New York Yankees: Fans don’t believe the midseason hype

New York Yankees fans shouldn’t get excited about the team’s current record. The Boston Red Sox’s slow start should be used as a warning moving forward.

While the New York Yankees are having a particular season if Yankee fans had their way a key contributor would no longer be on the team. The Boston Red Sox are having a rough year because they also overreacted to several small sample outliers. So how does a GM navigate through recency bias?

Last year Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez had a “Ruth/Gehrig” type of season. The rest of their offense was ok, but nothing special. They did not do much to add to the team, and we’re counting on the same results this season. Well, Betts has lost about 80 points on his batting average, much closer to his career .290. His power has also fallen off by almost 50 percent as well.  For Martinez, his number has also returned to his career norms.

Both are all-star level players, but Boston should have expected this fall off. Betts had only hit .300 once before, and Martinez is a career .290 hitter. Expecting both to continue to run fifty points over their averages was foolish. Constructing your team in a manner where that unsustainable performance is your foundation was even dumber.

Boston also bet on Nathan Eovaldi to be active and healthy at the same time based on his postseason. Nothing in his career would have led you to believe he could do that, and of course, he is injured again. Add in bringing back the 36-year-old Steve Pearce and the meh Mitch Moreland, and it’s not difficult to see how Boston allowed their vision to be clouded by unsustainable performances and set themselves up for this year’s problems.

The Yankee fans ready to anoint Gio Urshela and Cameron Maybin should keep this in mind. Look no further than two of their teammates for a reminder of what can happen when you allow short term performance to supersede career norms.

J.A. Happ seemed high as a Yankee last year, going 7-0 after being acquired. However, he also sported an ERA over 4.00 and other than last year and 2016 he had never been much more than a mediocre pitcher. Lo and behold this year he again has a winning record that is more a product of the team’s offense than any masterful pitching on his end.

Gary Sanchez had a miserable season bouncing between injured and ineffective. Fans jumped from one alternative to the next. First was bench him for Austin Romine who had a few week hot streak that propped up against a career-high .244 average with ten home runs. This year he is back to hitting .220.

Next were the offseason pleas to trade him for J.T Realmuto. Realmuto is a solid player having a solid season for the Phillies (.260, 10 and 36) while Sanchez (.268, 23 and 52) has carried the Yankees. How could the Yankees have known he would bounce back? His career 162 game average coming into the season was .266 43 and 82…roughly the same pace he is on this year.

So when fans talk about Maybin like he is a stadium fixture I’m forced to remind them he is a 32-year-old career .256 hitter. Urshela has been a godsend this year,  but he is also a 27-year-old who has never hit .230 in prior big league seasons.

This in no way demeans what they did this year,  but the Yankees can’t repeat Boston’s mistakes and hope that these outliers are real, and ignore the precedent of their past performance.