American League Championship Series Preview: New York Yankees vs. Cleveland Guardians

We’re now down to our final two teams in the American League, the New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians, who will hash things out in the best-of-seven ALCS starting Monday in the Bronx. Baseball, like most sports, is at it’s peak for fun when there’s something to prove and a little bit of competitive vengeance worked into the mix.

It’s now been 15 years since the Yankees last won the World Series. Unlike their last long championship drought, during their mediocre 1980s and early ’90s, the Bombers have mostly been good since their 2009 title. They’ve made the postseason 10 times in that span and have played in five Championship Series (though they’ve failed to advance each time). Yes, the franchise that was once accused of destroying baseball because it was winning too many championships now draws scrutiny for lately having won too few. There are a lot of reasons for the organization’s relative lack of success lately, but many fans point to a mysterious blend of Brian Cashman, too much analytics, not enough bunting, and Aaron Boone, who at various points has been accused of being the worst manager to have ever existed. Until the 11th time’s the charm for the Yankees, nobody’s going to fear Mystique and Aura.

If the Yankees face a drought, the Guardians are dealing with one of Joadian proportions. Where the Yankees were emblematic as the big evil franchise, the theme among Cleveland baseball for a long time was ineptitude. When they filmed the movie Major League, there was little controversy as to which franchise would play the doormat protagonists. At least the Cubs were considered losers of the lovable ilk. The last 30 years represent the most successful epoch for Cleveland baseball, but the franchise is still lacking a World Series trophy during that span. The last time Cleveland won it all, in 1948, neither of my parents were even born yet, and I’m a man approaching 50 at a distressingly rapid rate. In three of its last four playoff appearances, Cleveland met its demise courtesy of the Yankees. So, of course, the Guardians’ path to the World Series runs through New York; eliminating the Yankees surely would elicit an extra dose of satisfaction.

But who will come out on top? I usually start with the ZiPS projections, because it would be an awfully strange approach to not use the projection system I have on my PC.

There will no doubt be some shifting as the series progresses, but I don’t think ZiPS would have a change in the basic story: These teams are fairly well-matched. All seven projected games stay within that 55/45 split, so it would be tough to call anyone a significant underdog. ZiPS is going a bit against the grain here; it was one of the outliers in liking the Guardians in the preseason.

So, where are the imbalances in this matchup?

The Yankees have the edge on offense because of their talent at the top of their lineup. Yes, José Ramírez is my pick for the most underrated player of this generation, someone who should be seen as a probable Hall of Famer despite rarely getting anywhere near the commensurate attention nationally. But he’s the Guardians’ only elite offensive talent, and we’re putting him up against Aaron Judge and Juan Soto at their peaks, which is a whole different tier of awesomeness. Looking at the Judge/Soto projections vs. Cleveland’s pitching makes clear just how perilous that portion of the Yankees lineup is going to be for the Guardians.

ZiPS thinks enough of Emmanuel Clase to make Judge mortal and thinks Matthew Boyd is just a good enough starter with a lefty split to stymie Soto a skosh. But you can’t avoid these two, and the Guardians don’t have any comparable sources of terror in their lineup. There’s a part of me that wonders if every team should use a solid reliever as an opener against the Yankees if it has a deep enough bullpen, simply because of the certainty of facing Judge and Soto in the first inning.

The drop-off after Judge and Soto is tremendous, however. Of the remaining seven hitters, ZiPS expects Gleyber Torres to have the highest on-base percentage (.335) and Giancarlo Stanton to be the only one with a slugging percentage above .450 (.462) against Cleveland’s lefty pitchers. Against righties, Jazz Chisholm Jr. has the highest projected OBP (.326) and SLG (.443) in the non-Judge/Soto department.

This gives the Guardians some interesting tactical possibilities using their bullpen. With the Yankees having two players with an unusually large proportion of their offensive firepower, it should be a bit easier for the Guards to sprinkle in lesser relievers based on just where they are in the lineup.

The difference between the rotations aren’t as large as one might think. While ZiPS thinks the Guardians have one of the weaker rotations in the playoffs this year, after Gerrit Cole – the best projected starter on either team – the Yankees aren’t all that frightening either. Carlos Rodón has the next best projection, but the Guardians have had a notable platoon split that favors matchups against lefties this season. Luis Gil is having a great rookie season and ought to appear prominently on most AL Rookie of the Year ballots, but ZiPS still sees him as a guy with an expected ERA someone around four, with Clarke Schmidt faring slightly worse.

Cleveland’s rotation finished 2024 with a 4.40 ERA and a 4.51 FIP, both toward the bottom of baseball. But the rotation isn’t that bad, simply because it has largely eliminated most of the sources of this lousiness. None of Carlos Carrasco, Triston McKenzie, or Logan Allen will face off against the Yankees this upcoming week. When looking at the four starters most likely to get starts for the Guardians, ZiPS sees Gavin Williams as the one with the highest projected ERA (4.17). ZiPS is less enamored with emergency options like Ben Lively and Joey Cantillo, but still has both of them on the sunny side of a 4.50 ERA/FIP. Cleveland’s starters don’t have a lot of pizazz, but like the breadsticks at Olive Garden, they’re serviceable and there’s a lot of them. Because they Guardians have a deep rotation, they don’t need to cobble together bullpen games just to survive, which allows manager Stephen Vogt to comfortably utilize the best projected bullpen in baseball right now in the highest-leverage situations.

For the Dodgers-Padres NLDS preview, I ran a simulation for how the probability changed if both teams had a game in which the starting pitcher got knocked out after two innings and the teams played one 15-inning game. In that one, the Padres gained five percentage points in the projection based on this scenario. The Guardians, meanwhile, gain 10 percentage points if we use the same two hypothetical events, going from slight underdogs at 47% to a mildly comfortable favorite at 57%!

Cleveland’s other advantage is having the better bench. The Guardians have myriad platoon options — David Fry or Jhonkensy Noel against lefties or Will Brennan and Kyle Manzardo against righties — and being able to deploy them for the right matchups is a small but real bit of value. Combine bench and bullpen and ZiPS thinks the Guardians have the edge in one-run games by a 54%-46% margin and a 52%-48% edge in games decided by two runs. Blowouts are most likely to go in the Yankees’ favor, but in those hard-fought close contests, the Yankees are slight underdogs.

The Yankees or Guardians will not face a juggernaut in the World Series if they make it through the ALCS. The Mets have some significant team weaknesses, and injuries have resulted in the Dodgers’ being kept together with a roll of duct tape. Whichever team wins these next (up to) seven games has a good chance of finally ending its title drought.