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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Aug 10, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Worst Yankees Weekend

The Blue Jays have gone from eight games back in the AL East to 1 1/2 games back in 12 days and the Yankees’ postseason chances are fading the same way they did the last two years.

New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

I want to pretend that I didn’t spend all of Sunday night wondering if the Blue Jays are going to prevent me from watching the Yankees in the postseason. I want to pretend that the Yankees’ unwillingness to trade for David Price isn’t going to be difference between going straight to the ALDS or having to worry about winning a one-game wild-card playoff. I want to pretend like the Blue Jays haven’t gone from eight games back in the AL East to 1 1/2 games back in 12 days.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about the Yankees’ disastrous weekend against the Blue Jays.

It’s hard to win games when you don’t score. The Yankees scored one run, ONE, in their biggest series of the season and the biggest series they have played since the end of 2012 and let the Blue Jays get within 1 1/2 games of them after a Stadium sweep. The Yankees needed to win one game this weekend to keep the Blue Jays five back in the loss column and prevent the weekend from being a complete disaster, but they couldn’t do that. Their best chance to win a game this weekend was on Friday, which is the only game they scored a run, but before they could score a second run, Joe Girardi lost the game.

I have written an unhealthy amount of words on set innings for relievers and how absurd it is, but Girardi is a big believer in having a seventh-inning guy and an eighth-inning guy and a ninth-inning guy and no matter the situation, he’s going to stick with it.

On Friday night, the Yankees and Blue Jays were tied 1-1 in the seventh inning. Nathan Eovaldi was still pitching and after a Mark Teixeira error and a Chase Headley bobble, the Blue Jays had runners on first and second with one out. Girardi called on Justin Wilson to relieve Eovaldi and he struck out Ben Revere on four pitches. Then Girardi called on Dellin Betances to relieve Wilson and he walked Troy Tulowitzki on four pitches and then got Josh Donaldson to ground out.

Betances returned in the eighth inning and after a Jose Bautista leadoff single, he retied Edwin Encarnacion, Justin Smoak and Russell Martin to end the inning.

Girardi called on Andrew Miller to relieve Betances in the ninth and he needed just six pitches to get through the inning against the Blue Jays’ 7-8-9-1 hitters.

The Yankees were unable to score in the bottom of the ninth, so the game went to 10th, and Girardi relieved Miller with rookie Branden Pinder to face the middle of the Blue Jays’ order: Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. This would have been a frustrating but understandable move if it were the 14th or 15th inning, but it was the 10th inning. But it wasn’t the 14th or 15th, it was the 10th, and it was irresponsible for two reasons.

1. Miller had thrown SIX pitches in the ninth inning. SIX. Miller had thrown five pitches on Sunday against the White Sox and 17 pitches on Thursday against the Red Sox. So after Friday’s ninth inning, he had thrown 28 pitches in six days or 4.7 pitches per day for the week. Is 28 pitches over the course of a week too much? Was the nine pitches it took to retire the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth too much of a layoff between innings for Miller to return for the 10th?

2. Wilson, Betances and Miller had been used. So let’s pretend like Miller really couldn’t go a second inning after throwing SIX pitches and that Girardi had to go to the bullpen. Chasen Shreve and Adam Warren were both still in the bullpen yet Girardi decided that rookie Branden Pinder and his 14 2/3 career innings was the best choice to get through the heart of the order of the best team in Major League Baseball in as close to a playoff game in the regular season as there can be on Aug. 7.

I’m not going to get into Girardi’s bullpen decisions on Saturday and Sunday, which were also incredibly questionable, because the team didn’t score a run in either game. The Yankees are going to have a hard enough time keeping the Blue Jays from overtaking them in the AL East, they don’t need Joe Girardi managing them to losses.

I really don’t understand what Adam Warren’s role is with the team. After being the most consistent starter for the first half of the season, the Yankees put him in the bullpen and left CC Sabathia in the rotation because of money and now Warren is randomly used. Sometimes he pitches with a lead, sometimes he pitches to hold a deficit, sometimes he pitches in the sixth inning, sometimes he pitches in the eighth innings, sometimes he faces on batter, sometimes he pitches multiple innings.

I have no idea when Warren will come into a game or how long he will stay in one. I have no idea what the long-term plan for him is because I have no idea what the current and short-term plan is for him. He went from most reliable starter to being put behind Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, Justin Wilson and Chasen Shreve on the bullpen pecking order. I would say the Yankees’ handling of him has been very odd, but then again, this is exactly how the Yankees handle pitchers.

https://twitter.com/craigmiller/status/629088613301657600

That tweet was from last Wednesday and five days ago. After that tweet, Drew went 0-for-9 in three games to watch his batting average drop back down to .192 after having gotten it up to a season-high(!) .199 on Sunday in Chicago. Drew has never seen .200 this season. Not on Opening Day. Not in the first week of the season when averages change hundreds of points with each hit and out. Never.

Today is Aug. 10. Stephen Drew is still a Yankee. How that is possible hurts my head to even think about. Drew has started 79 games this season and has gone hitless in 37 of them. So in 47 percent of Drew’s starts, he hasn’t gotten a hit.

The Yankees clearly don’t like Rob Refsnyder as a player and don’t want to give him a chance to become the everyday second baseman. Maybe he does have an attitude problem, which has been rumored, but who cares? If he can hit, I don’t care if one person on the team likes him. If the Yankees aren’t willing to give him a chance right now, what makes anyone think they are going to give him one in September when rosters expand? Just because they won’t have to DFA anyone to have him in the majors at that point doesn’t mean he will playing and not riding the bench, especially if the team is fighting for a postseason spot.

The Yankees chose not to improve the roster at the trade deadline while the Blue Jays and Orioles made big moves to make a run at the division and wild card, while the Royals, Astros, Angels and Rangers all made moves to improve their teams to contend. The Marlins were willing to trade Dan Haren to the Cubs with the Dodgers still paying all of Haren’s $10 million, so I’m pretty sure the Marlins would have been willing to trade Martin Prado back to the Yankees, considering the Yankees were already paying $3 million of his $11 million salary this season and next.

The Yankees traded for Dustin Ackley, designated Garrett Jones for assignment, put Michael Pineda on the DL, called up Luis Severino, put Ackley on the DL and re-signed Jones. Those were the Yankees’ trade deadline moves. Essentially, they did nothing. Ackley would have been the same or worse than Jones, Drew and Brendan Ryan and Severino replaces Pineda, so basically, everything cancels each other out.

https://twitter.com/Timbo367/status/630482347666862080

On July 31, the Yankees had a six-game lead in the AL East. Today, that lead is 1 1/2 games. In the span of nine games, the Yankees managed to blow 75 percent of their lead and now they are a bad road trip in Cleveland and Toronto from being in second place in the division and suddenly in the wild-card game.

But since I was asked … If the Yankees play .500 baseball the rest of the season and go 26-26, here is what the rest of the AL East would have to do just to tie them: Toronto 26-23, Baltimore 31-21, Tampa Bay 31-19, Boston 37-13. That closed quickly.

There is this rhetoric that even after the weekend and even after going 1-4 in their last five games that the Yankees are still in first place. That’s nice, but like I said in that tweet, it’s like being up $1,000 at a casino and giving $950 back and still technically being “up”. The Yankees still have a lead in the division, but from where it was a week ago, or even three days ago, it doesn’t feel like they do.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Aug 7, 2015

Yankees-Blue Jays Feels Like Fall Baseball

The Yankees-Red Sox series was supposed to be a meaningful late-season series, but it’s the Blue Jays series this weekend that is actually the more postseason-like series.

The Yankees-Red Sox series the last three days at the Stadium was supposed to be a meaningful late-season series, but for the third straight year, the Yankees and Red Sox haven’t really played anything resembling a series of importance in August or September. Instead, the Blue Jays series this weekend is actually the more postseason-like series.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting this weekend in the Bronx for the biggest series in three years at the Stadium, I did an email exchange with Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter to talk about the Blue Jays acquiring Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, if Blue Jays fans are worried about sacrificing their future, the mood in Toronto with the team winning and if Blue Jays fans want to win the division or are content with the wild card.

Keefe: The Blue Jays didn’t just tinker with their lineup at the trade deadline, they basically changed their entire roster and in the last week or so they have become a different team. When the Red Sox having just left town in what was another late-season letdown series between the rivals, it’s actually the Blue Jays series this weekend that will have a playoff feel.

The Blue Jays haven’t lost with Troy Tulowitzki in the starting lineup, going 8-0, and they have now gone 8-2 in their last 10 games and riding a five-game winning streak coming into the weekend.

Were you surprised by the Tulowitzki trade? I know I was.

Dakers: Yeah I was surprised, stunned, almost knocked off my feet.

We had Jose Reyes and he was perfectly acceptable as a shortstop. Sure, his range was limited and he was making more errors than you would like to see, but he’s making a ton of money and I figured that he was untradeable. And he could be very exciting on offense. I didn’t think of shortstop being a problem position, at least not in the way that starting pitching was.

But, if you get a chance to get a player like Troy Tulowitzki, you really have to take it. He is much much better on defense and also an improvement offensively. He gives us another power hitting right-handed batter. You can’t turn down another great player just because you already have others of the same type.

Keefe: I was hoping the Yankees would trade for David Price given instability of their rotation, but the Yankees held on to their top prospects and decided against adding a true ace and giving themselves the chance to sign him to a long-term deal before he would become a free agent this offseason. Instead, he went to the Blue Jays and is back in the AL East and I have to worry about him being the difference in a possible division title.

After years of having inadequate pitching to go with their incredible offense, the Blue Jays finally have an ace. Price allowed one earned run in eight innings with 11 strikeouts in his first start

Like the Tulowitzki trade, were you surprised by the trade for Price?

Akers: Yeah, surprised would be the right word. We needed another starting pitcher, but I expected, especially after the Tulo trade, it would be a lesser name. Maybe someone like Tyson Ross, from the Padres, or Jeff Samardzija, from the White Sox. Good pitchers, but not an Ace like Price.

I’m thrilled that was got Price. If we were to make it to a one-game playoff, we have a pitcher I’d trust for that game. If we were in a longer playoff, we have a game one starter.

Keefe: The Blue Jays gave up a lot to change their team for the stretch run this season and when it comes to Price, there’s a good chance they might only have him for two months.

Are you worried that the Blue Jays went over board with their moves to make a run at a possible division title or a wild card when it could mean destroying their future? Or was enough enough with missing the playoffs since 1993 and needing to get back to the postseason and makes any and all moves at all costs?

Dakers: Yeah, we gave up some good pitching. Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris could turn out to be very good pitchers. But then, how often do we have a good shot at making the playoffs. The only ‘rental’ players they picked up are Price and LaTroy Hawkins. Hawkins is planning to retire at the end of the season. Price? Well he does seem to be enjoying being in Toronto. He said that the atmosphere, for his first start at Rogers Centre, was the best he’s ever seen in a regular season game. Maybe he can be convinced to stay?

Keefe: Here in New York with Mets fans there is a rejuvenated fan base that is now expecting to make the playoffs with their new-look roster.

What is the mood in Toronto? I have a feeling is similar to that among Mets fans since those are the two hottest teams in baseball right now.

Dakers: Yeah folks are pretty excited. Price’s first start was a sellout. TV ratings are way way up, right across Canada. The Jays said that the day the Price trade was announced the team sold 35,000 tickets and 29,000 the next days. And, on the weekend after the trade, the team sold 1,400 jerseys and t-shirts with either Price or Tulowitzki’s name on.

It has been a long time since the Jays were making this sort of news in August. People seem to be talking about the team everywhere you go. It really is kind of cool to think we could have playoff baseball in Toronto again, after all this time.

Keefe: When we talked in April, you thought the Blue Jays could win 89-90 games and contend. When we talked in May, you thought they would stay involved in the AL East race. Well, here we are on Aug. 7 and they are 4 1/2 games out of first in the division and 1 1/2 games up.

The good news for me is that the Yankees have a six-game lead in the loss column over the Blue Jays. And if the Yankees play just one game over .500 for the rest of the way and go 28-27, the Blue Jays would have to go 31-21 just to tie them. I’m scared of the Blue Jays, but I shouldn’t be that scared. The Yankees just need to win at least six of their remaining 13 games against the Blue Jays to keep them at bay.

Are you looking at the Blue Jays winning the division or are you content with the wild card?

Dakers: Oh wouldn’t give up on winning the division yet. The team has gone from being 8.5 back to 4.5 back in less than two weeks, so clearly there is a chance still. I wouldn’t start thinking that the wild card is the only possibility until a week or two into September.

The Jays have a great offense (kind of an understatement, they have scored 59 more runs than any other team in baseball) and the pitching seems to be coming around. Over the last month the team has a 2.94 ERA. The starting rotation and the bullpen are both looking much better. And adding Tulowitzki, at short, Ben Revere in left has shored up the defense at our two worst positions.

I don’t see why the team shouldn’t be able to put together two good months of baseball.

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Blogs • Yankees

Aug 5, 2015

I Miss the Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry

Six years ago this week, the Yankees and Red Sox played a four-game series at Yankee Stadium with first place on the line. That was the last time the teams played a late-season meaningful series.

2003 ALCS

Six years ago this week, the Yankees and Red Sox played a four-game series at Yankee Stadium with first place on the line. The Yankees swept that series and went on to win the AL East and World Series. That was the last time the teams played a late-season meaningful series.

On Monday night at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees played and beat the Red Sox. And by beat, I mean dominated and embarrassed in a 13-3 rout that included a nine-run seventh inning. It might as well have been a Yankees-Rays game from 1998-2007 because that’s what it felt like. That’s what Yankees-Red Sox has become: Yankees-Rays from 1998-2007.

In 2004, I expected the Yankees and Red Sox to meet in the ALCS every year forever. They were the two best teams in baseball with never-ending financial resources to ensure competitive rosters for years to come. But since Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, the teams haven’t met in the playoffs, and in the 10 postseasons since then, they have only been in the playoffs at the same time three years (2005, 2007 and 2009). With the Red Sox going nowhere this season, it will be 11 straight postseasons without them meeting in the playoffs heading into 2016.

The rivalry still exists, it’s just dormant. A sleeping giant waiting to wake up from the sort of deep sleep it went through for most of the ’80s and ’90s. It can be rejuvenated and a new chapter of the rivalry can be created and probably will be at some point, but it’s mainly the Red Sox’ fault it’s in a bad place.

The Red Sox suck. They’re on their way to their third last-place finish in four seasons and sandwiched in the middle is the most miraculous, fluky, unfathomable championship in the history of sports. When I think about 2013, I start to feel the same way I do when I don’t eat for 12 hours or when an Amtrak train is delayed for multiple hours or when my girlfriend wants to watch House Hunters or House Hunters: Renovations or House Hunters: Where Are They Now or House Hunters International or House Hunters: Million Dollar Homes when the Yankees are about to be on. Outside of 2013, the Red Sox have been a bad team for a long time and it’s almost as if the Baseball Gods gave them 2013 for the heartache of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS and the 1978 one-game playoff and the 1986 World Series.

The rivalry really started its decline in 2012 and it’s been falling fast ever since. The 2011 Red Sox, known as “The Best Team Ever”, collapsed in September and the 2012 Red Sox followed up their chicken and beer season by hiring Bobby Valentine and losing 93 games. The 2013 Yankees missed out on the playoffs, and in 2014, for the first time since 1993, neither team made the playoffs. Now here we are with the Yankees trying to win the AL East for the first time in three years and the Red Sox are playing out the string and waiting to go home for the winter.

Fans who grew tired of the five-hour long games between the Yankees and Red Sox would complain if the teams met in early April or if they had already played a couple series before the first of May. But now, those series are the only ones that mean anything because when the schedule rolls around to the second half, one of their seasons is usually over. Before 2012, any Yankees-Red Sox meant something and a weekend series meant clearing your schedule. It meant watching Friday night’s game from 7 until midnight. It meant watching Saturday’s game from 4 to 9 and Sunday night’s game from 8 to 1. It meant being worried about how horrible a series loss would feel and how satisfying a series win would be. It meant being petrified of getting swept and making sure to contact every Red Sox fan I know if the Yankees did the sweeping. This week has served as a reminder of how the importance of these games has disappeared since the result only matters for one team.

I never want the Red Sox to be good and they can’t lose enough. But part of me wants them to suck less than they do. I don’t need them beating the Yankees in a postseason series or winning the World Series, I just want them to not be the 1997-2008 Rays. I guess I kind of/sort of miss the Red Sox being good because I miss everything that comes with both teams being good at the same time.

I miss the buzz in either city with the other team in town. I miss the hatred in the crowd. I miss the fights and verbal abuse in the right field bleachers at Yankee Stadium. I miss going to Fenway Park and wondering if I would make it out alive. I miss the punches and beers thrown in the Stadium and the explicit chants that would increase as everyone’s blood alcohol level did. I miss scouring the Internet for hours to avoid paying $100 for standing room and obstructed view seats at Fenway. I miss how enjoyable the wins were and how devastating the losses were.

I miss what Yankees-Red Sox was and hate what it is.

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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Aug 3, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Post-Trade Deadline

The trade deadline has come and gone and it was uneventful for the Yankees unless you like adding former highly-touted prospects that turned into busts and now can’t hit and have no position.

The trade deadline has come and gone and it was uneventful for the Yankees and Yankees fans unless you like adding former highly-touted prospects that turned into busts and now can’t hit and have no position. If you like players like that then you must like the Yankees’ trade for Dustin Ackley.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about the Yankees now that the trade deadline is over.

The answer is three since that’s how many the Yankees have now.

I’m not sure why the trade for Ackley was made. Is it because he was the second overall pick in 2009 and the Yankees think he will now develop into that talent at age 27? Is it because he hit two home runs against Masahiro Tanaka after the All-Star break? Is it because he is a lifetime .296/.397/.481 hitter at Yankee Stadium?

The most puzzling part of the Ackley trade is that the Yankees don’t see him as a second baseman, but rather as a first baseman and outfielder. As long as Robinson Cano was sad when Ackley informed his teammates that he was being traded to the Yankees then I’m OK with the trade since I want Cano to feel the pain I have felt with him in Seattle and the Yankees starting Brian Roberts, Kelly Johnson, Stephen Drew, Gregorio Petit and Brendan Ryan at second base since he left.

Apparently, you’re not aware that Stephen Drew’s dad and Brian Cashman’s dad were roommates in college and Brendan Ryan is married to Brian Cashman’s cousin. That’s the only explanation I have for these two to still be on the team at the SAME TIME while everyone else around them gets designated for assignment. Here’s to hoping Stephen Drew never touches .200 this season.

The Yankees definitely had an odd trade deadline strategy. They weren’t willing to give up any of their top prospects, which is fine, but then they were targeting Craig Kimbrel rather than a starting pitcher. Unless their plan was to pitch Kimbrel, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller for three innings each every fifth day, I’m not sure how not going after a starting pitcher helped improve their shaky rotation.

If Kimbrel had been traded to the Yankees, it would have been intereting to see how the Yankees handled the ninth inning. Kimberl has always been a closer and has led the National League in saves the last four years, which were his first four full seasons in the league, but Miller has been a perfect 23-for-23 in save opportunities this season and dominant in the role. It’s an impossible decision and I’m happy it’s one that doesn’t need to be made now.

That’s a good way to make me cry. The Yankees could have had Johan Santana for three pitchers that are no longer with the organization.

Santana won 16 games in 2008 for the Mets with a 2.53 ERA. The Yankees went 89-73 and missed the playoffs by six games. Darrell Rasner made 20 starts for the Yankees, Sidney Ponson made 15, Joba Chamberlain made 12, Ian Kennedy made nine and Phil Hughes made eight. Those five pitchers won 12 games combined with Kennedy and Hughes winning none.

Santana gave the Mets three great years from 2008-2010 before missing 2011 and then making 21 starts in 2012, and he hasn’t pitched since. I would have gladly paid Santana to not pitch in 2011, 2013 and 2014 if it meant having him for 2008-2010.

On another trade note, remember when Brian Cashman wouldn’t include Eduardo Nunez in a deal for Cliff Lee in July 2010, so the Rangers got Cliff Lee, beat the Yankees in the ALCS and then Lee signed with the Phillies in December 2010? I don’t remember it either.

CC makes about $700,000 per start. That’s a seven followed by five zeroes. Here is what he has done in his last two starts:

5.2 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR

5.0 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 3 HR

In years past, it would be an automatic loss with Sabathia facing the Red Sox at the Stadium like he is on Thursday, but it’s actually a blessing. The Yankees play the Blue Jays on Friday at the Stadium and the new-look Blue Jays missed out on facing Sabathia by one day. On Monday, the first four hitters for the Blue Jays were Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Incarnation. However, the Yankees and Blue Jays have 13 games left this season, so while the Yankees might be able to hide Sabthia from the Blue Jays this weekend and next weekend, it’s going to be hard to hide him forever against the Blue Jays unless they remove him from the rotation.

Mets fans are always so quick to go from a laughingstock to the most overconfident irrational fans in the world. I was at Citi Field on July 23 for Clayton Kershaw’s near perfect game against the Mets and the team was an embarrassment and the fans couldn’t have been more quiet and Citi Field couldn’t have been less full with the best pitcher in the world pitching. Fast forward to Sunday Night Baseball with the Mets looking to sweep the Nationals and the Citi Field crowd chanting “OVER-RATED” at Bryce Harper, who is hitting .330/.454/.667 with 29 home runs and 68 RBIs, which are as bad and ill-timed as the “Yankees suck” chants that will be coming at the end of the month at Fenway Park with the Red Sox a million games behind the Yankees.

I remember the good old days of “Reyes is better than Jeter” debates, which were equally as funny as the “Nomar is better than Jeter” debates I had to listen to growing up. Reyes is 32 years old, now playing for his fourth team in five years and is owed $22 million in 2016 and 2017 with a $22 million team option of $4 million buyout in 2018. There’s a 100 percent chance that option gets bought out when Reyes is 35. When Jeter was 35, he won his fifth World Series. Good debate.

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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Jul 27, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Trade Deadline

Here is the first installment of a weekly series focused on questions and comments about the Yankees with the trade deadline this Friday.

Brian Cashman

Sometimes on Twitter I get asked a question that 140 characters won’t do justice to so, I decided I might as well use the space on Keefe To The City to answer some of the questions more in depth.

Here is the first installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments about the Yankees with the trade deadline this Friday.

I want either David Price or James Shields on the Yankees for the same reason I want rent in the Upper East Side to go down instead of up and for my dog to be able to walk himself in the winter and for the 4 train to Yankee Stadium to be express all the way to the Stadium: because it would make my life better.

Right now the Yankees’ postseason rotation is Masahiro Tanaka or Michael Pineda in Game 1, Masahiro Tanaka or Michael Pineda in Game 2 and then either Ivan Nova, CC Sabathia or Nathan Eovaldi in Game 3. I would go Tanaka then Pineda then Nova, but who knows what the Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi are thinking? As long as CC is healthy and on the team he is going to get consideration for a postseason start and my nerves going into a potential CC Sabathia postseason start in 2015 will be way worse than they ever were for any A.J. Burnett postseason start.

But let’s say the entire Yankees rotation makes it through this week healthy leading up the trade deadline. If the Yankees trade for a front-end starter then someone has to go to the bullpen between Nova, Sabathia or Eovaldi or either Nova or Eovaldi has to be traded. It would be ridiculous to go to a six-man rotation for the rest of the season, but ridiculous is how Cashman and Girardi like to do things, so it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

The Yankees don’t need to trade for a starting pitcher. Their rotation is good enough to hold off the rest of the AL East during the regular season and win in the postseason. Here are the playoff rotations for the last five World Series since the Yankees won in 2009:

2014: Madison Bumgarner, Jake Peavy, Tim Hudson, Ryan Vogelsong
2013: Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jake Peavy, Clay Buchholz
2012: Barry Zito, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, Matt Cain
2011: Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson,
2010: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner

A combination of Tanaka, Pineda, Nova, Sabathia and Eovaldi is just as good as all of those and probably even better than all of them.

https://twitter.com/JD944/status/625681043635445760

Road trip? I’m willing to ride a bicycle, scooter or skateboard there. I would walk there and carry Price back if needed. According to Google Maps, it’s 618 miles from Yankee Stadium to Comerica Park and by car it would nine hours and 31 minutes to get there. It’s only a 588-mile walk there, but it would 194 hours, which is a little over eight days. However, for me to do any of those things, Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers would have to agree to not ask for any of the Yankees’ top prospects.

I’m against the Yankees trading Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, Jorge Mateo and even Rob Refsnyder. At some point the organization needs to develop a young core again and they are close to doing that now. The 2015 Yankees are currently hitting the massive parlay they didn’t in 2013 and 2014 to stay relatively healthy and have older player produce. Unfortunately, this carriage could turn back into a pumpkin next season the way the Red Sox have since winning in 2013 and it would be devastating if this season didn’t end with a World Series and the Yankees sacrificed their future for Price, Shields Cole Hamels or another high-priced starter.

Yes, I wrote “Nathan Eovaldi Is Far From ‘Nasty‘” on June 17 and said that trading for him is a mistake. And yes, he pitched eight innings on Sunday, allowing two earned runs on eight hits with five strikeouts and one walk to improve to 10-2 on the season.

The idea that Eovaldi is as good as his 10-2 record suggests is comical. He has a 4.27 ERA and 1.478 WHIP. He has made 20 starts and failed to pitch six innings in 11 of them. He only has 80 strikeouts in 111 2/3 innings despite having a fastball between 97 and 100 mph and he has allowed the sixth most hits in the majors. Eovaldi’s record is solely the product of his run support, which is 5.31 runs per game on average.

Since we’re talking trade deadline, when it comes to Eovaldi, it’s a complicated situation. He’s still young at 25, but he’s also with his third team in the majors at just age 25 despite possessing that can’t-teach fastball. He’s under team control through 2017 and it’s obvious Cashman and the Yankees are high on his ability and potential and wouldn’t think about putting him in the bullpen. But if the Yankees are to trade for another starter and a better starter, someone has to get bumped from the rotation, or traded and that leaves either Eovaldi or Nova.

If Eovaldi can pitch to the low-4 ERA he has in 20 starts for the rest of the way, he is valuable at the back of the rotation. I wouldn’t give him a postseason start and wouldn’t trust him in a postseason game, but I guess I can deal with him every fifth day for the rest of the regular season.

I wanted the Yankees to re-sign David Robertson and also sign Andrew Miller. I thought if they didn’t then they were making a mistake even though they had traded for relievers in Justin Wilson, David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve. Fortunately, Shreve turned out to be the best of the bunch, which made up for Carpenter being awful and eventually DFA’d, or the bullpen would be Betances and Miller and multiple trips to the liquor cabinet every night.

Here is what I said about the Yankees’ decision to not sign Robertson after the Winter Meetings in December:

The idea of having Robertson and Betances and Miller to lock up games after the sixth and asking a rotation that aside from Masahiro Tanaka has trouble going past the sixth inning anyway is such a beautiful idea that it makes me physically sick to think that it could have happened and now it won’t. And it could have easily happened. The White Sox gave Robertson four years and $46 million. The Yankees gave Andrew Miller four years and $36 million. So for $46 million, the Yankees could have had the best on-paper bullpen in the entire league and arguably their best bullpen since … well, ever. If you think $46 million is a lot of money to give to someone to pitch about 65 innings, just remember that last year, the Yankees gave a five-year, $85 million deal to Brian McCann with catcher being the deepest position in their farm system, three years and $45 million to a then-36-year-old Carlos Beltran and oddly enough he broke down, couldn’t throw a baseball and played in only 109 games and seven years, $153 million to Jacoby Ellsbury, which was money that could have been used to re-sign Robinson Cano. The Yankees could have re-signed Robertson, they just didn’t want to, and I’m not sure why.

The Yankees have a dominant bullpen with Betances, Miller, Shreve and Wilson right now and if Robertson were part of it, or if they make a move for Craig Kimbrel, it will be stupid. Stupid in a good way.

It was only 17 days ago that the Yankees started a three-game series at Fenway Park and Red Sox fans thought their team had a chance of getting back into the race. “If the Red Sox sweep the Yankees, they will be three games back in the loss column with the whole second half to play,” was what I kept hearing from my friends and enemies in Boston. The Yankees won two of three to extend their lead over the Red Sox and before Monday night’s games, the Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox had grown to 12 games (13 in the loss column).

Boston fans shouldn’t wonder how the Yankees are winning because their team did it two years ago. The 2013 Red Sox championship is the most amazing championship in the history of sports. All sports at any level ever. Everything they needed to go right went right, no one got hurt and they got timely hit after timely hit in the postseason, winning with a rag-tag rotation.

The 2015 Yankees haven’t even been close to as fortunate as the 2013 Red Sox. The Yankees’ arguably best starter (Masahiro Tanaka), position player (Jacoby Ellsbury) and reliever (Andrew Miller) weren’t all healthy at the same time from April 24 to July 7, yet the team somehow managed to get to first place. Chase Headley has been bad, Stephen Drew has been the worst, CC Sabathia has been horrible, Nathan Eovaldi has been frustrating and Carlos Beltran has been inconsistent. If not for the resurgence of A-Rod and Mark Teixeira, the rebound of Brian McCann, the revival of Chris Young and the always streaky Brett Gardner having an extended hot streak, the Yankees would be in a bad place right now. But for the first time in three years, things are going their way and it feels great.

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