I’m tripling down on my 2020 and 2021 New Year’s Resolutions for 2022, all of which revolve around Aaron Boone. I can’t control the decisions of the Yankees manager, though I can control how I react to them.
Four years ago, I decided it would be better for my overall health if I didn’t get so worked up about Aaron Boone and his daily disasters, not all of which are even related to in-game moments. In six years as Yankees manager, Boone’s time has mostly been spent putting his players in the worst possible position to succeed, and on top of that, he has constantly lied to the media about everything from player availability to player injuries only to be outed as a liar within minutes or hours after his lies. He has made irresponsible bullpen decisions and inexcusable lineup choices during his tenure, and each season when I complain about his managerial ability, I’m told by fellow Yankees fans not to worry because he would never manage the way he does in the regular season in the postseason, and each season, he’s even worse in the postseason (when the Yankees even reach the postseason), like a managerial Nick Swisher.
Last year, I took a year off from these resolutions, knowing they are nearly impossible to accomplish. I decided achieving them was as likely as me pledging to run 30 miles a day. But after the most miserable Yankees season of my lifetime in 2023, I feel I must give them a try again in 2024. I’m quadrupling down on my 2020, 2021 and 2022 New Year’s Resolutions, all of which revolved around Boone. I can’t control the decisions of the Yankees manager, though I can control how I react to them. With Boone being given a seventh chance to manage the Yankees to a championship, I have to try them again. I just have to. For my health and for the health of those who live with me, I owe it to them to try to make these work.
Resolution 1: Don’t Get Upset Over the Lineup After six full seasons of Boone as manager, we have enough data to know he has no idea how to build the best possible lineup. Thanks to Brian Cashman’s 2020 end-of-the-season press conference we know that Boone has full authority and final say on the lineup card delivered to the home plate umpire. While the front office nerds may have a say on who to bat where and who to play when, we know the unnecessary rest and inexplicable bullpen decisions that have run rampant during Boone’s tenure are all his call.
I need to take a deep breath when I see Giancarlo Stanton batting ahead of Anthony Rizzo or Gleyber Torres in 2024. Boone has been Yankees manager for 901 games (regular season and postseason combined). I shouldn’t expect him to suddenly use logic in determining who bats where.
Resolution 2: Don’t Get Upset About Scheduled Off Days The Yankees’ scheduled days off and extra and unnecessary rest for their position players is out of control, and unfortunately, it’s not going to change. If anything, it’s only going to get worse. With Aaron Judge turning 32 in April, Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton 34 and DJ LeMahieu 35, get ready for the greatest amount of days off for regulars you have ever seen. Juan Soto is only 25, coming off a season in which he played in all 162 games and the Yankees don’t owe him a cent after this season and I can already see him getting one of the first four games of the season in Houston off, so the Yankees can “get him off his feet” because “it’s a long season.”
The Yankees aren’t going to go out of their way to win the division or home-field advantage in the postseason. They haven’t in a long time. They believe just getting into the postseason is enough (and they have a hard enough time doing that despite 40 percent of the league getting into the playoffs). They don’t care about giving away games as long as they just get in. It’s been working well for them for the last 14 seasons.
Resolution 3: Don’t Get Upset About Bullpen Usage This will be the hardest of them all. I can deal with the lineup decisions (to a degree) and the scheduled off days (to a lesser degree). The bullpen decisions though? This resolution has less of a chance of happening than Giancarlo Stanton does of a playing a second straight injury-free season.
I don’t think I will ever get over Boone’s decision to use Albert Abreu in literally a “season-on-the-line situation” in Game 161 of 2021. After a fourth straight season of nonsensical bullpen choices, that decision shouldn’t have surprised me, but given the magnitude of the game, not even I thought Boone would screw it up. He did and then he thought going an extra batter with every pitcher used in the one-game playoff loss would work out any differently than every other time he used the same strategy.
By the final game of the season, the Yankees’ bullpen had three trustworthy arms. The problem was they only had one starter capable of going six innings. In 2021, they will likely enter the season with three trustworthy relivers, and one of those three, the highest-paid reliever in the league has allowed a season-ending home run in both of the last two seasons. The only reason I’m even considering this resolution is because the bullpen might be so fragile that it won’t be Boone’s fault when the lesser arms blow leads and ruin games.
I understand these resolutions are rather meaningless since I can easily see myself breaking at least one or possibly all three within the first week (or on the first day) of the season. I’m really going to try to achieve them, but I know Boone will make it impossible.
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t care about baseball. To be one of the fans you overhear at a game interpreting a simple rule wrong or asking where Derek Jeter
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t care about baseball. To be one of the fans you overhear at a game interpreting a simple rule wrong or asking where Derek Jeter is or getting overly excited about a ball that results in a lazy flyout. Sometimes I not only wonder what it would be like to be someone like that, but I actually wish I were someone like that. Someone who didn’t care about the results of a game and whose mood and daily life for the majority of each year weren’t impacted by a game they have no control over.
I have wondered this and wished this a lot over the last 12 baseball seasons. Over that time, I have watched …
The Yankees not include Eduardo Nunez in a deal for Cliff Lee, who would single-handedly swing the pivotal Game 3 of the ALCS …
The Yankees go into a season with the smoke-and-mirrors version of Freddy Garcia and a 38-year-old Bartolo Colon who hadn’t pitched in two years as 40 percent of their rotation …
Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher and Russell Martin go a combined 10-for-79 as the Yankees scored six total runs in a four-game ALCS sweep …
Lyle Overbay play 142 games in a season, Vernon Wells 130, Chris Stewart 109, Eduardo Nunez 90, Jayson Niz 87 and Travis Hafner 82 …
The Yankees go into a season with one expected everyday regular under the age of 30 …
The Yankees go into the next season without one expected everyday regular under the age of 30 …
Go into a third straight season with only one expected everyday player under the age of 31 (Didi Gregorius at 26) and give 428 plate appearances to Stephen Drew (.201/.271/.381), 642 plate appearances to Chase Headley (.259/.324/.369) and 501 plate appearances to Jacoby Ellsbury (.257/.318/.345) …
Build an everyday outfield of Ellsbury (.263/.330/.374), Brett Gardner (.261/.351/.362) and Aaron Hicks (.217/.281/.336), who would hit a combined 24 home runs in 1,621 plate appearances …
Not take on Justin Verlander’s salary at the Aug. 31 deadline as he would single-handedly swing the ALCS by winning Games 2 and 6 …
Not part with Clint Frazier and Miguel Andujar in a trade for Gerrit Cole who single-handedly swing the ALCS the following season with a Game 3 win only to eventually release Frazier for nothing and never play and have no plan for Andujar …
The Yankees’ ALDS Game 3 starter not know the start time of the pivotal game, suffer the worst home postseason loss in franchise history and have their first-year manager manage the team out of the postseason against their longtime rival …
The front office add no starting pitching at the trade deadline and then endure another ALCS loss when the bullpen was asked to pitch 31 of the 54 2/3 innings in the series …
The manager make the most obvious regrettable first-guess decision in history in Game 2 of the ALDS …
The front office go into the season with 40 percent of the rotation made up of arms that hadn’t pitched in two years due to injury and another 20 percent being an arm that hadn’t pitched in a year and a half due to suspension …
The front office think a team could be successful without any left-handed hitting in a lineup, let alone one that plays 81 games in a stadium with a 314-foot, right-field line …
A team that was the preseason favorite to win the American League end up winning finishing in fourth place in the division and fifth place in the AL and have their postseason end in one game be referred to as “a postseason contender” by the team’s general manager …
A manager who has proven to be in over his head in his position and incapable of making even the simplest in-game decisions, while also blatantly lying about his roster’s performance and exaggerating injury news to the media and fans get a new three-year contract with a fourth-year option …
An owner who has not increased the team’s payroll in 16 years despite the team’s exponential revenue growth openly speak about and vote to decrease the current luxury-tax threshold …
A team that has openly admitted it needs to get better, needs a true shortstop, a center fielder and starting pitching did’t sign a single free agent prior to lockout with all of the great starting pitching options no longer available, the only center field option no longer available and now just two shortstop options available.
Since the announcement of his new contract, I have spent the last nearly seven weeks talking myself into Aaron Boone with better players. All he needs is a better roster! Because that will prevent him from batting Gardner third, using Brooks Kriske (or now someone like him) in extra innings in Fenway Park and choosing Albert Abreu over his entire bullpen with the season literally on the line in Game 161 of the regular season. Just give him better players! Unfortunately, with the way the offseason had played out prior to the lockout, the idea of Boone with better players is turning from an idea into a dream, and a rather unrealistic dream at that.
There are two actual starting shortstop options remaining: Carlos Correa and Trevor Story. Correa is by far the better player, but he’s also a jerk (given his comments following the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal and recent evaluation of Jeter’s career) who comes with a lot of baggage. Like CC Sabathia said on a recent episode of his podcast, Correa has set himself up to be A-Rod if he comes to the Yankees in terms of being a dividing figure in the clubhouse and being booed on the field, and I don’t know if that’s a 10-year commitment this Yankees front office wants to make.
I really don’t know what type of commitments they want to make. One would think the Yankees would be all about big-money, short-term deals, like the one Max Scherzer signed with the Mets, but the Yankees were reportedly not even involved in talks for Scherzer. How is that even possible? How is it possible that the Yankees weren’t interested in the best available free-agent pitcher and arguably the best pitcher in the game who would only cost money, something they make more of than any other team?
Not only were the Yankees not in on Scherzer, but they let the reigning Cy Young winner in Robbie Ray sign with the Mariners on what I think is a favorable contract for the Mariners. They watched Kevin Gausman sign with the Blue Jays, and even Jon Gray (who the Yankees once drafted and have always been connected to) was signed by the Rangers. The Rangers also signed two of the available shortstops in Corey Seager (who was my No. 1 choice for the Yankees to sign) and Marcus Semien. The Rangers mean business this winter. The Yankees mean … I don’t know what the Yankees mean.
It keeps me up at night to think the Yankees will sign either Correa or Story (I think they would be more inclined to sign Story since he will be cheaper and they were connected to him in July) and then call it an offseason. This team isn’t a shortstop away from a championship. They are many, many pieces away from that.
If the old adage holds true that you want to build up the middle, then the Yankees’ current middle is Gary Sanchez, (whose name made headlines this week just for being tendered a contract), Gleyber Torres (who was removed from shortstop and is now being forced to second base, which removes the three-time Gold Glove DJ LeMahieu from the position), no one at shortstop and Aaron Hicks (who has played 145 games in the last three years and in that time has suffered a back injury, a hamstring injury and has had his throwing elbow and left wrist both surgically repaired). That’s the Yankees’ middle: Sanchez, Torres, no one and Hicks. World Series here they come! “Postseason contender!” as Brian Cashman called them in his end-of-the-season press conference.
Both Correa and Story make the Yankees much better simply because they’re breathing and the Yankees don’t currently have an actual shortstop on their roster. That sentence reads like a joke, but it’s far from a joke. However, they need a whole lot more than one of those two. Aside from LeMahieu, they essentially need an entire infield since I have given up on Torres, whose mere presence is screwing up the infield alignment, and they need someone who can be trusted to play a full season in the outfield whose name isn’t Brett Gardner.
On top of that, they need starting pitching. They have Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery. Luis Severino has pitched 27 2/3 innings since the end of 2018. Corey Kluber is now a Ray. Jameson Taillon is recovering from ankle surgery. Domingo German flat-out sucks. Clarke Schmidt is always hurt and has put 31 baserunners on in 12 2/3 innings in the majors. In six months, Deivi Garcia went from looking like the future of the rotation to having a future in an independent league. Michael King is a reliever.
Scherzer is a Met, Ray is a Mariner, Gausman is a Blue Jay and Gray is a Ranger. The Yankees didn’t want to go to a second year for Justin Verlander (just like they didn’t want to take on his salary in 2017), so he’s back with the Astros. Eduardo Rodriguez went to the Tigers, Steven Matz to the Cardinals, Noah Syndergaaard to the Angels and Alex Wood back to the Giants. Even Alex Cobb (who signed with the Angels) or a reunion with James Paxton (who went to the Red Sox) would have been viable options. The Yankees signed none of them.
I really hope there’s a multi-player return trade coming before Opening Day because that seems like the only way the Yankees improve their roster. The remaining free-agent pitchers all might as well be J.A. Happ (who happens to also be a free agent) because there’s no one left who will improve the rotation. And unless the Yankees are going to sign Correa and Freddie Freeman, there’s nothing left in free agency to get excited about.
Still wearing his uniform long after the wild-card loss to the Red Sox, Gardner said, “There’s a lot of uncertain, uncharted waters with this team heading into the offseason … Hopefully we’ll have a chance to run it back.”
Well, he may just get his chance. Whenever the lockout ends, the Yankees will still be the same team they were after that loss. The same roster that has never been good enough to win in the postseason and is now not even good enough to get into the actual postseason and play a series. The same franchise that hasn’t been good enough and hasn’t tried to be good enough for the last 12 years.
No one knows when this lockout will end. Next week? Next month? The month after that? After spring training was supposed to start? After the regular season was supposed to start? A break for baseball means a break from the Yankees, and that’s somehow become a welcome relief.
Aaron Hicks isn’t going anywhere with four years left on his contract, and after wrongfully believing in him to be an everyday option for the Yankees the last three seasons, the same mistake can’t be made for a fourth straight season.
The Yankees went into this past season with the same expected lineup they went into the previous season with. Despite Gleyber Torres’ obvious issues defensively at shortstop and despite Aaron Hicks’ inability to play a full season in his career, the Yankees figured Torres would get better at the most important position in the infield and that Hicks would be available every day to play the most important in the outfield. The Yankees gave up on Torres as a shortstop in the final weeks of the regular season, admitting multiple times this offseason there would be a new Yankees shortstop in 2022. The wise move would be to do the same with Hicks and have a new Yankees center field next season as well.
“Obviously looking at shortstop,” Brian Cashman said at last week’s General Manager Meetings. “Maybe center field.”
I’m glad Cashman is at least publicly recognizing the team has a serious problem in center, even if his use of the word “maybe” is petrifying because this isn’t a “maybe” situation.
Back in February 2019 when Hicks was inexplicably given a seven-year, $70 million extension through 2025 (with an option for an eighth year!), the common response was something like, “It’s only $10 million per year and the Yankees can eventually walk away from it.” Sure, if Hicks played his age 29 (2019), age 30 (2020) and age 31 (2021) seasons the way he played in his age 28 season (2018) when he hit a career-high 27 home runs and played in a career- high 137 games then yeah, the contract would be a bargain and the final years of it could be walked away from and wouldn’t serve as an albatross to the team’s payroll. But Hicks has only played in 38 percent (145 of 384) of the Yankees’ games since signing the extension and that seemingly low average annual salary of $10 million suddenly feels like $100 million with the way the Yankees have operated under Hal Steinbrenner. Add in the Yankees’ inability to develop their own starting pitching or middle infield, needing to pay a premium through free agency to fill those holes, and Hicks’ contract has become a problem.
Giving Hicks that extension was regrettable in the moment, considering he spent nearly his entire 20s on the injured list and thinking he would somehow grow healthier and remain healthy on the other side of 30 was more than wishful thinking, it was plain idiotic. But doubling down the last two years in believing he could be the player he was in one of his nine career seasons was even more regrettable. It will once again be an extremely regrettable decision if the Yankees go into 2022 with the idea Hicks will be their everyday center fielder.
Hicks’ inability to stay healthy creates two issues for the Yankees in that it means Hicks isn’t playing and it means Brett Gardner is. I will never not believe Gardner isn’t going to be a Yankee in 2022, or any season. Even if the entire organization stated he wouldn’t be returning and even if Gardner announced his retirement, swearing to never play for the Yankees again, I still wouldn’t believe it. As long as Gardner wants to play baseball, the Yankees will let him play for them.
It’s very likely the Yankees’ 2022 Opening Day outfield will be Hicks in center, Aaron Judge in right, Joey Gallo in left (with Giancarlo Stanton serving as the designated hitter) and Gardner on the bench as the fourth outfielder. When Hicks gets inevitably injured, Gardner will become the team’s everyday center fielder. It’s the same scenario that has played out for the last three years. An outfielder (usually Hicks) gets hurt and Gardner becomes an everyday player.
If Gardner is on the team, he’s going to play. He will never be a true fourth outfielder. Beginning in 2018, he was supposed to be the team’s fourth outfielder. Since then he has played in 470 of 546 regular-season games (or 86 percent). On top of that, he played in all five of the team’s 2018 postseason games, all nine of the team’s 2019 postseason games (batting third in four of them!), in six of the team’s seven 2020 postseason games and somehow batted sixth in the team’s wild-card loss in 2021. Gardner has played in 21 of the Yankees’ 22 postseason games since becoming the team’s fourth outfielder.
If Hicks is the 2022 Yankees’ starting center fielder, the Yankees are going to need someone who can be the team’s actual starting fielder when Hicks goes on the injured list. Someone not named Brett Gardner. Again, the most games Hicks has ever played in a season was 137 in the season before he signed the extension, which means he still missed 25 games, or nearly a month of the 2018 season. Again that was in 2018. Next year it will be four years since he accomplished that “feat.”
Hicks was also 28 when he played in “that many” games. He will be 32 for the 2022 season, and since the 2018 regular season, he missed part of the 2018 postseason with a hamstring issue, missed the first six weeks of 2019 with a back injury suffered during a 35-minute bus ride in spring training, missed the last two months of 2019 with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery, would have missed the first half of the 2020 season if it began on time recovering from that Tommy John surgery and then was out for the last 126 games of 2021 (127 if you count the team’s one postseason game) after needing season-ending wrist surgery. So since Hicks’ personal-best 137 games played in 2018, he has suffered a debilitating back injury, had his throwing arm surgically repaired and had his left wrist surgically repaired. For a guy who spent his prime and his career on the right side of 30 on the injured list as well as his first two years in his 30s, I don’t know how anyone could expect him to age well.
Hicks wants to play winter ball this winter since he has barely played baseball over the last three years, though it hasn’t been approved by the Yankees yet. According to Boone, Hicks would probably bat third for the Yankees if they had a game tomorrow.
“He sent me some video of him in the cage the other day swinging and he feels great,” Boone said of Hicks. “I think he looks great.”
Well, if Boone thinks Hicks “looks great” then who am I to argue? Then again, Boone named Hicks his 3-hitter long before spring training ended last season and then when Hicks went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the season-opening series and Joel Sherman asked Boone about moving Hicks down in the lineup, Boone literally laughed off Sherman’s suggestion and responded, “He will be fine.” Eight games later, Hicks was batting sixth, and four games after that, he was hitting seventh before eventually being lost for the season after playing in only 32 games. So yeah, he wasn’t fine and hasn’t been fine. But you do have to take any Yankees player evaluation from Boone with a grain of salt (OK, the whole salt shaker) since he did just spend the entire spring, summer and one fall night defending his team. And it was Boone who said “medicine” would fix Hicks’ wrist back in May when asked if Hicks would need surgery.
“I think it could go either way, really,” Boone said. “In these cases it seems like a lot of times, the medicine works and knocks it out.”
Back in March 2013, Mark Teixeira suffered a similar wrist injury and played in only 15 games that season, batting .151/.270/.340, which is in line with Hicks’ .194/.294/.333 line from his 32 games in 2021. Like Hicks, Teixeira was a switch hitter.
The following season (2014), Teixeira was still feeling the effects of his surgically-repaired wrist and hit an abysmal .216/.313/.398 over 123 games (which is about the amount of games you could only dream of Hicks playing in). It wasn’t until 2015 when Teixeira began to hit like his old self (.255/.357/.548). If Hicks were to have the same return-from-injury woes getting his swing back that Teixeira had, then that means we can expect a very crappy version of Hicks in 2022 and hopefully get him back to being somewhat above average in 2023. (Teixeira was also a former All-Star and MVP finalist and Hicks has a .729 career OPS.
Hicks has now played in 493 of a possible 870 regular-season games as a Yankee (or 57 percent over six years). To put that ridiculously low amount of games played in perspective, Jacoby Ellsbury played in 520 games in his six years with the Yankees and that includes playing zero games in both 2018 and 2019. Hicks has been as healthy as Ellsbury.
The same way Hicks’ inability to stay healthy creates two issues for the Yankees in that he isn’t playing and Gardner is, not building the roster with him as the team’s center fielder for six months solves two issues: it removes Gardner from the equation and essentially makes Hicks the team’s fourth outfielder. Hicks isn’t going anywhere with four years left on his contract, and after wrongfully believing in him to be an everyday option for the Yankees the last three seasons, the same mistake can’t be made for a fourth straight season.
I’m not upset with the Yankees’ decisions involving the players from Friday’s deadline. I’m upset with the Yankees’ decisions involving those players during their time as Yankees.
On Friday night, after cleaning up the last of the 61 toys sprawled out across the living room floor and scrubbing every nook and cranny of a high chair that takes a daily beating, I sat down on the couch to relax and join my wife for her nightly viewing of a Hallmark Christmas movie, which always seem to star Candace Cameron (who is forever cool). Then I remembered it was the deadline for 40-man roster decisions.
I wish I hadn’t remembered because all the news of the Yankees’ decisions did was ruin my Friday night. Not because I was upset with their decision to move on from Clint Frazier, Tyler Wade, Nick Nelson or Rougned Odor, but because of everything that had happened involving those four players up until they were no longer Yankees.
Odor was designated for assignment. Odor should have never been a Yankee, but the Yankees decided to go into a season with Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner, Jay Bruce, Mike Tauchman and Mike Ford as their only left-handed hitters. Hicks lasted 32 games, Gardner found his way into 140 games with a .689 OPS, Bruce was so bad he retired two weeks into the season rather than get released when Luke Voit returned, Tauchman was traded before the end of April and the Yankees were so done with Ford they willingly traded him to the Rays.
The Yankees didn’t care that Odor has been a .202 hitter over his last 2,005 plate appearances. They didn’t care that the eventual 102-loss Rangers were fine with paying him $27 million to not play for them. Odor was a left-handed batter. Better yet, he would cost the Yankees nothing. Odor would be free and the only thing billionaire Hal Steinbrenner likes more than cheap players are free players.
Odor’s very presence on the Yankees represented everything wrong with the team under this Steinbrenner. Rather than put the best possible roster together to compete for a championship, the Yankees under this Steinbrenner have content with putting together a roster that will do enough to get by. It’s why the team has won the AL East once since 2012, why it has suffered wild-card and ALDS exits in three of the last four years and why the last time it even appeared in the World Series was 12 years ago.
With each three pitch-strikeout and 0-for-4, Michael Kay would opine on YES about Odor’s lack of production as if he was supposed to be Marcus Semien and not a guy with. a.234/.289/.433 career batting line.
“Odor hasn’t hit with the consistency that you’d expect” Kay said on May 27 with Odor batting .160/.269/.333 On June 4, Kay mentioned again that Odor wasn’t hitting to expectations and on July 20 called him “valuable.”
The only value Odor brought to the Yankees was his dugout enthusiasm and celebrations, something I would be happy to do for nothing to be part of the 26-man roster. The Yankees somehow never found a better option than Odor from April 6 (when they acquired him) through the end of the season, and with the season literally on the line in the wild-card game against the Red Sox, Odor even got two at-bats in the game, striking out on three pitches in his first one and being late on what became a lazy flyout in his second.
The Yankees got what they paid for in Odor: nothing, which is what a .202/.286/.379 batting line is worth.
Nelson was traded to the Phillies. It would seem impossible that one player or pitcher could appear in so few games in a season and have such a significant impact on the team’s success, or lack thereof. Nelson only appeared in 11 games for the 2021 Yankees, but he single-handedly lost them a handful of games.
On Opening Day (April 1), Nelson (who had no business being on the Opening Day roster after his 2020 in the majors), was called upon to start the 10th inning of a 2-2 games against the Blue Jays. A divisional game against the Yankees direct competition for the division. Two pitches into Nelson’s season, annual All-Animosity Team member Randal Grichuk doubled in the automatic runner from second. The Yankees went on to lose in what was a very early foreshadowing of the miserable season to come. (In the bottom of the 10th, Hicks struck out on three pitches in what ended up being the last competitive at-bat of the Yankees’ season, Giancarlo Stanton struck out on three pitches and Gleyber Torres struck out on five pitches. Three outs, all strikeouts, on 11 pitches.)
Eight days later, in the first meeting of the season with the Rays, the Yankees led 4-2 in Tampa in the bottom of the third before Corey Kluber ran out of gas the way a pitcher who had thrown 36 2/3 innings over the last two years would seemingly do after making his first start in a rotation in two years. Boone let Kluber allow a run and load the bases with one out before deciding Kluber wasn’t going to magically find “it” after needing 62 pitches to get seven outs. So in came Nelson with the bases loaded and one out and the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead.
Nelson fell behind on Joey Wendle with a first-pitch ball the same way he had to Grichuk on Opening Day. The next pitch was clobbered to left by Wendle for a two-run double, and the Rays took the lead. The next inning with it still a one-run game, Nelson put the game out of reach by allowing four runs on three hits, a walk and a hit by pitch.
One week later, the Rays were in the Bronx. After deciding Kluber and Jameson Taillon (who had combined to start 15 games in 2019 and 2020) would be all the starting pitching the Yankees would need to add for 2021, in the 13th game of 2021, they were without a starting pitcher for a divisional game against the Rays. (I really should have stopped watching the 2021 Yankees in April. We all should have.) So the Yankees gave the ball to Nelson to serve as an “opener.”
The only thing Nelson opened were the floodgates. After allowing six baserunners and four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings against the Rays the prior week, Nelson was somehow worse this time. He walked Austin Meadows to lead off the game and then threw his patented first-pitch ball to Randy Arozarena. The Rays had runners on second and third and no outs. Nelson got ahead of Brandon Lowe 0-2 before allowing a two-run double to right-center. Nelson was able to give the Yankees one inning of work, allowing four baserunners and two earned runs, needing 30 pitches to record three outs.
Five days later, on April 21, Nelson was somehow still a Yankee and Boone hadn’t seen enough. Trailing 1-0 in the fifth inning against the Braves, Boone went to Nelson with the bases loaded and one out. Nelson walked in a run on four pitches.
Four days after that, Nelson was still in the majors, “earning” a major-league salary, collecting major-league service time, getting a major-league meal stipend on the road and living the luxurious life as a New York Yankee. The Yankees were trying to right their 9-11 start to the season and had a chance to pull off a four-game sweep in Cleveland. Trailing 4-3 entering the bottom of the fifth (after Taillon was allowed to completely erase a 3-0 lead), Boone went to Nelson to hold the deficit at one run with the Yankees still having four innings of at-bats remaining. Nelson went two innings, allowed three earned runs on four hits and a walk and threw two wild pitches. The Yankee went on to lose and Nelson was finally sent down.
Nelson only had to go a month without living the good life. He was called on out of the Yankees’ bullpen on May 30 to throw two innings in the final game of the embarrassing three-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers in Detroit. Three days later, Nelson was asked to keep a four-run deficit to the Rays from growing any larger. After 44 pitches from Nelson, the Rays led by eight runs.
Nelson was sent down again and after putting 25 runners on base in 12 innings and allowing 14 earned runs, I thought that would be the end of him as a Yankee. I was wrong. Nelson throws hard, and even if he doesn’t know where it’s going, his velocity was apparently going to give him endless opportunities with the Yankees..
On July 7, 34 days after his last appearance, the Yankees were inexplicably going to use Nelson as an opener agin. An unbelievable decision in a season full of unbelievable decisions. Nelson didn’t even make it through the first inning. He hit a batter and walked three, including walking in a run. It took him 32 pitches to get two outs.
Two weeks later, on July 21, the Yankees used Asher Wojciechowski as their staring pitching and had Odor batting third, Gary Sanchez fourth, Torres fifth, Gardner sixth, Greg Allen seventh, Wade eighth and Estevan Florial ninth. It looked like a mid-March lineup in Dunedin. Instead it was the 94th game of the regular season, and this wild makeshift lineup had a 5-2 lead over the Phillies after seven innings.
Boone called on Zack Britton for the eighth and when it was evident he didn’t have it, Boone let him keep going. He let Britton load the bases with one out. And like he had done multiples times earlier in the season, Boone went to Nelson with the bases loaded. Three batters later, the game was tied after Nelson allowed a single, walked in a run and threw a wild pitch to make it 5-5. Miraculously, the Yankees would win in the 10th.
Nearly three weeks later, Nelson appeared in what would be his final game as a Yankee and went out in Nelson style: allowing a run, walking two and needing 26 pitches to get through a single inning of work.
In two seasons as a Yankee, Nelson appeared in 22 games and pitched to this line: 35 IP, 35 H, 29 R, 25 ER, 27 BB, 40 K, 4 HR, 6.43 ERA, 1.771 WHIP.
I’m not mad at Nelson. I don’t dislike Nelson. The same way I don’t dislike any of these players. He sucks, but he didn’t asked to be drafted in the fourth round, he didn’t offer himself a contact, he didn’t put himself on the roster and he didn’t put himself in high-leverage situations. He’s not to blame for all of those Yankees losses or for why the wild-card game was played in Boston or for why the Yankees’ division chances were over before the summer solstice even if it was his performance which had an enormous hand in it all.
Wade was designated for assignment. The Yankees desperately wanted Wade to be their Ben Zobrist. They kept telling us that for six-plus years. They wanted it so badly that for five years they allowed him to spend time on the roster, rolling over ground balls to the right side and running into outs on the bases the way one would when playing a video game after pressing the wrong button controlling the runner.
Wade hit .212/.298/.307 as a Yankee and the only two people who believed in him outside of his own family seemed to be John Sterling and Cashman. The first would praise him on the radio whenever he did something to help the team win (so maybe a handful of times a season) saying how great he could be if given a chance and the second unfortunately decides who gets to be a Yankee.
Wade eventually played every position other than pitcher, catcher and first base, and proved to be valuable defensively. But valuable defensive players grow on trees like hard-throwing right-handed relievers with no control (yes, like Nelson). Wade essentially stepping into the batter’s box without a bat 491 times was always going to hold him back from achieving everyday player status.
The Cashman defenders (who are hanging their hat on one championship in the last 21 years) and the Wade supporters (if such a group of people exist) will tell you Wade never got the everyday at-bats needed to be successful. No, he was never handed a job outright, but every single time an injury meant regular playing time and at-bats for Wade, he failed. Enough was enough long ago for most yankees fans. Enough wasn’t enough for the decision makers until Nov. 19, 2021.
Frazier was designated for assignment. The Yankees had a chance to acquire Gerrit Cole before the 2018 season, but they weren’t willing to part with Frazier. Cole went on to swing the 2019 ALCS with a Game 3 win over the Yankees the same way Cliff Lee did 11 years ago when Cashman wouldn’t part with Eduardo Nunez in a trade for Lee. Less than four years after not wanting to trade Nunez for Lee, the Yankees let Nunez go for nothing. Less than four years after not wanting to trade Frazier for Cole, the Yankees let Frazier go for nothing.
The fifth overall pick in the 2013 draft and headliner of the return the Yankees acquired for Andrew Miller back in 2016 is gone. For nothing. Not even a fringe minor leaguer. Not even a player to be named later. Not even cash considerations. Not even a bucket of balls. Nothing.
Sure, Frazier could go unclaimed (unlikely), and if not, he could be assigned to the minors and remain with the organization. But Frazier has the option to reject the assignment and become a free agent, which he would undoubtedly do. Why would he want to remain with an organization that has jerked him around for the last five years, especially one in which a path to becoming an everyday player is once again blocked? There’s a better chance Aaron Hicks doesn’t spend a day on the injured list in 2022 than there is that Frazier is a Yankee in 2022.
I really, really, really wanted Frazier to work out in New York. I thought he should have been the Yankees’ designated hitter over the combination of Chase Headley and Jacoby Ellsbury in the 2017 postseason (combined 7-for-39 with 13 strikeouts and three walks). His 2018 season was essentially lost to injuries. In 2019, he and his .806 OPS were passed over for Mike Tauchman. In 2020, he joined DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit to carry the Yankees’ offense in the shortened season, while Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton didn’t play and while Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres might as well have not played, only to be screwed over by Aaron Boone in the playoffs as the Yankees manager started Brett Gardner over Frazier in five of the team’s seven playoff games.
2021 was supposed to be different. Frazier had emerged as an everyday player for the Yankees after his 2020 and Boone said as much on the first day of spring training, calling Frazier the team’s starting left fielder. A few days later, Gardner re-signed with the Yankees and in the third game of the season, Gardner was starting in left field.
Frazier’s poor performance from inconsistent playing time this past season coupled with another lost year due to unknown injuries led to his removal from the 40-man roster. Here’s to Frazier getting healthy and becoming an everyday star somewhere where he’s given an actual chance to play.
I’m not upset with the Yankees’ decisions involving the players from Friday’s deadline. I’m upset with the Yankees’ decisions involving those players during their time as Yankees.
The Yankees are trending in the wrong direction, while the rest of the division trends up around them. That can be reversed over the next few months, and all it will cost is money.
The Yankees’ season has been over for more than four weeks. It feels like it’s been four months.
1. It feels like the offseason is almost over when it has only just begun starting today. The Braves and Astros were playing baseball yesterday. The Yankees last played 29 days ago. It’s almost comical how long it’s been since the Yankees were embarrassed in their unsurprising wild-card loss.
I know I’m in the minority, but I wanted the Astros to win the World Series. I wanted them to win the World Series because the Braves winning only gives the Yankees’ front office another reason to not build the best team possible because the Braves weren’t even close to the best team in baseball. In fact, they were the worst team in the postseason in the 10-team postseason with 88 regular-season wins, didn’t get over .500 until August and struggled until the very end of the season to put away an awful NL East. Both the Blue Jays (92) and Mariners (90) had more wins than the Braves this season and all they have to show for their regular-season success is … nothing.
2. Jorge Soler winning World Series MVP was unlikely sums up the Braves’ postseason. Sure, Soler led the league with 48 home runs in 2019 after never hitting more than 12 in a season, but that was also the same season Brett Gardner hit 28, Ketel Marte hit 32 and Gleyber Torres hit 38. Home run totals in 2019 were a joke. Soler hit .300/.391/.800 with three home runs and six RBIs in the World Series and his at-bats made him as feared as Mike Trout, rather than the .192/.288/.370 hitter he was in 94 games for the Royals this season. Soler wasn’t the only Brave to play well above his talent level.
Joc Pederson was really bad in 73 games for the Cubs (.230/.300/.718) and nothing special in 64 games with the Braves (.249/.325/.428) this season. Then he went on to hit two home runs with five RBIs against the Brewers in the NLDS and a home run and four RBIs against the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Eddie Rosario has a career .309 on-base percentage. This season with the Indians and Braves, he hit .259/.305/.435 in 111 games. Somehow, against the Dodgers’ pitching (of all teams), he hit .560/.607/1.040 with a double, a triple, three home runs and nine RBIs in just six games.
Two years ago, Travis d’Arnaud was released by the Mets. Over the last week, he hit two home runs with an .875 OPS in the World Series.
3. Even without Ronald Acuna since July 10, the Braves are now World Series champions. It makes little sense. Very little sense. I thought they would lose to the Brewers, possibly get swept by the Dodgers and have serious trouble with the Astros. They eliminated the Brewers in four games, could have eliminated the Dodgers in five and should have done the same to the Astros. It was a remarkable run for a franchise that hadn’t won a championship since the Yankees’ dynasty destroyed whatever dynasty the Braves thought they might have.
Now the Yankees will spend the next nearly five months preparing to try to do what the Braves just did and what the Yankees haven’t done since Eric Hinske and Jerry Hairston Jr. were on the team.
4. I’m still not over the Yankees’ decision to bring back Aaron Boone. I won’t be over it until the team wins a championship with him as manager and I don’t know if that’s possible given how exceedingly inept he is at implementing simple baseball logic into his in-game decisions. But the Yankees can at least make me somewhat happy by going out and acting like the Yankees in free agency. That means either making a blockbuster trade or trades, or signing big-name free agents. I truly fear the Yankees will decide to “run it back” once again with a team that wasn’t good enough in 2018, 2019, 2020 or 2021 thinking it will somehow be different in 2022. It won’t be. Not with the same roster.
5. Want to make fans happy? Sign Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, Max Scherzer and Robbie Ray. That would send a message to the fan base. That would go a long way toward negating whatever nonsensical decisions Boone has planned for 2022 (and 2023 and 2024 and the option for 2025!). I don’t expect the Yankees to sign any of those three. Instead, I can see a one-year stopgap at shortstop, a reunion with Anthony Rizzo at best and rather than signing Scherzer and Ray, they will spread out the money on a few underwhelming arms they think they can be the ones to unlock (like Jon Gray who they have always been in love with). Whatever they decide from a pitching standpoint, their starting pitching depth needs to be deeper in 2022 than it was in 2021 when they used Nick Nelson as an opener against the Rays in the 10th game of the season because they didn’t have another option.
6. If the Yankees acted like the Yankees and took back the payroll crown and did sign those four, they could “run it back” with the rest of their roster and I would be fine it.
Lineup Aaron Judge, RF Freddie Freeman, 1B Giancarlo Stanton, DH Carlo Correa, SS Joey Gallo, LF DJ LeMahieu, 3B Aaron Hicks, CF Gleyber Torres, 2B Gary Sanchez, C
Rotation Gerrit Cole Max Scherzer Luis Severino Robbie Ray Jordan Montgomery
Bullpen Aroldis Chapman Jonathan Loaisiga Clay Holmes Chad Green Nestor Cortes Michael King Wandy Peralta Albert Abreu
Yeah, that 26-man roster will do.
If you’re worried about the cost of that team, don’t be. It’s not your money. The Steinbrenners could do that and a ridiculous amount more than that and still be fine financially and swimming in their billions. But there’s about as good a chance at that 26-man roster happening as there is the Yankees scoring a run on the contact play.
7. Here will be the actual 2022 Opening Day roster:
Lineup DJ LeMahieu, 1B Aaron Judge, RF Aaron Hicks, CF Giancarlo Stanton, DH Joey Gallo, LF Gleyber Torres, 2B Gio Urhsela, 3B Andrelton Simmons, SS Kyle Higashioka, C
Bench Austin Romine Brett Gardner Tyler Wade Someone who can play 1B
Rotation Gerrit Cole Luis Severino Jordan Montgomery Jon Gray Nestor Cortes
Bullpen Aroldis Chapman Jonathan Loaisiga Clay Holmes Chad Green Nestor Cortes Michael King Wandy Peralta Albert Abreu
(Both rosters don’t include Jameson Taillon since he won’t be ready by Opening Day.)
8. The first roster’s ceiling is a championship. The second’s is an ALDS exit, and that might even be a stretch. But considering Brian Cashman referred to the 2021 Yankees as a “postseason contender” (a team that came in third place in their division and in fifth place in the AL and had a postseason consisting of nine miserable innings) in his end-of-the-season press conference, an ALDS exit will be treated like a championship within the organization.
9. In all likelihood, the Yankees aren’t going to take on another long-term, big-money contract, which means no Correa or Corey Seager. It means bargain bin shopping for a team that just did that prior to last season. Add in a potential (regrettable) long-term deal for Judge after 2022, and it’s hard to envision the Yankees acting like the Yankees this winter. (Unfortunately for Judge, he was finally healthy and had a full season of his ability one year too early.)
10. The Yankees are trending in the wrong direction, while the rest of the division trends up around them. That can be reversed over the next few months, and all it will cost is money. The one thing the Yankees make more of than any other team in the league.
