Yankees in Full Rebuild...And Still Winning
161st street in the Bronx is home to the most storied franchise in all of sports, and it’s not hard to figure out why. Just take a look out at dead center field, right past the “408 ft” sign stamped on the blue padded wall of the new Yankee Stadium. Right over that fence lies Monument Park. A tribute to the Yankee legacy, Monument Park is home to the plaques and retired numbers of 19 of the best players to ever put on a New York Yankees’ uniform. Add Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez in the near future and that list will be 21 players long.
As Monument Park exhibits, all the championship teams that have called New York home have been laced with Hall of Fame talent. For the first time in more than 20 years, though, the Yankees are winning without the presence of a surefire Hall of Famer, and it looks like they’re just getting started.
This was supposed to be a rebuilding year in New York. With an amalgam of unproven talent and players past their primes, the Yankees figured to finish in the cellar of the AL East. Instead, through 30 games, the Bombers sport the best record in Major League Baseball. Nothing on this roster suggested that this level of production was in store, but that’s likely because nobody could have anticipated the immense impact of a rookie who on the surface looks better suited for the NFL than the MLB.
Apart from his mammoth 6’7, 282-pound frame, Aaron Judge wasn’t much to be excited about. He was called up for the latter part of last season and had minimal success, hitting .179 with a strikeout rate of a whopping 44.2 percent. To put that in perspective, Adam Dunn’s strikeout rate in his worst career season was 34.2 percent, a full ten points below Judge’s. Considering the history of giants in Major League Baseball, an all-or-nothing hitter like Dunn was what most people saw in Judge’s future, hardly a cornerstone of a franchise.
After surprisingly being named the starter in right field, Judge has erased that narrative and has captured the hopes of Yankee fans with just a few cracks of the bat. He may only be a rookie, but the big guy already leads the league in home runs and has been a mainstay in the middle of the Yankee lineup thus far, hitting .317 in the process. Just last week, Judge launched two home runs against the Toronto Blue Jays, and not long before that, he rocketed two more to aid a monumental comeback win against the Baltimore Orioles, the second of which recorded the fastest exit velocity of any home run ever measured.
While Judge has dazzled with the long ball, it’s hard to ignore the contributions that have come from some of the other guys on the right side of 30. A year removed from coming to New York via trade from the Cubs, Starlin Castro has built on a solid 2016 campaign, and continues to help bolster the heart of the Yankee order. Castro has come up with some very timely hits for the Yanks, and has boosted his batting average to .358, tops in the American League. Aaron Hicks sits not too far behind at .342. That’s right, Judge isn’t the only Aaron who has found success in the New York outfield. Hicks is in just his fifth season, but is already on pace to smash his career highs in virtually every statistical category. It’s no surprise then that the Yankees lead the AL in runs, homers, and OPS, ranking second in batting average, and the Baby Bombers, led by Judge, deserve all the credit.
Judge’s breakout opening to the 2017 season has also picked up right where Gary Sanchez left off last year. Sanchez’s 20 home runs in just 53 games took New York by storm last season, providing the spark that the team needed to assuage the pangs of irrelevancy that surrounded the Yankee faithful. Judge has merely continued the narrative. The Yankees are relevant again, and even in a rebuilding year destined for mediocrity, they have managed to break out atop the standings.
Rewind just two years ago, and the Yankees looked like an all-star retirement home. It was a lineup built on veteran presence, including the likes of Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, and Alex Rodriguez. In fact, Didi Gregorius was the only guy in the starting lineup below the age of 31. When it became clear that the team wasn’t going to compete for a World Series, though, and one by one their players started to retire or move on, general manager Brian Cashman had to face a harsh reality: It was time to rebuild. The process had to start from the ground up, as the Yankees were devoid of a standout farm system like the ones that brought rings to the Cubs and Royals the past two years.
It was a big change for New York, a team used to sending its top prospects away for veteran talent, but Cashman understood that the team needed to get younger. At the time, Judge, Sanchez, and Luis Severino were the three top prospects in the Yankees’ system. After a stellar campaign for the Trenton Thunder (the Yankees’ AA affiliate) and later the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (the team’s AAA club), Severino was tabbed “untouchable” by Cashman, who removed him from trade talks that featured big names like David Price and Cole Hamels. Judge was equally as impressive, batting .270 with 19 home runs in 93 games in Scranton, while Sanchez slugged .282 with ten homers.
Severino was the first to make his Major League debut, and after an impressive run to end the 2015 season, he struggled mightily in 2016, posting a 5.83 ERA and winning only three starts. This season though, the 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic has regained his form, and in no start was it more evident than his last. Severino tossed seven innings of one-run ball, allowing just four hits and striking out nine in Chicago.
The trio of youngsters are turning the page in Yankees lore, and while they have started the youth movement in New York, there is no shortage of Major League caliber talent waiting for their chance to shine. The Yankees have the number one farm system in baseball, and its in part thanks to a couple savvy moves by the front office last season. With the playoffs nowhere in sight, Cashman saw an opportunity to advance the rebuild process by accumulating top prospects for talented pitching.
Dealing Andrew Miller to the Indians netted outfield prospect Clint Frazier for New York, and Frazier is chomping at the bit to be called up. Frazier has easy power, presenting 30+ homerun potential and a personality as fiery as his hair. Just six days earlier, the Yankees acquired the number two overall prospect in baseball, according to mlb.com. New York dealt Aroldis Chapman – before ultimately re-signing him this past offseason – to the eventual champion Cubs, who reluctantly gave up top shortstop prospect Gleyber Torres. Coming into this season, Torres had never played a game above high-A ball, but immediately garnered legitimate consideration to be vaulted right up to the big leagues to start the year. This came off the heels of a monster performance in the Arizona Fall League in which he hit .448, winning the batting title and MVP awards. Throw in a first-round draft pick in 2016 in Blake Rutherford, plus a speedy infielder in Jorge Mateo and the Yankees have a bevy of talent on its way up.
The pitching looks promising too. Former first-round draft picks James Kaprielian and Dillon Tate present future potential from the right side, Jordan Montgomery has already impressed in his first two big league starts, and Justus Sheffield is another top lefty pitching prospect who came over in the Andrew Miller deal. Dominican imports Albert Abreu and Domingo Acevedo round out an extremely deep group of pitching prospects, the latter of which rivals the size of Judge and tops out at 102 with his fastball.
It’s hard not to either salivate – or be frightened, depending on your allegiance – at what the Yankees have in store for the rest of the league, because this lineup could be scary in three years:
C: Gary Sanchez
1B: Greg Bird
2B: Jorge Mateo
SS: Didi Gregorius
3B: Gleyber Torres
LF: Clint Frazier
CF: Aaron Hicks
RF: Aaron Judge
DH: Starlin Castro
Does that not remind you of the same model that created the past two world champions in Kansas City and Chicago? It might not be in typical New York fashion, but the Yankees are building a powerhouse one youngster at a time. For now, not all of those guys are ready to compete in the playoffs, but one thing is for sure. The Yankees are proving that rebuilding and winning are by no means mutually exclusive, and that should be scary for the rest of baseball.
