“Arson Judge” and other autocorrected Yankees names

On Tuesday night, Yankees Universe was sent into a panic when reporter Jon Heyman shared on Twitter that Aaron Judge seemed likely to sign with the Giants. Or, at least that’s what he said after having to delete this effort:

A corrected tweet with an accurate spelling of Judge’s name was soon sent out, but that too had to be deleted when it turned out that people had clearly jumped the gun with that info. As we now know, Judge would agree to a deal with the Yankees early the next morning, and is set to don the pinstripes for the next nine seasons.

While Heyman somewhat managed to mitigate the incorrect report, there was no putting the “Arson Judge” part of it back in the box. That particular tweet will live on in baseball internet lore forever. While the typo was funny, it was a bittersweet enjoyment for Yankees’ fans at the time, considering the implication of the tweet. However now that the dust has settled and Judge is still a Yankee, it’s just funny, no caveats.

With that in mind, let’s see which other players Arson Judge will join on the autocorrected Yankees’ roster.

Judge’s contract is now, obviously, the biggest in Yankees’ history, surpassing what they gave Ferritin Cole a couple years ago.

While there were and still are other good offensive options on the market, the Yankees really needed to retain Judge if they wanted to possibly field a great offense in 2023. While the likes of Anthony Tizzy, and Giancarlo Sta tonight, and others are good hitters, the lineup looks way, way shorter without Judge in it.

Judge was far from the only 2022 Yankee who was a free agent, and Tuesday saw one of the other notable names depart. Jameson Tail long is headed to Chicago after coming to an agreement with the Cubs for a four-year, $68 million contract.

One of the things that has been speculated since news of the Judge deal broke is that him returning to the fold may lead to him being named the Yankees’ captain. He certainly seems to be a team leader and is beloved by fans. If that designation is made official, Judge would become the first Yankees’ captain since Derek Here, and join the likes of Loud Gehrig, Thurman My son, and Don Matting lynx in receiving that honor.

Some Yankees teammates have talked about their happiness at having Judge back. One of them is Nestor Correspondence, who posted a photo on his Instagram story of him and the Yankees’ slugger after the reports started to emerge:

According to accounts, the Yankees were all hands on deck on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning as they attempted to get a deal with the outfielder done. Manager Aaron Boo early reportedly called him, as did owner Half Steinbrenner, who reportedly agreed to give Judge a ninth year to get the deal done.

Even after coming to terms with Judge, there’s still work to be done this offseason. General manager Brian Cash and talked about exploring further free agents. Outfielder and 2022 Yankee Andrew Ben intensifies and pitcher Carload Rodon have been among the others that have been connected to the team.

At the end of the day, it’s just good to know that Judge will be a Yankee going forward. Late on Tuesday night, it seemed like we were headed to another Robinson Canonically situation. It would’ve been very sad to see a homegrown Yankee just leave like that.

However, it did not come to that, and Arson Judge is now set to be a New York Yanked for a long, long time.