The New York Yankees will start their postseason journey this weekend against the winner of the Baltimore Orioles – Kansas City Royals series. They will do so with an improvised first baseman, though: their top option there, Anthony Rizzo, fractured two fingers last weekend against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
They called up Ben Rice and have Oswaldo Cabrera ready to play the position, too. There could be a third avenue, though: DJ LeMahieu, capable of playing the position, is currently rehabbing a right hip impingement. He said that he doesn’t know if the Yankees will use him, but he is working to be ready for the start of the ALDS.
The Yankees, however, are probably better off without LeMahieu, and there are statistical reasons to make that statement. Among players with at least 200 plate appearances, LeMahieu had the eighth-worst OPS at .527. We are talking about 365 players with that minimum, and only seven were worse than him.
The Yankees are a worse team with LeMahieu
LeMahieu has been a true Yankees representative since landing on the team in 2019, but he just doesn’t have it anymore. He is 36 years old, has suffered many injuries in recent seasons, and his swing just doesn’t inflict damage at this point. When he makes contact (which is often, since he doesn’t really have a strikeout problem), it’s almost always on the ground and not hard enough.
It’s a bad idea, in addition to the reasons already given, to bring back a player without a few competitive tune-up games directly off the injured list to face, potentially, Cole Ragans or Corbin Burnes, just to name a couple of hurlers the Yankees could be facing this weekend that could really make LeMahieu look bad.
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Even with Rizzo being out with his injury – he maintains hopes to return later in the postseason, but the odds are definitely against him – the Yanks should ride with Cabrera or Rice. Neither of them is going to carry the team, but they should be better options than an aging veteran coming off an injury.
Fans have made their stance clear: most of them don’t want LeMahieu close to the postseason roster. It’s nothing personal in most cases: they respect what he has done for the Yankees over the years, particularly in that 2019-20 torrid stretch. But he doesn’t deserve a spot performance-wise, and the team should leave loyalty ties behind if they want to win the World Series.
