February 12th, 2020. The date that all Yankee fans have had pencilled in their calendars since our beloved Yankees were eliminated from the postseason on, October 19th, to AJ Hinch and his humble, non-arrogant, integrity driven, rule abiding Astros squad. I’ll leave it at that. Since then, things have been on the up and up for NYY and they appear to be on the precipice of a special season in the Bronx.
This time around, it appears you cannot point to a weak point on the squad like you would have to been able to in off- seasons prior. This Aaron Boone led juggernaut, built by none other than 2019 Executive of the Year runner-up Brian Cashman, has everything you want in a baseball team. They have clubhouse comradery, a relentless attitude, a collective desire to win, a solid veteran to young player ratio, and most importantly: they’re postseason battle tested. They are coming off of back to back 100 plus win seasons with no hardware to show for it. However, you get the sense around the area that Cashman is not messing around this year.
After inking the 2019 AL Cy Young Award winner, Gerrit Cole, to a record setting 9 year deal with $324 million dollars, making him the 4th highest paid player in baseball and the highest paid pitcher by in the MLB. Year after year Yankees fans have been clamoring on local sports radio shows and social media for the front office to go out and get them a #1 pitcher. Cashman told them to be patient as he was waiting for the right time to pounce and dig into his pocket full of assets and cash in order to land a big free agent fish that could take them to the promised land. Cole fits that bill and then some.
The thought of putting Cole in a rotation that already consisted of Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton, Domingo German, Jonathan Loaisiga, and Jordan Montgomery, should be a dream come true for Yankee fans. Not only did you take the #1 pitcher away from your biggest threat to a pennant, you essentially made guys like Severino, Paxton, and Tanaka, who in their own regard, ( who have been #1-type starters at some point in their respective careers), middle to back end of the rotation guys. We have seen the past 2 World Series Champions ride the coattails of what baseball guys like to call “horses” to world championships: Chris Sale, David Price, Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer come to mind. The Yankees, who have been thought of as a team who will out slug you and then let their lights out bullpen shut the door on you, never really struck fear into the eyes of their opponents with their starting pitching. Now, with Cole leading the way coming off of a historic season, the Yankees can out pitch you if need be, and that is a scary, scary thing.
The Yankees will be returning a stacked lineup with seemingly no holes in it whatsoever. 2018 AL ROY runner-up Miguel Andujar, will return to the ball club coming off of a season- ending shoulder surgery, and after he was rumored all season long to be on the trade block to help the Yankees lure in an arm. And, optimistically thinking, a healthy? Giancarlo Stanton, after he sustained a torn left biceps, a left shoulder strain, a sprained right knee and a strained quad that plagued him in the playoffs. This Yankees lineup has plenty of power, speed, contact, and pretty much any other quality a manager would want his lineup to have, and then some. The one knock would be that, this lineup, for whatever reason in the post season, just left too many runners in scoring position and didn’t produce enough clutch/ timely hits when their team needed them to. The pitching staff was actually pretty solid throughout the postseason and kept them in games, contrary to popular belief.
With studs like Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, Domingo German on the bump and electric arms like Tommy Kahnle, Zach Britton, Adam Ottavino, Aroldis Champan coming in for relief. Alongside, sluggers DJ LeMahieu, Gio Urshela, Gleyber Torres, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner, Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, Miguel Andujar, among others, Bronx bombing dingers into Monument Park. Surrounded by quality role/ utility players like: Clint Frazier, Mike Tauchman, Thairo Estrada, Mike Ford, and Tyler Wade. It is hard to fathom another MLB team stacking up to this one in a 7 game series, but baseball is baseball and anything can happen, as we saw this year with the Washington Nationals who caught fire at the perfect time en route to their first WS in franchise history. With that being said, if this team can stay relatively healthy, and their stars can play up to par, and Boone can keep everyone in check with their sights set on #28, I do not see anybody stopping the 2020 New York Yankees from achieving their goal of winning their first world championship since 2009 and reclaiming their rightful throne as kings of the MLB once again. It is only a matter of time that the Evil Empire rises from the darkness again. See you on March 26th, baseball fans. If Coach Boone can have as much success with the 2020-2021 Yankees, as he did picking the final score outcome of Super Bowl LIV, we are in good shape folks.
Delusional Giants Fan 