Hey guys and girls, I’m back with another “what if” for the
New York Yankees and their 2016 season. Earlier today we took a look at how the
season would go, in my eyes anyway, if the Yankees stay relatively healthy in
2016 but what happens if the team gets decimated by injuries once again? What
if they lose Mark Teixeira again or worse, what if they lose Masahiro Tanaka or
Alex Rodriguez? Has Brian Cashman done enough to weather the storm and has he
truly built a team around flexibility and versatility or are the Yankees once
again hyping themselves and their prospects up for a trade later on down the
road? I’ll try my best to decipher it all here.
If the Yankees lose Brian McCann for an extended period of
time you have to think, at least on paper, that New York would be comfortable
with plugging Gary Sanchez into the job. Sanchez would give the Yankees
presumably a slight decline in offense, if any, and a slight decline in defense
as well. The same can be said for Starlin Castro or Didi Gregorius if they were
to go down as Robert Refsnyder would play second base in either scenario while
Castro either sits on the DL or plays the shortstop position in place of
Gregorius. If Chase Headley goes down though that may be an entirely different
story. Playing third base, and playing third base once or twice mind you, in
spring training and playing third base in a real life game that actually means
something are two totally different things. I’m not saying I don’t think either
Castro or Refsnyder couldn’t handle it or won’t handle it because I don’t have
a crystal ball but I am not sure I want to bank on it either if I don’t have
to.
In the outfield the options for potential replacements are
plentiful with Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Ben Gamel, Mason Williams and Slade
Heathcott leading the charge in case one or all of Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett
Gardner and Carlos Beltran go down. Speaking of Beltran and the backup outfield
brigade the Yankees have right now Beltran or any one of them could potentially
play the DH spot a few days a week if Alex Rodriguez were to go down with an
injury while Gary Sanchez could also see time there in wake of an injury.
The pitching staff and potential injuries is what should
worry the Yankees though. The bullpen could survive a loss or three in my opinion,
notice I said survive and not excel, but the starting rotation and the depth
behind it is incredibly thin. Ivan Nova and unproven prospects like Luis Cessa,
Chad Green and Bryan Mitchell don’t exactly scream AL East champions to me,
although I’ve been wrong before, while the idea of rushing a Brady Lail, Miguel
Sulbaran or James Kaprielian to the Major Leagues doesn’t exactly excite me
either.
Ultimately the Yankees could survive an injury or a handful
of injuries in my opinion because of the great job of adding depth and warm
controllable bodies behind the starters by Yankees GM Brian Cashman. With that
said though there are certain positions, third base and starting pitching to be
specific, which could hurt New York potentially more so than others. Cashman
has done what he could to plug up these holes and hopefully we won’t have to
find out but if we do, we being the fans of the team, we may be in for a long
and frustrating 2016 season.
That is very depressing Daniel!
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is a silver lining to be had from any of those problems.We really get to see what we have in the farm system. The infield is no problem, we have a player or two that can play a very good SS (Farm). I would bring one of them up and let Castro stay at 2nd base, plug in Refsy at 3rd IF the injury hits SS and 3rd. It may be a small drop off in hitting at SS but we can live with it better than moving other players all around. This way one has ONE player playing SS and the rest play where they are better suited with only a slight drop in productivity!
The soft spot is the starters, you are right, we have a few unproven pitchers and that is a big hole to fill.
The bright light is, maybe we will turn into the "To Many HRs" again! LOL
It was mean't to be depressing, but it was also meant to show off some of the depth and prospects the Yankees have amassed lately.
DeleteAnd there has never been anything wrong with too many damn home runs no matter what ESPN says. You don't need Yogi Berra to tell you that you cant win a game without scoring a run or six a night.
I love the players we have available as back-ups...even the pitchers. There are many players that are ready to play IF push comes to shove. Some are in AAA and others are a bit lower but again let me say; If a guy is the best we have...play him! I don't care if he is 19 or 25!
DeleteMaybe some have forgotten Jeter and all his errors at AAA...they need someone to take the place of our SS (injured) so they called on him. Or How about Bernie Williams a skinny guy with big glasses and not much power...good call, when they called him up.
My contention is; where will one learn the fastest and the most? In the Big Show for sure.