Last week we started a mini-series asking the five biggest questions each of the local baseball teams will need to answer in order to have a successful 2021 season. The Red Sox led things off, and now we move to the Bronx, where there is once again incredible pressure with this group to end an 11-year World Series drought.
1) Who becomes the bonafide No. 2 starter? There's no question who the ace is. Gerrit Cole pretty much lived up to the hype in the shortened 2020 season, making 12 regular season starts to the tune of a 2.84 ERA with 94 strikeouts in 73 innings, while making three more postseason starts.
With Masahiro Tanaka returning to Japan it leaves a hole behind Cole for that second starter spot, but there are a number of options. Corey Kluber was brought in on a one-year deal that could be the steal of the offseason if he looks anything like the guy who won the Cy Young Award as recently as 2017. The Yanks traded for Jameson Taillon, a talented arm but one that missed all of 2020 and pitched just 37.1 innings in 2019 due to an arm injury. Luis Severino has all the talent in the world, but has made exactly three starts since 2019 and won't be back until summer. Any of these players could be the answer -- or a potential problem.
2) Will the Gary Sanchez saga continue? No player in the New York lineup takes more heat than Sanchez. First when he was hitting 30 home runs a year it was his defense. But last year it was his bat that became untenable for the second time in three seasons, finishing with a .147 average with nearly three times as many strikeouts (64) as hits (23). It led to his eventual benching in the postseason, where he appeared in only three games.
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3) Can they stay healthy? It seems like a frivolous question, as health is impossible to predict. Yet if you're a Yankees fan, it's probably the biggest lingering issue in the back of your mind. We mentioned the assorted pitching injuries - notably Severino.
But Aaron Judge has missed 142 games in three years. Giancarlo Stanton has missed 181 games in two years. Gleyber Torres missed 18 games last year. Then there are the litany of injuries to some of the bench options. It's been an ongoing issue for two years. Surely regression to the mean has to be coming in 2021, right?
4) What does the bullpen look like? The very expensive Yankee bullpen was... fine?... in 2020, pitching to a 4.51 ERA. The top three are as good as it gets in the majors, with Chad Green pitching the 7th, Zack Britton the 8th and Aroldis Chapman the 9th. Like most Major League teams, beyond that there are question marks. Adam Ottavino is now in Boston. Guys like Luis Cessa and Jonathan Loasigia - both of whom had sub-3.52 ERAs last year -- are going to be relied upon more in the middle innings.
5) Can they take advantage of this window? Even if some of the above questions go unanswered, the Yankees are good enough - and, frankly, the AL East is bad enough - that it would take a lot for New York not to make the postseason. Defending division champ Tampa Bay got worse, while Boston and Baltimore didn't get any better. Toronto had a big offseason and looks primed to join the AL arms race, but New York will likely rack up enough wins against the other three to at worst be comfortably in a wild card spot.
So come October, the pressure will rise once again -- and the clock might be ticking. It's been 11 years since the team's last World Series win or appearance (2009). They'll have this year and next with this current core before major questions need to be answered. Judge and Sanchez are free agents in 2023, as are Chapman and Britton, and Torres won't get any cheaper as he goes through arbitration. Obviously Judge is the big-ticket item. Given there's so much long-term money already allocated to Cole, Stanton and D.J. LeMahieu, do the Yankees want to blow past the luxury tax threshold to pay for Judge, who will be 30 years old?