Blogs – Page 103 – Keefe To The City

Sep 30, 2019

2019 MLB Over/Under Win Total Predictions Recap

The regular season is over, so it’s time look back at my 2019 over/under win total predictions and see where I went right and wrong.

The regular season is over. It feels like just yesterday I was picking five over and five under win totals for the season and now it’s all over.

With the end of the regular season, it’s time look back at my 2019 over/under win total predictions and see where I went right and wrong it what was a 7-3 season. Here is the 2019 MLB Over/Under Win Total Predictions blog.

Part of the write-up from March is italicized.
(This season’s win total in parentheses)

OVERS

NEW YORK YANKEES, 96.5 (103): WIN
On paper, the Yankees are the best team in baseball. Unfortunately, “on paper” doesn’t win the World Series and starting the season with Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, Dellin Betances and Aaron Hicks all unavailable, and Didi Gregorius out until at least midseason isn’t exactly helpful to exceeding a win total of 96.5. Thankfully, the majority of Major League Baseball isn’t trying to win and getting back near 100 wins won’t be that hard.

Unfortunately, the injuries didn’t stop with the spring training injures of Severino, Sabathia, Betances and Hicks. Miguel Andujar would be lost for the season, Giancarlo Stanton would miss nearly the entire season, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge would miss a couple months, Luke Voit would go on the injured list twice for a hernia, Brett Gardner would spend time on the IL, as would James Paxton and Edwin Encarnacion, and Clint Frazier and Mike Tauchman. The Yankees got hurt, their replacements got hurt and their replacement’s replacements got hurt. The Yankees set the single-season record for most players to go on the injured list and they still covered their by six-and-a-half wins. It’s scary to think what type of record this team would have been capable of had they been at full strength, or even 75 percent, all season.

CHICAGO CUBS, 88 (84): LOSS
There is this idea the Cubs are trending in the wrong direction and won’t be good for some reason in 2019. Listen, I don’t like the Cubs and would like nothing more than for them to be a disaster this season, but it’s just not realistic. The Brewers will once again be right there contending for the NL Central and the Cardinals and Reds made vast improvements, but it’s still the Cubs’ division to lose, just like it was last year until … they lost it.

Once again the NL Central was the Cubs’ to lose, and once again, they lost it. Their losing streak in the second-to-last week of the season ruined their playoff chances, and before Game 162, the team announced Joe Maddon wouldn’t be back for 2020. After winning the 2016 World Series, the Cubs lost in the ALCS then lost both a tie-breaker game for the division and wild-card game and then didn’t even make the playoffs. The Cubs need significant changes to their major league roster and might want to think about not allowing Theo Epstein to sign any free agents with his career track record in that market. It will be a while until I believe in the Cubs covering an over.

HOUSTON ASTROS, 96.5 (107): WIN
The Astros’ biggest problem (which clearly wasn’t much of a problem after winning the World Series in 2017 and reaching the ALCS in 2018) was that their lineup wasn’t long. The addition of Michael Brantley — a player I wanted the Yankees to sign instead of Brett Gardner — gives them that length as they can now stack George Springer, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa and Brantley in some order one through five. That’s a very scary one through five.

I’m petrified of the Yankees having to face Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole in a potential ALCS matchup. I’m also worried about how the Yankees’ pitching is going to handle the lengthy lineup the Astros now have with George Springer, Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, Alex Bregman, Yordan Alvarez and Yuli Gurriel making up the top two-thirds of their lineup. The Astros were the best team in baseball this season, mostly due to the significant injuries suffered by the Yankees, and they will be the team to beat in the postseason as well.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS, 83.5 (72): LOSS
It’s hard to find overs to pick and believe in when nearly all of baseball seems to be trying not to win, or at least not investing in winning. The Angels are my pick for the second wild card and while I don’t trust them, I think they will be at least a .500 team in 2019. I could see them being a 90-win team this season, which is enough to eclipse their number.

Looking back, I don’t know why I thought the Angels would be good. I guess I looked at the teams not named the Yankees, Astros and Red Sox and thought they would be at the top of that next tier of teams in baseball and at least a team capable of playing two-games-over-.500 baseball this season. But the Angels were their usual crappy selves, falling 12 wins short of covering in what was another losing season for the franchise.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES, 89.5 (81): LOSS
I hate this pick, I really do. I don’t want the Phillies to do well, but unfortunately, one team in the NL East is going to win 90 games and I think the Phillies have the best chance to do it. My Phillies pick is more of a process of elimination pick.

The Mets? I’m not about to ever back the Mets to meet or exceed expectations even if their number is four wins lower (85.5). The Nationals? They had trouble scoring runs and winning games with the face of their franchise. I’m not sure how an 82-win team gets an 88.5 number when their biggest addition was one-year-wonder Patrick Corbin. The Braves? They are the biggest threat to the Phillies in the division, especially since they won 90 games last season, but a lot has changed in the NL East since last season.

At least I knew I hated picking the Phillies’ over while I picked it. The Phillies’ lineup and rotation on paper still looks strong. As for their bullpen, I didn’t think it would cost them their season and cost me this over. The Phillies were built on hype and I bought into that hype thinking they would battle the Braves for the NL East title, when instead it would be Bryce Harper’s former team which would finish second in the NL East. When Harper signed with the Phillies he talked about recruiting other free agents to play for the Phillies in future seasons. Any free agent chasing a championship won’t be signing there with how competitive this division is looking for the foreseeable future.

UNDERS

BALTIMORE ORIOLES, 58.5 (54): WIN
The Orioles won 47 games last season. 47! And that was with a half season of Manny Machado playing at an MVP level. This season, they won’t have Machado at all and will have the worst roster top to bottom in the league, much worse than last season’s roster, which won 47 games. If this number were at least year’s 47 it would be too high. At 58.5 it’s outrageous.

There are layups and then there’s picking the Orioles to win less than 59 games. This one was about as easy as it gets as the Orioles finished five wins shy of covering and 49 games back of the Yankees in the division. It’s going to be hard not to pick the Orioles again next season.

BOSTON RED SOX, 94.5 (84): WIN
Outside of a rotation that’s banking on Chris Sale’s shoulder to continue to hold up, David Price to avoid falling off again, Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez to be consistent and Nathan Eovaldi to not turn back into the Nathan Eovaldi that caused every team until the Red Sox to give up on him, the Red Sox’ biggest question is their bullpen. Their ownership basically said to the fan base “We won the World Series, we’re reeling in the spending” as they chose not to bring back Craig Kimbrel and are going with a bullpen so shaky that their starting pitching became their non-closing relief options in the playoffs. That can work over the course of a month in the postseason, however, it’s a recipe for disaster over the course of six months in the regular season.

Chris Sale got hurt, David Price got hurt, Rick Porcello was awful, Nathan Eovaldi got hurt and was ineffective and the bullpen was a disaster. Everything that went right for the Red Sox in 2018 went wrong for them in 2019, and it was an enjoyable six months of watching them lose and lose and lose some more. All of the losing got Dave Dombrowski fired, and now the Red Sox have essentially a team of general managers, a lot of money tied up in an injured rotation, and aren’t sure if they want to pay Mookie Betts. As long as the Dodgers don’t come and rescue the Red Sox from their payroll situation again, they’re headed to a dark era.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX, 74 (72): WIN
I feel the least confident about this pick out of all the unders I selected, only because the White Sox are headed in the right direction and nearly there, while the other clubs have a ways to go. Signing Manny Machado would have helped greatly, as he stood them up, showing he could care less if his family members and friends in Yonder Alonso and Jon Jay are now on the team. The reason I’m picking the White Sox as they inch closer and closer to baseball relevancy is that for them to increase their win total by 12 from last season, a lot has to happen. A lot.

The White Sox put a late-season run together to put this pick in jeopardy, but ended up falling two wins short of a push and three wins short of a cover. The White Sox are headed in the right direction, and in a division in which the Royals and Tigers are nowhere near contending and the Indians don’t want to pay anyone, the White Sox are going to have a window coming up where they could win the AL Central and return to the postseason.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS, 69.5 (59): WIN
The Royals did nothing to improve in the offseason, they actually got worse, and yet, their number is 11 wins higher this season. Everything about them says “Last place in the AL Central” and that was with Salvador Perez and now Perez is out for the season, needing Tommy John surgery.

This might have been the easiest under to pick of all. The Royals had no business having their line be 11 wins higher than they had in 2018, and they proved it by finishing 11 wins shy of covering. The Royals don’t look like they’re anywhere near ready to be competitive, falling back into their 1990s and 2000s days. I might be picking against the Royals for a while.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS, 74.5 (67): WIN
The Blue Jays are now in complete rebuild mode after having missed out on their championship window. First, they let Jose Bautista leave as a free agent and then Edwin Encarnacion and then Josh Donaldson and then they released Troy Tulowitzki, essentially now paying him to play for the Yankees. The heart of their order from their 2015 and 2016 ALCS appearances is gone and any valuable assets they have left between now and the trade deadline this season will be gone too.

The Blue Jays gave me a clean sweep with my under picks as they were as bad as expected. Aside from White Sox, they have the brightest future with a young and controllable offense that’s major-league ready. If they’re able to combine the top of their lineup with some starting pitching, the Blue Jays might not be a postseason team, but they certainly won’t be a team I would be picking as an under.

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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!

Blogs • Giants

Sep 30, 2019

Giants-Redskins Week 4 Thoughts: From 0-2 to 2-0

The Giants have done it. They have reeled me back in. They have reeled me back into having a reason to watch each week, and that’s not something I thought was possible two weeks ago.

The Giants have done it. They have reeled me back in. Well, they haven’t reeled me back into thinking they are good enough to reach the postseason, but they have reeled me back into having a reason to watch each week, and that’s not something I thought was possible two weeks ago when they fell to 0-2 with yet another embarrassing performance.

The happiness for the end of the Eli Manning era is a little much given that Manning had to start on the road at Dallas and against the Bills’ defense, while Daniel Jones got the Buccaneers defense (and their kicker) and then the Redskins. But even though Manning’s lengthy career has all but come to an end, Jones is off to a 2-0 start as the Giants’ starting quarterback and has looked extremely comfortable in his two starts.

For as bad as the Giants are, the Redskins are on a whole other level. They are now 0-4 on the season and after Case Keenum was pulled for being unable to get yards, let alone points, against this Giants defense, the Redskins turned to Dwayne Haskins, who had already been deemed not ready for game action by Jay Gruden. While Keenum threw one interception on 11 pass attempts, Haskins — who many thought the Giants should inexplicably draft — threw three on 17 pass attempts. The Giants were able to pass and run all over the Redskins’ defense for 389 total yards, while the Redskins only accumulated 176 total yards(!) against this Giants defense. That’s how bad the Redskins are.

It’s hard to envision the Giants losing to the Redskins when the two teams meet again in Week 16 in Washington because by then Jones will have nearly a full season of experience and the Giants won’t be without Saquon Barkley (knock on wood for both). When you add in games against the Cardinals, Jets and Dolphins, there’s a good chance the Giants win six-plus games this season, which isn’t something that seemed possible two weeks ago.

Unfortunately, the schedule takes a turn over the next 10 days as the Giants will host the Vikings and then go on the road on a short week to play the Patriots on Thursday Night Football. It would be an impressive accomplishment to win one of the two games and come away from them at 3-3. The easier of the two games would be against the Vikings at MetLife, but without three key pieces on defense (just think about what the defense will look like with three new players who weren’t good enough to play already), even if Kirk Cousins is an average-at-best quarterback, I’m not sure how the Giants will stop Dalvin Cook. Add in another missed game for Barkley, and it’s easy to see the Giants falling to 2-3.

The Vikings can be worried about as the week progresses. For now, Giants fans can bask in Sunday’s win, even if the opponent was as bad it will get aside from the Dolphins this season. So far it seems like the Giants have found their next franchise quarterback and the heir to Manning, and being successful on the first try is worth more than any win this season.

Sep 26, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Draw Best Possible ALDS Opponent

This is it. The Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.

This is it: the Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.

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

1. The goal of being the 1-seed and having home-field advantage for the American League playoffs won’t be accomplished. The Yankees trail the Astros by three games in the loss column, which means four games overall for the 1-seed, and with the Yankees only having three games left, the Yankees will be the 2-seed in the AL. The Yankees also now trail the Dodgers by a 1/2 game for home-field in a potential World Series.

It’s still possible the Yankees could have home-field for both the ALCS and World Series. The Astros could get upset in the ALDS by the Rays, A’s or Indians (I wouldn’t count on it) and the Yankees could either finish with a better record than the Dodgers, or the Dodgers could get upset as well. But if the Yankees advance to the ALCS, plan on them playing the Astros.

I wanted the Yankees to have home-field in the event they reach the ALCS and play the Astros because I think they need it to win. The 2017 ALCS was completely lopsided in favor of the home team, the Astros have the best home record in baseball this season (60-21) and Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole have been nearly unhittable in Houston, though they have been nearly unhittable everywhere. The Yankees have had success against this Astros core in New York, and it was these Astros who admitted to being intimidated by the Yankee Stadium crowd in the postseason. The Yankees can beat the Astros, but it would have been easier to do so with the first two games, and four of the seven games of the ALCS at home.

Now the Yankees are either going to need to have an unlikely upset in the other ALDS or do something they have a lot of trouble doing in Houston: hitting, scoring and winning.

2. I’m scared of Verlander in the postseason, but I’m just as scared of Cole, who has better strikeouts numbers than Verlander, and who the Yankees have seen a lot less of in recent years.

I stayed up on Wednesday night to watch the Astros-Mariners game (because I had an Astros-A’s two-team parlay), and during the broadcast, there was a graphic shown about Cole and how for more than four months now he is first in every single pitching category in the league.

Cole was originally drafted by the Yankees, but chose to attend UCLA instead, and was later redrafted by the Pirates. The Yankees unsuccessfully tried to trade for him before the 2018 season, but the Astros landed him, and he helped lead them to the ALCS, before laying an egg, which helped the Red Sox advance to and win the World Series.

I can’t help but envision Cole shutting down the Yankees in the ALCS the way he was unable to shut down the Red Sox last season, and then watching the Yankees greatly overpay to sign him in the offseason only to have him come to New York and be more like the pitcher the Pirates dealt than the one the Astros acquired. That seems like something that would happen. Then again, the Yankees probably won’t sign him in the offseason, opting to once again shop from the starting pitching clearance rack.

3. The type of game we saw from the Yankees on Wednesday night against Charlie Morton and the Rays is the exact type of game that keeps me up at night for fear of it happening in the postseason. The Yankees’ right-handed heavy lineup (missing two more right-handed hitters in Gary Sanchez and Edwin Encarnacion) was completely shut down by Morton for six innings and the Rays’ bullpen for the final three. The Yankees were one-hit in the game and managed to score only one run in the 21 innings in the two-game series. For now, I’m going to chalk it up as just two games of 162 at a time when the Yankees are just trying to go through the motions and stay healthy against a team with everything to play for still.

Morton has owned the Yankees away from Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees have owned him in New York (like they did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALCS), only further proving how much better the Yankees are at home than on the road. Wednesday night’s game was essentially a duplicate performance of Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS for Morton. In that game, Morton shut out the Yankees for five innings, only allowing two hits, before Lance McCullers Jr. came in and threw 100 straight curveballs to finish the game.

The Yankees and Yankees fans should be extremely grateful Morton is no longer on the Astros. Outside of Verlander and Cole, he’s been arguably the best pitcher in the AL. It’s bad enough the Astros’ third starter is Zack Greinke, but if it were still Morton, the Yankees could pack up the bats and balls and try again next season.

4. It’s hard to put a lot of stock into how badly the Yankees have played recently, and they have played badly, going 7-7 since their unnecessary bullpen management loss in Detroit back on September 10, because they haven’t been using their best possible lineup and have been avoiding using their elite relievers.

I’m not worried about the team playing poorly at the end of the regular season because nothing that has happened this month and nothing that will happen in the last three games of the season this weekend will matter come next Friday night at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could be on a 15-game winning streak or 15-game losing streak heading into October and it wouldn’t matter, and the team’s lack of hitting this week against the Rays, doesn’t worry me. I have long been worried about the offense disappearing in the postseason like it did in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS, and the last two games didn’t change that.

5. With each game the Yankees use a lineup that features Brett Gardner and Didi Gregorius breaking up the right-handed bats, the more nervous I get about this sort of lineup being used in the postseason. I don’t know who actually creates the lineup, and I highly doubt it’s Aaron Boone, but whoever it is, Gardner and Gregorius can’t be hitting anywhere other than the bottom third of the lineup. This isn’t the 2017 postseason when the Yankees had Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Starlin Castro to hide. The lineup is too good, whether it’s right-handed heavy or not, to have those two batting anywhere higher than seventh.

If Gardner and Gregorius bat where they should, here’s a lineup I think we could see.

1. DJ LeMahieu, 1B
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Gleyber Torres, 2B
4. Giancarlo Stanton, LF
5. Edwin Encarnacion, DH
6. Gary Sanchez, C
7. Didi Gregorius, SS
8. Gio Urshela, 3B
9. Brett Gardner, CF

I don’t agree with Stanton batting ahead of Encarnacion or Sanchez, but the Yankees are going to hit Stanton at least fourth and possibly even third. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Gregorius bats ahead of Sanchez because the Yankees desperately like to hit inferior hitters ahead of superior hitters whenever they can.

6. This lineup doesn’t include Luke Voit, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to play. Between Voit, Encarnacion and Urshela, two of the three will play. I think you need Urshela in the lineup, not only because he’s earned it, but because he’s been so good at third base, that even if he were to stay in his current slump in October, his glove is enough to keep him in the lineup. That leaves the final lineup between Voit and Encarnacion.

Encarnacion will return to the lineup this weekend in Texas and try to get as many at-bats as he can in the three-game series (though I’m sure the Yankees won’t let him play in all three games) to get ready for the postseason. As long he shows he’s healthy, he’s going to play.

Voit, on the other hand, claims he’s healthy and over the hernia injury that landed him on the injured list twice, but he hasn’t hit since returning nearly a month ago. Voit is batting just .222/.341/.375 over 85 plate appearances with two home runs since the end of August and has looked overmatched most of the time. He still has a .383 on-base percentage and an .856 OPS on the season, but you have to go back to the end of July to find the last time he was truly a feared, middle-of-the-order presence. If Encarnacion is healthy, Voit is on the bench to begin the postseason.

7. It can be worrisome to be the 1-seed and have had nothing to play for in weeks and suddenly be playing a postseason game against a team that has been in Game 7 mode for as long as you have been coasting. The Twins are a lot like the Yankees in that they have known for a while they are going to the postseason, even if they didn’t officially clinch the AL Central until Wednesday. Now the Twins can sit back and relax, like the Yankees have been doing, and play spring training lineups and wait for next Friday.

Despite not being the 1-seed and not having home-field advantage no matter what and not getting to face the wild-card winner who will have had to play an extra game and burn their best starter to get to the ALDS, I think the Yankees ended up with the best possible first-round matchup.

I’m not scared of the Twins. Not at all. This doesn’t have to do with the Yankees historically owning the Twins and eliminating them in five postseasons since 2003. This has everything to do with the Twins having the weakest starting pitching in the AL postseason field. If the Yankees were to lose to them, it wouldn’t just be an upset, it would be an absolute disaster. The Yankees would claim it’s the result of a short series and small sample size and the MLB postseason being a crapshoot, but it can’t happen. The Yankees can’t lose in the ALDS.

8. The best chance the Yankees have of not seeing the Astros in a potential ALCS is if the A’s win the wild-card game. The Astros would steamroll both the Rays and Indians, but I could see an A’s upset of the Astros, and from a gambling perspective, there would be a lot of value in taking the A’s series money line.

The A’s took three of four from the Astros in Houston two weeks ago and have won six of the last eight against them. The two teams know each other the same way the Yankees and Red Sox do, and there wouldn’t be any surprises in a series between them.

A series which wouldn’t have been allowed prior to the five-team postseason format is the last thing the Astros want after earning the 1-seed. It’s the only real ALDS matchup which could end the Astros’ season early or at least screw up the order of their rotation for the ALCS.

9. The Yankees are going to finish the season with either 102, 103, 104 or 105 wins depending on how the weekend in Texas goes in what will also be the last three games ever at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

It’s been a fun six months and an enjoyable season, the third in a row, after the previous three out of four were miserable. But now the real season begins. Everything since March 29 has been to prepare for next Friday night in the Bronx and Game 1 of the ALDS, and if the season doesn’t end the way the last nine have failed to, nothing since March 29 will have mattered.

10. This was the 19th and final Off Day Dreaming of the regular season. There will be a similar blog after each postseason game this October as there has been in past postseasons.

Thank you for reading Off Day Dreaming throughout the regular season on the worst days of any Yankees season: off days. The next regular-season Off Day Dreaming will be on Friday, March 27, 2020.

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

Blogs • Giants • NFL • NFL Picks

Sep 26, 2019

NFL Week 4 Picks

A win in Week 4 and the Giants will have their fans believing in the team and thinking they could possibly go to the playoffs, only to be let down once again later in the season.

I know what’s happening with the Giants because I have lived it many times.

The Giants start 0-2 and then win a couple of games to reel me back in after I gave up on them and the season. Then they lose a couple of games and I feel like an idiot for getting tricked by them. Then they win a couple more games and I fall for their postseason chances once again, all while at the same time injuries in the NFC East and poor play from the rest of the conference has cleared a path for the Giants to potentially reach the playoffs despite being a mediocre-to-bad team.

I have lived that exact season in many Giants season and it’s happening again.

The Giants were blown out in Week 1 and embarrassed in Week 2 before being gifted a win in Week 3. Now they have a home game against a defense as bad as theirs and an offense that is nowhere near theirs, even without Saquon Barkley. There’s a very real chance the Giants could be and should be 2-2 after this week, and with the Eagles at 1-2 facing a tough matchup and the Cowboys going on the road to New Orleans, the Giants could be in second place and one game back in the division on Sunday.

But then the other shoe will drop, the way it always does. The Giants will lose to the Vikings and Patriots in Weeks 5 and 6 to remind everyone who these Giants really are. But then they will bounce back against the Cardinals at MetLife and possibly in Detroit as well, finishing up with the Cowboys and Jets before their bye.

I thought the Giants were going to leave me alone this season. I thought this season was going to be about Daniel Jones gaining valuable experience and the team being bad enough to get defensive help near the top of the 2020 draft. But now it’s definitely going to involve me trying to map out the remaining schedules for all NFC teams with postseason chances and trying to find a path for the Giants to play in January.

I can see this unfolding from a mile away. I want to be strong enough to not fall for it, but the Giants are the most persuasive bad major professional sports team there is.

(Home team in caps)

GREEN BAY -4 over Philadelphia
In order for the Giants to toy with my emotions and waste three-plus hours of 13 of the next 14 Sundays for me, they’re most likely going to need some help. Considering their defense, they’re definitely going to need some help. That means having other NFC East teams and other average NFC teams losing. The Eagles are one of those teams.

I’m sure the Eagles and their fans had Super Bowl aspirations entering this season and probably still do. If not for Alshon Jeffrey tipping that eventual interception up in the air in the divisional round, the Eagles might have returned to the Super Bowl and might have even won it. They were good enough to.

But now the Eagles are 1-2, after coming up short on their final drives against the Falcons and Lions in back-to-back weeks. Six of their next seven games are against Green Bay, Minnesota, Dallas, Buffalo, Chicago and New England. The easiest of those is on the road against the undefeated Bills. Outside of Week 5 against the Jets, it’s a gauntlet. The Eagles’ season isn’t in trouble yet, but it’s headed that way. Because I’m on my way to believing in the Giants again, I’m going to need the Eagles pushed out of the way.

New England -7 over BUFFALO
For last week’s 23-point line in the Patriots-Jets game, I wrote:

This line could be 35 and I still couldn’t take the Jets. I get that it’s ridiculously high and if the Jets were to ever find the end zone even once it might complicate things since their defense is solid, but I don’t think they’re going to find the end zone on offense. Maybe on defense or special teams, but that can’t be counted on.

The Jets’ special teams and defense did both find the end zone to impact the line and cover for the Jets, but I would still give the 23 points every time.

The Bills might have a strong defense and an improved offense, but they’re still the Bills, and they’re still playing the Patriots. I will be rooting for the Bills to win, but I certainly can’t pick them to cover here.

Tennessee +4 over ATLANTA
The Titans have let me down after their impressive Week 1 win in Cleveland. Then again, the Browns are nowhere near as good as people thought they would be because they added Odell Beckham, and the Titans look to be the same 7-9 or 8-8 team they usually are. The Titans can turn their season around with winnable games the next three weeks, starting in Atlanta this week. The Falcons are also trying to save their season, but as always, I will be rooting against them not to.

BALTIMORE -6.5 over Cleveland
The Ravens are the real deal. The Browns aren’t. I laughed at those who picked the Browns to go to the AFC Championship and laughed harder at those who picked them go to the Super Bowl. Even picking the Browns to be a playoff team should have warranted some laughs with the way they have looked through three weeks.

If 10 wins gets you a playoff berth, and the Browns have one win, it’s hard to find where they are going to get nine more wins in 13 games. They do have Cincinnati and Pittsburgh twice and Miami once, but that would only get them to six. They would still need three more wins from a schedule which includes Baltimore twice, San Francisco, Seattle, New England, Buffalo and not necessarily easy matchups on the road at Denver and Arizona.

The Browns might have Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry and Nick Chubb, but everything about them says they’re a seven- or eight-win team.

The Ravens, on the other hand, are a playoff team and the likely NFC North champion. For now, they don’t appear to be a real threat to the Patriots or Chiefs for the AFC, but they’re levels above the Browns.

Kansas City -6.5 over DETROIT
Nothing sums up the chaotic nature of football more than the Lions’ first three games.

In Week 1, they blew an 18-point fourth-quarter lead to a rookie head coach/quarterback combination and eventually tied. In Week 2, they won a defensive matchup against the much-better-on-paper Chargers. In Week 3, they went to Philadelphia and held off the Eagles for a three-point win thanks to a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown and a pair of recovered fumbles.

Anyone who has watched the Lions this season would find it absurd that anyone would ever wager money on football. But to that I say, the unlikely outcomes and unpredictable results like the three Lions games have had is exactly why gambling on football is so fun.

When it comes to picking Kansas City games, if I’m going to go against them, I’m going to need at least a touchdown, and most likely more.

HOUSTON -4.5 over Carolina
Panthers fans have to feel more confident with Kyle Allen as their starting quarterback than with Cam Newton, right? In his second career start, and really first actual start since the Week 17 game against New Orleans last season was a formality game for both in advance of the postseason, he was outstanding. Allen threw four touchdown passes and looked like something Newton hasn’t in a long time.

Newton won’t play again this week and Allen will start. I have never listened to North Carolina sports radio, but if Allen plays well again, I think I’m going to have to check it out. I want nothing more than for there to be a quarterback controversy with the Panthers.

INDIANAPOLIS -6.5 over Oakland
I like this Colts team. They have a solid defense and possibly the best offensive line in the league, and when you have that combination, wins will follow, no matter if your quarterback is Andrew Luck or Jacoby Brissett. The Colts have followed up their season-opening overtime loss at the Chargers with impressive wins at Tennessee and over Atlanta. The Colts were a playoff team with Luck last season and I think they are again without him this season. The Raiders shouldn’t be getting anything less than a touchdown against playoff teams.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS -15.5 over Miami
Normally, I don’t take the Chargers when they have to leave California and the Pacific Time Zone, but exceptions have to be made when it comes to games involving the 2019 Dolphins.

I don’t trust the Chargers to cover in this game and it wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up as an unbelievable upset. But there’s just no way I can take the Dolphins, who have scored 16 points total in three games to cover any sort of spread, especially when they are losing on average by 39 points.

NEW YORK GIANTS -2.5 over Washington
I know what’s happening here because I have lived it many times. The Giants start 0-2 and then win a couple of games to reel back in all of their fans who gave up on them and the season. Then they lose a couple more games and those fans who were reeled back in feel like idiots. Then they win a couple more games and those idiots are once again tricked into believing because injuries in the NFC East and poor play from the rest of the conference has cleared a path for the Giants to potentially reach the postseason despite being a mediocre-to-bad team. It’s happening again.

The Giants were blown out in Week 1 and embarrassed in Week 2 before being gifted a win in Week 3. Now they have a home game against a defense as bad as theirs and an offense that is nowhere near theirs, even without Saquon Barkley. There’s a very real chance the Giants could be and should be 2-2 after Sunday. And with the Eagles at 1-2 facing a tough matchup and the Cowboys going on the road to New Orleans, the Giants could be in second place and one game back in the division.

But then the other shoe will drop, the way it always does. The Giants will lose to the Vikings and Patriots the next two weeks to remind everyone who these Giants really are. But then they will bounce back against the Cardinals at MetLife and possibly in Detroit as well, finishing up with the Cowboys and Jets before their bye.

I can see this unfolding from a mile away. I want to be strong enough to not fall for it, but the Giants are the most persuasive bad major professional sports team there is.

ARIZONA +5 over Seattle
The Seahawks beat the now-winless Bengals by one point at home then beat the Ben Roethlisberger-less Steelers by two points on the road and then lost to the Drew Brees-less Saints. The Seahawks aren’t any good, but that’s what happens when most of your salary cap is tied up to your quarterback. Everyone needs to stop thinking of the Seahawks as the defense-led team which won the Super Bowl, and start thinking of them as a team that’s been average since they built their roster around Russell Wilson.

LOS ANGELES RAMS -9.5 over Tampa Bay
The Buccaneers lost to the Giants. When you lose to the Giants, you should be getting no less than double-digit points the following week, especially when you have to fly across the country to play the defending NFC champions.

Minnesota +2 over CHICAGO
This game should be played the exact same by each team: run-first offense combined with great defense. The Vikings and the Bears are similarly built and both led by untrustworthy quarterbacks. The Vikings have more playmakers on offense, while the Bears have more on defense. It’s about as even of a matchup as you could ask for.

The Vikings giving up the usual third point as a road team in a divisional matchup says a lot, and as long as Kirk Cousins doesn’t run the game, the Vikings should win. But thinking Cousins won’t ruin a game is like thinking Mitch Trubisky won’t ruin a game. I will probably regret this pick the first time Cousins drops back against the Bears’ pass rush.

Jacksonville +3 over DENVER
Gardner Minshew got his first career win and the Jaguars got their first win of the season, and now they both have a 10-day layoff to get Minshew more acclimated as the starting quarterback. With Nick Foles, I have to think the Jaguars’ Week 1 loss to Kansas City is much closer and that they score more than 12 points and probably win in Week 2 against Houston. But at 1-2, their season is still alive, and with their defense, they will have a chance each week, even without Foles. It’s never easy going on the road to Denver, but it’s a little easier going against this year’s underwhelming Broncos’ offense.

NEW ORLEANS +2.5 over Dallas
After waxing poetic about Teddy Bridgewater in last week’s picks, he went out and led the Saints to a win on the road in Seattle, where it used to be impossible for road teams to win. Bridgewater threw two touchdown passes and didn’t turn the ball over, playing the exact way he did when he led the Vikings to the playoffs in 2015.

The Cowboys have yet to be tested after getting the awful defenses of the Giants and Redskins in Weeks 1 and 2 and then the Dolphins, who might be the worst team in the history of the NFL, in Week 3. The Cowboys are good, but they’re not undefeated, class-of-the-NFC good. Right now, they’re riding high, and probably thinking they’re the cream of the crop in the NFC, as their fans are, but this week in New Orleans should be a nice wake-up call for them after having the easiest opening schedule through Week 3 in the league.

Cincinnati +4 over PITTSBURGH
Nothing says Monday Night Football like two 0-3 teams battling to be the less embarrassing franchise.

Last week: 9-7
Season: 23-25

Sep 23, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Set Postseason Rotation

Joe Torre always said he wanted his best starting pitcher going in the pivotal Game 2 of any postseason series. This postseason, the Yankees will have their best starting pitcher going in Game 2.

It’s the last week of the regular season. The last week! There are only five regular-season games remaining for the 2019 Yankees and then next Friday night they will open the postseason at Yankee Stadium.

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

1. The Yankees announced the upcoming end-of-the-season rotation and it goes James Paxton followed by Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka, which means that will be the order of starters in the ALDS. I recently wrote in the last edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Power Rankings that I wanted it to go Severino then Paxton then Tanaka, but I’m fine with the way they set it up.

It does worry me that everyone seems to have forgotten the Paxton we saw in March, April, May, June and July and seems to think the one we have seen in August and September is guaranteed to show up in Game 1. Those same people are likely the ones who think Severino can’t be trusted in Game 1 because he has only pitched nine innings this season, which to me, makes him more trustworthy. It’s essentially the end of spring training or the beginning of the season for Severino, and he’s not tired from a season’s worth of work. Look at how dominant he has been early in the season the last couple years and that’s the Severino we’re getting now. But with this setup, Severino is either going to have a chance to put the Yankees up 2-0 in the ALDS or avoid them going down 0-2 before leaving New York. Joe Torre always said he wanted his best pitcher in Game 2 and that’s why Andy Pettitte — the winningest pitcher in postseason history — would pitch that game. The Yankees have their best pitcher going in Game 2.

2. After the first edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Power Rankings, James 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 on the season. But since getting embarrassed in Boston, Paxton hasn’t lost, winning 10 straight for an undefeated August and September after the Yankees lost all five of his July starts.

Over this nine-game winning streak, opposing hitters are batting .167/.241/.273 against Paxton as he’s beaten the Red Sox twice, Indians and Dodgers along with the pesky offenses of the Rangers and Blue Jays twice. 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.

In the first edition of the rankings, after he struggled through the first four months of the season, I wrote: He has two months to change my mind, and he has a lot to do in those two months to change it. Well, he’s changed it.

Earlier this season, YES showed an interview of Paxton talking about how he wants to be a Yankee and wants to pitch where he’s expected to win. He will now get that chance at the end of next week in Game 1 of the ALDS.

3. I really missed Severino this season and his return has made me realize how much I love everything about him. I love his demeanor and pace, his velocity and control, his command and attack of the strike zone. He throws a pitch the ball, gets the ball back and is immediately ready to throw the next pitch. He doesn’t waste time and puts each batter on defense for the entire at-bat. He’s a refreshing presence on the mound, and as close to a guaranteed win as you can get every five days for the Yankees.

In two starts this season, Severino has been dominant (9 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 13 K) and I would have trusted him starting a postseason game without these two performances, but now I trust him more than anyone.

Severino’s 2017 wild-card game disaster came in his first postseason start after throwing a career-high 193 1/3 innings. He bounced back to pitch well in that ALDS and ALCS and again in the 2018 wild-card game before the 2018 ALDS Game 3 disaster, in which he was late to warmup for reasons we will never know. But Severino has yet to really deliver that memorable postseason performance, and it’s likely because in both postseasons he has been a part of, he was coming off six months of career-high work. This time he will be the most rested and freshest starter of the entire postseason field, and has the chance to be the Yankees’ difference-maker in potential series against the Astros and Dodgers.

4. I like Tanaka getting the ball in Game 3. He won’t be scared into melting down on the road and he won’t let the crowd or non-Yankee Stadium mound affect him. He’s proven himself on the road in October with strong starts against the eventual champions in each of the last two seasons. In the hostile postseason environments of Houston (6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K) and Boston (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), Tanaka delivered, and I trust him in Game 3 of the ALDS to either finish a potential sweep of the series, swing the series in the Yankees’ favor or save the season (like he did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS).

5. It seems like the Yankees are going to give the ball to J.A. Happ in Game 4 of the ALDS rather than go with an opener and I really hope they don’t. If Paxton is getting the ball in Game 1 because of what he did this season then there’s no way Happ should get the ball for a postseason game because of what he did this season. I don’t think Happ or CC Sabathia should be starting a playoff game based on their regular-season performances and not counting their postseason starts in the 2018 ALDS which were as bad as possible. Let Chad Green open Game 4 and piece together the remaining 21-24 outs. Don’t let Happ ruin a postseason game in the first inning.

6. I’m scared of three things in the postseason. One of them is the offense disappearing with an abundance of strikeouts, which is what happened in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS. That can’t be planned for or prevented and all you can do is pray a slump doesn’t occur at the worst possible time in a short. The other two can be planned for or prevented …

7. Didi Gregorius has no business batting third or fourth and Brett Gardner has no business batting anywhere other than ninth in the postseason. I don’t care that they bat left-handed and that they could be used to break up the right-handed bats. They will be the two weakest bats in the postseason lineup and they belong at the bottom of the order.

The Yankees constructed a right-handed heavy lineup, and they have to live with that. There’s no reason to bat either of them ahead of anyone on the Yankees, especially when the lineup is in some order made up of DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit, Edwin Encarnacion and Gio Urshela. Gregorius eighth and Gardner ninth. Don’t build your lineup for some late-innings relief strategy which might not and most likely won’t happen.

8. The other thing which can be prevented is Aaron Boone’s managing. It’s great that the team has won 100-plus games in the first two seasons as manager, but none of it will matter this season like it didn’t last season if he manages this October like he did last October.

There’s no point of needing only 12 outs from your starting pitcher if your manager isn’t going to pull the starting pitcher at the right time and utilize the bullpen in the order it’s meant to be utilized. Boone ruined the ALDS last season when he left Severino in too long in Game 3 and Sabathia in Game 4. He then doubled-down on his egregious decisions to leave both starters in too long with the relievers he brought in to follow them.

I’m most scared of the Astros’ deep lineup and starting pitching and it will be the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to winning a championship this season. But after that, I’m scared of Boone managing the Yankees out of the playoffs. Until he shows he’s learned from his mistakes and is a capable postseason manager, it’s hard to think otherwise.

9. It seems like Yankees fans suddenly started caring about home-field advantage in the postseason after the Yankees clinched the division. They should have been worried about it all along. The division has never been a problem. I wrote back on July 1 that the Yankees clinched the division, following the two games in London. Even if it took them another two-and-a-half months to make it official, they were always going to win the division. Home-field has been the bigger issue these last two-plus months, and now it’s no longer an issue since the Astros are going to win it.

The Astros have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Yankees for home-field because of the head-to-head tiebreaker, and with only five games left to play for the Yankees, even if they won them all, they still might not win it. And it’s going to be hard to win them all since they said the Goof Troop of 40-man relievers would be doing the pitching in the two-game series in Tampa this week.

So if the Yankees and Astros meet in the ALCS, the first two games of the series will be in Houston as the Astros will get four of the seven games at home. The Yankees will have to figure out a way to beat Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole or Zack Greinke on the road, and also take care of business at home. Yankees fans will want to root as hard as they are for the Yankees in the postseason for the wild-card winner to win the other ALDS matchup.

10. My expected record for the Yankees in September is 15-10. They are currently 13-7, which means they have to finish at least 2-3 to meet expectations.

The Yankees have 102 wins and only need to win one of their remaining games to match the 2009 Yankees’ 103-59 record. But if the postseason doesn’t end with a win like it did for the 2009 Yankees, it won’t matter.

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