Today week asked our writers to complete two sentences…
This Yankees player will have a great playoff run…This Yankees player will disappoint in the post season…
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Paul Semendinger –
The great playoff run will be…Clint Frazier. At this point, I trust his bat. D.J. LeMahieu will be great, as always, as well.
The player that will disappoint will be (the easy answer here would be Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton because they struggle against great pitching and they missed so much time that they’re probably not in the groove), but for this spot I’ll state that I hate to say that I think Luke Voit will have a tough playoff run.
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Lincoln Mitchell –
This Yankees player will have a great playoff run because the 2020 team will finally show up. Judge and Stanton will be healthy; Sanchez will continue his turnaround and Cole will be Cole.
This Yankees as a team will disappoint in the post season because they will not hit enough home runs to overcome shoddy defense and mediocre pitching.
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Ethan Semendinger – The Yankees are going to need to continue to be carried by DJ LeMahieu if they have any hopes of making it through the Wild Card round. Outside of him, I am also expecting Judge to have a good performance like we as fans would want to see from him. Over the three WC games we’ll also have a surprise key hit from each of: Brett Gardner, Aaron Hicks, and Gio Urshela.
The Yankees, however, as they have been showing recently are going to not have good performances in the field, which’ll make the pitching seem worse than it was. Expect Gleyber Torres to have a crucial error in the Wild Card. I also think Aaron Boone will be too cute with trying to play Brett Gardner over Clint Frazier, which’ll work (see above) for a time, but will ultimately lead to him doing it again which won’t work as they lose in the ALDS to the Rays.
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Matthew Cohen –
This Yankees player will have a great playoff run…
DJ LeMahieu is the kind of pesky hitter that will gut it out and do well against playoff quality pitching. He’s been the most consistent Yankee all year and that will continue in the playoffs.
This Yankees player will disappoint in the post season…
Gary Sanchez struck out in 36% of his plate appearances this year. He’s the kind of hitter that will be eaten alive by top quality pitchers.
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James Vlietstra –
The Yankees brought in Gerrit Cole to be their missing link to a championship run. A 9-year/ $324M deal says that he should shine in the playoffs.
The wild card round is a best of 3 series. If Cole performs as expected, he gives them a great opportunity to advance past the Cleveland Indians and into the divisional round.
With limited days off, he will pitch games 1 and 5 next Monday and again Friday on short rest.
If the Yankees are to make a deep run into October, it’s because Cole strings together 8 strong starts to lead them there.
Aaron Judge is the face of the Yankees. He led them to a hot start to the season while he was mashing the ball. Then injuries hit and he missed a majority of this abbreviated season. Finally, he’s back. But questions abound. Is he healthy? Does he have his timing back?
The Yankees have had some historically bad numbers this season. However they can weather this ineptitude if Judge can sandwich himself between LeMahieu and Voit as the dominant player he can be.
My fear though is that he still has a lingering health issue and clearly does not have his timing back. And as I stated earlier, with limited days off, he will be forced to play through it.
An early postseason exit will result from Judge having a disappointing couple of weeks.
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Patrick Gunn – Legitimately, I think that Gerrit Cole will have a great playoff run. He’s trending in the right direction down the stretch, only allowing one home run in his last 21 innings with 24 strikeouts and only three walks. He’ll give Bieber and Cleveland a run for their money in the first game of the playoffs.
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Mike Whiteman –
This Yankees player will have a great playoff run…DJ LeMahieu looks locked in and will just hit and hit and hit, driving up his eventual value as a Free Agent.
This Yankees player will disappoint in the post season…Aaron Judge is bating .206 and has one extra base hit since returning from the IL. I certainly won’t predict that he will struggle but won’t be surprised. The question is if it’s a matter of timing or health.
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Ed Botti –
The obvious choice for me is that DJ LeMahieu will continue to play at a level above most others in Baseball, and have a great Playoff run in 2020.
I hate to continue to dump on Gary Sanchez, but he would be the guy I would have to say will disappoint us in this postseason. He has shown flashes in late September, but just seems to revert back to bad habits.
