The New York Yankees are still safely above the .500 mark, and the nature of the American League playoff race is such that there's minimal danger of them missing out on October entirely.
But if the idea is to get back to the World Series for the first time since 2009—and it is—reasons to believe the Yankees can't do it are piling up quicker than those to the contrary.
After an 8-1 start to the shortened 2020 season, the Yankees are now mired in an 12-13 stretch that's dropped them behind the Tampa Bay Rays (25-12) in the AL East. For that matter, the ascendant Toronto Blue Jays (18-16) are threatening to knock the Yankees into third place.
There's technically a chance the Yankees will fail to end up with one of the AL's eight playoff spots, but FanGraphs puts it at just 2 percent. Unless one is convinced the Detroit Tigers can maintain as a dark horse for the eighth playoff spot, that should sound about right.
Rather, the damage that's been done during the Yankees' rocky stretch has more so afflicted their odds of making it to the Fall Classic, much less winning it.
At one point in early August, the Yankees' chances of winning the AL pennant stood close to 20 percent. Now, they're more like 14 percent, effectively making them just another face in the crowd in an AL field that really doesn't have a clear favorite.
Of actually winning their 28th World Series championship, the Yankees currently have approximately a 7 percent chance. That's about the halfway point of where they were in early August.
Granted, the games the Yankees have left won't be played on paper. But in this case, what's on paper reflects what's been happening on the field and what didn't happen at the trade deadline.
Despite their glaring needs, the Yankees didn't make a single addition in the days before or on the day of the August 31 trade deadline.
It wasn't for lack of trying, as there were rumors swirling about the Yankees going after stars such as Lance Lynn (here) and Josh Hader (here). But ultimately, general manager Brian Cashman deemed the market too "risky" to go ahead with anything.
Evidently, he sees less risk in simply waiting for the club's injuries to heal.
"I know we have a great team, especially when we're at full capacity," Cashman said, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. "I didn't stand down because we're waiting on these guys in the wings—if we found the proper matches, we would go to ownership and execute. But knowing that we're getting everybody back at some point, that's certainly exciting."
Tuesday brought good news on the injury front, as left-handed setup man Zack Britton was activated after a stint on the injured list with a hamstring strain. Britton thus rejoined one of Major League Baseball's best bullpens featuring Aroldis Chapman, Adam Ottavino and Chad Green.
Otherwise, good injury news is hard to come by for the Yankees.
Their offense is missing sluggers Aaron Judge (calf) and Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring)—who combined for a 1.069 OPS and 12 home runs when they were healthy—and shortstop Gleyber Torres (hamstring).
Fortunately, Torres is nearing his return. But even though he's been out since August 8, Stanton's return isn't imminent. It seems as if Judge's isn't either.
The situation isn't all that dissimilar to what the Yankees went through in 2019, save for one major difference.
Whereas the '19 Yankees weathered a historic injury crisis to lead the majors with 5.82 runs per game, this year's Yankees aren't even cracking five runs per game. Notably, they've slipped from 5.7 per game through their first nine contests to 4.6 over their last 25.
That speaks to how this year's offense just doesn't have the same depth as the '19 iteration. The Yankees will absolutely need Judge and Stanton to be fully operational by October. Given their difficulties staying on the field—Judge was injured for much of 2018 and 2019, and Stanton played only 18 games last season—it's no lock that this will happen.
The stage may already be set for a situation in which the Yankees arms will have to carry them deep into October. Their bullpen might be up to it, but there's surely a lot less certainty in their starting rotation.
It's still unclear whether left-hander James Paxton will be able to return from a forearm strain. Even if he does, it probably won't be with the velocity that he had been missing earlier in the year. His average fastball had dropped from 95.5 mph to 92.1 mph, and his ERA rose accordingly from 3.82 to 6.64.
Sans Paxton, Luis Severino (who had Tommy John surgery in February) and any trade acquisitions, New York's rotation is down to Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, Jordan Montgomery, J.A. Happ and whoever's available. This wouldn't sound so bad if Cole and Tanaka were living up to their billing, but only one is.
Yes, the Yankees suddenly have a Cole conundrum. They spent $324 million to sign him as their new ace, but he's hit a wall in allowing nine runs on six walks, 13 hits and five home runs over his last two starts.
There's some thought that Cole's struggles are simply due to him tipping pitches. Yet he's also lost velocity and spin rate from 2019, so it's possible that his problems can't be solved by the simplest of tweaks.
Upon adding it all up, you get a pretty clear picture of why the Yankees have spent more time in mediocrity than in greatness so far in 2020. It's also not as if they've played their best against the best, either. They're 2-7 against the Rays and just 6-11 overall against winning teams.
In retrospect, there's no faulting the intent with which the Yankees came into 2020. They retained most of last year's 103-win club, and the addition of Cole and a potential return to health on Severino's part portended an even greater season.
But through injuries and their inactivity at the deadline, things have gone awry and the Yankees have become just another team. The end result may well be the extension of their World Series drought from 10 years to 11.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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September 02, 2020 at 06:05PM
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Yankees Suddenly in Grave Danger of Extending 10-Year World Series Drought - Bleacher Report
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