. He was purposefully handed a free pass 25 times, good for an outrageous 43.8% clip.

Why the stark difference? If Judge is the most feared, most overpowering hitter since Bonds, why are teams so willing to face him? Conversations with a number of players, coaches and insiders around the game revealed myriad reasons, the biggest of which has nothing at all to do with either player.

1. The decline of intentional walks over the past 50 years

Nobody in MLB history was intentionally walked more than Bonds, but his torrent of free passes obscured a larger trend. Since peaking in the late 1960s, intentional walks have gradually fallen out of favor as a strategy. While the move experienced a slight bump in usage in 2024 — in part because of Judge’s and Shohei Ohtani’s historic campaigns — the 2023 season had the lowest IBB/PA rate since 1930, at 0.257% of all plate appearances.

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Part of the recent downturn is connected to the designated hitter becoming universal in 2022, as teams can no longer pitch around 8-hole hitters in favor of facing pitchers. But there has been a shift in mentality as well.

“The cost of putting a guy on base is probably a little bit more valued in today's game than it was back then,” Rays manager Kevin Cash, who recently opted to face Judge in the eighth inning of a one-run game, told Yahoo Sports. “But believe me, Aaron Judge comes up, you feel that. Hell yeah, I think about it.”

Another factor here: Over the past decade, MLB has seen a huge uptick in the number of hard-throwing, strikeout-oriented relievers patrolling the late innings. Those hurlers — such as Rays righty Edwin Uceta, who was called upon to face Judge in that big moment — are more conditioned and more capable of retiring a superstar hitter in a key spot.

“You saw a lot more pitchers who were just like, ‘All right, this guy is not beating me. I'm not going to give Player A anything to hit. I'll go to the next guy,’” Cash added. “That mindset has changed. It really has.”

2. Yankee Stadium is a better place to hit

In 2004, when Bonds shattered the single-season record by drawing 120 intentional walks, he played half his games in the pitcher’s paradise that was then called AT&T Park. Judge, meanwhile, calls Yankee stadium and its famous short porch home.

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Here’s why that matters. Judge, a righty, almost always has a left-hander hitting behind him. The odds of a Ben Rice, an Austin Wells or a Cody Bellinger doinking one short-and-gone to right field are much higher than the odds were of, say, Edgardo Alfonso or J.T. Snow or Pedro Feliz slicing one through the thick Bay Area air.

Statistically, the players hitting behind current Judge and ‘04 Bonds grade out very similarly when adjusted for era. The ballpark, though, is a real difference-maker.

3. Bonds hit left-handed; Judge hits right-handed

When the pitcher and hitter are “same-sided,” the pitcher almost always has the edge. And because there are more righty pitchers than lefty pitchers, it’s more likely that a given pitcher has the platoon advantage over Judge.

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Whereas for Bonds, managers would, more often, have to make a move to bring in a left-handed reliever to face him. That might sound like a small thing, but over the course of 162 games, it adds up, particularly when a disproportionate number of IBBs happen late in games.

4. Bonds was on a completely different level

Judge is the closest thing we’ve seen to Bonds, but still, the giant Giant operated in a stratosphere all his own. In 2004, Bonds struckout a minuscule 6.6% of the time. Judge is currently having the best strikeout season of his career, and he’s punching out 21% of the time. Bonds was posting slugging percentages north of .800. Judge is at .786 over his past 162.

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Judge is a legend; Bonds was a god.

Asked to explain the difference, Cash, who played against Bonds, grinned and told the following story.

“I'm catching. We were going to walk him, but the only thing we were allowed to do was throw four fastballs on the black away. Catcher set up away. Pat Hentgen is pitching. We go, boom, boom, boom, 3-and-0. I'm a rookie. I looked at him, I said, ‘Barry, you got the green light here?’

“And he goes: ‘Kid, 19 years in this league, I got whatever f***ing light I want.’”