ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism.
Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the New York Yankees.
New York Yankees
Reason for optimism: With the departures of Derek Jeter and Ichiro Suzuki, the team is finally getting younger.
Reason for pessimism: There are still too many players in the clubhouse who know who A-ha is.
Although he received only one third-place vote, Joe Girardi should have received strong consideration for American League Manager of the Year in 2014.
The Yankees' 2014 roster featured a collection of aged former All-Stars, and despite underlying data that suggested the team was much worse, Girardi guided them to 84 wins and a second-place finish in the AL East. Girardi got a total of 169 starts (out of a possible 1,458) from position players in their under-30 seasons. That's 70 less than the 239 starts he got from players (Jeter and Suzuki) in their over-40 seasons! The Yankees were remarkably consistent all season, staying above .500 for all but a handful of days, and for that Girardi deserves a lot of credit that didn't come his way.
While Girardi's managing got good marks, it did mask a current problem: The Yankees exited the 2014 season a 79-win team in 84-win clothing. The roster is unquestionably younger this year with Didi Gregorius, Stephen Drew and Garrett Jones lopping 25 total years of age off last year's starters. The problem is, the Yankees are still an old team.
To have any hope of outscoring its opponents, New York is going to need meaningful offensive production from some combination of Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez. Improvement on the offensive side of the ledger isn't the Yankees' only need in 2015 if they are to return to postseason contention.
While the offense was below-average (13th in the American League, only four more runs scored than the Astros) pitching was merely average, finishing eighth in the American League in runs allowed. The staff, particularly the starters, could be better this year, as the Yankees needed nearly 50 fill-in starts from underwhelming, over-4.00 ERA-talents, which could be eliminated this year if Michael Pineda, Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia are healthy enough to make 90 starts between them. Clearly, given their recent injury histories, that's a big "if."
On the positive side, the defense, after three years of slipping in effectiveness, should aid the pitching staff due to the youngest left side of the infield the Yankees have fielded this century. Additionally, the bullpen looks set with Andrew Miller effectively taking David Robertson's innings, even if those innings move from the ninth to the eighth inning.
Interestingly, the Yankees' bullpen had, by far, the biggest spread in the majors between its ERA (3.70) and its SIERA (2.92), a skills-based predictor of ERA. The bullpen with the largest spread in 2013, the Seattle Mariners, ended up with the lowest bullpen ERA in the majors in 2014. If New York can produce on offense at a level more befitting the tradition of the Yankees, that is truly a ray of hope for the team and its fans.
In keeping their remarkable string of 22 straight over .500 seasons alive, the Yankees have actually been outscored in each of the last two seasons. There is not much in the 2015 roster construction that suggests that streak will come to an end this year, at least in a meaningful way.
As such, if the Yankees are to finish above .500, and land "over" their total wins market of 82, it just might take another year of managerial excellence from Girardi.
2015 projection: 79-83 (last place, AL East)
Bet recommendation: Pass