Yankees could make good use out of their week off before they start the postseason
The Yankees' Alex Verdugo runs on his two-run single against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the eighth inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
And now for the long, agonizing wait.
Since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams for the 2022 season, baseball purists have given the metaphorical side-eye to the weeklong wait between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the divisional round. You’d look at teams such as Atlanta in 2022 or the Dodgers in 2023 and assume that the lag time only worked to rust the statuesque pillars that dominated the regular season.
In a lot of ways, the Yankees find themselves in that position: Despite a 10-23 swoon that extended from mid-June to late July, they finished the year with the best record (94-68) in the American League, and though it took them a bit to lock down the division, there was little worry about them missing the postseason.
When they do resume play on Saturday, it’ll either be against the hard-hitting Orioles or the Royals — no slouch either, especially with one of the best rotations in baseball and Bobby Witt Jr. in the lineup.
But now that we’ve gotten all that negativity out of our system, the truth is that if the Yankees can stay primed and ready — much like 2022, when they outdueled the Guardians in the ALDS despite the wait time — there could be a lot of strategic benefit to these next few days.
The Yankees are a strong but flawed team and have benefited from a division that, except for the Orioles, is decidedly mediocre. And this next stretch will afford them time to get healthier while determining the best possible alchemy to succeed in a changing October landscape.
The biggest issue is, of course, roster and lineup construction, with leftfield becoming an issue of contention. If you hop on to social media platform X on any given day, you’ll find someone apoplectic about Alex Verdugo’s playing time: Sure, he’s defensively superior to Jasson Dominguez, but Dominguez has the offensive upside and the speed to boot.
And still, depending on the pitching matchup, Verdugo should get the nod for now. That is at least partially dependent on what happens in the next few days.
Dominguez started in left for the last five regular-season games but (you may have heard this one before) is a career centerfielder. He overran a ball last week that landed for a two-run single and had two more big miscues during the Yankees’ last road series in Seattle. You simply can’t give away runs against the Orioles’ prolific lineup, and if you’re playing at Kauffman Stadium, good luck with that cavernous outfield and an MVP candidate in Witt, who likes to sprinkle extra-base hits there like party confetti.
Also, let’s not forget that while Dominguez is a prodigious talent who absolutely deserves to make the roster, he hasn’t hit all that much since his promotion. His bat speed, hard-hit rate and sprint speed all tend toward elite, but he also has a .179/.313/.304 slash line with two homers in 56 at-bats. In his last 56 at-bats, Verdugo has a .214/.267/.321 slash line with two homers.
What the next week can do, however, is slow things down for Dominguez — more reps in left, more advice from veteran hitters on the team, a chance to regroup, and an opportunity for the Yankees to evaluate how best to deploy him.
There’s a chance that by Saturday, the equation will have changed, but until then, the presumption should be Verdugo in the outfield.
The rotation, too, brings up some questions. Nestor Cortes, nursing an elbow flexor strain, is out. Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon, by talent and pedigree, are clear No. 1 and 2 starters, but Aaron Boone then has to decide: 1. whether Luis Gil or Clarke Schmidt will move to the bullpen, and 2. whether Marcus Stroman should even be on the Division Series roster.
Schmidt has a lower ERA and both haven’t been sharp over their last few games; that said, Gil has almost exclusively started, other than a few relief appearances in the minors, and Schmidt has been a reliable reliever in the past — a 3.18 ERA in 30 games. The clear answer is to keep the rookie where he’s most acclimated.
As for Stroman, his recent struggles and lack of overpowering stuff don’t suit a bullpen role, making him the odd man out.
There’s so much more, of course. How long will Anthony Rizzo’s broken fingers keep him out, and do the Yankees opt for Ben Rice or Oswaldo Cabrera in his absence? How will they handle the late-game situations after Clay Holmes lost his role to the good old “closer by committee, starring Luke Weaver”?
We won’t know any of this for another week or more. It’s a long, painful wait, but maybe one the Yankees can use to their advantage.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
