After Boston, a Few Hard Truths for the Yankees to Face
The Yankees lost the Division Series last night. And despite their almost miraculous comeback in the ninth inning of game four, they looked dead most of the series.
The Yankees played this postseason like they did when they lost to Texas in 2010 and then the Detroit Tigers in the succeeding two years. Like an older, tired team without any spark.
They appeared out of gas this postseason because Brett Gardner played without his usual vigor, and so the Yankees lacked the energy he had always imparted at the plate and on the bases. Andrew McCutcheon is clearly no longer the player he once was.
Without juice at the top of their order, the Yankees wasted Aaron Judge. Boston’s stellar pitching nullified most of the rest of the Yankee lineup so Judge repeatedly came up with the bases empty, which is one of the reasons why the Yankees managed a measly 4-for-24, or a .154 average, with runners in scoring position. In contrast, Boston pasted the ball at a .400 clip with runners in scoring position. A huge difference.
And since no one else contributed—except for Gary Sanchez who homered in game two, after which the Yankees hit .147, or 10 for 68 the rest of the series with zero home runs and four runs that scored on outs, or the hit by pitch with the bases loaded last night—how could the Yankees have hoped to compete?
Perhaps the greatest culprit in this melodrama was Giancarlo Stanton. He was 4 for 19 in the five games, with nine strikeouts. That’s a .210 batting average without even one RBI.
Had Stanton hit like J.D. Martinez, who went 5-for-14 in the series with one homer, five RBIs, and not even a strikeout to mar his .280 batting average, the Yankees might be playing game five on Friday night. Or better.
The Yankees knew Stanton was a huge disappointment this season. The question is, which Stanton did the Yankees acquire? The National League MVP in 2017 and his 7.3 WAR, or the wild swinging mediocre strikeout machine who flailed helplessly at breaking balls outside the zone and even missed meaty fastballs in clutch moments on his way to 211 strikeouts and a 4.2 WAR this past season. Nowhere near the 142 strikeouts and 5.9 WAR that JD Martinez hoisted on his petard this season.
Add Gary Sanchez to this malaise. He was also befuddled by sliders and outmuscled by high cheese. Leaving his catching issues aside, Sanchez hit .186 with a 1.4 WAR and 94 strikeouts in 89 games in 2018, nothing like the Gary Sanchez of last season when his WAR was a more impressive 4.4.
I wonder if Derek Jeter is laughing at the irony. What most observers thought was highway robbery when Jeter traded Stanton to the Yankees has turned into a steal for Miami. They’re rid of Stanton’s onerous contract that they were crazy to have signed in the first place, and now they can rebuild from a position of strength.
Stanton was not the Yankees only problem. Their mediocre starting pitching hurt. They were forced to play catchup against the clearly better team in three of the four games. Only in Masahiro Tanaka’s five inning start were they ahead from the get-go.
J.A. Happ and C.C. Sabathia were terrible. Sabathia looks as if he’s reached the end of his career. As for Happ, he could be resigned as a number-five starter, as insurance.
The Yankees should be most concerned about the lackluster Luis Severino they trotted out to the mound. Severino, Happ and Sabathia combined for eight miserable innings, and that they pitched as long as they did was due to the crass generosity of Aaron Boone who refused to open the bullpen gates at the first sign of trouble. The starters combined to throw only 13 of 36 innings, or 36 percent of the innings Yankee pitchers had to negotiate against Boston. Awful, even in a league where starting pitchers average five innings a start.
What was true last year, is still true. The Yankees need more starting pitching. Scuttlebutt says the Yankees will bid on Patrick Corbin, the fine lefty of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who is a free agent this offseason. While Corbin would cost twice as much as Sabathia, if not more, he should be more than twice as good. And worth it, at least for a few years.
The other serious problem was that besides Aaron Judge, no other Yankee seemed to be on base. Admittedly some of that was because of Boston’s fine pitching. But it was also because Aaron Hicks was injured in the first game, and they missed him. The wonderful Yankee rookies who carried the team during the regular season, Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres, finally looked a bit lost this series. Other than Aaron Judge, there was no one else.
Expect the Yankees to replace McCutcheon and Brett Gardner next season. It’s hard to imagine the Yankees picking up Gardner’s $12.5 million option when Clint Frazier is waiting in the wings. And then there’s Jacoby Ellsbury who’s still being paid a king’s ransom to play baseball until his deal expires in 2020.
Of course, had the Yankees traded for Christian Yelich last winter they might have beat the Red Sox already. And all these problems might not have been problems. But this is hindsight.
As the Yankees imploded, the sheer glee the Yankees announcers exuded a few weeks ago when they spoke about the team’s prowess as the leading home-run-hitting team of all time, filled my mind. The idiocy of irrelevant records. To quote Scrooge, bah, humbug. Who cares? When it mattered, the Yankees didn’t break any records for home runs in a four-game Division Playoff Series, which is what they would have needed to defeat the Red Sox.
So, with the game on the line, did the Yankees shorten up to make contact? For the most part, no. Did the Yankees try to push runners ahead? Move the line? No. Did the Yankees swing for the fences? It certainly seemed so. Somebody forgot to tell them that against good pitching, putting the bat on the ball is a sound strategy. Whose fault was that?
The Yankees now have their work cut out for them. How will they replace Brett Gardner? Who could regularly get on base in front of Aaron Judge? Perhaps Michael Brantley? But he’ll be playing in his age 32 season, even if he had a fine 2018 for Cleveland. Mookie Betts would be perfect, but he’s untouchable after his 10.4 WAR season, and Boston would never trade a great player to the Yankees. It would be blasphemy.
The Yankees missed their chance last winter when Miami held their fire sale. They bought low on the wrong merchandise. And when a team makes a poor decision, they pay for it in the long run. The bill just came due this past week. They have to hope it won’t keep coming due each of the next nine years.
