The New York Yankees have been unable to avoid the injury bug over the past few seasons, as several of the top-tier talents succumbed to specific ailments, limiting their production and action.
Players like Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, and many more struggled with soft tissue injuries. The simplistic nature of each injury was not a coincidence and ultimately lead to the Yankees firing former strength and conditioning coach Matt Krause. Field manager Aaron Boone was forced to rely on alternatives like Mike Tauchman, Cameron Maybin, Brett Gardner, and Mike Ford. A majority of the starting positions were supplemented by depth and reserve players, something that you normally wouldn’t want over the course of an entire season.
However, Boone managed to supply a steady stream of situational players to cover the loss of his starters, carrying the Yankees to a 103-win campaign, despite being knocked out of the postseason by the Houston Astros in the ALDS.
This off-season has been just as tumultuous, as Luis Severino succumbed to Tommy John surgery after feeling discomfort during the playoffs last year. Aaron Judge suffered a stress fracture in a rib that went undetected, and he is still recovering months after the fact. Stanton played in the fewest games over his entire career in 2019, a wretched 18. The second least he played was in 2015 when he featured in 74.
Stanton posted a career-low in home runs last year (3), and it was the first time he had ever hit less than double digits in the category. These are all good reasons for the Yankees to move on from Krause and inevitably hire Eric Cressey to take over his position several months ago. Cressey, who is known as a celebrity in the world of performance coaching, will hopefully eliminate soft tissue concerns and other predictable injuries the Yankees were facing.
The New York Yankees made a fantastic move bringing on Eric Cressey:
Cressey has experience training some of the best players in baseball, including Corey Kluber, Noah Syndergaard, and Max Scherzer. His emphasis on kinesiology and biomechanics should help every player on the team, especially the ones that have proved to be injury-prone over the past few months.
The Yankees plan to enable Cressey the luxury of working with other players on other teams, but he is the top dog with the bombers currently. Interestingly, Matt Blake, who was hired to take over as the Yankees new pitching coach, served as the pitching coordinator for Cressey Sports Performance.
“Are they preventable? Is there something that we’re missing?†Cashman said. “Is there something in our process that is faulty? I can assure you that has been a laser focus. I’ve described it as ‘CSI: The Bronx.’ That has been occurring.â€
Of course, preventing injuries is simply impossible, but making them a rarity and less likely is the ultimate goal. Cressey has the pedigree to improve the regimen astronomically, and the Yankees will be expecting just that moving forward.