Ouch!

What good is a father if he can’t rile up his daughter every once in a while?  Allow me to do that by noting the Yankees indicated today they don’t expect mashers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton to be ready for Opening Day.  Judge has discomfort in his right shoulder and pec while Stanton is dealing with a calf strain.

 

Judge stands  6’7” and weighs 282 pounds.  In his three full major-league seasons, he gone from 542 to 413 to 378 at-bats.  In comparison, Stanton is a mere 6’6” and 245 pounds, smaller numbers that may indicate greater durability, until recently.  From the age of 20 to 28, Stanton was able to avoid injury outside of a broken hamate bone in 2015, but the injury bug has been relentless since the beginning of last season, when he totaled a mere 59 at-bats.  Good thing the Yankees decided to keep Brett Gardner around.

At 5’11” and 195 pounds, Gardner will all but disappear standing alongside Judge and Stanton.  Then again, he’ll also stand alone until manager Aaron Boone comes up with replacement outfielders.  Analytics-driven baseball prizes size and strength; to the best of my knowledge, no one has come up with an algorithm for durability yet.  In the six seasons since he turned 29, Garner has never had fewer than 491 at-bats; everything else has been in the 500s, not bad for a player who could pass for normal in his street clothes.  And, yes, I always wanted the White Sox to trade for him.

 

Live by the launch angle, die by the launch angle, I say.  Injuries to players like Judge and Stanton are proof of that, along with the proliferation of pec and oblique injuries the past few seasons.  And let’s not forget that other analytics’ mantra—strike ‘em out, strike ‘em out, strike ‘em out.  When exactly do the Yankees expect to have Luis Severino pitch for them again?  Ever?