We must be getting to baseball season because Yankees fans are going out of their way to tell everyone Aaron Judge is better than Pete Alonso. Clearly, you can see Alonso winning the Home Run Derby and breaking Judge’s rookie home run record is bothering that fan base. As we have seen, they do not like sharing the spotlight.

We’ve seen them talk about how there was a juiced ball last year, which there was. Of note, there was also a juiced ball in Judge’s rookie year of 2017. Of course, 2017 was also the year the Yankees were fined for sign stealing, and they’re fighting tooth and nail to keep what they’ve done secret.

Aside from all that, Alonso broke Judge’s record, and that doesn’t sit well with some Yankees fans. It also apparently doesn’t sit well with them how Alonso is grabbing all of the attention as well he should.

In addition, to setting the rookie home run record, he’s shown himself to be a great person. Instead of starting off on the wrong foot with Dominic Smith, a player he was purportedly battling with for the first base job, he reached out to Smith, and the two became good friend. Really, anyone who has ever played with Alonso will tell you he’s a great teammate.

When Alonso won the Home Run Derby, he donated $50,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project and $50,000 to Tunnel to Towers. Later in the season, when MLB again refused to allow Mets players to wear the caps, Alonso, on his own accord, got first responder cleats for his teammates.

Because of all of this, and what the future holds, Mets fans rightfully adore Alonso. It’s the same thing with Yankees fans, they rightfully adore Judge.

Here’s the thing. Judge is a better baseball player. Alonso had a 5.2 WAR last year. In his three full seasons, Judge has not posted lower than a 5.5 WAR.

Notably, that 5.5 WAR was last year as injuries would limit Judge to just 102 games. That’s after a year he had a 5.7 WAR after injuries limited him to 112 games. Putting up WAR to that level in those few games is an astonishing feat. Make no mistake, Judge is a truly great player.

He’s also an increasingly injured one. In 2018, he was hit by a pitch and missed time with a broken wrist. In 2019, he missed time with an oblique strain. If the 2020 season had started on time, there’s a legitimate question whether he’d been playing right now as he’s been dealing with a stress fracture in his ribs. In fact, it’s still not clear whether he’ll be ready for this new Opening Day.

Instead of Yankees fans comparing Alonso to Judge, they should really be concerned about whether Judge can play again. The Yankees will certainly need him in this shortened season which will feature far too many AL/NL East matchups.

When and if Judge plays, and if he’s at full health, he will likely be better than Alonso. Still, Alonso should put up the better numbers as he’ll be fully healthy and ready to go from Opening Day. If both are healthy and ready Opening Day, it may be fun to watch them battle all season long.

No matter what the result one thing needs to be perfectly clear. Even if Judge is far better than Alonso, he will still fall well short of being the best baseball player in New York. That honor goes to Jacob deGrom, and in those comparisons just like in 31.6% of his plate appearances, Judge strikes out.