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The Yankees are right where they’re supposed to be

peter sblendorio, new york daily news
·4 min read
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The Yankees haven’t won in more than a week, are 11-22 in the second half and are on pace for their worst season since 1992.

And they’re right where they’re supposed to be.

That’s according to the Pythagorean winning percentage formula, the tried-and-true formula that uses a team’s run differential to calculate what its record should be. Following Sunday’s loss — the Yankees’ eighth in a row — they fell to 60-64, right in line with the Pythagorean expected win-loss record of 59-65.

That formula has largely found the Yankees’ record to align with their offensive and pitching production all year. When Aaron Judge went down with a toe injury on June 3, the Yankees were 35-25 against an expected 34-26 record. On July 4, the Yankees’ actual 48-38 record again nearly mirrored their expected 47-39 mark.

Coming off a 99-win season and an American League East title, the Yankees expected to be back in the World Series mix in 2023 with Judge re-signed and Carlos Rodon added to last year’s core.

So what led to the drop off?

After finishing second among MLB teams in runs scored last year, the Yankees have dipped to 23rd this season. Their .230 team batting average is the second-lowest in the league.

Advanced stats suggest a bit of bad luck, as the Yankees’ .266 batting average on balls in play ranks last in baseball, despite their hard-hit percentage (41.2%) being above the league average (39.6%). But speed has not been this team’s game, with only one player ranking within the top 90 in MLB sprint speed.

Nearly every lineup regular’s actual batting average is either in line or below their expected batting average, which considers the likelihood of every batted ball becoming a hit. But the Yankees have gotten little production from third base, where 37-year-old Josh Donaldson has struggled when he’s not injured, and from left field, where the team did not replace the departed Andrew Benintendi in the offseason.

They’re also not getting another historic season from Judge, who slugged an AL-record 62 home runs last year and carried the Yankees’ offense at times.

Among lineup regulars this year, only Judge and Gleyber Torres have posted a higher OPS+ — a metric normalizing on-base percentage plus slugging across the league — than the FanGraph ZiPS preseason projections.

Still, the Yankees managed to overcome subpar offense during the season’s first three months. Their position players’ wins above replacement (WAR) ranked 19th through July 4, when they had a 75% chance of making the postseason, according to FanGraphs. The Yankees are just 12-26 since, yet their position player WAR status hasn’t changed much, ranking 20th over that stretch.

The more precipitous fall has come from the pitching staff, which ranked third among relievers WAR and 21st among starters WAR through July 4, according to FanGraphs. Since then, the bullpen has pitched a 4.06 ERA (up from 2.79 ERA) with a WAR ranking 21st over that stretch.

The starting rotation’s 6.05 ERA is the worst in baseball since July 4, while its 0.0 WAR also ranks dead last. The entire staff leads the league with an 18.2% home run to fly ball ratio during that time frame, which again indicates some misfortune. But Rodon, Nestor Cortes, Domingo German and Frankie Montas have all missed time within the last two months, while Luis Severino sputtered with an 11.22 ERA in July and a 10.80 mark in August.

Rodon, who signed a six-year, $162 million contract in the offseason, has also struggled with a 7.33 ERA in six starts. He is expected to return from a hamstring strain Tuesday to pitch against the Washington Nationals. FanGraphs projected Rodon to have a 4.0 WAR this season, well above his actual -0.5 mark. Severino’s current -0.9 WAR is greatly below his 2.0 projection as well.

The Pythagorean model is only one form of analysis, but it does offer insight into whether a team’s performance syncs up with its record. The AL East-leading Baltimore Orioles have seven more wins than expected, while the metric says the AL West-leading Texas Rangers should have seven more wins than they do.