Yankees: Do they have enough depth to overcome all the injuries?

The injury bug bites again. It is only April and the Yankees have almost as many players on their injured list (12) as the number of games they have played (17).

Things continue to trend in the wrong direction for the Yanks and now with catcher Greg Bird (plantar fascia tear) and Gary Sanchez (calf) on the IL the Yankees have a startling 12 players on their injured list and the offense has clearly been suffering.

Luckily for New York, the AL East (minus the Tampa Bay Rays) has collectively gotten off to a poor start and somehow, with an 8-9 record, the Yankees find themselves in second place in the division. The only positive takeaway so far is that Boston is struggling even more than the Yankees so they don’t have much of an excuse, as their roster is fairly healthy at the moment.

One way to put all of these injuries into perspective is that the Yankees are missing so much talent on a daily basis that you could almost field an entire team, that would likely be very competitive, with just their injured list alone.

They are just two position players shy of a full starting lineup with Gary Sanchez, Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar, Aaron Hicks, Didi Gregorius, Troy Tulowitzki, Jacoby Ellsbury serving as the offense, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery as starting pitchers and Dellin Betances and Ben Heller as their relief pitchers. Crazy, right?

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On the bright side of things, even with the amount of offense the club has on the shelf, the Yanks have a run differential of +20 which actually ranks them fourth in the AL and 5th overall in the MLB. Not bad marks considering they have been without six of their everyday players from essentially the start of the season.

Injuries are never beneficial for a team but they do create opportunities for the others and the Yankees do have enough depth that they can continue to compete for wins as Aaron Boone noted to WFAN Sports Radio.

"“It creates some opportunities for guys, guys that are going to have to contribute at different parts of the season. You try to look at it and make the most out of it. The bottom line is we still have a group that is capable of going out there and winning games right now.”"

New York will attempt to capitalize against a mediocre Royals team as they get set to begin a four-game weekend series.