Monday, April 19, 2021

How To Fix the Yankees Offense -Bleacher Creatures

 Basically the only way for the Yankees to improve is to get better in positions where they are the worst offensively and defensively, we will not talk about pitching right now. The lowest OPS's are at 1B (now a 2B issue with Odor), CF, LF, SS (Gleyber is not getting traded). The worst defense is at 2B, SS, CF, and LF. Odor needs to go, right now the only thing we can do is call up Ford and hope he can hit like it is 2019. Voit will come back and be an animal. Ford is serviceable defensively at 1B and improves the right side of infield with DJ at 2B. DJ is not the solution long term at 2B though, he will be the 1B by the end of his contract and if I were up to it, he would play their next year. Gleyber has looked good defensively at short stop since everyone ripped him for shuffling before he throws. Almost every time I have seen since the few times, he messed up he has looked good. I think though he has focused too much on defense physically and mentally that his offense has struggled. I do not think has the range, glove or arm for long term SS and has looked a lot better in his career at 2B. Now we have a gaping hole at SS and if DJ is on first base, where does Luke Voit play. I love Luke Voit’s energy and production, and as we have seen, without homeruns, the Yankees are shit. We can hold on to him and play him at DH and make Stanton play the outfield to get his mind off hitting and so he will hit again or since Voit is once again a redundant right-handed, power hitter who strikes out a lot, we can trade him before he becomes a free agent and makes 25 mill per year, do not need any more people like that. So at short stop what can we do? Trevor Story has had an iffy year and inserting him there right now may not improve the Yankees offensively. I love the guy and would be very happy for him to be on the Yankees, but I think Seager is the much better option. Seager is not available until this offseason when he becomes a free agent and then you get into a bidding war with the Dodgers. Well Hal better open his pockets and get the perfect player to help this Yankees lineup. Now we move to third base, Gio Urshela is adorable, but I think he will regress, and it will continue. When he swings half the time he steps out of the box. His defense is very good, but he does not have a lot of range. For the sake of a budget, we will keep him at 3B for now, I would love someone like Jose Ramirez, but we cannot afford to trade for him or pay someone of his value in free agency. Also no one in the Yankees system who is highly ranked is a 3B. Maybe Peraza shifts over there in order to be called up but he is not close. Not one prospect in the Yankees top 30 plays 3B, the Yankees may have to look for a cheaper option somewhere else or just stick with Urshela. Now to the outfield, other than right field it is a mess. Hicks is shit, he can not hit, it is called hitting not walking and whiffing when you do swing. He has shown signs hitting from his natural side, which is the right, but that is just another righty batter for the Yankees boo hoo. Frazier is another righty who whiffs a lot and has outright struggled with the zone this year. They will not start him because Gardner still breathes so once again, I plead with you to start him or trade him. Hicks defense last year was crap and Frazier was a gold glove finalist in right field but I don’t buy it, he still looks shaky. For the quick fix, call up Florial, and use the Tauchman. I don’t know what to do long term, though I have heard of this Dominguez kid who might arrive in the Bronx in 3-5 years. Send Hicks to the Phillies and Frazier to whomever will start the poor guy. So on to the Catcher, your favorite boy, Gary Sanchez. He has looked better this year, but he is once again, plays into the hitting philosophy we all hate, striking out a lot. The only thing that could happen to Gary is that Wells sticks at catcher and they call him up end of this year or beginning of next year. I really hope he turns into a similar type of hitter to Joe Mauer. Most likely he will end up in the corner outfield or first base though. If Higgy keeps on playing so well, he may have some value on the trade market so watch out. So as of now our tentative lineup for 2021 looks like this.

C Sanchez/Wells

1B LeMahieu

2B Torres

SS Seager

3B Urshela

LF Stanton (if he has not retired from injuries yet)

CF Florial/Tauchman/player manager Brett Gardner

RF Judge

DH Voit (if he is not traded)

I may attempt to tackle the pitching side of things if I am up to it, but for now I just had some ideas and tried to make it semi realistic as possible and came up with this. Let me know if you have any better ideas how to solve this team that is not built to win even though they spend a quarter billion dollars.


4 comments:

  1. The Yankees have some pieces they could bring in right now to help fix the main problem which is horrendous defense.

    Mike Ford needs to find his old groove and I'm totally against bringing him up to see if he can do this or not. He needs regular playing time at AAA and once he gets rolling then he may be an option as a call up. Chris Gittens missed out on the chance to play AAA last year due to the pandemic but he's a far superior defensive first baseman than Ford is and on the merit of his defense alone I would bring him up for now and see what he can do. He hit the cover off the baseball and spring training and granted spring training stats don't mean a lot but he is 27 years old and in my opinion he's a far better option than Ford.

    In fact there's a good chance he will hit well at which point he may be the man for the entire season. In the immediate future promoting Gittens restores DJ LeMahieu to 2B which basically fixes the right side of the Yankee's infield.

    That's off season the Yankee fans wanted Lindor and instead we got Odor & quite frankly, that stinks!

    Sticking with Torres makes sense for now & Wade can be called up which would would allow Boone to use him as a late game pinch runner and defensive replacement this may help the Yankees scratch out a couple extra runs here and there by number one preventing late game errors and number two using Wade's speed on the bases. He likely would barely even hit so promoting him is kind of a no-brainer.

    Towards the trade deadline, Brian Cashman could assess what moves he really needs to make at that point. The Yankees may decide Torres is just not the man at shortstop. He could also likely slowly start to improve to the point where he's just a below average defensive shortstop and not a bad one. If that were to occur it would be similar situation is to the Yankees back when they lived with Derek Jeter at shortstop despite his shortcomings.

    Next up is the DH issue. It's time for the charade that Stanton is a glass soldier to end. He's a plus defender -- it's time to use him!

    When Voit returns, he becomes the primary DH & plays some 1B also. This cycles Stanton & Judge in at DH once a week or so to keep both fresh.

    Tauchman needs to be the everyday CF also. That would help the lineup.

    Odor should be let go & Hicks played MUCH less frequently. When Hicks does play, he should bat 9th not 3rd.

    Sanchez is not doing a great job handling the pitching staff. I'm watching a lot of starters shaking him off constantly. He doesn't appear to be on the same page with them and I'm just not sure if he is a very good pitch sequence guy. Higgy should play a lot more based on the virtue of his defense alone. This could help the Yankees prevent runs and it's very very important that they really start looking at that aspect of things.

    The Yankee lineup could be tweaked slightly against right-handed starting pitching.

    1. Tauchman CF
    2. DJ 2B
    3. Gardy LF
    4. Judge RF
    5. Stanton DH/LF
    6. Torres SS
    7. Gittens 1B
    8. Higgy C
    9. Urshela 3B

    When resting Torres, Wade could be plugged into the #9 Spot & Urshela elevated to #6.

    Against left-handed starting pitching of course, Frazier plays & Hicks plays and bats right-handed. Boone is allowing Hicks to have way too many left-handed at bats so I think going to more of a template line-up would really help.


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  2. Yea, hicks should play against lefties, and I’m all for giving Gittens a chance. I really don’t want Gardner hitting 3rd he shouldn’t be playing in general. Everything else you said makes sense as well. Pitching just needs time to become close to their old selves. It’s only been 2 or 3 times through. Take a while to get back to consistency. -Bleacher Creature

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  3. Does Glaber still have options? If so send him down, Sanchez too.

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