The unexpected fates of a record-setting Yankees lineup that was never the same

A brief detour to the transaction page for our weekly foray into “Got my attention”…

May 20: Aaron Hicks designated for assignment by the Yankees.

May 21: Clint Frazier called up by the White Sox.

May 26: Hicks released by the Yankees

May 29: Luke Voit designated for assignment by the Brewers.

May 30: Hicks signed by the Orioles

June 2: Mike Ford called up by the Mariners

June 2: Voit released by the Brewers

This two-week splurge of maneuvering evoked memories of the 2019 Yankees. 

That squad had a collective 118 OPS-plus while hitting 306 homers (which actually trailed the Twins by one for the major league lead). Those Yankees averaged an MLB-high 5.82 runs per game. It was a group effort: The Yankees had 12 players who had at least 150 plate appearances and an OPS-plus of 110 or better, the most ever. And that does not count Giancarlo Stanton, who had a 138 OPS-plus in just 72 plate appearances, or Hicks, who had 255 plate appearances and an above-average 103 OPS-plus.

It felt as if perhaps the Yankees had the cornerstone of a long-running force. But from this group, unless your name was Aaron Judge, it pretty much was never this good again — though many were in or near their prime years. This might be a moment to let your conspiracy theories run wild, including that the baseball never quite flew like it did in 2019, before or since (there were 671 more homers hit that year than in any other season ever).

So what became of this Yankee Dinger Dozen? Well, it got my attention:

1. Edwin Encarnacion was obtained in June 2019 from the Mariners for pitcher Juan Then, who made his major league debut with Seattle this year. Encarnacion hit 13 homers in 177 at-bats with the Yankees to build a 123 OPS-plus and the credentials to nab a one-year, $12 million pact the following season with the White Sox.

Encarnacion, in his age-37 season, played the same number of games (44) for the White Sox that he had played for the Yankees. But he hit just .157 with a 70 OPS-plus and never played in the majors again.

One last interesting fact: Encarnacion was involved in a three-team trade in December 2018 that sent him from Cleveland to Seattle and — among other parts of the deal — sent Jake Bauers from Tampa Bay to Cleveland. The Rays were the Rays, of course, so they got Yandy Diaz from Cleveland as part of that deal.

2. Mike Ford was on a yo-yo between the majors and Triple-A as a rookie in 2019, but helped the AL East champs by hitting 12 homers in 143 at-bats and producing a 137 OPS-plus. 

The yo-yo has continued for Ford — but not the success. Since then, he has hit .169 with eight homers in 273 disjointed at-bats for the Yankees, Giants, Mariners, Braves, Angels and recently back with the Mariners again (all stats are through Wednesday). He also spent time in the minor leagues with the Rays and Nationals. Ford does not turn 31 until July 4.

3. Clint Frazier hit 12 homers in 225 at-bats and produced a 111 OPS-plus in 2019. In 377 at-bats since, he has 13 homers with an above-average OPS-plus of 103. He has changed locale (Cubs, Rangers, now White Sox), and briefly changed his first name (to Jackson). Frazier is still just 28.

4. Brett Gardner hit a career-best 28 homers in 2019, had a 117 OPS-plus and was the poster boy for Aaron Boone’s rant that the Yankees were “savages in the box.” Gardner hit a combined 15 homers in 517 plate appearances over his final two seasons with a 95 OPS-plus. He clearly did not want to retire, but also did not want to play anywhere but with the Yankees.

And perhaps we have the new CBGB in New York: the Curse of Brett Gardner’s Banishment. In the one-plus seasons since he was shunned, the Yankees have assembled a mostly sad left field collection that has produced among the majors’ worst batting average (.207) and second-worst OPS (.631) for that position.

5. Judge hit 27 homers that year as he was limited to 378 at-bats. You might have heard what he has been up to since then — when healthy.

6. DJ LeMahieu hit a career-high 26 homers in his Yankee debut in 2019, and finished fourth for AL MVP. He followed that up in 2020 with a second-place MVP finish. He agreed to a six-year, $90 million contract in the following offseason, and since then, has 28 homers in 1,261 at-bats as he has battled injury and decline. LeMahieu turns 35 next month.

7. Cameron Maybin hit 11 homers in 239 at-bats and had a 127 OPS-plus, joining players such as Encarnacion and Ford as valuable supplementary pieces — which was vital because that was the season when the Yankees set the MLB record by sending 30 different players to the IL and had 39 IL stints in all.

In Maybin’s next two seasons — the final two of his career — he hit one homer in 121 at-bats and had a 59 OPS-plus.

8. Gary Sanchez hit 34 homers in 396 at-bats with a 119 OPS-plus in 2019. He has continued to have power since then, but not like in his past. Along with 53 homers in 993 at-bats, he also has a .198 average and 92 OPS-plus. He now is with the Padres, his third organization this year, but did hit four homers in his first 29 at-bats for the team. Sanchez is 30. Is he having his Franchy Cordero April moment or a bona fide revival?

9. Mike Tauchman hit 13 homers in 260 at-bats in 2019 with a 128 OPS-plus. From July 4 until he hurt his calf on Sept. 8, Tauchman was one of the majors’ best players, hitting .325 and generating 21 extra-base hits in 154 at-bats. His loss hurt the Yankees in those playoffs. And he was never the same after that injury. 

Tauchman has just four homers and a 73 OPS-plus in 305 at-bats since that year. The Yankees made a strong trade, dealing him early in the 2021 season for Wandy Peralta. Tauchman played in South Korea in 2022. He returned to the United States this year on a minor league deal, and was promoted last month by the Cubs. He had a .429 on-base percentage in 57 plate appearances. He is 32.

10. Gleyber Torres was the primary shortstop for half a season as Didi Gregorius recuperated after Tommy John surgery. Torres finished 2019 with 38 homers and a 128 OPS-plus. He has 45 homers and a 105 OPS-plus since. He is still just 26.

11. Gio Urshela hit 21 homers with a 133 OPS-plus in 2019. He has remained a good player, hitting 35 homers with a 110 OPS-plus. Urshela is 31.

12. Voit hit 21 homers with a 124 OPS-plus in 2019, and hit an MLB-leading 22 homers with a 157 OPS-plus in the 60-game pandemic 2020 season. But injuries cut into his playing time, and that combined with a lack of athleticism/defense/batting average has seen him go through four teams since 2021, totaling 33 homers and a 102 OPS-plus. Voit is 32. He is unemployed, but word is he wants to keep trying to play.

Whose career do you got?

Recently I was looking at the Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference) leaders among all-time Mets first-round picks.

The top seven for their entire careers (not just with the Mets) were:

1. Dwight Gooden (1982) — 53.0 WAR
2. David Wright (2001) — 49.2
3. Darryl Strawberry (1980) — 42.2
4. Jon Matlack (1967) — 39.4
5. Scott Kazmir (2002) — 22.4
6. Jeromy Burnitz (1990) — 19.9
7. Gregg Jefferies (1985) — 19.5

I was looking because I was curious about the two players who came in eighth and ninth: Brandon Nimmo (2011) at 18.7 and Michael Conforto (2014) at 16.1.

You see where this is going, right? Whose career do you got? And, more pertinently, who would you bet on going forward? Because through Wednesday, Nimmo had a career .823 OPS and Conforto had, yep, an .823 OPS. This year — with both players in their age-30 seasons — that statistical tote board had Nimmo at a .788 OPS and Conforto at .794, though Nimmo’s OPS-plus (which takes park factors into consideration) was at 120, Conforto’s at 117.

Both lefty-hitting outfielders have been derailed along the way by injuries. But Nimmo timed his best health for his walk year, and netted an eight-year, $162 million extension from the Mets this past offseason.

Conforto rejected the Mets’ qualifying offer following the 2021 season, and then needed offseason shoulder surgery that contributed to him not signing at all for the 2022 season — though the Astros made a two-year, $30 million offer to try to land him in time to be eligible for that year’s postseason. Conforto also spurned that.

He signed a two-year, $36 million pact last offseason with the Giants that includes a player option for 2024. So if Conforto finishes the year healthy and productive, he almost certainly will opt back into free agency to chase more significant long-term dollars.

Though they get to a similar OPS, Conforto does it more with power while Nimmo has the edge in getting on base. Nimmo’s ability to play center field provides him a defensive advantage that allows him to produce the better career WAR despite having basically a season’s worth of fewer plate appearances (547).

Who do you think retains their skill set longer now that they have entered their 30s? Whose career do you got?

Awards watch

This is what the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz did Wednesday night in the first at-bat of his second major league game: He hit a 458-foot homer at Great American Ball Park that had an exit velocity of 114.8 mph.

It was the farthest a Red had hit a ball since 2020, the hardest since 2019. The ball reached the last row of seats in right field — it literally was feet away from leaving the whole stadium. The second-hardest exit velocity by a Red came the night before, when De La Cruz in his debut smashed a 112-mph double for his first career hit.

This is what the 6-foot-5 switch-hitter did in his second at-bat of his second major league game: He rifled a ball into the right-center field gap for a triple. He covered the distance from home to third in 10.83 seconds. That was the fastest in the majors this season.

In a way this is a metaphor for what the late-arriving De La Cruz would have to do to win the NL Rookie of the Year — go far and do it fast.

That is because Corbin Carroll has honored his preseason Rookie of the Year front-runner standing — and way more. Carroll is a strong NL MVP candidate. He had 11 homers, 18 steals (in 20 tries) and a slash line of .300/.387/.541 as the lead force behind the Diamondbacks’ surge to first place in the NL West.

The way the NL rookie crop is setting up, though, someone as talented as De La Cruz — he was arguably the top prospect in the minors at the time of his promotion — may have a chance to shoot all the way up to second place in the voting before the season is done.

Among pitchers, Miami’s Eury Perez had been impressive through five starts, and perhaps the Mets’ Kodai Senga could work his way into this race. Among position players, maybe the Dodgers duo of center fielder James Outman and second baseman Miguel Vargas will be big factors.

But what makes the arrival of the five-tool De La Cruz so exciting — especially in Cincinnati — is that it comes amid an intriguing youth movement for the Reds. Because if De La Cruz is going to get up to second among NL rookies, he will have to jump over teammates Matt McLain and Spencer Steer.

McLain made his debut May 15, and in his first 21 games, hit .348 with a .922 OPS and has played shortstop well to the point that — as when they were minor league teammates — De La Cruz often will have to move to third base.

Steer began the season as the Reds third baseman, but injuries to Joey Votto (who has yet to play this season) and Wil Myers (a failed free-agent buy so far) led to Steer becoming the regular first baseman. He led the Reds in homers with eight while generating an .861 OPS.

In De La Cruz’s first two games, in which he had a double, triple, homer and two RBIs, the Reds rallied to produce two walk-off wins over the Dodgers. It moved the Reds to just 29-33. But in the putrid NL Central, that left them five games out of first place.

The Reds lost, 6-0, to the Dodgers in a Thursday matinee, but De La Cruz completed a cycle in his initial three games with a single and also stole his first base. He did strike out three times — and swing and miss is the main area of concern in his game.

In a 100-loss 2022, the Reds were sellers, namely of right-hander Luis Castillo, but also of Tyler Mahle to Minnesota in a trade that brought back Steer and one of their top power prospects, corner infielder Christian Encarnacion-Strand. 

There is a long way to go to determine whether they again will be sellers this year — or even buyers.

There had been speculation, for example, whether the Reds might try to maximize Edwin Diaz’s brother, Alexis, in a marketplace that would crave his big arm. But Diaz might be the best reliever in the NL right now (46 strikeouts in 24 1/3 innings) and part of a group with De La Cruz, Steer, McLain, Hunter Greene — eventually along with infielders Edwin Arroyo and Noelvi Marte, the two key acquisitions in the Castillo deal — to build around.

The Reds might not have enough starting pitching to maintain this pace. Graham Ashcraft and Nick Lodolo have taken steps back this year, and now Lodolo will be out for an extended period due to a stress reaction in his tibia. Another prospect, Andrew Abbott, just threw six shutout, one-hit innings in his debut.

But there is a difference between a losing season and a lost season. And with the Reds breaking in such an intriguing group of young players, this has the look of a successful season for Cincinnati, no matter what.

Last licks

The top five batting averages in 2023 by lefty hitters vs. lefty pitchers (50 plate appearance minimum, through Wednesday):

1. Anthony Rizzo, .391
2. Luis Arraez, .382
3. Brandon Nimmo, .342
T-4. Kyle Tucker, .338
T-4. Dom Smith, .338

The best batting average ever by a Yankees lefty against lefty pitching over a full season (with at least 100 plate appearances vs. southpaws): Babe Ruth, .392, 1920.

The best batting average ever by a Mets lefty versus lefty pitching over a full season (with at least 100 plate appearances vs. southpaws): John Olerud, .375, 1998.

Smith, the former Mets prospect, was hitting just .232 against righties in his first season with the Nationals. 

Also of interest in the lefty-lefty top 10 this year were two players traded by the Mets in big deals: Seattle’s Jarred Kelenic (.327) and Cleveland’s Andres Gimenez (.322).