Yesterday, the NY Yankees clinched their 53rd playoff
berth. There are so many things out of
sync in our world today; but, when the Yankees are about to participate in the
playoffs, we at least have baseball seeming normal. As almost all baseball fans know, the Yankees
were not even supposed to have a season above .500 this year, much less qualify
for the playoffs! As a matter of fact, they
even have a chance to win 90 games!
Their youth movement, which has been rapidly developing over the last 4
years or so, has produced many stars from last season into this season. Key youth-movement contributors have included
Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Chad Green, and Jordan Montgomery. In fact, three of them (Judge, Sanchez, and
Severino) earned their first years as All Stars this season.
Besides those five young players, the Yankees certainly received major
contributions from two backup players, Ronald Torreyes and Austin Romine. Both of them have exceedingly provided
seamless efforts to help the team win during injuries to Starlin Castro, Didi
Gregorius, and Gary Sanchez. Speaking of
Starlin and Didi, they have both proven to be exceptional acquisitions during
their first, and now their second season as Yankees.
By the way, Didi is now my favorite starting player on this roster. Aside from his impressive batting and
defense, he has seemingly become a leader on the field. Yes, Judge and Sanchez do get a lot of
rightful acclaim, but Didi’s implementation of public postgame comical tweets
and his physical lifts of vertically-challenged Ronald Torreyes during Judge’s
high-fives has shown his leadership towards making the game fun. He, unlike Judge and Sanchez, also offers
more commentary during his interviews. I’m
sure even Derek Jeter is proud to watch his successor’s contributions as a
player and as a person.
Another reason the Yankees overachieved this year was because of Brian
Cashman’s July acquisitions. He
thankfully brought four key players to this team - Sonny Grey, Todd Frazier,
Tommy Kahnle, and my favorite returnee…David Robertson. Grey and Kahnle (also a returnee) are both
young pitchers. Behind Severino, Grey is
probably our second best starting pitcher.
Kahnle is a lot like Adam Warren.
He is an excellent bullpen pitcher who can offer multiple innings for
most of his mound appearances.
One final player who deserves recognition for his contribution is Chase
Headley. This guy has had so many ups
and downs on this team in the past. This
year, he only had one poor month (May).
While his offensive numbers have been overly steady, it was his voluntary
sacrifice to completely learn and ultimately play first base when Todd Frazier
was acquired that really stands out.
Yes, he had played some games at that position, but only as a last-choice
backup. He knew that Frazier was a
better option to continue as a third baseman and he spent a multitude of hours
dedicated towards becoming a decent first baseman - several levels above the
skills of a backup. The best thing is -
he really did it!
Lastly, this season’s surprise success would not have come together
without the person who has clearly led this team, Joe Girardi. It’s strange to me how many Yankees’ fans
dislike Joe. Many nitpick everything he
does - especially after the results of Joe’s moves. It’s easy to offer strong opinions “after”
results, but Joe does not have that luxury as many of his decisions require
instantaneous choices. Joe has visibly corrected
Gary Sanchez during games, but not in a humiliating fashion. He’s also shown some sturdy managing by
immediately offering his verbal explanation to Jaime Garcia as to why he
removed Garcia from a game in the 5th inning of a game, right before
Garcia could have possibly qualified for a win.
With all of the injuries in baseball today, perhaps Girardi’s best
quality has been his rotating of players, even veterans.
As it stands today, the Yankees will more than likely be one of the
wildcard teams and their opponent will probably be the Minnesota Twins. Anything can happen during one game. It’s not the best measurement of teams, but
it appears to be the only way of entry for the Yankees. Severino is deservingly expected to be the
pitcher for that game. Hopefully, he’ll
pitch like he has during most of his impressive starts and the Yankees will go onto the second round. We’ll soon find
out!
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