What's Gotten Into the Yankees Since the All-Star Break?
By the time the Midsummer Classic rolled around this year the Yankees - a team that was expected to be a top contender for the World Series - were reeling. Their high-powered offense was struggling to score runs, their lack of pitching depth seemed ripe to be exposed, and they sat eight games behind the upstart Boston Red Sox in the AL East.
While the Yankees' record was a lackluster 46-43 at the break, they were actually playing a little worse than that. They had scored 370 runs with 369 surrendered, meaning that they had the profile of a .500 team. That's not exactly what Brian Cashman had in mind when he assessed his roster last winter.
Those dreary days seem so long ago now. Since the break the Yankees have been the class of the major leagues - their recent debacle with the Angels notwithstanding. They have ridden a 30-12 record to the pole position of the AL Wild Card race and are within striking distance of taking the division (now led by Tampa Bay). So how has a team that endured an extended stumble out of the gate suddenly become a team that the rest of the majors can't contain? Let's start by taking a look at the bats in the lineup before and after the break.
The Italian imports have NOT been carrying the team
The Yankees were busy at the trade deadline trying to acquire some big bats to bolster their struggling offense. That help came in the form of Italian Stallions Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo. Both made their debut when the current Yankee hot streak was really taking off on July 3oth. Rizzo made a great first impression by hitting home runs in his first two games in pinstripes, and Gallo's power bat and Gold Glove were a welcome addition to the lineup. Many point to their arrival as a turning point of sorts in the Yankee season.
However, check out the actual results for these two guys on right side of the table above. Rizzo's production looks decent when compared to the abysmal three-headed monster of Jay Bruce, Mike Ford, and Chris Gittens that they Yankees tried at first base in the first half. Objectively, though, he's falling well short of what you'd expect from your first baseman's bat. Similarly, Gallo has performed on par with the man he replaced in left field, Clint Frazier. The problem there is that Frazier was clearly not well and struggled mightily. The Yankees were expecting much more out of their new, big lefty.
It would be no surprise to see Rizzo and Gallo pace this lineup over the last month of the regular season, but so far they haven't been the key to the Yankee turnaround in the second half.
The Twin Towers have been steady all year long
If the Yankees were going to contend this year, they were going to need Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton to be relatively healthy and productive. Save for a stint on the COVID IL for Judge a month ago and a brief quad injury for Stanton in May, they have been just that. More importantly, they've continued to hit like All-Stars as the rest of the team has finally woken up this summer.
Judge is enjoying his best season since being named AL Rookie of the Year in 2017. Over the first half of the season, it was a toss up between him and Gerrit Cole for Yankee MVP and in the second half he's been even better. If things continue as they are, his power numbers will fall a bit short of what you might expect from the big man, but he'll set a career high in batting average while cutting down on his strike outs. The cherry on top is his Gold Glove-caliber play in right field, although he rarely gets recognized for it.
Nobody in the Yankee lineup garners more hatred from fans than Giancarlo Stanton. Streaky players who are injury prone tend to do that, especially when they come with Stanton's price tag, but the table above indicates that on the aggregate he's been indispensable. After two injury plagued seasons that limited him to just 41 games total, he's on pace to have his best campaign as a Yankee. He's had a few stretches this year where he's carried the offense on his shoulders. Each one of those is a win-win for Stanton and the Yankees, despite incessant gripes from the fanbase.
When it comes to consistency, DJ LeMahieu has been the mark of it in 2021, if not the hitting savant he was in 2019 and 2020. If he was approaching the level he played at in those two seasons, the Yankee offense would have struggled far less, especially in the first half. Instead, they've settled for a league average LeMahieu, but at least he's been a consistent contributor from the get-go.
The splits for the big three in the Yankee lineup look pretty similar in the first and second half, so we need to look elsewhere to find what's jolted the offense.
A surprisingly pleasant Odor and a boost from the bench
The stat line that Rougned Odor has put up since joining the Yankees in April can best be described as "not good". Yet somehow, he seems to have been a key cog in the lineup. His home runs and infrequent hits appear to come in huge moments, but the numbers just don't bear this out. Even his slash stats with runners in scoring position look eerily similar to the underwhelming lines given above. I simply can't explain this Odor, and sometimes we're better off when that's the case.
Since Odor has been performing this magic act all year, we still need to account for what's improved the Yankee offense from one that struggled to produce just over four runs per game in the first half to one that's approaching a much more respectable five runs per game since the break. Let's start with Gleyber Torres. His atrocious performance in the season's early months are well documented, but prior to getting hurt, he was looking much more like the MVP candidate he was in 2019. He has missed more than three weeks in August, so there's been other folks chipping in during his absence.
That's where the bench bros come in. Over the first three and a half months of the season, the Yankees were barely getting replacement level production out of their part-time players. As we saw, that's a serious problem. Since then, Brett Gardner has improved to a level in line with his career averages. Tyler Wade and Andrew Velazquez are filling in admirably and then some for the ailing Torres. Stop-gaps in the outfield like Greg Allen and Estevan Florial are capturing lightning in a bottle. Last but certainly not least, a pissed off Luke Voit is putting his money where his mouth is.
Despite it's one-on-one nature, baseball is a team game, and it often takes an entire lineup to be clicking on all cylinders for a team to be successful. One or two big bats won't cut it, and the Yankees are finding creative ways to get those big bats some help in the second half.
Now, what's up with the pitching?
The patchwork rotation is still patchwork, and even more effective
In a development that was not surprising at all, Gerrit Cole anchored the Yankees' starting rotation and kept the team respectable through some rough patches early on in the season. Behind him, Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon, and Domingo German were nothing special while Corey Kluber offered some flashes of brilliance. Given the injury history and/or lack of work in recent seasons for those four, it was expected that they would become more ineffective or injured as the season wore on (some dope pointed this out a couple months ago).
While the entire starting five mentioned above have missed time in the second half due to COVID or other ailments, it's actually Cole who has faltered a bit. The remaining four have proven me wrong with a vengeance. Each is boasting an ERA under 3.00 since the break and have more than made up for Cole becoming human recently.
The Yankees have also done a better job of bridging the gap when the starting five have missed time. Before the break, those spot starts were spread among Michael King, Nestor Cortes, Nick Nelson, and Deivi Garcia. With the exception of Cortes, the results ranged from mediocre to disastrous. Since then, they've wised up and relied more heavily on Nasty Nestor while also calling up the talented - if still raw - Luis Gil for some much needed quality innings.
Much like the offense, the secret to success of the starting rotation in the second half has been a little bit of creativity from the front office and everybody pulling their weight when called upon to support their stars.
The Yankees are re-tooling the bullpen on the fly and it's working
The bullpen has been a team strength for a long time now, but the same dope mentioned above pointed out back in January that the Yankees were relying on a bunch of old, tired arms for a lot of innings this year. The top options available on paper were 33-year olds Aroldis Chapman and Zack Britton, and 38-year old Darren O'Day. Britton and O'Day couldn't get or stay healthy and totaled just 15 innings combined over the season's first half.
Chapman opened the season on fire - not surrendering an earned run until late May - but hit a brutal stretch in June that he still hasn't fully recovered from. Every save is now an adventure for the flame-throwing lefty. That means the Yankees have had to rely on a bunch of arms that they haven't historically trusted with crucial innings, especially since the All-Star break.
Chad Green has moved up the pecking order and even spent time as a de facto closer of sorts this year. As we've become accustomed to, he's been solid with the occasional hiccup sprinkled in. Sharing closer duties when Chapman hasn't been available or trustworthy is Jonathan Loaisiga, who after three seasons of seeing limited action in a swing role has asserted himself as a viable option in high-leverage situations.
In addition to newfound faith in some familiar faces, Cashman has struck gold with a number of under-the-radar moves to bolster the 'pen. He took a chance on a 34-year old Lucas Luetge who hadn't pitched in the major leagues in six years prior to 2021. He's provided quality innings all season.
When it was clear early in the season that the Yankees would need more relief options, Cashman swung a deal for crafty journeyman left-hander Wandy Peralta. He might be the team's best option at closer right now. At the trade deadline the bullpen was further fortified by sneaking in Joely Rodriguez as part of the Joey Gallo deal and securing Clay Holmes from the Pirates for spare parts. Those two have combined for about 17 innings with an ERA around 2.00 over the past month and have earned more innings in big spots down the stretch.
The Yankee relief corps was in grave danger of being a dumpster fire this season, but Cashman and company were able to give it a serious facelift at very little cost and it could potentially save the season. No wonder the bullpen has been a team strength all these years.
All data provided in this post was obtained from Baseball Reference.
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