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We’re just over three weeks away from Anthony Rizzo’s tenure as Yankee, and his acquisition is an acquisition the Yankees organization would remake if given the chance (and they would with full support. from the Yankees fan base as well). Since his debut with the Yankees on July 30, Rizzo has posted a 127 OPS + and has shown his glove lives up to the reputation that came before him. Plus, whether you believe the clutch or not, several of his hits came in crucial situations in games that ultimately turned into Yankees wins, making him an instant fan favorite.
Due to disappointing play by some players and Luke Voit’s recurring injuries, lack of first baseman production had been a serious problem for the Yankees until July 30. The Yankees’ lack of points, in general, was a problem, and it’s really tough being a good offensive team when you don’t get a lot of production from your first basemen. Rizzo’s presence is certainly not the only factor the Yankees are 11-1 in the games he’s played and 18-6 overall since joining, but he’s certainly contributed significantly. to their recent turnaround.
Another aspect of Rizzo’s presence on the Yankees to weigh in is that he’s not on the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox, although in first place on July 30, also failed to get production from their first baseman in 2021. It was widely and frequently reported in July, both locally and in the United States. nationally the Red Sox were interested in Rizzo. ESPN insider Buster Olney predicted until July 26 that Rizzo would end up calling Fenway Park his home for the remainder of 2021.
Since Rizzo found himself in the stripes, Boston has continued to use Kevin Plawecki, Franchy Cordero, Bobby Dalbec, Marwin Gonzalez and Travis Shaw on first base. I have all due respect to all the players who reach the big leagues, but none of those players remind Boston fans of Mo Vaughn, to put it mildly. The Red Sox, who were in first place on the trade deadline day, are 7-15 since (including 0-3 against New York) and are currently seven games away from first and tied for second. Wild Card.
Is the lack of a good first baseman the Red Sox’s only problem lately? Of course not. Their pitching team has the worst August ERA in the AL (unless you count Baltimore as a big league team, in which case Boston’s August ERA is the second worst). Boston’s offense, which was very strong from April to July, has also slumped in recent times, with the Bosoxes placing eighth in points, ninth in homers and 14th in batting average among AL teams in August. Since there are eight other hitters in the lineup besides the first baseman, again, it is not all the collective fault of the first basemen.
Still, it begs the question, “How would each team have fared if Anthony Rizzo had ended up in Fenway Park and not in the great orchard of balls in the Bronx?” “
Obviously, we can’t do anything between speculation and outright guessing to answer this question. Whether or not other trades or acquisitions were made with both teams, and how players would have been deployed with or without Rizzo on their team are just two of the many variables that we cannot account for. But the answer is, things probably wouldn’t be so much different now than they would be if Rizzo went to Boston instead of New York.
If you’ve done the math above, you may have noticed that Rizzo has only played in half of Yankees games since joining due to his stint on COVID-19 IL. Even if he hadn’t been on the squad at all, the Yankees would likely have spent the first week of August with DJ LeMahieu on first base, and Tyler Wade, Andrew Velasquez and Rougned Odor around the horn – the The last two weren’t produced the Rizzo way, but over a week the difference would be infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things.
LeMahieu and Wade were phenomenal in August, and Luke Voit came back to play first base a week after acquiring Rizzo – well, you know how Luke is doing. Giancarlo Stanton and Brett Gardner have been scorching in August and Aaron Judge has always done things to Aaron Judge – it would be of major significance to say that acquiring Rizzo has something to do with those successes. (It also didn’t have much to do with the pitching staff’s top 2.82 ERA in August.)
As noted, Boston has experienced a number of issues that have contributed to its recent downward spiral in the standings. As good a player as Rizzo is and has been in his career, although he wouldn’t be able to fill all the holes Boston has had recently. But what about the question of what would happen the rest of the season if Anthony Rizzo was in Boston instead of the Yankees?
Once again, we are in the land of pure speculation. We fans tend to get carried away by the vagaries of everyday life and small sample sizes – which I must note, there is nothing wrong with that because that’s why we are fans and that. is what the fans are doing. Yet, in the interests of due diligence, we must remember that three weeks is a few sneezes in baseball. It is extremely unlikely that the Yankees will continue to win 74% of their games over the remainder of the season, as they have over the past seven weeks – the 1998 Yankees and 1939 Yankees have both won 70 % of their matches for some perspective.
We fans also like to figuratively kick our enemies when they’re down, but the Red Sox is extremely unlikely to be setting up white flags to wave. Just as that Yankees team isn’t the Yankees of 1998 or 1939, the Red Sox didn’t become the Orioles of 2021 either. It certainly wasn’t the team that was on track to win 99 games as it did. late July, but they’re also much better than the 7-15 team they’ve been since.
What if we just used Rizzo’s projected WAR and passed it from team to team? If you told me this is a big chunk of simplification I would agree – but the whole point of WAR is to measure a player’s worth in terms of wins – so let’s go ahead and use it for fun. of the discussion.
Rizzo has averaged around four wins per season over his career. If you extrapolate that pace to the rest of this season, it comes down to almost a win. If you took a Yankees victory and gave it to the Red Sox, it could definitely end up being big in the year-end standings. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the WAR contributions from players who would play in Rizzo’s place for either team, so we’re most likely talking about less than one win over the rest of the season. As much as fans love Rizzo, his presence is unlikely to have a huge impact on the 2021 AL East rankings, as Yankee or even if he ended up in Boston.
Before you start typing nasty comments into the comments section, don’t get me wrong by what I’m saying: Anthony Rizzo is a really good player and it’s always better to have a really good player on your squad rather than in the team. your rival’s team. The only problem with Anthony Rizzo’s presence is that Aaron Boone has more good players than he has places in the outfield, first base and DH – that’s a hell of a problem to have and c It’s a much better problem to have than the Red Sox problems.
That is, we can put the math and analysis aside for now and relax a bit. There’s still a lot of baseball to play, but I think you and I would agree that the Yankees are better off than the Red Sox right now, which is always a reason to cheer and smile.
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