Something feels out of whack in the baseball universe when the New York Yankees are not near the top of the standings.
Certainly that is the prevailing expectation of the team’s demanding followers who count the organisation’s 27 World Series titles and interpret them as an annual free pass to extended postseason play.
Sadly for them, it has been an abnormally humbling four years. Since 2012, the Yankees have played in only one, losing Wild Card game, while dealing with a rickety roster featuring a handful of ageing, under-performing ex-stars.
No more. This year’s side is younger, stronger and exceeding the predictions of most league analysts, who figured that inexperience and mediocre starting pitching would hold them back.
Instead, led by a rookie named Aaron Judge, six weeks into the season MLB’s most decorated franchise has the second best record in either league.
Statistic hawks would say that it is no fluke. New York’s run differential of plus-55 is baseball’s best.
The most obvious reason for the resurgence is their most physically obvious player. Judge, 25, is two metres tall and weighs 127 kgs, which would make him a heavy NBA player, or a tall NFL player, but mostly, an extremely rare baseball player.
Players above 1.95m tend to be pitchers, using their height to create an extreme, angled tilt to their deliveries.
Hall of Fame left-hander Randy Johnson was 2.08m. Current Kansas City Royals pitcher Chris Young is 2.08m. One of the best right now is Boston Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale, who is 1.98m.
Taller position players tend to have trouble covering their oversized strike zones with the bat. Eventually pitchers find the spots that the big boys are not quick enough to reach.
Baseball’s most notable, comparable exception before Judge arrived was, and is, slugging All-Star Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins. But even Stanton is 16 kgs lighter than the New York right fielder.
Still, Judge has been huge — numbers-wise. No player has ever reached 13 home runs as quickly to open his official rookie season. The right-handed bomber hit one homer with greater impact (192.1km per hour off his bat) than anyone since MLB starting tracking "exit velocity" in 2015.
He also has 28 runs batted in, and an OPS (on base-plus-slugging percentages) of 1.146, among the best in MLB.
Judge debuted in the big leagues last August, impressively belting a home run his first time up. Less impressively, he hit .179 overall in 84 at bats, with 42 strikeouts.
It suggested what his bosses feared most: holes in his swing.
New York’s biggest hopes this spring were riding on 2016 sensation, catcher Gary Sanchez, who hit 20 home runs in 52 games after his midsummer call-up, as well as promising first baseman Greg Bird.
Leftover veterans like Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius did not appear capable of producing enough offence without significant help.
The bullpen, including set-up man Dellin Betances and re-acquired free agent closer Aroldis Chapman, appeared solid.
The rotation were something else. Masahiro Tanaka was the only starter you would pay to see. Now the staff boasts a 3.56 earned run average, fourth among all teams.
Judge, meanwhile, has cut his strikeout rate to 26 per cent and sparked the Yankees’ revitalised offence with a Babe Ruthian first six weeks.
After Judge hit 10 homers in April, manager Joe Girardi admitted his surprise. “That would be 60 in a year,” Girardi noted.
Judge’s production surely will slow down, but he already may have served a larger purpose. The rookie paved New York’s path back to the top.
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