4 Yankees under most pressure in 2020 MLB playoffs

3. Masahiro Tanaka

Masahiro Tanaka has long been the Yankees’ playoff ace. This time, a new contract is on the line.

No one has looked more unflappable for the Yankees in the postseason than Masahiro Tanaka over the past half-decade, but this season, the script has flipped a little bit.

We’re not saying he’s going to feel the added pressure, but there’s some personal incentive embedded in pitching particularly well during this playoff run. Tanaka’s role has also changed quite a bit.

In 2017, he was the stabilizing force behind the electric Luis Severino. In 2018, same situation, except with JA Happ (lol, yeah, oops) starting Game 1 of the DS after Severino took the Wild Card Game. Just last season, Tanaka and James Paxton alternated series openers.

This year, there’s an undisputed ace on the staff in Gerrit Cole, but Tanaka’s the last “sure thing,” preceding young Deivi Garcia, Happ himself, and a potential Jordan Montgomery start. If Tanaka falters, there isn’t much insurance behind him who you can absolutely count on in a pinch. Fans are assuming greatness, which is a Cole-like bummer. Either you’re near-perfect and it’s expected, or you scuffle a bit, and the whole plan is upended.

This time around, Tanaka’s livelihood depends on being a playoff ace, too. A free agent without the safety net of an option for the first time in his MLB career, a lot of teams will be watching Tanaka like a hawk, who also might be pitching to justify his return to the Yankees.

Let’s see how he handles a postseason that looks a little different, both in terms of the bubble and his personal security.

2. Aroldis Chapman

Most Yankees images of Aroldis Chapman in the playoffs have been a disappointment.

Yes, this ‘pen spot could’ve gone to Chad Green here, who’s battled the Overuse Monster in his past few postseasons (81.00 ERA against the Indians in 2017 after a game-saving Wild Card performance and a 9.64 mark against the Astros last season). But we feel like it’s more appropriate to single out the man who was on the mound when the most feel-good season of the past decade came clattering down.

When Jose Altuve’s home run cleared the Crawford Boxes in left field, the buzz around the Yanks disappeared immediately (pun very much intended), and it was Chapman’s wry smile that served as the final image of an incredible season, dedicated to overcoming the odds all the way down to DJ LeMahieu’s game-tying blast.

Instead, the biggest Yankee hit in a decade was rendered a footnote, and Chapman was deemed the responsible party by most of this fanbase. We’ve seen Chapman look electric in the postseason (he owned Cleveland in ’17), but more than a few times now he’s looked human, including the Carlos Correa walk-off in 2017, last year’s weirdness, and even the Overuse Olympics during the Cubs’ 2016 World Series run.

When you’re living in Mariano Rivera’s shadow, too, assessments only get more stringent. This postseason, and every postseason, will be huge for Chapman in terms of redefining his “exhausted smile” narrative. To overcome the pressure, he’ll need to present an emotion other than “complete disbelief” every time he’s hit hard, and figure out how to fix things on the fly.

1. Giancarlo Stanton

For better or worse, all eyes in Yankees Universe will be on Giancarlo Stanton this postseason.

An oft-forgotten nugget in the Giancarlo Stanton Yankees narrative (or, conversely, if you’re like me, the only thing you ever think about): the team destroyed the Astros in Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS with Stanton in the lineup. Then, we all learned he was subtly injured on a play no one saw in a way no one perceived.

Just like that, his season was ostensibly over, rendered an ineffective bench bat who likely shouldn’t have even been carried for the series’ remainder.

In many ways, Stanton has become the A-Rod-like lightning rod for this current iteration of the Yankees roster, and to absolve himself, he needs a 2009-A-Rod-like postseason run, or at least something approximating it.

He struck out six times in a four-game ALDS loss to Boston in his first year in the Bronx, even after a monstrous Wild Card Game home run in his playoff debut. Last year, the Twins barely let him swing the bat, walking the slugger four times in 11 plate appearances.

But against Houston, in the middle of altering the narrative, he came up lame yet again.

Stanton has no interest in getting injured and succumbing to his own soft tissue whenever the spotlight shines brightest. He’s smacked the ball at a high velocity all year long in 2020 — except during the month-long period where he was felled by a sore calf yet again.

This October, the Yankees need to prove they adequately rehabbed Stanton this time around, and the slugger needs to play every day and produce. The pressure is squarely on his wide shoulders.

Yankees: Sept. 10, 2001 and the last normal Yanks-Red Sox rainout

For as long as he lives, this author will remember waiting all day to watch the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox on 9/10/2001.