![]() ![]() ![]() If these Yankees miss the World Series again, they are fated to be forgotten. There are no anti-heroes or A-Rod-esque villains, and there isn’t anyone overly compelling in the dugout absent Judge and Cortes. They aren’t exactly losers, but they are devoid of any particular appeal or narrative. It’s no wonder Taillon tossed eight innings of one-hit ball against this team.īeyond their mediocrity, the Yankees just aren’t that interesting. The Yankees have two defense-first catchers who don’t hit at all and no regular left fielder. 200 with an on-base percentage well below. And Giancarlo Stanton, a titanic outfielder and designated hitter who very much resembles Judge - and once hit 59 home runs in a season - is barely batting. Gleyber Torres, once believed to be a superstar-in-waiting, is a poor-fielding second baseman who can’t hit enough to justify his lapses. Fan favorite DJ LeMahieu, who won a batting title as recently as 2020, has been even worse than Donaldson. Donaldson, a former MVP, has been horrendous and carries around an untradeable contract. Rizzo, after a strong start, has descended to an OPS+ of 110, which means he’s just 10 percent better than the league’s average hitter. They’re an aging team, overly reliant on Judge, who was having another brilliant season before smashing his toe into the concrete portion of an outfield wall in Los Angeles and landing on the injured list indefinitely. What the Yankees didn’t do - and what the seething mass of fans who want both manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman fired tomorrow morning at the latest - was upgrade their offense. True to his reputation, Rodón missed the first three months of the season, making his first start in that 3-0 loss to the Cubs. They also signed an injury-prone bull of a left-handed starting pitcher, Carlos Rodón, who starred for the Giants last year. After getting outclassed by the Houston Astros in the ALCS, the Yankees spent the offseason dodging a genuine cataclysm when Judge chose to return instead of signing with his hometown San Francisco Giants. Then, around August, many of the Yankees (excluding Judge) stopped hitting, and the team limped to a division title and a 99-win season that appeared more impressive than it really was. Aaron Judge was on his mesmerizing march to 62 homers, Matt Carpenter was imitating Roy Hobbs, and Nestor Cortes, with his yogic leg kicks and electric cutters, was one of the more exciting and unlikely stars of recent years. They’re the Yankees, after all, and at this time just over a year ago, they were a threat to blow past their franchise record of 114 wins. ![]() This is baseball today: Just make the tournament and hope you catch fire when it matters.īut the 2023 Yankees weren’t supposed to be another Philadelphia or Washington. The 2021 Atlanta Braves and the 2019 Washington Nationals, two recent World Series champions, weren’t much better. Last year, the Philadelphia Phillies, a wild-card team that won just 87 games and was clearly inferior to several other contenders, won the National League pennant. In this new era of perpetually expanding playoff rounds, they’re in a five-team hunt for three spots, and Baseball Reference says they have a more than 50 percent chance of reaching the postseason. The Yankees are 49-42 if the season ended tomorrow, they’d miss the playoffs but only by a single game. The team, for now, outplays the woeful (and absurdly expensive) Mets, who are 42-48 and seven games out of the last wild-card slot. In a way, there’s only so much Yankee fans can complain about. Taillon is a former Yankee, a genial mediocrity best remembered, to me at least, for once telling The Athletic he very much enjoyed the Jasper Johns exhibit at the Whitney. Yankee hitters managed just two singles - no doubles, no homers, nothing that even appeared to be a threat - against a pitcher named Jameson Taillon who had, at that point, an ERA close to 7. The Yankees fell 3-0 that night to the Cubs, a team that currently sits at five games under. Then the clock struck 7:05, the game began, and reality set in. 140 entering that game, thwacked home runs far over the center-field wall, and Anthony Rizzo, mired in a monthslong slump, repeatedly slashed line drives to left. A Major League BP session inspires eternal hope: Josh Donaldson, hitting a putrid. I strolled around the press box and the cafeteria and watched the Yankees take batting practice in the sultry hours before their game against the Chicago Cubs. On a recent July night, I arrived at Yankee Stadium early. ![]()
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