Access the Yankees beat like never before

Don’t miss Greg Joyce’s text messages from The Bronx and beyond — he’s giving Sports+ subscribers the inside buzz on the Yankees.

The impossibly great Shohei Ohtani seemed to have a lock on the title of World’s Best Baseball Player. Certainly, no one was going to surpass Ohtani in his prime. That’s what we thought, anyway.

But, at least for today, Aaron Judge is wearing that crown as baseball’s best. (And don’t @ me!)

Ohtani, who one-upped Babe Ruth with his unreal, two-way game, seemed unlikely to relinquish the honor and certainly not less than a month of baseball beyond his 50-50 season for the ages. But for now anyway, Judge has surpassed him and everyone else.

Judge is atop the MLB leaderboard in basically every key stat. He is first in batting average (.408), on-base percentage (.508), slugging percentage (.714), OPS (1.222) and WAR (2.1).