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Feb 24, 2020

Rangers’ Trade Deadline Thoughts

The Rangers signed Chris Kreider to an extension, traded Brady Skjei and his contract, but also made it clear they are going for the playoffs this season.

The Rangers came dangerously close to doing nothing at the trade deadline when they were the team in the best position to cash in on this deadline. Thankfully, a last-second deal to move Brady Skjei and his contract saved the day.

It’s Monday, but I’m going to use the format from the weekly Rangers Thursday Thoughts to recap what just happened.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. I was ready to go off on the Rangers’ front office. I had spent the last few hours watching every team other than the Rangers make a move, and it felt like the Rangers would let the deadline pass without doing anything other than putting the team into a cap crunch this summer where they would have no leverage to move money. I furiously typed my criticism of the Rangers’ approach to the deadline, which was all for nothing because at the last second, the Rangers were able to unload Brady Skjei’s contract on Carolina and get a first-round pick in return. The Rangers were able to give the team they need to overtake in the standings to reach the postseason their most inconsistent defenseman for a first-round pick.

2. Here is how I was going to open these thoughts:

The trade deadline came and went and the Rangers did nothing. Nothing. They had the No. 1 asset on the trade market in Chris Kreider and extended him for a ridiculous and ill-advised seven years rather than move him. They kept impending unrestricted free agent Jesper Fast and impending restricted free agents Tony DeAngelo, Ryan Strome and Brendan Lemieux. They held on to all of their defense despite having an abundance of young, cheap, high-end prospect defensemen on the brink of being ready to be Rangers. They kept Brady Skeji’s contract and Jacob Trouba’s. On Thursday, I wrote that that only Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin were untouchables at the deadline (and Henrik Lundqvist because of his no-trade clause), but it turned out to be that the whole roster was untouchable.

The Rangers are now in a position where they are going to have to use the offseason as their trade deadline. Their cap situation isn’t a situation for the remainder of this season, but it will be this summer when the front office will be busy trying to unload contracts to fit Kreider’s contract and will have no leverage to do so. The Rangers had a chance to move DeAngelo and/or Strome with both having career years when their value might never be this high again, but instead they kept both. The only thinking behind the Rangers’ decision to not do anything before Monday’s deadline is that they are going to for it this season in terms of reaching the postseason. And when you’re four points back of the second wild card and the second wild card is looking like it might be the only path to the playoffs, that’s a very dangerous decision. That’s a decision the pre-letter Rangers would have made. I thought we were past that type of decision.

3. The trade to move Skjei and his contract and acquire a first-round pick is remarkable. I would have been happy with the Rangers moving him and his contract for nothing and somehow they got a first-round pick for him. I have no idea what Carolina is thinking. I know their defense is in shambles, but that’s the best deal they could make today? The Rangers could have done more though, and I feel like their lack of doing anything more like moving others players aside from the Untouchables means they now have to make the playoffs. This was supposed to be the third straight and final selloff with the rebuild ready to completely take off for 2020-21, and the Rangers chose not to sell off anything other than Skjei when they could have moved most of their roster. The only good that can come from moving a single player is the Rangers reaching the postseason this season. In a season that was never supposed to be about wins and losses, or points, and was supposed to be about experience and development, the front office has forced the issue with the team having to make the playoffs in as season that was never supposed to be about the playoffs.

4. While the Rangers have increased their playoff odds from a single-digit percentage to roughly a 25 percent chance with a 9-3 run since their 10-day layoff, they’re going to need to complete the miraculous comeback now. They’re going to need to continue to play .750 hockey for the next six weeks and somehow either win every remaining game against the Islanders (1) and Flyers (3) or have the Hurricanes and Panthers/Maple Leafs (whichever team doesn’t get the third Atlantic berth) fall apart enough to pass them. This Rangers run has been remarkable and the fact they are still very much in the playoff race on deadline day is very much an achievement for this team in this season, but the front office has made it so they can’t fall short now. With remaining games against the Islanders, Philadelphia (3), Pittsburgh (3), St. Louis (1), Washington (2), Dallas, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida, Arizona and Calgary, I have no idea how they’re going to continue to play the .750 hockey needed to reach the postseason. Even their remaining “easy” games against Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo and Chicago are anything but easy with those teams proving to be tough outs while pulling off enormous upset wins in recent weeks.

5. The Rangers have been able to lean on the historic play of Shesterkin the last few weeks, but they’re no longer going to be able to do that as John Davidson announced on Monday morning that Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich were involved in a car accident which left the Shesterkin with fractured ribs. Shesterkin is going to miss at least a few weeks and possibly the rest of the season and now the Rangers will need Lundqvist to turn back the clock and play the way he used to play every game, which is the way Shesterkin has been playing, and they’re going to need Alexandar Georgiev to do the same when he plays as well.

6. The Rangers’ rebuild currently has the perception that it’s ahead of schedule because of their play since the 10-day layoff. I want the 12 games since the layoff to be indicative of where the team is headed, but it’s a 12-game sample size. In those 12 games, they played two true contenders in Dallas and Boston and lost both games as a reminder as to how far the Rangers have to go before they can expect to play until June again. The rebuild is also perceived as ahead of schedule because the team is once again leaning heavily on its goaltending. It’s the formula they used to achieve success for the first 11 years of Lundqvist’s career before the roster was torn apart so much that no goaltender in the history could win behind it. If the rebuild goes the way the Rangers have planned for it to go, the team won’t have to lean on Shesterkin for the next decade, and the organization won’t waste Shesterkin’s prime putting a questionable surrounding cast in front of him the way they wasted Lundqvist’s.

7. As for Lundqvist, he said this on Monday about his current situation:

“With my situation, after the season you’ll obviously have things to talk about: your role and if you fit in this role, or something else. Right now, my focus is just to work hard and be ready.”

My desire remains for the Rangers to trade Georgiev in the offseason and have Lundqvist serve as the backup in 2020-21 and for as long as he wants behind Shesterkin. There are so many quality teams with serious goaltending issues (Colorado, Toronto and Carolina are the obvious ones) that the Rangers would be able to move Georgiev, who is also going to be a restricted free agent and will be making more than his current $792,500. Lundqvist deserves to go out as a Ranger when he wants to, and he would go out before he’s unable to play at a respectable level anymore, and not because he was forced into a trade or was bought out. Advanced stats still show Lundqvist is an above-average goalie even if he isn’t the all-time goalie he once was. The Rangers no longer need him to be the goalie who single-handedly carried Rangers teams to conference finals and a Cup Final and was the best goalie of the last decade and one of the best goalies in league history. They need him to be a veteran presence, a mentor to his heir and give them somewhere around 25 starts a season. I think Lundqvist will be back next season. I really want him to be.

8. I’m still shocked the Rangers came to terms on an extension with Kreider. The Rangers had the No. 1 asset on the trade market and instead of moving him, chose to give him the years he wanted, and now Kreider is set to be a Ranger through the 2027-28 season. We were made to believe the years on the deal were what was holding up an extension between the two, but the Rangers caved and gave Kreider the seven years, so it was the dollars all along. I’m guessing Kreider had been pushing for seven years and $7 million per year and came down on his demand to land at seven years at $6.5 million per year. It’s a move that helps the Rangers in the short term, but doesn’t necessarily help the Rangers for the long term, and possibly doesn’t help them when they are ready to contend again.

9. Right now, the Rangers are a playoff bubble team in a season in which they weren’t supposed to sniff the playoffs. So if we envision the rebuild having a natural progression and assume the Rangers aren’t going to suddenly go from being a middle-of-the-pack team to Stanley Cup champion then let’s say next season the Rangers are a playoff team as a wild-card berth. Then in 2021-22 they are one of the three Met seeds. I think 2022-23 is when the Rangers should be expected to be a top seed in the East and a true Cup contender and that’s an aggressive expectation. Obviously success isn’t linear and the Rangers could somehow find themselves in that spot next season … or they could find themselves out of the playoffs completely. No one wants to believe the latter is a possibility because of the Rangers’ recent 12-game performance, but success isn’t guaranteed from year to year and as part of the toughest of the four divisions in the league, there’s no way to know how the Rangers will compare.

10. If we follow the idea that the Rangers will gradually improve from season to season that means Kreider will be in his mid-30s when the Rangers will be in the championship window this rebuild is building toward. By then Kreider will have played more than 800 games games in the league with his bruising, physical style of play, and who knows how his body will hold up as this contract plays out or the type of player he will become once his speed and skills begin to erode. (Kreider is six months older than Panarin is now under contract for a year longer than him even though it’s Panarin’s game that will age.) Most Rangers fans wanted Kreider to be extended because of what they have seen this season, not because of what they will see in four seasons, when they will be complaining about Kreider causing a cap crunch and wanting him to be bought out. Normally with these lengthy contracts, you expect to overpay for the last few years of the contract for what you’re going to get over the first half or half-plus of the contract, but the Rangers will be overpaying Kreider on the wrong side of 30 at a time when the window is open. If the Rangers win the Cup within the next seven years and Kreider is on the roster during that time, the extension will be completely worth it. If they don’t win the Cup within the next seven years, well, let’s not think about that.

Feb 24, 2020

Monday Mail: Yankees’ Starting Pitching Injuries Are a Problem

It’s been a few days since the Yankees last reported an injury. The good news is there aren’t any new injuries. The bad news is Luis Severino and James Paxton are still injured.

It’s been a few days since the Yankees last reported an injury. I feel like the team needs one of those signs in warehouses recognizing how many days since the company’s last incident. The good news is there aren’t any new injuries. The bad news is Luis Severino and James Paxton are still injured.

This week’s questions and comments are related to the team being unable to rid themselves of the injury bug.

Email your questions to KeefeToTheCity@gmail.com or engage on the Keefe To The City Facebook page or on Twitter to be included in the next Monday Mail.

Everybody’s overreacting. All we have to do is play decent the first two months then get some arms bck. We will be fine. The rest of the division is mediocre at best. We were without two pitchers last year and won over 100 games. – Joe

I don’t think anyone is overreacting to the Yankees’ pitching injuries. The fact is 40 percent of the current rotation is out, and it’s not like it’s the Yankees’ fourth and fifth starters they’re without, it’s their No. 2 and 3 starters.

Yes, the Yankees will be fine in terms of steamrolling the AL East, winning around 100 games and reaching the postseason. But the goal isn’t to win around 100 games and the division and reach the postseason. The goal is to win the World Series. Somewhere along the way I think that goal has been diminished. Doing what the team did last year or the year before isn’t good enough. Not when the championship drought is going on 11 years and the Yankees are about to begin their fourth season with their current core. At some point the Baby Bombers won’t be babies anymore and with each season we’re getting closer to that point.

The Yankees need Luis Severino and James Paxton to win the World Series. Otherwise eight months from now Yankees fans will be watching another team win a championship and saying what the Yankees need to do in the coming offseason to get back on top of the baseball world.

Luis Severino got his bread and now he’s hurt all the time. Same with Aaron Hicks. – Kevin

Pitchers get hurt and when you throw as hard as Severino does and have for as long as he has, and when you have the drastic increase in workload, injuries happen. They happen even without those things. Here are Severino’s innings since 2015, including the minors and majors (regular season and postseason) with Severino’s age in parentheses:

2015 (21): 161.2
2016 (22): 151.1
2017 (23): 209.1
2018 (24): 198.1
2019 (25): 21.1

Last season, Severino managed to come back and threw just 12 innings before being thrust into the highest leverage of situations with postseason starts. His current injury was mentioned after his ALCS Game 3 start and he was cleared to start a potential Game 7. The injury went away over the offseason because he was no longer pitching and then returned this spring training when he started pitching again.

Maybe we’ll find out this week it’s nothing more than something that needs rest. I don’t think that will be the case, but I’m hoping it is.

However, don’t ever compare him to Aaron Hicks.

I guess we should have gone after another starter. – Donnie

I do wish the Yankees had splurged and gotten themselves another true major league starter the same way I wish they would every offseason since you can never have enough pitching. Now that they’re down two starters and will most likely be to begin the season, it’s going to be up to the team’s depth to fill in like it did last season.

J.A. Happ is now the team’s No. 3 starter and that means Jordan Montgomery is the No. 4, which leaves the No. 5 spot open. If it’s not Deivi Garcia, it could be journeyman Chad Bettis, another prospect or maybe we see Chad Green as an opener again to begin the season. The Yankees have options for how they can patch together a rotation, but we won’t have any real insight into how they plan on doing so until the end of spring training.

What happened to the new conditioning coach? – Barbara

After setting the all-time single-season record for most players placed on the injured list last year, the Yankees did a complete overhaul of their training staff. Both the Paxton and Severino injuries were holdovers from last season so there is nothing yet to blame the new medical staff for.

In an ideal world we won’t have to question what measures the Yankees took to prevent such an unprecedented amount of injuries and the team will get healthy and stay healthy. Unfortunately, that ideal world isn’t realistic.

Don’t be surprised if Gerrit Cole doesn’t live up to the money the Yankees are paying him. Look what happened with the money they spent last year with Giancarlo Stanton on the bench for most of the postseason. – Norman

I have no doubt Gerrit Cole will live up his talent and ability, at least in the first few years of his deal. Asking him to maintain his current level for nine years just isn’t something that can be done. If the Yankees win a single championship during Cole’s tenure, his contract would have been worth it. Now I want them to win multiple championships over the next nine years, but let’s start with one since it’s been more than a decade since the last.

The thing that worries me about Cole is his health the way every the health of every Yankees pitcher worries me. It’s rare a starting pitcher doesn’t experience some issue or issues during his career and Cole is no different. To this point in his career, he’s been about as healthy as you can ask anyone with his velocity and workload to be, and it’s why he was able to get nine years out of the Yankees. As long as Cole is healthy, I expect him to be one of, if not the best pitcher in baseball.

As for Giancarlo Stanton, his contract is actually a bargain compared to the rest of the market … when he’s healthy. The problem is he wasn’t healthy last season, playing in 18 regular-season games and missing the final games of the postseason. I have said I’m giving Stanton a clean slate to begin the season and will try my best to hold back on negative comments and criticism for as long as he lets me. The first two years of Stanton as a Yankee haven’t gone well. Luckily for him, he has a lot of time left to change the narrative on his Yankees career.

Email your questions to KeefeToTheCity@gmail.com or engage on the Keefe To The City Facebook page or on Twitter to be included in the next Monday Mail.

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

Feb 20, 2020

Rangers Thursday Thoughts: Right Move Is Still to Sell

While the front office has yet to make any drastic changes to the roster through trades, the team continues to make it harder for the front office to do so with their recent play.

The Rangers have won eight of 11 since their 10-day layoff and have doubled their postseason odds over the last week. While the front office has yet to make any drastic changes to the roster through trades, the team continues to make it hard for the front office to do so with their recent play. If the way the Rangers have played for the last three weeks is the way the Rangers are going to play in 2020-21, the postseason drought will be over next year.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. Another week of Thursday Thoughts and another week without the Rangers’ roster being really any different at the NHL level prior to the trade deadline. The only difference is the addition of forward Julien Gauthier from Carolina, who the Rangers acquired in exchange for defenseman Joey Keane. Keane was essentially blocked on the organizational depth chart, and barring injury or him turning out to be Nicklas Lidstrom, he was most likely never going to be a full-time defenseman for the Rangers. So the Rangers traded from their organizational strength and helped their organizational weakness, and Gauthier was immediately inserted into the lineup in Chicago. The Gauthier-Keane deal has been the only “real” move the Rangers have made so far, and that means between now and Monday at 3 p.m. ET, there’s going to be a lot of moving pieces on the Rangers’ roster. I have written about the players who could be moved and the endless options the Rangers have to approach this deadline over the last few weeks of Thursday Thoughts, and they all still hold true. The only Rangers who seem untouchable are Artemi Panarin, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin. (Henrik Lundqvist is untouchable because of his no-trade clause.)

2. Lundqvist was the backup again in Chicago and it’s now been more than two weeks since he last started a game on Feb. 3. I wish I could go back in time three years to show Lundqvist what the 2017-18 Rangers season would become, how miserable the 2018-19 season would be and how he would be treated in the 2019-20 season. If I could go back in time and show him all of this, there’s no way he stands firm on his decision to not waive his no-trade clause. Advanced stats still show Lundqvist is an above-average NHL goalie and would be a better starting option for most teams in the league. Lundqvist’s lack of play has been because of Shesterkin’s emergence and because if the Rangers are going to play for the future on forward and defense then they need to also in net. Aside from Lundqvist’s shutout of Detroit, his last five other starts have all come against postseason teams, so he has drawn the toughest opponents of the three goalies. When Shesterkin doesn’t play, Lundqvist should be playing. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Lundqvist should waive his no-trade if it means going to Colorado. The West is awful, the Avalanche are stacked and are a goalie short of making a run to the Cup Final with only St. Louis a threat to them. Sitting on the bench for the final seven weeks of this season and then, at best, sitting on it again next season can’t be how Lundqvist wants his career to wind down, especially since he can still play. Go to Colorado (if it’s an option), and every Rangers fan will have a team to root for in the playoffs this season.

3. Chris Kreider has been the No. 1 trade target in the entire league and that was before Tyler Toffoli came off the board. Now for a team looking for a Top 6 forward rental, Kreider is the last true option. No matter how much Kreider helps the Rangers win now and no matter how many points he has accumulated in recent weeks (and he has been doing both since the 10-day layoff), the right move is still to move him. Yes, he helps the Rangers now and will in 2020-21 and 2021-22, but who knows really how long after that. Acquiring assets in a third straight selloff is the better long-term decision rather than extending him and being in a cap crunch or buyout situation a few years from now, which the Rangers will inevitably be in given how all of their other lengthy contracts and extensions have turned out in recent years.

4. There have been reports of many teams wanting Kreider, including Boston, Colorado, St. Louis and the Islanders, and while the last option would be the least appealing, the Rangers need to make the best move for their future, regardless of what team it is. The Rangers can’t operate like the Mets, who have turned down better offers from the Yankees in order to not see their player wear pinstripes and potentially win with their city rival. Would it suck for Kreider to be an Islander? Yes, it would, though for anyone who has watched the Islanders this season, they’re not going anywhere. Kreider might help the Islanders avoid the type of monumental collapse they seem to be in the middle of and will help them reach the playoffs, but there’s no fear of watching Kreider hold the Cup above his head with blue and orange on. The Islanders need a pure goal scorer. They have since before the season, which is why they were all in on Panarin before he took less money to be a Ranger. Their lack of scoring has never been more evident than it is now as they keep on losing, having scored two goals in their last 12 periods. The Islanders would be foolish to think Kreider puts them over the top and can get them past the type of second-round defeat they suffered last season as the second round seems to be this Islanders team’s ceiling again. For Kreider, it would be convenient to stay in the metro area, and for the Rangers, they would have a chance to ruin the Islanders’ future. If the Islanders offer the best deal, the Rangers have to take it.

5. In hindsight, the win in Chicago on Wednesday was rather easy. Yes, the game was tied at 1 entering the third, and yes, the Rangers played like they did for most of the first four months of the seasons in the first two periods, but the game never felt in doubt. Five third-period goals erased any doubt as did Shesterkin’s once-again remarkable play. The Rangers’ money line for the game was +110 and I gladly took it as I have been since they returned from their 10-day layoff. I will be taking it again in Carolina on Friday.

6. Not long ago, in back-to-back seasons we nearly had a Rangers-Blackhawks Stanley Cup Final. The first season, the Blackhawks lost Game 7 in their conference finals and the next year the Rangers lost Game 7 in their conference finals. Now with the state of the Blackhawks, it looks like it will be a long, long time until both teams are contenders in the same season. It’s hard to believe how far the Blackhawks have fallen in recent seasons with back-to-back first-round exits after their most recent Cup and now a third straight season missing the playoffs. They have lost pretty much every trade they have made in the last five seasons, fired the best coach in the sport and have handed out cap-ruining contracts along the way. The Blackhawks did take advantage of their championship window as well as any team ever has, but it feels like they could have won even more than they did when they had the chance.

7. Jack O’Callahan dropping the puck for the ceremonial puck drop was awesome for a Miracle on Ice junkie like me. The most interesting part of the moment wasn’t “OC” in his Number 17 jersey back in Chicago where he was a Blackhawk, it was the exchange between Panarin and his former Blackhawk linemate Patrick Kane. Panarin tapped Kane on the shin pads upon approaching him and Kane was distracted at the time. When Kane turned his head and saw Panarin, there was a brief pause as I’m sure all the glorious moments of the two seasons Kane had Panarin on his line and what could have been had the Blackhawks kept Panarin ran through Kane’s mind. It still doesn’t make sense why the Blackhawks moved Panarin when they didn’t have to and why they moved him for Brandon Saad(!). I’m happy they did because had the Blackhawks kept Panarin, he wouldn’t be a Ranger today. For all the bad moves Stan Bowman and the Blackhawks’ front office have made since 2015, the Panarin-Saad trade is the worst.

8. The addition of Gauthier to the Rangers’ lineup created a fourth line of Gauthier, Brett Howden and Brendan Lemieux, giving the Rangers a fourth line that can actually play. The days of a fourth line featuring Greg McKegg, Micheal Haley and Brendan Smith are gone. It took basically three-quarters of the season for the Rangers to dress and play only NHL-caliber players. I think the days of the Rangers building a fourth line the way fourth lines used to be built are over. If they’re not, they need to be if this rebuild is ever going to turn into contention.

9. The Rangers returned from their 10-day layoff needing to win 75 percent of their remaining games to have a chance at the postseason. They have nearly done that so far, going 8-3 (727 winning percentage). If you divide up the Rangers’ remaining schedule into mini four-game schedules, they have to go 3-1 in each. They went 3-1 in each of the first two since the layoff and are 2-1 in their current four-game set. If they win in Carolina on Friday, they will be exactly on pace. The problem is the pace was always going to be hard to keep because playing .750 hockey for two months isn’t necessarily realistic for this Rangers roster. It’s more of something the current Tampa Bay or Boston or Washington or Colorado or St. Louis could do. It’s going to get even harder as the team if the team is dismantled as expected within the next four-plus days.

10. The Rangers are 31-24-4 with 66 points and are on pace for 92 points. The Islanders hold the second wild card and are on pace for 100 points. The Rangers have done a surprising job keeping themselves in the postseason for as long as they have, and if the team looks drastically different a week from now for the next Thursday Thoughts and returns to playing like a rebuilding team rather than a postseason team, I can say I have had a lot of fun this season watching them this season. Rangers fans can finally see the the light at the end of the tunnel which began two years ago this week with the letter from the front office.

Feb 19, 2020

Spring Cleaning: Rob Manfred Can’t Protect the Astros in the Batter’s Box

We’re a week into spring training and that means we’re a week closer to Opening Day.

We’re a week into spring training and that means we’re a week closer to Opening Day. Six weeks from Thursday is Opening Day in Baltimore when Gerrit Cole will pitch a complete-game, two-hit shutout of the Orioles in his Yankees debut. (No big-name Yankees pitcher seems to do well in their debut, so it will probaly be a grind.) The Yankees are already down a starting pitcher and now their best player has been shut down from hitting for a week. The injuries need to stop and the investigation about the Red Sox’ cheating needs to be released.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees as usual.

1. Yes, I’m worried about Aaron Judge’s shoulder. How can I not be? I don’t care that there’s video of Judge running around at spring training on Wednesday and fielding balls in the outfield. He’s been shut down from hitting and really throwing, and whenever your best player is shut down from hitting, even if it’s 37 days before Opening Day, it’s not good. Not good at all.

Judge has been in the majors for three-plus seasons and has suffered injuries in all of those seasons. He was shut down for the final two weeks of the 2016 season with an oblique injury. In 2017, he battled a second-half shoulder injury which cost him the AL MVP (along with Jose Altuve and his teammates knowing which pitches were coming). He missed one third of the season in 2018 after getting drilled by a pitch on his wrist, which certainly was a freak injury, and then he missed two months last season after suffering another oblique injury. Overall, Judge has missed 25 percent of his three full seasons in the league.

Aaron Boone led us to believe the injury is “minor” but how many times did Boone do the same last season only to have the Yankees set the single-season record for most players on the injured list?

2. It’s not so much that Judge has to be shut down in the Yankees’ conservative effort to make sure whatever this is doesn’t turn into somehing more the way every injury seemed to last season that has me worrying so much. It’s more the way Boone has explained and reacted to Judge’s inury that has me worried of Mike Tauchman or Clint Frazier now being an everyday player to begin the 2020 season with Brett Gardner already once again thrust into a season-opening everyday role because of Aaron Hicks’ latest injury.

Boone was very nonchalant in speaking about Judge’s shoulder and I can’t help but have flashbacks to spring training of last year when he talked about Luis Severino’s shoulder or Dellin Betances’ shoulder or Aaron Hicks’ back or during the regular season when he talked about Miguel Andujar’s shoulder or Giancarlo Stanton’s bicep, shoulder and calf. Most likely this is nothing and Judge will be fine in a week, but it’s going to take a long time for me to trust the Yankees when it comes to injuries. A long time.

3. Seeing Dellin Betances in a Mets uniform is disgusting. Seeing him on an actual field with the whole uniform on is much different than it was seeing him put on a jersey at his introductory press conference. There was no reason for the Yankees to not sign Betances. Believing they don’t need him because they have Aroldis Chapman, whose declining velocity and control and inability to put away hitters is frightening, Zack Britton, whose control is a real problem and isn’t who he once was, Adam Ottavino, who helped ruin the ALCS, Tommy Kahnle, who is a year removed from spending the season in the minors, or Chad Green, who was demoted last season for the worst stretch of relief appearances possibly ever, is more than risky. I will never get over Betances not being a Yankee.

4. Seeing Didi Gregorius in a Phillies uniform barely fazed me. Gregorius was already a Red and Diamondback before becoming a Yankee, so him wearing other colors isn’t anything unusual. Betances was only ever a Yankee, a New York native and homegrown Yankee and the best reliever in baseball for five straight years, and now he wears blue and orange. Gregorius was a nice player, but it was time to move on from him and it doesn’t make me sad to see him with another team.

5. Seeing Joe Girardi in a Phillies uniform was a little weird. It wasn’t as weird as Betances or not weird at all like Gregorius, but it was weird. Girardi was a Cub, Rockie and Cardinal aside from being a Yankee as a player and managed the Marlins before the Yankees, so he’s been in other uniforms. It’s not like he’s Don Mattingly wearing a Dodgers or Marlins uniform. For all of the critcism I directed at Girardi in his 10 years as Yankees manager, and I feel like he got screwed over at the end of his tenure. Boone has been OK, but I wish there was a way to see or know how 2018 and 2019 would have played out with Girardi.

6. Add Aaron Judge, DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton to the ever-growing list of players speaking out against the Astros. Each day it seems like some new big-name player has an opinion on the Astros and the story seems to be gaining traction the more removed we are from the initial release of the investigation. That’s not usually how it works. The commissioner’s embarrassing press conference in Florida was only made worse by his press conference in Arizona, and I have no idea when this story will begin to fade.

The Astros have dealt with their own contingent of beat reporters and national reporters, but they have yet to travel and be asked questions by other team’s media, and they have yet to travel to opposing stadiums. I think MLB believes eventually when real games begin and there are actual games to watch and talk about that the story will slow down, though everything that has happened over the last month suggests differently. I think the regular season is going to be worse for this story than spring training has been despite there being actual games to watch and talk about it.

7. There’s no protecting the Astros players once games start and the commissioner knows it. He protected them in terms of suspensions and fines by granting them immunity in the sign-stealing investigation, but he can’t protect them once they step into the batter’s box. Pitchers who want to throw at the Astros are going to throw at them. The commissioner can’t give out a warning to anyone who throws at the Astros since that would take away the inside for pitchers and that would be advantageous to the Astros, and they have been playing with enough of an advantage over the last few years. I think we will see beanball issues as early as Opening Day. I know teams want to win and get off to a good start, but the backlash from all of baseball (aside from loser J.D. Martinez) makes me believe the Angels are going to answer the bell on the first day of the season.

8. I don’t like Martinez because of the team he plays for, but now I don’t like him because of the team he plays for and because of his Astros-related comments earlier this week.

“I understand players’ frustrations and stuff like that, but I think, in my opinion, it’s already getting a little bit too much,” Martinez said. “We have to move past it at some point. We can’t continue to talk about it.”

In a time when nearly every star player in the sport, including the sport’s biggest name in Mike Trout, has spoken out against the Astros, Martinez has become the first non-Astros player to speak out against the backlash against the Astros. Martinez is the first Red Sox player to openly speak about the subject since the investigation into the Red Sox’ own cheating has yet to be released, and as the first Red Sox to talk about the Astros, he chose to side with the Astros.

9. I’m excited for the Red Sox’ investigation to be released the same way I get excited for the release of a TV show, movie, album or the MLB schedule. The Astros have to be wondering where the Red Sox’ report is since it will take some momentary heat off of them, but it’s only going to keep cheating at the forefront of baseball. Normally, I would be sick and tired of a story which didn’t happen on the field getting this much attention, however, when it involves a team that eliminated the Yankees in two of the last three postseasons and is about to invole the team that eliminated in the other of the last three postseasons, I can’t get enough of it.

10. The Yankees didn’t play a single game in 2019 with their entire expected lineup. As of now, they’re going to begin 2020 without their starting center fielder, so there’s a chance they don’t play a game in 2020 with their entire lineup for a single game either. Is it too much to ask for the Yankees to not lose any other players or pitches between now and Opening Day? James Paxton is already going to miss at least the first month of the season and Judge is working through a shoulder issue. Let’s not have 2019 be a repeat of 2020 both in terms of injuries and the end result of the season.

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

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Offseason

Feb 18, 2020

If You’re Not Worried About Aaron Judge Being Injured, You Should Be

It’s not so much Aaron Judge being shut down that has me worried about his shoulder, it’s more the way Aaron Boone explained and reacated to Judge’s injury that has me worried.

I was worried early on Tuesday morning when it was announced that Aaron Judge wouldn’t be hitting on the first official day of spring for position players because of shoulder discomfort. Even if it is only Feb. 18, nothing good could possibly come from the team’s best player having a shoulder issue of any kind. But my worrying level was a mild 4 out of 10 Later in the day when it was announced that Judge would be shut down completely for the next week, my worrying escalated to a 7.

Judge hasn’t exactly been the most healthy player in his three-plus seasons as a major leaguer. He was shut down for the final two weeks of the 2016 season with an oblique injury. In 2017, he battled a second-half shoulder injury which cost him the AL MVP (along with Jose Altuve and his teammates knowing which pitches were coming). He missed one third of the season in 2018 after getting drilled by a pitch on his wrist, which certainly was a freak injury, and then he missed two months last season after suffering another oblique injury. Judge has missed 25 percent of the last three seasons due to injury. So when a player who had a signifcant shoulder injury two-and-a-half years ago complains of shoulder discomfort or soreness on the very first day of spring training workouts, you better believe I’m worried.

It’s not so much that Judge has to be shut down in the Yankees’ conservative effort to make sure whatever this is doesn’t turn into somehing more the way every injury seemed to last season that has me worrying so much. It’s more the way Aaron Boone has explained and reacted to Judge’s inury that has me worried of Mike Tauchman or Clint Frazier now being an everyday player to begin the 2020 season with Brett Gardner already once again thrust into a season-opening everyday role because of Aaron Hicks’ latest injury.

“Just dealing with some crankiness,” Boone said rather nonchalantly about Judge. “I guess a little soreness in shoulder.”

Boone’s lack of emotion is a main reason why he is the Yankees manager and Joe Girardi is now with the Phillies. But when it comes to injury news, Boone’s even-keeled temperment comes off as comical when injuries go from a player being day-to-day to missing two months, and that happened all of last season.

“I feel like it’s a pretty minor thing,” Boone said. “Probably in the next couple days, start ramping him back up.”

I didn’t think we would get our first “ramping” reference from Boone on Feb. 18, but here we are. “Ramping” became most used by Boone when talking about Aaron Hicks and Giancarlo Stanton last season.

Hicks, if you forgot, injured his back on a 35-minute bus ride on Feb. 27 during spring training last season. (The entire history of the injury is detailed here.) Boone said Hicks would be ready for Opening Day and that he would avoid an injured list stint before later changing the timetable to being ready for the fourth game and second series of the season. Hicks returned on May 15.

Stanton played in the first three games of last season before surprisingly going on injured list before the fourth. He wouldn’t return until Game 72 on June 18 and was back on the injured list after being removed from a game on June 25. Stanton finished the season playing in 18 games and missing most of the ALCS. (The entire history of his biceps strain turned shoulder strain turned calf strain is detailed here.) Like Hicks, Boone constantly talked about Stanton being close to resuming baseball activities or “ramping” up his workload to return to the team. Each time it was delayed as the injury either was more serious than Boone led on or there was a setback along the way.

The word “minor” is what really got me. Nothing is “minor” when it involves the team’s best player and nothing is “minor” with the Yankees until they prove they can accurately diagnose and successfully heal injuries. Not playing baseball since Oct. 19 and implementing sweeping changes on the team’s medical staff didn’t just erase what happened last season. A four-month layoff didn’t magically build trust between the team’s handling of injuries and the fans. So for Boone to describe this as “minor” then Judge better be 100 percent ready to resume every type of baseball activity in exactly one week since that was the timeline given for this “minor” thing. The botched timelines by Boone and the Yankees last season eventually led to Boone simply not giving timelines for any injured Yankees, and there were a lot of them as the team set the single-season record for most players to land on the injured list. In many of the cases, Boone made it seem like everything was fine only to have the player land on the IL later that day or in the following days. So when Boone refers to an injury as something “minor” and uses the word “ramping” to describe Judge, you better believe I’m worried.

“We did put him through a battery of tests,” Boone said. “He had the MRI.”

Normally, an MRI means an issue is significant enough to warrant an MRI, but not when it comes to the Yankees. The Yankees aren’t worried about their players absorbing an abundance of magetic imaging. When I was in elementary school, the school nurse would take your temperature no matter. You could break your collarbone in gym class and the first thing she would be to take your temperature. Cut your knee open? “Let me take your temperature.” That’s sort of how the Yankees operate when it comes to MRIs. If a player speaks up about not feeling 100 percent, they’re getting an MRI. I’m not overly worried that Judge had to receive an MRI. If anything, I’m more worried that Boone said, “It was kind of what his shoulder has always been” in regards to the MRI results, which made it seem like Judge’s shoulder isn’t great to begin with.

Spring training will continue for the next week without Judge. As long as this doesn’t turn into what every seemingly minor injury last season, I will be OK. But for now, I’m more than worried.

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