Yankees' Offense Starting to Round into Form at the Perfect Time

Despite its maddening inconsistency, things are pointing in the right direction as September approaches.

The New York Yankees' offense is slowly starting to figure itself out, which is a good sign heading into September. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

There's nothing like a good old-fashioned beatdown in the Bronx, especially when it's against a bitter rival, so when the New York Yankees took advantage of an unfocused Boston Red Sox group following the controversial trap ruling in the fifth inning to pour 16 runs on them and secure the tiebreaker for a potential Wild Card Round clash, it felt cathartic.

That game, along with a unique nine-run outburst the night before, felt completely alien to what the Yankees' offense had looked like since shortly after Aaron Judge's injury in June. While the Yankees successfully stayed above water during that time, they've done it on the back of the best pitching staff in the majors, carrying a woeful offense.

The numbers don't lie. After averaging 5.28 runs per game over the first 72 games, they averaged an utterly putrid 3.3 runs per game over the ensuing 40 games through the trade deadline on August 3, ranking dead last in baseball. They were a dead team walking, hanging by a thread with close wins, and were prone to a death spiral if injuries or regression hit the pitching staff.

It might not feel like it, but August has been a much-needed breath of fresh air for the offense, both at the surface and under the hood. With a critical four weeks looming that'll decide where and when the Yankees start playing in October, and one big bopper on his way back, the offense might just be rounding into form at the perfect time.

The initial steep decline and its causes

You would think that losing a titanic slugger like Judge would cause an immediate reverberation in the team's offensive capabilities, but it had more of a lagging effect on the Yankees.

There's no specific explanation for why the offense looked even better in the first half of June before a steep regression, but a typical summer offensive slump (one they've done all too frequently) may have bled into an epidemic of "pressing" that, combined with a lineup suddenly devoid of the power they've relied on for years, led to the slump of slumps.

The Yankees are not built to win without Judge, something they need to learn how to do as he gets older. Their lineup has a bunch of puzzle pieces that provide a little something, but it's not well-rounded enough to be versatile if one piece is missing. They have power bats with concerning hit tools. They have grinders who can't do damage. Their depth shriveled up with overexposure.

The one thing they've always had, with or without Judge, was plate discipline. The ability to see pitches, hit mistakes, and lay off pitches out of the zone. For some reason that can only be theorized as mass-pressing, it completely flipped at the worst time.

Yankees' Plate Discipline Metrics | @YankeesFocus on X/Twitter

The team's ability to do damage was also heavily impacted, of course, but everything else was a mystifying drop. They always had whiff and contact issues, but made up for it by staying in the strike zone and walking. It was a drastic decline, one that felt impossible to get out of for a long time.

Individually, many of the team's best hitters were mired in prolonged slumps. Using June 18 as a fixed point, the team had only two hitters who were even passable at the plate, one of whom was still hitting well below norms:

Yikes. | FanGraphs

Too many guys that the team relied on had completely abandoned what made them good, especially Cody Bellinger. You started to wonder if it would ever end, but fortunately, it seems it has.

The post-deadline revival

Immediately following a pretty discouraging deadline, the Yankees "exploded" for seven runs on five homers against the St. Louis Cardinals on August 3. From there, the team has displayed better results and peripherals, even if they're still not where they need to be.

Entering play on Monday night in Anaheim, the Yankees are averaging 4.4 runs per game over their last 25 games since August 3, a middle-of-the-pack mark. Is that number skewed by the recent explosion? Sure, but even if you cherry-pick the data, they're adding over a half-run per game while producing outcomes that should make what we've seen in the last eight games carry over more.

First, let's look at the offensive breakdown, where we're still seeing some underwhelming numbers, but progress nonetheless:

FanGraphs

Now, some context is needed here. The team went on a brutal run of facing right-handed starters every day for three weeks. This led to the team's few righty bats getting stuck with criminally low samples until this weekend, while the lefties got to feast on better matchups. From June 18 to August 8, the Yankees faced lefties in 40.6 percent of their plate appearances, only for that figure to drop to 15 percent in the ensuing three weeks.

The acquisition of Luis Garcia Jr. has absolutely helped, as have resurgences from Jazz Chisholm Jr., Austin Wells, and Trent Grisham after disappointing seasons. Ben Rice had an abysmal start to the month, but he looks like himself lately. Even the guys on the disappointing end have had big moments with Bellinger and Ramos this week, especially.

In this time span, the Yankees have a team wRC+ of 102, back to 12th in baseball, but even more encouraging than the surface numbers are the underlying numbers that look a lot closer to the start of the season than the last two months:

@YankeesFocus on X/Twitter

The plate discipline metrics are arguably the most important here, as the team has improved its chase, whiff, and contact rates considerably since the trade deadline. Process-wise, the team is getting eerily close to where they were at the start of the season, when they were the American League's best offense.

Oh yeah, did I mention who they're due to get back soon?

Can the Yankees sustain this into September?

There's no reason to believe they can't, particularly with the improvements in process. They've mostly shaken the bad habits that've defined them, even if the strikeout rate remains rather high. They'll also be maximizing their lineup more every day once they get guys like Judge and Ryan McMahon back.

Their weakness against left-handed pitching is predicated on their reliance on platoon veterans who've been ice-cold in August with a lack of usage. Adding Judge lengthens that lineup and puts less responsibility on guys like Ramos, who hopefully had the confidence boost he needed on Sunday.

Judge's presence will also have a positive effect on the guys around him, particularly Rice. As the focal point of the offense for several months, he's seen the pitcher's best stuff night after night, and while he's improved of late, the level of damage he's capable of needs to be unlocked ahead of October.

The most dangerous version of this Yankees offense could only be a week or two away, and if you pair that with the tremendous pitching, look out.

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