The Giants are pulling out all the stops to entice Aaron Judge, including putting him in touch with another star who plays just down the road.
According to Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area, the Giants connected Judge with Stephen Curry’s camp during a two-day free agency pitch for the American League home run king that began on Monday night and lasted through Tuesday.
Per Pavs, the pitch began with a dinner on Monday after Judge arrived in San Francisco, with Larry Baer, Farhan Zaidi, Gabe Kapler and other members of the organization. The two sides then met for most of Tuesday, reportedly for some time at Oracle Park.
The Giants are first team — aside from the Yankees — that Judge is known to have met with this offseason. Jon Morosi of MLB Network said that it is essentially a two-horse race between the Giants and Yankees to land Judge, pegging it between a 70-80% percent chance that he ends up with one of the two clubs. The Dodgers are considered a dark horse candidate at this point.
Judge grew up in the small Central California town of Linden, and rooted for the Giants. Were Judge to sign with San Francisco, he would become one of the biggest stars in the Bay Area alongside Curry, so it makes sense for the organization to try and establish a connection between the two. Curry also has a pretty good track record of pitching other stars to come out West. The two-time MVP was a crucial part of the pitch to get Kevin Durant to join the Warriors in the summer of 2016.
