It’s an off day for the Yankees, which is always a good excuse to take a step back out of the forest and see how the trees are doing. We’re just past the one quarter mark of the 2024 season and it’s hard not to love how the season has gone thus far. The Bombers are on pace for triple digit wins, and not insignificantly, are a heck of a lot of fun to watch and root for.
Yet we’re all aware that the W/L record over 25.9% of a season, although far from irrelevant, doesn’t tell the whole story. What happens if we look under the hood and poke around a bit?
There’s some OK news and some great news.
The OK news is that the pitching has been far from bad but hasn’t been particularly good either. The staff as a whole ranks 17th in xFIP league wide while sitting at 14th in K%-BB%. Allowing the fourth fewest runs per game is great of course, but that’s received a big bump from good fortune (3rd lowest BABIP despite 7th highest exit velocity allowed) and phenomenal team defense*. Certainly, no reason to raise a red flag, but the run prevention bottom line may be a little misleading.
(*When you get above average defense from the catchers and far above average defense from the shortstop position, as the Yankees have, the pitchers are going to look better than they are.)
Offensively, the Yanks have been good at scoring runs – 9th in MLB on a per game average – but they’ve hit much better than that would suggest*. They’re currently sitting at 3rd in OBP, and 6th in SLG league wide, leaving them only the behind the Dodgers in wRC+ as a team. This, despite having the 18th lowest BABIP while hitting the ball harder on average than all but two teams. This is a good offensive team that will probably get better.
(*Although the baserunning, has in fact, been atrocious.)
The Yanks start a three-game set in Minnesota tomorrow against the Twins, who despite everyone telling you how good they are this season, have a lower winning percentage than the Yankees. Tomorrow at 7:40 will be on the YES Network, Wednesday at 7:40 will be on Prime Video, and the matinee finale will be Thursday at 1:10 pm. I say the Yanks start the last three quarters of the season by taking two of three – what say you?
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