Blogs – Page 38 – Keefe To The City

Oct 11, 2022

Yankees Thoughts: A Clean Slate for Everyone

After an up-and-down, six-month regular season, the postseason is here. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees. 1. I took the last few weeks of the regular season off from writing these Thoughts. Once it

After an up-and-down, six-month regular season, the postseason is here.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I took the last few weeks of the regular season off from writing these Thoughts. Once it was obvious the Yankees were going to win the division, the games became meaningless. Yes, I still watched as Aaron Judge chased Roger Maris, and while it was exciting and enjoyable to watch Judge make history, the 62nd home run and the record are for him. They are an individual accomplishment that will help him achieve even more generational wealth than expected this offseason. I’m here for championships, not individual player accomplishments. I’m glad Judge hit 62 home runs, and I’m glad he will be the AL MVP (in what should be a unanimous vote), but what happens in terms of the team’s performance is all that matters to me.

2. I watch, write, talk and read about the Yankees in anticipation of the postseason. Everything done between the start of the offseason and Game 162 is to prepare for the postseason, and now we are here. It’s been about three weeks since the Yankees played a meaningful game, and now as a team and as a fans, everyone has to flip a switch. It’s not something these Yankees are that familiar with aside from 2019 when they won the division by seven games, but were still alive for the 1-seed against the Astros much later in the season than they were this year. In 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021, the Yankees had a reason to play just about all the way until the final game of the season.

3. The lineup. I have been losing sleep over this every season under Aaron Boone, and more than ever over the last two-plus weeks. If DJ LeMahieu is healthy and on the roster, this is the lineup the Yankees should use:

Aaron Judge, RF
Matt Carpenter, DH
Giancarlo Stanton, LF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Oswaldo Cabrera, 2B
Oswald Peraza, SS
Harrison Bader, CF
Jose Trevino, C

In that lineup, I have Stanton in left field, but you could make him the designated hitter and put Carpenter in left field, or put Carpenter at third, LeMahieu and second and Cabrera in left.

4. The problem is the Yankees once again won’t let Stanton play the outfield, which screws up their lineup flexibility. On Monday, Aaron Boone said Stanton hasn’t taken fly balls in the outfield, he has only been moving around the outfield without a glove on. What? Like he’s walking around the outfield like a groundskeeper?

Here is the likely process needed for Stanton to return to the outfield:

Days 1-3: Envision the outfield
Day 4: Write the word “outfield” 500 times
Day 5: Walk around the outfield
Days 6-7: Power walk around the outfield
Days 8-9: Jog around the outfield
Days 10-11: Jog around the outfield with a glove on
Days 12-14: Take fly balls in the outfield

If Stanton is moving around the outfield without a glove on, then he must be getting closer to actually playing the outfield.

Back to that lineup … I understand there’s about as good of a chance at that being the starting lineup as there is of me being in the Yankees’ starting lineup on Tuesday night, but that’s the Yankees’ best possible lineup.

5. Here is the lineup I fully expect to see:

Aaron Judge, RF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Josh Donaldson, 3B
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Oswaldo Cabrera, LF
Harrison Bader, CF
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS
Jose Trevino, C

That’s a really bad lineup. In no way should Torres, Donaldson or Kiner-Falefa play over the trio of Carpenter, LeMahieu and Peraza, but they are going to. I don’t even expect Peraza to be on the postseason roster. Yes, the Yankees are going to leave their best shortstop off of the postseason roster.

That lineup (the one I expect to see) gives the Guardians more of a chance to win the series, and should decrease the odds and likelihood the Yankees advance. That’s how much of a difference in trios that makes. And if LeMahieu can’t go, then pick one of Donaldson or Torres to play.

6. I have spent a lot of time trying to point out just how bad Kiner-Falefa is at baseball for the last six-plus months, and the Yankees just kept on playing him no matter how bad he was or how good Peraza was. I don’t expect that to change now. Aaron Boone is one of the dumbest people in the sport and since he owns the lineup (as he and Brian Cashman have adamantly said for now five years) he isn’t going to change it now. The Yankees let their stopgap prevent their future from playing, and now they are willing to hinder their postseason chances to continue to play him.

7. There are three elements of the Yankees to be worried about this postseason: Boone, the offense and the bullpen. Boone has been exceedingly bad as in-game tactician in his managerial career and his ineptitude is magnified in the postseason. The offense has had a habit of pulling an annual disappearing act in the postseason every year this core has been together. The bullpen is a flat-out mess without any truly trustworthy options to the point that Jameson Taillon (who has never thrown one pitch in relief in his career) might be the team’s best possible reliever.

For now, everyone has a clean slate, including Boone. Throw out what any person or element of the team did for 162 games this year. Boone’s slate will likely begin to get muddied one the lineup is announced for Game 1 of the ALDS, but for everyone else, their slate will be clean until 7:37 p.m. on Tuesday night when Game 1 begins.

8. When Game 1 begins, it will be Gerrit Cole throwing the first pitch. It should have been Nestor Cortes as he went out and earned it. But the Yankees don’t reward performance, they reward owed money and reputation. It’s why Cole is starting Game 1, it’s why Aaron Hicks is still a Yankee, it’s why Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa started all season and will start in the playoffs, and it’s why Aroldis Chapman continued to be a Yankee this season despite being an impending free agent all the way until he decided he was above the team. (I’m shock a class act and all-around great person like Chapman could do such a thing as skip a mandatory team workout.) So Cole and his 2022 struggles and home run issues and all will get the ball to begin the Yankees’ quest for the team’s first championship in 13 years and second in 22 years.

It’s nice that Cole set the Yankees’ single-season strikeout record, but again, like Judge, that’s an individual accomplishment, and doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me are championships, and Cole is extremely important to the Yankees trying to do so. After watching the Guardians score three runs in 23-plus innings against the Rays in the wild-card series, there’s absolutely no reason Cole shouldn’t experience dominant success against the Guardians on Tuesday. Anything short of a dominant performance will be an enormous letdown, and anything close to his disastrous performance in last year’s one-game playoff will be inexcusable and unacceptable.

9. I generally don’t trust Cole, but against this Guardians team, it’s hard not to trust him. Cole’s glaring weakness is allowing home runs and the Guardians were 29th in the majors in hitting home runs. The one player the Yankees can let beat them is Jose Ramirez, who the Rays did let beat them in Game 1 of their series. He’s the one true threat in the Guardians lineup and one of the very best players in the game. Letting him beat you at any point in this series would be unbelievably foolish and regrettable. If Ramirez doesn’t beat the Yankees, it’s hard to envision the Guardians beating the Yankees.

Outside of getting to play the Twins in ALDS, this is as good a matchup as the Yankees could ask for. The Guardians’ best two starters aren’t able to pitch until Games 2 and 3 of the series, they have a very weak offense and their entire rotation doesn’t have the type of velocity seen around the rest of the league: the type the Yankees struggle with.

10. The Yankees were able to avoid the Rays, who always give them problems. They were able to avoid the Mariners, who have Luis Castillo who has become the right-handed Cliff Lee against the Yankees. They were able to avoid the Blue Jays, who can be the most dangerous team in the sport when going right. They have an easier ALDS matchup than the 1-seed Astros do, and every way I look at this ALDS I can’t help but the think the Yankees won’t be in the ALCS.

If next week, I’m not writing about Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman and being fearful of Justin Verlander in the postseason for the sixth time in 17 years, or questioning how the Yankees let Castillo go to the Mariners, while settling for Frankie Montas, then it’s a big problem. The Yankees have to reach the ALCS. If they don’t, it’s an embarrassment and many people should no longer be with the team, including the general manager and manager.

For now, everyone has a clean slate. Again, until the Game 1 lineup is announced.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

Blogs

Sep 22, 2022

Yankees Thoughts: Sacrifice Defense for Offense in Postseason

The Yankees swept a two-game series from the worst team from the worst division in baseball and needing an unbelievable comeback to do so. The Yankees have won three straight and their magic number to

The Yankees swept a two-game series from the worst team from the worst division in baseball and needing an unbelievable comeback to do so. The Yankees have won three straight and their magic number to win the division is down to 8 with 14 games left.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I would like to thank the Pirates for being the Pirates and gifting the Yankees a miraculous 9-8 walk-off win on Tuesday and then allowing for an easy 14-2 blowout win on Wednesday. The Yankees now sit a comfortable seven games ahead of the Blue Jays in the loss column with 14 to play. Even if the Blue Jays were to sweep the three remaining games they have from the Yankees, the Yankees would still have a four-game lead in the loss column with 11 to play. I proclaimed the division over back on June 20, and it has been (minus the scare of a couple weekends ago) and is.

2. I think about the postseason every day. Not every day of the season, I mean every day of my life. I think about how the Yankees can put themselves in the best possible situation to win the World Series. I use the regular season to assess how prepared the Yankees are for the postseason and take little joy in regular-season success. What happens in the regular season is all preparation for the postseason.

That’s why I was happy the Yankees won on Tuesday night, but wasn’t celebrating it like the YES broadcast booth was thinking the Yankees had just clinched a postseason series win. What I took away from the 9-8 comeback win (which ended with the Yankees’ second ultimate grand slam of the season) was that Nestor Cortes was good, Harrison Bader was healthy and the last five at-bats of the game were great. That’s it. If you take anything else away from that game, you’re a simple person because it would mean you are disregarding the Yankees blowing two different leads to a team on pace for 102 losses, and it means you are choosing to look past Ron Marinaccio, Lou Trivino, Jonathan Loaisiga and Clay Holmes combining to allow seven earned runs on five hits and four walks in three innings to a team counting down the minutes until their miserable season ends. When the Pirates are all on end-of-the-season vacations in three weeks, those four names will be trying to get season-changing outs against the Mariners, Guardians, Blue Jays, Rays or Astros. That’s what I think about.

3. The lineup Aaron Boone constructed in the two games over the Pirates is what the Yankees are going to use come Game 1 of the ALDS if DJ LeMahieu, Matt Carpenter and Andrew Benintendi don’t return, and you can’t expect any of them to return. This is that lineup:

Aaron Judge, RF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Josh Donaldson, 3B
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Oswaldo Cabrera, LF
Harrison Bader, CF
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS
Jose Trevino, C

Yes, that lineup produced 23 runs in 17 innings against the last-place Pirates, but the last-place Pirates (on pace for 102 losses) won’t be in the American League postseason. What the Yankees did the last two nights with that lineup is meaningless come 19 days from now when they play the winner of the Mariners-Guardians best-of-3 (which is who they will play as of now). If you had told me on Opening Day the Yankees lineup we saw the last two nights would be the Yankees lineup on September 20-21, I would ask where in the Top 10 the Yankees would be picking in the draft.

4. This is the lineup I dream about for Game 1 of the ALDS:

Aaron Judge, RF
Matt Carpenter, 3B
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Andrew Benintendi, LF
Oswald Peraza/Oswaldo Cabrera, SS
Harrison Bader, CF
Jose Trevino, C

I know that even if the Yankees were at full strength that lineup is still unrealistic because Aaron Boone would never sit both Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Josh Donaldson. I fully expect those two to play every game in the postseason no matter what. Boone called Kiner-Falefa one of the best shortstops in baseball just a couple of weeks ago and continues to bat Donaldson and his 15 home runs and .699 OPS at cleanup, even ahead of Stanton. They aren’t sitting. There’s no way Gleyber Torres will sit, who is experiencing one good week after three bad years. The Yankees literally destroyed their roster construction this past offseason to accommodate Torres and then tried and failed to trade him at this year’s deadline. The Yankees also have an obsession with defense and run prevention that would never allow Carpenter to play third base. They would rather play without their version of Barry Bonds than sacrifice defense.

5. Tough shit. The Yankees will have to sacrifice defense for offense if they plan on winning the World Series. Defense isn’t going to hit the pitching they are going to see in the postseason. It’s frightening to think about the ease Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Lance McCullers Jr., Christian Javier, Alek Manoah, Kevin Gausman, Shane McClanahan, Shane Bieber, Luis Castillo or any other elite starter the Yankees may face in October will be able to navigate through the bottom of Boone’s lineup. It’s extremely hard to succeed in the postseason with one automatic out in the lineup, and the Yankees will be playing with three to five automatic outs on a given night with Boone’s lineup.

Aside from Aaron Judge, which Yankee do you feel comfortable and confident in come the playoffs? Come the playoffs, Judge won’t be able to put on the one-man show that has carried the Yankees to this point. Opposing managers will pitch around him and make other bats beat them, and it will likely be taken to an extreme if his protection remains an inconsistent Rizzo, Torres (LOL), a washed-up Donaldson and a lost Stanton.

6. I’m not worried about the Yankees’ pitching in the postseason. It hasn’t been the reason the team has lost any series with this group. The pitching will be there, especially now that Luis Severino has returned. Between Severino, Nestor Cortes and Gerrit Cole, the Yankees have the best 1-2-3 for the postseason they have had in a decade when they had CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda and Andy Pettitte. That trio was able to carry the Yankees to an ALCS appearance before the Yankees pulled off the type of annual offensive disappearing act the organization has since 2009. I’m worried about the offense.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to when it comes to the postseason offense, other than put the best possible lineup together and hope for the best. The Yankees aren’t even putting the best possible lineup together right now, so it’s hard to envision them doing so if any or all of LeMahieu, Carpenter and Benintendi return.

7. Judge is set up to tie and pass Roger Maris against the Red Sox, which will make his 61st and 62nd home runs all the much better, if he’s able to hit two over the next four games.

Judge has always said the right thing and has always put the team above himself in any quote he has ever given the media in his career, and that hasn’t changed during this all-time season. But the media falling all over themselves talking about how Judge cares more about winning than he does about his own personal stats is a bit much. Yes, Judge cares about winning, but he also cares about his personal stats. He didn’t turn down the Yankees’ nearly $31 million average annual salary for seven years because he doesn’t care about his own success. He didn’t leave open the possibility of signing with the Red Sox just a week ago because he doesn’t care about his own success. If you truly think Judge isn’t concerned with his stats and numbers as an impending free agent who turned down nearly a quarter of a billion dollars (like Jeff Passan and Marly Rivera seem to think) then you’re likely the type of simple person who saw the Yankees eek out a home win over the .369 win percentage Pirates on Tuesday and think their performance was spectacular.

8. Yankees fans waited nearly two months to see Harrison Bader actually play for the Yankees, and he had a fantastic debut. Bader went 3-for-8 with five RBIs in his first two games as a Yankee, and just his mere presence on the team was a welcome sight because it kept Aaron Hicks glued to the bench. I don’t expect Bader to continue to hit like he did on Tuesday and Wednesday because the Yankees don’t continue to play the Pirates and because he’s not a very good hitter. But having him on the team means no more Hicks this season and likely the end of Hicks as a Yankee in future seasons as the Yankees will end up eating a lot of the $70 million they regrettably gave to Hicks in a move that was first-guessed when it happened. Bader has five RBIs in eight plate appearances as a Yankee. Hicks has five RBIs since August 8.

9. I want nothing more than for Torres to be the budding superstar he was in 2018 and 2019 and on his way to hitting third for the Yankees for the next 15 years. I also know his recent hot streak is just that: a hot streak. A span of nine games and 43 plate appearances that doesn’t come close to erasing his downfall since the start of 2020. From the beginning of August through the beginning of September, Torres had the lowest OPS of all players in Major League Baseball. This is likely him leveling out since he’s not the worst hitter in all of Major League Baseball (though the Yankees have a few candidates for that title). This is a nice week against mostly bad teams that are all headed home for the winter in less than three weeks. Nothing more. Sorry, Torres isn’t “back.” Not after nine games.

10. The Yankees need Stanton back. They have to have him back. They need the version of Stanton that carried the Yankees to a playoff berth in the finals week of last season and tried to beat the Red Sox by himself in the one-game playoff. I thought maybe his walk-off grand slam would propel him into a strong finish to the season, but he followed it up with a contact-less night on Wednesday (two strikeouts and two walks, though he at least reached base twice) and Boone inexplicably had him bat behind Donaldson again.

The Yankees have too many holes in their lineup right now and the lineup right now is looking like it will be the postseason lineup. Stanton needs to figure it out and fast. He only has 14 games left to do so.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Sep 19, 2022

Yankees Thoughts: Aaron Judge Having Most Valuable Season of All Time

The Yankees lost the first two games of their series against the Brewers over the weekend, but on Sunday they produced a comeback win to salvage the third game and Aaron Judge produced his 58th

The Yankees lost the first two games of their series against the Brewers over the weekend, but on Sunday they produced a comeback win to salvage the third game and Aaron Judge produced his 58th and 59th home runs of the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Judge is going to win the Triple Crown. Home runs and RBIs are a lock, and now he sits one point (.316) behind Luis Arraez (.317) for batting average. There is no doubt in my mind Judge is going to outhit Arraez (and Xander Bogaerts for that matter) over the final two-plus weeks of the season and complete the single greatest impending free-agent year of all time, and possibly the single greatest offensive year of all time.

I don’t need to hear what CC Sabathia and Phil Nevin think about who is the MVP in the American League. Shohei Ohtani might be the best player in the world, but he’s not the most valuable, not this season at least. Without Judge, the Yankees aren’t a postseason team (or on the wild-card bubble at best) and with him they are the second-best team in the AL, and on their way (as long as they don’t blow it over the final 16 games) to the 2-seed and a bye into the ALDS. The amount of games he has single-handedly won this season is absurd, and while his stats may be unbelievable from afar, if you watch this team every day, his season is even more amazing because you can truly appreciate just how important he has been with nearly every hit and home run being the difference or the only offense in games.

If WAR is what drove Ohtani to his MVP award a year ago, how can it not be used this season? All of a sudden it’s no longer the best indicator of who should win MVP because it doesn’t help the argument for Ohtani? I’m all set with hearing from Sabathia or Nevin or anyone on the MVP debate who doesn’t think it belongs to Judge because it’s not a debate. It’s not Judge or Ohtani. It’s Judge or no one.

2. After losing the first two games to the Brewers by blowing a five-run lead on Friday and then getting shut down offensively on Saturday, the Yankees bounced back with a win on Sunday to salvage the third game of the series. It was nice of Anthony Rizzo to grace the Yankees with his presence on Sunday in the win. Rizzo missed time in early July with back issues, missed a week in early August with back issues and returned on Sunday after three weeks away because of back issues and subsequent headaches caused by an epidural used to treat the back issues.

Rizzo had homered in the last two games he started at the end of August, but without a proper rehab assignment it seemed farfetched to think he would return without missing a beat, but that’s exactly what he did, going 3-for-6 with with a home run. Just seeing Rizzo’s name in the lineup gives the lineup more credibility, and most importantly, it forces a weak bat and fringe major-league bat out of it.

3. It also moved Giancarlo Stanton out of the 2-hole where he has struggled mightily, but had to hit because there is literally no other option on the team. Unless you want Josh Donaldson or Isiah Kiner-Falefa hitting there. (Sorry, that’s not even something to joke about since I’m sure Aaron Boone would love to have either of them in that spot.) Stanton went 0-for-the series (though he did draw one walk), striking out six times in his 14 plate appearances, including a Golden Sombrero (four strikeouts) on Saturday. It was his second Golden Sombrero in his last three games, as he also picked one up in Boston on Wednesday.

Stanton has two home runs since July 15 and one of them came off a position player pitching in a blowout. So he has one home run since July 15, and is hitting .130/.239/.234 since then in 88 plate appearances. When Stanton is unproductive, he hurts the lineup double. He becomes a roster problem because he will bat in an important spot in the order despite being unproductive and because of he Yankees’ unwillingness to play him in the field ( even though he always performs better at the plate when he’s also in the game defensively). he clogs up the designated hitter spot. The Yankees have unsuccessfully tried in the past to keep Stanton healthy by limiting him to being a full-time DH. He has gotten injured whether he’s only playing the game offensively or not, so it’s time to put him back him in the field, and if he gets hurt, so be it. The only way to keep him healthy is to have him not play baseball.

Unfortunately, Stanton isn’t going to play the field again this season. Boone has said there’s no plan to have him play the outfield at this time, and at this time, it’s September 19 and there are 16 games left in the season. Add in Harrison Bader possibly playing in an actual major-league game for the Yankees on Tuesday night at the Stadium, and that’s that for Stanton playing the field. If anything, the Yankees would stick him in the small-ish Yankee Stadium right field with Judge in center. But Bader finally playing means Judge goes back to right, and there’s no way the Yankees are going to have Stanton in the Stadium’s vast left field. That’s why they had Oswaldo Cabrera practicing the position prior to the games over the weekend.

4. I have no doubt Cabrera will play a fine left field. He continues to excel at positions he has little to no experience playing and he’s excelling in it at the major-league level. It’s pretty remarkable. Cabrera went 5-for-10 with four walks over the weekend and is no 9-for-27 with a pair of doubles and a pair of home runs in his last seven games. The bat is starting to catch up to his defense and there’s no way right now he can be removed from the lineup given his production and versatility. I expect he will be the team’s left fielder come Game 1 of the ALDS if Andrew Benintendi doesn’t return.

5. Ideally, the Yankees will have too many players for not enough positions if everyone gets and stays healthy before the postseason. Rizzo is now back. Bader is supposed to make his Yankee debut on Tuesday. Benintendi, DJ LeMahieu and Matt Carpenter are still working their way back. But if those three do return, the Yankees will have the following players for eight lineup spots:

Anthony Rizzo
DJ LeMahieu
Gleyber Torres
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Josh Donaldson
Oswaldo Cabrera
Andrew Benintendi
Harrison Bader
Aaron Judge
Giancarlo Stanton
Matt Carpenter

Three of those 11 would have to be on the bench. Rizzo and Judge aren’t going to the bench. The Yankees didn’t trade for Benintendi to not play him, and they didn’t give away Jordan Montgomery to not play Bader. Stanton is the highest-paid position player on the team and under contract for 37 more years, so he’s not going to the bench. That leaves LeMahieu, Torres, Kiner-Falefa, Donaldson, Cabrera and Carpenter for three spots. If you read this site or these Yankees Thoughts often, you know which three I’m sending to the bench.

(I didn’t include Oswald Peraza on this list because he’s already on the bench as the Yankees continue to stunt his development.)

6. I think the Yankees want both Kiner-Falefa (at shortstop) and Bader (in center field) in the lineup, which is as regrettable a decision as giving Aaron Hicks a seven-year contract extension. That duo plus Jose Trevino would give the Yankees as weak a 7-8-9 as any postseason lineup could ever have, and they would be trying to win the World Series with one-third of their lineup being essentially three automatic outs against the pitching they will see in the postseason. The last time the Yankees won the World Series in 2009, their 7-8-9 was Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner. Cano hit .320 that year with 25 home runs and an .871 OPS. Swisher hit 29 home runs with, drew 97 walks and had an .869 OPS. Gardner was the weakest bat on the team and still had a .345 on-base percentage and a .724 OPS. Trevino has a .682 OPS, Kiner-Falefa a .652 and Bader a .673.

7. I guess we’ll get to the bridge of too many players for not enough spots when we get to it. Hopefully, it doesn’t become a 2006 situation in which the team is having Stanton learn to play first base for the postseason like they did for Gary Sheffield because there was no place to put Sheffield with Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi at other positions. For now, the return of Rizzo means no more Marwin Gonzalez at first base and the return of Bader should mean the end of Hicks getting playing time (though I’m sure Boone already has a plan mapped out to get Hicks an unbelievable amount of at-bats over these last 16 games.)

8. The Yankees’ improving health isn’t only for the offense. The rotation will get Luis Severino back this week for the firs time since mid-July and it couldn’t come at a better time with Frankie Montas pitching like Javier Vazquez and making excuses like Sonny Gray. (I wrote all about Montas’ disastrous Yankees tenure to date on Sunday.) Montas has been bad (and delusional) and now he’s hurt, so he has been a total zero for the Yankees since being acquired. He’s actually less than zero since they traded JP Sears and Ken Waldichuk for him and could have either used those two arms themselves or used them in another deal at the deadline or another deal this offseason and they gave away Jordan Montgomery because they acquired Montas. Instead they are stuck with Montas for next season as well.

9. Severino is either going to be the Yankees’ Game 2 starter or their Game 3 starter with Nestor Cortes being the other. Gerrit Cole is going to be the Game 1 starter, and I have about as much faith in him pitching well on October 11 at Yankee Stadium as a I do with Boone making logical and sensible lineup and bullpen decisions in the postseason. Cole was once again atrocious on Sunday, giving up multiple home runs and needing 94 pitches to get through five innings.

It’s hard to hear the narrative that Cole “only gave up four hits” or that “he made one or two mistakes” when half of those hits left the park and the one or two mistakes went over the fence. It’s one thing to allow a solo home run here and there, but Cole isn’t doing that and now leads the league in home runs allowed. Guess what kind of teams he will face in the playoffs? Ones that hit home runs. If the Yankees plan on getting out of the ALDS for the first time in three years, they are likely going to have to get by the Astors or Blue Jays at some point to keep their season alive. Cole can’t be “good” against either of those teams. He has to be great because their starting pitching will be against the Yankees.

10. A little over a week ago, the division lead was in serious trouble. The Yankees were on the verge of completing the worst game-lead collapse in baseball history before stabilizing the division lead last weekend. Four days ago, the division lead was once again safe. But after losing two of three to the Brewers coupled with the Blue Jays winning two of three from the Orioles, the division lead, while still stable, isn’t exactly comforting at 5 1/2.

There are only 16 games left on the schedule for the Yankees, which is why Fangraphs gives them a 96.5 percent chance to win division. But it’s hard to believe in the math behind division odds when I watched the Yankees’ 15 1/2-game lead fall to two games in the loss column a little over a week ago.

On Tuesday, the Yankees begin a six-game homestand against the last-place Pirates and the last-place Red Sox. They are set up to put the division just about away by Sunday and render their upcoming three-game series against the Blue Jays meaningless. Judge is also set up to break Roger Maris’ Yankees and AL home run record if he can hit three home runs in the next six games.

This week has a chance to be special all around. Don’t screw it up.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

Blogs • Yankees

Sep 17, 2022

Yankees Would Be Better Team with No Trade Deadline Deals

If the Yankees didn’t make a single deal leading up to the trade deadline, they would be a better team than they are today.

The Yankees don’t have a Game 4 starter for the postseason. As of right now, they don’t have a Game 3 starter either, as he’s on the 60-day injured list, having last pitched on July 13.

The Yankees being in this spot again, in which they will likely use a bullpen game in the postseason is irresponsible, but completely unsurprising. As long as Brian Cashman is in charge, not having a complete postseason rotation will be commonplace.

The Yankees would have been in the same spot a year ago, if their postseason had lasted longer than nine innings. They were in the same spot two years ago when tried their nonsensical trickery with Deivi Garcia and J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the ALDS and then reluctantly started Jordan Montgomery in Game 4. Three years ago, they were forced to use Chad Green as an opener in Game 6 of the ALCS, going with a bullpen game with the bullpen on fumes, and they were eliminated that night. Even when the Yankees won the World Series in 2009, they did so because of the unprecedented amount of scheduled days off throughout the postseason, which allowed them to get by only using CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte. You may have forgotten (but I didn’t) that if they needed a fourth starter, it was going to be Chad Gaudin.

After all these years in which Yankees fans have watched postseason starts go to Shawn Chacon, Jaret Wright, Ivan Nova, Burnett (in 2011 after having been removed from the rotation) and Freddy Garcia, the Yankees are in a familiar spot once again.

A month ago, I wrote Yankees Could Use Mulligan on Frankie Montas comparing him to Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, Sonny Gray and James Paxton. All Montas has done since I wrore that is look more and more like all of the other young, controllable starters Cashman has traded for, all of which have failed with the Yankees.

The Yankees traded for Frankie Montas, thinking he would could be one of their four postseason starters, possibly even as high as their Game 2 starter. They traded for Montas despite his time on the injured list this season with a shoulder issue and despite his nearly 6 ERA outside of Oakland. His time with the Yankees has been a disaster, pitching to a 6.35 ERA in eight starts, providing zero quality starts and allowing 66 baserunners in 39 2/3 innings.

Because Montas came from the A’s as a (somewhat) young, controllable starter and because he has failed so miserably with the Yankees, he is constantly being compared to Gray, which is an insult to Gray. For as bad as Gray was in 2018 with the Yankees, he pitched to a 3.72 ERA in 11 starts for them in 2017 and provided five shutout innings in his Game 4 start in the ALCS against the Astros.

The one thing Gray and Montas do have in common is their delusional self evaluations after starts. Back in 2018, after allowing seven total hits, three extra-base hits, walking three, hitting a batter and walking in a run in 3 2/3 innings, Gray said, “I thought I commanded my two-seam well. I think it was my four-seam that every time I threw it, it kind of leaked back over the middle of the plate. Slider was good. Yeah, I think the stuff was good.”

On Friday, Montas was staked to a 5-0 lead before he took the mound for a second time. He was unable to get through four innings, recording just 10 outs and needing 79 pitches to do so, as he allowed four runs on four hits and four walks. It was another putrid performance from a pitcher who has only provided outings ranging from painful to unbearable. But like Gray, Montas is delusional about his struggles.

“To be honest, I’m not really worried about it,” Montas said after Friday’s game. “I know what I can do and know what I’m capable of doing.”

And that was the moment Montas lost me and likely many other Yankees fans.

This season, the Yankees have had Aaron Hicks say, “I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.” They have had Joey Gallo openly blame everyone other than himself for not working out in New York. They have had their manager in Aaron Boone say, “If we don’t turn this thing around …” while the team was on the verge of blowing a 15 1/2-game lead. And now they have their big-name deadline rotation piece telling the world he’s “not worried” that he can’t seem to pitch five innings without allowing at least four runs.

If Cashman turned off his phone, went on vacation or went off the grid during the week of the trade deadline and returned the minute after the deadline passed, the Yankees would be a better team than they are today. They would still have Jordan Montgomery. That alone would make them a better team.

The Yankees moved on from Montgomery because they didn’t think he would start a playoff game for them. They held on to Jameson Taillon, however, even though it’s obvious they don’t want him starting a postseason game (and who can blame them). But now it’s looking more likely by the day that either Taillon or an opener followed by a parade of relievers will be the Yankees’ fourth postseason starter this October, if their postseason lasts four games. Not only is performance reason enough to make other plans than having Montas pitch in October, his health now might prevent him from pitching in October.

After Friday’s start, Montas was going to undergo an MRI for shoulder inflammation. Montas told Boone he thought it was a minor thing, but this is the same guy who told the media he isn’t worried about his performance as a Yankee, so it’s hard to trust anything he says.

Montas missed nearly three weeks in July with a shoulder issue, but that didn’t stop the Yankees from making him their guy. The Yankees didn’t want to part with Oswald Peraza to acquire a better starting pitching option, and yet they have Peraza riding the bench, so that Isiah Kiner-Falefa can continue to be an everyday player for a team with supposed championship aspirations.

Andrew Benintendi may not play another game for the Yankees. Harrison Bader has never played a game for the Yankees. Scott Effross hasn’t pitched in four weeks. Montas has been dreadful. If the Yankees getting Lou Trivino (who has been solid) and moving Joey Gallo is all they end up getting out of this season’s trade deadline it will go down as a disaster. As of now that’s what it has been.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Sep 16, 2022

Yankees Thoughts: Postseason Preparation

The Yankees ended their slide and threat of completing the worst game-lead collapse in baseball history. After sweeping a two-game series from the Red Sox, the Yankees have won four straight and eight of 10.

The Yankees have ended their slide and threat of completing the worst game-lead collapse in baseball history. After sweeping a two-game series from the Red Sox, the Yankees have now won four straight and eight of 10.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. With the Blue Jays and Rays meeting for a five-game series over four days, the Yankees needed to go Fenway Park and beat up on the last-place Red Sox. If they didn’t, they would miss out on an opportunity to gain ground each day over either the Blue Jays or Rays, and would in turn lose ground each day on either the Blue or Rays. Thankfully, the Yankees took care of their own business against the lowly Red Sox (something they have had trouble doing in their last few series against them), and officially put the division away.

I originally wrote the blog titled AL East Race Is Over on June 20. At the time, the math said the Yankees would win the AL East with ease win an 11-game lead. By July 8, the math was playing out exactly as expected, and the Yankees’ lead was up to 15 1/2 games. But over the next two months, the Yankees pissed away everything they achieved in the first third of the season and just a week ago, the Rays had the division lead in the loss column down to two games.

Prior to the last series against the Rays, I wrote:

Right now, I’m moderately worried about the Yankees’ completing the single biggest game-lead collapse in baseball history. I’m a 6.7 out of 10 worried. Five days ago, I was a 9.1. If the loss column lead is zero on Sunday afternoon, I will be a 10, and a 10 is stock-up-on-bottled-water-and-batteries-to-go-into-hiding-level bad.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to go off the grid and spend the next seven months until Opening Day 2023 wondering what happened. The Yankees righted the ship with two wins against the Red Sox after winning an all-important series against the Rays and have now won four straight and eight of 10.

2. Do I think the Yankees are back to being the on-pace-for-122-win team they were at one point this year? No. I never thought the 2022 Yankees were close to being built like the 1998 Yankees despite the endless comparisons between the two and their similar records in late April, May and early June. The Yankees still have enormous flaws and an abundance of question marks that are on display each day and were once again in the two games at Fenway Park.

3. In the first game in Boston, the Yankees needed a pair of game-tying solo home runs from Aaron Judge in the sixth and eighth inning to avoid losing a game started by Gerrit Cole going against Nick Pivetta. When they broke a 4-4 tie with three runs in the 10th inning, they nearly gave it all back, allowing two runs to score in the bottom of the 10th to hang on to win 7-6.

In the second game, they couldn’t solve rookie Brayan Bello, who entered the game with a 5.79 ERA, having allowed an astounding 67 baserunners in 37 1/3 innings. The Yankees finally broke through in the fifth when Gleyber Torres hit a two-out single with runners on first and second and the Red Sox thew the ball around the field allowing the two baserunners to score as well as Torres in what Suzyn Waldman described as a “comedy of errors.” Leading 5-2 entering the ninth, Clay Holmes did everything he could to blow yet another game against Red Sox, allowing a run to score and only managing to get out of the inning by an overturned call when J.D. Martinez thankfully missed stepping on first base on a groundout.

4. In the 18 non-extra, non-automatic runner innings at Fenway, the Yankees scored nine runs. Three of those runs came on the “comedy of errors” play. Two of them came on Judge solo home runs. That leaves four non-error-produced or Judge-produced runs. So the theme with the team remains the same that they can’t score unless Judge is carrying the offense or unless they are helped out by the opposing defense.

The offense the Yankees keep running out there isn’t the offense we expect to see in the postseason, but it could be. There’s no guarantee all five of DJ LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter, Andrew Benintendi and Harrison Bader will return or will return to the best of their abilities or return be able to play. (I think just about all of them have to come back and have to come back to the best of their abilities for the Yankees to have a chance at winning a championship.) So for now, you have to think the lineup you see on a daily basis from the Yankees is the one you will get in the postseason, until some of those five names return (if they return).

5. If 2018-19 Torres still existed, the loss of those other five worst hurt less. Torres had a big series in Boston, going 4-for-10 with a double and four RBIs, after going 5-for-14 with two home runs and five RBIs in three games against the Rays.

I keep seeing and hearing that 2018-19 Torres is back. No. Just no. This is a five-game sample size. What about the other five months? What about the last nearly three years? This is what Torres does. He has a strong few games and coaxes fans into thinking 2018-19 Torres has returned and then he follows it up with a month-long slump.

Torres stared the season with an .856 OPS through the first week, and there were Yankees fans thinking he had found his old swing. Did his change of positioning back to second get him going? Did his approach at the plate change? It was neither as Torres then hit .223/.266/.423 over his next 38 games. The following three weeks, Torres went off with a .355/.412/.726 slash line, hitting five home runs in 17 games. Was this the return of old Gleyber? It wasn’t. Torres spent the summer months going hot then extremely cold and from the beginning of August until the beginning of the September (yes, an an entire month), he had the lowest OPS of all players in Major League Baseball, hitting .172/.193/.241 over 119 plate appearances.

So it’s nice that Torres is contributing offensively of late after not for basically the entire season (and the previous two seasons). It’s nice that he has 21 home runs and has somewhat found his power stroke without the juiced baseball. But this is still a player that despite his most recent hot streak (which is just five games), is hitting .244/.294/.429 in 514 plate appearances this season.

I won’t care how bad Torres was in 2020 or 2021 or the majority of 2022 if he shows up this postseason like he did in 2019 when he pounded the Twins (5-for-12 with three doubles, one home run and four RBIs) in the ALDS, or when he (.933 OPS, two home runs and six RBIs) and DJ LeMahieu tried to beat the Astros by themselves in the ALCS. Everyone gets a clean slate come the first pitch of the postseason.

6. That includes Aaron Hicks, though I really don’t see how he can even be on the postseason roster at this point. Despite Boone pulling Hicks from the game against the Ryas last Friday, Hicks is still aBoone favorite and Boone will do everything he can to play Hicks.

Hicks found himself pinch hitting for Jose Trevino on Friday night in the 10th inning, drawing a walk in the process. At the time of the walk, I joked that the walk was enough to get Hicks back in the starting lineup, but it wasn’t really a joke as the following night there was Hicks unbenched yet again and starting in the second game of the series. How did he do? Exactly how you would expect: 0-for-4.

Hicks is now hitting .209/.324/.293 on the season. A slugging percentage that most lower than an on-base percentage is preposterous. He has seven doubles in 408 plate appearances and seven home runs, having last homered on July 9. If you’re surprised, don’t be. This is a player who told The Athletic last month, “If I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.”

I don’t see how Hicks can be on the postseason roster, and the moment Bader, Benintendi or Carpenter return (again, if they do), Hicks shouldn’t see the field again as a Yankee. Not just this season, but future seasons as well. Trade him for whatever you can get, eat whatever money you need, attached a low-level prospect to him or release him. I don’t care. He can’t be a Yankee again in 2023. Seven seasons of him was seven too many.

7. I’m tired of explaining how ridiculous it is that Isiah Kiner-Felafa continues to play over Oswald Peraza when he was supposed to be a stopgap until Peraza was ready, and now Peraza is ready dnd being blocked by the stopgap. If Peraza isn’t going to play (like he hasn’t been) then there’s no point of him being in the majors. Send him down and stop ruining his development.

8. It’s never been more evident for fools and idiots who think Boone doesn’t control the lineup despite repeated public admissions of exactly that by Brian Cashman. How do you think Kiner-Falefa keeps playing over Peraza? How do you think Hicks keeps finding his way off the bench and into the lineup? Why do you think Josh Donaldson continues to be treated like it’s 2015 and he’s the AL MVP? There’s no front office employee of any team in all of baseball dumb enough to make decisions like that. It takes a know-it-all manager and supposed lifer who uses personal relationships and clubhouse loyalty to determine playing time instead of production. Boone has always favored veterans no matter how bad they may be (and Kiner-Faleafa and Hicks and Donaldson are very bad) over rookies or young players.

9. Thanks to the odd days off this postseason (reminiscent of the 2009 playoffs), the schedule works heavily in the Yankees’ favor (like it did in 2009) in terms of their rotation. The Yankees are undoubtedly going to give the ball to Gerrit Cole in Game 1, but after him is anyone’s guess. The Yankees could use Cole in Game 1 and then again in Game 4 on normal rest or in Game 5 with an extra day of rest. The Game 2 starter could also return for Game 5 on three days of rest. The Yankees could get through the ALDS with only three starters, but most likely, they will need four. The four they are clearly hoping to have are Cole, Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and Frankie Montas in some order. Health will determine who’s available and then I’m sure the opponent will determine the order. If Severino comes back and is his early-season self, he has to be used before Montas. You could even say he should be used before Cortes, but then there would be pushback that Cortes has been the Yankees’ best starter all season, which is true. But if the Yankees made decisions based on actual performance, Cortes would be the Game 1 starter, and players like Kiner-Falefa, Donaldson and Hicks wouldn’t be everyday players on the 2022 Yankees.

10. The Yankees’ lead in the loss column is back up to seven over both Blue Jays and Rays. The Yankees have three games left with the Blue Jays and none with the Rays. If the Yankees win one of their remaining three games with the Blue Jays, they clinch the season series and the head-to-head tiebreaker, which will be used to determine the division winner (if needed).

The Yankees have 19 games left. After this weekend against the Brewers, they will play six straight against last-place teams in the Pirates and Red Sox. The division is safe once again. The remaining 19 games and the next 25 days are about preparing for the postseason, and that means getting healthy. The Yankees aren’t going anywhere in October with the current state of the roster.

Now that the division is safe, instead of scoreboard for the next three weeks, I will be rehab game and injury update watching. That’s more important than what the competition is doing.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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