With the Astros out of the picture, the Yankees must seize their moment
During tough times during the regular season, New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone often noted that the team’s path to the playoffs remained wide open, saying, “It’s right in front of us.”
The same can now be said for the American League title.
After fourteen years of wandering through the October desert, the Yankees have found themselves in an oasis. Or perhaps the misfortunes of the Baltimore Orioles and especially the Houston Astros in the Wild Card Series are more like baseball’s parting of the Red Sea.
The Yankees suddenly emerged as the favorites to capture their first AL title since 2009, the year they last won the World Series. Boone may not say it out of respect for the competition, but yes, it’s right in front of them. The Yankees will have no excuses if they can’t survive an AL field that includes three Central clubs with a payroll about a third of their own.
Of course, big-money teams don’t always win, not in the regular season, not in short postseason series. The Astros, who made a payroll more than double that of the Detroit Tigers, suffered a loss at home. The Yankees’ Division Series opponent, the Kansas City Royals, features likely AL MVP runner-up Bobby Witt Jr. and two potential top-five finishers in the AL Cy Young voting, Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo. The other AL team with the bye, the Cleveland Guardians, won just two fewer games than the Yankees during the regular season.
Do you think Yankees fans want to hear it?
The Yankees are mostly healthy. They feature two of the game’s biggest stars, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. And they no longer have to deal with the Astros, who defeated them in the ALCS in 2017, 2019 and 2022, by a combined 8-1 at Minute Maid Park.
Yes, the 2017 win came during a postseason in which the Astros illegally stole signs, but in four games at Minute Maid, the Yankees scored three times. Some Yankees fans would like to believe that the 2019 ALCS was also tainted, but it has never been proven that the Jose Altuve buzzer-beater controversy was anything more than a social media creation. And in 2022, the Astros defeated the Yankees in four straight games, erasing any doubts about their superiority once and for all.
This season was more of the same. An eighth straight ALCS appearance by the Astros – and a fourth showdown with the Yankees – seemed entirely possible. The Orioles were 15-11 against the Yankees the last two years, but didn’t seem like a serious threat. They continued to fade for months, scoring just one point in two games against the Royals. The Astros once again thought it was a different matter.
After starting the season 12-24, Houston rallied to finish 76-49 and win its fourth straight AL West title and seventh in the past eight years, the lone exception in the shortened 2020 season. But after the shocking loss to the Tigers, a team that sold at the trade deadline and has virtually no starting rotation outside of AL Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal, the end of the Astros’ dominance may finally be near.
Third baseman Alex Bregman appears likely to leave as a free agent. Right fielder Kyle Tucker and left-hander Framber Valdez are eligible to hit the open market after next season. The Athletics Keith Law ranked the Astros’ farm system 27th out of 30 in February – and at the deadline the team traded three young players for left-hander Yusei Kikuchi.
The Astros owe a combined $32 million through 2025 to first baseman José Abreu and reliever Rafael Montero, two players they signed while owner Jim Crane was operating without a general manager and then released in the second year of a three-year contract. Justin Verlander’s return at last year’s deadline cost the team Top 100 prospects outfielder Drew Gilbert and outfielder/first baseman Ryan Clifford. Verlander had a 4.55 ERA in 28 starts since returning to the team.
The Yankees’ foundation isn’t exactly solid either, even now that Soto is out of contract after this season. Therefore, it is up to this team to seize the moment. The Orioles and Astros had the third and fourth best records in the AL, respectively. And now they’re gone.
Mind you, the Yankees are far from flawless. Their rotation of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt could be as good as the remaining players in the postseason. But their bullpen requires deft management by Boone. Their offense led the AL and ranked third in the majors in points, but outside of Judge and Soto, the combined OPS of their hitters was a Miami Marlins-like .676. The team is also sometimes prone to sloppiness, both on the bases and in the field.
Likewise, Central’s teams deserve more respect than they got when they played in the same division as the Chicago White Sox, whose 121 losses were the most in AL/NL history. Granted, the Royals were 12-1 and the Tigers 10-3 against the White Sox, while the Guardians were just 8-5. It’s true that neither of these teams have strong offenses: the Royals ranked 13th in the Majors in runs, the Guardians 14th and the Tigers tied for 19th. However, they have all shown a certain courage, a talent for winning. Witt Jr. and José Ramírez of the Guardians, like Judge and Soto, are top-10 players in the sport.
No matter how undervalued the competition is, Yankees fans aren’t going to settle for another collapse in October, not when the Yankees’ payroll is $302 million, compared to $114 million for the Royals, $104 million for the Tigers and $103 million for the Guardians. (Two Tigers players who make a combined $39 million, shortstop Javier Báez and righty Kenta Maeda, aren’t even on the team’s postseason roster.)
Could the Yankees have asked for anything more than the early elimination of two of their biggest rivals? Call it an oasis. Call it baseball’s parting of the Red Sea. But enough about water. For the Yankees, the American League playoffs might as well have ended in champagne.
(Top photo of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton: Luke Hales/Getty Images)
