2020 Yankees

The 2020 New York Yankees played 60 games. Sixty. The whole freakin' season fit inside two months, nobody sat in the stands, and the sounds of Yankee Stadium got replaced by piped-in crowd noise and the hollow crack of bat on ball echoing through empty concrete. Record: 33-27. Division champs. Bounced in the ALDS by Tampa Bay. And somehow, in all that weirdness, Gerrit Cole finally put on the pinstripes.

The $324 Million Man Arrives

Cole's signing on December 11, 2019 -- nine years, $324 million, the largest pitching contract in baseball history -- felt like the Yankees had finally stopped messing around. This wasn't another reclamation project or a solid number-two guy. Cole grew up a Yankees fan in California. The club drafted him out of high school in 2008 (he chose UCLA instead). He'd gone 20-5 with a 2.50 ERA and 326 strikeouts for Houston in 2019, and now he was coming home.

Then a pandemic ate the first four months of the season.

Cole's actual debut came on July 23, Opening Night of the COVID season, against Cleveland at an empty Yankee Stadium. The childhood fan, the $324 million arm, throwing to nobody in the seats. He dealt. The Yankees won. It felt like the start of something -- even if the silence in the building made the whole thing feel like a scrimmage with stakes.

Across 12 starts, Cole went 7-3 with a 2.84 ERA and 94 strikeouts in 73 innings. The per-inning dominance was real. A 12.6 K/9 rate doesn't lie, even in a shortened season. He struck out 13 Red Sox in an August destruction that reminded everyone why Cashman wrote the check.

The Weirdest Season Ever

Look, I don't need to explain COVID to you. But the baseball-specific stuff was genuinely strange. Summer Camp started July 1 at home stadiums -- basically a compressed spring training. The universal DH showed up for the first time. The postseason expanded from 10 teams to 16. And on July 4, during an intrasquad scrimmage, a line drive caught Masahiro Tanaka in the head on the mound. No crowd to gasp. Just the sickening sound and players sprinting toward him. He recovered, he pitched, but that image -- Tanaka crumpled on the dirt in total silence -- captured the whole surreal vibe of 2020 baseball.

Aaron Judge played just 28 of the 60 games. A stress fracture in his right first rib (traced back to September 2019 -- the medical staff caught it late, which didn't go over great) combined with a calf strain gutted his season. When he played, he hit .257 with 9 homers. But that's 28 games out of 60. The Yankees needed their best player and he wasn't there.

DJ LeMahieu picked up the slack in a massive way. His .364 batting average led the American League, and he finished in the MVP conversation behind Jose Abreu. Luke Voit -- the bearded, barrel-chested first baseman nobody saw coming -- led ALL of MLB with 22 home runs in 60 games. That's a 59-homer pace over a full season. Gary Sanchez, meanwhile, hit .147 (not a typo) and became the lightning rod for every frustrated take on the roster.

October (in San Diego, For Some Reason)

The expanded playoff format sent the Yankees through a best-of-three Wild Card round against Cleveland, and the Yanks dispatched them in two straight at the Stadium. Cole dominated Game 1. Done and moving on.

Then came Tampa Bay in the ALDS -- a best-of-five played at Petco Park in San Diego, because neutral-site bubbles were the 2020 postseason's answer to everything. Giancarlo Stanton, healthy and terrifying for the first time in two years, absolutely mashed. He hit go-ahead homers, launched missiles into the San Diego night, and looked like the MVP-caliber hitter the Yankees thought they'd traded for. His slugging line in the series was absurd.

But the Rays were the Rays. Kevin Cash's pitching carousel -- openers, piggyback guys, a different look every inning -- chewed up the Yankees' power-heavy lineup. Tampa's roster cost a fraction of New York's and didn't care. The Rays won the series in five games, and the Yankees went home watching a $72 million team advance to the ALCS while their $200 million roster packed bags at a neutral site 2,500 miles from the Bronx.

The Rays went on to lose the World Series to the Dodgers. Small comfort.

Key Moments

Frequently Asked Questions

How many games did the Yankees play in 2020?

COVID-19 shortened the 2020 MLB season to 60 games. The Yankees went 33-27 and won the AL East division title. No fans attended a single game all year.

When did Gerrit Cole debut for the Yankees?

Cole made his Yankees debut on July 23, 2020 -- Opening Night of the COVID-shortened season -- against the Cleveland Indians at Yankee Stadium. He dominated in his first start, beginning a 12-start debut season that produced a 7-3 record, 2.84 ERA, and 94 strikeouts.

Who led MLB in home runs in 2020?

Luke Voit led all of Major League Baseball with 22 home runs in the 60-game season. The Yankees grabbed Voit from the Cardinals in 2018 for minimal prospect cost, and he turned into one of baseball's most productive power bats during 2020.

How were the Yankees eliminated in the 2020 postseason?

The Yankees beat Cleveland in the Wild Card round (2-0) before falling to the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS, 3 games to 2. The series took place at Petco Park in San Diego as part of the neutral-site postseason bubble. Giancarlo Stanton crushed the ball all series, but Tampa Bay's pitching depth proved too much.

Sixty games, an empty Stadium, and a first-round exit against a team built on spreadsheets and bullpen arms. Cole arrived and looked like money. Stanton showed up healthy and hit like a monster. LeMahieu hit .364. Voit led baseball in dingers. And none of it mattered come October -- because the Rays didn't care how much the Yankees spent, and COVID didn't care about anybody's plans. Sixty games. That's all we got.