After a playoff appearance last season, optimism is high for the New York Yankees heading into 2016. They start the year with a Wild Card Game rematch against reigning American League Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and the Houston Astros.
Originally slated for Monday, the Yankees announced the game will now take place on Tuesday.
Last year was a positive step for the Yankees, though it was not the huge leap forward fans in New York are accustomed to with this franchise. The Yankees won 84-87 games each of the last three years, opting to ride things out with their old talent and slowly working prospects into the mix.
Bringing up the younger guys occurred out of necessity. If Mark Teixeira was capable of playing 140-150 games, Greg Bird likely would have spent all of last season in Triple-A.
The Yankees are a team in transition, but because they don't go through full rebuilding periods, they are still piecing together a 25-man roster capable of competing in a loaded American League East with teams like the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox.
For instance, instead of trying to spend on one of the big free-agent starters available, the Yankees looked at the template set by the Kansas City Royals and built as good of a trio in the back of the bullpen as there is with Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman.
Chapman is suspended for the first 30 games of the regular season under MLB's domestic violence policy, but the Yankees can survive his absence because of Miller and Betances.
Beyond acquiring Chapman and Starlin Castro, this was a quiet offseason in the Bronx. It's the right tactic for a team that is going to clear a lot of money in the next two years, but will it lead to another playoff appearance?
Here are the biggest questions and predictions for the Yankees in 2016.
What Does the Rotation Offer?
Looking at the Yankees' starting rotation last year, it's a wonder this team managed to win 87 games. The Yankees didn't have one starter make 30 starts or reach 170 innings. Masahiro Tanaka, who will start on Opening Day, was the only starter to make at least 20 starts and post an ERA under 4.00.
CC Sabathia, who missed last year's playoff game against Houston to enter alcohol rehab, is back. He's 35 years old and doesn't have much giddy-up on the fastball anymore, per MLB.com's Bryan Hoch:
Sabathia's ability to pitch and hit his spots will help him survive, but expecting him to be any more than a back-end starter at this point isn't realistic.
Tanaka has tremendous potential, as evidenced by his 280 strikeouts in 290.1 innings, but he's got to show that he can make 30-plus starts in a season to become the No. 1 starter New York so desperately needs.
Luis Severino had an excellent 2.89 ERA in 11 starts last year, though he also allowed nine home runs and 22 walks in 62.1 innings.
The 22-year-old Severino certainly has the confidence needed to step up based on these comments to YES Network's Meredith Marakovits (via Brendan Kuty of NJ.com) in January: "Of course [I can be New York's ace]."
That kind of confidence is necessary for any pitcher to succeed, but Severino has a lot of work left to do before approaching those lofty heights.
Because the Yankees have built such a deep bullpen, they can get away with having starters throw five innings more often than not. Eventually, though, those starts will have to get longer or else the relievers will be worn out by the time October rolls around.
What Will the Lineup Look Like?
One reason the Yankees succeeded last year despite all the pitching woes is because they scored 764 runs, second only to the Blue Jays in MLB.
As the season moved on, though, the Yankees' age started catching up to them. They limped into the postseason offensively, finishing 17th in runs scored during September, and manager Joe Girardi constantly had to shuffle things considering the number of games lost due to injuries.
Injuries hit the Yankees hard even before spring training started, with Bird undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery in February. He would have played a huge role in New York this season after impressing with a .529 slugging percentage and 11 homers in 46 games last year.
In fairness to Brian McCann, he didn't spend time on the disabled list in 2015. He's a catcher and requires more days off than the average position player, particularly now that he's on the wrong side of 30.
Jacoby Ellsbury has been frail throughout his career, only playing more than 140 games four times in nine seasons. His numbers have dropped off in two years with New York, posting a career-low .663 OPS (min. 100 games) last year.
Teixeira can't be counted on for more than 120 games at this point in his career. He's missed 276 games since 2012 and is going to turn 36 on April 11. Alex Rodriguez was a pleasant surprise in 2015, posting his highest home run total (33) since 2008 and OPS+ (131) since 2009.
After the All-Star break, however, Rodriguez looked like a 40-year-old. He hit .216/.324/.448 in 69 games during the second half, so his tank is zeroing in on "E" heading into 2016.
Castro gets a chance to reinvent himself after a disappointing 2015 with the Chicago Cubs. The 26-year-old thinks he's found an answer to his early-season offensive woes last year, per Kuty:
The Dominican Republic-born infielder had gone from an open stances to one that was closed, allowing him, he said, to drive the ball with more consistency to right-center field.
The hardest part of that? Castro told NJ Advance Media it's been not crossing his front leg with his back leg, essentially overcompensating for his old stance.
When Castro hit with an open stance, he would bring his front left foot from the left side of the box and make it parallel with his back foot. With his new stance, he tries to keep his feet parallel at all times.
Castro did turn things around last year, hitting .295/.319/.464 in 65 games after the All-Star break. He's not the kind of hitter who can carry the middle of a lineup because he swings at everything, but if he can duplicate that 2015 second-half slash line as a No. 6 hitter, the Yankees will be thrilled.
Reinforcements are coming with outfielder Aaron Judge and catcher Gary Sanchez likely to get called up at some point during the season, but there's only so much those rookies can do surrounded by a nucleus that is old and doesn't appear to be cut out for a six-month grind.
Prediction
Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections have the Yankees finishing fourth in the American League East with a respectable 84-78 record. That's right in range with where they have been the past three years, though it also seems optimistic.
I mentioned the Yankees trying to follow Kansas City's blueprint to success with a dominant bullpen, but they are missing two key ingredients to that formula: speed and defense.
It's easy to get hung up on Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera throwing smoke at the end of games, but none of that would work if the Royals didn't have the AL's best defense and an opportunistic offense that doesn't strike out.
The Yankees finished last year 27th in defensive runs saved, a figure that's not likely to get better with Castro at second base and outfielders like Ellsbury and Brett Gardner losing a step.
Starting pitching remains a huge concern for the Yankees, who waited until the last minute before announcing an Opening Day starter simply because they didn't know what Tanaka was going to look like. Their bullpen will be among the most dominant in MLB when Chapman returns from suspension.
Miller did give Yankees fans cause for concern when he took a liner off his right (non-throwing) wrist, but he will pitch through the broken bone this season after getting cleared by a doctor.
There won't be a complete drop-off because the Yankees still have quality talent, but it's going to be a chore finishing around .500 in 2016.
2016 record: 80-82
Stats per Baseball-Reference.com, FanGraphs and ESPN.com unless otherwise noted.
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