Aaron Judge happy for second chance with these Yankees after anxiety-filled offseason

TAMPA — Aaron Judge was just like many frustrated Yankees fans early in the offseason.

The only difference is he likes where they ended up.

Judge acknowledged Monday that the early part of the winter was “brutal” waiting for the Yankees to make moves while the rest of the league got better around them. They got Trent Grisham back on the qualifying offer in mid-November but then did not make another significant move until January, highlighted by finally re-signing Cody Bellinger to a long-awaited deal to essentially bring back the league’s best offense in full for 2026.

“Early on, it was pretty tough to watch,” Judge said after the first full-squad workout at George M. Steinbrenner Field. “I’m like, ‘Man, we’re the New York Yankees, let’s go out there and get the right people, get the right pieces to go out there and finish this thing off.’ We got a special group of players here, we got a good core, good young core. So it was frustrating, but I think we’re right where we need to be.”

Asked if he expressed those feelings to the front office, Judge chuckled.

“Yeah, oh yeah,” he said with a grin. “But they took care of business.”

The captain and back-to-back AL MVP, who has Hal Steinbrenner’s ear as the face of the franchise, is now hoping that taking another shot with almost the same group — 24 of the 26 players on the ALDS roster are back with the organization — will end differently than it did last October, when they were clobbered by the Blue Jays.

Running it back has come with a negative connotation for much of the fan base, but not Judge.

“I love it,” he said. “People might have their opinions on it because we didn’t win it all last year, we fell short in the division series. But we get a chance to bring a lot of those guys back, they’re impact players. You bring back a guy like Cody Bellinger, who can play all over the diamond, he can hit in the middle of the order for you, he can come up with a big base hit when he needs to. You bring back Paul Goldschmidt, who’s been an MVP and … what he brings inside that clubhouse, not only on the field, but in the clubhouse. He elevates especially the younger group we have, especially in the infield, we got a young core, and you have a young guy like that, that can help them out, he’s been there and done it. I’m excited.

“You get another year of the young guys to develop, bring back some big pieces, especially Trent Grisham, our center fielder who had a great breakout year. I’m looking forward to it. Then you get to add [Gerrit] Cole down the road a little bit with some other guys. I like our chances.”

Judge is coming off another dominant season in which he won a batting title (.331), crushed 53 home runs, posted a 1.144 OPS and claimed a second straight AL MVP. And after surviving a late-season scare with an elbow flexor strain — that he and the Yankees say is fully healed — Judge got one big monkey off his back by carrying over his regular-season success into the playoffs.

But the giant monkey still looms in that he is entering his 10th full season with the Yankees and he has still yet to win a World Series, for an organization defined by championships. Judge will turn 34 in April, and while there have been no signs of him slowing down, time eventually comes for even the greatest players, and the Yankees are at risk of wasting his prime with each October that ends without a parade.

“I think I’ll never be satisfied until we go out there and finish it, no matter the awards, MVPs, All-Stars, any of that stuff doesn’t matter,” Judge said. “What matters is putting New York back on top and putting this organization back where it belongs, being the best organization in the game.

“I don’t get paid to just play this game, I get paid to win here. So we got to go out and win.”