The Giants will pick at 6 and 17 in the first round and I don’t think they use either pick on a quarterback. I don’t think they should use any of their 12 picks in the draft on a quarterback.
Don’t draft a quarterback.
I will be repeating that phrase to myself when “THE PICK IS IN” graphic appears on the bottom of the TV for the Giants sometime before 9 p.m. on Thursday night.
There’s no franchise-changing quarterback in this draft outside of Kyler Murray, who I still can’t believe gave up on a career in Major League Baseball and a reported additional $14 million to focus on football. Even when it comes to Murray, no one knows how his game will translate from college to the NFL given his stature, and as a Giants fan, it doesn’t matter how it will translate because the Giants don’t have the option of selecting him without making a Kevin Costner in Draft Day-esque move up to acquire the first overall pick.
The Giants will pick at 6 and 17 in the first round and I don’t think they use either pick on a quarterback. I don’t think they should use any of their 12 picks in the draft on a quarterback.
The Giants need to build a team, and I mean an actual team. Right now, the Giants have very few NFL-worthy starters in their expected 2019 lineup on either side of the ball. They need to enhance both lines, somehow create a pass rush and construct a secondary. A rookie quarterback won’t help them do any of those things, and using a high pick on a quarterback won’t do the team or the player any good when there isn’t a line to protect him when he inevitably plays. Wasting a pick, especially one in the first few rounds on a quarterback who may or may not be a capable starter in the NFL is a gamble and risk not worth taking. Not this year at least.
Last year at the draft, there was the notion the Giants should pick their next quarterback with the No. 2 pick in the draft under the premise they wouldn’t be picking at or near the top of the draft again for a very long time. That very long time became the very next season and this draft. The Giants chose to not select the heir to Eli Manning a year ago, but that doesn’t mean they now have to select him this year.
I’m always a Giants optimist in the offseason and right up until kickoff in Week 1, before the Giants remind me and every other fan why they are the most frustrating team in the league. But even as an offseason optimist, I don’t see how the Giants aren’t going to be picking even higher in 2020 than they are in 2019. Aside from the four division games against the Cowboys and Eagles, the Giants will also play the NFC North and AFC East, and I don’t know where anyone is confidently finding four or five wins in their 2019 schedule, let alone the six they recorded this past season. The 2019 Giants might make me yearn for the days of the 2017 and 2018 Giants.
The Giants don’t need a quarterback right now. As the President of the Eli Manning Fan Club, I realize that last sentence seems both biased and ridiculous, but it’s true. The Giants don’t need a quarterback for 2019. They might need one in 2020 and will probably need one in 2021, but there’s no one worth selecting and wasting a season mentoring in this year’s draft. Next year’s draft is when they should go after a franchise signal caller.
When the Giants go on the clock for the first time on Thursday night, I will keep repeating that phrase, praying my plan will be heard by the Giants.
Right now, the only situation for Green is mop-up duty, in a game it would take a miracle for the Yankees to come back and win, and only being able to pitch in such a situation isn’t worthy of a roster spot.
I was distraught when Luis Severino was removed from the 2017 AL Wild-Card Game. It was only the first inning and the Yankees were trailing 3-0 with just one out and runners on second and third. The season was on the brink of elimination and a base hit would most likely end it before the Yankees ever came to bat in the game.
Joe Girardi raced to the mound as if he tried the Stadium chili fries and needed to get back to the clubhouse. He immediately took the ball from Severino and called on Chad Green, and for a moment I felt a sense of relief.
Green had been the Yankees’ best reliever that season in his transition to the bullpen. In 69 innings, he allowed a measly 34 hits while striking out 103 to only 17 walks. I still trusted David Robertson as much as anyone in the worst of jams and I still believed in Dellin Betances despite his end-of-the-season decline, but this spot was perfect for Green. Green rewarded Girardi’s decision to go to the bullpen for 26 outs by getting out of the inning with the score still 3-0.
Three nights later in Cleveland, Girardi once again called on Green in Game 2 of the ALDS. This time Green entered with the Yankees leading 8-3 in sixth inning and a runner on first with two outs. Sabathia was only at 77 pitches and the bottom of the order was coming up for the Indians, but Girardi went to his bullpen for the last 11 outs of the game. Green had thrown 41 pitches in the wild-card game, and I knew something was off with Green from the very first batter.
Green had trouble putting away the easy-to-put-away Austin Jackson, as Jackson was able to foul away two two-strike pitches before flying out to right field on the seventh pitch of the at-bat. Then against the light-hitting catcher Yan Gomes, Green ran into the same problem, as Gomes fouled away three two-strike pitches before doubling to left on a line drive, also on the seventh pitch of the at-bat. With runners on second and third and one out, Green got ahead of 9-hitter Lonnie Chisenhall 0-2 on two foul tips, but Chisenhall was able to foul off four straight two-strike pitches before being hit by a pitch. Green had thrown 21 pitches to the Indians’ 7, 8 and 9 hitters and had been unable to get a single swing-and-miss.
Chisenhall had foul-tipped the first two pitches to fall behind 0-2, which was almost a bit of foreshadowing as the seventh pitch of the at-bat hadn’t hit him, but rather had been tipped off the bat and into Gary Sanchez’s glove. It should have been the third out of the inning, but home plate umpire Dan Iassogna missed the call and Girardi missed his chance to challenge the call for reasons I will never understand even with Sanchez repeatedly telling his manager the ball hit the bat. The bases were now loaded and the lineup was turning over. I felt like I was going to be sick and when Girardi decided to stay with Green to face Francisco Lindor I could feel my stomach rumbling.
Lindor took Green’s first pitch for a ball, and the second pitch — Green’s 23rd of the inning — he took for a ride. Matt Vasgersian screamed, “LINDOR WITH A SWING AND A DRIVE … AND IT’S GONE!” while Sanchez watched Lindor round the bases in disbelief. The Yankees still led 8-7, but no one thought the Yankees were going to hold on to win the game. Certainly not me.
The Yankees lost Game 2 before improbably winning three straight to win the series and shock the top-seeded Indians, though Green wouldn’t pitch in Games 3, 4 or 5. He did look more like his regular-season self in the ALCS against the Astros, allowing one earned run in his three appearances and stranding two inherited runners in Game 6.
But in 2018, even with his overall solid season (94 strikeouts in 75 2/3 innings with a 2.50 ERA), he wasn’t as dominant as he had been in 2017. His hits per nine innings rose from 4.4 to 7.6, he allowed more than double his home run total from the year before (four to nine) and his strikeouts per nine innings dropped from 13.4 to 11.2. He was still very good, but he was no longer unhittable, and while I trusted him more than Jonathan Holder, Luis Cessa, Tommy Kahnle or A.J. Cole (not that being more trustworthy than any of those four means much), I didn’t trust him nearly the way I did the year before. In the ALDS, he allowed one earned run in 3 2/3 innings on four hits and three walks, but didn’t strike out any of the 18 batters he faced, and it was clear something was off with him.
This season the slow decline for Green since the end of the 2017 regular season has taken another step in the wrong direction. A much larger step. He has allowed at least one earned run in six of his 10 appearances, giving up a crooked number in four of those. In four his last six outings, he has taken a loss against the Astros (0.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 0 K), put a game out of reach against the White Sox (0.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 2 HR), nearly ruined Easter Sunday against the Royals (0.0 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 0 K) and almost blew a six-run lead against the Angels (0.1 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HR).
Green’s line for the season: 7.2 IP, 15 H, 14 R, 14 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, 4 HR, 16.43 ERA, 2.477 WHIP.
The 14 earned runs he’s allowed this season matches his total from 2017 when he made 40 appearances and pitched 69 innings.
With the current state of the Yankees lineup, the team needs to be able to rely on their starting pitching and the bullpen to win games. The starting pitching has lived up to expectations for the last week, but the bullpen continues to be an inconsistent problem, and Green is the biggest problem of all.
His high-leverage appearances have been taken away from him and in an attempt to get him right, Aaron Boone brought him in with a six-run lead on Tuesday night in Anaheim. After recording the final out of the seventh inning, Green loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth before giving up a grand slam. After not getting a single swinging strike on Sunday on 12 pitches, he did manage to get two in his 18 pitches on Tuesday, but in neither game did he record a strikeout, something he hasn’t done now in six of his 10 outings.
Thankfully, the Yankees will get Gary Sanchez back on Wednesday, but they will still be without Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Didi Gregorius, Miguel Andujar and Aaron Hicks. The Yankees have to play near-perfect baseball with their current roster and make any run they’re able to score stand up to win games and keep pace with the Rays in the division until their regulars return.
I understand success for relievers is year to year, but this isn’t that. Even if Green had declined in performance from 2017 to 2018, it was a small decline. This is his performance falling off a cliff. In the last two weeks alone, he has broken open a 3-3 game for a loss, put a one-run deficit out of reach, helped blow a five-run lead and nearly blew a six-run lead. Right now, the only situation for Green is mop-up duty, in a game it would take a miracle for the Yankees to come back and win, and only being able to pitch in such a situation isn’t worthy of a roster spot.
I expect Green to become the latest Yankee to land on the injured list, whether or not he’s really injured. He needs time to figure it out and the Yankees can no longer afford to let him figure it out at the major league level.
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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!
Today is April 24. April 1 was 23 days ago. April 1 was the day Aaron Hicks was initially expected to return to the Yankees lineup from his back injury. Hicks hurt his back in
Today is April 24. April 1 was 23 days ago. April 1 was the day Aaron Hicks was initially expected to return to the Yankees lineup from his back injury.
Hicks hurt his back in spring training … riding a bus … for 35 minutes. That’s right, Hicks originally got hurt on February 27 riding the team bus from Tampa to Lakeland for a spring training game.
“I got off the bus and it felt tight; I couldn’t swing,” Hicks said back in spring training. “Came back the next day and it was still tight … [then] played the night game two days later, and that’s kind of where I knew something was wrong.”
On March 1, the stiffness was still present in his lower back while taking batting practice before a game, so the Yankees shut him down. Ten days later on March 11, he received a cortisone shot to help with the pain.
Five days after the cortisone shot, while doing rotational activity exercises on March 16, Hicks complained of the same back stiffness. The following day (March 17), Hicks received a second cortisone shot.
“The first one definitely hit the spot, for sure. I made really big gains on that one,” Hicks said after the second cortisone shot. “The second one, I just feel like it was a little bit more to the left and it needs to be tended to. That was to knock it fully out.”
Despite Hicks not having played in a game in what was now over two weeks, Aaron Boone believes his center fielder could be capable of being in the lineup at the start of the season.
“I think he physically probably will be ready [for Opening Day],” Boone said even after the second cortisone shot. “We don’t think it’s going to be a long time for Hicks.”
The day of the second cortisone shot, Hicks tells reporters he won’t be playing in the opening series against Orioles (March 28-31), but expects to be in the lineup for the second series of the series against the Tigers on April 1.
Boone recognizes Hicks will have to begin the season on the injured list, but doesn’t think it will be a full 10-day stint.
“He could avoid a full [injured list] stay at the big league level because obviously we can backdate him,” Boone said. “He’ll start on the [injured list].”
Prior to the start of the first game of the season, the Yankees officially announce Hicks is being placed on the 10-day injured list.
On April 5 in Baltimore, Boone gives an update on Hicks.
“[Thursday] I believe he is starting baseball activities. He will be throwing [Thursday],” Boone said, “It’s been about a week or so where he has been feeling really well coming in every day.”
Boone then goes on to say he doesn’t think Hicks will need a full six-week spring training to get back, the same way he originally said he wouldn’t need a full 10-day injured list stint.
“I don’t think it will be six weeks, but he has to get some at-bats,”Boone said. “And once he gets back to the point where he is playing in [minor league] games, it’s not going to be just five or 10 games. He is going to have to play some and get built back up.”
On April 14, Hicks appears at Yankee Stadium. He’s in New York to take care of paperwork for his apartment and provides an update on his status.
“Hitting was a problem for me,” Hicks said before watching the Yankees lose to the White Sox. “Every time I hit [during rehab] was when it would start to fire up and start to be painful. The fact I’m moving forward past that is good.”
Hicks started tee-and-toss two days prior, finally swinging a bat for the first time in a month.
“I’ve been really testing it hard in the cage,” he said. “Putting my A swings into it to make sure it’s game-like.”
Boone, who originally estimated Hicks would return on April 1 was no longer willing to give a return date.
“Timeframe? I don’t know yet, “Boone said. “All I know is he’s doing really well. He seems to be completely healthy.”
Boone then goes on to say Hicks has been past the injury for a couple weeks, causing many to wonder why he is just now beginning to swing a bat.
“It’s been a couple weeks now, at least, where we feel he’s completely past the injury,” Boone said. “The ramp-up has just been a little slow.”
Two days later, on April 16, Hicks hits off a tee and throws on the field before the Yankees’ 8-0 win over the Red Sox.
“I took some really good swings today,” Hicks said, “Striking the ball good.”
Hicks says he expects to start taking batting practice the next day, or the day after that, but no one is sure when he will actually take batting practice.
“I thought I would miss a couple of [spring training] games,” Hicks added. “Obviously, that didn’t happen.
No, obviously it didn’t happen. It’s now been a week since Hicks expected to soon be taking practice and nearly two months since he first felt lower back stiffness following a 35-minute bus ride. We’re almost three weeks from when Boone said Hicks wouldn’t need a six-week spring training and no one is sure when he will play in a rehab game.
While this entire injured list stint has been a debacle because of the botched timetables provided by Hicks, Boone and the organization, the injury itself is nothing new when it comes to Hicks. His entire career has been marred by disabled and injured list trips for just about every conceivable non-surgery baseball injury.
In 2016, his first season with the Yankees, Hicks missed time due to shoulder bursitis and a hamstring strain, playing in 123 games.
In 2017, he played in only 88 games, going on the disabled twice, once for a right oblique strain and once for a left oblique strain.
In 2018, he got hurt on Opening Day and after one game was on the disabled list with a strained right intercostal muscle. He ended up playing in a career-high 137 regular-season games before once again getting hurt in the postseason and missing two of the four games in the ALDS.
Add in the 22 games Hicks has already missed this season and as a Yankee he’s played in just 348 of a possible 508 regular-season games, or 68.5 percent.
Hicks is going to be a Yankee for the foreseeable future after being extended through 2025 back on Feb. 25 — two days before the historic 35-minute bus ride — with a club option for the 2026 season.
Now 29, having spent his 20s trying to become an everyday major leaguer and then trying to stay off the disabled and injured list once he became one. He was successful at the former and miserably unsuccessful at the latter.
The Yankees have Hicks through at least his age 35 season, and it’s going to take a miracle for him to avoid missing so many games on the other side of 30 the way he has in his prime.
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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!
The Yankees’ outfielder sprained his ankle, but remained in the game to score a run, and has already said he’s playing no matter what. Clint Frazier is a breath of fresh air on this Yankees team.
There were times I thought Clint Frazier would never be a Yankee. Then there were times when I thought he would never be a regular everyday player and part of the Yankees’ future. I have to think a lot of Yankees fans felt the same. A combination of Frazier being blocked positionally, frequent injuries and trade speculation made me think I would watch him realize his potential and become an All-Star-caliber player with another franchise.
The never-ending injury bug, which has destroyed the Yankees’ expected lineup, has forced Frazier into a starting role in the outfield and a middle-of-the-order spot in the order. Not only has Frazier responded to this opportunity by finally proving his status as the focal point of the Andrew Miller deal and that he belongs in the majors, he’s proved he belongs in the Yankees’ plans. He doesn’t belong as the headline for some package to acquire a rental starter at the trade deadline or a pitcher with a couple years of control. He belongs in the Yankees outfield.
In 18 games, Frazier has displayed the “legendary bat speed” Brian Cashman raves about. He has a team-leading six home runs and is batting .324/.342/.632. His .975 OPS in 73 plate appearances is even more impressive when you consider he missed virtually all of 2018 and desperately needed more at-bats and time to develop defensively in Triple-A. “He’s not a finished product,” Brian Cashman said on Monday to Mike Francesa. “He never got finished off because he missed an entire developmental year, so his experience at Triple-A is not extensive.” He’s still technically getting his reps in with the RailRiders since the Yankees are essentially them right now, they are just coming in major league games with the RailRiders.
Frazier recently mentioned his confidence is at “an all-time high” right now, and it should be. He has reiterated the “next guy up” slogan the Yankees are using to battle through the absence of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Giancarlo Stanton, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Miguel Andujar and Troy Tulowitzki on the position player side and Luis Severino and Dellin Betances from the pitching staff. Frazier asked, “Which guy’s going to be the hero tonight? Who’s going to be the one that steps up?” Most nights this season, it’s been him.
On Monday night (early Tuesday morning on the East Coast), Frazier slid awkwardly into second base on a pickoff attempt, rolling his ankle. I was in disbelief, but managed to hold in my anger and frustration to avoid waking up my fiancee and the neighbors, who had been sleeping for hours like normal people who don’t sacrifice their sleep and well-being to watch a baseball team. Was another Yankee really injured? Frazier grabbed his ankle and then hopped around near the base as Aaron Boone and Steve Donahue ran out of the dugout. Frazier was able to persuade Boone and Donahue to let him remain in the game, and after his ankle was tightly wrapped, he stayed in for the final innings, playing left field in for the 12th, 13th and 14th innings. After the game, Frazier said the injury wouldn’t keep him out of the lineup.
“It’s a little sprain, but it’s one of those things where I went through too much last year to not go out there and play. The IL is too full for us, so I’m good. I’m going to keep playing.”
I’m sure those comments frightened Boone, who is most likely going to give Frazier the day off on Tuesday. He was probably going to get the day off already as part of the Yankees’ scheduled off day initiative, which only helps to make more of a mockery out of their injury crisis. But no matter if the overcautious organization holds one of their few true bats out of the lineup for the second game of this nine-game road trip, those are the words you want to hear from your player.
“I kept telling myself, ‘Everything you got.’ Last year, that’s a real injury. [Tonight] I could still go out there, I could still walk, I could still contribute to this team.”
Could you ever envision Aaron Hicks saying something like that?
“I went through too much last year to not continue to stay out on that field. So a lot of things would have to go wrong for me to not play out there.”
All of this made me want to hug Frazier or possibly dye my hair red and get a nose ring like number 77. His words and determination to not miss time serve as a breath of fresh air for a team with the most players on the injured list in the majors, an injured list with players who frequently miss their return dates by weeks and sometimes months.
Frazier knows what it’s like to suffer a serious and significant injury for which there is no timetable for a return to the playing field or a normal livelihood. Thankfully, he was able to return to both. A sprained ankle? That’s not going to keep him out of the lineup if he gets his way. With the way he’s been living up to his first-round potential this season, Yankees fans need him to get his way.
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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!
The Aaron Hicks injury situation, Aaron Boone’s press conferences, Yankees-Red Sox trash talk and J.A. Happ’s struggles in this week’s Monday Mail.
A week ago, the Yankees had just lost two of three to the White Sox after getting swept by the Astros and the Red Sox were coming to town. Now the Yankees are winners of five of six, back over .500 at 11-10 and headed to the West Coast for 10 days. Not everything is rainbows, sunshine and butterflies though. Aaron Judge is the latest Yankee to go on the injured list and the lineup the Yankees are using every night is essentially a Triple-A lineup.
This week’s questions and comments revolve around those injuries as well as the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and what’s going on with J.A. Happ.
Email your questions to KeefeToTheCity@gmail.com or engage on the Keefe To The City Facebook page or on Twitter to be included in the next Monday Mail.
Remember when Aaron Hicks was only going to be out for the weekend during spring training? – Marc
So looking forward to the next seven years of the glass man. – Andy
Jacoby Hicks – Rich
That extension doesn’t look super great. – Mike
When Aaron Hicks first got hurt in spring training, it was reported he would miss a few days as a precaution and that it wasn’t anything serious. Then it was reported he might not be ready for Opening Day. Then it was reported he would be ready for the first game of the second series of the season on April 1 against the Tigers. It’s now April 22 and Hicks isn’t back despite him saying this past week that he’s been 100 percent for a few weeks. How is a player at 100 percent and not close to coming back? Then again, we’re talking about an organization which claims they weren’t aware of their 25-year-old ace’s lat injury at the same time as his shoulder inflammation. The same ace who started warming up five minutes before Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS.
Prior to the season, I set the over/under on games played in 2019 for Hicks at 145, which would allow him to miss 17 games. He has already missed 21 games and according to Brian Cashman on WFAN on Monday, he’s not close to returning. We all knew Hicks was injury prone before he received a seven-year, $70 million extension, but this is really out of control.
You hope to God that what he’s saying to the media is 180 degrees from what he’s telling the team. They look uninspired, unfocused and are making rookie mistakes on the bases, field and at-bat. – Greg
This was in response to Aaron Boone’s postgame press conference last week following another loss to the lowly White Sox. Boone said, “I really do think we’re in a sound place as far as our focus, our energy, our expectation when we walk through those doors.”
The Yankees were 6-9 at the time Boone said that, having just lost two of the three to the White Sox to fall to 3-6 at home to teams expected to finish in last place.
Since the series loss to the White Sox, the Yankees took both games against the Red Sox and three of four from the Royals to finish their homestand at 6-3 and climb back over .500 to 11-10. Winning cures everything, and for now, Boone can say whatever he wants because his Triple-A lineup is getting the job done. Let’s see what happens with a now Aaron Judge-less team going across the country to play the Angels, Giants and Diamondbacks.
Trust me I’m a Yankee fan and I’m happy when we win but talking smack about the Red Sox should be few and far between because they have won four world championships in the last 15 years and they eliminated us last year. Let’s get real Yankee fans. Let’s just be grateful and not talk smack . That’s a good team and organization. They rival us but they’re just as good as we are. – Nick
I won’t be saying anything about the Red Sox until the Yankees win a championship. The Yankees haven’t reached the World Series in what will be a decade this fall, let alone win the World Series, and since their last championship, their seasons have ended the following way:
Lost 4-2 in ALCS to Rangers Lost 3-2 in ALDS to Tigers Lost 4-0 in ALCS to Tigers Missed playoffs Missed playoffs Lost AL Wild-Card Game to Astros Missed playoffs Lost 4-3 in ALCS to Astros Lost 3-1 in ALDS to Red Sox
The Red Sox might have several last-place finishes and missed postseasons in that same time span, however, they also have two World Series and one playoff rout of the Yankees to their name.
I enjoyed Boston’s 6-13 start as much as anyone, and it was good to see essentially a Yankees Triple-A pull off a two-game sweep of the Red Sox last week in New York, but we’re a long, long way as a fan base from being able to trash talk and criticize the Red Sox.
As long as the Yankees can tread water until their healthy everything will fall into place and will be in the playoffs, Boston’s on an extended World Series hangover and will come around but I hope not, right now the Yanks need to string together some series wins and get above .500, Tampa Bay doesn’t seem to lose and the Yanks can’t win there but I hope that changes this year. – Mark
Tampa finally started losing at the same time the Yankees started winning. The Yankees were able to pick up three games on the Rays over the weekend, and miraculously, they are now only 2 1/2 games back in the AL East. (I’m still more worried about the Rays than the Red Sox this season.)
The Yankees are missing their starting catcher, shortstop (and the backup shortstop), third baseman, left fielder/designated hitter, center fielder, right fielder, best starting pitcher and best relief pitcher. It’s actually unbelievable they are 11-10, having won five of their last six games. The lineup they are putting together would be a bad spring training lineup and they are being forced to use it in real games. Luke Voit batting second? Brett Gardner in the 3-hole? Mike Tauchman hitting fifth? A combination of Mike Ford, Kyle Higashioka, Austin Romine and Tyler Wade at the bottom of the order?
The Yankees are going to face an enormous test over the next 10 days with this nine-game West Coast road trip, featuring a lineup with two players (Voit and Gleyber Torres) who were supposed to be everyday players in 2019. The goal right now is to tread water and still be within striking distance when the regulars get back.
The problem now is no one really knows when any of the regulars will be back outside of Gary Sanchez, who is due back this week. The Yankees have botched so many consecutive injury timetables that now they are refusing to say when anyone will come back. Something needs to be done about this debacle internally since this is now the second straight season of players returning long after they were expected to.
Move Happ to the pen. – Mike
J.A. Happ has made four starts since Game 1 of the ALDS — a game he lost three batters in — and they have all gone poorly. His best start of the season was his last start against the Red Sox, in which he allowed three earned runs and two home runs in 6 1/3 innings, getting past 4 1/3 innings for the first time this season.
Happ’s line for the season? 18.2 IP, 25 H, 15 R, 15 ER, 6 BB, 17 K, 6 HR, 7.23 ERA, 1.660 WHIP. (I feel dirty after typing that.)
After the Yankees let Patrick Corbin sign with the Nationals, it was obvious Happ would be returning to the Yankees. He pitched well for them in the second half last year before laying an egg in the playoffs against the team they for him to match up against, and as part of the second tier of available starters (the bargain bin), his asking price was perfectly in line with Hal Steinbrenner’s penny-pinching ways. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the Yankees have a 36-year-old left-hander who relies on his fastball, and they have him for the next three seasons.
I’m sure the Yankees would sign up for three earned runs over 6 1/3 innings (4.27 ERA) from Happ every start, since when healthy, the offense should win in that situation most times. But right now, the offense is a flat-out disaster, and the Yankees need Happ to be better, much better, than he has been.
Happ will pitch the first game of the nine-game road trip on Monday, and the Yankees can’t afford to kick off this West Coast swing with Happ going four innings and destroying the bullpen.
Want to be included in the next Monday Mail? Email your questions to KeefeToTheCity@gmail.com or engage on the Keefe To The City Facebook page or on Twitter.
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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!
