Unfortunately, the Yankees will no longer have the luxury of seeing David Price multiple times during the regular season. There won’t be anymore video game-related injury excuses or last-minute scratches or early exits for the $217 million pitcher against the Yankees.
Early in the 2018 season, David Price was scheduled to start against the Yankees before being mysteriously scratched. The reasons for the surprise missed scheduled start varied from wrist tightness to hand numbness to tenderness, but when Price was able to return to the mound and start just a few days later, it was obvious what the reason for him being scratched was: the Yankees.
Not even a month prior to his scratch on April 11, Price lasted only an inning against the Yankees, and not even two months after the scratch, Price would have his worst performance against the Yankees on July 1 on Sunday Night Baseball. Price’s line from that July 1 start: 3.1 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 5 HR. The Yankees produced five home runs without Gary Sanchez, who has hit Price better than any other major leaguer. Price would pick up a no-decision against the Yankees on Aug. 5 and then was embarrassed once more by them on Sept. 19 (5.1 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 HR).
That season, his miserable history against the Yankees culminated in Game 2 of the ALDS when he was once again lit up. Ten pitches into the game Aaron Judge sent a 1-2 pitch high over the Green Monster in left-center where few have ever hit a ball, and then leading off the second, Sanchez crushed the third pitch of the inning over the Monster as well. Price didn’t make it through the second inning as he was pulled after recording only five outs (1.2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 0 K, 2 HR), leaving the game with two runners. After his departure, Judge barreled up Joe Kelly, but the 109.8 mph line drive was hit directly at Betts otherwise Price’s final line would have been much worse than it already was.
The last time the Yankees got to face Price as a Red Sox was on Aug. 4 of this past season, and he put together his usual performance, unable to last three innings at Yankee Stadium (2.2 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 2 HR).
Price leaves Boston and the American League with the current Yankees roster having a .317/.383/.639 line against him in 231 plate appearances. That’s a 1.022 OPS. Within the overall performance are some memorable individual performances:
(Aaron Hicks, Gleyber Torres, Gio Urshela Miguela Andujar and Kyle Higashioka have also homered off Price.)
Unfortunately, the Yankees will no longer have the luxury of seeing Price multiple times during the regular season. There won’t be anymore video game-related injury excuses or last-minute scratches or early exits for the $217 million pitcher against the Yankees.
The Yankees won’t have a chance to see him until 2022 — in the last year of his contract — when the Yankees next play the NL West in the regular season, unless the Yankees and Dodgers meet in the World Series. If they do finally meet in the World Series, the Dodgers will want to begin whichever game he starts with their bullpen up.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
Andrew Rotondi of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the regular season once again becoming a formality.
Next week spring training begins. Baseball is back even if it’s just beat writers live-tweeting intrasquad games and batting practice, reading about pitchers’ fielding practice and back-field infield drills and watching videos of bullpen sessions recorded on a phone through the spacing of a chain-link fence.
Andrew Rotondi of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the possibility of Nolan Arenado becoming a Yankee, how easy it will be for the Yankees to win the division and more than 102 games, the mess the Red Sox are in, staying positive with Aaron Boone’s managerial style and what Giancarlo Stanton needs to do to win back Yankees fans.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
Because I’m a nice person, I’m going to give Giancarlo Stanton a clean slate for the 2020 season. I’m going to be positive when it comes to Stanton for as long as he lets me be positive.
Spring training begins next week. NEXT WEEK! The offseason is long as it is, and it’s made even longer when the postseason ends on a pennant-winning, walk-off home run. But baseball is almost here, even if it’s not real, meaningful baseball.
To follow the format of Off Day Dreaming from the actual season, I decided to do a weekly Yankees thoughts blog to lead us into the season until the first Off Day Dreaming the day after Opening Day.
1. Because I’m a nice person, I’m going to give Giancarlo Stanton a clean slate for the 2020 season. No sarcasm to start the season, no snarky comments, no “Ladies and gentlemen” tweets on Opening Day. I’m going to be positive when it comes to Stanton for as long as he lets me be positive.
The Yankees were able to win 103 regular-season games and get to within two wins of the World Series without him, so he’s almost become a luxury at this point. I don’t want to say whatever Stanton gives the Yankees is a bonus the way it is for someone like Brett Gardner, but the Yankees proved he’s not crucial to their success the way Aaron Judge is.
Even though I will try to maintain a clean slate for Stanton, he has unforunately entered A-Rod territory at the Stadium in which the cleanliness of his slate is only as good as his most recent at-bat. Once you reach that territory, there’s no going back. Stanton could have the kind of postseason A-Rod did in 2009, and it won’t matter. He just needs to realize it, and somehow “clear the mechanism” like Billy Chapel when he’s playing at home and not let the inevitable boos affect him the way they clearly have in his first two seasons as a Yankee.
2. Nolan Arenado is still on the Rockies, which means he hasn’t been traded yet, which means the Yankees can still trade for him. Rockies owner Dick Manfort tried to downplay the rift between Arenado and general manager Jeff Bridich, but the rift is real and it exists. If it weren’t, Arenado wouldn’t have said the things he said this offseason about the Rockies and rumors wouldn’t be flying around about him potentially going to the Cardinals.
Here’s what I said last week in If the Yankees Can Get Nolan Arenado, Go Get Him: When a player like Arenado is made available, you don’t let him go somewhere else. And when a player like Arenado is made available and you’re the odds-on favorite to win the World Series in the middle of a championship window in the middle of a championship drought, you make sure he doesn’t go anywhere else.
I understand it’s most likely not going to happen, but it should happen. Arenado will essentially only cost money, which incase you forgot because the Yankees sometimes forget, is the organization’s greatest resource. Any player or prospect the Yankees would have to add would either be blocked for playing time by the trade, no longer part of the team’s plans anyway, far enough away from the majors to know if they will actually reach the majors or possibly Deivi Garcia. But you don’t let Deivi Garcia prevent you from getting Nolan Arenado. (Then again, Brian Cashman let Eduardo Nunez prevent him from getting Cliff Lee.)
3. The pictures on social media of Gary Sanchez over the last few weeks have shown a leaner, more fit and muscular Sanchez. Without seeing his face, you would never know it’s Sanchez. I’m not sure if Sanchez started eating vegetables, went the Joe Torre route of cutting out soda or just hit the weights harder, but it’s clear he had a goal of coming to spring training with a different look, and he has it. Is this new diet or workout regimen an attempt to stay off the injured list or prevent passed balls or possibly create even more power? I have no idea, but Sanchez is currently the favorite to win the most “(Player name) came to camp in the best shape of his life” headlines over the next two weeks.
4. I was watching MLB Network on Monday and there was a discussion on the top shortstops in baseball. Gleyber Torres was ranked sixth. Most likely this list was created with the idea of creating buzz and making Yankees fans (which there are more of than any other team) upset enough to talk about or write about, kind of like what I’m doing here. I may be writing about it, but I’m not upset about it. I find it more comical than anything. At least it’s not as egregious as ESPN ranking the Yankees as having the ninth-best offense in the majors.
5. The Yankees’ No. 4 starter is Masahiro Tanaka. The first pitcher in history to allow two earned runs or less in each of his first seven postseason starts is the Yankees’ No. 4 starter.
6. The Yankees had to bring J.A. Happ back last season based on his 2018 with the team after the trade deadline and because they decided to not sign any other free-agent starter. But after last season and with no one knowing what the state of the baseball will be for this season, I’m holding out for Happ to get traded before spring training. I understand you can never have enough pitching, except when you’re talking about a 37-year-old coming off the worst season of his career and set to earn $17 million. As long as Happ is on the team, he’s going to start. It will take a long, long time for him to removed from the rotation, the way it always takes the Yankees a long, long time to make a move like that, and if he’s not starting and not doing well as a starter he has no place on the team. Pitching twice a month out of the bullpen in mop-up duty while taking home nearly $3 million a month isn’t ideal.
7. Curtis Granderson retired from baseball the other day and if you told me on the day the Yankees traded for Granderson that he wouldn’t win a World Series, I would have gladly taken that bet. The Yankees had just won the World Series when they traded for him and were essentially returning the same exact roster the following season. But as a Yankee, Granderson experienced two ALCS losses and a five-game ALDS loss, as the Yankees were eliminated twice in those series by his former team. Granderson played for a long time, played for a lot of good teams and made a lot of money, but he should have a won a ring, and he should have won it with the Yankees. If not for the aforementioned keeping of Nunez for Lee, he would have won at least one.
8. Not only do the Yankees have the best team in baseball and not only are they the favorite to win the World Series, but at the same time as the Yankees’ core is entering it’s prime, the Red Sox are holding an Everything Must Go! sale and will likely move the team’s best player before spring training begins. Not only are the big-market and rich-beyond-anyone’s-wildest-dreams Red Sox adamant about trading Mookie Betts so they don’t have to pay, they also don’t have a manager and have yet to receive the results of the commissioner’s investigation into their sign stealing under their former manager. 2020 is going to be great.
9. The Yankees rarely ever get off to a good start. It seems like every season they are around .500 a few weeks into the season before going on a run, and this isn’t a recent trend, it’s been going on for years. Last season, the Yankees opened against the Orioles and lost two of three, then went on to lose two of three to the Tigers, got swept by the Astros and lost two of three to the White Sox and were 10-10 through 20 games. The year before, they were 9-9 through 18 games. Let’s not do that again this season.
It would be good for both the Yankees and my overall health if they took advantage of their early-season schedule this year. The Yankees open the season with three games in Baltimore followed by three in Tampa Bay and then open at home with three against Toronto and four against Baltimore. You can’t ask for a better schedule to start the season than that.
10. The Yankees over/under win total right now it at 102. It’s the highest it’s been since 2009 when I believe it was at 100. Last year, it was at 96.5 following a 100-win season, and the Yankees won 103 games. Every expected starter except for Torres and DJ LeMahieu missed time last season and the team won 103 games. Expecting a team to win more than 100 games is a lot, but in the current state of baseball where spending money and trying to win isn’t on every team’s agenda, it’s easier than ever to do so.
The AL East has already been won. The Rays’ ceiling can’t compete with this Yankees team, the Red Sox are in the process of cutting payroll, the Blue Jays are still a few years away and the Orioles … well, they would be lucky to win 60 games this season. This Yankees team is better than the last two and the division is much worse than it was the last two years. The Yankees are going to win more than 102 games.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
Two years after sending the letter to fans to publicize their plans to tear the team down and what will be three selloffs later, the Rangers will be on to the next phase of this rebuild.
It feels like it’s been months since the Rangers last played a game and they’re still another day away from returning to action. I’m sure the players have enjoyed the 10-day layoff, but with baseball in its lull period before spring training and only one football game left, it’s been a grind since the last Rangers game though I’m sure a lot of the feeling has to do with the back-to-back losses before the break.
1. The Rangers have one last chance to make a run before the front office begins its third straight selloff. The Rangers have 13 games before the trade deadline, and I feel like it would take at least 12 wins for them to hold on to their assets. With 12 wins before the deadline, the Rangers would then be on pace for 100 points and it would put them in contention for a playoff berth. However, Carolina currently holds the second wild card, and their current point pace is still better than the Rangers’ would be if they won 12 of 13 over the next three-plus weeks.
Even if the Rangers won 12 of 13 (or won all 13), their post-deadline schedule includes the Islanders, Philadelphia (three times), St. Louis, Washington (twice), Dallas, Colorado, Calgary, Pittsburgh (three times), Columbus, Washington, Tampa Bay and Florida. In this magical, fairytale world where this Rangers team could win 12 of 13 or set the franchise record with 13 straight wins, it still most likely wouldn’t be enough to reach the postseason.
There’s no scenario over the next 25 days in which the Rangers shouldn’t stick with their rebuild plan. The plan was never to go all out for the postseason in 2019-20. It was to be ready for a possible playoff berth in 2020-21, but most likely in 2021-22, and contend for the Cup in maybe 2021-22, but more like 2022-23 and 2023-24. The team’s play for most of this season was unexpected and enjoyable, but it was never enough to be one of the Top 8 in the East and to make any sort of extended run in the spring.
2. It seems like Alexandar Georgiev, who will be a restricted free agent this summer, is as good as gone. Whether it’s before the deadline or before the beginning of next season, Georgiev won’t be a Ranger. It will be before the deadline if teams like Toronto and Colorado realize their goaltending will be what keeps them from a postseason run and if they are willing to meet the Rangers’ ask of an NHL-ready forward. In an ideal world, the Rangers would be able to keep Georgiev and pair him with Igor Shesterkin for years to come, while also giving Henrik Lundqvist the kind of end to his career he deserves as a Rangers legend and all-time great. But Lundqvist’s no-trade clause, which he more than earned for carrying the franchise for 15 years, isn’t going to get waived, and it shouldn’t.
4. If Lundqvist wants to remain a Ranger through the end of next season and the end of his contract before walking away, good for him. I could also envision a scenario where Lundqvist returns at a much more team-friendly rate beginning in 2021-22 to serve as the backup when this team is ready or close to ready to contend. You can do a lot worse than having Lundqvist as a veteran presence in the room, a mentor to his heir and the backup of your team. Would Lundqvist, a career starter and millionaire, want to sit on the bench and travel around North America and be away from his family at 40 to only play 20-or-so games a season? I don’t know. But I want him to because when this team is Cup-contending good again, I want him to be a part of it.
5. Aside from Georgiev, the Rangers’ restricted free agents include Ryan Strome, Brendan Lemieux and Tony DeAngelo, and I have to think all three are in play. My order of preference to keep would be DeAngelo then Lemieux then Strome. There is no way Strome’s stock will ever be higher than it is now, and it has everything to do with playing with Artemi Panarin. Panarin is on pace for 117 points with Strome and Jesper Fast as his linemates, and the Bread Man has a chance at Jaromir Jagr’s 123-point record despite playing with these two. There is this weird faction of Rangers fans who are very pro-Strome though I’m not sure how they can watch him every game and not see how all of his success is directly tied to Panarin. Trade him. As for Fast, he’s an unrestricted free agent, but he won’t cost much. He’s only getting $1.85 million now, and whatever number he were to sign for after this season certainly isn’t going to significantly hinder the team’s cap situation in the future. But unless the Rangers plan on extending him if they don’t trade him, losing him for nothing in the offseason as a free agent would go against the team’s goal of acquiring as many future or draft assets as possible.
6. DeAngelo is an interesting trade candidate because he’s a restricted free agent who will command a substantial raise and because he’s only 24 and on pace for a 63-point season. Defensemen who can score like DeAngelo does aren’t exactly easy to find, and they are rarely ever available at a deadline when they’re 24 years old. But with the Rangers’ abundance of young defensemen, a player like DeAngelo could be expendable, if the Rangers believe they will hit on most of those young defensemen and if they believe they can get the kind of haul DeAngelo could return. The Rangers also might have to believe this season is the ceiling for DeAngelo and that his scoring is a product of the Rangers’ offensive-minded style of play which will surely need to change in order to truly contend. It’s hard to envision a team which allows the most shots per game winning the Cup.
7. It would be a lot easier to keep DeAngelo if the Rangers could move Brady Skjei, who is one year older than DeAngelo and who is owed $5.25 million through 2023-24. Or maybe there is a plan to move Jacob Trouba, as the 25-year-old is owed $8 million through 2025-26. If it were my call, I would move Skjei though I could see why the Rangers might feel they no longer need Trouba, especially at $8 million per year, the same way they thought they did last summer when they traded for and extended him. Trouba’s deal wasn’t unreasonable coming off a career-best, 50-point season, and over time his number won’t seem like as much as the cap goes up, but there is certainly a case to be made to move him. After next season, the Rangers will have Marc Staal’s $5.7 million coming off the books as well as Brendan Smith’s $4.35 million (unless some team wants to take either of them off the Rangers hands before Feb. 24 … any takers?!). But they will also be looking at paying raises to restricted free agents Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil, Brett Howden and Ryan Lindgren.
8. I can’t believe it’s already been eight years since I wanted the Rangers to trade Chris Kreider in order to land Rick Nash before the 2011-12 deadline. The Rangers had a chance to trade a college kid with no professional hockey experience for a Team Canada first-liner for a potential Cup run. The Rangers chose not to make the move and ended up losing in the Eastern Conference finals to New Jersey, losing Games 4, 5 and 6 of the series while scoring only six goals combined in those three games. It’s possible landing Nash could have been the difference in that series and maybe the Rangers beat Los Angeles for the Cup rather than playing and losing to an even better Los Angeles team two years later. Even though the Rangers were able to land Nash that summer without having to include Kreider, I would still make that pre-2012 deadline trade today.
9. When it comes to Kreider now, the only option is to trade him. I keep seeing and hearing about the idea of extending him, but there’s no way Kreider risked injury in his impending free-agent season to lower his contract demands and take a hometown discount. Kreider will be 29 for next season and this is his one chance to cash in. It’s unfortunate his career timeline doesn’t match up with the timeline of this rebuild and he won’t have a chance to compete for another Cup as a Ranger (if only some of his Cup Final breakaways had found the back of the net), but that’s been the case for nearly the entire previous core of Rangers over the last three seasons. The Rangers can’t afford to be overpaying for Kreider on the wrong side of 30 when they will be in need of cap space to pay their new, young core. Sure, Kreider would provide veteran leadership in what’s currently the youngest locker room in the league, but the Rangers won’t be in any position to pay for an intangible in a few years.
10. There are so many ways the next three-plus weeks could play out for the Rangers that it feels like a choose-your-own adventure book as each decision has signficant, franchise-changing ramifications. The Rangers could move only Kreider. They could move no one. They could move everyone mentioned here. They could move players not mentioned here. Whatever they do, it looks like this is it: the last selloff. Two years after sending the letter to fans to publicize their plans to tear the team down and what will be three selloffs later, the Rangers will be on to the next phase of this rebuild.
When a player like Nolan Arenado is made available and you’re in the middle of a championship window in the middle of a championship drought, you make sure he doesn’t go anywhere else.
Deivi Garcia? Goodbye. Miguel Andujar? See ya. Gio Urshela? Good luck. Clint Frazier? So long. Any young, major-league ready Yankee not named Gleyber Torres? Take care. If it means acquiring Nolan Arenado, it doesn’t matter which prospect goes. It might not be good for baseball that Arenado signed an eight-year, $260 million extension with the Rockies not even a year ago (Feb. 26, 2019) and they’re already trying to get out from under the contract, but it’s good for the Yankees.
A trade for Arenado makes all the sense in the world for the Yankees since they are already close to exceeding the third luxury-tax threshold in their quest to reach the World Series in more than a decade. Yes, they are already the World Series favorite with Urshela at third base coming off the only above-average offensive season of his career and with Andujar returning from season-ending shoulder surgery. But they would be adding the best all-around third baseman in the game in Arenado, for essentially only money, which incase you forgot because the Yankees sometimes forget, is the organization’s greatest resource. Any player or prospect the Yankees would have to add would either be blocked for playing time by the trade, no longer part of the team’s plans anyway, far enough away from the majors to know if they will actually reach the majors or they would be Garcia. And for as excited as I am to see Garcia either in the rotation or in the bullpen, if it means getting Arenado then I’m more than fine with seeing Garcia in the Rockies’ rotation or bullpen.
In Arenado, the Yankees would be getting a career .295/.351/.546 hitter who averages 40 doubles, 36 home runs and 115 RBIs a year, and a defensive third baseman who has never not won the Gold Glove during his seven years in the majors. If you thought Urshela was a breath of fresh air from Andujar with his fielding, Arenado makes Urshela look like Andujar. (Maybe that was a little mean.) Arenado might have inferior career numbers away from Coors Field though it’s hard to find a Rockies hitter who hasn’t experienced similar issues. There was a fear DJ LeMahieu would sink in the American League and away from Coors, and he went out and had a career year playing half his games in Yankee Stadium, finishing fourth for the AL MVP.
As for the Opening Day lineup with Arenado in it, please only keep reading if you have access to a cold shower in the next few minutes:
1. DJ LeMahieu, 2B 2. Aaron Judge, RF 3. Nolan Arenado, 3B 4. Giancarlo Stanton, DH 5. Gleyber Torres, SS 6. Gary Sanchez, C 7. Mike Tauchman, LF 8. Luke Voit, 1B 9. Brett Gardner, CF
(Yes, Aaron Boone would bat Voit behind Tauchman to break up the lefties, so he could have some sort of input on the lineup.)
That lineup features a 23-year-old superstar coming off a 38-home run, .871 OPS season batting fifth. It has the best power-hitting hitting catcher who hit 34 home runs in only 106 games last year batting sixth. It has last season’s Opening Day 3-hitter who had a .901 OPS through June 29 before suffering a season-crushing abdomen injury batting eighth. It has Boone’s choice to bat third in the postseason batting ninth. Yes, the last one was a joke, but in reality, anything Gardner gives you, and I mean anything, is a bonus in this order. And whenever Aaron Hicks returns (don’t count on an early return from his surgery rehab timeline), the lineup will be even deeper, which seems impossible. Sure, it’s right-handed heavy, but it’s going to be that way whether Arenado is in it or Urshela or Andujar, so it might as well be with the perennial MVP candidate, All-Star and Silver Slugger.
I can’t help but think the Yankees aren’t done this offseason. Signing Gerrit Cole and re-signing Gardner can’t be all they are going to do to improve, even if signing Cole was the equivalent of signing two front-end starters since it takes him away from their biggest competition in the Astros. I do believe Cole is enough to get the Yankees back to the World Series, but enough has never been enough for the Yankees. Having David Cone and Andy Pettitte didn’t stop them from trading for Roger Clemens, and getting Clemens didn’t stop them from signing Mike Mussina. When they had Pettitte, Clemens and Mussina, it didn’t stop them from bringing David Wells back. A lineup with Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano wasn’t enough to prevent them from acquiring Bobby Abreu. Signing CC Sabathia didn’t keep them from also signing A.J. Burnett and then Mark Teixeira, and none of those signings kept them from offering Cliff Lee the most money a couple offseasons later. Two months after the Baby Bombers went to Game 7 of the ALCS and Aaron Judge finished second for AL MVP as a right fielder, they still went out and acquired the NL MVP in Giancarlo Stanton who also plays right field. The Yankees have (nearly) always used their embarrassment of riches in their favor. Have two aces? Go get another one. Have too many bats for not enough lineup spots? Teach one of them to play first base. Have a 6-foot-7, 25-year-old, MVP-candidate right fielder? Trade for a 6-foot-6, 28-year-old, MVP-winning right fielder.
This October will be 11 years since the Yankees last reached the World Series, let alone won it. Their core is entering their prime just as the Red Sox are holding an Everything Must Go! sale, the Rays’ ceiling still isn’t enough, the Blue Jays are a few years away and the Orioles are … well, they’re the Orioles. The division is the Yankees once again and it’s their’s for the foreseeable future. The regular season has become the formality it was from 1995 through 2012, serving as a six-month rehearsal to win 11 games in October. October still might be a crapshoot where nothing is guaranteed and the only thing you can do is put the best possible roster together and hope to get a few timely hits and big outs, but a trade for Arenado would add a few percentage points in the Yankees’ favor before they roll.
When a player like Arenado is made available, you don’t let him go somewhere else. And when a player like Arenado is made available and you’re the odds-on favorite to win the World Series in the middle of a championship window in the middle of a championship drought, you make sure he doesn’t go anywhere else.
The Yankees have the pieces and finances to have a Number 28 batting third and playing third for them on Opening Day as they go for Number 28. Enough isn’t enough.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
