All right, by popular demand - here's a bonus elimination:
A retrospective on the 2021 Yankees is really two separate retrospectives: one for the dominating pitching staff and one for the not-so-dominating batsmen.
The hurlers’ story is one of a job well done. The Yankees' pitching staff was as good as any you’ll find in the game; in fact, their ERA+ was second only to the White Sox in the American League. Gerrit Cole (for as much as he’s getting pilloried in the press right now) had a 133 ERA+ and a league-leading 16 wins, and his high fastball was simply unhittable for much of the year. What’s crazy was that as good as Cole was, he wasn’t even the best pitcher in his rotation; Gerrit was outpitched by the surprising Nestor Cortes, Jr., and his 148 ERA+. The relievers were even better than the rotation; against Yankees relievers, opposing hitters posted an OPS+ of about 88, and Yanks relievers only allowed 28% of inherited runners to score – the latter of which is tied for tops in the AL. Sure, Aroldis Chapman may have been an adventure, and Corey Kluber may have been injured, and deadline acquisition Andrew Heaney may have been a disaster, but no matter – the pitching absolutely did their part for the Yankees in 2021.
The hitters' story, on the other hand, is not nearly as laudatory. The Yankees’ OPS+ was an exactly-average 100, but that’s a bit like saying that Muggsy Bogues and Aaron Judge average out to one normal-sized adult male. The lineup was basically two-deep for most of the year; it was Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and a bunch of people who couldn’t hit. The Judge, of course, put up his usual .900+ OPS and 150ish OPS+, while Stanton’s .870 OPS actually hides how good he was once he got past a slow start; Stanton’s OPS jumps by 37 points if you throw out anything before April 23, and he hit .305/.359/.626 from August 3 onward. (Regrettably, Stanton hit .324/.390/.730 in the two weeks since I wrote that the Marlins’ decision to trade Stanton “does not look terrible in hindsight.” So….sorry ‘bout that, everyone!)
However, much of the rest of the lineup was a disappointment. Luke Voit, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Aaron Hicks, and Gio Urshela battled both injuries and ineffectiveness – in Voit’s case, the 2020 home run leader hit
half as many home runs this year as he did in the 60-game 2020 season. Speaking of injuries and ineffectiveness, Gary Sanchez went backwards yet again this season; Sanchez originally reached the bigs as a good-hit, no-field catcher, but unfortunately his hitting appears to be catching up to his fielding instead of the other way around. The pesky Brett Gardner had one of the worst years of his career; at age 38, it’s not clear whether he’ll return for another season. The injuries and lack of production from the starters meant that far too many at-bats went to the Tyler Wades and Mike Fords and Rougned Odors and Kyle Higashiokas of the world, with predictably bad results. What’s more, the deadline acquisition of slugger Joey Gallo (.160/.303/.404) was a disaster, and the addition of Anthony Rizzo added only league-average first base production - albeit with an incredible number of foul home runs. Put that all together and you have a team that simply had a hard time making contact with the ball; the Bronx Bombers actually led the majors in walks, but their meager .237 batting average was third-worst in the AL.
The unevenness of the offense meant that Yankee fans witnessed two types of baseball from the 2021 Yankees: the type where Stanton, Judge, and the pitchers could overcome the team's deficiencies, and the type where they couldn’t. When the Yanks could overcome the offensive holes, they were unstoppable; in one such pair of stretches, they ran off a 13-game win streak
and a 7-game win streak within the span of about a month. When they couldn’t, the Yankees were hapless, liable to run into weeks-long skids that would involve bad clutch hitting and an uncanny ability to get thrown out on the bases and kick the ball around the field.
The October surprise, then, was that the undoing of the Yankees season was not the hitting but instead the pitching. You see, the dirty secret in the Bronx was that for the last month of the season, Gerrit Cole had not been GERRIT COLE at all. On September 7, Cole exited a start with hamstring tightness; from that game to the end of the regular season, Cole was knocked around by the league, posting a 6.15 ERA and a .311/.364/.566 slash line in his last five regular season starts. Unfortunately for the Yankees, this put Aaron Boone in a no-win situation; Boone would have gotten destroyed by the fans and the media in the if he’d started anyone else over GERRIT COLE, but he also knew that Cole wasn’t himself and stood a real chance of blowing up early. As a compromise, Boone decided to start the ace yet give him a short leash; however, it turns out that “we’ll pitch an ineffective pitcher at the beginning of an important game, but not for very long!” is not a particularly effective compromise. A bad start by Cole quickly forced Boone to turn to his bullpen to get seven full innings' worth of outs, and while Yankee bullpen was stellar this year, 21 outs is a lot to ask of
any bullpen. With a two-and-a-half man lineup (Rizzo got one of his foul home runs to actually stay fair!) and an overstretched bullpen, the Yankees were playing from behind the whole game, and soon enough, Boone emerged from the no-win situation with no win.
Although there are certainly other concerns about the roster, any discussion of the future of the Yankees clearly has to begin with the manager. Obviously, it’s hard to put the blame on Aaron Boone for the wildcard game loss unless he personally took a bat to Gerrit Cole’s hamstrings; benching your star thrower for a backup is the sort of thing that only Bill Belichick can get away with (and even Belichick didn’t get away with it the first time he tried). On the other hand, there’s no reason that a club as talented as the Yankees should go through the sort of insipid baseball that Boone’s Bombers played for far too much of the season. It’s interesting to note that league’s move toward younger and younger managers has led to some exciting new strategies and player usages...but it also seems to have coincided with a lot of teams that can’t run the bases, play fundamental baseball, or avoid long losing streaks. Are the Yankees’ problems really Aaron Boone problems? Or is this just what management looks like in the major leagues now? Maybe old, experienced managers like Tony La Russa and Dusty Baker are the new market inefficiency after all? Whether the problems lie with Boone or with baseball, the Yankees now have a big decision to make, and whatever they decide with Boone will go a long way toward telling us what the front office thinks is wrong with team and how they plan to fix it.
In the meantime, there are a whole lot of Yankee fans who are about to become
huge Rays' fans for the next week or so.
The Yankees last appeared in the playoffs during the Covid tournament of 2020. Their last championship was in 2009.
