When DJ LeMahieu took the field in Seattle last Tuesday, it felt like déjà vu all over again. Now in his seventh season in pinstripes, Yankees fans have seen more comeback attempts by the veteran than can be counted on one hand. After finishing top five in MVP voting in each of his first two years with New York, LeMahieu regressed to a league-average player as he reached his mid-30s. The bottom fell out last year, with the infielder posting a .527 OPS and -1.6 bWAR, no easy feat for a player whose defense still graded out strongly. He missed the start of the year with a broken foot and got shut down in the season’s final month with a hip injury.
This offseason, when LeMahieu appeared likely to receive yet another chance to hold down an everyday spot in the Yankees’ lineup, I snidely called GM Brian Cashman’s espoused hope that the old DJ could return “sadly akin to Charlie Brown gearing up for his umpteenth attempt to kick a football.”
That pessimism was borne out when the 36-year-old tweaked his calf after a single spring training game, missing the rest of camp and the start of the season. But, after hitting .444 in nine rehab games (a stretch that was interrupted yet again by issues with his hip) and injuries to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Oswaldo Cabrera, LeMahieu returned to action this week, poised once again to get everyday reps.
Based on everything I’ve written and said about DJ LeMahieu over the past couple of years, that reality should fill me with dread. But, for better and for worse, I contain the heart of a baseball fan. And, over the course of 162 games plus playoffs each year, baseball fans spend more time with the players on our favorite teams than fans of any other sports.
Even — or, perhaps, especially — as it relates to a player with DJ’s inscrutable demeanor, we fall in love with our guys. Not only DJ’s performance but his workaday mentality and the (very) occasional glimpses he gave of his dry sense of humor endeared him to me as much as any player on Yankees squads of recent vintage. When I think of DJ, before I picture the futility of 2024, my mind goes first to LeMachine, the player who hit a dramatic, game-tying homer in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS against the hated Astros, the player whose astounding 2020 was a salve to watch each evening in otherwise trying times.
And so, despite my better judgement and even my own past editorializing, seeing DJ LeMahieu take the field at T-Mobile Park this week brought a smile to my face and a thought to my mind that was as stirring as it was absurd. What if DJ is back? Not just back on the roster. Back to being DJ.
For a myriad of reasons, it’s beyond unlikely we’ll see anything resembling the 2019-20 DJ LeMahieu. He’ll turn 37 in July and hasn’t hit at a league-average level by OPS+ since 2022. As a matter of fact, he hit at a league-average level only once in his eight seasons before joining the Yankees. The most likely scenario, by far, is that DJ’s magical season-and-a-half in pinstripes were the aberration and that, as he enters his late-30s, the infielder no longer has the makings of a key contributor.
But I have no intention to talk myself out of my excitement. Baseball is as good an outlet as any for irrational enthusiasm, for putting faith in the unlikely and hoping against hope. Upon DJ’s return, his manager, Aaron Boone, said “As long as he’s healthy, I won’t be surprised with anything he brings to the table.”
It’s the kind of comment I would have rolled my eyes at this spring. But now that DJ’s back? Hear, hear, skip.
