It’s no good for baseball that the Yankees bought Giancarlo Stanton from the Marlins for Starlin Castro and two unknowns. Although Stanton joins a lineup with Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, the World Series trophy isn’t headed to New York just yet.
Acquiring Stanton was a massive lift for a Yankee team that had enough power to begin with. Stanton will likely hit between Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird and Didi Gregorius all who have monster power. The national league MVP ads decent defense in right field that can give Aaron Judge some off days and provides the Yankees with flexibility to trade Jacoby Ellsbury.
Reasons for pessimism regarding their chances start internally with the Yankees. Injuries are inevitable during an MLB season, and some of the Yankees have a history of trips to the disabled list. Stanton hasn’t had a ton of full injury free seasons and Masahiro Tanaka is usually injured as well. Any other injuries could hurt this Yankee squad in an unpredictable baseball season.
Stanton and Judge both had monster seasons last year, each hitting over 50 home runs and were both in the running for MVP. Those types of seasons are statistically proven to be peak seasons in a players career. The chances that Stanton will hit 59 home runs again is somewhat unlikely even though he will be facing the Orioles and pitching regularly throughout the year. During the second half of the year, pitchers started figuring out Judge allowing for more strikeouts and fewer home runs.
Since it’s clear that those are massive IFs one thing that is certain is that the MLB playoffs are the most unpredictable of the sports playoffs. Any of the ten teams involved have a viable chance to win the World Series, as proven when both road wild card teams made the series when the Giants beat the Royals. After 162 games, getting the 11 playoff wins are unbelievably difficult even for super teams like the new Yankees.
The Yankees are scary, but impact players are still on the free agent market. Additions can be made and injuries and declines can happen. Ten months separate today from October, so who knows what will happen between now and then.
--Robert Dickey, Sports Editor
