WILL A 60-GAME SEASON HURT OR HELP THE YANKEES?

The current proposal for the MLB season is for 60 games and it is expected that an agreement between the union and league will be in that area. How will the Yankees handle a shortened season? The team was built to win a World Series this year. They have a bullpen anticipated to shut down games, plenty of power hitters, and deepened their rotation.

This depth and power were meant to stretch over an 162 game season, but now it is compressed which can be concerning for the injury-prone Yankees. The Korean baseball league has had a ton of injuries due to the ramp-up and quick start of the season. With a shortened season, time on the injured list is going to be a bigger impact.

By the 60th game of last season, the Yankees already had Luis Severino, Dellin Betances, Miguel Andujar, Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez, and Aaron Judge had made their first trips to the injured list by that point. Judge ended up missing 54 games and Stanton missed 68 games on his first trip and 73 games on his second. James Paxton missed 4 starts last season, which could be half his starts in a 60-game season.

The latest proposal would give teams three weeks of spring training to get them ready, but they are used to having much more time. Gerritt Cole had a 3.94 ERA until after game 60 when he would improve to a 1.62 ERA. 60 games into the Yankees season their hitters were settling in with 97 home runs and 320 runs.

Even though there are going to be a lot of downsides to the shortened season, at the 60-game mark last season the Yankees held a 1.5-game lead in the American League East, but only had the third-best record in the AL.

Even though getting to the point that we could even talk about a baseball season has been tough, and it feels like the MLB has failed us, just getting this shortened season would make a lot of people happy. Especially when the Yankees still have a shot to succeed.

--Missy O'Rourke

BYB Contributor

Twitter: @missy_orourke