The idea that Aaron Judge is the best hitter of our lifetime keeps getting thrown around and it’s time to figure it out once and for all.

Toronto Blue Jays v New York Yankees / Adam Hunger/GettyImages

The New York Yankees megastar Aaron Judge has completely taken over headlines this year with his ridiculous pace of home runs, RBIs and just about every offensive statistical category.

Judge is so dominant that teams are resorting to walking him more often than they pitch to him. Just recently, the Toronto Blue Jays made headlines for intentionally walking him three times in a single game. Usually the intentional walk is reserved for the end of the game when there’s a base open. Toronto was using it early in the game with runners on or even if the bases were empty.

So that’s sparked quite a debate in the X/Twitter world that stemmed from one member claiming that Judge was the best hitter of his lifetime.

Let’s dive into it.

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Aaron Judge vs Albert Pujols: Who’s the best hitter of our lifetime?

Before we get into things, I want to preface that Barry Bonds won’t be included in this conversation because of the allegations of steroids. To keep this an even playing field, let’s discuss the players in the league who are noted as clean hitters. Bonds is, without a doubt, the greatest player to ever swing a bat and the statistics back it up, but for the same reason he will never grace the Hall of Fame, he will sit this conversation out.

First, let’s look into Judge and his recent stretch of games. For his nine-year career, Judge is slashing .286/.403/.600 with 298 home runs, 675 RBIs and an OPS+ of 170. He has a career WAR of 49.0 and he’s just 27 hits short of reaching 100 career hits. He’s been awarded the MVP one time with another one likely to follow this year while finishing top five for the award three times with another one likely this year.

The most mentioned person in response to the original post is the former St. Louis Cardinals slugger, Albert Pujols. So let’s look at a comparative nine-year stretch for Pujols.

In Pujols’ first nine seasons, he compiled 366 home runs, 1112 RBIs and an OPS+ of 172 while slashing a ridiculous .334/.427/.628. Pujols finished top five for the MVP award in eight of his first nine seasons while winning the award three times. It’s also important to note the strikeout numbers. Pujols struck out just 9.4 percent of the time compared to Judge who has struck out 28 percent of the time in his career.

It’s important to note that Pujols played about 400 more games than Judge in this stretch though. To make up for that, we can look at their 162-game averages for this stretch of time.

The average Aaron Judge season looks like this, by the numbers: .286/.403/.600, with 28 doubles, 51 home runs, 116 RBIs, 112 walks (10 IBB) and 199 strikeouts.

From 2001-09, the average Albert Pujols season looks like this, by the numbers: .334/.427/.628, with 45 doubles, 42 home runs, 129 RBIs, 94 walks (23 IBB) and 66 strikeouts.

To note, this isn’t to discredit anybody’s greatness. We should appreciate both of these incredible hitters in their own rights.

So you tell me. Who’s the best hitter of your lifetime?