After a 7-1 loss to the Diamondbacks on Sunday afternoon, the Yankees were out of the race.
The 2023 New York Yankees, who were called a “disaster” by their own general manager, are now officially “eliminated from the playoffs.”
With a 7-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday, MLB’s best team was eliminated from playoff consideration. This is the first time since 2016 that the Yankees have not made the playoffs. Their six straight playoff trips were tied for the fourth-longest in MLB history. This was helped by the fact that the playoffs have gotten bigger in recent years.
At the beginning of the season, the PECOTA method predicted that the Yankees would win 99 games, which would have been the most wins in MLB. The Yankees basically brought back last year’s 99-win team and added $162 million man Carlos Rodón to the rotation. However, they lost players like Andrew Benintendi, Jameson Taillon, and Aroldis Chapman who didn’t make much of a difference. And they gave Aaron Judge $360 million, of course.
With the moves, the 40-person payroll on Opening Day was $298.5 million, which was the second-highest in MLB.
Even so, it didn’t take long for people in the Bronx to start to worry. The Yankees’ 15-14 start in the first month of the season wasn’t terrible, but the Tampa Bay Rays’ record-setting undefeated start put them eight games behind in the AL East.
By the end of May, the Yankees’ record was 34-24. However, they were still six games behind. From there, things never got better. The team went 11-12 in June and got worse in July, when Judge broke his toe in an accident with a Dodger Stadium wall and missed most of the month. The Yankees could have cut their losses and sold at the trade deadline, or they could have bought if they thought they could make a run with Judge back, but they didn’t do much.
By the end of August, the team’s general manager, Brian Cashman, had to face the facts and start planning for next year. Now, the team’s only remaining goal is to avoid having their first season below.500 since 1992.
The 2023 Yankees were bad all the way through.
To understand how bad this season has been for the Yankees, you have to look at their Opening Day team and figure out what happened to each player. Gerrit Cole is still the favorite to win the AL Cy Young Award, but there were so many terrible seasons that it’s hard to keep track.
Let’s look at this:
- DJ LeMahieu, 2B: In his first two years with the Yankees, LeMahieu finished in the top five of the MVP vote, and he hit.296 as a Yankee in 2023. The 35-year-old is hitting.242 right now.
2. Aaron Judge, CF: Judge has been by far the Yankees’ best player this season, but the month and a half he missed in June and July may have hurt the team more than anything else, as they once again played with a group that didn’t have a lot of help.
3. Anthony Rizzo, first base: The Yankees gave the former Chicago Cubs All-Star a two-year, $40 million contract deal last winter. Through May 28, he was having a career year, hitting.304/.376/.505. Rizzo hurt his neck on that day, and he hit.172/.271/.225 for the rest of the season until the Yankees started to think he had a concussion. The season ended for him on September 6.
4. Giancarlo Stanton, RF: The previous king of baseball’s exit velocity lost a month and a half of the season because of a leg injury. He had his worst season at the plate, slashing.189/.273/.419, which made some people wonder about his health. After this season, he is still on the hook for $128 million.
5. Josh Donaldson, third base: Donaldson had the worst season of his career last year, and this year was even worse. He was hurt in his leg and calf and missed all but 33 games. He hit.142/.225/.434 at the plate and was let go at the end of August.
6. Gleyber Torres, designated hitter: Over the past year or so, everyone thought New York would move Gleyber Torres. He may be the only batter who has beaten predictions this season. He is cutting right now.270/.342/.455 in 152 games, which was a career high.
7. Oswaldo Cabrera, LF: Cabrera had a good rookie year, but this year, he has -1.0 bWAR, which puts him near the bottom of the Yankees’ squad.
8. Jose Trevino, catcher: Last year, he won the AL Platinum Glove, which was given to the best fielder in the league regardless of position. This year, he had the worst season of his career.570 OPS (minimum of five games) and tore a muscle in his right wrist in July, which put him out for the season.
9. Anthony Volpe, shortstop: Volpe was widely thought to be a top-10 baseball talent and a strong Rookie of the Year candidate. However, in his first season in the MLB, he struggled a lot at the plate, hitting 208/.284/.387 and leading the team in strikeouts. At least Statcast likes his defense.
Let’s also talk about the rotation, or at least what the Yankees hoped their rotation would look like at some point this season.
1. Gerrit Cole: Everything is fine here.
2.Nestor Cortes: In his first two seasons with the Yankees, Cortes had an ERA of 2.61. In his third season, he had a 4.97 ERA before he was shut down for the season because of a rotator cuff strain.
3. Carlos Rodón: The Yankees gave Rodón a $162 million deal, but he couldn’t make his start until July 7 because of injuries to his wrist and back. Then, he had trouble on the hill, where he had a 5.74 ERA.
4. Luis Severino: Severino’s season came to a stop on September 8 when he hurt his groin. Before that, he had an ERA of 6.65 and said that he was “the worst pitcher in the game.”
5. Domingo Gérman: He threw a perfect game, which is good. The bad: Everything else, from his 10-game suspension for using a banned drug to an incident in which he was said to get drunk and angry in the locker. He ended the season by going to rehab for drinking.
In addition to these five, Clarke Schmidt (4.65 ERA) and Jhony Brito (4.43 ERA) each made at least 10 starts for the Yankees. On Saturday, the Yankees’ trade acquisition from last year, Frankie Montas, made his second rehab start with the team’s Triple-A team after missing the whole season with a shoulder injury.
There were also stories like center fielder Aaron Hicks being put on waivers with more than $20 million left on his deal and top prospect Jasson Dominguez breaking his UCL just eight games into his MLB career.
With an ERA of 3.37, the Yankees’ relief was at least good, maybe even great, but that was about it. When it comes to important Yankees players, we can say that Cole and Torres had the seasons that Yankees fans were looking for.
