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Author: Neil Keefe

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Subway Series

Apr 24, 2015

The Subway Series Once Again Has Significance

For the first time in years, the Subway Series will actually mean something for both teams in what is a renewed rivalry in the city.

Joe Girardi and Terry Collins

For the time in Subway Series history, both the Yankees and Mets enter the series with at least a share of first place in their respective division. It’s crazy to think this is the first time that has happened considering how competitive both teams were in the early- and mid-2000s, but apparently it’s true and as a result we have the most hyped Subway Series in years.

With the, I did an email exchange with Eric Simon of Amazin’ Avenue to talk about if the Subway Series still has meaning, the result of the Lucas Duda-Ike Davis Debate and the Mets taking the best record in baseball into the Bronx.

Keefe: I have always been a fan of interleague play and the Subway Series. In years when both teams were good it was fun because, well, both teams were good. And in years when the Mets weren’t good, it was fun because it meant some easy wins for the Yankees. A lot of people have complained about the series losing its luster in recent years, but I have always enjoyed it. In a 162-game season, you need games like this to break up the monotony of playing the same divisional opponents every series.

This year, we’re back to the mid-2000s when both teams were competitive, and when both fan bases cared about the series and got up for the series. This Subway Series has the first feeling of a big series since probably 2009. While I don’t enjoy the Mets being good or riding an 11-game winning streak entering the series, I’m happy their relevance has brought the Subway Series back to life.

Are you a fan of the Subway Series?

Simon: I’m pretty ambivalent about the Subway Series at this point. I’m not generally a fan of interleague play to begin with and would favor a return to the balanced intra-league schedule of years past. That, of course, can’t happen now that each league has an uneven number of teams, so we’re stuck with interleague play for better or worse.

Mets-Yankees games do still have a little more excitement than your average games. I can’t say I loathe the Yankees the way I once did, but something about reading the local scribes celebrating a Yankees victory over the Mets probably does get under my skin a little bit.

Keefe: Mets fans are the most optimistic they have been in years with the hot start to the season. It seems like every Mets fan I know has taken to social media in some regard to hint at a future World Series parade this coming fall. I wish the Mets were doing as well as they are, but it’s a welcome sight to have both New York teams playing well at the same time again to increase the hype for the weekend. However, there are some still-pessimistic Mets fans waiting for the other shoe to drop and trying not to get ahead of themselves with April success.

Which type of Mets fan are you?

Simon: I’m pretty realistic about the Mets. This means I don’t dash for the nearest bridge when things are going badly, but I also tend not to overstate the Mets’ case when things are going well.

So I guess I’m neither of the Mets fans you describe.

Keefe: The Mets’ rotation is one of the best in the league and the Yankees will see Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey in the first two games of the series and then they get Jon Niese in the finale, which isn’t exactly a picnic since the Yankees aren’t the best against lefties.

Bartolo Colon has been called the leader of the rotation, and this season he has certainly pitched like it. There was a lot of talk about the Mets using him as a trade chip last season, but they ended up keeping him and he his having another impressive year at age 42. His return to the majors and to prominence came in 2011 with the Yankees when he turned back the clock for most of that summer and looked like the 2005 Cy Young Award winner. After initially being disgusted that he had made the team as a reliever and then being annoyed that he would join the rotation, watching him pitch every five days became one of the best parts of that season.

What has Colon meant to the young rotation?

Simon: Ballplayers will tell you how this or that veteran is a great leader or clubhouse presence or guiding hand or whatever. I suspect Colon is all of those things, but I’m not particularly interested in the details.

Colon has been great for the Mets this season and utterly entertaining nearly every time he starts. That’s good enough for me.

Keefe: I remember when Ike Davis made his debut and it was an event for the Mets and Mets fan. But over time, he fell out of favor, got injured and also sick and then was eventually traded to Pittsburgh. The Mets picked Lucas Duda over Davis in the great Davis-Duda Debate and it worked out for them last year when Duda hit 30 home runs with 92 RBIs.

It always seemed like they were very close to same player and that’s what made the debate even harder because no one really had a real grasp on which of the two would end up having better career. Now this season, both are off to hot and almost identical starts with Davis now in Oakland and it makes the comparison between them even crazier.

Were you on the Davis or Duda side of the debate? Were you upset that Davis didn’t become the next icon for the Mets?

Simon: I was a big Ike Davis supporter when he came up and looked like Keith Hernandez with power, and I soured on him like everybody else did when he stopped hitting altogether and his defense deteriorated. Lucas Duda might be my favorite Met at the moment, and I’m thrilled that he’s been playing so well since the Mets traded Davis.

Especially now that he’s in the American League, I’m happy to root for Davis and I hope he has his career back on track in Oakland.

Keefe: A lot of people thought the Mets would be competitive this year and if everything broke right they could be in the mix for a wild-card spot and somewhere around 90 wins. Through the first 15 games of the season, they have exceeded expectations with a perfect 10-0 start at home, incredible starting pitching and timely hitting. Basically everything that has gone wrong for the Mets in recent years since the 2007 collapse has gone right for them in the first two-plus weeks of the season.

What were you expectations for the Mets before the season started and have they changed at all after the 13-3 start?

Simon: I thought the Mets would be a little better than .500 and that if a few things went their way they’d be competing for one of the two wild cards in the National League. They’re not going to win 80 percent of their games all year, but they’ve been a lot of fun to watch through these first 16 games and certainly my expectations for them have changed a good deal—perhaps more than they should—after their hot start.

I’d say they’re now more likely than not to make the playoffs in one way or another, but I wouldn’t quite pencil them in as NL East champs at this point.

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Blogs • Subway Series • Yankees

Apr 24, 2015

The Mets and Their Fans Will Always Be the Little Brother

The Yankees need to make sure that the Mets remember that they still aren’t on the same level and will never be when it comes to the Subway Series.

2000 World Series

When I went to Yankee Stadium for the sixth game of the season and Sunday Night Baseball, it felt like I was going to an important game. It felt like a must-win game. I understand it sounds outrageous to call the sixth game of a 162-game season a “must-win ” game, but at 1-4 with a game still to go against the Red Sox and then a 10-game road trip to Baltimore, where the Yankees were dominated last season, Tampa Bay (where the Yankees have had trouble winning in recent years) and Detroit (home to the best team in baseball before this past week), things weren’t going to get any easier.

I started to think about what if the Yankees just kept on not scoring and making errors and baserunning mistakes? What if they dug themselves the kind of hole the Brewers have dug for themselves at 3-13 and eight games back just 16 games into the season? What if the season was ruined and over before the end of April?

Thankfully, the Yankees opened that Sunday night game against the Red Sox with an A-Rod three-run double, back-to-back home runs from Chase Headley and Stephen Drew and a seven-run first inning to save their season. And thankfully when they left Baltimore after back-to-back losses they went on to sweep the Rays last weekend and then came within a Jacoby Ellsbury double play of potentially sweeping a four-game series from the Tigers in Detroit. Thankfully, there is still a season.

Nothing has come easy for the Yankees over the last two years and that has continued into 2015. Their first four series were against the rest of the AL East and their fifth series came against the Tigers, who have won the NL Central four seasons in a row, and entered the series with the best record in the majors. And even though they’re returning to the Bronx for a six-game homestand, they’re returning home for the first half of the Subway Series to face the Mets, the latest hottest team in baseball.

I have always liked interleague play and I have always enjoyed the Subway Series. When both teams were competitive, it gave us a playoff-like series in the middle of a season that can feel monotonous at times. And when the Mets were bad like they have been for several years, it meant a few extra wins for the Yankees. Outside of the Mets’ 2013 four-game sweep that changed the Yankees’ season, the Subway Series has always been good to me and Yankees fans.

Things are different in 2015. Most people thought the Mets would be competitive this season and if everything broke right, they could compete for a wild-card spot and could come close to the 90-win plateau for the first time since 2008 when they finished 89-73 and missed the playoffs by one game. But the Mets have exceeded expectations over the first 16 games of the seasons and are 13-3 and riding an 11-game winning streak into the Bronx. An 11-game winning streak … for the Mets. It’s a number that seems unfathomable for an organization that has become the laughingstock of the league since the September 2007 collapse and a number they haven’t seen since 1990.

While this winning streak has continued, Mets fans have started to boast the way they were in 2006 when the Yankees lost in four games to the Tigers in the ALDS as the Mets advanced to the 2006 NLCS only to lose Game 7 at home to the eventual champion Cardinals. Mets fans have talked about taking over the city the way they did nine years ago and the way Jets fans did in 2009 and 2010 and the way Islanders fans did earlier this season. Each time the little brother has lost the battle being put back in their place by the big brother in what is a never-ending cycle. And that’s what each of those organizations are in the city: the little brother.

The Mets have longed to be the Yankees (and apparently the Brooklyn Dodgers too with the layout of Citi Field) and Mets fans have longed to be Yankees fans, stooping as low as trying to make Roll Call a Mets thing. But something like that is expected from a fan base looking for anything to get excited about after eight postseason-less seasons and six losing years in Queens. So it’s not surprising that Mets fans are treating their early-season success like something that will be sustained or trying to steal Yankee Stadium traditions or that they are expected to pack the Stadium this weekend in an effort to take over the Bronx and in turn take over the city.

I’m not sure where the “Best Team in New York” title or the idea that the one team can own or take over the city in any of the major sports came from or how it started, but it’s ridiculous. Not ridiculous in the sense that it doesn’t exist, but ridiculous in the sense that the little brother will ever take down the big brother.

In the past, the Yankees had nothing to gain from the Subway Series. If they won, they were supposed to win, and if they lost, it would be treated as the end of the world by the media and Mets fans. But now the Yankees have something to gain from the Subway Series. They can make sure the Mets and their fans remember that they’re still the little brother.

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Podcasts • Subway Series • Yankees

Apr 24, 2015

Podcast: Bald Vinny

Mets fans have tried to steal Roll Call and now they are expected to pack Yankee Stadium this weekend for the Subway Series in the Bronx.

New York Yankees

The Yankees’ season looked to be in trouble on Sunday Night Baseball against the Red Sox in the sixth game of the season, but since that win, the Yankees have gone 8-3, including winning six of seven to finish their 10-game road trip. The Yankees have given fans something to be excited about over the last week and they take their three-game winning streak into the most-hyped Subway Series in years.

Bald Vinny of the Right Field Bleacher Creatures and Bald Vinny’s House of Tees joined me to talk about the state of the Yankees’ after the first 16 games of the season, their recent run to end their 10-game road trip, Mets fans stealing Roll Call from Yankees fans and what to expect at Yankee Stadium for the Subway Series this weekend.

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Podcasts • Subway Series • Yankees

Apr 23, 2015

Podcast: JJ Barstool Sports New York

After starting the season 1-4, the Yankees have won eight of their last 11 and are tied for first in the AL East with the first half of the Subway Series up next.

New York Yankees v Detroit Tigers

After the six-game homestand to open the season, it looked like the Yankees’ season could unravel before it really even began with a 10-game road trip to Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Detroit. But after starting the season 1-4 and being 3-6 after the first three games of the road trip, the Yankees have won six of their last seven and are tied for first in the AL East with the first half of the Subway Series up next.

JJ of Barstool Sports New York joined me to talk about the state of the Yankees after the first weeks of the season, the problems with the Yankees’ lineup, the hype surrounding the Subway Series and why the Yankees need to put an end to the Mets fans’ happiness this weekend.

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Blogs • Yankees

Apr 22, 2015

When Does the Free Pass for Jacoby Ellsbury Expire?

Jacoby Ellsbury hasn’t received any criticism since he became a Yankee and it’s time the $153 million center fielder was treated according to his performance.

Jacoby Ellsbury

Jacoby Ellsbury became a Yankee in the same free-agency class as Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran. Five years after spending $423.5 million on Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett following a postseason-less season, the Yankees spent $438 million on Ellsbury, Tanaka, McCann and Beltran following another postseason-less season, which ended with a Red Sox championship.

The Yankees let Robinson Cano go to Seattle after lowballing their homegrown superstar and then used the money they should have used for a new deal to re-sign him to overpay for a 30-year-0ld center fielder, a 30-year-old catcher and a 37-year-old right fielder. And in the first season with the three new position players on the rosters, the Yankees went 84-78 and missed the playoffs for the second straight season.

Ellsbury hit .271/.328/.419 with 16 home runs and 70 RBIs in 149 games. McCann hit .232/.286/.406 with 23 home runs and 75 RBIs in 140 games. Beltran hit .233/.301/.402 with 15 home runs and 49 RBIs in 109 games. All three had bad seasons and that’s before you factor in their salaries and that they made $53.1 million combined. But in a year in which the Yankees finished only six games over .500 and missed the playoffs and somehow had a worse offensive team than the miserable 2013 Yankees, Ellsbury’s subpar season (in which he finished lower than his career averages in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage) was somehow considered “good”. Despite playing nowhere near that of a $21.1-million-per-season center fielder in his prime and posting a slash line nowhere near his 2013 season and nowhere even close to his 2011 season, Ellsbury was given a free pass for 2014, and apparently that free pass doesn’t expire because he’s been given one again to start 2015.

The Yankees didn’t need any of the three, but that didn’t stop them from signing them and putting more bad contracts on the books. (Thanks, Brian Cashman!) It’s still ridiculous that the Yankees were willing to give $153 million to an inferior player in Ellsbury while maintaining their stance and not willing to budge on their own Cano at $175 million. The Yankees didn’t and don’t need Ellsbury. They already had Brett Gardner, who is the cheaper version of Ellsbury. They did need Cano. And without signing a luxury, not a necessity, in Ellsbury, they would have been able to up their seven-year, $175 million offer to Cano (even though they’re the Yankees and they could have upped it anyway).

On Monday night, the Yankees trailed the Tigers 2-1 in the eighth inning with Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius on first and one out. Gregorius had just singled and chase Alfredo Simon from the game and Brad Ausmus went into his miserable bullpen and called on Joba Chamberlain to face Ellsbury. (Ellsbury has seen Chamberlain more than any other place in the majors since Joba’s 2007 debut.) After fouling off a first-pitch fastball, Ellsbury hit a second-pitch fastball into a 4-6-3 inning-ending double play. Rally over. Inning over. Game all but over as the Yankees would go on to lose 2-1.

It was the 13th game of the season for the Yankees and the 12th game of the season for Ellsbury. He finished the game 1-for-4 with his 15th hit of the season, 14 of which are singles with the other being a double, with zero home runs and zero RBIs.

On Tuesday night, Ellsbury went 0-for-4 with a walk, maintaining his one extra-base hit total for the season and once again failing to drive in a run. Even Gregorio Petit has one RBI this season and it’s shocking when he is able to make contact at the plate and a miracle when he puts the ball in play. But the Yankees won 5-1 on Tuesday thanks to contributions from players not named Jacoby Ellsbury, so he was able to get by for another night.

What if A-Rod, who is making $100,000 less than Ellsbury this season, was entering the 15th game of the season with one extra-base hit, no home runs and no RBIs? I’m sure Twitter and the Post and the Daily News and ESPN would leave him alone and let his performance go unnoticed and give him time to turn it around. But for some reason, no one is talking about Ellsbury’s lack of run production. It’s not like the Yankees are off to some impressive start and therefore no reason to complain about anything or be worried or concerned about the team. They’re a .500 team through 14 games and their second-highest paid position player (Mark Teixeira is first at $22.5 million this season … and next!) this season has been invisible offensively.

I didn’t want Jacoby Ellsbury on the Yankees. I didn’t want a 30-year-old center fielder on a seven-year, $153 million, who’s biggest part of his game is his speed, knowing that speed won’t last forever. I didn’t want to watch 37-year-old Ellsbury as a platoon player making $21.1 million in 2020. (The Yankees will have to pay him $5 million to not play for them in 2021.) But he’s here, and he’s for this year and at least the next five years after this one. And since he’s here, his performance needs to be treated accordingly.

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