Commentary: The Dream Season and the Nightmare
In my playoff predictions article at the start of this season, I had the New York Yankees beating the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the 2020 World Series. As I mentioned in another previous article, it was not hard to pick them as this year’s pennant winners:
“Although anything can happen in a shortened season, it is likely that the very best teams will still tend to find their way toward the top - and it would be hard to argue that LA and New York aren’t the best teams in their respective leagues. Both have extremely talented cores that will be supplemented by headline offseason acquisitions (Gerrit Cole for the Yankees and Mookie Betts for the Dodgers), and they will both have their rosters at full strength to start the season. More importantly - particularly for the Yankees - fewer games also means fewer chances for their key players to get hurt. If both squads can get a full 60+ games out of Judge, Stanton, Bellinger, Betts, and the like, I can easily see them both coasting into the postseason.”
However, while one of these teams is currently performing up to these lofty expectations, the other has fallen well short of their goals so far.
For the Dodgers, they are simply in another regular-season groove where nothing can seemingly go wrong for them. Mookie Betts has performed as advertised and put himself firmly in the running for NL MVP; they have had a top-five offense for the entire season, posting a 119 wRC+ as a squad; and their pitching has been phenomenal as usual (2.93 team ERA), led by the resurgence of Clayton Kershaw. As a result, they have the best record in the entire major leagues (31-12) and still have a chance to record the highest single-season winning percentage in MLB history. Sure, they’d have to go 13-4 the rest of the way to break that record, but with this team, anything seems possible.
Even when everything goes wrong for them, they somehow find a way to overcome it, and last night’s game against the lowly Diamondbacks proved to be a fantastic example of this. After six innings, LA found themselves down 6-2. Walker Buehler was chased from the game early after a disastrous third inning, their offense was mostly stifled by a decent performance from Luke Weaver, and heading into the seventh, they had a 6% chance of winning the game.
After the top of the seventh, however, the game was tied. Not only did they come all the way back in one inning, but they also took the game into extras and put up a 4-spot in the 10th for good measure. And even when it seemed that Arizona may still have a chance after a three-run bottom half, the LA bullpen eventually shut the door on them.
Such is the luck of the Dodgers this season. They have had no major injuries, their key players are all performing up to their usual standards, and they somehow find a way to get ahead regardless of what situation they face. 2020 has so far been the dream season that LA was hoping for, and as a team they are playing accordingly.
That being said, the juggernaut on the other side of the country is having a surprisingly difficult time with this 60-game season. In fact, to borrow from an old Yankees legend, it seems like deja vu all over again.
Once again, they started off the year with a lot of promise. Once again, they hauled in the biggest prize of the offseason market. Once again, they had all the key producers healthy and back in the lineup to start the year. But once again, it all has seemingly fallen apart for them.
Those first few games were everything Yankees fans were hoping for and then some. Gerrit Cole was pitching like the ace they were paying him to be. Aaron Judge went on a monster tear and became the early frontrunner for AL MVP. Giancarlo Stanton was back to hitting 450-foot bombs on a regular basis. It genuinely looked like the Yankees were going to be the team to beat.
But then, as is the new normal in the Bronx, everyone got hurt. It started when Luis Severino needed Tommy John surgery before the restart. Then, they lost top bullpen arm Tommy Kahnle for the same reason about a week into the season. From there, the dominoes really started to fall all at once. Stanton, Judge, LeMahieu, Paxton, Chapman, Torres, Urshela. All of these players went on the IL at some point in August, and so far only three (Torres, Chapman, and LeMahieu) are back on the active roster.
It certainly doesn’t help that those who have stayed healthy have not managed to play up to expectations. Through 9 starts, Cole has a 3.63 ERA, a 4.64 FIP, and is giving up 2.25 home runs every nine innings. Gary Sanchez (.125/.229/.337, 52 wRC+) has practically forgotten how to hit a baseball. Miguel Andujar is currently rocking -0.4 WAR on the season. And while there have been some who have stepped up (most notably Luke Voit), these players have been more of an exception than anything.
As a result, the Yankees have gone from World Series favorites to fighting for their postseason lives. Currently, they stand at exactly .500 (21-21). Not only does this put them three games back of the Blue Jays for the second guaranteed spot in the East, but it also puts the Yankees in a shockingly tight race with the Orioles, the Tigers, and the Mariners for the second Wild Card spot (I feel like I have to repeat that again because it still doesn’t feel real: the Orioles, the Tigers, and the Mariners are all within 2 games of a playoff spot).
To be fair, things do seem like they should get better soon. After all, it’s hard to imagine that Judge and Stanton are going to miss all of the next 18 games. But still, it’s hard to see this season as anything but a nightmare for Yankees fans, given the high hopes at the start of the season.
In a way, the tale of these two teams is the perfect illustration of baseball in 2020: while some things can be predictable regardless of the circumstances, there are some things you just can’t see coming. The Yankees might miss the playoffs with arguably the most talented roster in baseball. The Tigers might have a chance to go from having the worst record in baseball to having a postseason bid. The Red Sox and the D-backs might have the best odds of winning the Kumar Rocker Sweepstakes. Truly anything can happen this year.
Except, of course, the Dodgers being bad.