Yankees: Why April Will Determine the Team’s Fate in 2019

With Opening Day just 10 days away, the New York Yankees are without many of their core players. Why the first two months of the season are key for the “Bronx Bombers.”

Entering Spring Training, the New York Yankees appeared primed to compete, once again, for a world title in 2019. While that hasn’t necessarily changed, with only days left before Opening Day, the Yanks are now limping into the regular season.

This past weekend it was reported that Aaron Hicks, who the Yanks signed to a 7-year, $70M extension just a couple of weeks ago would start the season on the injured list (IL). He joins Luis Severino, who also signed an extension this Spring, and CC Sabathia on an apparently evergrowing IL.

It doesn’t end there though, the injury bug has made its way down to the team’s up and coming minor leaguers as well. On Saturday, Estevan Florial suffered a wrist fracture after crashing into the centerfield wall.

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Florial had been turning some heads in Yankees camp, ala Miguel Andujar last year, going 11/31 with a .945 OPS. With Hicks’ injury, it was starting to look like Florial was going to get a chance to play in some big league games.

That’s completely out of the question now.

So, officially, the Yanks will enter the 2019 regular season without their starting SS, CF, two SPs, and a stud rookie. Luckily, however, the team will face a relatively easy schedule to start the season.

In the first two months of the season, which amounts to 58 games, the Yankees will face the bottom 50% – based on Steamer Projections – of the league 41 times. They face the bottom FIVE teams in the league (Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Chicago White Sox, and Detroit Tigers) 16 times in the first month and then another 10 times in the second month of the season.

This makes the first two months of the season the absolute perfect time for the Yankees to nurse some of these ailments. Moving forward, however, the schedule becomes increasingly more difficult and the team will have to show up, in full force, to make a run at their first World Series appearance since 2009.

Will the Yanks capitalize in April and May? Only time will tell. If they struggle out of the gates, however, the team may be looking at another disappointing season… by New York’s standards.