$204 Million Yankees Juggernaut Has Become Unrecognizable Underdog

If viewed from orbit, the 2019 New York Yankees would appear to be functioning as expected. A 17-11 record is just right for a team with a $204 million Opening Day payroll and fresh off a 100-win season.

When viewed from down on the ground, however, these Yankees are nothing short of remarkable.

Indeed, "these Yankees" hardly resemble the team they were supposed to be. As of early February, we were impressed enough by what they had on paper to rate them as Major League Baseball's second-most likely winner of the 2019 World Series. As of now, you'd swear that Thanos had snapped half their roster out of existence.

Even assuming that DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela are spared inclusion after exiting Sunday's game against the San Francisco Giants with injuries, New York's injured list still has 13 names on it. Included within are plenty of big salaries, as well as plenty of wins above replacement (Baseball Reference version) from the 2018 season:

To sum up, that's 26.4 total 2018 WAR and $81.7 million in salaries that are missing in action. Or, 51 percent of the Yankees' total 2018 WAR and 39 percent of their current $209 million payroll.

Not all of these injuries blindsided the Yankees. They knew coming into the year that Didi Gregorius, Jordan Montgomery and Ben Heller would be recovering from Tommy John surgery. They also had to figure that Jacoby Ellsbury and Troy Tulowitzki, both of whom missed all of 2018, wouldn't stay healthy.

Otherwise, it's not-so-pleasant surprises all the way down.

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The Yankees are currently without a former MVP (Giancarlo Stanton) and Rookie of the Year (Aaron Judge), as well as a contender for the 2018 Rookie of the Year (Miguel Andujar). Also sidelined are two pitchers (Luis Severino and Dellin Betances) with six All-Star nods between them, one of baseball's most underrated outfielders (Aaron Hicks) and another outfielder who had been breaking out (Clint Frazier).

What stands out just as much as the names are the projected recovery times. Frazier's return from a sprained left ankle could come in the first week of May, according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, but nobody else's return is necessarily imminent.

The most alarming situation is that of Judge. The Yankees need his bat—which has produced a .988 OPS and 84 home runs since 2017—back as quickly as possible, yet expecting him in May is overly optimistic.

"We're not going to be able to put a timetable on it," general manager Brian Cashman said on WFAN last Tuesday, per Hoch. "He does have a significant injury, so he's going to be down for a while."

It's not pretty where Stanton, Andujar, Severino and Betances are concerned, either. Stanton's return is up in the air after he hurt his shoulder while recovering from a strained biceps. Andujar may still need season-ending surgery on his shoulder. Severino and Betances are both a long way off from returning, and that's assuming neither has any setbacks.

As Michael Baumann of The Ringer covered, all these injuries constitute a highly unusual dose of bad luck. In theory, it should be a death knell for the Yankees' contention chances. After all, in place of the many big names on their injured list are lesser names like Urshela, Mike Tauchman, Mike Ford, Thairo Estrada, Luis Cessa, Joe Harvey and Stephen Tarpley.

The Yankees are winning, however, because their injuries haven't robbed them of their identity.

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

In keeping with their history, the modern Yankees have been defined by power. They led the majors in home runs in 2017 and 2018, the latter of which was a record-setting 267-homer explosion. They also had the league's hardest-throwing pitching staff in 2017 and 2018, which naturally led to plentiful strikeouts.

Despite the absences of Severino and Betances, it's been more of the same on the mound. The Yankees rank fifth with their 93.9 mph average fastball velocity, and they rank seventh with their 9.7 strikeouts per nine innings. The result thus far has been a rock-solid 3.90 team ERA.

This is where two of the Yankees' biggest offseason additions are paying off. After a slow start, flame-throwing left-hander James Paxton has come around to whiff 32 batters over his last three starts. Right-hander Adam Ottavino has struck out 19 batters in 14.1 innings in relief.

After he posted a 5.57 ERA in 85.2 major league innings in 2018, righty Domingo German has been an unexpectedly effective Johnny on the spot for the Yankees. He has a 2.56 ERA through his first 31.2 innings of 2019, with 23 more strikeouts than walks. Fellow incumbent righty Tommy Kahnle has also roared back to life with a 1.69 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 10.2 innings of relief.

With so much home run power on the injured list, you'd think the Yankees would be lagging well behind last year's record-setting pace. In fact, the 46 homers they've hit put them ahead of the 41 homers they hit last April.

This has been a group effort, as an MLB-high-tying 13 different players have hit bombs for the Bombers. Although some of the key contributors (e.g. Judge and Frazier) are out right now, the good news is that most are still kicking.

Luke Voit, for example, co-leads the team with eight homers. Thus is he proving that the 14 he hit in only 39 games for the Yankees late in 2018 were no joke. 

The Yankees have also gotten eight homers out of slugging catcher Gary Sanchez, who struggled to hit even 18 amid an injury-marred 2018. Brett Gardner's five homers put him on track to smash last season's output of 12. With five homers to his name, Gleyber Torres should at least match the 24 he hit in 2018 if he stays healthy.

Granted, the Yankees have played a weaker schedule than any American League team so far. Their most difficult test was a three-game series on the road against the Houston Astros between April 8 and 10, which ended with them getting swept.

The Yankees are nonetheless to be commended for handling their business in a convincing fashion. Schedule strength aside, their combination of runs scored (155) and runs allowed (118) doesn't reek of good fortune. They've earned their record.

If they looked how they were supposed to, this would be a ho-hum affair. Just another ultra-expensive Yankees team doing what ultra-expensive Yankees teams usually do.

But for at least as long as their roster remains decimated by injuries, the Yankees will be an oddly sympathetic collective.

Dare we say, even an underdog.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs. Salary and payroll data courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts and Spotrac.