Chad Tracy is hardly the only person that has been added to the fold between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees’ back-to-back meetings in the American League Wild Card Series.
The Red Sox have made substantial additions to the rotation, with Payton Tolle, Sonny Gray, and Ranger Suarez being named the starting pitchers for the best-of-three series at Yankee Stadium — making for a much deeper unit than the one that fell off a cliff after Garrett Crochet last season and relied on the likes of Brayan Bello and Connelly Early. Roman Anthony, Willson Contreras, Adley Rutschman, and Caleb Durbin will join the lineup in hopes to scrape together more than the six total runs they scored last season. Crochet could end up joining the bullpen in his return from injury, along with newcomers Erik Miller and Jake Bennett, which is a pretty decent group of pitchers being added to one of the very best units in baseball this season.
The Yankees will also be in a better position on the pitching side, with Gerrit Cole serving as the do-or-die option behind Cam Schlittler and Max Fried. Luis Garcia Jr., Heliot Ramos, and George Lombard Jr. should help the lineup against left-handers, though there is something to be said about the so-so status of Aaron Judge.
If we can boil all of that down, though, only one man can completely swing the series…
Tracy’s most difficult decisions might come before the season even starts, as he will be relied upon heavily to figure out who will fill out the roster — Braiden Ward? Jarren Duran? Curtis Mead? Jahmai Jones? Nate Eaton? Isiah Kiner-Falefa? Crochet?
It’s not going to be easy, but all of that pales in comparison to making decisions with who will play, when they will play, and how he manages things when the lights are at their brightest in The Bronx.
“It’s the playoffs, so we’re at the point in the season where teams that are remaining need to win or they’re going home,” Tracy said during his media availability on Monday. “I have a feel for that.
“… It’s all hands on deck. I think everyone is aware that during the playoffs it’s about winning moments and being aggressive — all those things. I think most of our guys who have been around understand that, so we’re going to go out and play our butts off and manage and do everything we can to win each game.”
Alex Cora, the manager of last year’s squad that became the first in history to lose the best-of-three series after taking a lead, made some… interesting decisions in hindsight.
Bello was pulled after 2 1/3 innings in Game 2, which led to Justin Wilson, Zack Kelly, Garrett Whitlock, and Tolle being used out of the bullpen and becoming unavailable for Game 3. Nate Eaton started over Wilyer Abreu in Game 2. Rob Refsnyder got two starts over Masataka Yoshida, which makes sense considering they faced two left-handers, but he finished 0-for-5 while the latter went 4-for-7. Nathaniel Lowe played in all three games, while Nick Sogard only played in two.
It’s easy to go back in time and poke holes though these decisions with the benefit of hindsight, but that’s kind of the whole point in looking ahead at the same two teams playing each other again with one of them being led by someone new.
Tracy needs to avoid making similar mistakes, and he needs to do it without the benefit of years of experience in similar situations. The Red Sox stripped him of that interim tag because they believe he can, and it’s only a matter of time before we find out whether or not they’re right.
