Yankees: Strengths, weaknesses and where they can improve

The excelling sluggers

As it stands, the Yankees are tied for 5^th in the AL in runs scored, which is good but still short of the top offense many believed they were going to be. When looking at the Yanks’ offense, there are a couple of standouts who have put the team on their back, mainly Aaron Judge and Didi Gregorius.

Judge looks primed to shut up the doubters, getting off to a blistering start with a .324/.462/.608 slash line that includes six homers and a 1.106 OPS. Somehow, he looks even better and wiser at the plate this year, making adjustments between games and often even in-between at-bats, helping to validate his claim that he wouldn’t be a one-hit wonder.

This has resulted in his strikeout rate dropping from 30.7 percent last year to 24.7 percent this season, a considerable improvement especially for a player who scorches the ball whenever he hits it.

Maybe Judge’s average dips a little bit, but I think his power will show up in a big way once the weather finally turns, preparing him for another run at the AL MVP award.

Didi again looks like an improved ballplayer this year, continuing his ascension from a near All-Star bid to bonafide stardom to start 2018. He has kept his knack for clutch moments, and his power has already proven to be legit after starting with six home runs and a league-leading 1.206 OPS.

I like the move of slotting him into three-hole between Judge and Stanton, giving opposing pitchers a different look from the left-side of the plate and also breaking up the two behemoths with a more contact-oriented hitter.

With Judge and Brett Gardner doing a good job setting the table, having a player who will reliably put the ball in-play and come up big in the clutch is a good move for the offense and can relieve some stress off Stanton’s shoulders.

A number of other position players have enjoyed solid starts to the season as well, including Ronald Torreyes who’s .417 batting average is the highest in the league (with a minimum of 30 AB). Tyler Austin has shown he’s very capable of filling in for Greg Bird — Aaron Hicks, since his return from the DL and a scorching Miguel Andujar.

The struggling stars

A number of Yankees have struggled, none more notorious than Giancarlo Stanton, who has already heard the boo birds (please stop) a number of times after his thunderous Opening Day in Toronto.

He usually is a slow-starter, and given his continued adjustment to NY, he should eventually become the hitter the Yanks envisioned they were acquiring.

Earlier during his struggles, he was having some ugly at-bats, especially when playing at home (again, please stop booing him), but it seems lately that Stanton’s been seeing pitches better and hasn’t been as overmatched. Hopefully, this is the case, because the club can’t afford him to be a .185/.283/.395 hitter for much longer.

Although El Gary has bounced back of late, Gary Sanchez’s early-season struggles were even worse than Stanton’s. He was sporting a sub .100 batting average until he busted out at Fenway, but for a player who has legitimate MVP-caliber talent, Sanchez needs to improve upon his .188/.222/.391 slash line.

Ultimately, Gary is just too good of a hitter to keep struggling and also seems to be a player who flips a switch as the season progresses, with his worst statistical month being March/April by a mile — while he scorched the ball in two consecutive Augusts.

First, second, and third base have also been big holes for the Yankees’ offense at times this season. This mostly has to do with a struggling Tyler Wade and Neil Walker, who have both seen ample time at second while Walker has also seen a number of games at first.

Struggling role players and their replacements

After a very successful Spring Training, where he hit .286 with a .400 OBP and won the starting spot at second base, Tyler Wade has again struggled to find any success in the big leagues.

The Yankees still believe they have a good player in Wade, but he’s probably going to have to battle his mind and prove to himself he can succeed before he sticks in the majors, especially since he was just sent back to Triple-A. Of course, that will happen when you sport a .086/.158/.143 line.

Similarly, Neil Walker has struggled and been far from what the Yankees expected when they signed him this offseason. He has yet to hit his first home run while having a .463 OPS so far, a huge disappointment relative to his career numbers.

Both Wade’s and Walker’s struggles, coinciding with the success of top prospect Gleyber Torres in Triple-A, have left their spots on the major league roster in jeopardy. As Jack Curry of the YES Network had to say:

Now that Torres is on the team, he seems here to stay and rightfully so given his elite talent level and a generally advanced approach at the plate. Now that Andujar has started to flex his muscles and mash the ball, there’s no way the Yankees will take his bat out of the lineup, leaving an interesting roster dilemma given the pending return of Brandon Drury.

Since both Drury and Andujar can play some first base, it looks like Wade might be staying in Triple-A for the foreseeable future while Walker may be deemed expendable, especially given that he’s only signed to a one-year deal.

It seems time for the Yankees to deploy all of their young guns and show the rest of the league what they will have to compete with for the next few years.

The historically ordinary bullpen

The Yankees’ relief corps had incredibly high expectations heading into the season, after a dominant Postseason that saw them outpitch every other opposing team’s bullpen. However, they have been underwhelming to start 2018 until some recent success, when they have begun to gain some traction.

If I told you at the beginning of the season, that the Yanks’ best reliever thus far would be Chasen Shreve, you would know that something had to have gone wrong. Of course, Shreve has held his opponents scoreless in 8.2 innings, so in fairness, he would be hard to beat and has earned the right to more high-leverage opportunities for this depleted bullpen.

Shreve isn’t the only reliever who’s been good so far, as Chad Green has shown 2017 was no fluke and Aroldis Chapman seems back to his dominant self. These two should continue to be critical pieces of the bullpen, with Green serving as the unit’s fireman and Chapman acting as the dominant final act.

Let’s start with the pitching woes of Tommy Kahnle, who has pitched to a 6.14 ERA before landing on the DL for shoulder and biceps tendinitis in his throwing arm.

Although an injury is never good, it at least provides a reason as to why Kahnle’s velocity has been substantially down this season, bottoming out at an average of 94.9 mph after throwing it to the tune of 97.8 mph in 2017. He’s also had some control issues as well, so hopefully, he heals up and comes back the same dominant reliever he was when the Yankees acquired him last year.

Dellin Betances is a continued work in progress, despite his consistent ability to strikeout batters at a very high rate. Although there does seem to be a slight diminish in his stuff (it could just be the cold weather), he still possesses a high-90s fastball with a buckling curveball that should dominate hitters.

I genuinely think Betances woes are mostly mental since struggling at the tail-end of 2017, as the Yankee boo birds may have gotten in his head. He’s a huge part of this bullpen, and the Yanks must continue to put him in position to succeed until he rebuilds his confidence and regains his form.

David Robertson has bounced back of late, even after his most recent bases-loaded scare against the Blue Jays Thursday night. The first time that happened to him this season, Justin Smoak took him deep for a grand-slam that led to one of the bullpen’s meltdowns in their opening series.

Regardless, Robertson needs to keep the recent momentum rolling and become the versatile relief ace he was after the Yankees acquired him last year.

Rookies Jonathan Holder and Domingo German have struggled so far, but you get the sense that the Yanks have more faith in German’s stuff than Holder’s, especially given German’s strong showing in the spring. Although the results aren’t there yet, I think they should continue testing him out as his stuff has shown flashes of being dominant.

The inconsistent starters

Anchored by staff ace Luis Severino, the starting pitching started off exceptionally well through their first turn or two through the rotation. However, until the recent back-to-back quality starts, first by Jordan Montgomery and then Severino, the Yankees starting staff had been struggling.

Sonny Gray’s struggles have been maligned in the media, already leading to a mechanical adjustment that fell apart after the second inning in his last start. There are a number of concerns with Gray, including a decline in velocity and a loss of command, which manager Aaron Boone thinks fells has been Gray’s biggest issue:

“I don’t think it’s anything physical. I don’t think it’s anything mechanical. I think he is not getting ahead as he normally would.”

Whatever it is, something needs to change, including Gray’s 8.27 ERA thus far. He did have more success pitching to Austin Romine last year compared to Sanchez, but Boone has been hesitant to assign any pitcher a personal catcher.

While I agree with Boone there, I think the Yankees will give the Gray-Romine combo a try to see if they can stabilize Gray some, especially since Romine has been hitting well thus far.

Masahiro Tanaka has also been very shaky with a 6.45 ERA, a worrisome sign after a lackluster 2017. The thought coming into the season was that Tanaka would revert back to the effective pitcher he was prior to last year, given his turnaround in the second half of 2017 and his dominant performance throughout the playoffs.

So far, that has not been the case, although we are still dealing with a small sample size.

Tanaka has really moved away from using his fastball, a good move in my opinion given its straight-line trajectory and lack of elite velocity, along with his effective offspeed pitches. Still, when he has thrown his fastball, it’s gotten hit hard but lately so have his two best pitches, his splitter and slider.

I think a significant factor for this has been the frigid weather Tanaka has been forced to pitch in, and yes, while it’s true that everybody has to play in it, there’s no doubt that it’s harder to spin pitches and get a feel for your offspeed pitches when you can barely feel your hand.

For a pitcher who mainly relies on a splitter and slider, the weather could have a larger effect. This likely also had something to do with Severino’s dud of a start in Boston, where he continuously hung his normally devastating slider.

The promising starters

Speaking of Severino, he’s starting to look a lot like his mentor, Pedro Martinez, did back in his hayday. Opponents are hitting a sad .168 against him, while his ERA sits at 2.32 thus far. He’s really coming into his own as a 24-year old ace, painting his fastball on the corners while continuing to hone his changeup.

In fact, Severino’s barely had to use his changeup because his slider has been so filthy with its late bite and sweeping motion. And oh yeah, his slider regularly sits in the high-80s, just unfair velocity for a pitch with such devastating movement. Sevy looks poised to make a run at the Cy Young this year and establish himself as one of the top pitchers in baseball.

Both Montgomery and CC Sabathia made nice bounce-back starts after Monty’s recent struggles and CC’s DL stint, taking away from the media narrative that the Yankees lacked enough pitching. Until Gray and Tanaka get back on track, it will be pivotal for these two to provide solid innings because the depth in the minors doesn’t seem to be quite ready for the big stage, especially with Luis Cessa’s recent DL assignment.

Until Gray and Tanaka get back on track, it will be pivotal for these two to provide solid innings because the depth in the minors doesn’t seem to be quite ready for the big stage, especially with Luis Cessa’s recent DL assignment.

Montgomery in particular is pivotal to the Yankees’ success, given his youth and potential to build upon a great rookie campaign. His over-the-top motion hides the ball very well from batters, and his arsenal of five pitches will always leave them guessing.

He seems like a perfect fit for the team’s pitching philosophy given the variety of pitches he throws and the lack of an elite fastball. He should be able to turn in a very good season, while eating more innings and minimizing walks are the next steps in his overall development.

The little things

The Yankees defense has been atrocious to start the season, as they currently have the lowest fielding percentage in the league and second most errors with 18. Compare this to the Red Sox league-low five errors, and you can see how people underestimated the matchup heading into the season, despite the Sox winning the AL East last year.

Most of the defensive issues for the Yankees have come at third base, where they’ve committed a total of seven errors between Brandon Drury (three), Miguel Andujar (two) and Ronald Torreyes (two).

We should cut Drury some slack, though, as I’m sure blurred vision could have an effect on a person’s fielding ability. There’s reasonable hope that his overall game will improve once he gets his health issues straightened out.

However, this could be the norm for Andujar, who is still a work in progress in the field despite his cannon for an arm. This was the one area that made the Yankees question if he was ready for the big leagues or not, but team officials say he’s been working on his defense extensively, so maybe Andujar will get better at the hot corner as he gets more comfortable.

Sanchez looked impressive catching to start the season, easing concerns about his blocking until this past week. Before the finale of the series with the Blue Jays, Sanchez had let up all four of his passed balls in the previous three games, giving him the most in baseball.

He definitely was a bit unlucky, as two of those came on missed signs by CC and Tanaka. Nonetheless, the Yankees need Sanchez to be the type of defensive catcher they think he can be, so let’s hope last week was just an anomaly.

Stanton has been solid in left field, making a couple of nice plays in the series finale Sunday, as he has gotten more acclimated out there. Other defensive standouts include Gardner and Judge, who has already made one of his signature “nobody else can do this” home run robberies.

On the basepaths, the Yankees don’t appear to be very good, coming in at 21^st as a team in Fangraphs’ Base Running (BsR) stat. The Yanks don’t tend to be very aggressive with stealing bases, as they don’t like to waste outs with the sluggers they have in their lineup, which makes sense.

They did have some early season blunders on the bases, but it seems like that has leveled out.

Next: How Yankees can extend their championship window

Overall, there’s plenty of room for improvement for this Yankees team given their talent level, but it also could be much worse given their injury woes and some individual underperformance.