Guess there's nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy baseball, and the "what if" game is usually all you got left in September when you miss the playoffs. I'll bite: Instead of 80-77, which is where the Yanks sit today, I put their record at 77-80 if Judge doesn't over-stub his toe. And that's because I doubt Cashman has the nuts needed to make the late-season pivot to the corps of younger players if Judge is playing every day. He signed, traded for and overpaid the 2023 geriatric Yanks line up, and I don't see him admitting he was dead wrong so many times in his choices. To take it to the nth degree, if Judge plays every day, you could very well still see Donaldson at 3rd.
More than the other big sports, baseball requires a team effort. A single player doesn't determine a club's season. Plenty of teams have lost superstars and fared well, ie, the Braves without Acuna in 2021. And plenty of teams have fielded healthy superstars and stunk up the park for 6 months, ie, Trout and the Angels for all those years when he wasn't hurt.
Depth is King in baseball. The Rays, the Dodgers, The Rangers, the Twins....they have all lost massive pieces this season and are still in the October mix. Those teams are solid and deep; they've shown that they can take a hit or 4 and bounce back strong. The Yankees? well, there's a lot of soul-searching to be done there after a truly abysmal season. If Judge being on the IL for a couple of months is the reason the Yankees tanked in 2023, you got big, big problems in the Bronx.
