Aaron Judge reveals early regrets about turning down Yankees offer

Aaron Judge is on the verge of an enormous payday after betting on himself and winning big when he turned down the Yankees’ seven-year, $213.5 million extension on Opening Day.

But it’s easy to forget for the first few weeks of the season, there was no indication Judge was at the start of a historic year in which he’d go on to set a franchise and American League record by hitting 62 homers.

Through his first 13 games, Judge had just one homer and after winning the Hank Aaron Award as the AL’s most outstanding offensive player, the now free-agent outfielder said Wednesday he had some second thoughts about having rejected the offer.

“It was tough in the beginning, definitely in April when I think it took me two weeks to get my first home run,” Judge said on MLB Network. “There’s a little doubt that creeps into your mind about it and you’re sitting in the outfield kicking yourself, like, ‘Man, maybe I should have taken that deal.”

But it didn’t last long.

“After a couple of weeks, I kind of just talked with my teammates, talked with my family and cleared all that,” Judge said. “[They said], ‘Go out there and play, and just be yourself and everything’s going to work out the way it’s supposed to. It’s out of your hands, out of your control. Just have your faith to go out there and play your game.’”

At the time, Judge had a different view — at least publicly — when he said the contract situation had no impact on his slow start.

He insisted in April his early struggles were not related to the pressure of failing to come to an agreement on an extension prior to the season.

“There’s no more pressure,” Judge said when the Yankees were playing in Detroit in mid-April and he was still stuck on one homer. “The extension talk was a bonus for me, a cherry on top. I always said, ‘If it gets done, it gets done.’ It was a great spot to be in and I feel like I’m still in that spot.”

He added: “No matter what, if I signed [an extension] and started bad, it would be ‘He’s not worth the money… If I’d gotten off to a good start, it would be something else. I’ve got more important things to worry about. I can’t have that in the back of my mind.”

And then he added a bit of foreshadowing.

“They’ll come,” Judge said of the homers. “It’s just a matter of time, but they’ll come.”

Judge was more right than even he could have predicted.