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Author: Neil Keefe

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Mar 4, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Four Weeks Without an Injury?

It’s been a clean week of health for the Yankees in spring training. That’s all I care about this month. No injuries. Performance is meaningless. Not losing anyone to injury is all that matters.

It’s been a clean week of health for the Yankees in spring training. That’s all I care about this month. No injuries. Performance is meaningless. Not losing anyone to injury is all that matters.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Jameson Taillon and Corey Kluber have both pitched and both looked good and both came out injury-free. The results don’t matter in March, but the health certainly does, and the Yankees’ 2021 championship aspirations rest on the elbow of Taillon and the shoulder of Kluber. It’s not exactly what you want for a team built to win now, but it’s what the Yankees have built. Each day of March in which you don’t hear the words “soreness” or “discomfort” or the phrases “being evaluated” or “shut down” is a good day. There has only been one of those days so far (Clarke Schmidt’s injury). Let’s keep it that way.

2. Aaron Boone has said he’s going to bat Aaron Hicks third this season. I’m not surprised because I was expecting this. He batted him third in the past and in the postseason, so why wouldn’t he bat him third in 2021? It’s the same reason why I think he will have Kyle Higashioka unnecessarily serve as Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher and why he won’t hesitate to play Brett Gardner over Clint Frazier. Hicks is not a 3-hitter. He’s just not. If DJ LeMahieu leads off and Aaron Judge bats second, there is still the option of batting Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres or Frazier third. (I would even bat Sanchez third like it’s 2017 over Hicks, but I know that’s not realistic right now.) The idea the right-handed hitters have to be separated in the Yankees’ lineup makes no sense because if Frazier really is going to be the everyday left fielder over Gardner, then there will be eight right-handed bats in the Yankees’ lineup “every” day. That means no matter where Hicks bats, there’s going to be eight consecutive right-handed batters. Over the course of the season, Hicks shouldn’t be getting more at-bats than Stanton, Voit, Torres or Frazier, or Sanchez (if he’s right this season).

3. Sanchez looks right in spring training. Two home runs already and one that nearly left Tampa. I know it’s March and these games don’t count, but having two home runs is better than having none, and if Sanchez had none right now or was 0-for-spring training, he would be hearing about it. I think he will bat no higher than seventh to begin the season, and I can see him batting eighth ahead of Gio Urshela or even ninth behind Urshela. If 2016-17, the Yankees will have the best 8- or 9-hitter in history. If that Sanchez returns, there will be a lot of Yankees fans who owe Sanchez an apology, and I want handwritten apologies, not social media apologies.

4. Opening Day is four weeks from today. Four weeks! This is what I would do on Opening Day against the Blue Jays’ left-handed Hyun Jin Ryu:

DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Aaron Judge, RF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Luke Voit, 1B
Gleyber Torres, SS
Clint Frazier, LF
Gary Sanchez, C
Aaron Hicks, CF
Gio Urshela, 3B

(I know that’s not what’s going to happen.)

5. I think this is what we will see on Opening Day:

DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Aaron Judge, RF
Aaron Hicks, CF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Luke Voit, 1B
Gleyber Torres, SS
Clint Frazier, LF
Gary Sanchez, C
Gio Urshela, 3B

6. No one from the fifth starter “competition” has pitched yet, so the “competition” has yet to actually start. However, I don’t think there’s a competition anyway. It’s Domingo German’s job. As I wrote on Monday, the Yankees didn’t keep scumbag German through his suspension and through all the negative attention, publicity and backlash to not have him pitch. They didn’t purposely insert a cancer into their clubhouse and then try to tip toe around his presence by not having him address his teammates until the team’s veteran bullpen leader spoke out against him to send him to the minors. German is still a Yankee because the Yankees think he can help them win and think his disgusting act will be forgotten if he helps them do so.

7. Miguel Andujar, Mike Tauchman, Derek Dietrich and Jay Bruce seem to be competing for one roster spot. If the Yankees are going to have four bench spots, one goes to Higashioka, one to Gardner, one to Tyler Wade and one to one of those four. As a left-handed outfielder, Tauchman is redundant with Gardner, so I don’t see how he’s on the 26-man roster. Andujar can play third base and I guess outfielder and first base? The Yankees will want Andujar to get everyday at-bats, and he’s yet another right-handed hitter on a team full of them, so I don’t see him being on the Opening Day roster.

8. That leaves one spot for Dietrich and Bruce. Dietrich can play first, second, third and outfield, and Bruce can play first, second and outfield. Right now, I think Dietrich holds an edge on Bruce. He’s younger, more versatile and a much better on-base option. I would pick Dietrich for the final bench spot.

9. There’s also one spot available in the bullpen, if the Yankees have 13 pitchers. Yes, they can have 14 relievers to begin the season and then send someone down for the fifth starter when they eventually need a fifth starter for the first time, which could be April 6 or 7 depending on if they go in full rotation or go back to Cole after four days of rest. If they go with 13 pitchers and go with five starters, and then you count Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Chad Green, Darren O’Day, Justin Wilson, Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa, that leaves one spot. If they hold off on the fifth starter, there’s two spots.

10. Albert Abreu is out of options, so he might be the front-runner if there’s only one spot. If there are two spots, Michael King and Nick Nelson would then seem to be competing for the last spot. No one should care about the last man in the bullpen because they should only be pitching in lopsided games, but when it comes to the Yankees, you can never count out seeing the last man in the bullpen in a high-leverage situation they don’t belong in. Every bullpen spot matters on this team.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

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Podcasts • Rangers • Rangers Podcast

Mar 3, 2021

Rangers Podcast: Is Postseason Still in Play?

The Rangers won for the fourth time in their last six games after beating the Sabres 3-2 on Tuesday night.

The Rangers entered the second quarter of the season needing to win two-thirds of their remaining 42 games to have a chance at reaching the postseason. So far, so good in the second quarter as they have now won four of their last six games after beating the Sabres 3-2.

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Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Thoughts

Mar 3, 2021

Rangers Thoughts: Inevitable Jack Eichel Trade Won’t Hurt Rangers’ Roster

Jack Eichel played against his potential future team in his potential future home on Tuesday night against the Rangers at the Garden. Everything points to Eichel becoming a Ranger sometime in the next five months.

Jack Eichel played against his potential future team in his potential future home on Tuesday night against the Rangers at the Garden. Everything points to Eichel becoming a Ranger sometime in the next five months, and all of today’s thoughts are on a potential Eichel trade.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers (kind of).

1. When the Rangers traded for Rick Nash nine years ago this July, they gave up Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a first-round pick. It should hurt a team to acquire a talent like Nash, a 40-goal scorer and Team Canada first-liner, and it didn’t hurt at all. All three of those players were expendable. The only thing that hurt was losing the 2013 first-round pick, but the Blue Jackets used that pick on Kerby Rychel and he has played 43 career NHL games (with his last coming during the 2018-19 season). The Rangers used the the third-round pick they received from Columbus in the deal on Pavel Buchnevich.

2. Like Nash, it should hurt for the Rangers to trade for Jack Eichel, but I don’t think it will. It will hurt a little more than it did to acquire Nash because of Eichel’s age and position, but nearly not to the level it should. Eichel “reportedly” being unhappy in Buffalo and this being public knowledge assures the Rangers won’t pay full value for the 24-year-old center. The Sabres will be negotiating from a point of weakness, just like the Blue Jackets were nearly nine years ago.

3. Nash spent nine seasons in Columbus and played in one postseason a four-game sweep. He had been a two-time 40-goal scorer for the Blue Jackets and had scored at least 30 goals in seven of his nine seasons with them. This is Eichel’s sixth season in Buffalo. He has never played in a postseason game, and also has never scored 40 goals, scoring more than 28 just once (36 last season), but he plays the more demanding and coveted position and is four years younger than Nash was when the Rangers traded for him.

4. Sure, the Sabres could keep Eichel if they don’t approve of an offer for him, but that seems like the least likely result of how this plays out. The most likely result is Eichel being traded in the upcoming offseason, followed by Eichel being traded during this season, and lastly, Eichel remaining with the Sabres for 2021-22. Keeping Eichel would cause the Sabres to run the the risk of him getting injured, less happy playing in Buffalo or possibly being less productive. He would also be a year older. The Sabres’ return for Eichel will only lessen the longer he’s a Sabre past this summer.

5. As a Rangers fan, of course I want the Rangers to land someone like Eichel. He is one of the game’s best pure goal scorers (just don’t look at his numbers this season), a true No. 1 center and only 24 years old. He checks every box the Rangers need (and every team needs for that matter). The Rangers are going to exit their rebuild/transition status for the 2021-22 season, and adding Eichel to a team whose young core features Alexis Lafreniere (19), Kappo Kakko (20), Filip Chytil (21), Adam Fox (23) and K’Andre Miller (21) makes all the sense in the world. Even Artemi Panarin (29), Mika Zibanejad (27), Chris Kreider (29) and Jacob Trouba (27) are all currently still in their 20s. The problem is, to get Eichel, not all of those names would be on the 2021-22 Rangers.

6. To me, Lafreniere, Kakko, Chytil, Fox and Miller are untouchables, and the Rangers don’t need to include them given Buffalo’s position in an inevitable trade. Panarin isn’t going anywhere, and neither are Kreider or Trouba. That leaves Zibanejad and Chytil from those names.

7. Right now, Zibanejad and Chytil are the Rangers’ two best centers, even if Zibanejad has looked lost this season, and Chytil has barely played. (It’s remarkable the Rangers are only six points out of a playoff spot given the lack of production from these two.) Zibanejad’s name has been the most consistent in proposed returns for the Sabres in an Eichel trade because he will be a free agent at the end of next season, his salary will help offset Eichel’s $10 million per and the Rangers seemingly can’t keep Zibanejad and pay Eichel and pay Panarin and Trouba what they owe them and have enough room for eventual deals for the five untouchables.

8. The problem is, at best, the Rangers have two great centers in Zibanejad in Chytil, when Chytil is playing at his peak level. (Sorry, Ryan Strome and Brett Howden). Removing either one for Eichel puts the Rangers in the same position they are currently in. Unless the one they’re removing is Chytil. But by trading Chytil, the Rangers run the risk of losing Zibanejad after next season and then they would only have Eichel as a capable top-six center. The Rangers’ window with both Eichel and Zibanejad would be one season. One season to outlast 31 other teams isn’t promising.

9. At this point, I would be surprised if Eichel isn’t eventually a Ranger. All signs point to him being traded, and the Rangers have the cap space and the assets to complete a trade. It makes the most sense for the Rangers to trade for Eichel in the offseason rather than during the season, when it will undoubtedly cost them less, especially in a season in which it’s a stretch to see them reaching the postseason given their inconsistent play and the division they play in.

10. When the Rangers sent out the letter three years ago before they began to dismantle the core of their team over the next three calendar years by trading Nash, Ryan McDonagh, J.T. Miller, Mats Zuccarello, Kevin Hayes, Brady Skjei and Marc Staal and by buying out Henrik Lundqvist, I didn’t see them being here in a such a relatively short amount of time. Here being trading for Trouba, signing Panarin, miraculously landing the No. 2 pick in Kakko and even more miraculously landing the No. 1 pick in Lafreniere, hitting on two potential Top 2 defensemen in Fox and Miller and having the first heir to Lundqvist look like the next Lundqvist in Igor Shesterkin. Now, it seems like they will inevitably trade for Eichel at a discounted rate between now and the first game of 2021-22.

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Blogs • Yankees

Mar 2, 2021

Gerrit Cole-Gary Sanchez Relationship Has to Work

The Yankees need their best catcher to play the most games possible. They don’t need to be assigning personal catchers.

I already know when the first time Aaron Boone will affect my life during the 2021 season. I have it narrowed down to two possibilities.

One possibility is in Game 3 of the season, on Easter Sunday (April 4). The Yankees will have played the day before, so it will be their first time playing on consecutive days in the season, and with three games in three days following, Boone will inexplicably give guys a scheduled day off in the third game of the season after having played 67 games in the previous 17-plus months.

The other possibility is even before the third game of the season. It’s on Opening Day. With Gerrit Cole scheduled to start the first game of the season, there’s a good chance Boone will pair him with Kyle Higashioka and bench Gary Sanchez on Opening Day, a decision that will have severe consequences in Game 1 of 162.

On Monday, Sanchez caught Cole’s first spring training start, and Cole said he thought the two “worked well today” and that they did “a nice job together” and called it “a good day.”

Last season, Sanchez was pulled from catching Cole starts, and Higashioka was inserted as a personal catcher for the right-hander. It wasn’t promising for the Yankees’ ace to need a personal catcher a month into what will be nearly a decade with the team. The Yankees cited the smallest of sample sizes for their decision and as a backup, they used a high school relationship with the two being teammates more than a decade ago as a reason for the pairing. Higashioka had very little to do with Cole’s success, if he anything to do with it all. There’s a reason Cole is arguably the best pitcher in the world, and it’s not because of a career backup catcher with 72 career games to his name.

Either Cole went to Boone and asked to have Higashioka catch him, or the Yankees made the decision and he didn’t argue it. Either way, Cole allowed Higashioka to become his personal catcher, and he allowed an inferior player to start two playoff games, and Boone, on his own, had Higashioka start another three.

Boone has said Sanchez would have caught Cole’s next start in the ALCS if the Yankees had won Game of the 5 ALDS, but I believe that as much as I believed Boone when he said he didn’t pull Judge from a game last season due to injury and then the right fielder missed half the season.

Boone has very little idea what he’s doing as Yankees manager. His in-game managing is detrimental to the team’s success that he is at times more of an opponent for the Yankees than their actual opponent. His communication skills, which were praised upon his hiring, haven’t been what they were hyped up to be. Under his watch, his 2018 ALDS Game 3 starting pitcher didn’t know what time the game started in what resulted in the Yankees’ worst home postseason loss in history; he has been as wrong as you can be about injury updates and return timetables; he blatantly lied about the health of Aaron Judge in the 2020 regular season; he benched the team’s best catcher in the 2020 postseason without an explanation; most recently, he admittedly didn’t “gauge the temperature” of his team when bringing a scumbag, who committed domestic abuse in front of his teammates, back into the clubhouse. Boone’s best quality as a manager is that he appears to be a nice guy, and that’s not nearly enough for someone whose job it is to manage a Major League Baseball team. I know a lot of nice guys. I don’t want them in charge of the Yankees, allowed to pull Deivi Garcia after the first inning of a playoff game for J.A. Happ as part of a preconceived strategy.

Brian Cashman, in his end-of-the-season press conference, said Boone makes all lineup decisions (clearly not wanting his name attached to the disastrous ALDS Game 2 pitching strategy).

“In terms of the lineup and in-game strategies, those are the manager’s,” Cashman said in October. “It always has been and as long as I’m the general manager, it never will be different.”

The decision to play Higashioka over Sanchez was Boone’s. Just like it was his decision to pull Garcia for Happ, play Brett Gardner over Clint Frazier and use mike Ford as a pinch hitter instead of Sanchez or Frazier with the season on the line.

“I know there’s that narrative about the manager being a puppet and none of that’s true,” Cashman also said. “I’ve never ordered a manager to do anything specifically and Aaron would be able to testify to that as well as Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. They’ve never been directed at any time by me or our front office to do something they didn’t want to do.

It will take very little for Boone to pair Higashioka with Cole again this season and to start the season. I mean very little. If he was willing to play Higashioka over Sanchez in October, whether or not Cole was pitching, he will gladly play Higashioka over Sanchez in April. Or it might not take anything at all. Boone already knows if he’s going to have Higashioka be Cole’s personal catcher, andif he’s going to bench Sanchez on Opening Day. It won’t be a surprise, it will just be the latest idiotic decision on the long list of idiotic decisions Boone has made. A decision that will have severe consequences in the first game of 162.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

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Podcasts • Yankees • Yankees Podcast

Mar 1, 2021

Yankees Podcast: Who Will Be the Fifth Starter?

If you ask the Yankees, they will tell you there is a competition for the fifth spot in the rotation. In actuality, there isn’t.

If you ask the Yankees, they will tell you there is a competition for the fifth spot in the rotation between Deivi Garcia, Domingo German, Michael King and Jhoulys Chacin. In actuality, the spot is going to go to German.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

Read More