Poll: The Yankees’ ALDS opponent

The best-of-three Wild Card Series gets underway Tuesday and the Yankees will be interested observers. They’ll spend the week sleeping in their own beds, playing simulated games, and waiting to find out who they’ll play in the ALDS. The Wild Card Series is Orioles vs. Royals in Baltimore. Winner comes to the Bronx for the ALDS beginning Saturday. Until then, we wait.

“I feel like we’ve been through a ton as a team this year,” Aaron Boone told Gary Phillips. “To end up with the best record in the American League is something to be proud of. These guys should be proud that they’ve answered every challenge this year. It hasn’t always been easy, but proud of the fact that we’ve put ourselves in this position to take our shot. We’re excited about that.”

The Twins went down in flames and missed the postseason – 12-27 in their final 39 games! – so we can’t root for an ALDS matchup against them. Instead, we’ll root for a taxing Wild Card Series that goes the full three games and preferably extra innings multiple times. Wear out the pitchers, wear out the hitters, wear out everyone. I want a tired opponent when the ALDS begins.

I’m not being cheeky either. The third game makes a huge difference. If there’s a Wild Card Series Game 3, the Orioles and Royals must use their No. 3 starters (Dean Kremer and Michael Wacha), and then either their No. 4 starter (Cade Povich and Brady Singer?) in ALDS Game 1, or bring back their ace on short rest. Either way, Game 3 puts the eventual winner in a pitching bind for the ALDS.

It’s the postseason and the Yankees will have to play a good team no matter what. There are no easy paths to the World Series (except through the Twins). Is one of the Orioles or Royals a more desirable matchup than the other? Let’s dig into the two possible ALDS opponents and see whether we should be rooting extra hard for one in the Wild Card Series.

Baltimore Orioles

2024 record: 91-71 (+87 run differential)
September record: 13-12 (+5 run differential)
Head-to-head: Yankees went 5-8 with -6 run differential

The Orioles won 101 games and the AL East in 2023, entered 2024 with the consensus best farm system in baseball, and were poised to take another step forward and become the AL’s dominant team. Instead, a prolonged midsummer slump – the O’s went 29-37 between the arbitrary dates of July 9th and Sept. 22nd – shaved 10 wins off last year’s total, and pushed Baltimore into a Wild Card spot.

Reasons to face the O’s: Pitching, mostly. We just saw the Orioles last week and the bullpen is not good. Yennier Cano is manager Brandon Hyde’s go-to guy and a) he always seems to pitch poorly against the Yankees, and b) he looks worn down. He’s worked a lot the last two years, often pitching in two different innings, which equals a lot of ups/downs. Cano’s velocity is slipping …

… and Baltimore’s bullpen isn’t deep enough to cover if they reduce his workload. They picked up the most combustible parts of the Phillies bullpen at the trade deadline (Seranthony Domínguez and Gregory Soto) and, surprise, they haven’t helped much. O’s relievers had a 5.31 ERA (3.73 FIP) in September, and they had a stretch last month in which they allowed 40% of inherited runners to score (MLB average is 33%).

We saw Baltimore’s bullpen shakiness up close last week. The Orioles won two of three in that series, but their starting pitchers allowed five runs in 14.2 innings and their relievers allowed 15 runs in 10.2 innings. The bullpen door swings open and you have a chance. The old “wear down the starter and feast on the bullpen” strategy works against the O’s, and one thing the Yankees do very well is work the count:

1. Brewers: 4.02 pitches per plate appearance
2. Mariners: 4.01
3. Yankees: 3.99
4. Rays: 3.97
5. Dodgers: 3.95
(MLB average: 3.88)

Also on the pitching front, the Yankees have seen Zach Eflin plenty in 2024. Four times between the Rays and Orioles, and his starts against the Yankees have gotten progressively worse. Last week the Yankees tagged him for three runs in 4.2 innings. Eflin had baseball’s second lowest walk rate this year (3.5%), yet he walked five and struck out one in those 4.2 innings. The familiarity effect seems to be kicking in.

Offensively, the O’s are a home run reliant team. Only the Yankees hit more home runs than Baltimore this season and Orioles' hitters collectively had the fourth lowest ground ball rate in baseball (40.5%). The Yankees do not have the same ground ball dominant pitching staff as in the past (41.8% this year), though they have several individual pitchers who are among the best in the league at keeping the ball on the ground:

• Tim Hill: 69.9 GB% with Yankees

• Clay Holmes: 65.0 GB%

• Tommy Kahnle: 58.6 GB%

• Tim Mayza: 55.4 GB% with Yankees

• MLB average: 42.2%

In spots, the Yankees can match up against the O’s power hitters with their ground ball relievers. You can mute their power, the primary way they generate their offense, at least in theory. Also, Baltimore is not an especially aggressive team on the bases. Only 98 steals this year (80% success rate). The Yankees can have trouble controlling the running game and the O’s don’t lean on steals heavily.

More than anything, the reason to want the Yankees to face the Orioles is Baltimore’s thin pitching staff. The bullpen is unimposing and they lost Kyle Bradish (elbow), John Means (elbow), and Grayson Rodriguez (lat) to injuries in-season. The O’s would be more fearsome with Bradish and/or Rodriguez in the rotation behind Burnes and Eflin. Instead, their staff has thinned out, and it showed in September.

Reasons to avoid the O’s: After a sluggish few weeks, the offense is back to being one of the best in baseball. Jordan Westburg returned from a broken hand late last month and pushed the overmatched Jackson Holliday out of the lineup. Gunnar Henderson is outstanding, Anthony Santander hit 44 homers, and Cedric Mullins had a great second half (143 wRC+). It’s a very deep lineup.

In Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, the Yankees will have the two best hitters in the series no matter who they play. The difference between these two teams is the lineup depth. The Yankees and Orioles each had eight hitters get at least 375 plate appearances in 2024, though one was Anthony Rizzo, and it sounds like he’ll be out of action in the ALDS. Here’s how the other 15 hitters line up:

1. Aaron Judge: 218 wRC+
2. Juan Soto: 180 wRC+
3. Gunnar Henderson: 155 wRC+
4. Anthony Santander: 129 wRC+
5. Jordan Westburg: 125 wRC+
6. Colton Cowser: 120 wRC+
7. Ryan O’Hearn: 119 wRC+
8. Giancarlo Stanton: 116 wRC+
9. Ryan Mountcastle: 108 wRC+
10. Austin Wells: 105 wRC+
11. Cedric Mullins: 105 wRC+
12. Gleyber Torres: 102 wRC+
13. Adley Rutschman: 102 wRC+
14. Anthony Volpe: 86 wRC+
15. Alex Verdugo: 83 wRC+

Judge and Soto are the two best, then it’s five straight Orioles. Three Yankees among the bottom four too, though Torres finished the season very well. Point is, the Yankees have a top heavy offense that is reliant on Judge and Soto. The O’s have more threats throughout the lineup and especially at the bottom, where the Yankees have had holes all season. There are no soft spots for Baltimore.

The Orioles as a team struggled offensively for a chunk of 2024. During that 29-37 slide I mentioned earlier, they averaged 4.32 runs per game and hit .236/.311/.397 (104 wRC+), well south of expectations. The team they’re taking into the postseason is not necessarily that team though. Westburg is back, Mullins turned his season around, Cowser has swung the bat better, etc. It’s a better offense now.

This works both ways too. Rutschman has been really bad since taking a foul tip to the hand in late June (63 wRC+ in his last 73 games). Henderson leveled out after his torrid start. So did O’Hearn. Overall though, the O’s have a very deep lineup. The Yankees have the two best hitters between the two teams but Baltimore has the more dangerous lineup one through nine.

Furthermore, the Yankees have several fly ball and home run prone pitchers who don’t match up all that well with the homer happy Orioles. Carlos Rodón allowed the second most homers in baseball this year. Sometimes homers are the only way Gerrit Cole gives up a run. Luis Gil allowed six homers in September after allowing 12 the first five months of the season. Keeping the ball in the part can be an issue at times.

Also, we saw Burnes last week and he was a buzz saw. He had a 7.36 ERA (4.80 FIP) in August, tweaked his cutter a bit, then allowed four earned runs in five starts and 30 innings in September. As good as Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo have been this season, Burnes is the most dominant pitcher between the O’s and Royals, especially with the way he’s throwing the ball now. Avoiding him would be swell.

Overall, the O’s have a shaky bullpen and rotation questions behind Burnes. Their offense is great, better now than it was in the summer because Westburg is healthy and Mullins is swinging well. The Yankees can punish mediocre relievers, they’ve done it all year. Can they keep the Orioles in the ballpark? Or is this a situation where the Yankees have to out-hit their pitchers like the O’s have to out-hit their pitchers?

Kansas City Royals

2024 record: 86-76 (+91 run differential)
September record: 11-14 (-7 run differential)
Head-to-head: Yankees went 5-2 with +18 run differential

A year ago the Royals lost 106 games, the most in franchise history, and now they’re in the postseason. They’re the third team in the Expansion Era (since 1961) to go from 100 losses one year to the postseason the next, joining the 2017 Twins and 2020 Marlins. And 2020 doesn’t count, so it’s really just the 2017 Twins and 2024 Royals. Kansas City spent some money in free agency and turned everything around.

Reasons to face the Royals: Objectively, the Royals are an inferior team with less talent than the Orioles. It’s not just that they finished with five fewer wins during the regular season. It’s that they went 12-1 against the White Sox and 74-75 against everyone else. You can only play the schedule they give you, but geez, Kansas City really fattened up against the losingest team in modern baseball history.

Bobby Witt Jr. is incredible. He’s about as close to a perfect player as there is in the game today. Sal Perez had another really good season and always seems to crush the Yankees. He went 9-for-21 (.429) with a homer and twice as many walks (six) as strikeouts (three) against them this year. After Witt and Perez though, the lineup thins out quick. We talk about the Yankees being top heavy. Well:

Judge + Soto: .305/.439/.634 (199 wRC+) with 99 HR and 17 SB
Perez + Witt: .303/.361/.524 (142 wRC+) with 59 HR and 31 SB

All other Yankees: .233/.302/.375 (92 wRC+) with 128 HR and 71 SB
All other Royals: .232/.290/.368 (82 wRC+) with 111 HR and 103 SB

The Yankees’ two best hitters have been better than the Royals’ two best hitters, and the rest of their lineup has been better than the rest of Kansas City’s lineup too. Again, the team you take into the postseason is not the same as the team you have over the summer, and the Royals added Tommy Pham and others late in the year, but yeah, it’s not a powerhouse offense. Clear edge to the Yankees (and Orioles).

This really sums it up. Even with Witt and Perez, the Royals are not going to bang the ball around the yard. The offense was middle of the pack (really a bit worse than that) all season and especially late in the year, when Kansas City scored more than two runs only three times in their final 11 games. They were fighting for a postseason berth too. It’s not like they were trotting out hangover lineups.

Reasons to avoid the Royals: The Royals rely on pitching and defense and the pitching is very good (the defense is good though maybe not as good as you’d expect). Lugo and Ragans are the best 1-2 on the AL side of the postseason bracket – Lugo carved the Yankees up three weeks ago – and Michael Wacha is a pretty darn good No. 3. Wacha is Judge’s kryptonite: 1-for-18 (.056) with 11 strikeouts.

The Orioles have more lineup depth and the Royals have more rotation depth. If Kansas City manages to sweep the Wild Card Series, they’ll be able to start Lugo, Ragans, and Wacha in all five ALDS games. That is their ticket. Start those three in as many games as possible. The Yankees have had success against Eflin and Kremer. The Royals’ rotation is much more formidable, at least on paper.

For much of the season, the bullpen was a major problem for the Royals, but they sorted things out in the second half and the relief crew was excellent in September: 2.77 ERA (2.73 FIP) with 29.4 K%. Trade deadline pickup Lucas Erceg has been dynamite as the Moment of Truth™ reliever and Kris Bubic (elbow) and John Schreiber (knee) have given the bullpen a lift since coming off the injured list.

The rotation is great and the bullpen came around late in the season. There’s also this:

• Kris Bubic: 2.67 ERA (1.95 FIP) with 32.2 K%

• Sam Long: 3.16 EA (3.89 FIP) with 25.0 K%

• Daniel Lynch: 1.84 ERA (3.57 FIP) with 24.8 K% (as a reliever)

• Angel Zerpa: 3.86 ERA (3.97 FIP) with 20.5 K%

Three good to great relievers plus a fourth who’s serviceable. The common thread? They’re all lefties. The Yankees had a hard time with lefties all year and the Royals will be able to trot out quality lefty after quality lefty. The Orioles have lefties too (Perez, Soto, Keegan Akin, Danny Coulombe), though other than Perez, they’re a notch below the guys Kansas City can run out there. The Royals could be a matchup nightmare.

As noted, the Royals do not have the scariest lineup, but they are fairly aggressive on the bases. They were 11th in stolen bases during the regular season with an 81% success rate, and their 48% extra-base taken rate was third highest in baseball. The Royals can steal bags and also take advantage of a Yankees team prone to overthrowing the cutoff man, throwing to the wrong base, careless mistakes like that.

The reason to want to face the Royals is a lineup that gets real thin, real quick after Perez and Witt. This team is not a threat to put up a crooked number each night. At the same time, the rotation is so very good, and the bullpen they finished the season with was much better than the bullpen they had most of the season. The Royals can suffocate you with arms and run prevention, but can they generate enough offense?

* * *

Although they did not have the year so many expected, the Orioles were better than the Royals during the regular season, and that means nothing now. In a short series, anything can happen. It’s cliche, but one hanging slider or one borderline strike call has a far greater impact on the outcome than whatever happened from April through September. The Orioles are better, but the Royals are no pushover with those arms.

In a way, the O’s and Royals are opposites. Baltimore has a powerful offense and sketchy pitching behind Burnes. Kansas City does not have the deepest lineup behind Perez and Witt, but the rotation is excellent and the bullpen is sneaky good now. Who do you want the Yankees to face in the ALDS?