He’s a 6-foot-7 dude who bears more physical similarities to the Empire State Building than, say, Luis Arraez. So you don’t need us to tell you Aaron Judge is different. Just look at him.But the reason this man is the biggest skyscraper in the New York Yankees skyline is about more than his size. Let’s just say it:There has never been anybody like him. Not now. Not ever.And now that he’s back — back in the Bronx, back in the batter’s box — after a 99-day absence with a fractured right rib, he’s about to remind us of all the ways he is different than every other player in baseball.“Special. He’s special, man,” said Sean Casey, Judge’s former hitting coach on Team USA and the 2023 Yankees. “He’s just very unique.”So what makes Judge so unique? He’s more than a man who squashes home runs deep into the New York night. You can call him a slugger, an on-base machine, a batting champ, a star with a capital S — but those are words that still don’t capture the skills, the stature and the obsession with greatness that separate Judge from everyone else around him.Is it even possible to measure that? Let’s at least try — by peering inside Judge’s remarkable numbers, and then blending them with insights from Casey, a .302 career hitter over 12 big-league seasons and now an analyst for MLB Network.1. Judge is so much better than the massesAaron Judge, who gives new meaning to the term “above average,” returned to the Yankees on Tuesday after missing 99 days with a fractured rib. (Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)Judge’s Adjusted OPS+ tells us that over the course of his career, he has been 77 percent better than the average hitter of his generation. Does that seem good? Let’s spell out for you just how good.Judge has been a full-time player since 2017. So check out this snapshot of 2017-26 Judge versus the “average” hitter over the same 10 seasons, courtesy of data supplied by FanGraphs:JUDGE AVERAGE HITTER AVG..294 .247OBP.414 .318SLUG .617.411OPS 1.030 .739Let’s take a quick cappuccino break and shake our heads over how vast that canyon is between Judge and the other players whose names are showing up in the box scores every night. Go ahead. Look that over one more time.That’s nearly a 50-point gap in batting average, almost a 100-point margin in on-base percentage and over 200 points of separation in slugging percentage. Got your attention yet? Great. Let’s keep going.JUDGE AVERAGE HITTER Hard-hit pct.*56.6%37.7%HR/Fly-ball ratio31.4%12.8%Avg. exit velo*95.6 mph 88.6 mphBarrel pct.* 22.8%7.5%(Statcast data)We’re now driving the data-mobile through a whole different tunnel of numbers — but one thing hasn’t changed, whether we’re measuring Judge by traditional or new-age metrics: He’s still ridiculously better than the average player of his era.Try to comprehend that hard-hit rate, or the ridiculous percentage of his fly balls that come down in somebody’s popcorn box. That’s not normal. That’s Judge-ian.Casey’s takeaway: The average player goes 0-for-4 these days and thinks: Hitting is way too hard nowadays. But that is not Judge-ian thinking, Casey said:“He doesn’t think that. He thinks, ‘I’m the best player in the world, in the universe.’ If there’s another universe, he thinks, ‘I’m the best player, the best hitter, in every universe. And I’m gonna show it tonight.’”2. Judge is better than the best of the bestKyle Schwarber is the only active player within 50 home runs of Aaron Judge over the last 10 seasons. (Alex Slitz / Getty Images)Then again, you’ve probably already noticed that nothing about Judge has ever been described as “average.” So let’s stack Judge up against the other stars in this galaxy.We’ll go leaderboard by leaderboard over the last 10 seasons, from 2017-26. Guess who ranks No. 1 in all of them?HOMERS — The 300-Homer Club over these last 10 seasons is so much smaller than you might think. Only four other names are keeping Judge company in it:Judge — 381