Yankees: Four Reasons Why They’ll Make The Playoffs In 2017

The Yankees Set Lineup Is Good Enough

Gary Sanchez is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the talent that Brian Cashman has assembled and the Yankees will display this season.

Already, Las Vegas has installed Sanchez as the odds-on favorite to win the Most Valuable Player Award in the American League, and he just might do that. But, he’s going to need some help, and he’s going to get it.

He’s going to get it from Greg Bird, who is poised to be a breakout star at first base. He’s hitting moonshots in Spring Training, and he already has four home runs in three weeks of play. Bird is disciplined at the plate and in the field. He also sneaks up you from his spot in the batting order when a pitcher glances over and sees Sanchez in the on-deck circle getting a little ahead of himself grooving one to Bird.

The strength up the middle continues with the ever refining short-second combination of Didi Gregorius and Starlin Castro. Both hit 20 home runs last season and Gregorius, especially, had a breakout season. For as long as both of them stay around, and that’s somewhat questionable with the ever-rising phenom Gleyber Torres in the picture, they’ll more than hold their own in the field and at the plate.

The Yankees will get what they get from the veteran trio of Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley, and Brett Gardner and be happy for it. The Yankees have made it clear that the team is restricted by the money owed to them and that’s that.

Each needs to play at the level they are capable of doing, and it’s not a stretch that tow of them, at least, can go beyond what they’ve given the team in recent years. Gardner and Headley are also motivated by the fact that, in two years, they’ll both be on the free agent market and their value will begin being measured now.

Apparently, Aaron Hicks is being given a chance to prove that he should be the everyday right fielder over Aaron Judge, so there you have another self-motivated player who knows that this is the only chance he’s going to get, at least from the Yankees.

The pitching, while widely criticized by this writer and others is also good enough, especially since the offense is bound to score more runs than they did last year. If nothing else, and with the possible wild-card exception of Luis Severino, they are predictable.

Masahiro Tanaka, even if he doesn’t think so, just keeps getting better and better and could win the Cy Young he came close to earning last season. He has another year under his belt and is getting more used to the Yankees way of doing things, including starting every fifth day instead of having five days off.

As they did last year, the Yankees will accommodate him as best they can to give him that extra day when the schedule meets the need. But, they’re not going to baby him either, and he knows it.

As for the rest of the lot, Michael Pineda will be Michael Pineda as inconsistent as ever. And with him, the trick is for Larry Rothschild and Girardi to recognize early that he’s having one of “those” days and get him out of there early. Gary Sanchez will become an increasingly valuable piece of these decisions too if he’s not already there in his catching process.

CC Sabathia will give the team what he’s always given them, and that’s innings. He’ll pitch until his arm falls off and on most days will give his team a chance to win. The bullpen is sufficient if not spectacular, with the exception, of course, of Aroldis Chapman who works on another planet.

And when something goes wrong with any of these players, that leads us to the next segment:

This Team Has Multi-Tiered Levels Of Depth

The Yankees organization is filled with rising stars almost to the point of it being a problem because they don’t know what to do with half the talent they have in their minor league system.

But over the course of a six-month season, that dirge of talent becomes a huge plus, and the Yankees are poised to take full advantage using the real “Wild Card” in this year’s pennant race.

Injuries will occur, except that the Yankees are stocked full with replacements wherever and whenever they happen. Options are and will continue to be a consideration when a player needs to be called up, and occasionally a player with fewer options will be left behind.

But from the team’s perspective, that’s the beauty of it because if it means calling up Dustin Fowler instead of Aaron Judge and his 20 home runs to date, the Yankees lose little in the transaction because they are also getting quality with Fowler.

The Yankees burned up the Transaction Wire last year, but we ain’t seen nothing yet once the season gets underway. It might be wise even for the Yankees to have a charter airplane sitting on the runway in Scranton and one in Westchester County to run players back and forth.

The team can also take full advantage of the disabled list to give struggling players a few days to sort things out while bringing in fresh talent from the farm. When for instance, Jacoby Ellsbury hits a skid, the Yankees can put him on the short-term disabled list with a “strained right calf, ” and no one would notice, especially since it’s an injury that’s almost impossible to diagnose. Every team does it, and you can be sure the Yankees will as well.

The Yankees will want to run the shuttle as often as they can for another reason as well. And that’s to allow the players in the minors, many of whom will probably arrive there at least disappointed and in a few cases disillusioned. Having a cup of coffee with the big team can go a long way to satisfy their taste of “The Show”, especially if the team happens to be on a road trip to California.

Next, we turn to what every winning team must have,

Contributions Are Coming From Everywhere

There should be no mystery as to why or how Joe Maddon‘s Cubs won a World Championship and Terry Francona‘s Indians came close to beating the Cubs in the World Series.

No matter the professional team sport in question, confidence, and cohesiveness play a vital role in a team’s success, or failure for that matter if either or both of these ingredients are missing.

These are intangibles and they can’t be measured. And it’s like when a Supreme Court Justice was asked to define pornography and he just shook his head, “I don’t know, but I know it when I see it.”

And so it is with the feeling you get when a team is on the cusp of gelling together and they become a steamroller with no chance of stopping them.

The Yankees have been that way this spring. Every day, it seems like someone else is stepping up the plate to carry the team to a win. Sure, there are some like Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres who have risen above the rest to make contributions almost on a daily basis. But for the most part, the parts have been interchangeable.

Jordan Montgomery stepped in out of nowhere and threw four perfect innings in a no-hit victory over the Tigers. On the same day before it was Rob Refsnyder and Torres and not Sanchez or Greg Bird that provided the offense with two seeing eye ground balls through the infield leading to Yankees runs.

And more than anything, the guys are having fun. There can nothing worse for a player like, for instance, a Joey Votto, who comes to work 162 times a year knowing that his team, the Cincinnati Reds, are destined to lose two of the three games he’s playing in that weekend.

They say that hitting breeds hitting and when two or three players get hits in an inning, two or three more are sure to follow. The same thing can be said about winning.

The only hole is this argument, though, is that half the team we’re seeing now in Spring Training will be gone by Opening Day. Gleyber Torres and Aaron Judge, he of the 525 ft.home run a few weeks ago, will be in the minors honing their skills waiting for a call-up that is not guaranteed to come.

Which means that there will be a slight adjustment necessary for the 25 players who do make the team. But the core of cohesiveness will remain and that’s all that matters.

Yankees Fans Are Excited About 2017

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A team can’t manufacture excitement, although the Yankees are making a valiant effort to do so in their efforts to propagandize “Derek Jeter Day” on Mother’s Day this year. Excitement is like winning in that it breeds more excitement.

And when the Yankees take the field on a day when 55,000 fans are packed into Yankee Stadium, the Yankees themselves are struck by what they see and hear. And don’t let them tell you differently.

When the Roll Call begins from the bleachers and the players take their turn responding when their name is “called”, there is a bonding that takes place between the player and the fan. And don’t let anyone tell you differently. It’s high school stuff, but it still matters even at this level.

And when the comments to articles that appear in Yanks Go Yard begin to swell and those same comments become more emotional and filled with thought, we’ll know here at YGY too that something special is going on that we need to pay attention to.

Yankees fans are not fickle. And it’s rare that a fan of this team would defect or abandon the team when it’s down. And with that comes the knowledge that there are going to be ups and downs over the course of 162 games.

But like the players, Yankees fans are sophisticated enough to know let the highs get too high nor the lows too low. That being said, writers like myself will occasionally send out a “wake-up call” to the team when it’s needed.

But even if it sounds negative, it’s not intended to be so. Because as fans, that’s our job in keeping the team honest and on point. And in that way, we are sort of like mini-managers who watch closely and then we make our own judgments. Some right and some wrong, just like Girardi.

The Yankees Twenty-Five Most Memorable Home Runs

In the Yankees storied history, twenty-five of their home runs stand out as moments in time never to be forgotten and always treasured by baseball fans.

But that’s the fun of a baseball season and, in particular, this baseball season for the New York Yankees. So, hop on board and enjoy the ride as the Yankees begin their march to playing baseball in October.