2021 ZiPS Projections: New York Yankees

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees.

Batters

The possible loss of DJ LeMahieu is a real hit to the Yankees, but even if they don’t come to an agreement with him, I don’t expect the club to actually be cruising with Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada come April. But even if they did, as long as the team remains healthy — a big condition given their recent experiences — it’s still an extremely potent lineup even if they tank a position or two. Brett Gardner is a free agent as well after the team declined his option, but I expect him to return anyway. After all, Gardner didn’t attract a ton of interest in last year’s free agent market, and with him being a year older and coming off a worse season, and with baseball’s economics, I doubt he gets more phone calls this time around. Like Mitch Moreland in Boston, Gardner appears to have a de facto arrangement where he can just show up at some point and the team will give him a one-year contract for $X million.

Did you really think that ZiPS would fall out of love with Gleyber Torres after his power went missing for six weeks? I do think he’s at the point at which I’d try to get him moved to third base. If the Yankees don’t re-sign LeMahieu and instead go after one of the players in the surprisingly deep shortstop pool, could Gio Urshela theoretically play second base? He’s likely a better third baseman than Torres, who hasn’t been great at second, and the team did work him out some at the position in summer training. How the infield gets shuffled will be one of the more interesting questions for them this offseason.

ZiPS isn’t programmed to go nuts about great (or awful) 2020 performances, but given that Luke Voit more than doubled his home run rate, leading the league with 22 homers in 56 games, I’m not surprised that his usual league-average projection got another win tacked onto the bottom line.

In addition to their normal pursuit of top free agents, I would expect the Yankees to be aggressive in making non-roster invitations to Triple-A/Quadruple-A minor league free agents this winter. The organization just doesn’t have a ton of bodies under contract in the upper minors right now and this was a shockingly low number of projected hitters as as result (and some of those are free agents themselves).

ZiPS is slowly easing itself off the Gary Sánchez bandwagon. He’s not actually a .159 BABIP guy, but the problem is that he might just be a .250 BABIP guy, which limits his offensive upside. It’s not without reason the Yankees are connected with Yadier Molina, while Sánchez, no longer as popular among the fanbase, might just be a better fit in another organization at this point.

Do not get excited about the Edgar Martinez comp for Urshela. This is comparing Urshela to the stage of Edgar’s career in which he was a Ken Phelps All-Star hilariously blocked by a steeply declining Jim Presley, before he became Edgar. Though if Urhsela does in fact become Edgar Martinez, I reserve the right to forget I ever wrote this.

Pitchers

I’ll be extremely worried about the Yankee rotation if this is who they start the 2021 season with. At least, the non-Gerrit Cole part. The projections themselves aren’t actually lousy or anything, but there’s a great deal of risk, for varying reasons, with Deivi García, Jordan Montgomery, and Luis Severino. ZiPS is really down on Masahiro Tanaka going forward, but he ate innings at the very least, and James Paxton is occasionally healthy. J.A. Happ had a real purpose with this team, even if I’m eternally annoyed that he pronounces his name “Jay” as if the initials were a word.

If healthy, it’s not a bad group at all. I’m especially bearish on Severino after two lost seasons due to injury, and ZiPS has been consistently positive about García as a prospect. I’d like — at least as an analyst, not as an O’s fan — the Yankees to pursue Trevor Bauer and maybe Charlie Morton. I think the team’s strong enough that they’re still likely a mid-90s win team even without the additions, but I’d be uneasy about the starting pitching depth.

ZiPS is less worried about the bullpen, seeing bounceback seasons from some of their 2020 disappointments, most notably Adam Ottavino. The computer has been highly optimistic in the past about bullpen potential of some of the random arms floating around at Triple-A for the Yankees, and without a 2020 minor league season, there’s nothing to really change its mind. Addison Russ might be the sneakiest pick of this group; he throws hard and ZiPS loved him before the Yankees picked him up in return for David Hale.

One pedantic note for 2021: For the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2021 due to injury, and players who were released in 2020. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Finnish industrial death metal fourth-wave ska J-pop band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. ZiPS is assuming that the designated hitter will continue in force in 2021; if it does not, there will be widespread minor adjustments across the board come April.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article, or get angry at Dan on Twitter or something.