Yankees second-half has arrived; who steps up?

Notable Mentions and Conclusion

Now there are a few players I did not mention who deserve (or don’t deserve) to be listed, based on their poor performances this season.

Brandon Drury, Neil Walker, Tyler Wade, David Robertson and Chasen Shreve are all capable of doing better and should hope to have improved second halves.

I understand that Drury has been displaced by younger counterparts Miguel Andújar and Gleyber Torres, which can make playing good baseball a bit more difficult without the necessary playing time; but Drury is hitting .184 and has struck out more times than he’s gotten hits.

Neil Walker has proven to be a waste of $4 million. The 10-year MLB vet is hitting below .200, similar to Drury and Sanchez but the difference here is that Walker is 32-years-old, with no potential to get any better, unlike the other two below .200 hitters.

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Walker, similarly to Drury, has more strikeouts than hits; but in Drury’s defense, Walker has 148 more at-bats this season.

Still relatively young, Tyler Wade has done close to nothing at the dish whenever called up. He seems to be the definition of a Triple-A player who will never receive a starting role on a major league ball club.

But if the Yanks could find some life in the still 23-year-old Wade, it’d sure be helpful, especially coming from a middle infielder who could take some playing time from the older, more expensive, struggling Walker; particularly with Torres still on the DL.

David Robertson is a true Yankee. The backbone of the bullpen, Yankees fans have seen it all from him.

Going from Mariano Rivera’s replacement, to trade bait, just to return three years later to take a filler role in the ‘pen. This guy can set up Chapman; he can close games out, he can come in mid-game if you need him to.

Robertson has not been at his best this season. Although he has pitched worse through a whole season, Robertson’s 3.05 ERA is not of the same caliber as his 1.84 ERA from 2017, nor is it close to his superb 2011 season in which he posted a 1.08 ERA with 100 strikeouts in 66.2 innings.

Needless to say, if Robertson could regain some of that superstar form he’s shown in the past, the Yankees will be a bit less stressed when it’s time to make a call to the bullpen.

Last but not least there’s Chasen Shreve. Shreve, although not highly-regarded yet, has a somewhat significant role in the Yankees’ bullpen. Being the sole lefty, aside from Chapman, Shreve has seen a considerable amount of innings for a guy who is struggling.

In his fifth full big league season, Shreve is continuing his pattern of having a bad year following a good year. What do I mean?

Well, here are some of Shreve’s year by year stats.

• 2015: 3.09 ERA/58.1 IP/64 SO/33 BB/10 HR
• 2016: 5.18 ERA/33 IP/33 SO/13 BB/8 HR
• 2017: 3.77 ERA/45.1 IP/58 SO/25 BB/8 HR
• 2018: 4.25 ERA/36 IP/45 SO/17 BB/8 HR

Next: German demoted, but no sign of Sheffield

Overall, the Yankees are in good shape but could easily be in even better shape if a few guys pick it up just a bit. On the other hand, some of these players need to pick it up a lot to have a positive impact on the rest of the season.