2023 Yanks can learn from the '19 team

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

I’ve thought about the 2019 “Next Man Up” Yankees recently. Like the current edition, that team had a star-studded roster with championship aspirations, and many of their bold-faced names landed on the injured list.

Their depth was tested often, to where we started a running list of injuries on Yankees.com, with estimated return dates. (That template now exists for all 30 teams, part of the enduring legacy of that Yankees club.) As this postseason hype video showed, almost every player who was unexpectedly plugged into Aaron Boone’s lineup offered contributions.

Mike Tauchman is one of the first names that comes to mind. The Yanks picked up the left-handed hitting outfielder late in Spring Training, and Tauchman (then 28) contributed a career year, hitting .277/.361/.504 (128 OPS+) with 13 homers and 47 RBIs in 87 games. Rated by WAR, he was their fourth-most valuable player that year, behind DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge and Brett Gardner. Gio Urshela, who also was excellent, ranked fifth.

Tauchman was traded to the Giants for left-hander Wandy Peralta the next April, spent the 2022 season in Korea and now is in Triple-A with the Cubs. He’s not really the point of this story, though he was popular in the clubhouse (and maybe Brian Cashman should make a phone call.) The Yankees don’t necessarily need Tauchman today, but they need a few guys like him.

Part of the issue with the present-day Yankees team, the one with a 15-15 record that currently resides last in the American League East, is that its second and third choices have not captured lightning like the ’19 squad did. They’ve gotten little production from Oswaldo Cabrera (40 OPS+), Willie Calhoun (40 OPS+) and Franchy Cordero (57 OPS+); Cordero seemed to be cut from Matt Carpenter's cloth in early April before cooling off.

Aaron Hicks has contributed almost nothing offensively. His 10 OPS+ entering play on Tuesday, prompting a second glance just to make sure it is not a misprint, means he has been 90 percent worse than the average Major Leaguer.

Granted, now that Judge has landed on the 10-day injured list with a right hip strain, the Yankees have 13 players on the injured list with a combined payroll of $157.8 million. That’s larger than the 26-man payrolls for 14 clubs: Minnesota, Seattle, Detroit, Milwaukee, Arizona, Miami, Washington, Kansas City, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Oakland.

It’s absolutely fair to wonder if a team with a $279 million payroll, the second highest in baseball, should have had better depth stocked in the high Minors. That being said, what is the solution? They can continue plugging in cavalry pieces like Jake Bauers, who was hitting for power at Triple-A but hurt his knee in his first inning as a Yankee during the Texas series, but nothing will help more than patience and time.

They need to get their front-line players back; Harrison Bader was activated on Tuesday, and while that’s not a cure-all, it’s certainly a start. If the first month of the season has taught us anything, it’s that the 2019 Yankees -- fun as they were to watch at times -- were not the norm.