26 Days to Opening Day 2020

Both New York baseball franchises have to answer these questions before they take the fields on Opening Day this year.

New York Yankees:

The Yanks need to find some solid starters to fill in their rotation holes.

It’s been rough for the Bronx Bombers early on, losing their young and full-of-potential starter in Luis Severino for the season; he went down with Tommy John surgery. They lost another really good starter in James Paxton who is recovering until somewhere near May, and back of the rotation starter Domingo German is suspended for about 60 games. That means that in addition to ace Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ, they need to find two more starters. Jordan Montgomery is 95% a lock for the rotation, but it still means that they need another starter. They could either go with Jonathan Loaisiga, Deivi Garcia or Luis Cessa. I think that Loaisiga will crack the rotation, but if they want to keep him down in the minors or bring him out of the bullpen for another year, they could possibly target Mets pitcher Steven Matz, which is the move that I want the Mets to make.

The Yanks also need to figure out their outfield situation. They have Brett Gardener as a lock in center; he could possibly split time with Aaron Hicks out there but no one knows if Aaron is healthy or if he will be ready for Opening Day. I’m telling you, the Yankees are a cursed franchise, or are they because they had to use the IL 39 times last year, they still made the playoffs and won 103 games. I don’t know how they did that but they did. And already this year they have so many injuries plaguing them, the predictions for how well they will do in the regular season are going down. Also, Aaron Judge has a broken rib that may require surgery, the Yanks will re-asses in two weeks, but that verdict could be horrible, or it may not and that is quite a long time to wait. Giancarlo Stanton most likely isn’t going to be ready for Opening Day, but who knows. Here lies their solution, what will sophomore manager Aaron Boone do? These are some possible solutions. They could call up a prospect to play either one of the corner outfield positions or call up their center field prospect Estevan Florial and throw Gardener in left. They could also put Miguel Andujar in left and Mike Tauchman in right, Tauchman showed potential hitting the ball last season, but he isn’t really regarded highly offensively. They could put in amazing, young left fielder Clint Frazier, he has been really good in this Spring Training and, hey, this is where you prove yourself. Outside of those, there aren’t really much more, their outfield prospects aren’t good. I guess the Yankees have to sit and wait quietly and pray for the best.

New York Mets:

The Mets have six starters for five spots. That is plain and simple. They have arguably the best rotation in the NL if not the entire league. They have a very good rotation, it is important for any team to have rotation depth, but they have way too much, and they have some more coming in from the minor league system. They signed Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha in the offseason, what Brodie Van Wagenen was thinking, I don’t know. I am borderline satisfied with his moves so I won’t contradict him too much. Rick isn’t even tussling for a rotation spot, his spot is locked up. Now, they could hope for one of the present starters to get injured, but no one wants that. They could also potentially use Wacha for a righty heavy lineup and Steven Matz, the lefty, against a lefty-heavy lineup. I don’t like that option because they have a man in the bullpen that they’re not using, and can’t use, so the Metsies don’t waste his arm and that person is taking up a roster spot, even with the expanded roster from 25 to 26, it’s still a valuable spot. Van Wagenen could possibly trade Steven Matz to a team, it sounded like the Yankees want him, which would solve their problem. People may also argue that they could trade Michael Wacha, but they just signed him, he’s new, give him a chance, but if they trade Matz they would have 5 righty relievers, which teams would start learning how to beat that. So, this is a very hard decision for Van Wagenen.

This problem is for rookie manager Luis Rojas, the leadoff spot. Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and Amed Rosario, three pure contact hitters. Nimmo is an on-base machine, he will work the count, work the pitcher early and will probably get on one way or another, but everyone has forgotten Nimmo’s gift because he was injured almost of last season. McNeil has even better bat-on-ball skills than Nimmo has getting-on-base skills. McNeil had a .318 batting average, which ranked 6^th in baseball. Even if he doesn’t get all of it and slaps a single into the outfield, he could get a piece of it and use all of his remarkable hustle and busts it down to first and gets in there. Rosario is probably only in the lineup or even in the bigs because of his slightly above average bat on ball skills but mainly because of his crazy good defense, he is a vacuum to anything coming his way, but wait a half a year to a year and a half and you’ll see amazing prospect Andres Gimenez, probably even better D than Amed and definitely better hitter, especially after that was all he worked on this offseason. The Mets could clear this up by putting Nimmo at the one, Alonso at the two, McNeil at the three and Conforto at cleanup. Rojas should send Amed to the 7, 8 or even 9.

If they do what I suggested, both New York teams will be well above average this year. 

Stay tuned, sports fans.