Photo: Sports Illustrated
BY: GAVIN WATSON, STAFF WRITER
By the time Alex Verdugo swung over a curveball to end the Yankees’ 94-win season, it was obvious New York wasn’t as dominant as they had previously thought. Many things that had plagued the Yankees for years came to plague them in the World Series.
The Yankees suffered three big issues this season: a lack of bullpen depth, a consistent left-field bat, and their lack of impactful trades at the deadline.
To start the Yankees didn’t have enough trusted pitching in the bullpen. This forced guys like Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes to pitch a combined 9.1 innings with Weaver finishing his season pitching three straight games — something he didn’t do all season. The rest of the Yankees bullpen threw 11 combined innings in the World Series, according to Baseball Reference.
The Yankees lack of depth in the bullpen for Aaron Boone to turn to led to pitchers like Nestor Cortes and Jake Cousins to pitch in high-leverage situations they weren’t used to and should have never been in.
Solve leftfield
This season alone, the Yankees left field ranked 24th in WRC and 21st in fWAR. WRC is a stat that measures how much a player, team or position is expected to create. fWAR measures how many runs more a player creates than a league average replacement. The left field issue isn’t a new one, as there has seemingly been a revolving door of players in the position, with 18 players slotting in the least two years.
The Yankees hoped that the offseason acquisition of Alex Verdugo would put an end to the constant critique. However, while Verdugo performed well defensively, he struggled at the plate. Verdugo boasted a .233 batting average with an OPS+ below league average, according to Baseball Reference.
For them to take the step to the next level, they must sign someone to man left field and who can hit. The good thing is that this year’s free agency has a lot of left fielders who could fill that position.
The Yankees could turn to players like Tyler O’Neil who is coming off a year where he boasted a 2.7 WAR, with 31 homers batting .241. Mark Canha who batted .242 with 27 XBH. Or Jurickson Profar who produced 3.7 WAR while batting .280 with 24 home runs, according to Baseball Reference.
Yankees trade deadline:
One of the biggest opportunities for a team to significantly change personnel is during the trade deadline. When it came to the Yankees this year they made minimal moves at the deadline, especially for a team that is trying to compete for a World Series.
At this deadline, the Yankees made three trades. They acquired Jazz Chisholm Jr., Enyel De Los Santos and Mark Leiter Jr.
When it comes to the Chisholm deal there is very little to critique.
The two deals that make little sense were Enyel De Los Santos and Mark Leiter Jr.
De Los Santos appeared in five games for the Yankees pitching to a 14.21 ERA, according to MLB.com. De Los Santos would be DFA’d only two weeks after being acquired and was picked up by the White Sox.
After being shipped to New York Leiter Jr. appeared in 21 games with a 4.98 ERA, according to MLB.com.
The two bullpen arms that the Yankees acquired did not push the bullpen forward enough. This led to Aaron Boone having limited options out of the bullpen. The Yankees should have been comfortable emptying the farm system to acquire big-name arms like Tanner Scott, Carlos Estevez or Andrew Chafin.
Every season on opening day the Yankees will post a hype video for the fans claiming that the mission is to get their 28th World Series title. It has now been 15 seasons since the Yankees won it all. Their 2024 World Series appearance showed that they are not one or two guys away like they have claimed for years.
watsongr23@bonaventure.edu
