Yankees' 6-foot-7 wunderkind is starting to get MVP whispers after 2 home runs unlike anything baseball has seen lately

Judge, a 25-year-old, 6-foot-7 outfielder for the American League East-leading Yankees, has taken the baseball world by storm by putting together one of the finest offensive seasons for a rookie.

Judge took it to a new level over the weekend, crushing record-breaking home runs in back-to-back games as the Yankees swept the Orioles.

His first, in Saturday's 16-3 win, set a record for exit velocity in the Statcast era, according to MLB.com, coming off his bat at 121 mph.

Judge topped it Sunday in a 14-3 win by launching a 495-foot home run, the longest since ESPN began tracking distances in 2009.

It's possible that players have hit home runs like these before, given the relative newness of tracking exit velocity and distance, but there haven't been hits like Judge's in the modern era.

Judge is hitting .344 with a .450 on-base percentage and a .718 slugging percentage. He has a league-leading 21 home runs with 47 RBI, putting him in the lead for the Triple Crown.

Judge's monster season comes after a call-up in 2016 in which he hit just .179 and struck out 42 times in 84 at-bats. This year, Judge has cut his swing-and-miss rate considerably and is chasing pitches less frequently, according to ESPN's Dave Schoenfield. Schoenfield wrote of Judge's only weakness at the plate:

"The learning curve from last September to now is so impressive, especially his ability to lay off pitches he hacked away at last year. His chase rate is below the MLB average and his strikeout rate, while high, is manageable given his power production."

His productive two months — long enough to no longer simply be considered a hot streak — has the baseball world whispering about Judge's AL MVP candidacy.

Schoenfield believes if the vote were held today, Judge would win it. Sports Illustrated's Jack Dickey writes that Judge "can reasonably be said to be the frontrunner" for the award.

He has the vote of Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner, who on Sunday said, "He is leading the league in All-Star votes, and if the MVP were voted on today, he'd win that, too."

Judge's numbers figure to drop as the season goes on and as pitchers find new ways to throw to him. Still, his sudden rise is remarkable, given that he was taken in the 31st round of the 2010 draft (and later a first-round pick in the 2013 draft) and many felt his size could be a deterrent at the plate.

Instead, as Yankees DH Matt Holliday said on Saturday, regardless of awards, Judge may be just getting started.

"People are going to see silly things from this guy," Holliday said. "Just keep watching. It's just getting started. He's gonna hit balls places no one has ever hit them."

Yankees' 6-foot-7 wunderkind is starting to get MVP whispers after 2 home runs unlike anything baseball has seen lately

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