Time is a Flat Circle: A New Baseball Season Is About To Begin And The Yankees Are Already Dealing With An Avalanche Of Injuries
March in the baseball world is supposed to be welcomed with hope. The weather is warm in Florida and Arizona, everyone is smiling, people are in the best shape of their lives, and players are relaxed. Hell I bet even Pirates fans wake up here and there thinking about what could happen if everything breaks their way. God bless their souls.
Well, we're sitting here on March 10th in Yankee land just staring at the ceiling wondering how this many people could already be injured.
Not what I'd call ideal. I mean what the hell is going on down in Tampa? This doesn't happen to any other team this consistently than the New York Yankees. Two of the five starters in the projected starting rotation are out, with Montas likely missing the whole season. You can survive without Montas because he was slotted in as your fifth starter, but when you also lose a guy like Rodon then things get tricky. Now you're relying on Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt to both be in the rotation for at least a month. That's if Rodon's injury remains minor and he's able to come back in late April, early May. He said he'd be able to pitch through it if this was October, but we've seen what happens in the past when he tries to do it. If he misses the first month and comes back then it won't be the end of the world, but this kinds of injuries are dangerous if you rush back.
The Bader injury upsets me. I was looking forward to pristine gold glove defense right out of the gate in center. An oblique injury is minimum a month out, depending on the severity. This is another thing we did not need. So what's the plan for CF now?
My guess is they roll with Judge in center for the bulk of games without Bader. Oswaldo Cabrera could also be an option, but his limited experience out there could hurt his chances. Rafael Ortega has had a solid spring and can play center, so I wonder if the Bader injury now gets him on the roster. There's also Estevan Florial who has been up and down with the big league club for years now. While initially hyped as a big prospect in the system he's really just a AAAA player. He doesn't have any options left though, which I feel like could lead to him being on the roster. If he's not, he's gone. I'd move on from Flo if I were them.
Alright there's one name I didn't mention above and that'd be the Martian. There's a behemoth awakening down in Tampa and I'm sure with the Bader news people are gonna want him to get some consideration after what we've seen these last few weeks.
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When you're hitting .438 with a 1.526 OPS and smashing balls like the one above I can't blame people for getting excited. Now if you ask me right now who would have a better season, Jasson Dominguez or Aaron Hicks I'm picking Dominguez without any hesitation. Dominguez is a freak, but he realistically needs more time in AA. As irrational as I may be at times, you gotta be sensible here. We're talking 16 at bats in Spring Training, reel it in folks.It's gonna be so much fun when he's up though, my god is he special. He's probably not gonna be that combo of Mickey Mantle, Bo Jackson, and Trout like Jeff Passan described him as when he first signed with the Yankees at 16 years old. But he's really fucking good and can easily be a perennial All-Star. Maybe we see him in September, but in all likelihood with how the Yankees run their org he's a 2024 arrival.
Kahnle and Trivino being out early will put pressure on the big guns to produce a lot early on. Michael King being healthy is great considering he was close to having Tommy John surgery late last year. They still have King, Holmes, Loaisiga, Wandy, Weissert, and Marinaccio so things should be okay until those two get back and add more depth.
You just don't want this shit happening on March 10th. Please let this be it so we can go back to putting all our energy towards getting Anthony Volpe on the Opening Day roster. NEED him here at the end of the month, no exceptions. If IKF is here starting on Opening Day with Volpe in Scranton I might turn into the Joker.
P.S. This tweet was unnecessary
Fucking Cashman really knows how to pickem