Like I did last October, I’m giving Aaron Boone a clean slate for the postseason. Hopefully, he won’t make me regret it the way he did last year.
The moment the Yankees won the 2018 American League Wild-Card Game, I started over with Aaron Boone. After failing to win the division and avoid the wild-card game and have a free pass to the ALDS, the Yankees survived the one-game playoff and were going to the first round. I erased the six months of questionable lineup decisions, nonsensical bullpen moves and head-scratching in-game maneuvers because the Yankees had reached the actual postseason. I agreed to only judge Boone on his managing in the real October.
Boone quickly reminded me why I was so critical of his managing throughout the regular season. In Game 3 of the ALDS, he let Luis Severino return to the mound with the Yankees already in a three-run hole and every Red Sox swing resulting in a line drive. He doubled down on his egregious decision to stick with Severino by allowing the clearly-fatigued righty (who was also somehow late to warm up for a postseason game) to load the bases with no outs before finally removing him. Needing a strikeout to begin to hope to limit the damage in the inning and save the game, Boone called on the last pitcher on the postseason roster and the worst strikeout numbers in the bullpen.
The Red Sox routed the Yankees, handing them the worst home postseason loss in franchise history and completely destroying the idea these Yankees couldn’t lose at home in the postseason after winning all six home games in 2017 and the first one in 2018. The raucous Stadium crowd, which had been present since the first pitch of the 2017 wild-card game, eagerly waiting the team’s return to glory, was silenced for the night and the Red Sox had pushed the Yankees to the brink of elimination.
The next night, Boone once against had too long of a leash for his starting pitcher, as he let CC Sabathia go through the Red Sox’ lineup a second time. His reasoning? He liked the matchup of Sabathia against Jackie Bradley who was the Red Sox’ 9-hitter, so he allowed Sabathia to face the entire lineup to get to the last hitter in it. Maybe Boone was hesitant to pull Sabathia because of their history as friends and former teammates, or maybe it was because he truly believed his logic was sound. Either way, the Yankees were eliminated.
This regular season, we saw much of the same from Boone with more odd lineup decisions and unfathomable bullpen choices, but the Yankees won 103 games anyway, despite setting the single-season record for most players on the injured list and despite Boone causing six months of unnecessary blood pressure spikes across the Tri-state area. Though most of those wins can be attributed to the majority of Major League Baseball not caring to be competitive with 10 teams losing at least 90 games, including four which lost at least 103, it can’t be denied that the Yankees have had regular-season success under Boone, even if there would be no change in performance with a different manager managing this roster against this league.
This postseason, I’m scared of the Yankees’ offense getting shut down by right-handed power pitching the way it did in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS in Houston and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS against Boston, and I’m nervous that the starting pitching concerns will make an appearance against the best opposing lineups in the league, but I’m also worried Boone will ruin a game or games by letting the inning dictate who pitches and not the situation. How can you not be worried about this? We have seen Boone manage the same way for two full regular seasons and one postseason, choosing lesser relievers in high-leverage situations because of the inning number.
I have joked in the past that since Brian Cashman is so good at trades and so bad at free agency, the Yankees should have Cashman conduct the trades and have a second general manager handle free agency, the way some NFL teams have a kicker for kickoffs and another for field goals. I have also joked that the Yankees should follow this setup for their manager as well. Boone can be the clubhouse manager since he was hired for his personality and ability to communicate with the players. He can be the one who jokes in the room and keeps things loose with his impressions of the team’s roster. He can go out drinking with the guys after games, set up dinner plans on road trips and lead the card games on the team plane. Then, the Yankees can hire an actual game manager.
Cashman built Boone a super bullpen last October, featuring Dellin Betances, Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Zack Britton and Chad Green. But in the most important bullpen spots in the postseason, Boone either went to his bullpen too late or went to Lance Lynn instead. Buying someone a Ferrari doesn’t make sense if they either don’t know how to drive or are going to opt to drive their old, beat-up Acura anyway. Boone demonstrated all of last season he didn’t know how to manage a bullpen and it reared its ugly head at the worst possible time. This season, he has made the same egregious mistakes as last season with the same type of bullpen, and I’m petrified he could be the Yankees’ most-feared opponent in October.
If the Yankees lose this October because the offense performs its third annual disappearing act at the worst possible time or the starting pitching gets rocked or the elite relievers can’t protect leads, so be it. It will suck and I will be upset, but it will be easier to accept. If the Yankees lose because of Boone, well, that’s something I won’t be able to accept.
I’m willing to give Boone a clean slate to begin the postseason for a second straight year. Let’s see how long it lasts.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
Chris Shearn of YES Network joined me to talk about the level of confidence for the Yankees this postseason.
The layoff between the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason feels extra long this season because there’s no wild-card game to prepare and worry about and because September was a formality for the Yankees. I’m not complaining since I’m ecstatic the Yankees have finally avoided the wild-card game, but I’m ready for Game 1.
Chris Shearn of YES Network joined me to talk about feeling confident about the Yankees heading into the playoffs, why the Yankees have the best possible ALDS opponent, what the lineup and rotation should be, trusting Aaron Boone in the postseason and what the Yankees have to do for this season to be considered successful.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
The regular season is over and that means the over/under predictions for the Yankees are over as well. Before the postseason begins, let’s look back at my over/under predictions from the season and see where I went right and wrong.
The regular season is over and that means the over/under predictions for the Yankees are over as well. Before the postseason begins, let’s look back at my over/under predictions from the season and see where I went right and wrong.
Part of the write-up from March is italicized. (This season’s win total in parentheses)
Gary Sanchez: Under 13.5 passed balls (7): WIN Last season, Gary Sanchez led the majors with 18 passed balls despite only catching 76 games, 74 which were starts and 67 which were complete games. The year before, he led the league with 16 passed balls in 104 games caught, 99 which were starts and 91 which were complete games. Somehow, Sanchez increased his passed ball total despite appearing in 28 last games. No, that’s not ideal.
But I’m optimistic when it comes to Sanchez and think he will be better behind the plate in 2019, as long as he isn’t struggling offensively since I believed that affected his defensive work either. It would be nice to see him less, let’s say lazy, when he’s got his gear on and not letting fastballs go by him to advance base runners. Sanchez has to be better in 2019. I can’t go another season of listening to idiots call for Austin Romine to be the team’s starting catcher.
After leading the league in passed balls in back-to-back seasons, Sanchez only had seven this season. He caught 14 more games than he did in 2018 and 14 less than he did in 2017, but significantly cut down his passed ball total.
Miguel Andujar: .299 batting average (.143): LOSS For a long time, having a .300 hitter on the Yankees wasn’t unusual, considering they had Derek Jeter for two decades and during his years also had some pretty good players. But since Jeter aged and Robinson Cano left, it’s been a while since you could look at the big screen in center field at the Stadium and see .300 next to a Yankee late in the season. Andujar’s rookie season and his contact ability are the perfect combination to believe that will change.
Technically, this is a loss, but I feel like it should go down as an incomplete. Andujar only played in 12 games, and played with a significant injury in nine of them, posting a .143 batting average (6-for-47).
It’s going to be interesting to see what the Yankees do at third base in 2019 when Andujar returns after Gio Urshela’s breakout season at the plate. Unfortunately, it’s a storyline that’s not going to go away this offseason or in spring training or in the regular season next year unless one of them is traded.
Aaron Hicks: Under 145 games played (59): WIN Everything about the Aaron Hicks contract extension is great except that he could be playing center field for the Yankees as a 36-year-old in 2026, and I’m not about to go back to 2013-16. The good news is if he sucks then or really at any point in this deal, it’s not an overwhelming amount of money the Yankees owe him or would have to eat. At $10 million per season for a starting center fielder in this center field climate, it might be the best contract the Yankees have ever had on their payroll.
The biggest problem with Hicks is that he can’t stay healthy, which he is showing once again as he won’t be ready for Opening Day and probably not for more than a week into the regular season. Hicks needs to find a way to avoid his one to two injured list stints per seasons. It’s the last piece of the puzzle for a player who saved his career and was awarded life-changing money.
Hicks didn’t ended up missing the first series of the season or the first week, he ended up missing the first six-plus weeks. Then after coming back from the long and weird back injury, Hicks hurt his elbow in early August and hasn’t played since, finishing the season with 59 games played.
Hicks turns 30 tomorrow and the Yankees have him for six more seasons. For a player who never played a full season in the majors in his 20s, I don’t expect him to be healthier on the other side of 30. Thankfully, his contract won’t prevent the team from making necessary moves in the future.
Gleyber Torres: Over 25 home runs (38): WIN The Yankees have Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and their best player in 2019 and possibly beyond might be Gleyber Torres. The 22-year-old middle infielder was an All-Star in his first season, carrying the Yankees for the first few weeks of his arrival before hitting a wall in the dog days of the season.
As excited as I am for this Yankees season and the first season in what was always expected to be the first season of this window of opportunity, I’m especially excited to see how Torres grows and adjusts to a league that will certainly have adjusted to him after what he did last year. A sophomore slump for Torres? I don’t see it.
Torres laughed at the idea of a sophomore slump or teh league adjusting to him as he batted .278/.337/.535 with 38 home runs and 90 RBIs, easily covering the home run total set here. Aaron Boone finalyl relized it wa s time to stop batitng TOres ninth and moved him up int othe top half othe order and there’s a chance he could be hitting as high as third in the postseason.
James Paxton: Under 160 1/3 innings (150 2/3 innings): WIN When you look at James Paxton’s numbers, you see a pitcher with not a lot of miles on his arm and just 582 1/3 innings as a now 30-year-old. The reason there isn’t a lot of miles on his arm is because there’s other problems with his arm, and his shoulder and his back, and so on.
In theory, Paxton is a great fit as a power left-hander pitching half of his games in Yankee. The problem is Paxton’s career high for starts is 28 and innings is 160 1/3, and they both came last season. It would be a miracle if Paxton were to get through the 2019 unscathed to start 32 times and give the Yankees 200 innings. Until he has a season in which he’s able to avoid the injured list even once, it’s hard to believe it will happen.
Paxton finished the season at 150 2/3 innings, thanks to his annual injured-list trip, which came early in the season. Paxton was solid in his first season as a Yankee after a 10-game winning streak to end the season (minus his last start) saved his overall numbers. He had a 4.72 ERA at the end of July, but finished with a 3.82 and 15 wins in 29 starts.
There were great moments and awful moments, in a season which was really two seasons for the left-hander: Opening Day through the end of July and August through September. It was exactly the type of season I expected from an inconsistent left-hander with “great stuff”.
Aaron Judge: 118.5 walks (68): LOSS The number most people care about when it comes to Aaron Judge is home runs. and rightfully so. But after that it should be walks.
Judge led the league with 127 walks in 2017 and was on a 110-walk pace last season if not for the broken wrist (he ended up with 76). When Judge is getting his walks, you know he’s going right, and he’s setting the table for the guys behind him and tiring the pitcher on the mound for Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez.
If were up to me, I would bat Judge leadoff. I get that Aaron Hicks is a solid leadoff candidate, but he’s not Judge. Judge has a .409 on-base percentage over the last two seasons and seems to always be in full counts. He’s not going to give away an at-bat or swing at the first pitch and ground out to short. I want the best hitter on the team to get the most at-bats over the course of a season and the best hitter on the team is Judge. It’s certainly not Brett Gardner.
You can’t plan for injuries and for the second straight season, Judge missed significant time, which caused this number to go under at 68. After last season’s broken wrist, Judge landed on the injured list for two months with an oblique injury. Judge missed the end of the 2016 season with a oblique injury, played through a shoulder injury in the second half of 2017, had the broken wrist in 2018 and then the oblique injury in 2019. Can we get a full healthy season of Judge? Especially with the current state of the baseballs.
Masahiro Tanaka: Over 13.5 wins (11): LOSS Masahiro Tanaka has never thrown 200 innings in the regular season for the Yankees. He came within one out (199 2/3 innings) in 2016, but aside from that his best season was 178 1/3 in 2017.
Another thing Tanaka hasn’t done is win more than 14 games. He’s won 13, 12, 14, 13 and 12. And while I’m not big on pitcher’s win totals since it’s more of a team effort and a lot more is needed that the pitcher simply going at least five innings and pitching well, it’s definitely shocking Tanaka has been unable to reach even 15 wins in what has been a very good career in the majors (64-34 with a 3.59 ERA in 132 starts).
Tanaka needs to give the Yankees quality starts (and starts period), especially at the beginning of the season with two-thirds of the rotation out. If he does that, with this offense, against the crap teams they will see in April, Tanaka will be well on his way to crushing this win total.
When Tanaka had a 1.47 ERA through his first three starts I thought he was well on his way to crushing the over. Then he made a habit of blowing leads with a single crooked-number inning each start and the offense gave him little to no run support in other starts and he finished with 11 wins.
Tanaka received a decision in six starts in which he went at least six innings and gave up two earned runs or less, and that was the difference in him going over the win total. But as long as Tanaka pitches in October the way he has in five previous October starts, that’s all I care about.
Brett Gardner: Under .340 on-base percentage (.325): WIN Gardner looked finish last season. He finished at .236/.322/.368, which are catcher-like numbers for a guy who was given the chance at the most at-bats by the team for the first five months of the season. I didn’t want Gardner back in 2019 and wanted the team to go in a different direction like Michael Brantley, who the Astros signed, and will undoubtedly have a big hit or hits against the Yankees in the postseason. Because Clint Frazier would need time to get back to playing baseball every day after losing most of the 2018 season, the Yankees couldn’t go into 2019 thinking he would be a full-time Major Leaguer. So they brought Gardner back on a one-year, $7.5 million deal, thinking his veteran leadership and clubhouse presence were needed and that his sharp decline last season wasn’t indicative of what he has left in the tank.
Gardner enjoyed a career resurgence with the new baseball, hitting an astonishing 28 home runs in season win which he wasn’t supposed to play every day and a season in which he started out looking like he was more than finished as a major leaguer. Now he’s most certainly going to be back with the team in 2020.
But even though Gardner experienced a power surge, he didn’t experience an on-base surge and was unable to return his old self when it comes to getting on base. Yes, his OPS went from .690 to .829, but his on-base only went from .322 to .325, the second-worst of his career. As long as Gardner continues to hit home runs, his on-base percentage dipping won’t matter, but if he regresses power-wise, he’ll turn back into the player who lost his leadoff spot and job completely in 2018.
Giancarlo Stanton: Under 200 strikeouts (24): WIN Giancarlo Stanton was OK in his first season as Yankee. Yes, a .266/.343/.509 hitter with 38 home runs and 100 RBIs was just OK.
Here are the most common excuses from the Stanton fan club heard last season:
1. He’s with a new organization 2. He’s in a new league and has to learn new pitchers 3. He’s playing his home games in colder weather at the beginning and end of the season 4. He needs to get acclimated and adjusted to living in a new city
Maybe some or all of those are true, but they are no longer valid. Not in Year 2, not in 2019. Unfortunately, we can’t go back and redo what happened in October, we only know it can’t happen again. As a Marlin, Stanton would supposedly go to Europe during the MLB postseason since it was too painful to watch. Well, he better change his approach at the plate and with runners on or he’s going to being going to Europe a lot during the World Series as a Yankee.
If I’m going to take a chap loss on Andujar’s batting average, I’m going to take the cheap win on Stanton’s strikeout total. Stanton only played in 18 games, so it was impossible for him to not go under. In those 18 games, he struck out 24 times, so if he had kept that pace for 162 games, it would have translated to 216 strikeouts, but you have to figure he wouldn’t have played all 162 games. The number would have been close had Stanton been healthy all season, but I’ll gladly take the win here. Now it’s up to Stanton to redeem himself in the postseason for his forgettable 2018 postseason.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
Andrew Rotondi of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about everything Yankees for the ALDS.
The regular season is over and for the first time in a long time, the regular season was just a formality for the Yankees. Now the real season begins and Game 1 of the ALDS is Friday night at Yankee Stadium.
Andrew Rotondi of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the possibility of Brett Gardner or Didi Gregorius batting third in the playoffs, Luke Voit being left off the postseason roster, if Aaron Boone has learned from his past postseason mistakes, the biggest worries for October, why the Yankees should easily win the ALDS and why the ALCS is essentially the World Series.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
This is it. The Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.
This is it: the Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.
1. The goal of being the 1-seed and having home-field advantage for the American League playoffs won’t be accomplished. The Yankees trail the Astros by three games in the loss column, which means four games overall for the 1-seed, and with the Yankees only having three games left, the Yankees will be the 2-seed in the AL. The Yankees also now trail the Dodgers by a 1/2 game for home-field in a potential World Series.
It’s still possible the Yankees could have home-field for both the ALCS and World Series. The Astros could get upset in the ALDS by the Rays, A’s or Indians (I wouldn’t count on it) and the Yankees could either finish with a better record than the Dodgers, or the Dodgers could get upset as well. But if the Yankees advance to the ALCS, plan on them playing the Astros.
I wanted the Yankees to have home-field in the event they reach the ALCS and play the Astros because I think they need it to win. The 2017 ALCS was completely lopsided in favor of the home team, the Astros have the best home record in baseball this season (60-21) and Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole have been nearly unhittable in Houston, though they have been nearly unhittable everywhere. The Yankees have had success against this Astros core in New York, and it was these Astros who admitted to being intimidated by the Yankee Stadium crowd in the postseason. The Yankees can beat the Astros, but it would have been easier to do so with the first two games, and four of the seven games of the ALCS at home.
Now the Yankees are either going to need to have an unlikely upset in the other ALDS or do something they have a lot of trouble doing in Houston: hitting, scoring and winning.
2. I’m scared of Verlander in the postseason, but I’m just as scared of Cole, who has better strikeouts numbers than Verlander, and who the Yankees have seen a lot less of in recent years.
I stayed up on Wednesday night to watch the Astros-Mariners game (because I had an Astros-A’s two-team parlay), and during the broadcast, there was a graphic shown about Cole and how for more than four months now he is first in every single pitching category in the league.
Cole was originally drafted by the Yankees, but chose to attend UCLA instead, and was later redrafted by the Pirates. The Yankees unsuccessfully tried to trade for him before the 2018 season, but the Astros landed him, and he helped lead them to the ALCS, before laying an egg, which helped the Red Sox advance to and win the World Series.
I can’t help but envision Cole shutting down the Yankees in the ALCS the way he was unable to shut down the Red Sox last season, and then watching the Yankees greatly overpay to sign him in the offseason only to have him come to New York and be more like the pitcher the Pirates dealt than the one the Astros acquired. That seems like something that would happen. Then again, the Yankees probably won’t sign him in the offseason, opting to once again shop from the starting pitching clearance rack.
3. The type of game we saw from the Yankees on Wednesday night against Charlie Morton and the Rays is the exact type of game that keeps me up at night for fear of it happening in the postseason. The Yankees’ right-handed heavy lineup (missing two more right-handed hitters in Gary Sanchez and Edwin Encarnacion) was completely shut down by Morton for six innings and the Rays’ bullpen for the final three. The Yankees were one-hit in the game and managed to score only one run in the 21 innings in the two-game series. For now, I’m going to chalk it up as just two games of 162 at a time when the Yankees are just trying to go through the motions and stay healthy against a team with everything to play for still.
Morton has owned the Yankees away from Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees have owned him in New York (like they did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALCS), only further proving how much better the Yankees are at home than on the road. Wednesday night’s game was essentially a duplicate performance of Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS for Morton. In that game, Morton shut out the Yankees for five innings, only allowing two hits, before Lance McCullers Jr. came in and threw 100 straight curveballs to finish the game.
The Yankees and Yankees fans should be extremely grateful Morton is no longer on the Astros. Outside of Verlander and Cole, he’s been arguably the best pitcher in the AL. It’s bad enough the Astros’ third starter is Zack Greinke, but if it were still Morton, the Yankees could pack up the bats and balls and try again next season.
4. It’s hard to put a lot of stock into how badly the Yankees have played recently, and they have played badly, going 7-7 since their unnecessary bullpen management loss in Detroit back on September 10, because they haven’t been using their best possible lineup and have been avoiding using their elite relievers.
I’m not worried about the team playing poorly at the end of the regular season because nothing that has happened this month and nothing that will happen in the last three games of the season this weekend will matter come next Friday night at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could be on a 15-game winning streak or 15-game losing streak heading into October and it wouldn’t matter, and the team’s lack of hitting this week against the Rays, doesn’t worry me. I have long been worried about the offense disappearing in the postseason like it did in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS, and the last two games didn’t change that.
5. With each game the Yankees use a lineup that features Brett Gardner and Didi Gregorius breaking up the right-handed bats, the more nervous I get about this sort of lineup being used in the postseason. I don’t know who actually creates the lineup, and I highly doubt it’s Aaron Boone, but whoever it is, Gardner and Gregorius can’t be hitting anywhere other than the bottom third of the lineup. This isn’t the 2017 postseason when the Yankees had Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Starlin Castro to hide. The lineup is too good, whether it’s right-handed heavy or not, to have those two batting anywhere higher than seventh.
If Gardner and Gregorius bat where they should, here’s a lineup I think we could see.
1. DJ LeMahieu, 1B 2. Aaron Judge, RF 3. Gleyber Torres, 2B 4. Giancarlo Stanton, LF 5. Edwin Encarnacion, DH 6. Gary Sanchez, C 7. Didi Gregorius, SS 8. Gio Urshela, 3B 9. Brett Gardner, CF
I don’t agree with Stanton batting ahead of Encarnacion or Sanchez, but the Yankees are going to hit Stanton at least fourth and possibly even third. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Gregorius bats ahead of Sanchez because the Yankees desperately like to hit inferior hitters ahead of superior hitters whenever they can.
6. This lineup doesn’t include Luke Voit, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to play. Between Voit, Encarnacion and Urshela, two of the three will play. I think you need Urshela in the lineup, not only because he’s earned it, but because he’s been so good at third base, that even if he were to stay in his current slump in October, his glove is enough to keep him in the lineup. That leaves the final lineup between Voit and Encarnacion.
Encarnacion will return to the lineup this weekend in Texas and try to get as many at-bats as he can in the three-game series (though I’m sure the Yankees won’t let him play in all three games) to get ready for the postseason. As long he shows he’s healthy, he’s going to play.
Voit, on the other hand, claims he’s healthy and over the hernia injury that landed him on the injured list twice, but he hasn’t hit since returning nearly a month ago. Voit is batting just .222/.341/.375 over 85 plate appearances with two home runs since the end of August and has looked overmatched most of the time. He still has a .383 on-base percentage and an .856 OPS on the season, but you have to go back to the end of July to find the last time he was truly a feared, middle-of-the-order presence. If Encarnacion is healthy, Voit is on the bench to begin the postseason.
7. It can be worrisome to be the 1-seed and have had nothing to play for in weeks and suddenly be playing a postseason game against a team that has been in Game 7 mode for as long as you have been coasting. The Twins are a lot like the Yankees in that they have known for a while they are going to the postseason, even if they didn’t officially clinch the AL Central until Wednesday. Now the Twins can sit back and relax, like the Yankees have been doing, and play spring training lineups and wait for next Friday.
Despite not being the 1-seed and not having home-field advantage no matter what and not getting to face the wild-card winner who will have had to play an extra game and burn their best starter to get to the ALDS, I think the Yankees ended up with the best possible first-round matchup.
I’m not scared of the Twins. Not at all. This doesn’t have to do with the Yankees historically owning the Twins and eliminating them in five postseasons since 2003. This has everything to do with the Twins having the weakest starting pitching in the AL postseason field. If the Yankees were to lose to them, it wouldn’t just be an upset, it would be an absolute disaster. The Yankees would claim it’s the result of a short series and small sample size and the MLB postseason being a crapshoot, but it can’t happen. The Yankees can’t lose in the ALDS.
8. The best chance the Yankees have of not seeing the Astros in a potential ALCS is if the A’s win the wild-card game. The Astros would steamroll both the Rays and Indians, but I could see an A’s upset of the Astros, and from a gambling perspective, there would be a lot of value in taking the A’s series money line.
The A’s took three of four from the Astros in Houston two weeks ago and have won six of the last eight against them. The two teams know each other the same way the Yankees and Red Sox do, and there wouldn’t be any surprises in a series between them.
A series which wouldn’t have been allowed prior to the five-team postseason format is the last thing the Astros want after earning the 1-seed. It’s the only real ALDS matchup which could end the Astros’ season early or at least screw up the order of their rotation for the ALCS.
9. The Yankees are going to finish the season with either 102, 103, 104 or 105 wins depending on how the weekend in Texas goes in what will also be the last three games ever at Globe Life Park in Arlington.
It’s been a fun six months and an enjoyable season, the third in a row, after the previous three out of four were miserable. But now the real season begins. Everything since March 29 has been to prepare for next Friday night in the Bronx and Game 1 of the ALDS, and if the season doesn’t end the way the last nine have failed to, nothing since March 29 will have mattered.
10. This was the 19th and final Off Day Dreaming of the regular season. There will be a similar blog after each postseason game this October as there has been in past postseasons.
Thank you for reading Off Day Dreaming throughout the regular season on the worst days of any Yankees season: off days. The next regular-season Off Day Dreaming will be on Friday, March 27, 2020.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
