With the New York Yankees gearing up for the playoffs with three games left in the regular season, the status of star Aaron Judge is still up in the air, and worse yet, there appear to be mixed signals from the player and manager Aaron Boone. As Judge seemed to push back against the Yankee skipper on his injury description, it has garnered an interesting reaction from this MLB insider.

While Judge has been missing time with a calf injury, Boone has expressed that the team doesn't plan for Boone to be ready for the upcoming wild card series and that he has a “moderate” level calf strain. Judge would push back on both claims, which has led Ken Rosenthal to say on “Foul Territory” that it's rare to see this within New York.

“The story from last night was Aaron Judge continuing to say he wants to play. His plan is to play, and he pushed back, if somewhat mildly, but he still pushed back. The words matter here. I don't care how much he was smiling when he said it,” Rosenthal said.

“Now, he also had seemingly a problem with Boone saying that the strain was moderate,” Rosenthal continued. “Judge said, ‘Well, a moderate strain for one person is not the same as it is for another person.' Okay, what's going on here? Because with the Yankees, you rarely see this kind of thing go public.”

Is there a disconnect between Aaron Judge and Aaron Boone on Judge’s playoff availability? @Ken_Rosenthal breaks down their comments.

“The words matter here. I don’t care how much he was smiling when he said it.” pic.twitter.com/swxjtpV4XP

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) September 24, 2026

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More on the disagreement on Yankees' Aaron Judge

There's no denying that Judge wants to return to the Yankees as soon as possible, with Rosenthal theorizing that the disagreement on his postseason return could come down to a star “just wanting to play and keeping that mindset.”

“Maybe Aaron Judge gets well suddenly, but calf injuries are notoriously tricky. They're difficult, so I don't know how this resolves. But it's unusual to see the Yankees having this level of, I don't know, disagreement,” Rosenthal said.

At any rate, it remains to be seen what Judge's status looks like for New York ahead of next Tuesday's start to the wild card series.