Yankees outfield plagued by injuries, five candidates to meet the challenge

The New York Yankees will start 2020 missing outfielders Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, due to injury. Who will step for the Bronx Bombers and replace the pair of sluggers?

Uh oh, here they go again. The start of the 2020 baseball season is starting to look very similar to the 2019 season for the New York Yankees. MLB’s Bryan Hoch posted on Twitter, Bombers General Manager Brian Cashman doesn’t believe right fielder Aaron Judge will be ready for opening day, due to a pectoral injury.

This disturbing news comes almost a week after the team announced that Giancarlo Stanton will miss opening day due to a grade-one calf strain. The missing pair of sluggers creates an outfielder shortage for New York.

The injury bug that hit the New York Yankees hard last year, when they set an MLB record with having 30 players on the Injured List at some point, is already bitting them again in 2020. This time, in addition to missing two key starting pitchers, James Paxton and Luis Severino, the Yankees will start the season without two of their biggest bats in the lineup.

The expected starting outfield for the Yankees in the 2020 season was to be Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, and Aaron Judge. That plan is temporarily out the window. All three are now all dealing with some kind of injury that will keep them out of action.

According to the NY Daily News, Yankees manager Aaron Boone is targeting mid-summer for Hicks’ return from the Tommy John Surgery he had in April. It was one of the reasons why Cashman decided to re-sign pending free agent Brett Gardner. The 37-year-old will hold down center field until Hicks comes back. That’s one problem averted for the time being.