2019 Yankees

The 2019 New York Yankees lost 30 different players to the injured list -- and still won 103 games. I'm not sure that sentence gets old no matter how many times you read it. This team had no business being as good as it was. They lost Aaron Judge for two months. Giancarlo Stanton played 18 games. Luis Severino made three starts all year. Duct tape and optimism held the rotation together. And yet they stomped through the American League, crushed a freakin' MLB record for team home runs, and came within two wins of the World Series -- only to run into a Houston Astros team that, as we'd learn a few weeks later, had a complicated relationship with fair play.

Next Man Up

Here's the thing about the 2019 Yankees: the injuries weren't a subplot. They WERE the plot. Aaron Boone -- in just his second year as skipper -- turned "Next Man Up" from a cliche into a clubhouse religion. Somebody went down, the next guy stepped in, and the team kept winning. It sounds like a sports movie. It played like one too.

Stanton's body betrayed him all year -- quad, biceps, calf, you name it. Judge took a pitch off the body in late May and wound up on the IL with an oblique strain that cost him 63 games. Severino's shoulder and lat gave out before the season even got going. Didi Gregorius started the year on the shelf recovering from Tommy John surgery. Miguel Andujar tore his labrum. Dellin Betances blew out his shoulder and then his Achilles. Greg Bird did whatever Greg Bird always did (which was get hurt). CC Sabathia battled his knee and the aftereffects of an offseason heart procedure. Troy Tulowitzki's calf gave out and the Yankees released him.

And the team just kept winning.

The Steal of the Century

DJ LeMahieu signed a two-year, $24 million deal in January. That's it. That's the whole free agent splash. No Manny Machado (he went to San Diego for $300 million). No Bryce Harper (Philly, $330 million). The Yankees' big offseason acquisition was a 30-year-old contact hitter coming off a stint at Coors Field where half the baseball world assumed his numbers were altitude-inflated.

Turns out DJ LeMahieu didn't need thin air. He needed New York.

LeMahieu hit .327 with 26 homers and 102 RBI. He played every position on the infield. Boone batted him everywhere from leadoff to cleanup, and he just kept producing -- didn't matter where you stuck him. When Judge and Stanton were both out (which was most of the summer), LeMahieu carried the offense on his back with the calm demeanor of a guy ordering coffee. He finished second in AL MVP voting behind Mike Trout, and honestly, the gap should've been closer. On a team defined by chaos, LeMahieu was the steady hand that held the whole thing together.

Savages in the Box

On July 18, Boone got ejected for arguing a strike zone that was tighter than a drum. His post-ejection rant -- which the hot mic caught beautifully -- gave us the phrase that defined the season: "My guys are freakin' savages in the box." It was perfect. Fans printed T-shirts within hours. The Stadium started chanting it. A manager everybody called too soft, too much of a player's manager, too chill -- he'd just become the voice of a 103-win team.

That moment captured everything right about this club. They didn't care about your expectations. They didn't care about your injury reports. They showed up and hit the ball over the wall, over and over, with guys you'd never heard of filling spots you didn't think could be filled.

The Power Parade

The 2019 Yankees hit 306 home runs -- an MLB record at the time -- and they did it with their two biggest power bats sitting in the training room for most of the year. Let that sink in. Gleyber Torres clubbed 38 dingers at 22 years old (though a suspicious number of those came against Baltimore's pitching staff, which barely qualified as a pitching staff). Gary Sanchez -- perpetually injured, perpetually maddening, perpetually dangerous -- smashed 34. Brett Gardner, the 35-year-old lifer who was supposed to be winding down, hit a career-high 28. Edwin Encarnacion came over from Seattle in June and added another 34 to the pile.

And then there was Gio Urshela.

Urshela was a waiver claim from Toronto. A "break glass in case of emergency" utility guy. Nobody -- and I mean nobody -- projected him to hit .314 with 21 homers and play Gold Glove defense at third base. But Andujar's injury opened the door, and Urshela didn't just walk through it -- he kicked it off the hinges. He became the poster child for "Next Man Up," the guy who turned a depth piece into a fan favorite in about three weeks.

The Rotation Question

For all the offensive firepower, the pitching staff gave you heartburn. James Paxton -- acquired from Seattle that winter -- went 15-6 with a 3.82 ERA and showed flashes of dominance, but health kept him from being a true ace. Masahiro Tanaka ate innings (182 of them) and gave you exactly what you'd expect -- 11-9, 4.45 ERA, reliable if not spectacular. J.A. Happ was mediocre. Sabathia, at 39 and running on fumes and willpower, went 5-8 with a 4.95 ERA in his farewell tour.

The wild card was Domingo German, who came out of nowhere to go 18-4 with a 4.03 ERA -- and then disappeared in September when MLB placed him on administrative leave under its domestic violence policy. Gone for the postseason. Just like that, the rotation lost its most effective arm right when it mattered most.

The bullpen, though? The bullpen was a weapon. Aroldis Chapman saved 37 games with a 2.21 ERA. Zack Britton posted a 1.91 ERA in setup. Adam Ottavino -- snagged from Colorado -- gave them a 1.90 ERA and enough slider-induced whiffs to make hitters question their career choices. When Boone's starters couldn't go deep, he'd hand the ball to those three and dare you to score. Most teams couldn't.

October: The Twins (Again)

The ALDS against Minnesota was over before it started. The Twins had won 101 games and set the MLB record for team home runs (307), but they ran into the Yankees' October buzzsaw -- the same buzzsaw that's been chewing up Minnesota in the postseason for two decades now.

Game 1: Didi Gregorius -- back from Tommy John, playing on an expiring contract, with everything on the line -- crushed two homers off Jose Berrios. Yankees won 10-4. Game 2: Tanaka dealt, Torres raked, 8-2 Yankees. Game 3 at Target Field: Severino, in a surprise start after missing the entire regular season, threw 4 scoreless innings. The Yankees closed it out 5-1.

Sweep. Three games. The Twins' record-setting offense managed 7 runs in three games. Gregorius was the hero, and it felt right -- the guy who'd fought his way back from surgery, who knew this might be his last ride in pinstripes, going out swinging.

October: The Asterisk

And then came Houston.

The Astros won 107 games. They had Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, George Springer. They had Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke. And they had Gerrit Cole -- 20-5, 2.50 ERA, the best pitcher on the planet that year -- the guy the Yankees wanted more than anyone else in baseball.

Cole was dominant in Game 1. Overpowering. The Yanks managed one run and lost 4-1. They fought back to win Game 2 (4-3) and Game 3 (5-4) at the Stadium -- two tight, grinding games where the bullpen held the line and the offense scratched together just enough. For a brief, beautiful moment, the Bombers had a 2-1 series lead and all the momentum in the world.

Houston ripped it away. They crushed the Yankees 8-3 in Game 4, then Cole came back and shut them down in Game 5, 4-1. CC Sabathia started that game -- his last in pinstripes, though nobody wanted to believe it yet. He left with a shoulder injury after 4.1 innings. Watching him walk off that mound, knowing what his body had been through, knowing this was it -- that hit different.

Game 6 in Houston. The Yankees scored 4 runs. It wasn't enough. Astros won 6-4, and the season was over.

The ALCS loss stung. Judge hit .111 in the series. The lineup hit a collective .214 against Astros pitching. The rotation couldn't match Houston's depth. It felt like the Yankees had pushed the best team in the league to the edge and just didn't have enough left in the tank after fighting through 162 games of injuries.

And then November happened.

The Part That Still Burns

On November 12, 2019, The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich dropped a report that changed everything: the Houston Astros had been stealing signs using a camera in center field and a trash can in the dugout tunnel. Bang bang -- fastball. No bang -- offspeed. The scheme ran through at least 2017 and into 2018.

MLB's investigation -- released in January 2020 -- confirmed the cheating. Manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow got one-year suspensions, and the Astros fired both of them. The Astros kept their 2017 World Series title. Manfred didn't suspend a single player. He called the trophy "just a piece of metal." (I'm still not over that one.)

Here's what the investigation didn't confirm: whether the Astros cheated in the 2019 postseason specifically. The official findings covered the regular season system. People alleged alternative methods -- buzzers, other signals -- but nobody proved them. The Yankees can't point to a specific stolen sign in October 2019 and say "there."

But here's what we DO know: the team the Yankees lost to had a documented culture of cheating. They'd done it before. They'd gotten away with it. And two games decided the ALCS. Judge said it best after the scandal broke -- if you have to cheat to win, you haven't won.

CC Sabathia was furious. Publicly, loudly furious. His last game in pinstripes was against a team that had been banging on trash cans for years. Tell me that doesn't sting.

The 2019 ALCS will always carry an asterisk in the Bronx. Not because we can prove they cheated that October. Because we can't prove they didn't.

Key Moments

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the 2019 Yankees record?

The 2019 Yankees went 103-59, winning the AL East by 7 games over the Tampa Bay Rays. They swept the Minnesota Twins in the ALDS before losing to the Houston Astros in six games in the ALCS.

What was 'Next Man Up' for the 2019 Yankees?

"Next Man Up" was the team's rallying cry during an unprecedented injury season. The Yankees placed 30 different players on the injured list -- including Judge, Stanton, Severino, Gregorius, and Sabathia -- yet kept winning through contributions from unlikely heroes like Gio Urshela, Mike Tauchman, and Cameron Maybin. Manager Aaron Boone coined the phrase early in the season and it stuck.

Did the Astros cheat in the 2019 ALCS against the Yankees?

MLB's investigation confirmed the Astros' sign-stealing scheme (using cameras and trash can banging) during the 2017 regular season and into 2018. The investigation didn't find confirmed evidence of the same system being used in the 2019 postseason. People alleged alternative methods but nobody proved them. The series remains a sore subject for Yankees fans -- the team they lost to had a documented history of cheating, and two games decided the ALCS.

How did DJ LeMahieu perform in 2019?

LeMahieu hit .327 with 26 homers and 102 RBI in his first year with the Yankees, finishing second in AL MVP voting behind Mike Trout. He played all four infield positions, batted in nearly every lineup spot, and carried the offense during Judge and Stanton's extended absences. His 2-year, $24 million contract was the steal of the entire free agent class.

When did CC Sabathia retire?

Sabathia announced before the 2019 season that it'd be his last. He made 23 starts during the regular season while battling knee problems and managing his post-cardiac health. His final career appearance came in Game 5 of the ALCS against Houston, when he left with a shoulder injury after 4.1 innings. He retired with 251 career wins.

Thirty different guys on the injured list. A franchise-record parade of setbacks. And they still won 103 games, broke the home run record, swept the Twins, and pushed a 107-win Astros team to six games in the ALCS. The 2019 Yankees didn't get a ring. They got an asterisk next to someone else's name -- and every single one of them earned more than that.