[Déjà Bru]

The caption for this photo was "No Yankees-Astros series is complete before a photographer gets a shot of Judge standing next to Houston’s Jose Altuve."



But the occasion for the photo was a New York Times article that I have gifted free (available 14 days; does not count toward other free NYT articles):

At 6 feet 7 inches — and 282 pounds — Judge is the tallest person in baseball history to have a 50-homer season, and he has done it twice. In fairness, fewer than 150 players of that height have reached the major leagues, the vast majority of whom were pitchers.

As front offices weigh how much it will take to sign Judge, they must ask themselves how much he is worth and for how long. He turns 31 next season, around the age when players traditionally begin to decline. (Superstars, though, are often the exception to this.) With Judge, there is the added complication of his size.

A prevalent belief around the game is that large players break down faster than their smaller peers. But it is worth asking: Is that true?

The reasons for baseball having so few players of Judge’s size are debatable.

“Maybe there haven’t been so many guys this size is not only because of the injury stuff but also because of performance,” said Glenn Fleisig, the research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala. “Hitting a baseball and throwing a pitch, this takes perfect or excellent coordination to do these things. And the bigger your body parts are, the more potential you have, but the more challenging it is.”

Judge thinks it might be something else. The reason there aren’t “100 more of me” in M.L.B. “is because they’re either playing basketball or football,” Judge said.

According to Baseball Reference, only seven position players have been listed at 6-foot-6 or taller and 250 pounds or heavier. They are Adam Dunn, the former slugger known as the “Big Donkey,” who amassed 462 career home runs; Frank Howard, the former Washington Senators star, who smashed 382; Judge; and the former outfielders Kyle Blanks, Brad Eldred, Steven Moya and Val Pascucci. Of the seven supersize position players, only three have appeared in more than 300 career games: Dunn (2,001), Howard (1,895) and Judge (699).