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Author: Neil Keefe

Blogs • Giants • NFL

Sep 4, 2019

2019 NFL Over/Under Win Total Predictions

Football is back! With the season beginning this week, it’s time for the 2019 over/under win total predictions. Five overs and five unders for the season.

Football is back! Even though the return of the NFL season means the end of summer and the eventual end of baseball and nice weather, it means 17 straight Sundays of all-day gambling, drinking and eating. I would say it’s a fair trade.

With the season beginning this week, it’s time for the 2019 over/under win total predictions. Five overs and five unders for the season.

(Last season’s win total in parentheses)

OVERS

NEW YORK GIANTS, 6 (5)
Unfortunately, I have to pick the Giants’ win total. Even more unfortunate, as a Giants fan, I can’t pick the under. I can’t pick the under because I don’t want to believe I will have to sit through another wasted season even if it’s inevitable in 2019.

Last year, the Giants started 0-2 and were eventually 1-7. The year before that, they were 0-5 and eventually 1-8. Two years before that, they finished with six wins. Aside from 2016, when the Giants managed to win 11 games and eight of them by seven points or less, it’s been miserable year after miserable year.

If you look hard enough, you can find a scenario where the Giants might win seven games or at least push with six. Possible wins over Buffalo, at Tampa Bay, one of the two Redskins games, Arizona, at Detroit and Miami. There’s six wins to push and maybe they can sweep the also-bad Redskins or pick up an upset along the way.

Normally, I go into every Giants season thinking they will win the division and possibly even go on a postseason run. Not this season. This season I have absolutely no expectations for the Giants. Fortunately, for the Giants and I, they play their best with no expectations.

NEW YORK JETS 7.5, (4)
The Jets would have to double their four wins from last year to hit the over this year, but I think they can do it. This isn’t me reverse jinxing the Jets to watch my Jets fan friends suffer through another mediocre or bad season, I really think the Jets are at least a .500 team.

Looking at their schedule, winning one of the two Buffalo games, Miami, New York Giants, Washington, Oakland, Cincinnati and Miami is enough to clinch eight wins. Not only is it enough, but if the Jets were to win those games, it would mean a midseason six-game winning streak heading into the final three weeks of the season where they would have the chance to ruin their season and crush their fans. I need this to happen.

JACKSONVILLE 8, (5)
The Jaguars’ decision to hold on to and extend Blake Bortles for three years beginning in 2019 is what led them to their demise last season. A team which could have and should have went to the Super Bowl the year before turned in five wins and despite a 3-1 start, losing six games by six points or less.

I believe the Jaguars are more of the team they were two years ago than the team they were last season. And with Nick Foles as their starting quarterback instead of Bortles, I feel a lot safer picking them to finish over .500.

If the Jaguars go 3-3 in the AFC South, they have home games against Tampa Bay and road games at Denver, Cincinnati and Oakland. That would leave them needing to win two of their remaining six games against Kansas City, Carolina, New Orleans, New York Jets, Los Angeles Chargers and Atlanta. That’s more than doable.

SEATTLE 8.5, (10)
The Seahawks won 10 games last year, and I feel they are at least as good as last season, if not, then no worse than one game worse. One game worse would give them nine wins and give them an over here.

Their home games are against Cincinnati, New Orleans, Los Angeles Rams, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Arizona and San Francisco. There’s at least five wins in their, when you factor in the home-field advantage, and when you factor in the home-field advantage and the cross-country flights for New Orleans, Baltimore and Tampa Bay, there might be even more than five wins. That would mean the Seahawks would have to play .500 on the road to clinch nine wins. I hate the Seahawks, but I love this over.

MINNESOTA 9, (8)
I don’t want to say how much money Kirk Cousins lost me last year. Actually, I can’t say because I have been too scared to add it all up. A year after riding the Vikings and Case Keenum to win after win after win, I tried to do the same for the 2019 Vikings and my bank account took more hits than Cousins, and no loss was worse than the Week 17 win-and-they’re-in game at home against the Bears, who had nothing to play for.

Like I did when the Vikings signed Cousins, I still think they made a horrible mistake, and all the other general managers who hoped to sign Cousins in free agency saved a terrible blemish from their career resumes. Cousins was a disaster in his first season with the Vikings, taking a win-now team which went to the NFC Championship Game the season before and made them a barely-above-.500 team thanks to an early-season tie. I don’t want to need a Cousins-led team to have to hit an over for me, but since my wife’s Dodgers aren’t going to win her a championship anytime soon, the least I can do is play along that her Vikings might.

Games against Oakland, New York Giants, Washington and Denver give the Vikings a favorable schedule, and if they go what should been an easy-to-achieve 3-3 within their division, they would only need to win two other games against Atlanta, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles Chargers.

UNDERS

OAKLAND 6, (4)
The Raiders won four games last year, and I can’t remember a single one of them, nor do I know how they managed to win four games. For this season, they added the best wide receiver in the league in Antonio Brown, who pretty much proved on Hard Knocks he’s not going to play a full season.

The Raiders have their usual four games against Kansas City and Los Angeles Chargers, which are four losses, and they will also play the NFC North, AFC South and New York Jets. The Raiders aren’t winning going over six wins. They’re not going to get to six wins. I’m not sure how they will even match last year’s four wins.

CINCINNATI 6, (6)
The Bengals won six games last year, didn’t improve and will be without their best player in A.J. Green to start the season. They are the only weak team in the AFC North, add in games against the NFC West and AFC East this season and where exactly are they going to get seven wins and be better than they were last year? This one feels way too easy.

DETROIT 6.5, (6)
The Lions went 6-10 last year and their expected win total went up by a 1/2 game even though I think they will be worse in 2019 than they were in 2018.

There’s a very good chance the Lions go 0-6 in division play, but let’s say they go 2-4 to be generous. They have easy opponents in Arizona, New York Giants, Oakland, Washington, Tampa Bay and Denver. If the Lions go 2-4 within their division and then win all five of those six games, they would beat their number. But if they fail to do either, they would have to picks up either more wins within their division or find wins against Los Angeles Chargers, Philadelphia, Kansas City or Dallas. There’s too much that needs to happen for the Lions to be a seven-win team.

INDIANAPOLIS 7.5, (10)
I think Jacoby Brissett will be better than most expect him to be, and I think the Colts won’t be as bad of a team as anyone would expect a team to be when their franchise quarterback retires two weeks before the season. But I don’t think they’re an eight-win team, and it’s nearly impossible to see a path to eight wins on their schedule.

If the Colts are able to go .500 in their division, which won’t be easy, they would have to go 5-5 in non-division play against three Super Bowl-contenders in Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City and New Orleans, and second-tier teams like Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Carolina. Even if the Colts were to upset one or two of those teams, they would have to win all of their easier games against Oakland, Denver, Miami and Tampa Bay, and there’s a better chance they lose to one of those four teams than there is that they beat one of the previous six. It’s just not happening.

SAN FRANCISCO 8, (4)
The 49ers had Jimmy Garoppolo for three games in 2018 before losing him for the season. They went 1-2 in those games and then 3-10 the rest of the way. The 2019 49ers have a chance to get off to a fast start opening the season against Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, but with games against the AFC North this season and an absolutely brutal second-half schedule (minus a game against Arizona), I’m not buying the 49ers as a .500 team.

It’s hard to envision a quarterback with a little more than a handful of starts leading an eight-win team in the competitive NFC West. It’s even harder to envision the coach who orchestrated the Falcons’ second-half Super Bowl collapse leading a team to an eight-win season.

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Blogs • Yankees

Sep 3, 2019

Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings: Second Edition

The Yankees’ postseason rotation won’t be decided for a few weeks, but it’s time to figure out what it will look like with a month to go.

The first edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings was on July 23. Back then, trading for Madison Bumgarner seemed more realistic than Luis Severino returning this season and finding anyone to follow Masahiro Tanaka and Domingo German in the rotation seemed impossible.

My postseason rotation hasn’t changed over the last six weeks, but it’s getting close to. James Paxton is pitching like the front-end starter the Yankees thought they traded for and Severino came out of his first rehab start in Triple-A without any issues. The third edition could see drastic changes depending on how the next two weeks go.

These power rankings will be updated frequently between now and the end of the regular season. They are based on a combination of personal preference, recent performance and historical performance. This rotation is based on the current 25-man roster and is created under the assumption the players on the injured list won’t be available for the postseason.

Game 1: Number 19, Masahiro Tanaka, Number 19
Masahiro Tanaka could pitch to a 15.10 ERA for the rest of the season and I would still give him the ball in Game 1 of the ALDS. Tanaka has proven his worth in the postseason in three different postseasons now with the worst of his five starts being two earned runs over five innings in a game the Yankees were never going to score in let alone win (2015 AL Wild-Card Game against Dallas Keuchel).

Last October, Tanaka was the only Yankees starter to pitch well in the four games against the Red Sox (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 K, 1 HR), and had he pitched Game 1, I might be writing about the Yankees looking to become the first team since 2000 to win back-to-back championships. In 2017, he allowed two earned runs in 13 innings in the ALCS to the eventual champion Astros and shut out the Indians over seven innings in Game 3 of the ALDS to save the season and kickstart the Yankees’ improbable comeback over the Indians.

Advanced metrics suggest Tanaka has been the same pitcher in the postseason as the regular season, with a little more luck, while his postseason success has been attributed to a small sample size. Well, the postseason is a small sample size. At most, a team could play 20 games, and in the Yankees’ case, the most games they could play this October is 19. Jobs, careers, salaries, memories and legacies are built on the small sample size of the postseason, and so far, Tanaka has been outstanding (30 IP, 17 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 7 BB, 25 K, 3 HR, 1.50 ERA, 0.800 WHIP). Same regular-season FIP or not, he’s getting the ball in Game 1.

Game 2: Number 55, Domingo German, Number 55
Do I trust Domingo German in a postseason start? Not particularly. But outside of Tanaka, it’s hard to trust any of the current available starting options. As of now, German’s going to get a postseason start and will be asked to get 12 outs, which makes things a lot easier to stomach. If he’s going to get a start, it has to be at home.

German at home:
61.1 IP, 44 H, 17 R, 16 R, 17 BB, 74K, 10 HR, 2.35 ERA, 0.995 WHIP

German on the road:
71 IP, 75 H, 47 R, 43 ER, 16 BB, 67 K, 19 HR, 5.45 ERA, 1.282 WHIP

There’s still the chance the Yankees shut down German as a starter for the rest of the season at some point or screw with his routine and off days to the point that it messes him up, the way they have with so many other young starters to try and prevent injuries that eventually happened anyway. If the Yankees allow German to pitch uninterrupted for the remainder of the season and they win the World Series and he never pitches again, he did his job. His job is to pitch for the New York Yankees. The Yankees’ job is to win the World Series. The goal isn’t to grow careers. The goal is to win. Sadly, the Yankees’ effort to achieve this goal for the last decade hasn’t been what it once was.

Game 3: Number 65, James Paxton, Number 65
After the first edition of these rankings, Paxton went out and got rocked by the Red Sox (4 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 4 HR) and his ERA rose to 4.72. But since getting embarrassed in Boston, Paxton hasn’t lost, winning six straight for an undefeated August after the Yankees lost all five of his July starts.

Over this six-game winning streak, opposing hitters are batting .192/.271/.344 against Paxton as he beat two wild-card race teams in the Red Sox and Indians and dominated the National League-best Dodgers on the road. He’s looked like the pitcher I thought the Yankees traded for and not the pitcher who gave them four-plus months of mediocrity to begin the season.

I actually trust Paxton more than German right now, but since German is going to get a postseason start, it should be at home, which pushes Paxton to Game 3 on the road. Paxton has also been worse on the road than he has been at Yankee Stadium, but I trust him more to get comfortable, adapt and adjust wherever Game 3 is because I don’t have to.

Game 4: Number 57, Chad Green, Number 57
When Severino comes back and proves he’s healthy, the opener will fall off as a postseason starter. But until then, I’m giving the ball to Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman, and hopefully Dellin Betances to piece together 27 outs. There’s absolutely no way CC Sabathia can start a postseason game, and it’s comical to think J.A. Happ is going to be on the postseason roster, let alone given the ball for an October game. That leaves the opener strategy as the only available option.

Green hasn’t opened a game since August 15 against the Indians (0.1 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 2 HR). He has worked strictly as a reliever since then, holding batters to a .394 OPS for 7 1/3 innings.

My preference would be to have Green go one inning and maybe two innings depending on how he looked in the first inning. Then I would go right to the bullpen. I don’t care that you’re asking the bullpen to possibly get 24 outs. Worry about the next game when you get there.

This season, Green has either been dominant or a disaster with very little in between. He’s either looked like he did in 2017 or given up a crooked number while only getting an out or two. The opener plan with Green starting the game is far from a guarantee, but you could say that about all of the Yankees’ starting pitching options for the postseason.

***

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

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Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Aug 29, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: If Healthy, Yankees Will Have Hard Postseason Personnel Decisions

If the Yankees ever get completely healthy, there’s going to be a lot of debate about the postseason roster, lineup and rotation. They’re going to have to win the World Series to avoid a litany of second-guessing.

The Yankees started their nine-game West Coast trip by getting swept by the A’s. They turned an 0-3 start into a 5-1 finish by taking two out of three from the Dodgers (and could have taken all three if not for an egregious umpiring decision) and sweeping the Mariners. The Yankees return home with the best record in baseball despite not having played a single game at full strength this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. As much as I want the Yankees to win home-field advantage for the American League playoffs (and a potential World Series), and as much as I think they need to have home-field advantage to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup, I don’t think they’re going to win home-field advantage. It’s not because they’re not good enough, it’s because their remaining schedule and the Astros’ remaining schedule suggest they won’t.

One-third of the Yankees’ remaining 27 games will be against teams fighting for a wild-card berth (Oakland, Boston and Tampa Bay), while the Astros’ only remaining games against any team with a real postseason chance is a four-game series against the A’s. Unfortunately, if the Yankees and Astros meet in the ALCS, the Yankees are going to have to win at least one game in Houston — something they were unable to do in the 2017 ALCS — and one game against either Justin Verlander (Game 1), Gerrit Cole (Games 2 and 6) or Zack Greinke (Game 7). If the Yankees are going to beat any of those three in the postseason, they’re most likely going to have to win the way they did in Los Angeles: with the home run.

2. The Yankees took two out of three from the Dodgers by hitting home runs against Hyun-Jin Ryu and Clayton Kershaw. With the nearly impossible task of stringing together multiple base hits against elite pitching, the Yankees were able to use their home run prowess to defeat the NL All-Star Game starter and ERA leader on Friday and the best pitcher of his generation on Sunday. It’s part of the formula the Yankees are going to need to win in October: home runs + five innings from the starter + 12 outs from the bullpen.

I had a lot of Dodgers fans and in-laws in Los Angeles tell me how impressed they were by the Yankees since they don’t get to watch them much. The majority of those fans and in-laws also felt like the Yankees would beat the Dodgers if the two teams were to meet in the World Series. While that made me happy, it doesn’t mean anything other than to know Dodgers fans are petrified of having to play the Yankees and possibly lose a third straight World Series.

3. After dominating the Dodgers in the series opener and then beating the Mariners in Seattle without his best stuff, James Paxton has now recorded a win in six straight starts, finishing August a perfect 6-0 (after the Yankees lost all five of his starts in July) with this line: 35.1 IP, 24 H, 14 R, 14 ER, 14 BB, 39 K, 5 HR, 3.57 ERA, 1.076 WHIP.

In my yet-to-be-updated Postseason Rotation Power Rankings from July 23, I gave Paxton the Game 3 start in the ALDS with Masahiro Tanaka getting Game 1 and Domingo German getting Game 2. I think I’m ready to give Paxton at least Game 2.

But the reason I haven’t updated the rankings yet is because I have been waiting on more and more information on Luis Severino.

4. Severino is going to make his first rehab start of the season on Sunday in Triple-A. As long as he stays healthy and keeps progressing, we’ll likely see Severino pitching for the Yankees in mid-September, giving him a little more than two weeks of the regular season to get ready for October.

If Severino does stay healthy and returns as his usual self, it changes everything about the Postseason Rotation Power Rankings. He could be anywhere as high as the Game 1 starter to a long reliever to a middle reliever in the postseason. I want him back as a starter, but Severino in any role is better than no Severino at all.

5. It wasn’t even two weeks ago when Aaron Judge’s 2-spot in the order was being questioned. Over the last 11 games, Judge is hitting .383/.408/.872 with five doubles, six home runs and 10 RBIs, quieting all of his critics who wondered where his power and pull power went. It’s good to have one of the best players in the world back to being one of the best players in the world. It’s even better that he’s back entering the final month of the season.

6. Maybe Gary Sanchez was playing through an injury for a while which eventually led to his late-July/early-August injured-list stint. In 17 games since returning from IL, Sanchez has six home runs and 11 RBIs and a .917 OPS, hitting his 100th career home run and 30th home run in the process. I’m sure Sanchez will always provide us with frustrating moments and painful-to-watch slumps, but he’ll also always provide us with streaks like the one he’s currently on, and for that, he’s irreplaceable.

7. There was an article on MLB.com the other day citing a storyline to watch for each team over the last month of the season. The Yankees’ storyline was getting J.A. Happ back on track and the article said he might not get a postseason start as of now and would be pitching out of the bullpen in October. Clearly, the author rarely watches the Yankees.

No, J.A. Happ won’t be getting a postseason start, and there’s a better chance of David Cone pitching out of the bullpen in the postseason than there is Happ. It would take an abundance of injuries for Happ to even be on the postseason roster at this point. Some very worthy players who have helped the Yankees to the best record in baseball aren’t going to be on the postseason roster, let alone Happ, who has done very little to help the 2019 Yankees get to where they are and has done more harm than good. Happ has a month and say five-or-so starts of five innings and three earned runs or more left in his season.

8. This week the Yankees said they would “probably” call up Clint Frazier on September 1. “Probably”? If Frazier isn’t on the Yankees on September 1 then this whole thing will be taken to another level of ridiculous and the Yankees will no longer be able to hide behind the idea that he’s working on his defense in Triple-A or that he doesn’t fit on the current roster.

9. If the Yankees ever get completely healthy and get Severino, Dellin Betances, Luke Voit, Edwin Encarnacion, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks all back, there’s going to be a lot of debate about the postseason roster, the postseason lineup and the postseason rotation. It’s likely that if everyone is healthy, Gio Urshela could be on the bench in the postseason as well as Brett Gardner and either Luke Voit or Edwin Encarnacion. If the Yankees don’t win the World Series, there’s going to be a lot of room for second-guessing the lineup, rotation and roster decisions which were made.

10. In the Off Day Dreaming on August 1, I said my expected record for the Yankees for August (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) is 17-13. Well, as of today, they are 20-8, so at worst, they are going to finish the month three games better than my expected record.

My expected record for the Yankees in September is 15-10. If they win of the two remaining games in August against Oakland, and meet my expected record expectations for September, they would finish the season 104-58, four games better than their 2018 record.

Now this October just needs to go better than October 2018.

***

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


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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Aug 26, 2019

Yankees-Dodgers Weekend Was First True Test of My Marriage

My wife and I traveled to her native Los Angeles for the first West Coast Yankees-Dodgers meeting in six years. Because of the occasion and World Series potential, it made sense to recap it all in an email exchange.

Six years ago, I did a Yankees-Dodgers email exchange with my then-girlfriend Brittni Michaelis. The teams played a pair of two-games series in the Bronx and Los Angeles and we attended the entire four-game season series. The last time the two teams met in Los Angeles, the Yankees’ lineup included Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano and Alfonso Soriano as well as Vernon Wells, Brent Lillibridge, Jayson Nix and Chris Stewart.

A lot has changed since my first trip to Dodger Stadium in August 2013, including my then-girlfriend Brittni Michaelis becoming my now-wife and Brittni Keefe this June in New York City. But one thing hasn’t changed: neither team has won a championship.

For the third straight season, there’s a very real possibility the Yankees and Dodgers could meet in the World Series. The Yankees failed to hold up their end of the bargain the last two seasons, while the Dodgers ended up losing both World Series. This past weekend in Los Angeles, we got somewhat of a preview of what a World Series between the two teams would look like.

Brittni and I traveled back to her native Los Angeles for the first West Coast meeting between the teams since our last email exchange. Because of the momentous occasion and their possible postseason reunion, it only made sense to recap the Yankees’ series win in another email exchange.

Neil: Who knew all it would take for Aaron Judge to come out of his slump was a weekend against the team with the best record in baseball, and a couple of games against the National League All-Star Game starting pitcher and the best pitcher of his generation and possibly the best pitcher of all time? I would like to thank the Dodgers for turning Judge back into Judge for the final 30 games of the season leading into the postseason.

And who knew all it would take for James Paxton to realize his potential and find himself for the first time in more than four months would be a game against the NL’s top run-scoring offense and the best home team in the majors? I would also like to thank the Dodgers for potentially turning Paxton’s season around and giving the Yankees a comfort and confidence boost for their postseason rotation.

Despite winning two out of three (and what might have been a sweep if not for the most egregious umpiring decision of the season), the Yankees getting their 2-hitter back on track for the final the month of the season and getting a dominant performance from their potential Game 1, 2 or 3 postseason starter was just as important as trimming the Dodgers’ home-field advantage lead to one game. Thank you, Dodgers. After taking on all the Red Sox’ bad contracts seven years ago and then putting together an embarrassing performance against the Red Sox in the World Series last year, you have finally done something to help the Yankees.

It was a near-perfect weekend in Los Angeles. The only things that prevented it from being perfect were the Players Weekend uniforms and the ninth-inning umpiring on Saturday.

Brittni: I only wish the Dodgers could have played the Yankees when they didn’t have a 20-game division lead and didn’t have a significant lead for the best record in the National League. Maybe then Dave Roberts would have managed to win and the series could have had a different outcome. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough In-N-Out or Micheladas to cure my baseball hangover from the weekend.

Hyun-jin Ryu’s performance on Friday was the real Ryu that Dodgers fans have come to know. The second you expect greatness from him, he lets you down. Fatigue is being cited as the reason for his performance on Friday night, but what do you expect? It’s late August and he’s pitched more innings this season than he has in any season in five years.

As for Kershaw, I can’t say enough about him and won’t say anything bad about him. He is the Dodgers. He pitched well and more than good enough to win on Sunday (7 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 12 K, 3 HR), but he got beat by three solo home runs because his offense didn’t show up, which pretty much summarizes his entire career. Everyone expects a complete-game shutout from him when he starts because he’s set the bar so high over the last decade, and when he doesn’t, he gets unfairly criticized. Kershaw has had to be near-perfect to win for most of his Dodgers career and Sunday was another example of that.

Neil: I have been fearful of the Yankees and Dodgers meeting in the World Series this season and the Dodgers ending their 30-year championship drought and you getting the first Dodgers championship of your lifetime at my expense. Not only that, but after losing to the Astros and Red Sox in back-to-back World Series, it’s supposed to be the Yankees’ turn of the AL powerhouses to win a championship against the Dodgers, so it would be more than painful if they lose to the Dodgers. I have been fearful of that possible outcome because of the Dodgers’ dominant starting pitching, but after this weekend, I’m no longer fearful. Starting pitching is all the Dodgers have going for them and with the now right-handed heavy Yankees lineup, left-handed starting pitching no longer matches up well against them in the postseason.

When it comes to the Dodgers’ offense, I laugh at those who think it’s top-notch because of the numbers they see on paper and the stats they have padded against the crappy NL West where the second-best team is the .500 Giants. As someone who stays up late each night watching the Dodgers with you, and someone who has lost many, many times on inflated Dodgers money lines, I know the real Dodgers offense and it sucks.

As for the Dodgers’ bullpen, unless Kenley Jansen finds his cutter, who is getting important outs for them in October? Joe Kelly?! Pedro Baez?! Yimi Garcia?!

How could you or any Dodgers fan feel good about this roster?

Brittni: It was three games and the smallest of sample sizes. You aren’t scared of the best starting pitching in baseball? You’re taking crazy pills. You should be petrified. The Yankees’ bats will be silenced this October like they were last October and in Games 6 and 7 the previous October when they were one win away from playing the Dodgers in the World Series.

I’m not the biggest fan of this roster, but I don’t have a choice. The front office refused to make any moves at the deadline, so this is what I’m stuck with. I’m not sure this roster has what it takes to finally win the World Series, though if they get a couple of breaks in the postseason, like the one in the ninth inning on Saturday, they could.

The Dodgers are going to be able to coast through September, rest their everyday players and allow their pitchers to get their work in as needed. You might not be scared of the Dodgers’ starting pitching in a potential World Series matchup, but you should be scared of the Yankees’ starting pitching for the entire postseason. Even with Paxton and Domingo German shutting down the Dodgers and giving you comfort and confidence, do you really trust them? Or Masahiro Tanaka or CC Sabathia or J.A. Happ? If Luis Severino doesn’t come back and come back as his usual self, you better stock up on your lifetime “Ladies and gentleman” immunity passes for Twitter. You’re going to need them.

Neil: I don’t feel good about the rotation, but I don’t need them to pitch seven-plus innings in the postseason like you need Kershaw, Ryu and Walker Buehler to. I just need them to get through four innings and get 12 outs with either a lead or a close game. Then it’s 15 outs from Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman, and hopefully the best reliever in baseball: Dellin Betances.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers are probably going to have the best record in baseball this season and have home-field advantage for a potential World Series meeting. Aside from five games against the Rays and Mets, the Dodgers don’t have another game against a team with a winning record this season. Ladies and gentlemen, the NL West! So if the Yankees and Dodgers do meet again, it will be on Tuesday, Oct. 22 in Los Angeles for Game 1 of the World Series.

Don’t worry, if the Yankees end up winning the World Series, whether it’s against the Dodgers or another team, I will still let you have some champagne since I will need someone to celebrate with, and you can still attend the parade with me, since I will need someone to take pictures.

I would say I would do the same for you if the Dodgers win the World Series, but we’re talking about a team whose manager batted a career .242 hitter third in the World Series, didn’t start Cody Bellinger or Max Muncy in postseason games because of left-handed starters and kept using the same middle reliever in high-leverage situations in the World Series even though he allowed every inherited runner to score in the series. As long as Roberts is the manager of the Dodgers, I don’t think I have to worry about them ending their World Series drought.

If there’s no World Series meeting between the Yankees and Dodgers, we’ll have to do this in 2022 when the teams meet again. Maybe by then Andrew Friedman will have built a bullpen for you and Brian Cashman will have built a rotation for me.

Brittni: Roberts might be the only thing we have ever agreed on regarding the Dodgers. As long as he’s in charge, my path and the Dodgers’ path to a championship is impeded.

Roberts is a very zen, Cali-forn-i-a-style manager. He isn’t scary, he never gets upset and it’s very “Yeah, bro … life is good … I live in sunny SoCal where it’s always 70 degrees” with him. I need heat, I need passion, I need a manager who is fearful. I need this because in the last two years I’ve watched the Dodgers lose back-to-back World Series and it a lot of it had to with Roberts’ in-game decisions and his nonchalant demeanor after the losses.

We may be getting ahead of ourselves when it comes to a Dodgers-Yankees World Series meeting. I know you don’t believe in jinxes, but they do exist. A Dodgers-Yankees World Series didn’t work out the last two years and the Astros and Braves could easily prevent it from happening again. It would be great to finally get this matchup and it would be even greater to have it go seven games, it’s just that a lot of things need to happen to get there.

I’d like to think we are older and wiser now since our last email exchange six years ago, but we placed a bet in which the loser of the weekend series has to eat two Dodger dogs from the ampm store. It makes me wonder what our bet will be if our teams do end up playing each other in the World Series.

But the more and more I think about it, I’m not sure I want a World Series against you, let alone one that goes seven games. If the Dodgers were to lose, you would hang that over my head for our entire marriage. I thought the rides home from Dodger Stadium on Friday and Sunday nights were bad enough, I don’t know how I would handle a Yankees championship at the expense of the Dodgers and a championship for you at the expense of me.

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

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Blogs • Yankees

Aug 22, 2019

2019 J.A. Happ Has Been Every Bit as Bad as 2018 Sonny Gray

Last season, Sonny Gray was every bit as bad as J.A. Happ has been this season. So why is it that Happ continues to start games, while Gray was removed from the rotation and eventually traded?

Between his disastrous starts, inability to adjust and unwillingness to take responsibility or be accountable for his own pitching, Sonny Gray wasn’t going to work out in New York.

When you combine Gray’s time with the Yankees for the last two months of 2017 and first four months of 2018, he was only given the equivalent of one full season for the Yankees to determine he wasn’t a fit for New York. After he was removed from the rotation, Brian Cashman openly admitted he was looking to move Gray right up until the day he was finally traded. Cashman said, “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results” in regards to holding on to Gray for 2019 and beyond, so eventually, he dealt him to the Reds.

There’s a reason why the Yankees gave up three of their better prospects at the time for Gray and there’s a reason why the team let him start Game 1 of the 2017 ALDS and Game 4 of the 2017 ALCS. There’s a reason so many teams were connected to him this past offseason and why the Reds ultimately decided to trade for him and give him a $30.5 million extension upon acquiring him, completely disregarding his awful 2018 season. And there’s a reason why David Ortiz said the following about Gray back in 2015:

“The last few seasons, the toughest guy I’ve faced is Sonny Gray from Oakland. This kid’s stuff is legit … the first time I see this Gray kid on the mound, I can’t help but notice he’s 5’10” and skinny. He looks like the guy who fixes my computer at the Apple Store. I’m thinking, Here we go. This is gonna be fun. Then he took me for a ride, man. Fastball. Sinker. Slider. Curve … Whap. Whap. Whap. You have no idea what this kid is going to throw. He drives me crazy.”

The reason for all these things is because Gray has the ability, talent, stuff and repertoire to be a perennial Cy Young candidate. The pitcher Ortiz was talking about is the one who pitched to a 2.88 ERA over 491 innings in his first three seasons in the league and who shut out the Tigers over eight innings in Game 2 of the 2013 ALDS. That’s the pitcher the Yankees thought they were getting. That’s the pitcher I thought the Yankees were getting.

Last August, the Yankees pulled the plug on Gray as a starter after his embarrassing start against the eventual 47-win Orioles sent the Yankees into a downward spiral heading into their eventual four-game sweep at the hands of the Red Sox in Boston. When the Yankees finally had enough, Gray had pitched to the following line through 21 starts: 103.2 IP, 112 H, 65 R, 64 ER, 46 BB, 99 K, 13 HR, 5.64 ERA, 1.524 WHIP.

In his first season with the Reds, Gray has returned to the pitcher he was with the A’s, the pitcher the Yankees thought they were trading for. An All-Star for the first time in four years, Gray has a 2.92 ERA in 25 starts, a career-low hits-per-nine innings (6.6) and a career-high strikeouts-per-nine innings (10.6). Outside of New York, Gray has been the young, durable and controllable front-end starter Cashman has failed so many times to trade for in over decades, but while in New York, Gray was every bit as bad as J.A. Happ has been this season.

Once again, on Wednesday night, Happ put the Yankees in an early hole they were unable to climb out of, and for the 19th time in 25 starts, he failed to go six innings, something he has done once since June 6. Happ lasted only four innings in Oakland, giving up another pair of home runs, and making it now nearly a month since he provided the Yankees with one of his six quality starts.

Only a few times has Happ looked like the pitcher who went 9-0 in 11 starts for the Yankees after the deadline last season as he’s mostly looked like a soon-to-be, 37-year-old with a low-90s fastball whose only chance at success is with pinpoint control. In a season in which 20 percent of his starts have come against the Orioles, you would think his overall numbers would be somewhat respectable, but he has a 6.85 ERA against the team on pace to win 52 games. Here’s Happ’s season line after Wednesday’s loss:

129 IP, 141 H, 79 R, 79 ER, 37 BB, 105 K, 31 HR, 5.51 ERA, 1.380 WHIP.

Look familiar? Again, here’s Sonny Gray’s line when the Yankees pulled him from the rotation:

103.2 IP, 112 H, 65 R, 64 ER, 46 BB, 99 K, 13 HR, 5.64 ERA, 1.524 WHIP.

Happ has a better walk rate and a slightly better ERA, but his strikeouts-per-nine innings are lower and his home run rate is absurd. The lines are similar and everything about their seasons has been as well. So why is it that Happ continues to get the ball every fifth day, while Gray was banished to the bullpen and then dealt to Cincinnati with his value at an all-time low?

The answer can’t be because Happ’s under contract for next season because so was Gray, who was under contract for less money, is seven years younger than Happ and still has a future. The Yankees gave up on Gray for good after one calendar year and with two months left in the season, yet there haven’t been any rumors, whispers, rumblings or inklings of Happ losing his rotation spot.

The answer can’t be because there aren’t other starting options because going with an opener two days a week is better than Happ once a week, and there wasn’t any depth last season when Gray was removed either. When the Yankees stopped letting Gray start, they didn’t have pitching depth to turn to and had yet to steal the Rays’ opener strategy. But they still made the move knowing they would be taxing their bullpen and starting pitchers with much less ability and much weaker career resumes than Gray.

The answer can’t be because the division is locked up because home-field advantage is every bit as important as the division. The most likely scenario in the AL playoffs is a Yankees-Astros ALCS. They are going to be the 1- and 2-seeds and they are the two best teams in the league. Two years ago in the ALCS, the Astros went 4-0 at home and the Yankees went 3-0 at home. The Astros outscored the Yankees 15-3 in Houston and the Yankees outscored the Astros 19-5 in New York. This season the Astros are 45-16 at home and the Yankees are 49-20 at home, the best two home records in the AL. At the same time the Astros were about to lose on Wednesday night and give the Yankees a chance to create further separation in the standings, Happ was busy giving two-run home runs in the second and third innings in the eventual loss. The Yankees might have the division won, but the goal isn’t to win the division, it’s to win the World Series, and unless the Yankees have home-field advantage in the playoffs, that goal is going to be nearly impossible to accomplish.

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. There’s no way Happ can get a postseason start. No way. I would rather watch Luis Cessa get the ball in the postseason or have Cessa team up with Nestor Cortes for the first few innings of a playoff game than watch Happ ruin an October game for the second straight year.

The Yankees gave up on Gray for the season in 2018 and then gave up on him for good before 2019. The Yankees aren’t going to give up on Happ for good because of the money he’s owed, his stock being at an all-time low and him simply being untradeable given his age and contract. But they should give up on him for the season.

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

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