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Author: Neil Keefe

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Yankees Thoughts: Extend Aaron Judge and Upgrade Roster to Beat Astros

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.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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:

2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 1

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.


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Yankees Podcast: Best Win of Special Season

The Yankees overcame two three-run deficits to beat the Astros with a 7-6 walk-off win on Thursday night.

The Yankees overcame two three-run deficits to beat the Astros with a 7-6 walk-off win on Thursday night at the Stadium. Aaron Hicks had his biggest hit and biggest moment of the season in the bottom of the ninth, and Aaron Judge ended the game with a single on the eve of his unnecessary anticipated arbitration battle with the Yankees. This season has to end with a World Series win.


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Yankees Thoughts: Jose Trevino’s Roster Spot Doesn’t Need Upgrade

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

The Yankees continued their historic season, winning two of three against the Rays in Tampa to improve their league-best record to 51-18.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees went to Tampa needing to win one game. They won two, and nearly won all three, taking yet another series from the Rays and improving to 7-3 on the season against the Rays. In recent seasons, that’s a series the Yankees lose and possibly get swept in. But not this season. Not in 2022. Not with this pitching staff and not with the magic that seems to follow the offense as they nearly always come through with the big hit at the right moment. And even when they don’t, like in the second games of the seres in which they lost 5-4, they still had a chance to win the game, and almost tied it with two outs in the ninth when Aaron Judge just missed hitting a game-tying home run to left field.

2. It’s very good news that Gerrit Cole has learned to beat the Rays. After his 2020 and 2021 seasons against them (and against the Red Sox and Blue Jays) I was extremely fearful Cole couldn’t beat the teams the Yankees needed him to beat the most. But this season against the Rays, he has been outstanding, culminating in him nearly throwing a no-hitter in the series opener on Monday.

3. Nestor Cortes wasn’t good on Tuesday and Jordan Montgomery turned in his worst start of the season on Wednesday. Both of them got hammered by Isaac Paredes, who hit four home runs in the series and who the Rays acquired from Detroit for Austin Meadows. The Rays traded away one player who destroyed the Yankees in Meadows and received Paredes who apparently destroys them. At the time , the Rays got crushed for the deal. Now Paredes has an .817 OPS, while Meadows has no home runs in 147 plate appearances. Just like the Evan Longoria, Chris Archer and Blake Snell deals, the Rays always make the right deal and move on from their players at the right time. For once, I would like them to get fleeced in a trade.

4. It didn’t matter that the starting pitching wasn’t good outside of Cole in the series, as the offense did just enough in the other two games to win two of three. The first game was a 4-2 Yankees win. The second was a 5-4 Yankees loss. The third was a 5-4 Yankees win. One game decided by two runs (and tied entering the ninth) and the other two decided by one run (both of which came down to the ninth). Again, in recent seasons, the Yankees don’t win those games. But this iteration of the Yankees with their league-best rotation, league-best backend relievers and timely hitting (led by Judge’s MVP season) have rolled over the Rays this season in terms of wins despite playing nearly all close games.

Here are the scores of the Yankees-Rays games this season:

7-2 Yankees
2-0 Yankees
3-1 Rays
4-2 Rays
2-0 Yankees
4-3 Yankees
2-1 Yankees
4-2 Yankees
5-4 Rays
5-4 Yankees

Nine of the 10 games have been decided by two runs or less and four have been decided by one run.

Over the last few seasons, the Rays had created a team perfectly built to beat the Yankees with a pitching staff full of hard-throwing righties. Well, the Yankees have countered the Rays by building a much better version of the Rays, now capable of winning these low-scoring games the Rays live off of. That was the last time these two teams will see each before the All-Star break.

5. When the All-Star break comes, Jose Trevino better not be spending it at home with his family. He better be spending in Los Angeles with his family at Dodger Stadium.

Jose Trevino is the man and his All-Star candidacy shouldn’t be in question. The Blue Jays’ Alejandro Kirk is deserving of being the starting catcher for the American League, but when he gets pulled from the game, Trevino should be the next catcher in. With his clutch, two-run home run in the eighth inning on Wednesday, Trevino is now hitting .283/.339/.478 with six home runs and 21 RBIs in 45 games and 124 plate appearances. It’s not his fault he’s 17th in plate appearances among AL catchers. That’s Aaron Boone’s fault as Boone continues to give his catchers equal playing time despite the fact one of them is an All-Star and one of them is barely in the league.

Not only did Trevino hit the go-ahead home run, he also had another hit in the game, and picked off Taylor Walls at third base with the bases loaded and two outs and the Rays threatening to put the game out of reach. Two nights earlier, in the series opener, it was Trevino hustling down the line on a ball hit in the infield with two outs to give the Yankees a 2-0 and it was his sacrifice fly in the ninth of that game that gave the Yankees a much-needed insurance run in their 4-2 win.

Trevino does it all. He’s the best framer in the game. He’s allowed just two passed balls. He’s thrown out 33 percent of would-be basestealers. He hits clutch home runs. He puts the ball in play. He always hustles and he always says the right thing when speaking with the media. He’s an easy player to root for and it’s obvious why he’s become a fan favorite.

6. It’s the play of players like Trevino and Judge and the starting pitching and the back end of the bullpen that has produced a 51-18 record record for the Yankees. And it’s the play of those players and pitchers that has allowed players like Kyle Higashioka (who has been better of late, but still overall horrible), Aaron Hicks (who has also been better of late, but still has two home runs and three doubles through 43 percent of the season), Joey Gallo, Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa to get somewhat of a free pass and avoid immense criticism and scrutiny. But that’s what I’m here for and I’m not giving them a free pass.

Barring an amazing turnaround, it looks like the end is near for Gallo as a Yankee. When he was acquired by the Yankees, he batted second in his first few games. For the last month, except for a handful of times, he has batted ninth. He bats behind bats like Hicks, Higashioka and Kiner-Falefa. He rarely plays against left-handed pitching, and within the last few series, he has been pinch hit for on multiple occasions, including by Trevino. And as you read just a few moments ago, I love Trevino. But a guy you expected to hit in the Top 4 spots in the order and a guy you gave away four prospects for shouldn’t be getting pinch hit for by a catcher you acquired for depth right before Opening Day.

Gallo has gone from 2-hitter to 9-hitter to platoon hitter to being pinch hit for by a catcher. The next place for him to go is somewhere other than the Yankees. The trade deadline is in 41 days. Unless he becomes the exact player the Yankees thought hey were trading for, I don’t see how he’s a Yankees at the end of the day on August 2.

7. Fortunately, for Hicks, he’s under contract for next season … and the season after that … and the season after that … and then will get bought out and paid to not play for the Yankees in 2026. If not for the money owed to him, he might be on his way out as well. He likely would have been out a while ago given his combination of injuries and lack of production since 2019. Hicks is here to stay. Unless there’s some team out there dumb enough and foolish enough to take him and his owed money. (Please be some team dumb enough and foolish enough to take Hicks and his contract.) And owed money is why he’s still a Yankee and why he still plays. Owed money and name are more important than actual production for the Yankees.

8. Donaldson has both. He has the owed money in that he Yankees are paying him $24 million this season and $24 million next season, and he has the name in that he’s a former AL MVP (even if that was seven years ago, which is a long fucking time ago in baseball). But Donaldson has been absolutely atrocious as a Yankee. He’s hitting .233/.327/.386. His batting average is 35 percentage points below his career average. His on-base percentage is 28 points below his career average. His slugging percentage is 114 points below his career average. His .714 OPS is both embarrassing and 141 points below his career average. He has six home runs and is on pace to hit 14 if he plays every game for the rest of the season. That would be the lowest single-season home run total of his career.

Donaldson is 36 years old. He will be 37 and four months for Opening Day 2023. Prior to becoming a a Yankee, he was one of the hitters I feared most in the majors against the Yankees because you knew every at-bat would be six or seven pitches and would likely result in him hitting the ball hard somewhere and you just hoped it was hit right at a fielder. Now he’s a free-swinging, undisciplined shell of himself. He’s behind 0-2 in every count and nearly all of his at-bats result in a strikeout, ground ball to third or popup in the infield.

Matt Carpenter is a better play than Donaldson is right now. The difference is Carpenter had to revitalize his career over the offseason and accept playing in Triple-A to prove he could still play, whereas Donaldson had two years left on major-league deal. Donaldson is in no way deserving of playing over Carpenter right now, but he will continue to do so. And for anyone who thinks Carpenter should continue to just be a once-a-week player because he’s good at it, that’s like saying Luis Severino should have remained a reliever after 2016 because he was good at it or should have been in the bullpen this season because he was good at it last season.

There’s a good chance Donaldson is finished. Given his advanced baseball age and his recent injury history and his lack of power, it wouldn’t be surprising if he is. Given his owed money and name, he’s going to get endless chances to prove he isn’t.

9. The Twins were able to get the Yankees to take Donaldson and the $48 million owed to him and Kiner-Falefa (who they didn’t want and who the Rangers so badly didn’t want they g ave a half-billion dollars to Corey Seager and Marcus Semien) and then used the freed up shortstop position and money saved on Donaldson to sign Carlos Correa. All Correa has done on his short-term deal (which is exactly what the Yankees were looking for) is hit .293 with an .820 OPS this season, while Kiner-Falefa tries to make an out as quickly as possible in each of his plate appearances. He does put the ball in play though! He may be in the first percentile of barreling balls in the majors and the seventh percentile of hard-hit percentage, but he puts the ball in play! Who cares if “in play” means a weak grounder to short!

Kiner-Falefa was sold to Yankees fans as a Gold Glove defender. Yes, he won a Gold Glove … at third base. The problem is he plays shortstop for the Yankees and the bigger problem is that he botches routine plays frequently. I trust him no more than I trusted Gleyber Torres at the position, and I would be willing to put Torres back there to free up the lineup spot it would free up by not playing Kiner-Falefa. With Kiner-Falefa’s bat, he needs to be Omar Vizquel at shortstop.

10. I can’t imagine the Yankees are going to try to win the World Series with all of these players getting regular and everyday playing time in October. I can’t imagine they won’t move on from some of them this summer and I can’t imagine they won’t upgrade the roster and put the team in the best possible position to succeed in October. Something they didn’t do in either 2019 or 2020 when they made zero trades at the deadline in both of those seasons.

The Yankees are good enough to win the World Series as currently constructed. Obviously, since they are a league-best 51-18. But they could win 120-plus games in the regular season and if they were to lose a short series to the Blue Jays, Rays or Astros I don’t think anyone would be surprised. Winning the division (which they have already done) and getting the 1-seed in the playoffs and avoiding the best-of-3 wild-card series (which they have already done) were needed goals to help put them in the best possible to succeed in October. The next step is upgrading the roster and making sure come October there aren’t as many as four below-league-average bats in the lineup.

Come October, whatever the team accomplished in the regular season will be meaningless if they don’t finish the job with a championship. And the team they will see over the next four days at the Stadium will likely be the team they have to finally overcome to get to where they want to be.


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Yankees Podcast: Rally Against Rays

The Yankees trailed the Rays 3-0 and 4-1 and managed to come back to win 5-4, thanks to Aaron Judge and Jose Trevino.

The Yankees trailed the Rays 3-0 and 4-1 and managed to come back to win 5-4, thanks to a two-home run night from Aaron Judge and a clutch, two-run home run from Jose Trevino. The Yankees won yet another series and are now 7-3 against the Rays this season.


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Yankees Podcast: Rays Remain Reeling

The Yankees beat the Rays for a fourth straight game on Monday, winning 4-2 at Tropicana Field.

The Yankees beat the Rays for a fourth straight game on Monday, winning 4-2 at Tropicana Field. Gerrit Cole was dominant, the offense did just enough and Wandy Peralta closed the door in the ninth as the Yankees improved to a ridiculous 50-17.


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

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