Effectively Wild Episode 1745: The State of the Starting Pitcher fangraphs.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from fangraphs.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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DJ LeMahieu, like many Yankees, has fallen short of expectations thus far in 2021. Despite the three major WAR metrics rating him as somewhere between a solid everyday player and a good everyday player despite his slow start, that’s well below the standard to which Yankee fans have become accustomed since his arrival in 2019. Of course, two Silver Slugger awards and two top-four MVP finishes in two seasons set the bar pretty high.
There’s been much hand-wringing about what’s “wrong” with DJ, and what needs to change or be fixed for him to return to the savage in the box he’s been in pinstripes, so there’s no need to ask and try to answer that question again. The question I’d rather ask is, “Is the 2021 version of DJ, the ‘real’ DJ?” Perhaps Yankee fans should temper their expectations and consider that the guy who was impersonating Rogers Hornsby last season was the aberration. Furthermore, if that is indeed the case, the 2021 v