Hurry! All-MLB Team voting ends today, 5 ET
NEW YORK -- Aroldis Chapman, Edwin Encarnación, DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sánchez and Gleyber Torres all gave Yankees fans reasons to cheer throughout this past season, and those five players have been recognized as finalists for the inaugural 2019 All-MLB Team.
The five Bombers helped to power a club that overcame numerous injuries to post 103 regular-season victories, securing the franchise’s first American League East title in seven years and sweeping the Twins in the AL Division Series before falling to the Astros in the AL Championship Series.
“Between DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres, they've been the driving force amongst a lot of names here,” general manager Brian Cashman said recently. “They've been consistent and constant the entire time. We have amazing talents like [Aaron] Judge and [Giancarlo] Stanton, amongst others. But they've been down with injuries, whereas we've been able to rely on Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu.”
• All-MLB Team nominees, club-by-club
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The Yankees are one of eight clubs to boast as many as five nominees. The Astros lead all teams with 10 candidates, while the Red Sox are next with seven. The Twins have six.
The selection process for the 2019 All-MLB Team begins Monday and runs through 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 3, with 50% of the vote coming from fans and 50% coming from a panel of experts.
You can vote right here, and you may do so once every 24 hours between now and when voting ends next Tuesday. The inaugural All-MLB Team will be announced on Dec. 10 at baseball’s annual Winter Meetings in San Diego.
There will be a first team and second team All-MLB, and voters are asked only to consider performance during the regular season when casting their ballots. Each team will include one selection at each position (including designated hitter and three outfielders, regardless of specific outfield position), five starting pitchers and two relievers.
Chapman was 3-2 with 37 saves in 42 chances and a 2.21 ERA over 60 relief appearances, ranking fourth among AL relievers with a 13.42 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio (57 innings, 85 strikeouts). The left-handed closer struck out 36.2 percent of the batters he faced.
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Though Encarnación struggled in the ALCS, he batted .249 with 13 homers and 37 RBIs in 44 regular-season games for the Yankees after being acquired from the Mariners in June. With 34 homers between his two clubs, Encarnación reached the 30-homer plateau for the eighth straight year (2012-19).
LeMahieu batted .327 with 26 homers and 102 RBIs in his first season with the Yankees, setting career highs in runs (109), hits (197), homers, extra-base hits (61), RBIs and multi-hit games (61). LeMahieu led the Majors by hitting .389 (49-for-126) with runners in scoring position.
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Sánchez hit .232 with 34 homers and 77 RBIs in 106 games, leading all big league catchers in homers and topping his own (2017) club record for homers by a Yankees catcher. Sánchez was the first catcher with multiple 30-homer seasons since the Braves’ Javy Lopez in 1998 (34) and 2003 (43).
Torres joined Joe DiMaggio as the youngest Yankees to hit at least 30 homers in a season, batting .278 with 38 homers and 90 RBIs in 144 games. Twenty one of Torres’ homers came against the AL East, including 13 against the Orioles, the most by a player facing a single opponent in the divisional era (since 1969).