Mediocrity can be a difficult thing. Mediocrity can make you excited with fleeting moments of brilliance, and it can make you frustrated with moments of difficulty. And at 4-4, the Yankees have had their share of both.
The Yankees have some difficult decisions to make. Do they take the team in a new direction, or do they continue a model that has so far produced some less than desirable results?
With just eight games played, there’s a lot of baseball left in the season. But eight games is also enough time to pick up on trends and draw some conclusions about certain strategies and players.
Do you want the good news or the bad news first?
Let’s start with the bad news, for instance, the Yankees’ inability to hit left-handed pitching. With our left-heavy lineup, left-handed pitching has been able to stump the Yankees in multiple games this year. This problem is compounded by the fact that our own pitching is having a difficult time getting to the sixth inning. While this won’t be a huge issue when Chapman gets back, that leaves the Yankees plenty of time to dig a hole they can’t get out of. Eovaldi has had problems with his control and Tanaka has had problems putting away batters after getting them 0-2 in the count.
To state the obvious here: our pitches need to pitch better, and our hitters need to hit better. Here’s a surprising little stat: not a single Yankees player has a WAR above 0.6. To put that in perspective, anything between 0 and 2 typically signifies a reserve player. And that’s the entire lineup. Brett Gardner, Chase Headley, and Alex Rodriguez all have batting averages below .180, with Rodriguez pulling the caboose at .120. And what hurts worse: Aaron Hicks, a player who has had some brilliant moments on defense, has been able to muster up a .091 batting average in 11 at bats.
It would appear age has finally caught up to A-Rod. After last season there was a moderate sense of excitement and anticipation in terms of what type of season A-Rod would have this year. I for one thought he was more than capable of contributing to this team offensively. But it would appear no amount of off-season work outs can delay the inevitable. With just one home run and a slugging percentage of .240 in 25 at bats, it looks like A-Rod may be in for a frustrating year.
And now for the good news.
There have been moments of brilliance. There have been moments of hope. Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorius have been the combo everyone was hoping for. After a hot start that everyone knew would cool down, Castro is still hitting .310 while his middle infield counterpart Gregorius is hitting a respectable .292.
Ronald Torreyes seems to be making sense of the big league level with a white hot batting average of .667 through nine at bats. At the minor league level, pitcher James Kaprielian has been pitching well, and has been called “major league ready now”, and outfielder Aaron Judge is hitting .323 and recently wrapped up a four-hit game. To have talent in the farm system has to be a welcome relief and an overall good feeling. Which brings us to the difficult decisions.
At what point is it time to give some older players significant time off and allow younger players to prove themselves at the major league level? Several minor league players are ready to contribute to the Yankees now. Are there players that could be traded? Are there players that could be benched? Other major league teams are making the difficult decision to sit well paid players that aren’t contributing.
With the 3-6 Seattle Mariners coming into town, now is the time to make decisions and put this season on a different trajectory. It’s not too late. Now is the time to step up on offense, buckle down on defense and pad the record. Now is the time to establish your spot in the standings. Yes, we are only eight games in, but now is the time to make moves if you don’t want to be asking yourself what happened in early August.
