The last few years, the Yankees have regularly filled their lineup with some of the top players at their particular position — with the possible exception of Gary Sánchez, in fact, one could even make the case that every member of the Yankees’ starting lineup is, at worst, top-15 at their position. Quite a few have strong cases to be within the top five. Unfortunately, however, many of those players have not filled the lineup on a regular basis, as the Yankees have been forced to dive deep into their depth due to repeated injuries.
The regular use of backups in the past few seasons has gotten me thinking about what the baseline for backups ought to be for a team right in the middle of their window of contention, such as the Yankees.