The Yankees Are the Class of Baseball Again, Will It Last?
It's been a while, but the Yankees are once again the dominant force in baseball. By any objective measure, they're the best team in the league and the clear favorites to represent the American League the World Series as we approach the midpoint of the season. This despite some dope spending the offseason pointing out the flaws in the organization.
The last time the Yankees played with the calm confidence that they would win almost every night was probably about 20 years ago. So, let's take a look at what's different this year and see if their winning ways are sustainable.
The lineup is realizing its full potential
Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are doing some serious damage this year. It's true that the Yankees need those two guys raking for the offense to be running on all cylinders. However, those two alone can't do it all by themselves. In 2021, the twin towers were nearly as productive as they are this year, combining for 74 home runs and driving in almost 200 runs. Yet the Yankee lineup still struggled, ranking just tenth in the AL in runs scored.
This isn't just a Yankee thing either. Take a look at the Angels. They boast arguably the two best hitters in the game in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, who are hitting like the superstars they are. Taylor Ward even came out of nowhere with an MVP-caliber bat thus far. The problem is, they have very little fire power outside of those three guys. As a result, they're nothing more than an average offense that struggles to sustain rallies.
Therein lies the difference for the Yankees in 2022. Superheroes Judge and Stanton now have a cast of sidekicks that would put Robin to shame. After disappointing mightily last year, DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres are consistently providing quality at bats. The patient bat of Josh Donaldson at third base has been an upgrade over Gio Urshela. Anthony Rizzo's batting average may not be what it used to be, but he's using Yankee Stadium's dimensions to his advantage to the tune of 20 home runs, most of them in big spots.
Brian Cashman always intends on stocking his lineup with quality bats, to varying degrees of success in recent years. This year the offense is functioning as designed because everyone is contributing, even pleasant surprises like Jose Trevino and Matt Carpenter. The Yankees have the best offense in baseball and it has truly been a team effort.
There's sure to be a regression to the mean for at least some of the supporting cast in the lineup over the balance of the season. Two things can help mitigate that: (1) Cashman can and should go for the kill this year and look for more offensive upgrades at the trade deadline, and (2) struggle bunnies like Aaron Hicks, Kyle Higashioka, and Joey Gallo have nowhere to go but up in the second half.
Starters are going deep, and the bullpen is benefitting
This year, on average, Yankee starting pitchers are lasting until deep into the sixth inning. To put that in context, they are lasting a half inning more, on average, than Yankee starting pitchers in 2021. The cast of characters is largely the same, but there is a key difference with this year's rotation.
In 2021, the Yankees' plan was to rely heavily on four pitchers behind Gerrit Cole that hadn't pitched in meaningful baseball games since at least 2018. These pitchers either struggled with injuries (Luis Severino, Corey Kluber) or didn't have the stamina to pitch past the fifth inning with any consistency (Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon). Now, with their arms in game shape this group can remain effective into the later innings before giving way to the bullpen. Having Nestor Cortes' rubber arm playing a more prominent role this year doesn't hurt either. When you rely on voodoo rather than heat to get by, your arm doesn't tire nearly as quickly.
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Length isn't the only benefit of this group coming into 2022 with stronger arms. These guys are choking the life out of lineups. Yankee starters boast a 3.06 ERA thus far. That's nearly a full run better than the 3.91 mark they posted last year, which was already a solid number. So, if the starting rotation is wearing down the opposition and going deeper into games, that must help the bullpen too, right?
Damn right. Yankee pitching in 2021 ranked fifth in the league in runs allowed thanks in large part to an overworked bullpen that was one of the best groups in baseball. Yet the bullpen's 3.56 ERA could have been better if the workload was a little lighter. With less innings to cover and a larger role for Clay Holmes, Yankee relievers have posted a sparkling 2.81 ERA in 2022. It all adds up to the Yankees surrendering the fewest runs in baseball. That's an excellent recipe for success.
The trainer's room has been quiet
In recent years it's been pretty easy to draw a straight line from Yankee disappointment back to their struggles with injuries. It was certainly the case last year when they had a black hole on the right side of the infield for the most of season that was filled by the likes of Rougned Odor, Tyler Wade, Mike Ford and Jay Bruce. When Aaron Boone is forced to fill a few spots of his lineup everyday with marginal major leaguers, it can put a serious dent in the Yankees' ability to score runs.
As mentioned above, the injury bug also bit the starting rotation last year. In 2021 the Yankees used 15 different starting pitchers and about 25% of their starts were by pitchers outside of their scheduled five-man rotation. We're still not quite at the midpoint of the season yet, but this year they have only needed eight different starting pitchers and 95% of their games have been started by the core five.
Yes, the Yankees are playing better this year when they're on the field, but let's not underestimate the role that good health has played in their success. This was also true during the franchise's great run in the late 1990's. Derek Jeter, Andy Pettite, and Mariano Rivera never visited the injured list. If Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez or Paul O'Neill missed time, they were back in the lineup quickly. Sometimes being great is as simple as being healthy in baseball.
And remember, there's a fair amount of luck involved here. Maybe the 2022 Yankees' good health streak is the baseball world correcting itself for the bad injury luck they've had for years now. But at any moment, the luck could run out and they could be trotting out a starting rotation of Michael King, JP Sears, and Luis Gil come October. It bears repeating that Brian Cashman should be aggressive at the trade deadline to make sure things like this don't happen.
What's next?
The 800-pound gorilla in the room with the Yankees right now is the highly unnecessary contract situation with Aaron Judge. The Yankee front office simply could not have played this one worse. Every action, or inaction, they've taken regarding Judge's pending free agency was the wrong move. They could have put the matter to bed months ago, just as Judge wanted to, but they consistently wait until the 11th hour to begin any kind of negotiation, including the one that determined his salary this year.
To Judge's credit, nothing about the Yankees' mishandling of the situation has affected him on the field. In fact, with every passing day his MVP candidacy looks better and he's driving up the value of his next contract, regardless of who he signs it with. What the front office amazingly has failed to realize by holding out for a more team-friendly deal is that they've already made out like bandits in this situation.
Like every major leaguer, for the first six years of his career Aaron Judge's salary has been determined exclusively by the Yankees. He's had the option to take them to arbitration over the past three years, but he was not allowed to use the fair market value determined in free agency to negotiate a fair salary. At Fangraphs, they still calculate what that market value would be for such players. For instance, when Judge was the runner up in the AL MVP race in 2017, they determined his performance would have warranted a salary around $70 million for that year alone. Instead, Judge was paid about $545,000 for his troubles.
Over his career thus far, the balance is skewed ridiculously in the Yankees' favor. Fangraphs calculates his actual value the past six years at right about $230 million, while the Yankees have actually coughed up just shy of $40 million in total salary for the big man. And now, they'd have us believe that Judge is the greedy one for turning down a last minute offer cobbled together just before the season started. Try again.
You know what's great though? That's the worst problem in Yankeeland right now. Judge is enjoying the greatest season of his great career and the Yankees are playing like a team that could set a franchise record for wins. All it takes to solve the unnecessary contract stuff is a little bit more money to pay the man what he's worth.
Regardless of what happens, us Yankee fans should savor every last bit of this season. In today's baseball environment, teams need to run into a fair amount of luck to blaze a clear path to the World Series. With so many playoff spots available now and shorter playoff series in the early rounds, entropy has become the norm in October. The Yankees' dominance thus far should set them up well to avoid Wild Card wackiness and get home field advantage this fall.
We'll have plenty of time in November to wring our hands about how the most valuable franchise in baseball continues to operate like a non-profit organization. For now, sit back and enjoy the Yankees being the big, bad Yankees again. Even if it's just for one season.
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