MLB insider Randy Miller’s point about Aaron Judge this week was not that the Yankees’ captain had warned Jazz Chisholm Jr. It was the comparison he used to explain why the warning did not stick.
Aaron Judge had already done what fans expect a captain to do. However, the clubhouse problems carried on.
“I know Judge has sternly told Jazz to stop doing certain things, because Jazz told me it happened. But that didn’t stop Jazz from getting out of line time and time again,” Randy Miller wrote.
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“Back in the day, when Billy Martin was managing the Yankees and flipping out on players, he had Yogi Berra and Elston Howard on his coaching staff to reinforce his message in a gentler way.”
“Judge’s leadership is more like Yogi’s, and the respected veterans that he’s had around him the last few years were the same way, Giancarlo Stanton, Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu. The Yankees need to bring in someone like Gardner.”
Fans reacted strongly on social media, with many taking jabs at manager Aaron Boone. One X user noted, “Nice of him to do Aaron Boone’s job.”
Berra and Howard were both on Martin’s staff in the late 1970s, including the 1977 World Series season. Martin’s temper landed because two quieter, respected ex-players translated it for the room. Miller isn’t asking for a louder voice than Judge’s; he is asking for a second one.
MLB Insider Urges Aaron Judge to Take a Tougher Leadership Approach Amid Yankees’ Clubhouse Issues
That admission is the heart of Randy Miller’s case. In his column, he wrote that the behavior Jazz Chisholm Jr. got away with, along with the culture complaints from CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Joe Girardi, is “partially an indictment on Aaron Judge.”
“I think the Yankees had problems this year that weren’t stopped, Jazz’s antics, players getting picked off base, fundamental mistakes. I think that needs to change and I’d like to see Judge be a little tougher. I think if he was tougher, some of this stuff would stop because Judge is so respected.”
Klapisch pushed back. “That’s Aaron Boone’s responsibility to sit a player, fine a player, call him into the office and get him in his face if he’s done something egregious,” he said. Boone’s record fits: when Chisholm played an inning at second base with a lollipop in his mouth in Detroit in June, Boone said the episode angered him.
However, he handled it privately. The report fits an argument fans have made all season: that Aaron Judge, not the manager, was the one doing the correcting. When Boone kept Chisholm in the lineup after a viral baserunning blunder, posts on X accused him of running a clubhouse without accountability.
Chisholm’s market is the next test. He hit .231 with 19 homers and 41 steals in 137 games in 2026, a drop from the 31 homers and 31 steals of 2025, and New York can still re-sign him at its price.
Edited by Kaushani Chatterjee
