The Middle

Last week, I wrote about how the Yankees’ lineup won’t be dominated by any one position group, but that only applies to the hitters as they appear on the field. As they appear in the lineup, there is certainly a group that will carry the Yankees on offense: the middle of the order.

While the league has mostly moved away from take-and-rake as an offensive philosophy, power and patience still dominate the middle of the Yankee order, which will be populated by some combination of Brian McCann, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Carlos Beltran. These stars don’t shine as brightly as they once did, but all four put up–at the very least–respectable seasons in 2015, despite battling their own ages and their own bodies for portions thereof. Given their ages and the shift in offenses across MLB, it’s not likely that we’re going to see these guys put up the monster numbers they were capable of in the past. However, even as more senior players, their skillsets position them well for success. Just as importantly, those skills and their general levels of talent make it possible that they can be distributed in any number of ways that would help the team.

All four hitters are capable of hitting in any of the all important middle spots in the lineup and for different reasons. If you want to go by the traditional book that says to put your best overall hitter third, you could slot Beltran in there, since he’s likely to have best combination of average, power, and patience among the three. If you want to go by the other Book, your three hitter can be a lowish-OBP/high-power guy. Of the three non-Beltran hitters, that best fits McCann; he may not be the most powerful, but he doesn’t have the on-base skills of Tex or A-Rod and can definitely knock some extra bases to extend rallies or start them, even with two out and none on.

Platooning these players in the lineup won’t be difficult either. Two of them–Tex and Beltran–are switch hitters and the other two–McCann and A-Rod–hit with the opposite hands. Rare will be the time when an opposing manager can call on a pitcher who will have the platoon advantage all the way through the middle of the Yankees’ lineup.

Ironically enough, these players are the ones with which the Yankees seem to have the least flexibility. All four of them will need time at DH quite frequently and all four of them are likely to miss time due to injury thanks to their advanced ages. Despite that, though, when healthy and in the lineup, they provide flexibility for manager Joe Girardi, who likes to tinker with lineups to get his team any advantage possible. When we look at these four hitters, we see guys who definitely need things to break right. But we also see four players who can easily carry a lineup. Like I’ve said in the past, I’m optimistic about this team, despite its warts. The middle of the lineup is one part of this team where I think we can count on production if health is a given. With an offseason of rest for these players, let’s hope everything (everything) will be alright in 2016.