Yankees’ rebuild quick, productive
The New York Yankees sit tied with the Baltimore Orioles atop the American League East and had the best winning percentage in Major League Baseball entering Thursday.
Few expected the club to contend this year, but at this point, simply playing .500 ball the rest of the way would likely keep the Yankees in contention until the final games of the regular season.
It’s early yet, of course, but Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds give the team a 64% chance of playing at least one postseason game and a 52.5% shot at reaching at least an AL Division Series.
It’s time we grapple with the notion that the Yankees’ much-ballyhooed and very necessary rebuilding phase lasted all of the final two months of the 2016 season — after the club traded away Carlos Beltran, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman for prospects and still managed to go 32-26.
The Yankees offense has keyed the team’s success in 2017 and leads the AL in runs per game, home runs and on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS). They’ve enjoyed resurgent success from veterans Chase Headley, Brett Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury and Matt Holliday, all of whom have hit like their younger selves after down seasons in 2016. Second baseman Starlin Castro, 27, is off to the best start of his career with a .936 OPS through 31 games. Fourth outfielder Aaron Hicks, a career .223 hitter entering the season, is batting .338 with a 1.098 OPS in limited playing time.
But the big force behind the Yanks’ offensive explosion has been Aaron Judge, a gargantuan 25-year-old rookie who leads the AL with a 1.173 OPS and 13 homers. Judge long enthralled scouts with his raw power but endured alarming contact issues in his first big-league turn in 2016, striking out in half his 84 at-bats. This season, Judge arrived in spring training with a reworked swing and, apparently, something to prove. He now appears, at the very least, to be the easy favorite for the AL Rookie of the Year Award and a fundamental piece in the middle of the Yankees lineup for years to come.
Judge, Holliday, Castro and Hicks, especially, seem likely to fall back to earth at some point. How much they struggle when they do struggle will go a long way toward determining the Yankees’ fate in 2017.
But still, the club’s early success has largely come without the services of slugging catcher Gary Sanchez — last season’s marvel, now back with the team after missing 21 games with a biceps injury — and first baseman Greg Bird, who struggled to start the season and landed on the disabled list with an ankle injury but nonetheless remains a promising hitter.
The Yankees bullpen was an obvious strength heading into the season thanks to the return of closer Aroldis Chapman and dominant setup force Dellin Betances. The relief corps hasn’t disappointed, sporting a 2.55 ERA that ranks fourth in the majors and peripherals that suggest the success will continue. Adam Warren, Tyler Clippard and Jonathan Holder lend depth to the unit.
Even the rotation pic- ture looks a bit less murky than it did before the season after the early success of big-armed right-handers Luis Severino and Michael Pineda. But Masahiro Tanaka has been shaky and CC Sabathia has been hit hard in his last four starts, and the starting staff still looks like the club’s biggest weakness.
There’s still plenty of time for things to go wrong in the Bronx, but the recent youth movement bought Brian Cashman a ton of flexibility in terms of both his roster and his payroll, and, again, the Yankees don’t really need to play exceptionally well to stay in the postseason hunt.
Outfield prospect Clint Frazier, infielder Gleyber Torres and possibly starting pitcher Justus Sheffield are all playing in the high minors and could all be ready to contribute should a need arise later in the season.
Cashman could look to deal from either the wealth of prospects or from the cadre of capable big-league veterans in the lineup to bolster the team’s 2017 chances. He has the young talent and the finances to go big-game hunting for the likes of starters Jose Quintana and Zack Greinke should they become available and the depth to swipe a free agent-to-be such as Marco Estrada or Alex Cobb without mortgaging too much of the team’s now super-bright future.
The bottom line: Things look awfully good in the Bronx right now, a testament to Cashman’s deft retooling and emphasis on youth over the last few seasons. The Yankees have a good big-league team capitalizing on the contributions of homegrown young players, with more talent on the way.