Forget the elite batting average and eye-popping home runs -- for Aaron Judge, it's all about staying healthy

LOS ANGELES -- Every two weeks or so, from 2017 through the 2024 season, Richard Schenck visited Aaron Judge to help refine his superstar pupil's swing. But they haven't met at all this season. There hasn't been a need.

"The darn swing is pretty much automatic," said Schenck, a hitting instructor based in Missouri. "There's no thinking anymore. There's just see ball, hit ball. And when he swings the bat, the good swing comes out. No tuneup needed."

Thorough upkeeping isn't required as Judge builds on the best 13-month regular-season stretch from a right-handed hitter in Major League Baseball history. There are a few reasons for the New York Yankees slugger's otherworldly success -- from swing optimization to accumulated experience -- but there's one factor that matters most: Judge, a towering behemoth hampered by injuries early in his career, is staying on the field as he enters his mid-30s.

"I think that's the biggest thing, is getting a chance to just play every single day and I can make those adjustments," said Judge, who celebrated his 33rd birthday last month and became a father in January. "If I have a couple bad games, I can make an adjustment, figure it out and get to work.

"When you get hurt, your main focus is getting back on the field and when you get back on the field now it's, 'My swing ain't right' because I've missed out on 120, 150 at-bats. So, I think that's been the biggest thing for me."

Judge crushed 52 home runs in 155 games as a rookie in 2017, but injuries followed. From 2018, Judge's second full season, through the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, the slugger appeared in just 63% of the Yankees' regular-season games. He landed on the injured list four times with wrist, oblique and calf injuries (plus another stint after a positive COVID-19 test).

From the start of the 2021 season through the Yankees' 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday, he has appeared in 89% of their games. The percentage would be higher were it not for a freak injury nearly two years ago.

This weekend, the Yankees return to Dodger Stadium for a World Series rematch against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was here, in June 2023, that Judge suffered a torn ligament in his right big toe crashing into a bullpen gate in right field to make a catch. Judge missed 42 games. The Yankees, consequently, crashed without him. They didn't reach the postseason and nearly finished below .500 for the first time in more than 30 years. He hasn't been on the injured list since.

For all the jaw-dropping numbers, Yankees manager Aaron Boone believes Judge's ability to remain in the lineup is where the two-time American League MVP has shown the most growth.

"I think it really pissed him off," Boone said of Judge consistently missing time. "The thing he's done so well the last few years is there's been days where he's played every day, where in the past I would've given him a day. He knows how to do that now."

Keeping healthy means Judge isn't stopping and starting, again and again. He's not constantly looking to find his swing, his rhythm, his confidence. He is making revisions on the fly, incorporating what he has learned and barreling forward, punishing pitchers in the process.

"It's all about staying on the field," Judge said. "You stay on the field and you're going to produce. And I was kind of sick and tired of having little nagging things that kind of pop up throughout the season. So if I was going to do something that my team could rely on for quite a few years, you can't be playing only 100 games a year. So I made a couple of changes and here we are."

Among those changes, Judge said he began avoiding sweets and hired a year-round chef. To maintain his explosiveness, he incorporates jumping into his workouts and makes sure to reach his top speed during his pregame routine. Listed at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, an unprecedented size for an every-day outfielder, Judge said he has reached out to football players for advice on staying healthy as he grows older.

"Nobody to put on record," Judge said with a grin when asked if he could share any names. "But you see around the sport, there's a lot of guys that play into their 40s and continue to play at a high level and that's kind of something I wanted.

"I invest in, if it's trainers, food, paying for a chef. It may seem like that's an expense you don't need to pay for, but I think it all works out. You get to the back end, if it's going to help me play another 30 games or if it's another three years, I'll take anything."

Judge enters Friday's series opener in Los Angeles as the early favorite to win his third AL MVP Award in four seasons. He claimed his first in 2022 when he clubbed an AL-record 62 home runs. He earned it again last season when he moved to center field to accommodate Juan Soto despite a relatively sluggish start. This year, back in right field without Soto around, he's better than ever, batting .395 with 18 home runs and a 1.234 OPS -- and playing in all 54 games for the first-place Yankees.

First baseman Paul Goldschmidt, one of Judge's new teammates this season, won the 2022 National League MVP Award with the St. Louis Cardinals in his age-34 season. He's one of 16 players to win an MVP at that age or older. He understands the work necessary to maintain elite performance. How the body changes and the grind becomes increasingly difficult as the years pass.

"What he's doing is amazing," Goldschmidt said. "It's definitely harder as you get older and you're in your mid- or late 30s. I think it can obviously still be done and guys have produced at a high level. And I think he can and will do that. It's like almost Barry Bondish where it's like he's getting one pitch to hit a game and he's hitting it. Everyone knows he's one of the best, if not the best hitter on the planet."

Since April 27 of last year, Judge leads the majors with a mind-blowing 244 wRC+ -- (Shohei Ohtani's 178 is second) and 15.8 fWAR (Bobby Witt Jr. is second with 11.7) during the regular season. He's hitting .365 with 72 home runs, 178 RBIs and a 1.253 OPS in 186 games while missing just four. It's an output not seen since peak Bonds in the early 2000s. And they're numbers the Yankees did not envision before Judge's historic 2022 season.

Back then, with Judge coming off his first healthy campaign in four years and entering his platform season, the club offered him a seven-year, $213.5 million contract extension. Judge rejected the offer. The next winter -- an 11.1 fWAR season and 62 home runs later -- he declined more money on the West Coast to sign a nine-year, $360 million deal to return to the Bronx as the Yankees' captain.

It was, at the time, the highest average annual salary ever given to a position player. Judge was about to commence his age-31 season. His injury history indicated the Yankees were taking a risk. But it has proved to be among the shrewdest bargains in the sport because, above all, Judge is staying on the field.

"Going back to a couple of years before I signed my deal, I never wanted to be a guy that was on the IL for the whole deal," Judge said. "I wanted to be a guy that the team could depend on. I wanted to be a cornerstone person that when people come to the ballpark and when they turn on the game to watch the Yankees, I'm there every single night. So, I just want to take pride in that and take pride in my work."