NY YANKEES' RESILIENCY

At the beginning of this season, the Yankees have led the league in a category that no one should lead…injuries!  Most of the injuries are worse than something like a pulled hamstring.  Over half of their standard 25-man roster players have been out of action for lengthy periods, too.  I’m not going to bore you with a list of the minor injuries, but here are 11 players who have/had been out for lengthy periods:  Luis Severino, Domingo German, Jordan Montgomery, Dellin Betances, Didi Gregorius, Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andujar, Greg Bird, Troy Tulowitzki (no longer a Yankee), Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton.  Most of them have been All-Stars.  Judge recently returned to the team, as well as Sanchez.  Yet, key players such as Luis Severino (their former ace) and Dellin Betances (their main setup reliever) are still on the Injured List (IL) since the beginning of the season!  Now, all teams have injured players, but even the media recognized the number of Yankees injured players as utterly preposterous.

With all of the aforementioned, this season’s Yankees have found ways to not only perform decently, but to exceed all expectations, perhaps even more than they were given at the beginning of the season before the injuries.  How have they managed to currently be 29 games over 500 at 64 wins and 35 losses?  The answers are simple, but not usually feasible…they have over 25 qualified players (to support the 25-man roster) and some from the originally-planned roster have exceeded expectations.  For the latter, DJ LeMahieu has proven to be even better than he was on the Colorado Rockies and Luke Voit has proven to be much better than he was for the St. Louis Cardinals.  Many have stated that LeMahieu has been the MVP of this Yankees’ team thus far and I certainly wouldn’t disagree.

Now, it’s time to continue on this awesome path.  Will Severino or Betances be back in time before the playoffs?  Both have started some throwing, so maybe – although each will certainly need some form of spring training.  In the interim, as usual, there’s always the trade deadline to acquire at least incremental improvements for the stretch.  With this year’s one and only trade deadline being July 31, it’s time for the Yankees to go after their biggest need – an above-average starting pitcher.  My votes are for either Matthew Boyd (currently pitching for the Tigers) or Mike Minor (pitching for the Rangers).  Both are lefties and both have a WHIP (my favorite pitching stat) below 1.2.  By the way, WHIP stands for Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched.