Sweeny: Take Notice — Yankees Silencing Doubters With Dog Days Ahead
By Sweeny Murti
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The Yankees will start the second half of the season in first place. Anybody think back in February we would be saying that in July?
This is not a perfect team. And it's not a great team -- that distinction doesn't become warranted until a ticker-tape parade. But we must say now they are a good team, and at this point they are a playoff team.
The Yankees had three All-Stars: Mark Teixeira, Brett Gardner and Dellin Betances. A case could have been made for Alex Rodriguez and Brian McCann, and before their stints on the DL the same was true of Jacoby Ellsbury and Andrew Miller.
Flaws? Certainly. The durability of the rotation is a constant worry when even their best pitchers -- Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda -- come with a caution flag. CC Sabathia and Stephen Drew are not part of the solution at the moment, and infield defense has come and gone enough times to make you worry how many outs they might give away when the games become more important.
But look around the league right now and tell me what team you fear is better than the Yankees. In recent weeks they split four games with the Astros and swept three from the Royals. The Angels finished hot, but the Yankees were by no means dominated when losing two out of three in Anaheim and prior to that swept them in the Bronx.
Home-field advantage will continue to make the Yankees a dangerous team in the second half. (And thank you, American League All-Stars; you never know when that will come into play!) These Yankees have power from the left and the right, and if they figure out how to make it play away from the Bronx, then you have a team that might win more than 90 games. Joe Girardi suggested that getting a healthy Ellsbury back can make them less reliant on the home run and give them a more diverse attack on the road.
General manager Brian Cashman has run plenty of bodies up here from the minors over the first half of the season. I would bet on a at least a couple of bodies from elsewhere to fortify this group by the July 31 trading deadline. Cashman has shuffled the deck in recent years to aid teams that were merely on the fringe of the playoff race. He certainly will find a way to make upgrades -- even minor ones -- for a team that is playing from in front. Though I would bet against him giving up any of the top-tier talent (e.g. Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird) to do it.
These Yankees are maddening in their inconsistency. But they are not a bad team. You can't look at the standings after over a half-season and believe they are a bad team. When summer turns to fall, we'll see if they are still a good team with a chance to be great. As a fan you should just want it to be interesting. And it most certainly is that as we get ready to hit the dog days.
Follow Sweeny Murti on Twitter: @YankeesWFAN
