Much of the past 20 years with the New York Yankees, to quote one William Joel, “its always been a matter of trust.” Yankee fans could always lean on Don Mattingly, Bernie Williams, Joe Torre, the “Core Four” and so on. It was almost as though their mere presence virtually preordained a playoff appearance.
Now fans wonder, what is happening here? Something’s going on that’s not quite clear. Somebody turn on the lights. We’re gonna have a party. It’s starting tonight. Oh, what a feeling. When we’re dancing on the ceiling. As Lionel Richie put it, the 2015 Yankees could have quite a feeling if they dance on that ceiling.
On a recent BronxPinstripes podcast, our own Scott Reinen described it, these Yankees on paper, have the highest ceiling potential of any team in the AL East. Scouring through my Sporting News baseball yearbook (yes they still sell those publications) I couldn’t help but notice how potentially nasty the top of the Yanks rotation can project if healthy. Sure some rotations may have more consistent third starter types but no one, save for maybe the Tampa Bay Rays, can boast the ace potential of the Yanks in that division.
In fact, if you’re a Yanks fan, you have to be more excited in the lead up to this season, compared to 2014, despite the organization not plunking down another half a billion dollars. Think about it, the Yankees had just missed the playoffs for the first time in five years, lost Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte to retirement, Robinson Cano to Seattle and had the impending retirement of Derek Jeter for the duration of the season.
Flip the script to 2015 and while there’s no Derek, the dominos may fall in the right direction for New York. Remember, last year the two representatives (Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants) in the World Series had 89 and 88 wins respectively. Now, I won’t insult your intelligence and suggest the 2014 squad was a playoff caliber team but they managed to win 84 games and on paper, that’s not too far away. Although putrid offense was the issue and the replacements in the rotation were stellar, who knows if a dozen more starts by Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia and Ivan Nova, would’ve made up for that gap even more.
Which brings me to the potential of this roster and why, if nothing else, it’s better than the 2014 version.
At catcher, Brian McCann has one year under his belt in New York. First base brings a Mark Teixeira one more year removed from surgery and with real insurance in Garrett Jones. Gone is the hanging by a thread Brian Roberts at second and in is Stephen Drew and the potential of Rob Refsnyder and Jose Pirela. Shifting to shortstop, Didi Gregorious doesn’t replace Hall of Fame Jeter but his defensive range and maybe even his bat, should be a boost from the 2014 version. On the hot corner, instead of a career minor-league player (Yangervis Solate) and a guy who’d played 16 games at the position (Kelly Johnson) they get a full year of the glove and switch hitting ability of Chase Headley and at least something of a contribution out of Alex Rodriguez.
While the outfield is essentially the same, the hope is that Carlos Beltran isn’t hindered by age, any more than he is by injury.
Again, the ace like potential of the top of the rotation and around 90 combined starts out of Tanaka, Pineda and Sabathia, coupled with young reinforcements like Nathan Eovaldi, Adam Warren, Nova, Bryan Mitchell and Luis Severino, could make for a second half surge for the Yankees. Plus a bullpen adding Andrew Miller with Dellin Betances, has a lot more matchup options, despite losing David Robertson.
So while the game isn’t played in the bubble of a video game and a lot can happen in the grind of a 162-game regular season, these Yankees may yet have the highest ceiling of the division competition.
