Tampa Bay Rays: AL East – Taking Stock of Yankees Spring Injuries

Wake Up!

The reverie of a rotation featuring Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, James Paxton, and Masahiro Tanaka was brought to a rude awakening by tweets and articles covering the losses the Yankees formidable rotation was taking to begin the season.

Last week the Yankees announced the Luis Severino would miss the entire 2020 season with Tommy John surgery.

James Paxton is the only Yankees’ starter to finish with an ERA below 4.00 last season and he’s been recovering from a cyst-removal surgery and should be ready to go by late April or early May.

Domingo German showed a lot of promise last season, going 18-4 in 24 starts with a 4.03 ERA. Toward the end of the season, he was handed down an  81 game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy due to domestic violence allegations. Fangraphs Depth Chart has German projected to pitch in 108 innings this season. Coming in mid-season is never an easy task in the Major Leagues.

The Yankees are currently looking at Jordan Montgomery as their probable fourth starter and the fifth spot likely going to Jonathan Loaisiga and his 4.79 career ERA. It’s not terrible but it’s certainly not what the Yankees envisioned when they signed Gerrit Cole. At this point, they have to thankful they have last year’s AL Cy Young runner-up and that he’s healthy.

The Yankees have to be concerned with the standing of their current pitching staff. They hope Cole lives up to his contract and Paxton returns in mid-season form. Even outside of that, it’s hard to stack up against the Rays loaded rotation.

Judge-ing Stanton

In order to hit the dominant Rays rotation, the Yankees need a lot of firepower on offense. Last season the Yankees set a Major League record with 30 players hitting the injured list. The previous record was 28, set by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016.

Important pieces such as Miguel Andujar, Aaron Hicks, Dellin Betances, Luis Severino, Edwin Encarnacion, Gary Sanchez, Giancarlo Stanton, and Aaron Judge…to name a few.

Despite missing their two biggest bats for a significant amount of time last season, the Yankees still had enough juice to finish first in the league in runs scored. Players like DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Luke Voit, and Brett Garnder stepped up and made huge impacts.

Brett Gardner made the full transition from a speedster to a power-hitting, grumpy old man. Gardner smashed 26 doubles, seven triples, and 28 homers to go along with 10 steals in his age-35 season.

Aaron Judge only played in 102 games but did slam 27 dingers and slugged .540.

The Yankees had a ridiculous nine players slug over .500. That does not include Troy Tulowitzki who slugged .545 in just five games.

So, the Yankees are an intimidating force on offense, but they already find themselves facing injury woes this spring. Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are both ailing and neither will likely be ready for Opening Day. In fact, as of yesterday, the Yankees still do not know what is wrong with Judge’s shoulder.

Stanton may only miss a week or two, but Aaron Hicks could miss the entire season, depending on his recovery from Tommy John.

Aaron Hicks is a very important player to the Yankees. There’s a reason they signed him to a seven-year extension last offseason.

With Opening Day rapidly approaching, the division-rival Yankees are showing once again that money can’t buy healthy players. They are looking at an Opening Day outfield of some combination of a 36-year-old Brett Garnder, Mike Tauchman, Miguel Andujar, and Clint Frazier. Do you think Charlie Morton is shaking in his boots over that?

While German is serving the remainder of his suspension and Paxton is working his way into shape, the Rays have an opportunity to get out to an early lead. On paper, the front office has improved the offense with the additions of Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, Hunter Renfroe, and Jose Martinez.

It should be an interesting race this season as the Rays bring an upgraded offense with the top bullpen from 2019 and a loaded rotation.