Are Aaron Judge and Juan Soto the best right-left hitting combo in baseball history? They are on pace for it

During spring training, a New York Yankees official posed a fascinating question:

In the history of the game, has there ever been a better combination of a right- and left-handed hitter than Aaron Judge and Juan Soto?

The official wasn’t trying to brag about the Yankees’ offseason acquisition of Soto. He did not wish to be quoted. He simply wanted to start a baseball conversation.

My immediate reaction was that Judge and Soto might not be the best right-left combination in the game today, much less all-time. What about the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani? Or Betts and Freddie Freeman? Heck, the Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson were pretty darned good last season, too.

With the Dodgers visiting Yankee Stadium this weekend, and Judge and Soto on particular tears, I decided to take a deeper dive. Obviously, Soto’s departure from Thursday night’s game due to left forearm discomfort – and the fact he will undergo imaging on Friday – could alter the entire discussion.

My goal was to look at not just current left-right combinations, but some of the great combinations in baseball history. Using Baseball Reference’s Stathead tool, I restricted my search to the live-ball era, which began in 1920, and set the required number for plate appearances to whatever the minimum was in a particular season to qualify for the NL-AL league leaders.

I ran a separate search for the Negro Leagues and dropped the required number of PAs to 300, because those leagues played fewer games. And I eliminated the 60-game 2020 season, viewing it as too much of an aberration to include.

The offensive measure I chose was OPS+, which takes a player’s on-base plus slugging percentage and normalizes the number across the entire league. Entering Thursday’s play, Judge and Soto ranked 1-2 in the majors in that category, Judge at 104 percent above league average, Soto at 88 percent above. So, while it’s only June 7, my first goal was to determine whether a right- and left-handed hitter in the same lineup (or vice versa) had ever finished 1-2 in OPS-plus.

Now, before everyone loses their minds in the comments section, I was looking for a specific left-right combination, not the absolute best one-two punch. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, both left-handed hitters, easily were the most potent duo ever, ranking 1-2 in OPS-plus in 1927, ‘30 and ‘31, and top three in ‘28, ‘32 and ‘33.

The Mickey Mantle-Roger Maris combo also is in a separate category, considering that Mantle was a switch hitter. Their best finish, not surprisingly, was in 1961, when Maris hit his then-record 61 home runs. Mantle ranked first in OPS-plus that season, Maris fourth.

As I went year by year, I discovered some left-right combos that ranked surprisingly high, and others I thought would be more dominant, relative to their leagues.

Start with the past two seasons. Acuña and Olson ranked third and fourth overall in 2023 (Acuña’s 73 stolen bases were not part of the calculation; OPS-plus measures only what happens in the batter’s box). The Houston Astros’ Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve were second and fourth in 2022.

I figured the Boston Red Sox’s Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz both might have been the best in their league from their respective sides in at least one season, but no. Their best finish was in 2006, when Ramirez was fourth and Ortiz sixth.

Manny Ramirez congratulates David Ortiz after a home run in 2005. (Nathan Denette / Associated Press / CP)

The San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent? First and ninth in 2000. The Seattle Mariners’ Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez? Seventh and eighth in 1997. Two other combos surprised me, in a positive sense: The St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols and Jim Edmonds (second and sixth in 2003, second and fifth in 2004); and the San Diego Padres’ Gary Sheffield and Fred McGriff (fourth and fifth in 1992).

All impressive. But no 1-2s.

One combination that intrigued me was the Giants’ Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, my father’s two favorite players. In 1963, three Giants — the right-handed Mays and Orlando Cepeda and the left-handed McCovey — finished 2-3-4 in OPS-plus. Mays and McCovey also were first and fifth in 1965. But again, they never were the absolute best in their leagues at the same time.

And the Negro Leagues, which last week became part of the official MLB statistics? In the new combined rankings, the most dangerous left-right combo on a single team was the 1925 Harrisburg Giants’ Oscar Charleston, a left-handed hitter who topped the combined OPS-plus rankings, and the right-handed Walter Cannady, who was ninth. Drop the plate-appearance requirement from 300 to 250, and a bunch of other combinations enter the picture. The Pittsburgh Crawfords’ Josh Gibson and Charleston, for example, ranked first and ninth in 1933.

Now for the two AL-NL groupings that actually went 1-2.

The Giants indeed had one, just not with the players you might expect. It happened in 1989, when San Francisco won the NL pennant, only to lose to Oakland in a World Series interrupted by an earthquake. The right-handed hitting Kevin Mitchell was first in the regular season with an OPS-plus 92 percent above league average. The left-handed hitting Will Clark was second at 75 percent above.

The other right-left combination to finish 1-2 was the 1959 Milwaukee Braves’ Hank Aaron (83 percent above league average) and Eddie Mathews (68 percent above). For whatever reason, no combo has ever managed the feat with the left-handed hitter finishing first.

At their present rates, Judge and Soto would surpass both of the above pairs in OPS-plus. As first noted by the New York Post’s Dan Martin, they also were on pace through Wednesday to finish with a combined 20.4 bWAR, which would be higher than any offensive duo since the regular season increased from 154 games to 162 in 1961. Mantle and Maris combined for 17.4 bWAR in 1961.

Here’s another rather astonishing comparison: Also through Wednesday, Judge and Soto had combined for 84 barrels, one fewer than the Washington Nationals’ entire team. A barrel is a ball whose comparable hit types, in terms of exit velocity and launch angle, have led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage since the inception of Statcast in 2015.

The Yankees’ season is not even 40 percent complete. Judge might slump again the way he did in April. Soto, who has yet to hit a rough patch, eventually could slow down. Then again, who knows? Maybe the Yankees official was right. Maybe we are indeed watching the best combination of a right- and left-handed hitter in the history of the game.

(Top photo of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge: Nick Wosika / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)