Yankees’ questions on offense and in bullpen are central in ALDS
It is true that the Yankees are a better team than the Cleveland Guardians, their Division Series opponent.
It is also true that, outside of Aaron Judge, the Yankees have about three and a half good hitters, one of whom is an infant in Major League Baseball years. The bullpen is not exactly a picture of health either, and with Aroldis Chapman deciding he’d rather not play, the unit is also severely lacking in postseason experience.
The smart money is still on the Yankees to take this series, but it will take much more effort than many would have envisioned at the All-Star break, when the team’s record put them on pace for 112 wins. Instead, the Yankees went exactly .500 in the second half, putting together a 35-35 record that left them one win shy of the century mark.
This round will also be the first look at the utility of a first-round bye in baseball, a sport that relies so much on timing and rhythm and is not conducive to taking nearly a week off between games. Healing the injured guys is good, but those who were already healthy might not like the long break.
Cleveland, meanwhile, has to be feeling pretty good about itself. Even though their clincher over the Rays went 15 innings and required seven relievers, winning the series in two games allowed the relief corps an extra day to recover. That won’t make up for the deficiencies in their lineup — the Guardians are the only playoff team to have a collective wRC+ under 100 in the regular season — but if those hitters can build a lead or at least stay in the game heading into the late innings, the battle of the bullpens becomes a tossup.
Do the Yankees, in the eyes of their own employees, have enough horses to carry three victories to the finish line?
“We’re going to find out,” general manager Brian Cashman said on Sunday. “I feel like we just have to feel comfortable that whoever’s on this roster is all in. There’s no hesitancy, there’s no distractions. Our laser focus is finding any which way possible to beat Cleveland.”
Other players in this series bring much more star power and ability to influence the outcomes (Judge continuing to smoke every pitch he gets in the strike zone is certainly one way to quell the anxiety). But the Yankees’ back-end trio of Clay Holmes, Wandy Peralta and Jonathan Loaisiga, plus trade deadline reinforcements Lou Trivino and Scott Effross, could perhaps be the most important players on either roster.
After getting a cortisone shot in his strained shoulder during the Yankees’ final homestand and not pitching in any of the final nine regular season games, Holmes is now a postseason question mark. The Yankees can and should deploy their late-game pitchers based on matchup, not inning, and for Holmes that might mean easing his way back against the bottom of Cleveland’s order. The only baseball activity he’s had recently has come in non-game situations, and even if his body is fine, his mind is another thing.
“The week has gone well, I would say,” manager Aaron Boone said of Holmes’ playoff preparation.
Peralta had a quietly outstanding season before succumbing to a back injury. Boone informed everybody that he’s alright now, but the lefty will also be making his postseason debut. Loaisiga had a first half from hell but posted a 1.82 ERA after the All-Star Game, albeit with a concerningly low 14.3% strikeout rate. Nineteen of his last 22 outings ended with a bagel in the earned run column though. He and Trivino — who has been a virtuoso since joining the Yankees — should be first in line for high-leverage situations against the meat of Cleveland’s admittedly thin lineup.
Effross is a nice story and has looked good in pinstripes, but he was also a 27-year-old in Double-A to begin last season. The potential for variance within this group is astronomical.
The Yankees’ starting pitching is strong and rested enough to carry most of the load, but none of that matters if the offense can’t score runs. The Yankees went from having the league’s best OPS in the first half (.776) to the tenth-best in the second half (.718), and that was with Judge going Barry Bonds mode in the second half. October veterans Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton — who has a 1.108 postseason OPS and homered in each of his last three regular season games — are nothing to worry about. Gleyber Torres is a playoff monster.
But as the Mets just learned, winning a playoff series requires more than just a few guys doing well at the plate. San Diego won thanks to big RBI from Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Josh Bell, but also because their depth pieces went supernova. For the Yankees, that will mean somebody from the Oswaldo Cabrera, Jose Trevino, Harrison Bader and Isiah Kiner-Falefa group breaking out.
Cabrera has been an inspiration but Tuesday will also be just his 45th major league game. Trevino hit .177 after the calendar flipped to September, Bader is here for his defense, and there’s no sense going over Kiner-Falefa’s hitting woes anymore.
Anything the Yankees get from Josh Donaldson is gravy, and DJ LeMahieu and Matt Carpenter should be graded on a curve as they get their feet under them post-injury. The Guardians’ entire pitching game plan will revolve around not letting Judge beat them, so the onus falls on the rest of this up-and-down lineup banding together against a hot Cleveland staff.
The Yankees have the pieces in place to dispel the Guardians. But a five-game offensive slump or a few nauseating performances out of the bullpen could torpedo this whole thing. That’s obviously true of any team this time of year, but when looking at the players the Yankees will ride into battle with, it’s not a completely unrealistic scenario.
