Blogs – Page 60 – Keefe To The City

Jul 14, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Path to Postseason Isn’t Pretty

The Yankees are out of chances to turn their season around. When the second “half” begins on Thursday, they have to win games at an incredible pace or they won’t reach the postseason. Here are

The Yankees are out of chances to turn their season around. When the second “half” begins on Thursday, they have to win games at an incredible pace or they won’t reach the postseason.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I went to the first game of the Subway Series. Why? Like I wrote after the Yankees were swept by the Red Sox in Boston, I still think there is time (though not much) to turn it around. Again, I’m like Rudy’s fellow scout team member in Rudy who tells him, “I’m under the delusion that I might get a chance to run out that tunnel.”

What a mistake that was going to the game. The Yankees produced yet another piss poor, disgusting effort and when I walked out of the Stadium during the top of the sixth, the Yankees had allowed five runs in the inning, were losing 8-0 and the offense hadn’t produced a single hit. I was back home before the game ended and felt sorry for the thousands of Yankees fans who decided to stay through the end of the team’s latest slopfest.

2. The following day, on the Fourth of July, the Yankees might as well have been playing spring training games given how much I was into a Subway Series doubleheader. I couldn’t have cared less about watching Sunday’s comical seven-inning doubleheaders. There are sold-out stadiums across the league and the Stadium had 40,000-plus people on Saturday, and yet the league can’t play actual full-length games? It’s a joke.

Thankfully, I didn’t give a shit if the Yankees won the first game on Sunday because they didn’t. Gerrit Cole let everyone down once again and given his performance in that game and over the last month it seemed like he might be a huge problem going forward if unable to use sun screen or Vaseline or Spider Tack or Silly Putty or Play-Doh to get outs. Thankfully, he put the idea he can’t pitch without some foreign substance to rest with his dominant start against the Astros over the weekend.

3. Unfortunately, about 19 hours later, Cole’s complete-game, 12-strikeout start was erased by his manager’s inability to make even the most elementary decisions as a major league manager. Boone pissed away a five-run, ninth-inning lead in the series and first “half” finale, as the Yankees fell to 3-9 when they have a chance to sweep.

“It’s another gut punch, and we’ve had a number of those, obviously, here in the first half,” Boone said after the loss. “We’ve gotten off the mat each and every time and we’ve gotta do it again and understand what’s at stake starting Thursday.”

The amount of gut punches the Yankees have taken would cause irreparable harm, internal bleeding and possibly death. I guess that’s why they’re on the brink of no longer having a season.

When exactly have the Yankees “gotten off the mat’ from the guy punches they have taken. They are three games over .500, have the fourth-worst offense in the AL and a plus-1 run differential. They have been down on the mat all season.

4. With a five-run lead in the ninth, Boone stuck with Domingo German who had used as a reliever in the game. German allowed two baserunners to begin the ninth and with runners on second and third and no outs, Boone turned to Chad Green. Why not Aroldis Chapman, the highest-paid closer in the history of baseball?

“I want to pick those situations where Chapman gets a clean outing under his belt,” Boone said about his closer who has allowed 14 earned runs in his last 6 2/3 innings. “Once it became a save situation I wanted to go with Greeny.”

A five-run, ninth-inning lead is about as perfect of a soft landing spot for a pitcher who hasn’t been able to get anyone out for the last month like Chapman, no matter the opponent. If Chapman can’t get three outs before giving up five runs having only pitched twice in the last 12 days, then there’s no place for him on the Yankees, owed money or not. Instead of going to Chapman, Boone went with Green, and didn’t go to him until the score represented a “save situation.” Yes, the Yankees manager made his final bullpen decision on Sunday based on a meaningless stat.

Sunday was July 11. Over the previous week, Green had pitched in four games, including both games of the July 4 doubleheader.

Sunday, (Game 1): 2 pitches
Sunday (Game 2): 35 pitches
Wednesday: 18 pitches
Friday: 26 pitches

Green had pitched multiple innings in two of his four appearances, going three innings in the second game on Sunday and two innings on Friday. He was asked to do so because Chapman can no longer throw strikes or get outs, Zack Britton is hurt, Darren O’Day is hurt, Jonathan Loaisiga wasn’t available due to protocol, Justin Wilson is awful, Luis Cessa is … well, Luis Cessa and Adam Ottavino is being paid by the Yankees to pitch for the Red Sox. Boone had used Green for multiple-inning outings 14 times already in 2021, including six times in April and four times in the first nine games of the season. Boone didn’t “bring along” Green as the season went on because the Yankees have been trying to save their season since Opening Day and the overuse finally caught up with Green. Take the unavailability of anyone else to get outs against the Astros and add Boone’s inability to manage the situation and understand the workload he has given Green and you get a recipe for disaster. The type of disaster that took place in Houston on Sunday.

5. After the Yankees lost to the Astros in the 2019 ALCS, Britton said the bullpen was overworked, and they were. Out of the 55 innings in that series Yankees pitchers pitched, the bullpen pitched 31 1/3 of them. Britton, Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle pitched in five of the six games and Green pitched in four. Green was used in relief in three of the first five games of the series and then as an opener in the sixth game, in which he gave up a three-run home run to Yuli Gurriel in the first inning.

In three of the last four games Green has pitched against the Astros, he has allowed a crushing three-run home run. The one to Gurriel in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS, the one to Altuve on May 6 of this season to give the Astros their only win of that series and the one to Altuve this past Sunday to give the Astros their only win of that series. The difference between the Yankees being 6-0 and 4-2 against the Astros this season is two Jose Altuve three-run home runs.

Green allowed back-to-back doubles and a single and then finally recorded the first out of the inning on a lineout. The 6-7-8-9 hitters were squaring him up and Boone never thought of not letting him face Altuve, who had already hit a three-run home run off him two months prior.

“He was obviously a little bit off with command, leaving some stuff up early,” Boone said. “I thought he rallied there and found it a little bit.”

Rallied? Found it? What exactly did he find other than Altuve running the bases following yet another walk-off home run against the Boone Yankees with the team ripping his jersey off and laughing in the face of the Yankees, who they absolutely own both on the field and in trash talk.

6. “I’ve said it a handful of times how much some of them have stung, and obviously, as well as we played this week to not finish it off right there is difficult,” Boone said. “But we’ve gotta rally from the adversity of it.”

Someone should really let Boone know what “adversity” means because he uses it incorrectly nearly every day. “Adversity” means “misfortune.” The 2021 Yankees haven’t been misfortunate. The players and pitchers have underachieved, they have been poorly managed and poorly constructed by the front office. The 2021 Yankees have faced zero adversity. They have just been a team with expectations that hasn’t met those expectations. Big difference.

“We’ve got a lot at stake starting on Thursday,” Boone said. “And it’s in our hands.”

The Yankees had a lot at stake beginning on Thursday, April 1, not Thursday, July 15, but they failed to recognize that because there’s always tomorrow with their manager. No loss seems to affect his mood or create any sense of urgency with the team and that’s how to get two first-round exits, an ALCS loss in which the team lost four of the final five games of the series and this horrific season under his watch.

7. Starting on Thursday, the Yankees have 73 games left, and they need to win 50 of them. I wish I were joking. The 46-43 Yankees need to now go 50-23.

There is still a path to the postseason for the Yankees, even if it’s currently covered in leaves, debris and litter with several seemingly immovable boulders blocking their way. For as improbable of a path it is, there’s still a path. There won’t be for much longer.

I have done a rough outline of how the Yankees can win 50 games and get to 96 wins on the season over the next two-and-a-half months:

Red Sox: 10-4
Phillies: 1-1
Rays: 4-2
Marlins: 2-1
Orioles: 7-2
Mariners: 3-1
Royals: 2-1
White Sox: 2-1
Angels: 3-1
Twins: 3-1
Braves: 1-1
A’s: 2-2
Blue Jays: 4-3
Mets: 2-1
Indians: 2-1
Rangers: 2-1

Doable? Unlikely. Impossible? No.

8. Right now, the Yankees have a 9.3 percent chance to win the division and a 41.1 percent chance to make the playoffs. The division odds seem right, the odds of making the playoffs seem high, considering they need to pass the Blue Jays and Mariners just to be the first team outside the postseason picture.

Here are the teams ahead of the Yankees and what their records would be if they play .500 baseball the rest of the season (or one-game-over-.500 if they have an odd amount of games remaining).

Red Sox: 91-71
Rays: 89-73
A’s: 87-75

For the Yankees to win 91 games, they would need to go 45-28 (.616).
For the Yankees to win 89 games, they would need to go 43-30 (.589).
For the Yankees to win 87 games, they would need to go 41-32 (.562).

In all three of those scenarios, the Yankees would have to play better than they have this season (.517), while the Red Sox would simply have to go 36-35, the Rays 36-36 and the A’s 35-35. I think the Red Sox are the most likely of those three teams to have a bad second “half” and play .500 baseball, but it’s unlikely any of the three will drop that low.

9. Each loss is extremely detrimental to the fragile math the Yankees are working with now and a loss occurring when the Yankees need to get three outs before allowing five runs is crushing. You can tell yourself the Yankees still won the series in Houston, taking two of three, which is no easy task, but Sunday’s loss essentially erased Friday’s and Saturday’s wins, and turned what would have been a great 5-1 road trip and three straight wins into the break into a 4-2 trip with the latest worst loss of the season hanging over the Yankees’ break with eight of their next 10 games against the Red Sox.

Winning three-game series and taking two of four in four-game series is no longer good enough. Fifty wins in 73 games is a .685 winning percentage. That’s more than winning each three-game series and taking two of four in the four-game series the rest of the way. The Yankees need to finish teams off in the final games of series the way they weren’t able to in Houston or in Seattle and the way they haven’t been able to do in nine of the 12 series they have had a chance to sweep this season.

10. The Yankees need to rebound from their 0-6 start against the Red Sox in the final 13 games with them. They need to beat the Phillies in New York the way the Phillies beat them in Philadelphia. They need to find a way to win four out of six from the Rays and at least four out of seven from the Blue Jays. They need to beat up on the truly bad opponents they have left in the Orioles, Marlins, Twins and Rangers. They need to find a way to win games in Oakland (something they haven’t been capable of for a long time) beat the Mets at Citi Field in games Jacob deGrom isn’t starting, beat the now-Ronald Acuna-less Braves and the average Mariners and Angels.

I’m not sure if this team, this roster and this manager can do all that, but if these Yankees want to erase the embarrassing first three-and-a-half months of this season and reach the postseason, they don’t have a choice. It’s their only path now.

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Blogs • MLB • Yankees

Jul 13, 2021

2021 MLB All-Animosity Team

The All-Star break means the announcement of this season’s All-Animosity Team.

The All-Star break is here, which means the season is “half” over. For the Yankees, it’s actually 55 percent over with 73 games left, and they likely need to win 50 of those 73 games to have a chance at the division and might need to win that many just to play in the one-game, wild card game. Don’t tell Aaron Boone that though. He thinks the season is endless without a finite number of games to be played. At least that’s the way he talks after each loss, and there have been a lot of them.

Another All-Star break means another All-Animosity Team. I’ll always remember the teams which featured David Wright, Josh Beckett, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Adrian Gonzalez, Chone Figgins, Kevin Youkilis, Robert Andino, Carl Crawford, Manny Ramirez, Matt Wieters, Delmon Young, B.J. Upton (when he went by B.J.), Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Jose Bautista, Magglio Ordonez and many others. But I also like having a new generation of players to have animosity for.

The standards to be considered for the team are simple and only one of the following three requirements needs to be met:

1. The player crushes the Yankees.

2. The player plays for the Red Sox or Mets.

3. I don’t like the person. (When I say, “I don’t like the person” or if I say, “I hate someone” I mean I don’t like the person who wears a uniform and plays or manages for a Major League Baseball team and not the actual person away from the game. I’m sure some of the people on this list are nice people. I’m glad we got that out of the way since I can already see Player X’s fan base in an uproar about me hating someone who does so much for the community.)

Here is the 2021 All-Animosity Team.

C: Danny Jansen
If you’re wondering who Danny Jansen is, you’re not alone. Jansen is the Blue Jays’ catcher with the career .201 batting average, .290 on-base percentage and .358 slugging percentage. He’s as light of a hitter as you can be in the majors and still be in the majors. So why is that no Yankees pitcher can get him out?

In 228 career games, Jansen is a .201/.290/.358 hitter with 26 home runs and 80 RBIs. In 25 games against the Yankees, he’s a .316/.416/.605 hitter with six home runs and 15 RBIs. On a team with Vladimir Gurrero Jr., Bo Bichette, George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez, Cavan Biggio and Rowdy Tellez, I would rather have any of those players up in a big spot against the Yankees than Jansen.

1B: Pete Alonso
I will never get over Pete Alonso breaking Aaron Judge’s rookie home run record in a season in which the actual baseball was manufactured so differently that Brett Gardner hit 28 home runs. Alonso never should have hit 53 home runs and never should have broken Judge’s record of 52.

To be honest, I like Alonso. I like his personality, I like how he loves competing in the Home Run Derby, and I like how he won the 2021 Home Run Derby when I had him at +600 to win. I just don’t like that he plays for the Mets.

2B: Jose Altuve
Jose Altuve used to be my favorite non-Yankees player. That was before October 2019 and the uncovering of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.

After hitting .320/.414/.560 with two home runs, four walks and a stolen base in the Astros’ 2017 ALCS win over the Yankees, Altuve hit .348/.444/1.097 with a double, two home runs, four walks and a stolen base in the Astros’ 2019 ALCS win over the Yankees. He’s also responsible for ending the Yankees’ season with a walk-off, pennant-winning home run in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS.

I used to enjoy watching Altuve play (when not playing the Yankees) and admired his ability for his stature. Now I watch him hoping he will fail, though he rarely does, and certainly doesn’t against the Yankees, as his two three-run home runs this season of Chad Green are responsible for the Yankees’ only two losses to the Astros.

3B: Rafael Devers
The moment Rafael Devers hit that two-strike, opposite-field home run off Aroldis Chapman in 2017, I knew I had a problem. I also knew the All-Animosity Team had a third baseman for the next decade.

After his impressive 58-game rookie season in 2017, Devers looked lost last in 2018, batting .240/.298/.433 in 121 games and I got ahead of myself thinking the 21-year-old might be a bust. In 2019, he hit .311/.361/.555 with a league-leading 54 doubles to go along with 32 home runs 115 RBIs. He already has 10 career home runs against the Yankees in only 58 games, and has driven in nine runs against them in six games this season.

Devers is going to be on this team for a long, long time. That is, until he’s set to free agency and the Red Sox cry poor and trade him like they did Mookie Betts. I can only dream that will happen.

SS: Carlos Correa
While Altuve and Alex Bregman were hiding behind their prepared statements and vague responses to questions about the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal following the 2019 season, Correa was busy talking to anyone who would listen. The only problem was a lot of what he said was outrageous.

Add in his ridiculous .939 career OPS against the Yankees in the regular season, his .913 OPS against them in the 2017 ALCS and his two home runs in the 2019 ALCS, including his walk-off in Game 2, and Correa is an easy fit to pencil in at short on this team.

LF: Trey Mancini
After being left off the 2020 roster, so he could beat cancer rather than play baseball, it’s good to have Mancini back on this team because it means he’s healthy and it means he’s playing baseball again.

Since the Manny Machado trade and until the emergence of Cedric Mullins, Mancini was the only actual major leaguer playing for the Orioles. Despite this, the Yankees would still allow Mancini to beat them. He’s the last person I want up in a big spot when the Yankees play the Orioles as he always seems to find a gap at the most inopportune times.

CF: Kevin Kiermaier
Kiermaier is a career .247/.306/.408 hitter, but against the Yankees it seems like he’s Ken Griffey Jr. Thirteen of his 73 career home runs (18 percent) have come against the Yankees, and in 2020, Kiermaier drew game-changing walks, hit big home runs against Masahiro Tanaka and Gerrit Cole and continued to play Gold Glove defense to help the Rays easily win the division.

Normally, I want Yankees pitching to face as many hitters with Kiermaier’s numbers as possible, but not Kiermaier. I’m looking forward to his contract with the Rays ending in 2022, and hopefully the team option for 2023 isn’t picked up.

RF: Randal Grichuk
How, for a second straight year, did Randal Grichuk end up on this team full of All-Stars, award-winning players and ex-Yankees? Well, in 2018, he hit five home runs in 16 games against the Yankees. In 2019, he had two doubles, eight home runs, 15 RBIs and a .938 OPS in 19 games against the Yankees. This season, he’s added another two home runs and four total extra-base hits, including his 10th inning double on Opening Day to give the Blue Jays the lead in a game they would win to launch arguably the worst Yankees’ season in nearly 30 years.

Grichuk is barely a major leaguer when he plays against the 28 other teams not named the Yankees, but a Hall of Famer against the Yankees. He essentially hits against the Yankees the way Ortiz, Evan Longoria, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Manny Machado used to.

DH: Alex Bregman
The first thing I used to think about when thinking about Bregman was how hard it is to retire him at the plate. Now when I think of him, I think of him standing there at the Astros’ fan fest after the 2019 season and giving the same rehearsed answer over and over about the team’s sign-stealing scandal with that smirk on his face and the sarcastic laugh he kept giving the media. The easiest of players to root against.

SP: Nathan Eovaldi
Never trust a pitcher who throws triple-digit fastballs and can’t strike anyone out and that’s exactly what Eovaldi is. The Dodgers gave up on him and then the Marlins gave up on him as a 24-year-old with incredible velocity because he didn’t have an out pitch and didn’t know where the ball was going. So the Yankees gave up Martin Prado and David Phelps because of the glamour of Eovaldi’s fastball, thinking they would be the ones who could fix him. They weren’t.

Eovaldi pitched to a 14-3 record in 2015, so every idiot who relies on wins and losses to determine a pitcher’s success thought he had a great season. It didn’t matter that he received 5.75 runs of support per game or that he routinely struggled to get through five innings and qualify for a win because he needs 20-plus pitches to get through each inning. In 2016, it was more of the same. Eovaldi pitched to a 4.76 ERA over 21 starts and 24 games before being shut down for another Tommy John surgery, ending his time with the Yankees as they let him leave at the end of the season.

When Eovaldi returned to baseball in 2018 and pitched well with the Rays, many Yankees fans started to think about a reunion, having not learned their lesson from the last time Eovaldi was a Yankee. When he was traded to the Red Sox, I laughed with excitement, envisioning him destroying the Red Sox’ chances at winning the division. Instead, he shut out the Yankees in the all-important August series (even if faced a JV lineup) and then shut them out against in September. I never thought he would be able to beat the Yankees in October in the Bronx, but he did, after getting more run support than any other pitcher against the Yankees in the team’s history.

Eovaldi beat the Yankees and the Astros in the playoffs, mixed in a few relief appearances and then became a hero for his bullpen work in Game 3 of the World Series, even though he took the loss after giving up a walk-off home run. (Only in Boston could a losing pitcher become a “hero.”) Now Eovaldi is a World Series champion, continues to beat the Yankees’ poorly-designed, all-right-handed lineup and I’ll never get over it.

RP: Adam Ottavino
I actually like Ottavino. I don’t like what him being on the Red Sox symbolizes, and him being on the Red Sox symbolizes the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees, who are so petrified of the luxury tax they would rather pay players to play for their rival than exceed the luxury.

I have enjoyed watching Ottavino embarrass the Yankees all-right-handed lineup this season, while being paid by the Yankees to do so. Rather than keep Ottavino in the last year of this three-year contract, re-sign the reliable Tanaka and sign Darren O’Day, Justin Wilson, Brett Gardner and Corey Kluber, the Yankees chose only to sign the latter players. In return, they have received 10 2/3 innings from O’Day, 14 2/3 innings from Wilson, a .614 OPS from Gardner and 10 starts from Kluber.

Manager: Aaron Boone
No Yankees player is allowed to be on the All-Animosity Team, even though there have been a lot of players over the years who have been deserving of a roster spot. A manager on the other hand …

Boone doesn’t play for the Yankees, and since I have often said Boone is the Yankees’ most difficult obstacle to winning the World Series, moreso than any other team, why shouldn’t he be on the team?

It’s hard to envision the Yankees ever winning a championship with Boone as manager. He has managed the team to one division title in three seasons, two first-round exits and an ALCS loss, in which the Yankees won one of the last five games of that ALCS. He has the Yankees buried in the division standings this season and needing to pass two teams in the wild card standings just to be the first team outside the postseason picture.

With each mounting loss, Boone talks about needing to overcome adversity, even though the word “adversity” means “misfortune” and the Yankees haven’t experienced any misfortune. They have been healthier than they have been in four years, are greatly underachieving and being managed like a dive bar that needs to be shut down, rebuilt and rebranded by Jon Taffer. The Yankees haven’t experienced any adversity.

Either the Yankees go 50-23 and reach the postseason or Boone is no longer the manager of the Yankees and I’ll need a new manager for the 2022 All-Animosity Team. Either way, the result is a good one. (Unless the Yankees don’t reach the postseason and the team keeps him as manager, in which case I will no longer watch baseball.)

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

Jul 2, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Another New Low Point in Nearly Lost Season

The Yankees suck. I have used that phrase (with credit to the Red Sox fans chanting it over the years) at times during this soon-to-be lost season in jest, but it’s true. They do suck.

The Yankees suck. I have used that phrase (with credit to the Red Sox fans chanting it over the years) at times during this soon-to-be lost season in jest, but it’s true. They do suck.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I keep thinking we have reached the lowest point in the 2021 Yankees season, and the Yankees keep going even lower. I thought getting swept by the Red Sox to fall to 0-6 on the season against them and six games back in the loss column to them, while only scoring seven runs in 27 innings at the most right-handed-hitter-friendly park in the league despite facing two left-handed starters would be the lowest point. I was wrong. The Yankees followed up their atrocious weekend in Boston by losing to the Angels on the day Aaron Boone declared “the season is on the line,” and two nights later, they lost to the Angels again despite scoring seven runs in the first inning and having a four-run lead in the ninth. We have yet another new low.

After the Red Sox series, the Yankees had 13 games remaining before the All-Star break. I thought they had to win at least eight of those, which would mean going 8-5 at worst. They are 1-2. With Thursday’s rainout, they now have 12 games in total from the end of the Red Sox series until the All-Star break, and they have to win seven of the nine remaining. I feel like I have a better chance at winning the Powerball this weekend, and I don’t even have a ticket for the drawing.

2. The Yankees have lost fix of six, have the second-worst offense in the AL, a negative run differential, a worse record than the historocally-bad Mariners, three more losses than the $54 million Indians and after Friday’s game (if it takes place with the forecast), the season will be half over. Things aren’t just bad, they’re miserable. It’s painful to watch this team play each night knowing they will either not score any runs or allow too many runs, and even if things are going well, their manager will find a way to ruin the game. They invent new ways to lose each game to the point it’s actually unbelievable. Like The OC after Marissa Cooper’s departure or The Office after Michael Scott left, it’s unwatchable, but yet people keep watching.

3. Monday’s game wouldn’t have been a Michael King start without him allowing some first-inning runs (he gave up two) and without him giving the team length (he went 4 1/3 innings and allowed eight baserunners). After the game, he was asked why he struggles in the first inning. “I like to set guys up for their second and third at-bats.” It was arguably the worst answer I have ever heard at a postgame press conference, and I don’t miss Boone postgame press conferences. King is apparently willing to sacrifice runs and putting his team in an early hole to get outs later in the game. What? How is that a real answer he gave? What makes it even more ridiculous is that the Yankees don’t allow King to face a lineup a third time.

I don’t know when the Yankees will stop letting King start games, but it doesn’t appear to be anytime soon. Deivi Garcia isn’t doing well at Triple-A, but he’s only at Triple-A, so the Yankees can roster King and/or Scumbag Domingo German. Garcia not performing well at Triple-A simply doesn’t matter to me. What he did last year for the Yankees is what matters. He should have never been in Triple-A in the first place this season.

4. King isn’t good, and neither is Jameson Taillon. The Yankees scored a season-high 11 runs on Tuesday (10 of them while Taillon was pitching), and he still couldn’t get through six innings. Taillon lasted 5 1/3 innings, allowed five earned runs, put 10 runners on and gave up another three home runs. An embarrassing performance in what has been a season full of them for a pitcher Brian Cashman was called a genius for trading for. Taillon has now given up 14 home runs in 69 2/3, which is a 40-home run pace over 200 innings. In a rotation that features, King and Scumbag German, Taillon has been the worst. Congratulations!

5. King isn’t good, neither is Taillon, and neither is Scumbag German. As expected, German put the Yankees behind 2-0 before they could even bat on Wednesday, and even though he was given SEVEN runs of support in the bottom of the first inning, that didn’t stop him from allowing a third run in the second inning, as he finished the game with three innings pitched, while allowing three earned runs and seven baserunners.

So the Yankees’ rotation is King (sucks), Taillon (sucks), Scumbag German (sucks), Jordan “Crooked Number” Montgomery and then Gerrit Cole, who just had the worst start of his Yankees tenure in the biggest regular-season game of his Yankees tenure, and has looked more like the other four than his former self since the crackdown on foreign substances. Why do I spend three-plus hours of each day watching this team again? That’s not rhetorical. I’m really asking. I need help. All Yankees fans still watching do.

6. It’s not all on the pitching. Yes, the offense has been great the last two games, scoring 19 runs, including their second double-digit output of the season, but where were they when the pitching was actually good in May? That’s when they were putting up two and three runs per game like they did last weekend in Boston.

The entire team is a problem. The starting pitching is awful, the offense is mostly non-existent, the manager looks like someone hired to do a job they were unqualified to do, the coaching is comical, the defense is poor and the baserunning is worse than all of those other things combined. Put it all together and you get a team that’s 41-39, just two games over .500 through 80 games with the season about to be half over.

7. On the day (Monday), Boone said, “The season is on the line,” his team scored three runs and lost. Two nights later after stopping the four-game losing streak, the season must have no longer been “on the line” as he chose to sit Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela. Boone claimed the day off for Judge was one “he really needed.” The night before Judge hit a ball off the batter’s eye bar in center field. He looked real fatigued.

Following Wednesday’s unimaginable loss, Boone was asked what he has to say to Yankees fans. “I feel bad for them,” Boone said. “They deserve better than this.” Then resign. If you truly feel Yankees fans deserve better than the team’s performance, and you are the one leading and guiding the team, then resign and step away from the job. Boone would never do that because he wouldn’t give up the seven-figure salary. No one would. But in reality, Boone doesn’t think this season (or any of the last three) are any bit his fault. He thinks he has made every right decision and pushed every right button, and his players have failed him. Unfortunately, Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner agree.

8. The Yankees went into yet another season with Brett Gardner as their fourth outfielder despite rostering Judge (one full season in his career), Hicks (no full seasons in his career), Stanton (can’t play the outfield and hasn’t played a full season in three years), Clint Frazier (unproven with history of injuries) and Mike Tauchman (can’t hit major league pitching). They had to know Gardner would become an everyday player at some point, and were OK with it, and he has been an everyday player now pretty much all season. Just like he was in 2019 and 2020.

Here were Alex Rodriguez’s 2016 numbers at the time of his forced midseason retirement by the Yankees:

65 games
9 HR
31 RBIs
.200/.247/.351
.598 OPS

Here were Gardner’s numbers in 65 games (through Tuesday):

65 games
3 HR
8 RBIs
.195/.301/299
.599 OPS

How was A-Rod forced into a midseason retirement (with a year to go on his contract), but Gardner is playing EVERY DAY for the Yankees?

If Gardner sits this weekend, it won’t be because the Yankees have a better option. The Yankees acquired outfielder Tim Locastro on Thursday. In 200 games and 480 career plate appearances, he has hit .234/.339/.324. That right-handed bat wih a .663 OPS will fit in nicely on this Yankees team as they have yet another outfielder who can’t hit because Gardner, Hicks, Miguel Andujar, Frazier and Ryan LaMarre weren’t enough. I fully expect to see Locastro playing this weekend against the Mets and won’t be surprised to see him bat ahead of other established major leaguers. Maybe Boone will even have him bat third since he has let everyone else have a turn in that spot this season.

9. It’s a miracle the Mets were able to get their game in on Thursday, a game started by Jacob deGrom, which takes him out of the equation this weekend. This lineup against deGrom would have been as automatic and as much of a guaranteed loss as there can in this sport. While most Yankees fans have given up on the season, I still think there is time (though not much) to turn it around. I’m like Rudy’s fellow scout team member who tells him, “I’m under the delusion that I might get a chance to run out that tunnel.” The delusional part of me is ecstatic the Yankees are missing deGrom. The part of me telling me to do something else with my weeknights and weekday afternoons for the next three months is sad they are going to get further embarrassed this season by potentially being no-hit by deGrom.

10. The Yankees are in real danger of not having a season. I have long said they are in trouble, going back to early April, but they are well past trouble, and now sitting on the brink of disaster. After this weekend, the Yankees have Monday off and then go the Seattle for three and finish the first “half” of the season in Houston with three games.

After the All-Star break, the Yankees play four against Boston, two against Philadelphia, four against Boston and three against Tampa Bay. The latest we will know if there’s any point in watching the last two months of this season will be on Thursday, July 29. At worst, all Yankees fans will have one month of their summer not wasted by this team.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 29, 2021

How Is Aaron Boone Still Managing Yankees?

Unless the Yankees miraculously turn their season around I don’t see how Boone is given a fifth season as Yankees manager. He should have never been given one.

It’s time for Aaron Boone to go. It was time for him to go after he managed the Yankees out of the 2018 ALDS. But nearly three years later, following two more early postseason exits and currently slogging through the worst Yankees season with expectations in nearly 30 years, it’s time for a managerial change.

I realize it’s un-Yankee-like to replace a manager during the season. I also recognize that Hal Steinbrenner (who cries poor at any chance he gets despite his $4 billion net worth) would rather lose Yankees fans than lose money paying two managers during a single season, considering his team rosters Rougned Odor because he costs $0 and is paying Adam Ottavino to pitch for the Red Sox to avoid paying a luxury tax. This can’t go on though. Boone has to go.

The Yankees have lost four straight games for the third time this season, have a 40-38, are 7 1/2 games back in the division and six game back for the second wild card. The preseason AL favorite, the Yankees own the second-worst offense in the league. Their postseason odds are falling with each loss, and the manager and his team have shown no signs of urgency to turn the season around.

Before the latest loss on Monday, Boone said, “Our season is on the line.” His team responded to his public challenge with a six-hit effort, losing 5-3 to an under-.500, Mike Trout-less Angels team. The same Angels team that had just love five straight to the Tigers, Giants and Rays last week and who had lost eight of 12 entering this series. Boone’s message to his team and his motivation to get them to turn their season around worked about as well as Nick Nelson as an opener, and the Yankees fell behind another game in the standings.

Boone’s analysis of the Yankees’ latest loss was the same as it was for their other 37 losses: full of bullshit. A day after saying his team was “prepared” and “ready to go all weekend” when they got swept and scored seven runs in 27 innings at the most right-handed-hitter-friendly park in all of baseball, Boone said he had no issues with his team’s “focus, compete and intent” against the Angels. If a six-hit, three-run effort against the Angels is an acceptable level of “compete” then what are we even doing here? Why would any Yankees fan continue to watch this team? If you have watched every pitch of the 2021 Yankees season, you have already wasted 10 days, seven hours and seven minutes of your life. Why continue?

What is the Yankees’ fear in firing Boone? He’s not some unrivaled baseball genius who’s about to figure out even the simplest in-game strategies and guide the team to multiple championships as part of the franchise’s next dynasty. He had a chance to do that when he took over a team that had come within one win of the World Series the year before he became manager and all they have done is go backward during his tenure. There’s no harm in firing Boone. There’s only upside.

Boone does nothing well. He can’t successfully fill out a lineup card. He can’t properly manage his bullpen. The team doesn’t field well and their baserunning under him is the joke of the league. The communication skills Brian Cashman praised Boone for having at the time of his hire led Luis Severino to not know the start time of Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS, led to Gary Sanchez being left in the dark on his 2020 postseason benching and caused a clubhouse rift to begin 2021 when he thought Scumbag Domingo German didn’t need to address the team for his off-the-field actions which led to a suspension for 2019 and 2020. Boone doesn’t handle the media well, stumbling through every postgame answer with nonsensical responses or blatant lies about his players’ performance or the state of the team.

I understand Boone isn’t in the batter’s box or on the pitchers’ mound, but it’s his job to put his players in the best possible position to succeed, and he rarely ever does. If the manager has nothing to do with a team’s success then why would any manager ever get fired? If Boone isn’t going to lose his job for this season then the Yankees might as well give him a lifetime contract.

The Yankees moved on from Joe Girardi because of his supposed intensity and the Yankees’ fear it was rubbing off on their players. Girardi’s personality exuded Game 7 in every game no matter the importance, and for some reason the Yankees didn’t want their players developing that trait. So they hired the inexperienced Boone for his friend-first, manager-second, relaxed Southern California personality, and the team has instead adopted his personality. No loss matters, there’s always tomorrow and things will turn around.

After last year’s postseason debacle in which Boone singlehandedly flipped the ALDS in the Rays’ favor with his Game 2 pitching strategy, Cashman said he could see Boone managing the Yankees for 10 years like Joe Torre and Joe Giradi had done. Unless the Yankees miraculously turn their season around I don’t see how Boone is given a fifth season as Yankees manager. He should have never been given one.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

Jun 27, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: New Low Point in This Sad Season

Well, that sucked. The Yankees had a chance to have a big weekend in Boston and it couldn’t have gone worse. The Yankees were swept by the Red Sox for the second time this season

Well, that sucked. The Yankees had a chance to have a big weekend in Boston and it couldn’t have gone worse. The Yankees were swept by the Red Sox for the second time this season and are now 0-6 against their rival.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. If you thought the Yankees getting swept by the Rays at Yankee Stadium in mid-April to fall to 5-10 was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting shut down by Matt Harvey at the end of April was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting shut down by Jordan Lyles in mid-May was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting swept by the Tigers at the end of May was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought losing 10 of 13 at the end of May and beginning of June was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought allowing a complete-game shutout to Ryan Yarbrough (he has pitched to a 1.56 ERA and 0.692 WHIP in three games against the Yankees and a 5.43 ERA and 1.333 WHIP against every other team) was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting swept by the Red Sox at the beginning of June was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you think going to Boston with a chance to erase the loss-column deficit in the AL East and instead get swept to increase that deficit to six games, well it is. This weekend was the lowest point of the 2021 season.

2. It’s hard to take the Yankees seriously as anything more than an average team. The preseason AL favorite, they are now 6 1/2 games back in the division and five games out of the second-wild card berth.

It’s hard to take them seriously because they can’t hit with consistency, can’t pitch with consistency, can’t field with consistency, can’t run the bases with consistency and can’t manage with consistency. Most importantly, they can’t win with consistency, now just three games over. 500.

“Inconsistency has kind of defined us so far,” Aaron Boone said after Sunday’s embarrassing 9-2 loss.

“Kind of?” “Kind of?!” “KIND OF?!” Boone likes to sugarcoat everything that comes out of his mouth, but adding a “kind of” in that sentence might be the most ridiculous bullshit he has ever said as Yankees manager. There’s no kind of. The Yankees are inconsistent. It’s why they’re in fourth place in the division after 77 games and 48 percent of the season.

“We have the people in that room to get this done,” Boone said after getting swept by the Red Sox for the second time this season. “We can’t wait and look around for a magic move to make us better.”

What exactly is “this” anyway? Simply making the postseason? Winning a wild-card berth? Hosting the wild-card game? “This” should mean winning the World Series, considering Boone took over a team that came within one game of the World Series and the team has gone backward under his leadership though I think by “this” he meant making the postseason, and simply making the postseason shouldn’t be acceptable. But when you have a loser manager who has done nothing in his career but lose, is OK with losing and has made his players believe it’s OK to lose, then doing the bare minimum becomes acceptable.

A lot of Yankees fans forgot about the movement to replace Boone as manager over the three series prior to this one because the Yankees had gone 7-2. I didn’t forget. Because even when they were beating the Blue Jays, A’s and Royals, Boone was doing everything he could to not put his players in the best possible position to succeed, and was doing everything he could to manage his team to losses.

What “magic move” could the Yankees make to make the team better other than to get a whole new team? All offseason I wrote and talked about how poorly constructed the 2021 roster was and my worst fears have come true and then some. I thought the Yankees would have issues fending off the Rays and Blue Jays in the division and at best would lose in the first round of the playoffs. Making the first round of the playoffs is now a pipe dream. The first time I said I would sign up for the Yankees settling for the second wild-card spot was back on April 14. Two-and-a-half months later and they need to jump the Blue Jays, Mariners, Indians and A’s for a postseason spot.

3. If your name isn’t DJ LeMahieu (7-for-19) or Gary Sanchez (.400 OBP), you didn’t do much this weekend. That includes Aaron Judge who went 3-for-12 with a home run, two RBIs and a walk. Judge continues to be a huge disappointment with runners on base (.961 OPS with the bases empty and .781 OPS with runners on) and in late-and-close situations (.765 OPS). It’s gotten to the point where it might be best to bat Judge leadoff, so he has at least one at-bat per game with no one on to increase his chances at hitting a home run (12 solo home runs and five multi-run home runs). Judge did hit a two-run home run in Sunday’s game when the Yankees trailed by six runs. But when he came up with the bases loaded representing the tying run in the seventh inning, he popped out to first base. The night before he had a chance to tie the game or give the Yankees the lead the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth, but he struck out against Adam Ottavino.

4. The Yankees are paying Ottavino to pitch for the Red Sox. Rather than retain Ottavino and sign Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson, the Yankees chose to trade Ottavino to the Red Sox of all teams to shed payroll to stay under the luxury-tax threshold. Staying under the threshold was more important to the Steinbrenners than winning, and because of it, the Yankees gifted the Red Sox a right-handed reliever who possesses the Yankees’ kryptonite: high-velocity fastballs and impossible breaking balls. Knowing they could face Ottavino up to 19 times in the regular season and that their expected everyday lineup would feature at least eight right-handed hitters, the Yankees still willingly made the move to save money to avoid exceeding the imaginary salary cap. Ottavino has pitched in four of the six games between the Yankees and Red Sox this season, and the Red Sox have won all four. Of course they have since they have won all six games in the series.

5. To make matters worse, Red Sox’ right-handed reliever Garrett Whitlock continues to get important outs against the Yankees. Whitlock was a Yankee, but they let him go in the Rule 5 draft and the Red Sox selected him. The Yankees thought it was more important to keep Nick Nelson and Brooks Kriske on the 40-man roster than Whitlock. In eight games this season, Nelson has pitched to a 9.75 ERA and has put 23 baserunners on in 12 innings. Kriske pitched to a 14.73 ERA last season and has an 11.25 ERA this season. Kriske’s career line: 7.2 IP, 9 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 9 BB, 11 K, 3 HR, 12.91 ERA, 2.348 WHIP.

Here is what Ottavino has done against the Yankees: 4.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 2.08 ERA, 0.924 WHIP

Here is what Whitlock has done against the Yankees: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.750 WHIP

6. Even with the left-handed Eduardo Rodriguez and his 6.07 ERA pitching for the Red Sox, the Yankees weren’t going to overcome a first-inning, four-run deficit. And they didn’t as Rodriguez turned in arguably his best start of the season (6 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, 1 HR).

“I do think we were prepared,” Boone said. “I felt like we were ready to go all weekend.”

The Yankees “were prepared” and yet they trailed 4-0 after an inning, couldn’t hit a bad left-handed starter and lost 9-2? Boone “felt the Yankees were ready to go all weekend” and they went 0-3 and scored seven runs in 27 innings at the most right-handed-hitter-friendly park in all of baseball?

Clearly, Boone can’t read his own clubhouse, and clearly, whatever message he is delivering to his team isn’t getting through. A change is long overdue. I don’t expect the Yankees to make one midseason since the Yankees under Hal Steinbrenner have become perfectly content with mediocrity. The only way the Yankees move on from Boone is after the season. So either the Yankees have a miraculous turnaround over the remaining 85 games or they continue to slog through a season that had great expectations and Boone gets fired. It’s a win-win position.

7. I despise Nathan Eovaldi. (Spoiler alert: he will be the starting pitcher on my 2021 All-Animosity Team.) He couldn’t have been a worse Yankee, pitching to a 4.45 ERA and 1.387 WHIP before eventually needing Tommy John surgery. Despite throwing 100 mph, he couldn’t strike anyone out, could never go more than five innings and every five days we had to hear the Yankees refer to him as “Nasty Nate.” Since joining the Red Sox, he has helped them win a championship and has thoroughly dominated the Yankees in a way I thought Gerrit Cole would dominate the Red Sox.

Cole had to win on Sunday. He had to. He had to go out, dominate and have one of his best starts as a Yankee. Instead, he might as well have been wearing uniform number 47, 50, 55 or 73 because there was no difference between Cole or any of the other awful Yankees starters. It was easily the worst start of Cole’s Yankees tenure and he should be embarrassed of his performance. I know all Yankees fans are.

8. “I think from the beginning his stuff wasn’t as sharp as I’m used to seeing,” Higashioka said. “As the game went on, he got a lot better.”

“His stuff wasn’t sharp?” Thanks for that insight, Higashioka! One pitch into Cole’s day and the Yankees were down 1-0 on an Enrique Hernandez home run, the same Enrique Hernandez who boasts a career .730 OPS. Eight pitches later and the Red Sox had second and third and no outs. Five pitches later, the Red Sox had a 4-0 lead after Rafael Devers hit a three-run home run and the game was over.

As for him getting “a lot better” as the game went on, who cares? The game was over after five batters. And it’s not like Cole shut down the Red Sox after the first as he allowed a home run and another two runs in the third. Cole finished the game with this line: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 3 HR. An embarrassment indeed.

9. There’s nothing left to say about the unnecessary pairing of Cole and Higashioka. If Higashioka is going to get a lot of the credit when Cole is dominant (even though Higashioka has nothing to do with Cole’s success) then Higashioka should get a lot of the blame when Cole is bad (even though Higashioka has nothing to do with Cole’s failures like Sunday).

Cole has gotten lit up in three of his last eight starts and one of them was against Tampa Bay and one against Boston, the two teams the Yankees are chasing for a postseason berth. Not good. In Cole’s last four starts, Boone used Sanchez as a pinch hitter for Higashioka, so even when he’s getting a “day off,” he’s not really getting the full day off.

10. Everything the Yankees did in the nine games prior to this weekend was erased. The Yankees went from putting themselves in a position to have the division lead by the end of June to now being buried in both the division and wild-card standings and they accomplished it in 45 hours.

Between now and the All-Star break, the Yankees have 13 games against the Angels (4), Mets (3), Mariners (3) and Astros (3). They either need to win every series or the equivalent of every series, and that means going 9-4. It’s lofty and might seem unreasonable and borderline impossible given the way the team has played this season, but because of the way they have played this season, they are going to have to start achieving unreasonable and borderline impossible goals.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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