J.A. Happ can’t start another game for the Yankees, and they need to stop thinking he’s going to get better and figure it out.
J.A. Happ can’t start another game for the Yankees. After providing 30 mostly awful starts in 2019, Happ has continued his decline by laying two eggs to begin 2020. In two starts, Happ has only been pitched seven innings, while allowing eight earned runs, eight walks and three home runs.
The Yankees need to stop thinking Happ is going to get better and figure it out. He’s not. It’s time to put him in the bullpen and give his rotation spot to someone with the ability to get major league hitters out and someone with a future with the team.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
I can’t watch J.A. Happ start another game for the Yankees. I just can’t. If it weren’t for money owed, Happ would have stopped starting games for the Yankees a long time ago.
I can’t watch J.A. Happ start another game for the Yankees. I just can’t. If it weren’t for money owed, Happ would have stopped starting games for the Yankees a long time ago. But unfortunately, money owed and not ability or performance decides rotation spots for the Yankees, and because of it, Happ will likely continue to start for the Yankees.
It’s been one year, two months and 16 days since I wrote Yankees Have a J.A. Happ Problem, and yet, he’s still losing games for them. It’s not his fault that he’s losing games for the Yankees though. He didn’t miss out on Patrick Corbin over a measly extra year only to then turn around and give himself a multi-year contract at the age of 36 as a fastball pitcher with a declining fastball. He doesn’t keep himself in the rotation and he doesn’t let himself remain in games as he keeps putting runners on base and letting those runners score. Happ sucks, but he’s going to pitch as long as the Yankees let him, and they keep letting him.
I remember where I was when Happ’s career ended because I sitting directly behind him in center field. That was in the first inning of Game 1 of the 2018 ALDS when J.D. Martinez hit a three-run home run over the Green Monster, ending the game minutes after it had started. Happ has never been the same since. Last season, he was allowed to make 30 starts despite having a 5.01 ERA. Out of the 30, only eight were quality starts and he only managed to go at least six innings in 22 of them. This season has been a continuation of last as Happ has now made two starts for a combined total of seven innings, while pitching to this line: 7 IP, 7 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 8 BB, 3 K, 3 HR, 10.29 ERA, 2.143 WHIP. Clarke Schmidt and Deivi Garcia are wasting pitches in fake games in Scranton as Happ continues to get the ball every fifth day.
Happ brings no value to the team right now. He’s not eating innings, he’s not keeping the team in games and he’s not working toward anything like a postseason start. Rather than accept that the money owed to Happ is a sunk cost and move on and give his rotation spot to someone with the ability to get major league hitters out, it won’t surprise me when Happ is given the ball again for his next scheduled start. And it won’t surprise me when Aaron Boone lets Happ try to figure it out on the mound even though there’s nothing to figure out. Happ can either nibble around the corners and hope to make the perfect pitch each time he releases the ball, which will in turn lead to 10.29 walks-per-nine total he has posted this season, or he can throw the ball in the strike zone and give up extra-base hits on his diminished stuff.
Happ isn’t going to magically find “it” again because there’s nothing left to find. This isn’t a two-start sample size, it’s a going-back-to-the-start-of-last-season sample size. He got knocked around by a bad Orioles lineup and embarrassed by a Phillies lineup that had played one game in 10 days. The details of Happ’s 2021 vesting option with the Yankees are either unknown or undetermined, but the one thing that’s known is the details of it will be based around starts and/or innings pitched in 2020. Happ doesn’t deserve to be in the rotation now and the decision to remove would make the Yankees better both this season and next.
When I wrote Yankees Have a J.A. Happ Problem, it was right after Happ had once again been rocked by an eventual 108-loss Orioles team. After that game, Happ said, “Tonight was just a tough one and I don’t know that I have an answer for it. They hit the bad pitches, they hit the good pitches, and I just got beat tonight. My plan is to get better and figure it out.” That was one year, two months and 16 days ago. He hasn’t gotten better and he hasn’t figured it out. He’s not going to get better and he’s not going to figure it out.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
The Yankees beat the Phillies behind Gerrit Cole, who once again didn’t have his best stuff.
Will the Yankees ever lose again? Yes, they will, but right now it doesn’t feel like. And they certainly weren’t going to lose with Gerrit Cole on the mound against a Phillies team that hasn’t played in a week.
In his third start as a Yankees, Cole didn’t have his best stuff and hasn’t had it yet with New York. Despite this, he’s 3-0 with a 2.55 ERA. Brett Gardner proved the super baseballs are still in play as he hit an opposite-field home run, a feat that seemed impossible for him prior to the change in the ball and Gio Urshela hit his third home run of the season. Aaron Boone tried to make it a game after the rain delay by choosing not to go to his elite relievers right away for the final nine outs, even with the Yankees having an off day on Tuesday because of inclement weather.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
After waiting for Rangers hockey for more than four months, it might leave as quickly as it returned. For the second straight game, the Rangers were thoroughly outplayed by the Hurricanes and now the Rangers will play for their season on Tuesday night.
That didn’t take long. After waiting for Rangers hockey for more than four months, it might leave as quickly as it returned. For the second straight game, the Rangers were thoroughly outplayed by the Hurricanes and now the Rangers will play for their season on Tuesday night.
The Rangers were able to keep the Hurricanes off the board for a little longer in Game 2, this time for four minutes and 32 seconds before Andrei Svechnikov scored his first of three goals for his first career hattrick. Artemi Panarin tied the game at 1 a little more than seven minutes later on a 5-on-3 (if the Rangers didn’t score on a 5-on-3 I might have lost my TV), but that was it for the Rangers’ scoring for the afternoon.
Two minutes and 22 seconds in the second, the Hurricanes had a 3-1 lead and the two-goal deficit seemed more like seven goals. The Rangers’ lack of possession kept them from creating quality scoring chances and when they did get a decent shot on Petr Mrazek, it was Brett Howden or Brendan Smith taking the shot. Somehow, the Rangers have made Mrazek look how Henrik Lundqvist looked at Mrazek’s age.
Lundqvist was good once again. Four goals against might have you thinking differently if you missed the matinee, but the same old adage held true in the Lundqvist era: it could have been a lot worse. The only goal of the four Lundqvist had a chance on was Svechnikov’s first, which found its way through Lundqvist’s right arm. The other three weren’t getting stopped by Lundqvist or Igor Shesterkin or anyone.
Lundqvist should be in the net again in Game 3. Even if you discount what he’s done for the last 15 years (which David Quinn likes to do), he’s earned it with his play in this series. It would be risky to turn to Shesterkin now when he’s been in street clothes for both games and hasn’t seen game action since March. If Game 3 is Lundqvist’s last game as a Ranger or if Game 2 was, it would be fitting for him to go out the way every Rangers team he’s been a part of has gone out: with him trying to single-handedly carry the team to victory.
The Rangers’ winning history over the Hurricanes and Lundqvist’s winning history over the Hurricanes will come to an end unless the Rangers are able to win three straight, and they are capable of winning three straight against this Hurricanes team. During the regular season, they won three straight against much better competition, but it might be too late for the Rangers to find their January, February and March play that got them into this qualifying round.
The undefeated 4-0 mark against the Hurricanes this season was a facade. In those four games, the Rangers were outplayed like they’ve been outplayed in Games 1 and 2, outshot 161-104 by the Hurricanes in the regular season and had a worse expected goals total in three of the four games. The Rangers didn’t deserve to win two of those games, let alone four, and they haven’t deserved to win either of these two qualifying games, scoring just three goals in six periods.
In Game 2, Quinn lacked the urgency he has lacked all season, waiting too long to pair Panarin with Mika Zibanejad, and too long to put out forward combinations to give the Rangers the best chance to score. With the defense playing as badly as it has in Games 1 and 2, it would seem ill-advised to wait around for the Rangers to trail in Game 3 before pairing the two stars together. Quinn needs to manage his roster with urgency from the opening shift or it will be the last opening shift the Rangers have this season.
Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me to talk about the state of the Red Sox.
The Yankees have now won six straight games after sweeping the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium to improve to 7-1 on the season. Aaron Judge homered twice more as he now has has an astounding six home runs and 14 RBIs in eight games.
Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me to talk about the Red Sox’ abysmal starting pitching, watching this Red Sox team for a full season, revisiting the team’s decision to not sign Mookie Betts, the career progression of Rafael Devers and decline of Andrew Benintendi.
***
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
