My Hypothetical Playoff Rosters - Offense

The New York Yankees are all but officially in the postseason, albeit as a Wild Card team and likely not as an AL East Division champion, so it’s time to start thinking about who the Yankees will bring with them to the postseason. The Yankees have been playing with 39 players for much of the month of September including 14 relief pitchers in the bullpen but that all has to be dropped down to 25 before October 6^th. With this post we will focus on the offense and I will decide who I would bring, not who I think Joe Girardi will bring, with me back to the Bronx to play host to the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim or whoever wins the second Wild Card in the American League this season.

Here are my left-handed and right-handed breakdowns for the Wild Card Game:

*dependent on the health of Drew. If not Drew, insert Ackley.

With less than a week left in the regular season almost nothing is decided when it comes to the second Wild Card. It looks like the Astros are going to be able to hold off the rest of the pack but will they have to fight down on the last game of the season or will they secure a spot before the weekend? This is important because if the Astros have to use Dallas Keuchel on the final day of the season that would make him ineligible for the Wild Card game unless Houston wants to pitch him on just one day of rest.

I think we all know that Stephen Drew, Dustin Ackley or Brendan Ryan are starting and backing up in this game since Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman are making the decisions, for better or worse, but this is my roster. Noel is in there to steal a base late and pinch run for Carlos Beltran, Refsnyder is in there to hit lefties, Ackley is in there to hit righties and I think this offense leads the Yankees to an ALDS trip as long as the pitching holds up. Speaking of pitching we’ll cover the pitching in our next post. Stay tuned for that.