The Incredibly Lucky Yankees

by Randall Stevens | June 14, 2019

They say in sports and in life that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Being in the right place at the right time can be the product of talent, planning and proficiency. But sometimes it’s just luck. And so we have the 2019 New York Yankees.

The team is currently in first place in one of the toughest divisions in baseball. But this team isn’t the team that anyone expected they’d be seeing in New York. They just put Kendrys Morales on the Injured List. That’s the 20th player to land on the IL for them this year. Also, the fact that they even had Morales on their team tells you how thin it’s been for the team.

With all of those injuries, somehow the Yankees have won 41 games – fourth most in the sport. And these aren’t minor injuries. We’re talking Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar. Their injured team sounds like it could compete for a Wild Card spot.

But how can this be? How can they field a team with the talent equivalent of a tanking Detroit Tigers or flailing San Francisco Giants and still lead their division? The short answer is that it’s baseball. And anything can happen in baseball. Look at the American Central. The Cleveland Indians were supposed to walk away with that this year. But it’s the Minnesota Twins that are doing the walking while the Indians flail.

The long answer is that the Yankees have been lucky. I know it sounds stupid to say that a team with 20 injured players is lucky, but it’s less stupid than saying “it’s the Yankee mystique” or “Aaron Boone is a good manager.”

Let’s take a look at this luck thing for them. They are currently playing a four-game series against the Chicago White Sox. And while this current Sox team has a pretty bright future, they are not very good this season and are a below .500 team. I bring this up because despite all of their injuries, the Yankees have only had to play 22 games against teams with above .500 records.

In those 22 games they have gone 11-11. That’s fine. Especially considering all of their injuries. It’s not like the Yankees got a special dispensation from the league to only play bad teams. The schedule is all sorted out before the season starts and they can only play the teams that the the league puts in front of them. It’s not their fault that they’re lucky. But they have certainly been taking advantage of the situation.

The Houston Astros have 46 wins and have played 47 games against teams with winning records – in case you were wondering who the best team in the American League is. It’s hard to imagine any team in the AL being able to match up against them in the playoffs. Of course, it’s baseball, so that might not be enough for them.

The Yankees also have a +69 run differential (which is nice) but the team that is just behind them in the standings has a +93 differential. Based on those raw numbers, the Yankees should have about three or four less wins.

The games are not played on calculators and the only numbers that really count are the wins and losses. The poor Cincinnati Reds have a +37 run differential but are six games under .500 on the season. So, looks like the bad luck found its way to Cincinnati while the good luck is living it up in New York City.

BaseRuns is a metric for what a team’s game results should have been based on the underlying offensive and defensive numbers. The Yankees find themselves in luck again, even with quality of opponent factored in, with three more wins than expected.

Using cumulative team offense Wins Above Replacement (WAR), we find the Yankees ranked 12th in baseball, behind the Rays and even the Red Sox. They also have a team ERA almost a half run below the expected ERA for the team.

So, the rest of the season should put the Yankees up against more potent teams and they will need to find a way to keep the wins coming in order to stay ahead of the Rays. They just got Didi Gregorius back while Judge, Stanton and Domingo German are progressing toward a return.