Yankees fans pining for more contact hitters to restore playoff success are missing the point

The New York Yankees put up their worst offensive performance in franchise history against the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2026 ALDS. The Yankees batted just .130 for the series, setting off an outcry amongst the fan base with many believing the days of the strikeout-fueled slugger need to be made a thing of the past.

Hidden beneath the frustration was the fact that the Chicago White Sox erased the 2017 Yankees' record 64 strikeouts in the ALDS from the history books, but that stat further exemplifies the futility.

So fans are hoping that New York pivots from signing big-time sluggers and instead signs three-time batting champ Luis Arraez in free agency. If not him, then how about trading a treasure trove of assets to the Miami Marlins for Xavier Edwards? Surely contact hitters like these will change the club's fortunes, right?

Wrong. A quick look around the league shows that contact isn't the driving force for success that one would think. As of October 15, the league-wide batting average in the postseason was .212. Since then, it's fallen to .210.

Yes, the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays ranked at the top of the leaderboard, each with a .258 average during the regular season. However, the Cleveland Guardians are going toe-to-toe with the Rays in the ALCS right now, and they ranked 24th with a .239 mark during the regular season.

Of the top 10 teams in batting average, five didn't make the playoffs, and of the remaining five who did, two clubs — the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs — were eliminated in the Division Series or earlier. The Dodgers, who ranked third in batting average, were shut down by the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Yankees would be wise to add contact skills to the lineup, but it wasn't their biggest problem in 2026

ESPN's Jeff Passan spoke at length with Alex Bregman and Joey Votto about what makes hitting so hard, especially in the postseason. Much of the conversation centered on the little things that differentiate great pitchers from the merely good or average ones. We're talking about positioning on the rubber, arm angles, spin rates, extension, and so on.

When you get into October, you're only seeing the best of the best. Typically speaking, the teams that make the dance have the best pitching staffs in the league, and those teams only carry the best pitchers on their roster into the playoffs.

That means things get exponentially more difficult, and stringing hits together consistently to score runs is not a winning strategy. You're not going to single-to-death the game's best aces and firemen. Instead, you need to wear them down and punish the few mistakes that they make.

As disappointing as the end to the Yankees' season was, it was only a three-game sample, and it was one that came on the heels of a two-game offensive eruption against the Boston Red Sox. We can mock the Red Sox all we want, but their pitching staff finished third in the league in ERA, ahead of the Dodgers and just one spot behind the Brewers. They were a quality opponent, and New York slugged its way to 18 runs in 18 innings.

If you look at the Rays series, you'll also see a couple of near-misses that could have changed the entire complexion of the ALDS. For example, if Cody Bellinger's fifth-inning deep fly to dead center with the bases loaded in Game 2 was pulled just a tad towards right-center, it would have been a grand slam that changed the complexion of the game. The same is true if Anthony Volpe had gotten another foot or two on his Jeffrey Maier-esque fly ball to left.

The issue the Yankees have is not that they don't have enough contact hitters. The real problem is that they don't have enough good hitters. At various points, the lineup was filled with subpar bats like Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe, Heliot Ramos, Amed Rosario, and Ryan McMahon. George Lombard Jr. may eventually become a plus hitter, but he's not there yet. The list goes on.

That isn't to say that there isn't value in dropping down a bunt or hitting a sac fly to move a runner over versus striking out. But the flip side of that coin is that striking out is less damaging than grounding into a double play.

A one-trick pony like Arraez might look good on paper when you compare him to the likes of the hitters listed above, but the fact of the matter is that it's significantly harder to hit singles in October than it is in the regular season. When you bring nothing else to the table (no walks, no speed, no power), you're just creating another all-or-nothing situation, except in this case, one swing of the bat doesn't necessarily put a run on the board.

Overloading on contact hitters who don't have a balanced skill set is a mistake. As Greg Maddux once famously said, "Chicks dig the long ball." There's a reason why. The Yankees need to upgrade their lineup, but contact is just one of many skills they must seek.

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