The Yankees are 33-30. It’s June 11. Most of the team is still healthy. It should not matter what pitchers are using on the baseballs or what MLB may have done to them, the Yankees are a much better team on paper than three games over .500. As Yankee fans, we need to be very concerned that this team may not make the playoffs in 2021.
Injuries aren’t the excuse. The only position players to have missed significant time are Luke Voit and Aaron Hicks and at this point, why are those two players still in this organization? They are injured every season? This was the perfect offseason to trade Luke Voit for a top level starting pitcher to pair with Gerrit Cole. Voit’s value was never higher than it was this offseason. He’s played just 12 games in 2021.
Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela are the only guys that have consistently been the offense. Gary Sanchez struggled until the past few weeks, DJ LeMahieu has not been worth $90 million, Clint Frazier has not hit and doesn’t know how to run the bases and Gleyber Torres can’t hit for power anymore.
None of the players mentioned have spent significant time on the IL, if any at all in most cases. They’ve been bad at baseball for the last three months. The team was constructed poorly for two reasons: one dimensional and all right-handed. With pitchers throwing harder than ever before, spin rates at all-time highs, swinging for the fences every time won’t cut it.
The simple things of stealing a base when needed, getting a guy over and getting run with a sacrifice fly will never not be valuable in a baseball game. The Yankees rank 21st in sacrifice flies this season. Three of the top four in baseball in that category – Astros, A’s and Padres – their combined record is 109-81. The Yanks are 25th in sacrifices, 18th in total bases, and 1st in double plays grounded into.
The 2021 New York Yankees are on pace for 85 wins. In the last 26 years, the Yankees have won 85 or fewer games just three times and this one would be an epic failure. Hal Steinbrenner would need to clean out the front office and in tune, the new Yankee administration would clean out the dugout and field full of players and coaches. This doesn’t mean total rebuild, they never do that. But players like Hicks, Voit, Sanchez, Frazier and others could be shown the door.
Over the last 123 games, the Yankees are just 66-57 and over the last 162 are 87-75. That record would not even qualify them for the playoffs with half of the American League actively tanking. I’m usually not one to overreact early in the year but this is enough of a sample size to recognize things are going in the wrong direction and need to change fast.
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