SSTN Mailbag: High/Low, American League Preview, And Opening Day Reactions!

Happy Belated Opening Day, everyone! As those of you who read the Mailbag each week know, traveling is a large part of my job. Generally speaking, I really enjoy traveling - maybe not at the volume I've experienced the last 2-3 years, but seeing new places and meeting new people is exciting, even when the work is hard. However, there is one specific time I truly dislike traveling: Opening Day. I consider Opening Day a holiday, and it kills me to travel on Opening Day...which has happened 3 out of the last 4 years. So yes, I was traveling yesterday, wrapping up some important work while the opening lineups and first innings were played.

Rather than dwell on the negative, I'll walk through the positives: I did get to practice my Opening Day ritual alone in my hotel room (I always begin Opening Day by listening to "Centerfield" by John Fogerty and "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" by Bernie Williams), and I know my wife and daughter followed through at home in my absence. I also managed to watch a little more than half of the game when I got back to the hotel earlier than expected. Most importantly? My daughter wanted to play ball with my wife in the backyard...and immediately gripped the bat left-handed and ripped a line drive off of the tee. Like daddy, like daughter. I have the evidence on video. I consider it a good omen for the Yankees' season...oh, and watching the team win on Opening Day was pretty great too.

As always, thanks for the great questions, and keep them coming to SSTNMailbag@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll forecast the high/low win totals for the Yankees' season, we'll take a look around the American League, and I'll give some impressions from Opening Day! Let's get at it:

Mark B. asks: I know that you predicted the Yankees to win 92 games, but what do you think the best case scenario is vs. the worst case scenario for their win total?

I think this Yankee team has the widest potential variance of any Yankee team in the Aaron Boone era, and that includes 2023. In 2023, I said that everything needed to go wrong for the Yankees to be a .500 team. Everything went wrong, and they were still barely better than .500. This year is very different.

I think the low-side of projections looks ugly because the team is so beat up on the pitching side and is so thin around the roster. A poor season looks like this: the pitching staff continues to take on water (because pitcher is a Greek word for "breaks often, and often irrevocably), the kids don't quite take the reigns on offense, the older statesmen are hurt and/or ineffective, and the depth is tested. These are not the "next man up" Yankees from 2019; they can't handle too many more injuries, nor can they be successful without at least modest steps forward from the new Baby Bombers. I think the floor for this team is something like 75-77 wins. I don't think that this is the likeliest outcome by any stretch, but it's also within the realm of believable possibility.

On the high side? The bullpen is every bit as good as expected. The starting rotation rises to the occasion in numerous ways. Carlos Rodon and Max Fried pitch like 1A and 1B at the top of the rotation; Will Warren arrives and surpasses my expectations; Carlos Carrasco turns back the clock and is crafty enough to put together a good performance; and the combination of Stroman and Schmidt at the back of the rotation are really good. Gil and Stanton come back and put together strong runs. The kids really arrive, with both Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe taking really strong steps forward. Jasson Dominguez lives up to some of the hype and wins the Rookie of the Year award. The lineup is dangerous from top-to-bottom. The big trick? The Yankees largely stay away from the injury bug. That's a 98+ win team, particularly in a weak American League. I think this is less likely than the team's floor, but squint, and you could see it.

I'm optimistic about this roster, and will stick with my 92 win projection, but I would be very surprised to see the ceiling scenario.

Brian C. asks: I know that fans are really worried about the Yankees right now, but have you looked around the AL? Who else do you see in the AL that can go on a run? Who will compete with the Yankees in the AL race?

Brian clearly feels optimistic about the team the way that I do, but his point is a good one: the American League is as weak as I've ever seen it this year. That matters a bit less in a world with a balanced schedule, where the Yankees will play plenty of games against National League teams, but they are really competing with the teams in their division and around the American League.

Looking at it from a high level, I think that the AL East is the strongest division in the American League. You can draw up a scenario for every team in this division to win 90 games. The teams most likely to do so are the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Orioles. I just don't buy that the Blue Jays have enough pitching and lineup performance to reach 85+ wins, and the Rays' creative roster construction is more likely to keep them from being awful than it is to make the team a 90-game winner. The Yankees, Sox, and Orioles all have rosters that can enable pretty explosive performance if everything breaks right. On paper, the Red Sox might have the best ceiling projection, but that is every bit as risky a roster as the Yankees. Same goes for the Orioles, only with even less pitching.

Around the league elsewhere? I don't expect the Astros to be very good anymore...ownership has destroyed their player development system and Major League strategy. The Mariners might be pretty good, though I don't think they have enough offense. The Tigers have a really good pitching staff and an interesting offense - they might win 90 games. The Royals and Twins might hang around, but again, I'm not sure they're actually that good. For the AL, that's it. If the Yankees control the AL East, it should be a pretty clear path otherwise.

James M. asks: Can you give us some impressions or things you found interesting from Opening Day?

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the whole game, but I'll give you a few points I noted watching yesterday's game:

• I thought Rodon looked really good on a cool day for early season pitching. Rodon has had multiple shoulder and elbow issues throughout his career, so cool weather makes it tough to pitch (it takes one to know one on that score). I really expected his velocity to be down on Opening Day, but he really pitched. Rodon mixed speeds, mixed pitches, and reared back for extra only when he needed it. I thought it was a great performance, and he was clearly holding back occasionally so that he could pitch deeper into the game. It didn't quite work, as the Yankees found a match-up they liked in the 6th inning for Hill to get out of a jam, but I was very encouraged by Rodon's start.

• I hated that the team removed Dominguez for defense late in the game when he still had another at-bat in the following half-inning. I don't want to see a ton of that moving forward, but I will admit that Grisham made a really nifty play in the 9th inning to knock a ball down off the wall with his hat to get it back in faster. I'm not sure Bellinger gets to the ball as quickly on that one.

• I loved the idea of batting Wells lead-off early in the offseason, but I never expected the Yankees to do it. It sure looked good yesterday, and it really gave the Yanks some early momentum. This was a fun start.

• Volpe took a hard fastball up in the zone to the opposite field for a HR yesterday, something he couldn't have done with his swing last season. If his swing stays stable, I think Volpe will hit 20+ homeruns and make enough solid contact elsewhere to be a productive player offensively. Yesterday was a nice first step.

• I'm glad there's an off-day today - Wells took a rough foul ball back off of his shoulder (around the chest pad), and I'm sure he's hurting today. I hope it doesn't have a long-term impact, but it's worth monitoring.

• Judge still doesn't look quite right at the plate...Peralta was able to go right at him. I'm hoping he just needs a few more ABs to get right.

• Devin Williams made that ending too interesting. I can't help but think he was tipping pitches before Matt Blake came out to the mound. If anyone would know, it would be his old team, the Brewers, and they sure didn't look fooled before the mound visit. Williams' Airbender is ridiculous, but most pitches are hittable if you know it's coming.

• Mark Leiter Jr. was impressive, and looked closer to the guy I thought he'd be last year. Let's hope it continues.