The ’24 Season is One Fifth Done – What Can We Expect the Rest of the Way?

By night’s end, the Yankees will be 20 percent through the 2024 season, and regardless of the outcome of tonight’s game in Baltimore, they be in the neighborhood of a 100-win pace over 162. Of course, 20 percent of a season is a small sample, but it shouldn’t be disregarded either.

That said, what can we take from the season’s first month with regards to our expectations for the team moving forward?

Obviously, Gerrit Cole will return to the rotation soon, and that is going to help. (He typed, in an understated manner.) The Yankees pitching hasn’t been bad, but it hasn’t been good either, as they currently rank 22^nd in xFIP, 19^th in both K%-BB%, and groundball rate.

The fact that the team has allowed the fourth fewest runs per game in MLB is a little deceiving as they’ve been buoyed by a healthy BABIP (fifth lowest in MLB) despite having the 12^th highest average exit velocity allowed, and have played above average team defense. I’d still expect the run prevention side of the game to be above average the rest of the way, but don’t be surprised by a little regression.

There’s reason to be a little more optimistic about the run scoring side of the team. Currently they rank 9^th in MLB in runs per game despite having the 19^th lowest team BABIP and the fifth highest wRC+. Combine that with the very safe assumption they are going to get significantly more from Judge and Gleyber the rest of the way and very likely more from Austin Wells too. Even with some individual regressions – I can see Volpe, Verdugo and Trevino cooling off a little – they’re still going to be a good run scoring team.

At the start of the season, I predicted 91 wins. With the hot start, and with the what I feel are reasonable thoughts above, we’re likely looking at a few more wins than that and therefore, postseason baseball in the Bronx.

Tonight’s game is on Prime Video. Luis Gil (24.2 IP, 4.13 xFIP) will be on the mound against the O’s Corbin Burnes (35.1 IP, 3.33 xFIP).

Did I miss anything? Let me know. Leave a comment below or yell and me @mybaseballpage1 on Twitter and/or the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook.

PS: I finished “Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball”, and I can say it’s one of the best baseball books I’ve read in a long time. For a book that’s fewer than 300 pages, the amount of information I learned about Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige and Larry Doby that I had not previously known was amazing. I highly recommend it if you’re a baseball history buff.