Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal sat quietly in the back of a conference room at the ballpark that bears her father’s name. The New York Yankees’ manager, Joe Girardi, gave his annual spring training address, hopeful his team could do better after three years in a row without taking part in a playoff series. Nobody asked about his job security.
Times changed a long time ago for the Yankees. George Steinbrenner is memorialized with a statue in front of the main staircase here, elevated and imposing forever. Derek Jeter and the gang are part of a mural adjoining the minor league complex, a reminder to motorists on Dale Mabry Highway of their gilded legacy.
Across the state, in Port St. Lucie, the New York Mets speak openly, and realistically, about returning to the World Series and winning. Matt Harvey rolls up in his Maserati, which looks a little like the Batmobile. His rotation sidekicks command attention, too. The Mets are not just a team on the rise; they have risen.
The Yankees are somewhere north of the middle, but south of the Mets. They have played admirably the last few seasons, overcoming negative run differentials to post winning records in 2013 and 2014, before last year’s wild card. But they have not quite seemed championship caliber.
“I appreciate how hard our guys played all year, how they never gave up all year, but we didn’t get to where we wanted,” Girardi said. “We lost the first round of the playoffs. We got beat by a very good pitcher that we didn’t seem to solve last year — and you know what? We’re probably going to see him opening day.”
That pitcher is Dallas Keuchel of the Houston Astros, who visit the Bronx on April 4. Keuchel won the American League Cy Young Award last season and pitched 232 innings. The Astros’ No. 2 starter, Collin McHugh, also topped 200 innings. The Yankees do not have pitchers like that.
They have Masahiro Tanaka, who had a bone spur removed from his elbow in October and said Thursday that he wanted to pitch 200 innings. Girardi said Luis Severino, the dynamic right-hander who turns 22 this weekend, could also pitch 200 innings. It is a good plan, but not easy; no Yankee has reached that amount since 2013.
To help the wobbly rotation, the Yankees strengthened their bullpen by trading for closer Aroldis Chapman, available at a reduced price because the threat of a suspension hangs over him. Chapman was cleared of criminal charges for an allegation of domestic violence in October, and vowed through an interpreter last week to appeal any possible suspension by Major League Baseball.
Girardi said he had not read the police report — available online for months — but that is not his responsibility, anyway. The Yankees pay Girardi to put players in the best position to perform, and generally, he has done that. They need his support, not his judgment.
“I think as a leader you have a responsibility to people to help them as much as you can,” Girardi said. “That’s my feeling. There is no perfect person in this world. Everyone has their flaws and it’s important that we help each other with the flaws.”
More enticing to the Yankees are Chapman’s strengths. He threw 336 pitches of at least 100 mph last season, according to Baseball Savant. Every other pitcher in the majors, combined, threw 225. Even in this age of heat, Chapman stands out.
“His arms are huge, from seeing him today,” said Dellin Betances, the setup man who has reached 101 mph. “I’m excited to see how fast he can throw — up close.”
Betances predicted that the fans at Yankee Stadium would stay to the end, instead of leaving early to beat the traffic, to watch Chapman push 103, 104 and 105 on the radar gun. The carnival atmosphere sounds like fun, as long as MLB allows Chapman to play — and as long as the Yankees are winning.
Last season, they had three hitters with an on-base plus slugging percentage of .800 or better: Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran and Mark Teixeira. Rodriguez is 40, and by the end of April, Beltran will be 39 and Teixeira 36. As they wait for their contracts to expire, the Yankees need them to keep slugging.
“I think you can expect it,” Girardi said. “I think you have to manage them physically and their workload, in a sense, to make sure that they’re strong at the end of a season. Sometimes when you’re fighting for that spot, to get into the playoffs, it becomes harder to manage that workload.”
Reserves like Dustin Ackley and Aaron Hicks can help do that, Girardi said, but can the Yankees really avoid another desperate scramble and run away with the AL East? It seems unlikely. They are young up the middle, with Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorius, and young in the rotation. They have a pathway to success, like almost every team, but bold self-assurance belongs only to the few.
The Mets are among them. The Yankees are not. Their complicated closer, at least, knows enough to repeat his new company motto, the one constant for an organization in transition.
“This is a team that loves winning,” Chapman said. “I love winning, too.”
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