The New York Yankees, led by an impregnable bullpen, beat the Kansas City Royals in the ALDS. The relief pitching looked like it did in April and May when the Yankees were World Series favorites. But the team hardly fired on all cylinders; they only scored 14 runs, the lowest per-game average amongst the four remaining teams. Aaron Boone can help jumpstart the offense by tweaking the lineup before Game 1 of the Championship Series against the Cleveland Guardians.
During the regular season, the Yankees tend to allow their players an extended leash to play through slumps, which makes sense. After all, baseball is a long season, and anything can happen over short periods — talent wins out in the end.
However, the playoffs are a different story; every game is a must-win, and the ideal approach is the opposite of the Yankees' typical one. Managers need to be hyper-vigilant to ensure they are putting their teams in the best position to win. That's why Aaron Boone must move Giancarlo Stanton up to the cleanup spot.
Giancarlo Stanton was far and away the Yankees' best hitter in the ALDS.
He hit a huge home run in Game 3 and provided a critical insurance run in Game 4. Meanwhile, Austin Wells, the left-handed hitting catcher currently occupying the cleanup spot, could only muster two singles. Dating back to the beginning of September, Wells is batting under .120. By moving Stanton up, Boone will provide Aaron Judge with the protection he needs to get going. Judge slumped through most of the ALDS, but finished with three strong plate appearances to end the series.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe will follow Stanton in the pecking order, ultimately settling Wells in the seventh spot until he gets going. This order preserves the lefty-righty balance that the Yankees love, minus the terrifying duo of Judge and Stanton in the heart of the lineup. But does lefty-righty even matter for those two? Probably not; for one thing, Stanton has reverse splits this season, which means he's been better against right-handed pitching than left-handed pitching. If Guardians manager Stephen Vogt switches from a lefty to a righty to face Stanton, he's actually doing the Yankees a favor.
At this point, moving Stanton up is a no-brainer. It doesn't take a lot of creativity to see that - but what if the Yankees wanted to do something more fun? Considering that they love to stagger lefty-righty as much as possible, it would be exciting to see what would happen if they flopped Judge and Soto. Cascading changes abound; they would need a lefty leadoff hitter -- perhaps Chisholm Jr. -- and a righty cleanup batter (still Stanton).
Then they could use Wells and Gleyber Torres (or vice versa) and have Anthony Volpe, Alex Verdugo, and the first base platoon at the bottom third of the lineup. Putting Judge back in his familiar two-hole, where he spent most of his career before this season, could help him get into a rhythm. Having Soto, who always seems to rise to the occasion, hitting behind him would work in synergy. It would be unconventional to make the change now, but anything goes in the name of getting Judge back to his career norms. In either case, Stanton needs to be hitting fourth.