Yankees: Highway robbery times three and the honor of the game

Within the past week, the New York Yankees were shortchanged in two year-end MLB award competitions and found out that they probably were cheated during the regular season and in playoff competition when they competed against the Houston Astros.

Is this a coincidence, or is something else going on here, perhaps a Yankees bias? What do you think? In the end, I’ll comment on how the three cases are tied together and what is really at stake for MLB as a whole. First, let’s examine the evidence.

AL Manager of the Year

It is clear that the number and nature of injuries suffered by the Yankees during the 2019 season MUST be corrected if the team hopes to return to the playoffs next year. The team had an MLB-record of 30 different players landing on the IL and 39 injury reports, overall.

I bet that if fans were told ahead of time that these many injuries were going to occur during the regular season and were asked to guess how many games the Yanks probably would win, I doubt many would predict that the Savages would still have a winning record. Many fans, including me, might expect them to have lost a boatload of games, perhaps at least 100.

However, I was amazed that the Bombers were still able to win over 100 games despite the numerous serious injuries Yankee players suffered. Some of the key names had either recurring ailments or different injuries at various times in 2019 — such as Aaron Hicks, who had a back injury during the course of 162 and then required Tommy John surgery on October 30.

A lot of credit must go to the players who came up from the minor leagues along with others who were brought in as a result of astute personnel moves and acquisitions to fill in for the players that were injured throughout 2019.

Most of the credit for winning 103 games, however, must go to Yankees skipper, Aaron Boone. He was incredibly adept at working around the assorted physical ailments and juggling the lineup almost every day. Surprisingly to a large number of analysts, he did not receive the Manager of the Year Award in the American League.