The New York Yankees went into this season as the odds on favorites to obtain a 28th World Championship. After all, most Yankees were healthy and they had just acquired arguably the best pitcher in baseball to be their new pitching ace, Gerrit Cole. But as spring training began it became apparent that the Yankees would not escape the injury bug. They learned that James Paxton had had back surgery and might miss the first few months of the year.
It didn’t stop there, fans found out that slugger Aaron Judge had been nursing a sore shoulder during the offseason. That turned out to be a fractured rib that would cause him to miss the start of the season. Then co-ace Luis Severino developed elbow soreness that required Tommy John surgery, keeping him out of the rotation all season.
Then in a stroke of luck, if you can call it that, the coronavirus shut down spring training and delayed the regular season until July 23rd. By that time both Judge and Paxton were ready to start the 60 games imposed season. As the season started the Yankees still looked like the team to beat as they won eight of their first nine games, and led all of baseball.
Then it started, Giancarlo Stanton pulled a hamstring running the bases at Tropicana Field. Just days later it was learned that slugger Aaron Judge had also injured a calf muscle while playing the Rays. These two players had 12 home runs and 27 runs batted in. The two are still on the IL. It didn’t stop there. Tommy Kahnle had to have surgery and he was out for the season, Zack Britton pulled a hamstring, James Paxton developed forearm soreness, DJ LeMahieu, and Gleyber Torres had injuries, and just this past week Jonathan Loaisiga and Gio Urshela went on the 10 day IL.
During all of these injuries, the plight of the Yankees changed. With similar injuries as last year, the “next man up” mentality that carried that New York Yankees to 103 wins last year, never materialized, the bats remained silent as the starting and bullpen pitch failed to win games. Even Gerrit Cole didn’t perform, losing his last four Yankee starts. The slide became evident as the Yankees slid from first place to third place barely holding on to the final spot in the AL East postseason.
I belong to several Yankee fan groups on Facebook, and I get to hear a lot of opinions on the day to day Yankees. Recently there has been a lot talk about what’s going on with the Yankees, and their chances of making the World Series. So, I thought I would post a poll in these groups to see what Yankee fans actually thought. I must say this is a totally unscientific poll, only of members of Facebook. The poll was taken over 48 hours and had 455 respondents.
81% of those voters believe the Yankees will not win the world series this season, with 19% believing they can still win. The other two questions asked were if the Yankees would get to the postseason, and if they did, if they would reach a World Series appearance. 39% believe that the Yankees will fail and lose their place in the postseason playoffs. 42% think the Yankees will play in the postseason but not go deep into the playoffs.
Although the Yankees have not been playing well, Yankee fans tend to be fickle, a long winning streak could change everyone’s opinion, making this poll entirely irrelevant.
If you like chatting with New York Yankee fans, I suggest you join a Yankee fan group on Facebook, like The Yankee Kingdom or Yankee Fans R US!! EmpireSportsMedia.com’s Columnist William Parlee is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. Follow me on Twitter @parleewilliam