Do the Yankees Have Value to Win American League?

The New York Yankees were the hottest team in MLB at the midway point, but things haven’t gone as planned in August for the historic franchise.

It almost looked like the game was too easy for the Yankees through three months. There wasn’t much competition for them, owning the best record in the American League. The only real hurdle looked like a future matchup against the National League’s best Los Angeles Dodgers. 

However, since the All-Star break, the Yankees have fallen to the fifth-best record in baseball, and there are many question marks about how sustainable their early season success was. 

This begs the question, did the Yankees peak early, or is there still value in some of their futures odds?

One of the Yankees’ biggest power threats hasn’t suited up for the Bronx Bombers since July 23, but he’s returning as soon as tomorrow against the Oakland Athletics. Giancarlo Stanton had been putting up great numbers before his injury, tallying 24 home runs and a .807 OPS. Clearly, the Yankees lineup wasn’t deep enough, and losing one key player caused issues in their order. The addition of Andrew Benintendi at the top of the lineup added a presence that can get on base, but they’ve been lacking middle-of-the-order threats that can drive in runs consistently. 

For a while, the Yankees had two AL Cy Young candidates in Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes, but the two haven’t shown up as much in the second half, making things troublesome for New York. In a somewhat puzzling move, the Yankees traded Jordan Montgomery to the St. Louis Cardinals at the deadline. So far, they’ve likely regretted that decision after the lefthander posted a 0.35 ERA in four starts. Still, if Cole and Cortes are your Game 1 and 2 starters, Jameson Taillon or Frankie Montas can be solid presences for the team in Games 3 and 4 during a longer series. 

With the Houston Astros overtaking the Yankees for the best record in the American League, it only makes sense that they have the best odds of winning the pennant. The question that needs to be answered is whether the Yankees are a value play with the second highest odds to win the league. That number currently sits at +210, compared to the Astros’ +145. 

You can argue that with such a big lead in the AL East, the best time for the Yankees to struggle was in August. The team is slowly getting healthy, and once that occurs, we’ll likely get a better idea of how serious this team is as contenders in the AL. For the time being, their price of +210 has value, but with a wide-open American League, you can likely find better prices down the board.