With the 2018 season behind us, it is time to look back on the 2018 season and determine which Yankees were the least valuable to the club’s success.
The New York Yankees had a season that most teams would die for. New York finished with 100 wins but would be eliminated by the eventual World Champion Boston Red Sox in the ALDS. While many players did their best to bring the team to the promise land, there are a few that hurt the team along the way.
Let’s take a look at the least valuable Yankees of this past season:
Number One: Jacoby Ellsbury
Alright, so I understand the question becomes how can a guy who didn’t play have a down year. Well, there lies your answer. Jacoby Ellsbury was sidelined with injury after injury all season long and while his “super” agent Scott Boras says he will be primed and ready to go for Spring Training, that doesn’t negate the fact that Jacoby cashed in a $20 plus million salary to sit in the doctor’s office.
For that very reason, it was a downright awful season for Jacoby as a New York Yankee.
Number Two: Sonny Gray
What was supposed to be a fresh start and a clearing of the mind was Sonny Gray’s 2018 season. The mid-season trade of 2017 saw Sonny struggle. So going into 2018 it was a believed that a full offseason under his belt would allow Gray to get comfortable and pitch productively for the Pinstripes. However, that was not the case.
Gray would find himself seemingly out of it from his first pitch. The entire 2018 season for “Pickles” was a crimson stain of his once impressive career. Gray would pitch to an ERA of nearly five and would have an ERA+ of 89 (league average is 100.) Gray was a below average pitcher for the Yankees and the experiment seems to be heading towards a conclusion.
As during the closing press conference, Yankees GM Brian Cashman was asked and answered the question of Sonny Gray. Paraphrasing Cashman, he said that Gray would probably be better off somewhere else. So look for Sonny Gray to be somewhere else next season.
Number Three: Tommy Kahnle
Tommy Kahnle was once the most valuable piece of the 2017 trading deadline for the Yankees. However, 2018 was not the same story. As in 2018 Kahnle would spend a majority of the season in the Minor Leagues. What was at first thought to be able his service time manipulation quickly turned into questioning if the “stuff” was still there? Tommy would pitch only 23.1 innings. But it was to the tune of an ERA of 6.56, surrendering nearly a run an inning pitched (22 runs allowed.)