Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Null and Voit


There's a scene in the movie Clue where, after a number of people have died, yet another person comes to the house and asks to use the phone. And the characters in the house have to internally remember which rooms in the house don't have dead bodies in them. Michael McKean's character nearly slips, as well.

That's where the Yankees are at this point. They have to keep track of who's injured and who isn't, and that stat might even be different within the hour. Already we've lost Luis Severino, Aaron Hicks, Dellin Betances, Miguel Andujar, Giancarlo Stanton and Troy Tulowitzki, in addition to Jordan Montgomery and Didi Gregorius who were out for a while anyway. Meanwhile, they're 5-5, and in danger of dropping more games to teams that haven't lost a lot of players.

As for the replacements...for the most part, they're pretty good. DJ LeMahieu has taken over full time as an infielder, and is hitting beautifully. Clint Frazier has used Stanton's injury to FINALLY propel himself into the lineup regularly, and judging by his high average already, it's going well for him. And Greg Bird is using Luke Voit's near-full-time DH tenure as a way of...finding a new way of refusing to hit for average. Tyler Wade is guilty of this too. So while it could be a lot worse, there's still some inconsistency. I mean, I don't love that in a year that we're supposed to be competing, we have Mike Tauchman and Gio Urshela vying for lineup spots, but...hey, in 2009 we had Cody Ransom and Ramiro Pena, so what the hell do I know?

At least the pitching isn't a huge problem. Paxton works as a Yankee. Loiasiga has done well as a starter. Domingo German has been a suitable replacement for Sevvy. It's Happ and Tanaka that need work. And the bullpen, as expected, has been pretty sharp thus far.

The good news is that most of these injured players are expected back by either the end of the month or the beginning of next month, so they won't need to be ailing for long. However...hopefully those guys can help bring us a bit higher than .500

Coming Tomorrow- A rare good player on the Miami Marlins.

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