The Yankees outfield should see an improvement in 2015

Can Carlos Beltran rebound to the 2013 version after a rough 2014?

With the offseason underway, Brian Cashman has already declared that, barring a trade, the outfield is set. To fill the vacancy left by free agent Ichiro Suzuki, the Yankees acted quickly to ink Chris Young to a one-year $2.5 million dollar deal to be the club’s fourth outfielder behind Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner.

Looking back at this past season, there was offensive disappointment everywhere and the outfield was no exception.

Beltran went down with pain in his elbow on May 13th and further tests revealed that an old bone spur was the root cause. The thought at the time was, with a cortisone injection, that he would be able to play through the rest of the season. Unfortunately, the plan to delay the inevitable surgery was a big mistake in hindsight that bit him and the team the rest of the year. He returned to action on June 5th and just wasn’t able to perform at a high level the rest of the way, most likely due to continued discomfort.

Ichiro Suzuki was another disappointment, as his putrid offensive numbers show, which was unsurprising from a then 40 year-old slap hitter that the team desperately attempted to trade throughout 2014. Thankfully, Brett Gardner and newcomer Jacoby Ellsbury were able to provide the team with offensive contributions throughout the season as both put up very solid stat lines. In a lineup that lacked punch, Gardner broke out and hit a career-high 16 dingers, while Ellsbury hit the second-highest total of his career with 16 of his own.

Looking ahead to the 2015 season, Steamer projections on Fangraphs can give us an idea of what we can expect next year.

Young will be an offensive upgrade over Ichiro in every category except for batting average, which will be a welcome site for this offensively-starved team. Returning to join him in the outfield mix are Ellsbury, Gardner and Beltran for next season. The Steamer projections do show slight regression for Brett Gardner, but a healthy Beltran and Young’s better bat should be enough to provide much better output from the outfield next season. As always, the biggest question mark will be health as the starting three are no strangers to the disabled list.

The Yankees encountered a rough 2014 in the outfield, despite solid production from Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner.  With a healthy Beltran returning and Chris Young in the mix, offensive production should improve substantially in comparison to this past season. I would expect to see Young replace Beltran quite often late in games as Beltran is just a horrible defender with bad knees.