5 most disappointing Yankees since Aaron Judge suffered toe injury

DJ LeMahieu

Once upon a time a beloved Yankee, DJ LeMahieu is toeing the line and pushing fans to the brink with his play in 2023. He got a pass in 2021 and 2022 because of injuries, but to our knowledge he's fully healthy this year and his output is well below average.

His strikeouts have skyrocketed (26.3% rate vs his 14.9% career rate). He's been good for a 0.4 WAR. He's hitting just .236 with a .679 OPS and 88 OPS+. Since Judge went down, he's gone 3-for-19 with zero runs scored and zero RBI. Zero extra-base hits. He got four at-bats during the White Sox series. We wish we knew what was going on, but his play has dramatically suffered since Judge's absence and that's something the Yankees can't afford.

Michael King

The Yankees' best and most consistent reliever has decided to fall apart over the last week, and if not for Judge it probably would've been much worse. King was the one who gave up the screaming line drive to JD Martinez in LA that forced Judge to make that unbelievable leaping catch at the wall that got him injured.

Had that ball dropped, a run would've scored, the game would've been 5-4 with a runner on second and no outs instead of 5-3 with a runner on second and one out. Since then, King has surrendered three earned runs on three hits and two walks in just 3.1 innings of work, losing the Yankees two games in the process. His meltdown against the White Sox came out of nowhere and his meltdown against the Red Sox was one of the most predictable occurrences in recent Yankees history, as he inexplicably hung a slider to Kiké Hernandez on a 1-2 count and then walked Reese McGuire to begin the eighth inning. How?

Like we said, the Yankees best players disappear whenever the margin for error gets thinner.

Anthony Volpe

Just a week ago we thought Anthony Volpe shut up all the doubters when he homered on Sunday Night Baseball against the Los Angeles Dodgers to provide the Yankees with two huge insurance runs in the ninth. After the win, we exhaled. OK, he's struggling, but he's having some big moments. And we know the talent is there. We've seen it enough in spurts to know the breakout is coming.

Since that home run, Volpe is 1-for-14 with a walk, zero runs scored, zero RBI, zero extra-base hits, and five strikeouts. He had three chances to make some very significant noise against the Red Sox and came up short each time (though he did miss a walk-off homer by a few feet).

But he's been progressively getting worse, which is the concern. The disappointment has moreso been on the coaching staff rather than Volpe because analysts are easily able to identify the issues with his swing ... but we're still somehow waiting on changes from the Yankees dugout? What's happening here?

He's now hitting .186 with a .605 OPS. He's now one of the worst full-time players in baseball and the recent stretch without Judge outside of June 4 against the Dodgers has been miserable, making this conversation a lot worse. Fans are hoping for a resolution here ... but the only one that won't incite riots involves Volpe simply turning things around rather quickly. And we're not sure that's possible.

Anthony Rizzo

Turns out, the early-season criticisms of Anthony Rizzo were valid. He was accomplishing nothing in high-leverage situations and absolutely raking when it didn't matter. Cool for the folks looking at the Baseball-Reference page, but unenjoyable for the fans tuning in every night for the games.

Then Rizzo woke up and was a force in the month of May, with much of his offensive success translating into Yankees wins. Their 19-10 stretch was powered by him, Judge and Harrison Bader. Awesome.

But then Fernando Tatis Jr. collided with Rizzo at first base on May 28. Rizzo missed the next few games with a neck injury despite manager Aaron Boone telling us he was doing fine. He didn't come to bat despite "being available" in the series finale against the Mariners when the Yankees badly needed a hit to plate a run in extras.

Rizzo returned to action for the series against the Dodgers and ... has gone 1-for-30 since. He hasn't recorded a hit since Judge's injury. He logged just one run scored and three walks over his last six games. And he didn't play against the Red Sox on Saturday in the team's lone win of the series. His OPS has dropped 92 points since the Tatis incident -- he's back to under .800.

Whether it's the neck or the fact Judge protecting him in the lineup is more paramount than we might realize, it's disastrous for the Yankees if one of their most consistent and feared hitters in this drastic of a slump. And it's of course lining up with everyone else forgetting how to play baseball.

Please make it stop.