Seriously, look at how deep the Yankees’ roster is

The Yankees are off to a good start in the 2019 playoffs, taking Game One of the ALDS from the Minnesota Twins. The front office maximized the roster for this success. Everywhere you look you see great players: Aaron Judge to Giancarlo Stanton to Luis Severino, not to mention guys off the bench like Tyler Wade, Cameron Maybin, and Luke Voit.

With the absence of Domingo German and injuries to CC Sabathia and Dellin Betances, the last few weeks of the season essentially acted as tryouts for the postseason roster. Players like Wade, Tyler Lyons, Stephen Tarpley, Clint Frazier, and Mike Ford all got lots of reps to prove their worth for October. There was a major debate as to who should make it and who the Yankees should have come off the bench.

For a refresher, here’s the full ALDS roster:

As mentioned earlier, with the decision to put Voit, Wade, and Maybin on the roster, that means the Yankees decided to leave players like Ford and Frazier off the roster. Those, however, are just position players. In place for Sabathia, Betances and German are Jonathan Loaisiga, Luis Cessa, and Lyons. This means pitchers like Nestor Cortes Jr., David Hale, Cory Gearrin, Jordan Montgomery, and Ben Heller all didn’t make it.

Now, these decisions have been made for situational purposes. They give the Yankees the best chance to succeed. That they have so many quality guys waiting in the wings, however, is fantastic. Those names consist of players the Yankees have leaned on all year and epitomize the “next man up” mentality.

Ford played in 50 games for the Yankees this season amidst an injury to Voit. In those 50 games, he hit 12 home runs, drove in 25 and had an OPS of .909. He was more than anyone could have asked for and even played to a WAR of 1 in just 50 games as a replacement.

Besides Ford, Frazier is another great bat. Frazier hit to 108 wRC+ in 69 games this year with 12 homers, 38 RBI and an .806 OPS.

Outside of position players, the Yankees have plenty of security on the pitching side of things as well. Cortes Jr. is a guy who pitched in 33 games this season totaling 66.2 IP. His stats aren’t great, but he pitched for the Yankees basically all year in long relief and acted as a great transition guy from the opener to our big relief arms.

Gearrin, whom the Yankees acquired from Seattle in August, has been a solid reliever all year. He pitched to a 3.92 ERA with the Mariners and a 4.50 ERA with the Yankees allowing seven runs in 14 innings pitched. Cortes and Gearrin as well as Hale, Montgomery, and Heller are all pitchers the Yankees are very familiar with and will have available at the ready.

Knowing there are good players the Yankees can access in case of injuries or poor performance between rounds gives them a great sense of insurance. The Yankees, perhaps more than most postseason teams, can adapt and excel.