Predicting How the 2020 Yankees Break-Up the Logjam

Brian Cashman has done a terrific job of acquiring talent that was initially supposed to be more backup in nature – depth pieces, or so it seemed. Fortunately, many of those players have outperformed expectations and now should be integrated into the starting lineup, at least on a rotational basis.

This has created quite a logjam. There are eight players (excluding the injured Aaron Hicks) competing for six spots (1b, 3b, lf, rf, cf, and dh). Broken down a different way, these players will be competing for 4,164 total plate appearances (694 per position). There are also several players that are injury/exhaustion risks (such as Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge) where manager Aaron Boone must limit their innings (at least in the field). Gary Sanchez could also get some games at DH although I have not accounted for this in my analysis for the sake of simplicity. (I believe it would be a relatively small number of at bats.)

I’m also assuming that Miguel Andujar becomes at least a passable defender in left field and first base. This may, of course, turn out not to be true given that he has not yet managed this feat at third base and will be experiencing those positions for the first time.

Assuming that the Yankees decide to rotate their position players, Aaron Boone will have to shuffle his lineup quite often. I have created a quick table illustrating how this might play out.

I don’t have a crystal ball so this is pure speculation, of course. Still, I am confident that we will see something like this play out during the season.