Saquon Barkley hoping to have a Judge-like season in final year of Giants' contract

Like the rest of the metropolitan area, Saquon Barkley knows exactly what’s happening just across the George Washington Bridge at Yankee Stadium.

It’s not just that Aaron Judge is pursuing history — his attempt to break Roger Maris’ American League home run record certainly has everyone’s attention — but for a premier athlete on the brink of free agency himself, Barkley has another reason to be interested.

Judge bet on himself, rejecting a $213.5 million contract extension at the beginning of the season, and has seen his price skyrocket with the same velocity as a well-struck fastball. Even though Barkley’s story is different, the stakes are similar.

After three years of injuries, Barkley still has to prove he can stay healthy and maintain the explosiveness that defined his Rookie of the Year season in 2018. His future is contained in a 17-game snow globe, and it’s tied directly to looking like the Barkley of the past.

Judge is “having a heck of a year, and like you said, any time an athlete goes out there and bets on himself and goes out there and performs at a high level — you love to see that,” Barkley said after practice Friday. “Whether it’s football, whether it’s baseball, whether it’s basketball — I want all athletes to go out there and get what they deserve.”

There’s no doubt he’s hoping for the same for himself, especially with preseason performances that have people saying the old Saquon Barkley is back.

Barkley spent parts of the offseason biting back at naysayers who already have deemed him a bust. As the Giants get set to take on the Titans on Sunday, though, he took a different approach.

Like Judge, he seems content to let his actions speak and disregard the outside noise.

“It’s not like I’m going to be back there like, ‘Ah, man, [a reporter] said this about me.’ That’s not my mindset,” he said. “When you’re training in the offseason, you hear the noise. Now it’s coming in and just blocking it out. You can’t get too caught up with what people are saying about you — the positive and the negative things. Just going out there, my main focus is getting back to me — controlling what I can control, and when the plays are out there to be made, go out there and make plays.”

It’s a philosophy born of necessity, given that so much has been out of Barkley’s control the last three seasons, which featured a torn ACL and other injuries that compromised the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Ask about his expectations for himself and he says it’s whatever God has in store. Question people’s low expectations of the team as a whole, and he gamely answers that “it is what it is” and that the Giants know what they have, even if others don’t.

And what about his future? If he busts out in the first few games, is he open to discussing an in-season contract extension?

“I just focus on what I can focus on and let my agent take care of all that,” he said.

“I’m excited to go out there,” he added. “Not only myself, all of us put a lot of hard work in this offseason from spring to camp to now. My mindset is to just go out there Week 1 and be Saquon Barkley . . . You only get 17 guaranteed opportunities, so you’ve got to try to take advantage of every single one.”

Makes sense. For him especially, every single one of those 17 matters.

Notes & quotes: WR Sterling Shepard (Achilles) is expected to play Sunday. DB Dane Belton (clavicle) is questionable and OLB Azeez Ojulari (calf) and OLB Kayvon Thibodeaux (knee) are doubtful.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.