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Author: Neil Keefe

Blogs • Rangers

Feb 17, 2021

David Quinn’s Job Security Isn’t What It Was

The Rangers are in the middle of their second four-game losing streaks in just 14 games. David Quinn hasn’t done anything this season to prove he’s the right head coach to continue to lead the team.

I have never thought anyone other than David Quinn would be the Rangers’ head coach to begin the 2021-22 season. Even if the Rangers were a last-place team this season, there would be too many excuses available as to why the team was keeping Quinn. There was no training camp. There were no exhibition games. The season started in January. There were only 56 games. The Rangers have the youngest roster in the league. This was always supposed to be the last rebuilding year. There would be an abundance of options for the Rangers to use to protect Quinn. But not if the Rangers play like this.

Being a last-place team with the youngest roster in the league is one thing. Losing the way the Rangers have through the first month of this season is a whole different thing. After losing four consecutive games over the first and second week of the season, the Rangers are currently in their second four-game losing streak of the season. Yes, two separate four-game losing streaks in a season that is 34 days and 14 games old.

The Rangers have lost 10 of their 14 games this season. They have been shut out and blown out, they have pissed away one- and two-goal leads, many of which were in the third period. They have lost in overtime a couple times and in a shootout once. They have lost every way imaginable in less than five weeks, but none of their previous nine losses were as bad as their loss on Tuesday to the Devils at the Garden.

The Devils hadn’t played a game since Jan. 31. They had practiced once since then. They should have been trying to get their legs and knocking off the rust of playing in an actual game, or playing period. Instead, they gave it to the Rangers from the opening puck drop and never let up. Anyone unaware of the Devils’ recent situation would have thought it was the Rangers who hadn’t played at all in February. The difference in plays from the two teams was that apparent.

Rather than take advantage of a Devils team that was essentially restarting their season, the Rangers failed to score in the first period, eventually losing 5-2. Over their last four games, they have scored four goals. The goal scorers: Julien Gauthier, Kevin Rooney and Colin Blackwell and Pavel Buchnevich. One goal from the top two lines.

Yes, the players deserve a lot of the blame for the current 4-7-3 record. Mika Zibanejad has one goal. Chris Kreider has five points. Kaapo Kakko has two goals. Alexis Lafrenière has as many goals (1) as Gauthier who has played in five fewer games and has only played fourth-line minutes in his nine games.

The production hasn’t been there from the names that are supposed to be producing. But a good part of the blame for that falls on Quinn, who frantically changes his lines from shift to shift, seems to not want to properly utilize the 2019 No. 2 overall pick and the 2020 No. 1 overall pick, and seemingly gives out ice time based on seniority rather than talent, skill or ability.

After the loss, a mopey Quinn navigated his way through his postgame press conference with a lost, dejected and at times cocky demeanor. None of his answers gave any insight into how he plans to turn the season around for the second time in a month, and if anything, he made Rangers fans less confident than they already feel that he’s the right man to make the team a contender in the near future.

I decided to analyze Quinn’s postgame press conference answers the way I did after the team’s previous fourth straight loss at the end of January.

On if the loss was an opportunity wasted.
“Any time you play in the NHL you have an opportunity to get two points, regardless of who you are playing and we let another opportunity slip from our hands to get two points. Give them a lot of credit, they played well.”

What insight from Quinn. Thank you for sharing with everyone the objective of the NHL and the goal for every team in every game. At least we now all know he knows how the standings work.

On if effort was an issue in the loss.
“Yeah.”

That’s it. That was his answer. One word. “Effort” is always attached to the coaching staff, and mainly the head coach. So Quinn is implicating the job he has done by admitting to the team lacking the effort needed to beat a team playing a game for the first time in 17 days. You would think if you were admitting to the public that you failed at your job, you would want to give a reason or at least make up some excuse or place the blame elsewhere, but not Quinn. A one-word response was all he needed.

On if the loss was harder because of everything New Jersey has gone through.
“I’m not paying attention to the opponent when we are evaluating our team. I’m just disappointed in some of the things that went on from our end tonight, a drop-off in a lot of areas. Just not good enough.”

If Quinn thinks anyone believes he didn’t know of the Devils’ lack of play in February then he’s more than lost than I originally thought. It would also mean he isn’t aware of the ongoing pandemic or isn’t in tune with the league’s protocols or why he has to wear a mask everywhere he goes (accept when he talks to his players on the bench because he clearly thinks the mask is a fashion accessory and not to keep him and his players safe when’s talking to them).

On how the effort issue be addressed.
“It will be addressed at practice and before practice and after practice and before we play Philly.“

I think Quinn is trying to say he’s going to bag skate the Rangers on Wednesday? That makes a lot of sense because that’s what this team needs: unnecessary, time-wasting sprints. They don’t need to create stable, successful line combinations or work on creating usable power-play units. No, they need to sprint to pay for the loss to the Devils.

It would be a lot easier to back Quinn and believe in him if he gave a reason to. If he were playing Lafrenière the way a No. 1 overall pick should playing or Kakko the way a No. 2 overall pick should be playing, or keeping his line combinations together for more than a few shifts each game, and putting the most talented offensive players on the first power play, and the team was still losing games, then so be it. That could be considered a young, inexperienced team figuring it out. But what’s been going on can’t be considered that. Not when Quinn is clearly trying to win by doing what he thinks will work and it isn’t working. All that shows is that he doesn’t know how to actually win. He’s seems to know how to bench players and hand out healthy scratches as punishment to prove a point. When it comes to actually winning games consistently with a roster that should be winning games consistently, he has yet to prove he knows how to do that.

If this keeps up, the job I thought would be Quinn’s in 2021-22 no matter what won’t be. If this keeps up, his job for the rest of 2021 might not be his either.

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Podcasts • Rangers • Rangers Podcast

Feb 17, 2021

Rangers Podcast: Team Sucks Right Now

The Rangers have lost 10 of 14 games and have the third-worst winning percentage, ahead of only Detroit and Ottawa.

The Rangers have lost 10 of 14 games and have the third-worst winning percentage in the NHL, ahead of only Detroit and Ottawa. The Rangers have put together two four-game losing streaks in only 14 games, and their season is now 25 percent over.

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Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Offseason

Feb 16, 2021

Yankees Should Regret James Paxton Trade

The Yankees’ pre-2019 trade for James paxton didn’t work out the same way nearly every Brian Cashman trade for starting pitching hasn’t worked out.

Nearly three years ago at the 2018 trade deadline, I called James Paxton “blah” and in the same category as Chris Archer and Michael Fulmer. They were all pitchers I didn’t think were worth the Yankees trading for since they wouldn’t really make the team that much better and certainly weren’t worth giving up high-end prospects for. It was hard to find anyone who shared my perspective.

The allure of Paxton’s raw stuff and ceiling to be among the game’s best when he was on is what made him attractive to the Yankees and most Yankees fans, the way A.J. Burnett likely had. The problem is Paxton was the left-handed version of Burnett: unhittable when consistent, but rarely consistent. I referred to him as “blah” because of that inconsistency combined with his lengthy injury-riddled past. I agreed when Paxton was on, he was one as dominant as anyone in the league, but he was rarely on in consecutive starts or for any reasonable stretch of time.

Paxton was “blah” as a Yankee. He came to the team having never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a season (2018), and he fell under that mark in 2019 with 150 2/3 innings after spending a month on the injured list early in the season with a knee injury. After putting together an impressive second-half run to emerge as the Yankees’ top healthy starter, he hurt his back in his final regular-season game of 2019, and then was shaky in the ALDS (three earned runs in 4 2/3 innings) and couldn’t give any length in the ALCS (8 1/3 innings over two starts). The back injury lingered until February 2020 when he underwent surgery to resolve it. Once he returned when the season started in late July, his velocity had disappeared, and he turned in one quality start in five attempts before being shut down with a 6.64 ERA, effectively ending his Yankees tenure.

Paxton’s time with the Yankees was a letdown, and all my fears of trading for him came to fruition. To his credit, with the Yankees, he was exactly who he had been his entire career. There were no surprises. He ended up on the injured list in both seasons with the Yankees, the same way he had in every season with the Mariners, he was at times great, mostly OK,  and mainly inconsistent. There were flashes of brilliance like in early 2019 against the Red Sox and Royals and in the second half of that season, but there were too many uninspiring, disappointing performances from a guy the Yankees sacrificed their top pitching prospect for, and a guy who was supposed to slot behind Luis Severino in the Yankees’ rotation.

That top pitching prospect the Yankees traded away to acquire Paxton was Justus Sheffield. The same 22-year-old Sheffield current and former Yankees raved about during spring training in 2018. Sheffield never started a game for the Yankees, making only three relief appearances in 2018, and then had mixed results in seven starts and eight games for the 2019 Mariners. But in 2020 and now 24, Sheffield broke out with a 3.58 ERA and 3.17 FIP across 10 starts for the Mariners. He had become the kind of starter the 2020 Yankees could have used in the ALDS to survive the Rays, instead they had Paxton, who had been shut down long before October with his latest injury on Aug. 20.

The Yankees made the move for Paxton recognizing their “window” at the time of the deal, choosing the veteran Paxton over the unknown Sheffield to help put them over the top. It didn’t work out like nearly every Brian Cashman trade for starting pitching hasn’t worked out and Paxton became the latest name in a long list of starter’s names who didn’t work out in New York.

In 2021, Sheffield will be in the same Mariners’ rotation as Paxton after the team brought Paxton back on a one-year deal this past week. The same way the Yankees traded Justin Wilson after 2015 in exchange for Chad Green and Luis Cessa, and now have all three, the Yankees were clearly on the losing end of the Paxton-Sheffield trade. It’s now easy to say the Mariners won the deal. It was a blowout win for the Mariners, a team that hasn’t done much winning in any regard since 2001. The Mariners received a package headline by Sheffield, didn’t have to pay Paxton the $21.075 million the Yankees did for 34 inconsistent regular-season starts, three postseason starts of varying success and two injury-plagued seasons.

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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Blogs • Yankees

Feb 12, 2021

Joe Girardi Deserves Monument Park Plaque for 2013 Performance

Joe Girardi had a great deal of success in his 10 years at Yankees manager, but 2013 was his best given the roster he had to work with.

It’s easy to forget how bad the Yankees were just five, six and seven years ago. Sandwiched between 18 postseason appearances in 19 years from 1995-2012 and another four straight from 2017-2020 were the “dark” years of 2013, 2014 and 2016. (I will give 2015 a pass because the Yankees did appear in the one-game playoff, and would have been in the ALDS in pre-2012 format.) Yes, I realize posting winning records in 2013, 2014 and 2016 isn’t necessarily “dark” compared to other franchise, but those seasons were dark in Yankees’ terms.

The darkest of them all was 2013 when injuries from 2012 lingered, new injuries in spring training popped up and the longest performance-enhancing drug suspension of all time followed the Yankees’ season. I remember going to the Stadium on Opening Day of the 2013 season against the Red Sox and thinking the Yankees would be in contention once again after their disappointing ALCS sweep at the hands of the Tigers the October before. I was wrong.

The Yankees’ Opening Day lineup:

Brett Gardner, CF
Eduardo Nunez, SS
Robinson Cano, 2B
Kevin Youkilis, 1B
Vernon Wells, LF
Ben Francisco, DH
Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Jayson Nix, 3B
Francisco Cervelli, C

(Facing a left-handed starter, the team had the vaunted Travis Hafner and Lyle Overbay on the bench)

It was no surprise that Yankees team started the season 1-4. Maybe the mid-2000s All-Star Team wasn’t a way to go about building a roster. Then in the sixth game of the season in Detroit, they surprisingly pummeled Justin Verlander in a 7-0 win and went on to win four straight, seven of eight and nine of 11. At 10-6, the power of putting on the pinstripes never seemed so powerful. Sure, many former All-Stars and elite players had revitalized their careers wearing the Yankees uniform, but this was taking it to another level.

The 34-year-old Vernon Wells who had been unceremoniously let go by the Angels and hadn’t played a full season in three years hit .317/.394/.619 with five home runs in the first three weeks of the season. The 36-year-old Travis Hafner, who hadn’t played a full season in six years, hit .349/.440/.767 with five home runs in those three weeks. Kevin Youkilis at 34 with his career in serious decline had an .883 OPS with a pair of home runs, journeyman Brennan Boesch had an .857 OPS, newly-appointed starting catcher Francisco Cervelli was batting .310 with a .944 OPS. When the Yankees won in 11 innings over the Blue Jays on April 20 to improve to that 10-6 mark, Ben Francisco was batting second, Youkilis fourth, Wellls fifth and Cervelli sixth. Eduardo Nunez and Jayson Nix batted eighth and ninth and made up the left side of the infield.

Nearly three weeks after that, the Yankees swept the Royals in Kansas City to move to ten games above .500 at 23-13. In the third game of that series, Wells hit his ninth home run of the season, Ichiro was batting fifth, Chris Nelson (yes, who?) was playing third base and Chris Stewart was catching.

The Yankees’ success to that point was mainly due to their starting pitching. CC Sabathia (3.23 ERA) had yet to fall apart, Hiroki Kuroda continued to be one of the most underrated Yankees of all time (2.31 ERA), soon-to-be-40-year-old Andy Pettitte was masterful (3.83 ERA) in his final season, Phil Hughes’ career hadn’t completely collapsed (4.43 ERA) and David Phelps had given the team consistency as the fifth starter (3.44 ERA in three starts through May 13). Add in the dominant David Robertson and the still somewhat unhittable Mariano Rivera at 43 years of age amidst his farewell tour, and the Yankees’ early-season success made some sense.

The success didn’t last. The Yankees went 62-64 the rest of the way, finishing 85-77. They managed to keep the franchise’s winning-season streak alive (it began in 1993 and is still alive) and would have made the postseason under the 2020 eight-team format.

Wells’ power dried up and after hitting that ninth home run on May 12, he only hit two more over the next four-and-a-half months. Youkilis only played in 28 games total and Hafner 82. Aside from Robinson Cano’s .314/.383/.516 season, the only other bright spot was the return of Alfonso Soriano midseason, as he turned back the clock to 2002, hitting 17 home runs and driving in 50 in only 58 games with the team. There was also the Derek Jeter leadoff home run on the first pitch he saw in 2013, but Number 2 ended up playing in only 17 games.

Jeter wasn’t the only other expected regular to miss significant time. Curtis Granderson played in 61 games and Mark Teixeira in 15 games. Alex Rodriguez appealed his suspension, but was a shell of his former self, hitting seven home runs with a .771 OPS in 44 games.

Here were the players who appeared the most at each position for the 2013 Yankees:

C: Chris Stewart
1B: Lyle Overbay
2B: Robinson Cano
3B: Jayson Nix
SS: Eduardo Nunez
LF: Vernon Wells
CF: Brett Gardner
RF: Ichiro Suzuki
DH: Travis Hafner

David Adams (43 games), Mark Reynolds (36), Zoilo Almonte (34), Brennan Boesch (23), Ben Francisco (21), Reid Brignac (17), Brendan Ryan (17), Luis Cruz (16), Alberto Gonzalez (13), Brent Lillibridge (11), Chris Nelson (10), Melky Mesa (5), Thomas Neal (4), Corban Joseph (2) and Travis Ishikawa (1) all also played for the 2013 Yankees.

In 10 years as Yankees manager, Joe Girardi never had a losing season, went to the postseason six times, won the World Series (2009) and went to the ALCS in three other years (2010, 2012, 2017), but it was 2013 that was his best season. That Yankees team had no business winning 85 games. They had no business winning 75 games. Girardi deserved to win American League Manger of the Year for that team’s performance. He deserved to win Manger of All Time. He deserved to have the award named after him. The roster, lineups and batting orders are somewhat funny to look back on now, though I’m still not over that wasted season, so it will take a few more years to truly be funny. But it’s easy to recognize and appreciate the work Girardi did that season to keep his team afloat when it shouldn’t have made it out of April.

It was miraculous, yes an actual miracle, the 2013 Yankees finished with a winning record and eight games above .500. It was Girardi’s finest work as Yankees manager and maybe the finest work any manager has ever had in the history of the game. I just never want to experience a season like it again.

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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Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Offseason • Yankees Thoughts

Feb 11, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Offseason Almost Over

A week from today, Yankees spring training will already be in its second day and baseball will be back. The grind of the offseason is nearly over.

A week from now spring training will have begun. That’s a beautiful sentence to write. Yankees baseball is nearly here.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. We did it. Well, we have almost done it. This is the last Yankees Thoughts of the offseason. A week from today, Yankees spring training will already be in its second day and baseball will be back. The grind of the offseason is nearly over, and now it’s time to focus on the next eight months (it better be eight-plus months) of Yankees baseball.

2. Again, the only move left to make for the Yankees (to stay under the luxury tax, which they blatantly want to) is to bring back Brett Gardner, but that doesn’t seem imminent. I still won’t believe Gardner won’t be a Yankee again until he’s not announced on Opening Day, though there has reportedly been no negotiations between Gardner and the Yankees. Gardner’s agent claims the Yankees said they would discuss yet another re-signing of their longest-tenured player once they took care of their more important offseason business. That business has been taken care of for a while. DJ LeMahieu was re-signed. Corey Kluber was signed. Jameson Taillon was traded for. Adam Ottavino was traded. Masahiro Tanaka left the league. Darren O’Day was signed. There’s nothing else for the Yankees to do at this point, and that makes it odd that Gardner and the only team he has ever known aren’t even talking.

3. I have never wanted Gardner back so much. I didn’t want him back after 2018. I wanted the Yankees to sign Michael Brantley. Gardner had lost his starting job to Andrew McCutchen and was coming off the worst year of his career. The Yankees still brought him back. Following 2019, he was undoubtedly coming back whether or not I wanted him after he posted a career-high 28 home runs with the super baseball. Now I want him back because I’m petrified of Mike Tauchman or Greg Allen becoming everyday players once Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks inevitably land on the injured list. It would be very Yankees for the team to not bring Gardner back the one time they actually need him.

4. There will be a lot made about Gary Sanchez’s every waking moment in spring training, but my focus will be solely on the pitching staff. The Yankees’ entire pitching staff aside from Gerrit Cole has dealt with serious injuries the last two years and anytime they are doing anything related to pitching, it could mean a season-ending injury. Any bullpen session, any fielding practice, any jogging, any anything, and I will be watching it as intently as I would watch The Weather Channel growing up when I had a paper due and there was potential for snow and a snow day to buy me an extra day.

5. I have spent the last three-plus months watching my wife open deliveries to our home from her father full of Dodgers World Champions gear. Sweatshirts, T-shirts, you name it, we have it. The Dodgers won the World Series and still decided to pay Trevor Bauer a ridiculous $40 million to pitch for them in 2021. Brian Cashman thought the Yankees would have the highest payroll in the league, but he was wrong, and wrong by a lot. The team the Yankees should be operating like will have the highest payroll. The team that combines player development with their financial might to put together the best possible roster.

6. I didn’t want the Yankees to sign Bauer. Not because of the money. I didn’t want the Yankees to sign a 30-year-old with one great full season to his name (2018) and then a great 11 starts (2020). Bauer had a 4.30 ERA (4.06 FIP) from 2014 through 2017. Then he had that awesome 2018 (2.21 ERA and 2.44 FIP) and a 4.48 ERA and 4.34 FIP in 2019 before his Cy Young 2020. Maybe he finally figured it out for good last season in Cincinnati, or maybe it was just the equivalent of a spectacular one-third of a normal season (which is what it was). I also didn’t want him on the team because of his past with Cole, whether it’s settled or not. The Dodgers have the best rotation in baseball. Dodgers fans think they just signed a sure-thing, though Bauer is anything but a sure-thing.

7. I just wanted the Yankees to do more this offseason. They supposedly didn’t counter an offer by Cleveland for a Francisco Lindor trade. It would have been nice if they had acquired Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. I guess they felt re-signing LeMahieu would be enough, and that maybe Gleyber Torres would show up in shape this season and be able to make routine plays at shortstop. It also means they really believe in Gio Urshela to maintain his 2019 and 2020, and the same for Luke Voit. It means they believe their right-handed, one-dimensional (aside from LeMahieu) lineup can finally come through in October after failing miserably to do so the last two Octobers.

8. I wanted them to do more with their pitching. Why not re-sign Tanaka, sign Kluber, trade for Taillon, keep Ottavino and sign O’Day? None of those moves were tied to each other, and they could have all of those pitchers on their 2021 roster, if not for the imaginary salary cap. Instead, get ready for a steady diet of Michael King, Nick Nelson, Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga and maybe even a little Tyler Lyons and Nestor Cortes this season.

9. It’s unfortunate the Yankees cut payroll by $50 million for the second time in three years when they could have gone all out to make themselves the clear favorite in the American League. Forget the league, they might not even be the favorite in their division. I’m very worried about both the Blue Jays and Rays, and all Yankees fans should be. The Yankees’ starting pitching isn’t exactly exuding confidence when it comes to health, the bullpen isn’t what it once was and the lineup is the same lineup that failed in October in both 2019 and 2020. Add in a manager that has shown no signs of progress or development after three seasons, and you can see why I’m nervous about the 2021 season.

10. That doesn’t mean I’m not excited for baseball to be back. I’m as excited as I am every year at this time. It’s just hard to see how the Yankees don’t have the same injury problems they had last year and the year before when they have retained all their injury-prone players and then added more injury-riddled pasts to their roster. There will be plenty of time to bring up the Yankees’ roster failures if the team fails, but this is the team Yankees fans have been given to root for this season. For now, baseball is about to be back and that’s all that matters. For now.

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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