5 hours Ago By Estevão Maximo
The New York Yankees are postseason-bound and have a better record than any other team in the American League, with only the Phillies and Dodgers sitting marginally above them across the big leagues. Even considering the massive upgrade they made in getting Juan Soto in pinstripes, they were facing an uphill battle entering the year attempting to take back the AL East from the Baltimore Orioles. They not only stand on the precipice of doing just that with seven games left to go, but they’ve accomplished this in a season in which, as a whole, the Yankees had few players truly outperforming their expectations.
In fact, it was far more common to see significant players in this roster underperforming. A more negative perspective could criticize the team for being unable to extract more out of a group of players that had more to give. However, at the same time, you have to praise the competitive floor of this team, leading the league in runs scored and fourth in runs allowed without a ton of surprises.
When it comes to individual performances, especially in the lineup, you can’t look in one direction without finding a bat who performed below par. They’ve seemingly come together at the right time to make a charge for the top seed entering the playoffs, but the journey to even be in this conversation is incredible to look back on. Let’s start with the offense, and one of the biggest enigmas of this season: Gleyber Torres.
Torres has salvaged his season a bit in the second half, but the dropoff from the last two years is staggering, and there is a very good chance he finishes the year with a sub-.700 OPS (he currently sits at .692).
While one could even argue an .800 OPS was a bit above his floor, very conservative PECOTA projections pegged him for a .749 mark, which in the current hitting climate, would have represented a significantly above-average bat, especially for second base.
Unlike Torres, Anthony Rizzo and D.J. LeMahieu are clearly at a declining stage in their career, and it’d be foolish to expect something close to the best we’ve seen from either.
However, their 2024 output was so far below the league average that it surprised even the more pessimistic fans. The pair combined for a .214 average in 523 at-bats, with a sub-.
300 OBP and only 10 homers. D.J.
LeMahieu scored 19 runs and hit into 13 double plays, it was that bad. Back to the projections, PECOTA had Rizzo pegged for a 102 DRC+ (BP’s version of wRC+) and LeMahieu for a 100 mark — neither much exciting, but considering what they produced, that would’ve been a massive improvement. Most projections were skeptical of Volpe given his lousy rookie campaign.
The disappointment came after he flashed terrific production in the first couple of months-plus, only to end the year getting pinch-hit late by Oswaldo Cabrera in a close game, as he was against the Mariners on Friday. Unlike on the offensive side, where the disappointment came strictly through disappointing production, there are other factors at play with the staff. Gerrit Cole showed in his last start why he has been the top dog in baseball for several years, and having a full-season of him at this level could’ve made a huge difference in the standings.
Not only did we see more volatility in 2024 than in previous campaigns, but mainly, the amount of lost time from a guy who’s rarely hurt was a big blow. One can’t help but wonder where this team would be with 2023 Cole, or any other year Cole for that matter. Projections for Carlos Rodón took a step back with his struggles in 2023, but unlike other power pitchers failing to live up to expectations, Rodón’s stuff hasn’t taken the hit that his recent campaigns would indicate.
Even with an outstanding second half, in line with the guy the Yankees paid for, Rodón will still finish the year flirting with an ERA around 4.00 — not quite bad, but also still falling a little flat. Thirteen blown saves, that’s how many times Clay Holmes failed to complete his task in 2024 — a Yankees record that no projection, no matter how negative, would’ve seen coming.
Saves are an arbitrary category to put much stock in, and Holmes certainly got the job done at the start of the season, but he’s allowed too many baserunners with a 1.31 WHIP and as a groundball specialist, the room for chaos in those save situations is just wide open. It’s no surprise that he eventually lost the closing gig after setting up one too many Houdini acts that he couldn’t maneuver out of.
Of course, not every single player on the team has underperformed expectations. The Yankees simply wouldn’t be in contention, let alone leading the division, if that was the case. There’s the obvious cases of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, whom projections are never going to pin to their top-shelf superstar capabilities due to the conservative nature of calculating these outcomes.
Even still, a handful of names have risen up to help push the team over the finish line ahead of the pack. Luis Gil is the main guy you can look at and say that he has completely changed his place in the pecking order of this team. Sure, there were some up and down moments across the year, but a 3.
14 ERA with a 27.3 K% has him in line for a big role in years to come. Similarly, Gil’s fellow starting candidate Clarke Schmidt claimed his stake in a future rotation spot with a 2.
37 ERA in 14 starts on the year — good enough to beat the projections even though he missed multiple months due to a strained lat. Austin Wells’ luck was truly foul at the start of the season, but he’s built up steam in the later months and narrowly gotten into the black, beating his PECOTA projections for slugging with a .413 mark to their estimated .
398. Overall, I think it is rather clear that there is a lot more that went wrong than right, and that’s impressive for a team with such a productive year, among the top World Series contenders heading into October. And for many of these Yankees who haven’t lived up to the back of their baseball card this year, this October stands as one last chance to flip the script.
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