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Atlanta Braves great John Smoltz is well aware that the New York Yankees are still a major threat to win the World Series.
Despite entering the season with myriad injuries, especially to their pitching staff such as ace Gerrit Cole, the Yankees are leading the American League East two months into the season by a comfortable margin. Furthermore, they have the second-best record in the American League and are just a half-game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team they matched up against in the World Series last season.
A large reason for that has been the continued excellence of Aaron Judge, who has 21 home runs and 50 RBI with .398/.490/.778 batting splits. Those splits are all career highs after winning his second MVP Award last year. He leads the American League in all three categories while ranking second in home runs and runs batted in.
Although the MLB trade deadline isn't until July 31, Smoltz believes the Yankees — as is usually the case — will be a player on the trade market when it comes to making a move for a pitcher to help their World Series title push. That push will also need a locked-in Judge, who hasn't been a playoff riser in his career. Even so, Smoltz doesn't like the playoff narrative surrounding Judge.
“I think they're always a player for that,” says Smoltz in a one-on-one interview when asked if the Yankees will make a move at the trade deadline. “They put their roster in a good place from balance now offensively, they got a little bit of athleticism they can work with. If Aaron Judge does anything what he's doing right now, they're going to be in the sweet spot. Then the narrative switches to what he hasn't done in the postseason. That's not a fair narrative, but that's just the nature of sports. They will add a pitcher.”
Judge has faced a narrative of not coming up big in the playoffs after turning in massive regular seasons. The 33-year-old holds a career .205/.318/.450 batting split in the postseason, which is a major dip compared to his regular season career batting splits of .294/.411/.614.
He'll probably have to come up huge this postseason in order to dispel that narrative.
Will Yankees make a game-changing trade to bolster Aaron Judge-led roster?
Two of the Yankees' starting rotation pitchers have been out this season, with Luis Gil making strides towards a potential return in late June.
While the Yankees have obviously been able to weather the storm of losing two of their top starting pitchers, they will need to beef up their rotation if they want a chance at winning their first World Series since 2009. Cole won't be returning this season, which means New York is down an ace. However, Max Fried — the Yankees' big free agent signing — has stepped up in a major way to fill the void, posting a 7-1 record with a 1.92 earned run average.
New York actually ranks a respectable ninth in team ERA so far this season.
“It's a matter of which team they can cherry pick, which team is going to be in that position,” says Smoltz. “There will be a major move in the second half that drastically changes the direction of a club with the expanded playoff rosters. You have some clubs not willing to do as much, they just rather get in. Then you got some game-changer clubs where they want to be put over the top — not only just making it — but giving them a deep chance to make it to the postseason finale, and that's the World Series.”
Smoltz, who believes we could see a rematch in the World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers, is a big believer that this year's playoffs will be “spectacular.”
“I really think this year's postseason is going to be spectacular, mainly because of the imbalance of teams, and the balance of teams is going to allow for interesting trade talks and prospect/prospect swaps,” says Smoltz.
