Aaron Judge and Mike Trout as Yankees Teammates is One of Greatest What-Ifs in MLB History

We'll always know Aaron Judge and Mike Trout can put on a heck of a show as enemies.

Indeed, those who attended Monday's game between Judge and the New York Yankees and Trout and the Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium have a heck of a "I was there!" tale to tell. They got to see an 11-10 thriller in which both homered twice.

It's not often that two three-time MVPs hit multiple home runs in the same game. In fact, Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com noted that it had only happened once before Monday: Stan Musial and Roy Campanella on June 21, 1956.

Since everyone loves a good sports-related "What if," consider an alternative history in which Judge and Trout are not enemies, but rather teammates on the Yankees.

Oh, yeah. It could have happened. Sort of.

The Alternate History of the 2009 Draft

There's what actually happened in the 2009 draft: The Angels picked Trout at No. 25 and the Yankees nabbed fellow outfielder Slade Heathcott at No. 29.

For an idea of how Heathcott's career ended up, his only MLB experience was 17 games with the Yankees in 2015. He went back to the minors a year later and was out of pro ball by 2018.

Trout, though, was the guy the Yankees really wanted with the No. 29 pick.

"That one was gut wrenching," scouting director Oppenheimer said in 2023. "We really thought there were a lot of teams that weren't on Mike Trout. It was South Jersey. He was hard to see. So we thought, Hey, we've really got a shot.' And we really loved him."

And about the fact the Yankees did indeed miss out on Trout: "That changes history, doesn't it?"

There's major irony to the Yankees missing out because the Angels took Trout four picks before their turn. The Angels had the No. 25 pick as compensation for losing Mark Teixeira as a free agent. And the team they lost him to? The Yankees, naturally.

In reality, though, it may have been the crosstown Mets that truly screwed the Yankees out of Trout.

It was their signing of Francisco Rodríguez that netted the Angels the No. 24 pick. They used that one on Randal Grichuk, but Trout was their favorite player in that year's draft. As former Angels scouting director Eddie Bane told Chuck Wasserstrom of MLB Trade Rumors in 2020, the Yankees had "no chance" at Trout.

Regardless, Trout not becoming a Yankee in 2009 is a true sliding-doors moment. They ended up having to wait another four years to land a new face of the franchise, choosing Judge with the No. 32 pick in 2013.

The Alternate History of the Late-2010s Yankees

Beyond the convoluted draft diagram, the other house-of-cards element to this scenario is that Judge and Trout would not have been guaranteed to cross paths on the Yankees for very long.

Trout debuted in the majors in 2011, whereas Judge didn't make his debut until 2016. Even if they had been part of the same organization, Trout hypothetically could have left as a free agent in the 2017-18 offseason.

For the sake of maximum fun, though, let's just assume that the Yankees would have made like the Angels did in 2014 and locked up Trout through at least 2020. That would have allowed for the thick of Trout's prime to coincide with the beginning of Judge's prime, resulting in a doozy of an explosion.

For the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons, we're talking combined numbers like these:

• Home Runs: 223
• Extra-Base Hits: 376
• Total Bases: 1,614
• Runs: 583
• Runs Batted In: 491
• Wins Above Replacement: 44.3

That last number alone contains multitudes. The Judge-Trout duo would have averaged 14.8 rWAR per year between 2017 and 2019, which is close to what Judge and Juan Soto achieved in their one year together as Yankees—you know, the one that had us pondering if they were the best hitting duo ever.

As it was, the "Baby Bombers" of the late 2010s went to Game 7 of the ALCS in 2017 and then crossed 100 wins in 2018 and 2019, playing to Game 6 of the ALCS in the latter.

With Trout, do they win at least one World Series in those three years? Two? Heck, three in a row for the fourth time in their history?

How Would Judge and Trout Have Rated as an All-Time Duo?

Let's take this hypothetical a step further and assume that Judge and Trout are not only both drafted by the Yankees, but end up signing the exact same contracts they did in real life. Both would be Yankees for life in this case.

It's worth it just to sharpen the focus on what they would have done as teammates between 2016 and 2026. The key totals here include 643 home runs and 114.5 rWAR. Basically, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, right?

Actually…not even close. Those two combined for 195 rWAR as a duo in the Yankees' lineup in 12 seasons. And believe it or not, they're one of 35 all-time teammate duos with more total rWAR than a hypothetical Judge-Trout pairing.

And yet, broadening the focus to all of MLB history doesn't really do this hypothetical justice.

Players couldn't freely move about until the arrival of free agency in 1976. And even though Trout (34) is only a year older than Judge (33), only focusing on 2016-2026 discounts a major chunk of Trout's prime. For their careers, Trout has 88.5 rWAR to Judge's 63.2 rWAR.

So, here's a better question: How many teams in MLB's free-agency era have had two 60-WAR hitters overlap?

Only four, as it turns out:

• Detroit Tigers: Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker, 1977-1995
• Seattle Mariners: Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez, 1989-1999
• Houston Astros: Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, 1991-2005
• Atlanta Braves: Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones, 1996-2007

Out of this bunch, only Whitaker isn't a Hall of Famer. Judge and Trout will end up there someday. In the meantime, they have more MVPs between the two of them than the eight players above have combined.

So even if Ruth and Gehrig remain in a tier of their own, Judge and Trout would have had a case as the best duo of hitters in MLB's modern history.

That's something, at least, even if it is only a reality for another timeline.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.