Major League Baseball has become a playoff sport just like the National Hockey League, just like the National Basketball Association. Pennant races are obsolete. Regular-season powerhouses that habitually fall short in the postseason are increasingly perceived as little more than imposters.
And here I am at Yankee Stadium.
What?
Did I say anything?
The job is more difficult now for everyone even though teams don’t have to finish in first place in order to qualify for the World Series. There is a gauntlet of best-of’s, hypothetically starting with three, then five, then a pair of sevens. The job is more difficult for general managers, for front offices must be able to construct rosters that succeed over both the long and short haul.
Still one victory shy of clinching the AL East and thus earning a bye from the opening round best-of-three, Aaron Boone on Thursday faced a bevy of questions about the situation in left field, where the Yankees manager and hierarchy have a good field-no hit option in Alex Verdugo and a good hit-unreliable field option in Jasson Dominguez from which to choose.
Boone spent a few minutes analyzing the situation before the final game of the three-game series against the Orioles, in which the Yankees were undermined by baserunning blunders by Juan Soto and Gleyber Torres on Tuesday and then by Dominguez’s shaky defense on Wednesday.
Guess what?
Baserunning and defense become more important in autumn than the summer. Fundamentally, details matter. Fundamentally, the Yankees haven’t always been best-in-class in that category.
Perhaps coincidentally but probably not, the Yankees have lost four of seven postseason rounds — not including a pair of one-game wild-card knockouts they split — since Boone took over in 2018.
I understand Dominguez’s promise. I get the electricity he can bring to the plate. He is a threat. It is all in front of him. But at the same time, catchable fly balls have been landing behind him in left field, a position the 21-year-old is attempting to learn after spending most of his life playing center field. The affable young man is a threat out there, too.
And I surely recognize Verdugo’s season-long issues at the plate. When at the bottom of the order, the 28-year-old, six-year MLB veteran essentially shortens it. His numbers at the plate have been inferior since a hot start, his slash line set at .233/.292/.353 with a .645 OPS. He can devolve into an offensive black hole.
But Verdugo can catch the ball. The Yankees need people to catch the ball in the playoffs. And that is why Verdugo should get the starting assignment for Game 1 of the ALDS.
For as Boone said, “Especially in the postseason, outs need to be outs.”
And as Boone also said: “[Defense] is a big factor.”
The manager said that discussions about the playoff roster has been put on hold until the team wins one more game to clinch. But the Yankees can likely include both Dominguez and Verdugo on their initial postseason roster. If Dominguez does not start, he would be a potential late-inning bat off the bench. If Dominguez does start, Verdugo would become a likely late-inning defensive replacement. Keeping both would likely come at the expense of Trent Grisham.
Dominguez was in left field doing remedial work with coaches four hours before Gerrit Cole’s first pitch after his misadventure under a twisty deep drive near the line the previous night. Work ethic is not the issue. Aptitude to play the field is not the issue. Experience and lack of familiarity with AL ballparks is the concern.
“Jasson has had his struggles there the last couple of weeks, but he also has the ability to be really good out there. It’s not like we’re taking [a random writer] and saying go play left field and hope for the best,” Boone said. “We’re taking a premium athlete who’s been a really good outfielder in his career and knowing that, yes, he’s had a couple of struggles here and a couple of mistakes, but there’s no reason to think he shouldn’t be good out there, either.”
Long-term, of course.
But by next week?
Players should not be learning new positions in the playoffs.
This, too: Dominguez had a slash line of .200/.294/.356 with a .650 OPS two homers and four RBI in 45 at-bats prior to the game.
In other words, this is not Shane Spencer in 1998, when the-then 26-year-old slashed .373/.411/.910 with a 1.321 OPS with 10 home runs and 27 RBI in 67 at-bats to force his way into the postseason starting lineup six games for perhaps the greatest baseball team of all time.
The Yankees do have the theoretical option of moving Soto from right field to left, where he started his career as a 19-year-old in Washington, so that Judge could shift to right and thus leave center field open for Dominguez. You may have noticed this year that catching fly balls has been a challenge at times for Soto, too.
Sure, that’s what the Yankees need, all right, a postseason fire drill in the outfield.
There is no need to complicate this. The Yankees will need to catch the ball. The Yankees will need Verdugo in left field.
