Boy, did the Yankees need that shutout win over the Cubs to end what has been an often times painful July on a relative high note. We’re just past the two-third mark of the season and a little over 50 hours away from the MLB Trade Deadline, meaning the Yankees will open August in a mad scramble to see which teams they can line up with to potentially acquire reinforcements for the stretch run. Before we get to that, let’s take one last look back at the month of July and the performance of the roster
assembled by GM Brian Cashman.
Cashman polled at a 41-percent approval rating in both April and May as the Yankees were neck-and-neck with the Rays for the division lead, led by a pair of superstar offensive talents in Aaron Judge and Ben Rice. But then came the annual June swoon, and while they avoided it for a couple weeks, it did eventually strike with a vengeance. From June 20th through the end of the month, the Yankees won just two of eleven games including an embarrassing four-game sweep by the then-last-place Red Sox at Fenway, that sweep going on to catalyze Boston’s surge back into contention. By the end of the month, Cashman’s approval rating was polling at a minuscule nine percent.
Those losses continued to pile up to open July, the Yankees winning just two from seven to start the month. This saw them fall from 3.5 games up in the division on June 17th to five games behind the Rays on July 8th. They did manage to split a four-game set at Tampa — no small feat — and swept the Nationals in Washington to seemingly turn the month around. A series loss to the Dodgers brought them back to Earth, though they followed that up with series wins over Pirates and Phillies. I suspect the mood surrounding the fanbase would be a lot more positive had they not fumbled away the final two games of their four-game set against the White Sox, the bats going dormant and the mental errors piling up in those two extra-innings losses.
With the long-term injuries to Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and the additional injury to Cody Bellinger, the Yankees offense simply lacks the players outside of Rice who are capable of producing on a consistent basis. Indeed, Rice, Judge, Bellinger, and Paul Goldschmidt are the only lineup regulars producing at an above average level — two of those players are injured while the rest of the lineup has been worse than league average. There is a very real chance that neither Judge nor Bellinger are back until mid-September if for the regular season at all, so barring an unlikely spending spree at the Deadline, this is the group of bats relied upon to make it into the playoffs.
The dichotomy between the performance of the offense and the performance of the pitching staff has been quite stark in July and reveals how much the pitchers have carried the team. In July, Yankees hitters posted the highest strikeout rate, fifth-lowest walk rate, lowest OBP, second-lowest batting average, third-lowest wRC+, and eighth-lowest fWAR in baseball. Meanwhile, their pitching staff ranks second in strikeout rate, third in batting average allowed and WHIP, fourth in ERA, seventh in FIP, and fourth in fWAR in MLB. If not for the performance of their pitchers, I shudder to think of where the Yankees would be in the standings.
The problems on offense run so deep that it is hard to see an avenue to addressing their woes at the Trade Deadline. They’ve been linked to right-handed hitting catchers Ryan Jeffers and Hunter Goodman and are rumored to have checked in on shortstops CJ Abrams and Zach Neto. However, given their additional desire to upgrade the bullpen, you wonder whether Cashman has the appetite or the resources needed to make the multiple moves necessary to plug their numerous holes (or if some of these potential partners actually sell). Trading for just one of those guys is likely to cost a fortune, and I’m skeptical that the front office would empty out the farm system to the degree needed for substantive improvement.
That brings us to today’s task. Do you approve of the job Brian Cashman has done through the end of July? On one hand, the Yankees had a winning record in July, entered the month 3.5 games back of the Rays, and exit the month… 3.5 games back of the Rays, so they’ve managed to tread water despite the injuries and anemic offense. On the other hand, the Red Sox have come roaring back to be just a fw\ew games back of the Yankees for second, and you seriously question how much longer the pitching staff can continue to carry the offense. The polarizing GM certainly elicits stronger feelings than can be captured in a one-word response — you may feel a question such as the one being posed requires more nuance, greater elaboration, or a wider selection of options than just a “yes” or a “no,” however for the sake of this exercise, a binary question works best.
Note: This is the same poll that is currently appearing on the Feed, so if you’ve voted there, that should already be counted.
