With a second child being born and now having two under 21 months, the last couple of months have been a gongshow. The betting hasn’t slowed, but the MLB Bets blogs have. There’s still half a season to be played and wagered on and then the postseason, so time to get back to the blog.
Here are the bets for Friday, July 8.
Yankees -154 over Red Sox Just one play for Friday night.
If the Yankees don’t let the Rafael Devers-J.D. Martinez-Xander Bogaerts trio beat them, the Red Sox can’t beat them. The Red Sox are so beat up and banged up from a pitching perspective that what was a mediocre staff to begin the season is now an atrocious staff.
We saw that with Josh Winckowski getting lit up by the Yankees (and Josh Donaldson and Aaron Hicks of all hitters) on Thursday. On Friday, the Red Sox will follow up Winckowski with Connor Seabold who has pitched 8 2/3 innings this season and has allowed 18 baserunners and three home runs.
Yes, the Yankees could lose, and yes, no Yankees-Red Sox game in any season between the two teams can be considered a sure-thing for either team. But Seabold is as bad a starter as the Yankees will see this season. They don’t need Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo back in the lineup to beat him and the Red Sox again. But if they are both back on Friday, this line won’t be available at -154.
The Yankees beat the Red Sox 6-5 on Thursday in the first game between the rivals in three months.
The Yankees beat the Red Sox 6-5 on Thursday in the first game between the rivals in three months. The Yankees had a supposed enormous advantage on the mound with Gerrit Cole, but the Yankees’ “ace” allowed five runs, all on two Rafael Devers home runs. The two teams could very well meet in the ALDS or ALCS, and with Cole’s issues against the Red Sox, how can he be trusted against them in October?
The Yankees spent the last 10 games beating up on bad teams (4-1 against the A’s and Pirates), continuing their dominance over the Guardians (3-1) and couldn’t do anything offensively yet again in their rescheduled
The Yankees spent the last 10 games beating up on bad teams (4-1 against the A’s and Pirates), continuing their dominance over the Guardians (3-1) and couldn’t do anything offensively yet again in their rescheduled game in Houston.
1. A little more than a week off from the Thoughts and not much has happened. The Yankees swept the A’s (as they should), scored one run in a loss in Houston (as they always do), beat up on the Guardians (as they should) and then had one anemic offensive performance in Pittsburgh and one outstanding offensive performance in Pittsburgh. I would say the last 10 games have gone exactly as expected. No surprises.
2. I was surprised on Wednesday when the lineup for the second game of the two-game series against the Pirates was announced. This was the lineup Aaron Boone put together on Wednesday:
DJ LeMahieu Aaron Judge Matt Carpenter Giancarlo Stanton Gleyber Torres Josh Donaldson Joey Gallo Isiah Kiner-Falefa Kyle Higashioka
3. Matt Carpenter played in his first game as a Yankee on May 26, which was the team’s 45th game. Wednesday night’s game against the Pirates was the team’s 82nd game. Since his playing in his first game with the Yankees, the team has played 38 games. Wednesday was his 12th start.
Carpenter started on June 3 and then started again nine days later on June 12. He started on June 22 and then not again until July 2. He has had two stretches of at least nine days in which he didn’t start a game, despite being able to play first base, third base and right field, on a team whose third baseman has been absolutely atrocious and whose outfield has been Aaron Judge and sometimes Giancarlo Stanton, when he’s allowed to play the outfield.
So Carpenter isn’t good enough to start more than once in every three games on average, but when he does play he’s good enough to bat third?
4. It was refreshing to see Boone finally move Donaldson down to sixth in the order. He’s not deserving of batting that high either, but when the 7 through 9 is Joey Gallo, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Kyle Higashioka, Donaldson has to hit sixth.
Donaldson hit his seventh home run of the season on Wednesday night in the team’s 82nd game. Since it was the Yankees’ first game in the official second half of the season, by hitting that home run Donaldson increased his 2022 pace from 12 to 14 if he were to play in remaining every game (which he won’t.) So unless Donaldson gets “hot,” he’s going to post a single-season low for home runs. (His previous low is 24.)
After Donaldson’s home run in Pittsburgh, the YES broadcast made sure to comment that Boone said he has liked Donaldson’s at-bats of late. A little puzzling since Boone and the Yankees have made it clear in the past they don’t believe in the concept of players being “hot,” and if they don’t believe in it, then none of his recent at-bats should have any correlation to his at-bat resulting in the home run on Wednesday.
Donaldson has hit four doubles and now the home run (which was his second since May 16) in his last eight games. So if Boone thinks his at-bats have been better of late then why is he hitting .226/.242/.452 in those games. The .694 OPS over his last eight games is pretty much in line with his season totals of .226/.313/.387 and a .700 OPS.
5. A .700 OPS is abysmal, especially for a player with an .863 career OPS who the Yankees owe $24 million to this season and next. (I’m not upset with Donaldson for being traded to the Yankees and immediately being washed up at age 36. That’s on the Yankees for making a trade for a 36-year-old, oft-injured third baseman.) If you want to say he’s an above-average player in 2022 based on OPS+ (101) or wRC+ (102) because offense is down for the league, well that’s bullshit. A player of Donaldson’s resume, salary and treatment shouldn’t be hovering around the league-average 100 line. He shouldn’t need to be defended and excused because “offense is down around the league.”
6. Again, I’m not upset with Donaldson. The trade was foolish the day it happened and looks even more foolish with the results of the players involved since: Donaldson has been awful, Kiner-Falefa has been awful and Ben Rortvedt has been hurt all year. I’m not defending Gio Urshela (who has been a better player than Donaldson in 2022 at one-fourth the cost) or Gary Sanchez. The Yankees could have moved both of those players in other deals. They chose to move them to acquire Donaldson and his $48 million and Kiner-Falefa, whose rarely capable of hitting the ball out of the infield. The money owed to Donaldson shouldn’t matter since we’re talking about the Yankees, but it does matter because we’re talking about the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees and Donaldson’s salary will hinder them at this trade deadline and for building the 2023 roster. The Yankees chose to pass on Carlos Correa, who is having an awesome season, and allowed the Twins to free up the money needed to sign Correa by absorbing Donaldson’s $48 million. Through one half of the season, the entire deal has been a disaster for the Yankees.
Maybe the second half of the season will be a different story. Maybe Donaldson won’t unnecessarily bat in the Top 5 in the order with a sub-.700 OPS. Maybe Kiner-Falefa will make the routine plays at shortstop and not create one (or two) outs on the first or second pitch of every at-bat. I’m not expecting either to turn it around as the season gets older (and Donaldson gets older with it). I expect Donaldson to lose playing time and at-bats to Carpenter. Well, I don’t expect it since we’re talking about the Yankees and reputation and money owed is more important than actual productions or wins, but I want Donaldson to lose playing time and at-bats to Carpenter.
7. As for Kiner-Falefa, I fear that the Yankees plan on him being the everyday shortstop for the rest of the season. They were willing to pass on every available free-agent shortstop to use Kiner-Falefa as a stopgap to either Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe. So unless the Yankees are willing to move Gleyber Torres back to short (they’re not) or play Marwin Gonzalez every day (they’re not) then the only option to upgrade at short is for Peraza (very unlikely) or Volpe (pretty much impossible) to force the Yankees to call them up. It’s unlikely for Peraza and nearly impossible for Volpe because the Yankees don’t want to rush either, and neither has had a season worthy of a major-league call-up. They have both been good of late, but they’re still seemingly not close to being the answer yet.
8. The Yankees could have an answer to one of the three automatic outs in their lineup in Estevan Florial. The 24-year-old outfielder is having a breakout season at Triple-A, finally putting it all together with a .905 OPS. He’s deserving of a call-up and of getting a chance in the majors.
The Yankees have been and will continue to be connected to the Royals’ Andrew Benintendi and the Cubs’ Ian Happ, but before needing to go out and deplete the farm even more to acquire an answer to Gallo after already trading away four pieces from the farm a year ago to acquire Gallo, Florial should get a chance. The answer could already be in the organization. A 24-year-old, left-handed-hitting center fielder, who the Yankees have been grooming and waiting on since 2015!
Call up Florial and play him every day for the remainder of July and see what you have. Even that’s not the greatest sample size of everyday playing time in the majors, but it’s better than the current situation of him hitting bombs in Triple-A while Gallo and Hicks strike out, ground out and pop up pitches in the majors.
9. The Yankees have two in-house fixes to ridding themselves of two automatic outs in the lineup by playing Carpenter regularly and calling up Florial. The only way to rid themselves of the third is for all Yankees fans to collectively pray that Peraza goes off for the next month in Triple-A the way Florial has of late and then the Yankees will be forced to try something other than letting Kiner-Falefa hit a weak ground ball to short on the first or second pitch of every at-bat of his.
Living with one automatic out in the lineup is doable. It’s not ideal, but it’s doable. It’s less doable than it was entering the season when Yankees fans thought they were getting a Gold Glove at short with a contact-approach bat in the 9-hole, since what Yankees fans got was a slight upgrade from Gleyber Torres at short with a weak-contact-only bat. But I guess it’s doable.
10. The Yankees buried the Red Sox in the AL East long ago. The Red Sox haven’t had a chance to win the division in months. Over the next 10 days, the Yankees can severely hurt the Red Sox’ playoff chances as well.
The Yankees will play the Red Sox four times this weekend and three times next weekend. The Red Sox’ pitching staff is in shambles, their bullpen sucks, and if you don’t let the Rafael Devers-J.D. Martinez-Xander Bogaerts trio beat you, the Red Sox won’t beat you.
If these Yankees want to avoid the possibility of being eliminated by the Red Sox in the postseason for the third time in five years, they can make sure the Red Sox don’t get to the postseason by beating up on them for the next two weekends and in their 16 remaining games against them this season.
The Yankees won the first game of their three-game series against the A’s on Tuesday 9-5, and even though they are not playing the Astros, I can’t stop thinking about that. That’s how important and
The Yankees won the first game of their three-game series against the A’s on Tuesday 9-5, and even though they are not playing the Astros, I can’t stop thinking about that. That’s how important and telling the series over the weekend was.
The Yankees miraculously went 2-2 against the Astros in a four-game series in the Bronx. It took two late-game comebacks and two walk-off wins for the Yankees to avoid a disastrous sweep at the hands of the team that has eliminated them three times in their last six postseason appearances.
The Yankees miraculously went 2-2 against the Astros in a four-game series in the Bronx. It took two late-game comebacks and two walk-off wins for the Yankees to avoid a disastrous sweep at the hands of the team that has eliminated them three times in their last six postseason appearances.
1. The Yankees won two of the four games against the Astros, but it doesn’t feel like it. If not for the ninth-inning comeback on Thursday after getting no-hit for the previous seven innings, and the late-game comeback on Sunday after getting no-hit for the previous 6 1/3 innings, it would feel even worse. Thankfully, Aaron Judge is a Yankee (for now) and continues to have one of the best offensive seasons of all time, providing the Yankees with a walk-off single on Thursday and a walk-off, three-run home run on Sunday.
Judge “settled” in his arbitration case on Friday, though he essentially won. The Yankees met him halfway in their numbers at $19 million and gave him incentive bonuses that could be worth $500,000 more. So the complete value of his 2022 deal is closer to his filing number than the Yankees’.
The seven-year, $230 million extension offered prior to Opening Day was completely fair, and Judge was crazy to turn it down given his injury history and the likelihood of him having the type of season he’s having now. You have to be crazy to turn down nearly a quarter of a billion dollars given everything about his career to date, but he did, and at least through June 26, his enormous gamble is paying off. But he has a very long way to go. He has to stay healthy for the next three-plus months, which won’t be easy given his history. Fortunately, outside of last year’s debacle in which he needed time off after not traveling well despite the chartered planes and five-star hotels and amenities the Yankees are provided, he has avoided the injured list (where he lived from 2018 to 2020).
The Yankees need Judge for the immediate future. When healthy, he’s on the short list of the best players in baseball. The back end of Judge’s free-agent deal will most likely be extremely painful to watch. Every long-term position player deal ends up being one. You pay for the first few years of the deal, and deal with the last few years of it. For players like Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, their teams received a few years on the right side of 30 and more years of their prime in their extensions. The Yankees, whether through an extension or free agency, will be getting zero years of Judge’s 20s and less years of his prime. That’s why the Opening Day extension offer was fair.
The Yankees need Judge more than he needs them. There will always be some team and some owner looking to make a splash, like the Mariners did with Robinson Cano. The Yankees can easily give Judge the number he’s looking for and still be able to make ends meet. The bond holders Hal Steinbrenner likes to reference will still get their payments on time if the Yankees give Judge the highest average annual salary in the league.
The Yankees have to extend or re-sign Judge. Sure, he said he wouldn’t talk about an extension once the season started, but if the Yankees came to him with some over-the-top offer today, you bet your ass his fake preseason ultimatum will disappear. They have to re-sign him because there’s no alternative. Take Judge off the Yankees and where are they?
The Yankees’ window isn’t in four and five years when no one knows what Judge will be or how someone of his size and stature will age. Their window is now, when he’s at his peak and he and the rest of the Yankees’ core is still in their prime.
Maybe the Yankees’ plan is to let him hit free agency and see how the rest of the league values him, knowing they could (in theory) match any offer he receives. But once he becomes a free agent, the odds he signs with the Yankees drastically decrease.
I don’t care about what Judge will be in 2028. I care about what he will be in 2023, and that’s one of the best players in baseball who can help the Yankees win the World Series. That’s what the Yankees should care about as well.
2. Whether Judge is a Yankee in 2023 and beyond, to win the World Series in 2022 and beyond, the Yankees are going to need to solve the Astros. Going 2-2 against the Astros over the weekend is nice given how the poorly the Yankees’ offense was in all but like five innings in the four games.
On Thursday in the series opener, they got a three-run home run from Giancarlo Stanton in the first inning and then were no-hit until the ninth inning. On Friday, they scored one run on five hits. On Saturday, they were no-hit for the first time since 2003. On Sunday, they were no-hit for the first 6 1/3 innings. Here is how their hits by inning looks for the series:
3. The “FUCK AL-TU-VE” chants at Jose Altuve and “CHEAT-ER” chants at Altuve and Alex Bregman aren’t working. I wish they were, but they aren’t. They’re not even close to working. If anything, it seems like they make those two even better.
Altuve reached base four times in the first game of the series, hit a home run in the Astros’ no-hitter win and then led off Sunday’s game with a home run. He hit .357/.526/.929 and reached base 10 of his 19 plate appearances in the series with four extra-base hits and four runs scored.
Bregman has had an atrocious season and entered the series with a .743 OPS. All he did at Yankee Stadium was hit .308/.500/.615, reaching base in eight of his 18 plate appearances with a pair of extra-base hits.
4. The Astros aren’t scared of the Yankees, and after going 0-3 on the road in the 2017 ALCS, admitting how intimidating the Stadium was, that no longer seems to be the case.
Why should the Astros be scared of the Yankees? They eliminated them in 2015, 2017 and 2019. They have reached the ALCS in five straight years and the World Series in three of the those five. No team should be scared of the Yankees. As an organization, they haven’t reached or won the World Series in going on 13 years. As a group, these Yankees have accomplished nothing. They have won a lot of regular-season games, set a bunch of home run records and are now trying to set a single-season wins record. None of that has or will mean anything once the second season starts. The Astros made that clear this weekend.
The Yankees should be scared of the Astros. As a fan, I am. The Yankees could win 125 games during the regular season and no fan could possibly feel comfortable or confident in a series against the Astros.
Framber Valdez no-hit the Yankees after a first-inning, three-run home run. Justin Verlander had his all-too-familiar dominating performance against them. Christian Javier no-hit them. Jose Urquidy, who has been a disappointment this season no-hit them for 6 1/3 innings. What happens when Lance McCullers Jr. (who absolutely owns them) comes back? What happens when they go out and acquire Frankie Montas or Luis Castillo at the trade deadline? And you know they’re adding someone or someones at the deadline. They always do. In 2017 it was Verlander. In 2018 it was Gerrit Cole. In 2019 it was Zack Greinke. In 2021, it was Kendall Graveman. The Astros are only going to get better.
I don’t know that the Yankees will get better. Ownership didn’t make a single move at the 2019 deadline for a team that went on to win 103 games and then had no starting pitching to get a through a seven-game series against … the Astros. They didn’t make a move at the 2020 deadline either. It’s not a given the Yankees are going to go out and upgrade ht roster pots they desperately need to upgrade.
5. I have always planned on having Jameson Taillon out of the rotation for the postseason and his tart on Thursday solidified my opinion. The Yankees are most likely to see the Red Sox, Rays or Blue Jays in the ALDS. While he has pitched well against the Rays and Blue Jays, I still wouldn’t trust him in a postseason games against those teams and in no way would i trust him against the Rafael Devers-J.D. Martinez-Xander Bogaerts Red Sox trio. Under no circumstance could he ever possibly start a playoff game against the Astros.
I have joked that Taillon is Phil Hughes 2.0. He short arms the ball like Hughes, he can’t put away hitters with two strikes like Hughes and he even kind of looks like Hughes. Sure, he limits walks like Hughes, but that’s the only truly good thing he does.
Entering his start on Thursday, Taillon had stranded the most runners in baseball. That’s called a recipe for disaster. Eventually, regression will hit and those runners will become runs. On Thursday, that regression happened.
Taillon allowed 11 baserunners in 5 2/3 innings and six of them scored. He gave up four doubles and two home runs and the Astros’ 1 through 5 in Altuve, Michael Brantley, Bregman, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker clobbered him, going 9-for-14 with all six of the Astros’ run and all six of their RBIs. It’s a good thing reigning batting champion Yuli Gurriel is still lost at the plate or the Astros’ vaunted 1 through5 would be their vaunted 1 through 6.
6. Aaron Hicks’ game-tying, three-run home run on Thursday night was one of the Top 4 moments of his career. The other three are his 2017 ALDS home run off Corey Kluber, his 2019 catch against the Twins and his 2019 ALCS home run off Verlander. That’s it. That’s the list. That home run saved Hicks from being in the next few thoughts with a trio of Yankees that have had very little to do with the team’s success this season.
7. Josh Donaldson had one hit in the series and struck out five more times in 12 plate appearances. The “Is he washed up or just slumping?” debate is leaning heavily in favored of washed up. The season is 45 precent complete. After next Tuesday’s game, the season will be half over. When exactly is he going to show up for this season?
Donaldson has played in 18 games in June and has struck out at least once in all but one of them. His at-bats aren’t even competitive. It’s not like he’ striking out after a lengthy seven- or eight-pitch battle. If he doesn’t ground out pop up on one of the first two pitches, he usually strikes out in three or four pitches. He has been absolutely horrible as a Yankee.
8. If Joey Gallo is wearing a Yankees uniform on August 2, Brian Cashman is truly an asshole, praying and hoping to salvage the smallest bit of positivity in a trade that was an abject failure. Gallo went 0-for-7 with four strikeouts against the Astros. He’s 0-for-his-last-17 now with 10 strikeouts. He last homered three weeks ago this Thursday. He last got a hit 10 days ago. He went from being the Yankees’ 2-hitter upon the trade for him lat year to becoming the team’s 9-hitter this year to becoming a platoon player to getting pinch hit for by the catcher two weeks ago to now being unplayable. the Yankees traded four prospects for a player who is healthy and just sat on the bench in two of their four biggest regular-season games of the year.
9. Are there still Isiah Kiner-Falefa fans out there? The homer-less Kiner-Falefa looked overmatched against the pitching staff of the team the Yankees need to overcome to win a championship, pitches and hits. Then on Sunday in the 10th inning with the automatic runner on, he booted a routine grounder to give the Astros two on with no one out in extra innings. At one point in the series, Kiner-Falefa went 0-for-4 on six pitches, as his goal continues to be to make a soft contact out as quickly as possible.
10. The Yankees are going to the postseason. The Astros are going to the postseason. They will be the 1 and 2 seeds in the American League postseason, and so they won’t be able to meet until the ALCS. If they do meet there for the third time in six years, the Yankees need to be better equipped than they currently are to play them in a seven-game series. Counting on frequent eighth- and ninth-inning comebacks would be like continuing to count on Donaldson, Gallo and Kiner-Falefa.
