A Look Ahead To The Second Half

by Dusty Writes

July 16, 2026

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I agree with many of the points made on SSTN completely including Dr. Semendinger's articles pointing out the many weaknesses of Aaron Boone and the Yankees organization. Like he said, the Yankees are content with being "competitive" and not being the best they can be.

We wrote comments about how Luis Arraez would seem to be a good fit for the Yankees. In the past seasons, many fans and media criticized the type of player Arraez is. Isn't it interesting that so many fans and media on a daily basis now want the Yankees to obtain Arraez? Many of these Arraez former critics are now saying the Yankees have to acquire him. 

At this point, I am not optimistic the 2026 Yankees can win the World Series with the way this team is currently constructed. It seems to me, the same results happen every year when the Yankees make the playoffs: Their offense gets completely dominated by postseason pitching. Their defense, pitching, and lack of fundamentals also played a large part in their playoff failures since 2010.

Statmuse had an amazing statistic of the Yankees batting stats in the playoffs since 2010. The Yankees have played 89 postseason games since 2010. They won 42 games and lost 47. Taking a very large sample size, Yankees batters in these 89 games had 2,968 at bats and only 660 hits for only a batting average of .222! They scored only 374 runs for an average of 4.2  runs per game.

But, that 4.2 runs per game stat is misleading because the Yankees have lost postseason series in which they won games by scoring runs in bunches, then in that same series were completely shut down in the games they lost. Also, many of their good offensive games came against the weaker postseason teams such as the Twins and other non-elite teams.

I don't believe the postseason is a "luck of the draw" for the most part. Articles have mentioned the Dodgers completely dominating the NL and winning 3 World Series in 6 years and 5 pennants in 9 years. That's not a "roll of the dice" - that is a dynasty. Of course, there was a great article by a SSTN writer who wrote about how MLB has given the Dodgers a tremendous financial advantage that no other team has.

In any given year, maybe we can say the postseason is a roll of the dice, but over an extended period of time, I don't believe that to be true.

Since 2010, according to Statmuse, the Yankees played 23 postseason series. I included one -game wild card postseasons as a "series".

In my opinion, in the vast majority of the 23 series, the results were what we could realistically have expected. The teams that the Yankees were expected to defeat, the Yankees won every time. The teams the Yankees were expected to lose to, the Yankees did lose. For example, the Yankees were expected to defeat Minnesota all 3 times in the postseason, and they did. The Yankees played Cleveland in the postseason 4 times since 2010. One of the few times, in my opinion, it was surprising was when the Yankees won vs Cleveland,  in 2017 when the Yankees, losing 2 games to none, came back to defeat the Indians. Cleveland had the better team that regular season and went to the 7th game of the World Series in 2016.

The Yankees, as expected defeated the following teams in the postseason since 2010: Baltimore ( 2012), Oakland ( 2018), Kansas City( 2024) and Boston( 2025). 

The Yankees won 11 postseason series and lost 12 series since 2010.

With the exception of 2017, didn't the Yankees defeat all the teams they were favored to defeat, based on the quality of the teams ? Didn't the Yankees lose most, if not all of the 12 series in which the other team had the better team?

When the Yankees had their most recent dynasty (1996-2001), they never led the league in homers and often were not close to leading the league. Since 2010, according to Baseball Reference, the Yankees often lead the league and all of MLB in homers, and yet have failed to win a World Series. The Yankees offense has produced more homers than any team in MLB since 2010, but have not won a World Series since then. 

Does this offense seem to have the same characteristics as those other Yankees teams since 2010? If the Yankees don't change their organizational philosophy, which includes the type of offensive players they acquire, can we expect a world championship from this team?

In 1996, the Yankees hit 162 homers, 12th  best in a 14-team league. In 1998, the Yankees hit 207 homers, 4th best in the league. In 1999, the Yankees had 193 homers, 8th best in the league. In 2000, the Yankees hit 205 homers, 6th best in the league. 

Since 2010, these are where the Yankees rank in homers:  7 times they led the league. They lead again this season. Twice they came in second place in homers. In 2019, they had only one less homer than Minnesota, who led the league. In 2020, they had only 2 less homers than Chicago, who led the league. Let's say the Yankees finish the season leading the league in homers. Then, the Yankees have led the league in homers 8 times since 2010, along with 2 second place finishes and one third place finish in homers. That hasn't led to World Series championships.

Should the Yankees have more variety in their lineup, which includes some contact hitters who don't hit a ton of homers? 

Since 2010 in the postseason, in addition to their low collective .222 batting average over the course of 2,968 at bats, the Yankees fail to move runners over and make " productive" outs consistently. In those 89 postseason games, Yankees batters average 9.6 strikeouts per game!

Many fans, media and ex-players, ex- coaches and managers emphasize the importance of contact hitters because lineups need variety. We know the Yankees lineup, when they have all their regular players in the lineup, are the best home run hitting team in baseball, most of the time.

Do they have the correct type of lineup, even with all their regulars in the lineup, good enough to win a World Series?