SAN FRANCISCO — Before Saturday’s game against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park here, all of the Yankees hitters jammed into a cramped back room in the visitors’ clubhouse to go over the game plan against the opposing pitching staff. Nestled in the back was Aaron Judge.

Judge has not swung a bat in over a week and won’t for several more, at least, because of a strain of his left oblique muscle. But during his time on the Yankees’ bloated injured list, he has remained a noticeable part of the club’s efforts as a team leader and unofficial hitting adviser in a way that many other sidelined players have not.

“In hitters’ meetings, he’s always one of the guys that’s asked about pitchers because he’s faced a lot of the guys before,” said the rookie first baseman Mike Ford, one of the many players who wouldn’t be with the Yankees if not for the myriad injuries, including Judge’s. “He still chimes in. If he sees something on the bench, he’ll come up to you to let you know.”

Players on the I.L., especially those with significant injuries, often feel like ghosts: there, but not really there. When George Steinbrenner was the owner of the Yankees, he was known for sending injured players to the team’s spring training facility in Tampa, Fla. If they couldn’t help the major league team win, he believed, they needed to be away focusing on their rehabilitation.