In the Yankee-fan universe, the upcoming season is already fixed to be a glorious year. Although the season has been on hold, the fans and the team are ready for another powerhouse, championship hungry route into the postseason. After all, the Yankees are built on championships and when a team goes a decade, since 1910, without the grasp of one, it will sting them as a club.
The stinging will last a little while because everyone among the Yankees know that there were multiple cheating allegations that prevented them from once again being able to stand atop the World Series stage. Although those were the unfortunate realities endured by the Yankees, they will look to 2020 as a gateway to putting together a historic, momentous season that they hope will leave them standing as the 28th-Time Glorious World Series Champions of Baseball.
After three straight disappointing postseason exits, the New York Yankees have locked and loaded all their weapons and are ready to return to their former glory of being World Series Champions. As a reminder, Boston stole signs against the Yankees with apple watches and recently the Astros were penalized with sign stealing as well.
The Yankees will be looking to take this quarantine time that the corona-virus has provided them with to figure out how to tighten up their loose ends and eventually take their revenge against their cheating rivals .
Whenever sports are started up again and baseball activity resumes, the New York Yankees will enter the season as the favorites to dominate and win the World Series.
Gerrit Cole- Strikeouts and ERA
The Yankees will have a chance to see Gerrit Cole in action, as a member of their ball-club, against opposing bats, instead of having to worry about facing him in the postseason. You and I, plus everyone in baseball knows about the strikeout artist that he is. So, what do you think his numbers will accumulate to when the season gets underway? Well, I know one thing is for sure, he will have a very low ERA. Also, I know he will use deception on the baseball to carve out a ton of strikeouts per nine innings.
If his upcoming season is anything like his 2019 season, I can’t wait to see him carve up the interior leather of Gary Sanchez’s glove. Last season his pitches were practically untouchable, posting a dominating record of 20-5 with a 2.50 ERA. Cole accumulated 326 Ks in 212.1 IP (33 starts), so I think it is fair to say he will excel in Yankee Stadium and dominate every time he toes the pitching rubber. I could see him putting together another career year and I will jump to conclusions and say that he will win a Cy Young award in his first year as a Yankee. Hmmm, I could see his performance giving him a shot at 20-0 record and I think he can at least collect 350 Ks. I firmly suggest those numbers, due to my Yankee bias, I believe he will be back up by a dominating offense every time he takes the mound. As far as ERA, in my opinion, I would say he will maintain one under 2.00. I can’t wait to see him destroy opposing bats for us, especially the now vulnerable Boston Red Sox and the cheating Houston Astros.
AL MVP-Could The Yankees Cash In?
A team with an ace like Cole ought to be backed by a murder’s row batting order. So, that would mean, there should be an offense with high caliber athletes to back him. In other words, there should be an MVP lineup to back up an MVP-like pitcher.
Luckily, the Yankee have exactly that when it comes to talking about their offense. So, I think it is surely fair to argue that there are multiple Yankee athletes that could contend for the AL MVP. I actually have two in mind and I think both Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu would tie for the decision. For me it is too close to call.
The 23-year-old phenom Gleyber Torres is emerging from second big league season in 2019, Torres emerged as a true superstar and the crazy thing about him is the best is yet to come.
Now that Didi Gregorius is unfortunately gone, Torres is the Yankees shortstop of the future and is more than ready to take on that role. He’ll also likely enter 2020 as the Yanks’ number three-hitter, after proving he could certainly handle hitting that high in the order last October. A season ago, Torres hit .278 with a team-leading 38 HR and drove in 90. Somehow, he finished as low as 17th in the MVP voting, but I think he will take the top position in the standing when baseball returns from the current pandemic.
Another athletic superstar that could contend for the award is DJ LeMahieu (a.k.a “The Machine”), but his future in pinstripes is a little murky due to contractual reasons. On the offensive front, there wasn’t a better off-season acquisition in 2019 than LeMahieu and there’s no question he was the Yankees team MVP. If the Yankees do decide to give “The Machine” a contract renewal, it would be great to see a friendly competition for the MVP title. Assuming Torres and LeMahieu remain teammates, it would bring out the best in both of them and hopefully it drive the entire team.
Either way, if LeMahieu is wearing pinstripes or ends up in another uniform, the two sluggers have a great shot at that title.
So, I said before that Torres had finished 17th in the MVP race, but what about DJ LeMahieu?
After falling three hits shy a season ago, LeMahieu will get to 200 in addition to leading all of baseball in the category. He’ll also join Torres and Cole on the All-Star team and hit over .300 for the season once again. It would be amazing to see those guys representing the Yankees on a bright stage like the All-Star game. LeMahieu reminds me of another great “DJ” in Yankee history. In 2020 he’ll be the first Bomber to have 200 hits since the Captain did it back in 2012.
The Reality For Clint Frazier
Honestly, even though I am a Clint Frazier fan, I don’t see a spot for him in the bigs. Taking into consideration that after this quarantine, many of our players will most likely be healed, Frazier won’t have a secured spot on the major league roster. So, the only option for the Yankees is to use Frazier as a trade chip to get pitching. YES, YES!, I know you might be saying “why would we need another pitcher, consider the staff we have now?” Well, as we seen time and time again, no team can have enough pitching.
Yankees Need To Defend Their Single Season Home Run Record, Again!
In 2018, the Yankees set the single-season record for home runs in a season with 267 and in 2019 they beat their own record with 306. However, that wasn’t enough for them to set another new high mark after the Twins edged them out with 307.
In the 2020 season, or whenever the season gets underway, I could see a healthy Yankee club surpassing their own record and go way beyond the Twins’ 307 mark.
The Pinstriped Baseball Lane 