The Yankees used a colossal number of players in 2013. Most of them were short term attempts to cover for injuries and didn’t work out too well. Over our next few articles we’ll be surveying those who went, those who stayed and how things look for next year. Let’s start with those who spent time at the plate:
The Yankees depended a lot upon their bullpen in 2013. One of the things that was surprising in September was that those who had performed so well until then began to fall apart but, thankfully, a new group of relief pitchers came up from the minors to take up the slack. Let’s see who benefitted from the roster expansion and who needed to be bailed out…..
The New York Yankees have had substantial problems in 2013 both with their batting and their pitching. If we add this into the amazingly high number of injuries they have suffered throughout the season, it is so surprising that they stayed in contention for a wild card place until the last week of the season. They cannot possibly suffer as many injuries next year. There should be huge plaudits to the management team for keeping them in the reckoning so long. All of this makes it very apparent why the owners and general manager were keen to make sure Joe Girardi was offered a new contract ASAP and why they can look forward to 2014 with some optimism. Nevertheless, it is true that in the last month of the season, only two players who played in the majority of the games batted over .250. Let’s look at that final month……….
The Yankees have seen most of the season through with two strong starters, three weak starters and a good bullpen. That remained the same in August but the names were shuffled around……
The Yankees had a better month in August going 16-12 over the 28 games they played. Improvements in batting and pitching and some notable returns kept them in the frame for a wildcard and a possible backdoor entrance into the post-season…..
In July, the starters and some of the relievers continued to struggle. Thankfully, the Yankees have Rivera and Robertson to pull them through in the tight games……
After going fast out of the gate in April, the Yankees had fallen off the pace. July was another disappointing month – only achieving a 14-12 record in the period. However, some of the guys with the bats began to step up and produce so maybe there was the promise of a better August…….
The bullpen – good to great
The rotation – good to poor
The Yankees have a quandary to solve in the second half.
The Yankees batting and injury problems just got worse as June progressed, seeing them fall from 1st at the end of April, to second at the end of May, to 4th at the end of June. The team batted only .223 across the 27 games in June leaving 11 squad members batting well below .250 for the month. Consequently, our survey below has expanded the middle section!
It is the bullpen that has kept the Yankees afloat whilst the starting rotation and batters struggled. Let’s look over those starters and relievers in some detail:
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