Email Exchanges – Page 5 – Keefe To The City

May 19, 2015

Here’s to Hoping Bryce Harper Becomes a Yankee

Bryce Harper is in his fourth season, is just 22 years old and is becoming the best player in the league. I can’t wait until he becomes a Yankee.

The Yankees went 2-5 in Tampa Bay and Kansas City and the embarrassing start to the road trip has led to a lot of the Yankees shaving off their mustaches. Obviously the Yankees’ scoring two runs or less in those five losses is because of facial hair.

With the Yankees and Nationals meeting for a short two-game series in Washington, James Meyerriecks of Federal Baseball joined me to talk about Bryce Harper’s incredible start to the season, the impact of Max Scherzer at the front of the rotation, what’s wrong with Stephen Strasburg and how easily the Nationals will win the NL East.

Keefe: In Bryce Harper’s rookie year in 2012, he hit 22 home runs at the age of 19. In 2013, he hit 20. Last season, he hit 13. It’s May 19 and he already has 14 this season and he’s 22 years old! I said 22!

Aside from home runs, Harper leads the league in runs scored, RBIs, walks, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

How fun has it been to watch Harper over these three-plus seasons go from a teenage to possibly the most feared hitter in the majors? And I guess how devastating will it be when he’s a Yankee in a few years?!

Meyerriecks: Overall, it’s been a pleasure watching Harper grow before our eyes. That’s not to say there haven’t been some growing pains, though. Nationally, we always see labels like cocky or brash or immature. Harper’s youthful exuberance is part of what makes him such a fun player to watch for Nationals fans, but it’s also why he can be such a lightning rod with the media. Unfortunately, that youthful exuberance has actually had quite a few instances where it’s cost both Harper and the Nats over the past few seasons. He’s cost himself quite a bit of time due to injury after crashing into walls and tearing a ligament in his thumb on a head first slide.

As for his approach at the plate, that’s as mature as it gets. Early this season, he’s really showcased what aregenerally considered to be old player skills in the batter’s box. It’s always a fun cat and mouse game watching pitchers try to attack him. At just 22 years old, Harper is already growing into a player who very rarely swings at a “pitcher’s pitch”. He’s dictating almost every plate appearance with his discipline and has been reaping the benefits over the first month and a half. This isn’t something that happened over night, but it’s a part of his game that hasreally evolved so far this season.

As for the future Yankee question, we’ll see how it plays out. Harper is a Scott Boras client, so it would be a major surprise if he doesn’t test free agency when he’s eligible. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, though. Harper will be a National through at least 2018, so I’ll enjoy him while he’s here.

Keefe: Every day the Nationals send somewhat of a household name to the mound with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman, Doug Fister and Gio Gonzalez. It wasn’t that long ago that Gonzalez was either the team’s No. 1 or No. 2 starter and now he’s either the No. 4 or No. 5.

In New York, with Masahiro Tanaka on the disabled list, It’s Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia, Nathan Eovaldi, Adam Warren and Chris Capuano, which is probably the Yankees’ worst rotation since they were trotting Sidney Ponson and Darrell Rasner out there way too much in 2008.

What’s it like knowing that every game you might have the better starting pitching going and have a chance to win? I only ask because I miss that feeling.

Meyerriecks: Part of what’s so fun about this rotation is that they not only have multiple aces, but amazing depth. All five of the Nats starters are capable of going out and throwing zeros up on the board every time they step on the diamond. What’s scariest for other teams (particularly within the NL East) is that they even have depth beyond that starting five, with Tanner Roark having moved to the bullpen after going 15-10 with a 2.85 ERA last season.

It’s awesome knowing that, regardless of who is up next in the rotation, there’s potential for a dominant performance. Even when the team is scuffling a bit, it’s never really time to panic. There’s this old adage about momentum only being as good as the next day’s starting pitcher. The Nats’ rotation depth means that they’re always just a day away from having a terrific shot at snapping a losing streak. They’ve come a long ways from the days when John Lannan was getting the opening day nod.

Keefe: I wasn’t happy this offseason when the Yankees decided to not be in on Max Scherzer, Jon Lester or James Shields. Given the concerns and unknowns of most of the Yankees rotation, I felt they needed to make a play for at least one of the three best starters available on the free-agent market to solidify their staff, but they didn’t and now I’m stuck watching Adam Warren and Chris Capuano make up 40 percent of the rotation.

The Nationals signed Scherzer to a seven-year, $210 million deal and so far he has lived up to his deal as he has a 1.75 ERA and somehow, but somehow has three losses. In those three losses, he gave up three earned runs combined and he also has a no-decision in which he allowed on earned run over six innings. From past Yankees free-agent pitching signings (most of which didn’t work out), I can say there is usually an adjustment period to a starter on a new team trying to prove himself or prove his worth, but that hasn’t been the case for Scherzer.

Have you been impressed with how good Scherzer has been in his return to the NL or did you expect this kind of performance?

Meyerriecks: At the time that the Nats signed him, I expected to hear a lot about how signing Scherzer was unnecessary with all of that rotation depth that you brought up in the previous question. With Zimmermann and Fister due to hit free agency after this season, Scherzer’s signing seemed like a move to stabilize the rotation beyond 2015. It certainly seemed like a deal that would improve the team this season as well, and it has.

Based on what he’d already done in his career, I don’t think there was much doubt that his on-field performance would fit right in on the Nats. He did win the 2013 AL Cy Young. He led the majors in strikeouts from 2012-2014. He ranked 22nd in ERA (3.24) and 6th in FIP (2.94) over that same span, so there was little doubt that his profile added an awful lot of talent to the 2015 Nats.

However, what’s been most amazing is how the team and the city have embraced him. At the time that the Nats signed Scherzer, we heard lots of stories that Scherzer wanted to sign with the Nats and that, unlike what we’d usually expect to hear, he was as aggressive about pursuing a contract in D.C. as the Nats were in pursuing him. When I heard that, I thought it was all lip service. Scherzer didn’t exactly have ties to the area. He grew up (here … yeah … Nats fan in St. Louis) in St. Louis rooting for the (cough) Cardinals.

After watching him these first couple of months, I don’t think it was lip service at all. I can’t put my finger on why it’s worked out so perfectly. It’s possible that all the Boras ties on the Nats roster play a role with how comfortable he immediately seemed in the clubhouse. Scherzer hasn’t only fit in on the Nats roster, but he’s immediately stepped in as kind of the class clown. He’s quickly become both a fan favorite and a favorite in the Nats clubhouse.

Keefe: What is wrong with Stephen Strasburg? Last year’s strikeout leader still has over a strikeout per inning, but he’s allowed 55 hits in 40 2/3 innings, has a 5.98 ERA and 1.648 WHIP.

I thought the Yankees dodged a bullet by not seeing Scherzer and also Strasburg in this two-game series, but maybe I should have wanted them to see Strasburg right now?

Meyerriecks: It hasn’t been pretty watching Strasburg so far this season. He did tweak his ankle in spring training, which led to him wearing a brace. This seemed to do a number on his mechanics a bit, which led to him leaving a start a few weeks ago with pain under his shoulder blade. He’s dealing with injuries and mechanical issues, and this seems to have done a number on his command. It’s a never ending cycle. The next time he has a rough start, we’re going to hear that he’s breathing out of the wrong eyelid.

I kid, I kid. The command and mechanics have been the major issues, but there’s also some small sample size noise in there. He’s allowed a .380 BABIP to this point so far this season. His career BABIP against is .304, and the league average is about .295. While his batted ball profile suggests that his BABIP should be a bit higher than we’re used to seeing (he’s allowing a 26.5 percent line drive rate!), there’s no way that doesn’t start to normalize some. When the BABIP starts to come down, so will the WHIP… and the ERA. The stuff has still been there, so hopefully he can get more comfortable (healthier?) and put the mechanical issues behind him.

Keefe: The Nationals started the season 1-4 and were 7-13 on April 27. But since then, they have gone 15-4, are now 22-17 and trail the Mets by one game in the NL East.

Before the season, everyone picked the Nationals to win the East and there were a lot of predictions for them to go to the World Series and win it. The Mets still don’t seem postseason-ready, the Marlins are in their usual state of disarray, the Braves are trying to rebuild and the Phillies are a disaster. The NL East should be the easiest of the six divisions to win, especially for a Nationals team that won’t endure long periods of losing because of their starting rotation.

Is there any doubt in your mind that the Nationals will win their division?

Meyerriecks: If you’d asked me this question two or three weeks ago, I might have had a little more doubt. The Nats are still the best team in the NL East. They were two or three weeks ago, too, but the early season slide had left the Mets banking an eight game lead. Even over five months, being eight games better than another good team is a difficult chore. With just one game separating the two after these past few weeks, there’s not much doubt in my mind that the Nats will overtake them and win the division.

The Mets are probably closer to prime time than many of us thought they were entering the season. Harvey and deGrom form a dominant 1-2 punch atop the rotation. Bartolo Colon has become one of my favorite pitchers to watch (even though I still curse Omar Minaya about that trade back in the day) in his old age. I hear that they have some Norse god that they brought up who is pretty good, too. While Harvey, deGrom, and Syndergaard will form an imposing front of the rotation, I expect them all to have a few rough stretches this season due to inexperience and (in Harvey’s case) fatigue in his first year back from Tommy John surgery.

The Mets offense and bullpen are real hit or miss, and I think that’s what will ultimately keep them from challenging the Nats for the division over the long haul. The Marlins are talented, but they’ve dug too deep a hole for themselves and just recently made their GM their manager. As an Expos holdover, it’s fun to watch Jeffrey Loria’s (new) team be a complete train wreck. The Braves have been kind of a nice surprise so far this season, but they don’t have the offensive depth around Freddie Freeman to sustain a run. The Phillies just need to find a way to trade away any of their players that are over 30 and maybe they’ll be competitive by 2019.

The Nats will take the NL East … no problem.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

May 15, 2015

Rangers-Lightning Features Familiar Foes

The Rangers will not only face the Lightning in the Eastern Conference finals, but they will also face a group of former Rangers looking to end their former team’s season.

After the Rangers’ Game 7 win over the Capitals, I was ready for the Eastern Conference finals to start right after the handshake line. I didn’t think I would sleep between Wednesday night’s Game 7 and Saturday afternoon’s Game 1 and wanted the next round to start immediately. Thankfully, there’s just a two-day layoff between series and the Rangers can keep their momentous run alive.

With the Rangers and Lightning meeting in the Eastern Conference finals, John Fontana of Raw Charge joined me to talk about the Ryan Callahan-Martin St. Louis trade, former Rangers Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman playing for the Lightning and what to expect in the series.

Keefe: The Ryan Callahan-Martin St. Louis trade last season was the biggest non-Stanley Cup Final storyline of the 2013-14 Rangers’ season. The Rangers traded their 28-year-old captain for a 38-year-old former MVP because Callahan and his agent overpriced himself out of New York and because St. Louis wanted out of Tampa Bay and wanted to be close to his Greenwich, Conn. home.

So many Rangers fans were devastated that the homegrown Callahan was leaving and it seemed like fans were split 50/50 on liking and not liking the trade. I loved the trade for the Rangers and thought it was necessary.

Callahan had started negotiations with the Rangers at eight years, $60 million, overvaluing himself and overvaluing the “C” on his jersey as a player who had never scored 30 goals in a season. I didn’t get why Rangers were upset at all once he left because it was his choice to leave. He wasn’t willing to compromise with the Rangers and even as Glen Sather stupidly came closer and closer to Callahan’s demands, it wasn’t enough for the secondary scoring option. Ryan Callahan could still be a Ranger if he wanted to be and no one should feel bad for him.

What are your feelings about Callahan after watching him play 97 regular-season games and 16 postseason games for the Lightning?

Fontana: Before we begin, that’s a painful trade in Lightning history because of what was going on with the face of the franchise. Martin St. Louis didn’t like the changing scene in Tampa.

Let’s be fair here; Slats gave up on negotiations with how many months before free agency started? And the contract Callahan agreed to from the Lightning was something like a few hundred thousand dollars less than Sather’s last offer in New York. While the numbers you presented are certainly too much for Cally, there is the “C” and status with the club that propped him up on a negotiating angle.

At the same time, he’s still getting what comes off as more than he should for his toolsy, responsible game. He’s been playing first line wing with Steven Stamkos centering him and he’s put up a career high in points this season. While I like his game, his locker room presence and what he he’s doing on ice, the contract is still waaaay big. Fans down here in general like him too.

Keefe: On the other end of the trade, the Rangers acquired the captain and face of the Lightning in St. Louis, who was instrumental in helping the Rangers reach the Cup Final for the first time since 1993-94. With Callahan and without St. Louis, the Rangers don’t win the East last year.

For you, I can’t imagine what it was like to have a 13-year-old Lightning, captain and face of the franchise demand to be traded and then be traded to his place of choice at the deadline with the team in the middle of a playoff run.

What was it like to see St. Louis traded? Is is still weird to see him play for another team?

Fontana: There’s a lot to be said here. As a fan alone I reflect on that as the end of an era with this team. As a blogger and a blog manager there’s another degree with what went down with Marty that fans (Rangers or Lightning fans) wouldn’t necessarily think of — having to cover it, talk about it, write about it, try to understand it and more than a year later it still isn’t settled because the reasons keep being twisted for why he wanted out.

I could link to articles I’ve written since February 2014 through Thursday, May 14 that touch on this. It’s a sore spot. Marty’s handling it from start to finish has made it worse to have to reflect on and not just put to rest. This, having to come back to it all, is the downside of the entire series. While I expect New York fans to react warmly to Callahan’s return to Madison Square Garden (or Brian Boyle, or Anton Stralman), Marty is going to see a mixed reaction. We have such good memories of the man and how things transpired to end it all (and some spoken words by him since leaving) defile them a bit; we don’t want to remember St. Louis just because of the trade request and how it played out.

Some fans have moved past him and care more about Cally’s status for Game 1 and the series in general compared to having to deal with Marty again. Others, like me, have feelings renewed: Anger, disappointment, and surprise.

Keefe: Every season there is a target of mine in columns, podcasts and on Twitter and for nearly his entire Rangers tenure, Brian Boyle was that guy. I never understood the fans who liked Boyle as a former first-round pick whose career became as a fourth-line role player and when the Rangers didn’t re-sign him last offseason I was ecstatic. Now had I known that the Rangers were going to waste money on Tanner Glass, I would have gladly had Boyle back, but oh well.

Boyle recorded his second-highest goal total of his career with 15 in a full 82-game season for the Lightning and has chipped in with one this postseason. A lot of Rangers fans have forgotten about his weaknesses as a player now that he is in Tampa Bay and just see him helping out a team that has reached the Eastern Conference finals.

What are your thoughts on Boyle?

Fontana: Boyle’s been able to fit in just about anywhere he’s been asked. He has seen a lot of time on the fourth line but how Tampa Bay approaches fourth-liners isn’t the traditional grind-grind-grind limited, physical aspect. He’s been a standard-bearer on the penalty kill which Ranger fansx should be aware of. But his presence has been elsewhere too — he’s done third-line center time, he’s layed on the wing. He’s played on the power play as the guy near the crease. He’s not an offensive force, but he’s a presence.

Keefe: Aside from not wanting Boyle back last offseason, I also didn’t want Benoit Pouliot back and Edmonton signed him and I didn’t want Stralman back because I thought it would take overpaying for him to get him back. That one I wish I could take back.

After looking nothing like an NHL defenseman for long stretches with the Rangers and forcing fans to call for Raphael Diaz to be inserted into the lineup over him frequently last season, Stralman has come into his own with the Lightning and finally reverted back to being more of an offensive defenseman.

How has Stralman fit in with the Lightning?

Fontana: To keep this one short and direct: Norris Trophy candidate worthy to the point I don’t understand one iota why he wasn’t even offered a contract by the Rangers. He’s been in the lineup while hurt and still was the solid guy on the back end. He’s stabilized and improved everyone he’s played with.

No, he’s not a Norris finalist in 2015, but he’s been an unspoken MVP on the Tampa Bay roster.

Keefe: Dan Boyle was a highly-coveted free agent and took less money to be a Ranger. The former star and Lightning defenseman was supposed to provide consistent offense to the Rangers’ defense and captain what has been an embarrassing power play. But in the first year of his two-year deal with the Rangers, Boyle has been a liability in his own zone and hasn’t done much to help the Rangers’ power play. I guess I just need to accept that the Rangers’ power play will never be good.

Like St. Louis, what’s it like to now have to root against Boyle?

Fontana: Dan Boyle’s departure from Tampa Bay isn’t comparable to how things went down with Marty. Of course it’s also been seven seasons ince the one of the worst trades in franchise history went down and Boyle (who had been freshly re-signed before the 2008 trade deadline) was forced out by one of the egomaniac new owners of the Lightning — a former teammate of Boyle’s, Len Barrie.

Time and distance have literally and figuratively passed (he was in San Jose, so he didn’t haunt us. Long time fans like myself like the guy, respect him and all that. But we’re used to him as an opponent.

Keefe: This series scares me more than those two series because the Lightning are nothing like the Rangers and don’t experience the offensive slumps the Rangers do. The Lightning won all there games against the Rangers in the regular season, but those games came very early in the season before the Rangers are the team they are now and the team they became in the second week of December.

Losing this series will not only be devastating because it will mean the Rangers fell short of getting back to the Final and winning the Cup, but it will mean Callahan, Boyle and Stralman will be playing in the Final with a chance to win the Cup.

Henrik Lundqvist has the ability to be the difference in this series the way he was against the Penguins and the way he was in Games 5, 6 and 7 against the Capitals in the Rangers’ comeback and I will never not believe in the King.

I predicted the Rangers to beat the Penguins in six and the Capitals in six. I was wrong both times, but the actual result worked out both times, so let’s make it a three-peat. Rangers over Lightning in six.

What’s your prediction?

Fontana: I have a belief that I’ve tried to restate when and where I can that I don’t believe the season means a thing at this point. What’s done is done. Way to go Lightning, rah-rah-rah King Henrik, etc.

Over, done with, moot. What Tampa Bay did against the Rangers in November, what they’ve done against Detroit and Montreal have no bearing on the Rangers. What the Rags did against Pittsburgh and against the Capitals are in the past (and the Presidents’ Trophy amounts to a scheduling object). We know what our teams are capable of when they’re playing their A-game. We know how ugly or painful it can be when they just show up to the gunfight with knives instead.

That being said, youth is on Tampa Bay’s side as is speed. They’re more than capable on the penalty kill but have struggled during the season and playoffs on the power play (though the Montreal penalty kill helped rectify that a bit during the second round).

The Lightning are capable of winning the one-goal games, they’re also capable of offensive showings. Do the Rangers have the endurance to keep up with the speed? We’ve also (both teams) known Carey Price was a beast this season and the Lightning put him into a different kind of place — the L column. Henrik Lundqvist is looked upon league-wide as a force and a great character, but will he (and the team around him) solve the Lightning where Price, or Petr Mzarek (and the Detroit Red Wings) couldn’t?

I don’t think this series goes seven games, that much I’m certain of. The winner is something I’m waiting to see for myself.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 15, 2015

Yankees-Royals Means Battle of Best Bullpens

The Yankees have cooled off for the first time in a month after dropping three straight games to the Rays this week. The schedule doesn’t get any easier as their nine-game road trip heads to

The Yankees have cooled off for the first time in a month after dropping three straight games to the Rays this week. The schedule doesn’t get any easier as their nine-game road trip heads to Kansas City and then to Washington to face two of the league’s top teams.

With the Yankees continuing their road trip to Kansas City to face the defending American League champion Royals, Max Rieper of Royals Review joined me to talk about the Royals’ magical run in October, having a vaunted bullpen like the Yankees and the careers of Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer.

Keefe: The last two years as a Yankees fan were miserable. Two seasons destroyed by injuries and underachievers led to back-to-back postseason-less seasons for the first time since 1992-93. It sounds ridiculous to be upset about two missed playoffs after missing it only once since 1993, but that’s life as a Yankees fan.

Before last October, the Royals hadn’t made the playoffs since winning the World Series in 1985. With 29 years between playoff appearances, I feel bad being disappointed about the 2013 and 2014 Yankees.

What was that magical run in October like for you?

Rieper: To put things in perspective, your 84-win Yankees team was miserable, whereas the 83-win 2003 Royals was the most thrilling season for me as a Royals fan in almost two decades until last year’s magical run.

Last year was just incredible for so many reasons. The run was so unexpected as the team looked sunk in July, with many of us calling for a firesale and possible ouster of Dayton Moore and Ned Yost. Then everything just clicked. We are so used to everything going wrong for the Royals, it seemed like a karmic reversal of fortune when everything just seemed to bounce our way the rest of the season. To be honest, I think most of us were just happy to be in the Wild Card game, but to win it such exciting fashion, then go on the amazing run they went on seemed like icing on the cake. I imagine there will be a day when we look back at Game 7 of the World Series with some regret that they didn’t win it all, but as of right now, the afterglow of the season has overshadowed any negativity.

The great thing surrounding the winning was also how Kansas City got to be in the spotlight again and how there were so many feel-good stories from the Royals fans welcoming a fan from the other side of the world to Lorenzo Cain and Greg Holland having babies during the post-season to just a tremendous amount of civic pride and togetherness. I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like that again.

Keefe: The biggest strength of the 2015 Yankees is their bullpen. With Dellin Betancs and Andrew Miller combing to pitch 36 2/3 scoreless innings to start the season, they have shortened games to seven innings when the Yankees have the lead. I would have liked for the Yankees to have also re-signed David Roberston this offseason to make the best 1-2-3 combination in the league, but so far the plan of only having or needing two of them has worked out.

The Royals’ success last season and early this season can once again be attributed to their incredible bullpen where they try to win with the same exact formula the Yankees have adopted in shortening games. I know how much of a luxury it is to have unhittable arms at the end of games after growing up with Mariano Rivera as the Yankees closer and taking him for granted way too much, so it feels like the Yankees have won the lottery again (even if one of their lottery tickets cost $36 million) with their latest late-inning relievers.

How much fun and how reassuring is it to know that if the Royals have a lead after six or seven innings that the game is virtually over?

Rieper: Having such a dominating bullpen makes your manager seem a lot smarter, doesn’t it? It is a nice security blanket to have, and I think it was a huge part of the team having confidence that they could win last year. They knew that as long as they were in the game in the sixth inning, the bullpen would shut things down for the win, or at least give the offense an opportunity to come back.

I’ve been a critic of Dayton Moore over the years, but he has always been good at assembling bullpens, even in the early days when the Royals were pretty awful and he could pluck a guy like Joakim Soria in the Rule 5 draft from San Diego. What makes it even more remarkable is the contrast between the Royals and rival Tigers, a very good team with one glaring weakness — their bullpen.

Keefe: After hearing about Alex Gordon for what seemed like forever and the comparisons to George Brett and how he would become the next face of the Royals, it looked like that might never happen. Following injuries and inconsistent play to begin his career, Gordon finally found consistency at the plate and Gold Glove defense as a left fielder rather than a third baseman.

With the hype and attention got in his early 20s and what he has become as a player now on the other side of 30, are you content or disappointed by his career?

Rieper: I’m overjoyed. You’re talking about a guy that is now eighth in Royals history in Wins Above Replacement, is a two-time All Star, and four-time Gold Glove winner. How he has overcome early struggles and willed himself into becoming the best defensive left fielder in the game is remarkable.

I always felt that some of the criticism early in his career was a bit unwarranted – he was actually decent his first few seasons until injuries derailed him a bit. But I’m not sure I could have anticipated this kind of career arc for him, and he’s perhaps a good example that sometimes young players should not be dismissed so easily when they initially struggle.

Keefe: Like Gordon, Eric Hosmer followed the same sort of path. I still remember his monstrous home run for the first of his career against A.J. Burnett at the Stadium in 2011 and when he followed that one up with another one the next day. But Hosmer’s career best in home runs came as a 21-year-old rookie in 2011 with 19 and since then he has hit 14, 17 and just nine last season. This season, Hosmer already has seven in 35 games and looks to be finally becoming the elite power threat everyone expected him to be. The craziest thing about him is that he is still only 25!

How excited are you for Hosmer to finally come into his own and realize his full potential?

Rieper: Eric Hosmer is the player I think is the key to the Royals remaining competitive this season. The last two seasons he has gotten off to abysmal starts, and the dirty little secret is, he has been a below-average first baseman for his career, certainly not worthy of the hype he has received. But this year he has looked different, taking outside pitches the other way with power — and we’re talking tape-measure shots.

The Royals really haven’t had a true power threat since the days of Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye, and Mike Sweeney, and they were dead last in baseball in home runs last year. If Eric Hosmer can be the kind of middle-of-the-order power threat he’s seemed capable of becoming for years, then the Royals have a chance to return to the World Series.

Keefe: Last October, the Royals shocked everyone by coming back in the wild-card game, sweeping the Angels in the ALDS, sweeping the Orioles in the ALCS and then losing Game 7 of the World Series by one run. it was an impressive and at times improbable run for an 89-win team that everyone had been waiting to break through for years and it finally happened. So what’s next?

The next logical step in a team’s progression would be to get back to the World Series and win it even if the MLB playoffs are the biggest crapshoot of them all where one three-day slump or a couple of bad starts from the rotation can end a great season. I’m guessing before the season started, you felt like the Royals should win the AL Central this year and return to the postseason and make another extended run this fall.

So what were you expectations for this team before the season and have they changed after the 22-13 start?

Rieper: I was actually pretty down on their chances this year. I felt like they were a bit lucky last year and took advantage of a league that was down — Boston and New York weren’t competitive, Detroit was underachieving, Oakland collapsed, Los Angeles had major pitching concerns, and Baltimore had injuries. They also lost James Shields, a major blow to a starting rotation that was already pretty mediocre. The guys they brought in – Alex Rios, Kendrys Morales, and Edinson Volquez — were all free agents with major red flags surrounding them. Regression seemed to be in the cards for the Royals.

But somehow it has all worked out thus far. The starting rotation, as predicted, has been pretty lousy. But the bullpen is still outstanding and deeper than last year, and the defense is off-the-charts amazing this year. They’ve hit pretty well, and while I think many of their hitters will regress after a hot start, its pretty clear to me the offense will be much improved from last year’s pop-gun offense. Hosmer seems to have turned a corner and Mike Moustakas — one of the worst hitters in the league last year — has become a totally different hitter. Its still a team that worries me to due to its lack of depth among hitters, and the starting pitching woes, but the hot start has convinced me they could be in the mix all season and give us another exciting run.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 4, 2015

The Yankees and Blue Jays Continue AL East Battle

The Yankees’ early-season AL East schedule continues on to Toronto for the first time this season against the Blue Jays.

The Yankees are on fire. After a weekend sweep of the Red Sox in Boston, the Yankees have now won their last five series after dropping their first three series in what was a disastrous start to the season. The AL East-heavy schedule to start the year continues on with a trip to Toronto this week.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting for the first time in Toronto, I did an email exchange with Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter to talk about Jose Bautista’s early-season struggles, the emergence of rookie Devon Travis and the continuous health issues with Jose Reyes.

Keefe: The last time we talked was before Opening Day. The Blue Jays took two of three in that series and would have swept if not for an late-inning implosion in the second game of the season. The Yankees looked like a bad baseball team during that series and continued to for another week, falling to 3-6 on the year. But the Yankees have won 13 of 16 to improve 16-9 and take over first place. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have gone 10-13 since the opening series and have struggled to find consistency.

What’s been the Blue Jays’ problem after a month of baseball?

Dakers: Pitching, pitching and pitching. The pitching has been every shade of awful imaginable. The starters have been terrible and the relievers haven’t been that much better. The starters have been so bad that the Jays have made a little cottage industry of calling up whoever was to start the next day’s Triple-A game, to throw long relief out of the pen. None of the starters have been good.

Keefe: Devon Travis is leading the Blue Jays in average, home runs, RBIs, OBP and SLG. He’s a rookie second baseman, who only has 88 career at-bats. If he were a Yankee, they would still have him in the minors the way they do Jose Pirela and Rob Refsnyder.

How fun is it to watch a rookie get the chance to play and succeed in your team? I only ask because the Yankees are against it.

Dakers: Devon Travis has been so much fun to watch. There was a bit of luck involved in him winning a starting job. Going into spring the idea was that Maicer Izturis was going to be the second baseball, at least to start the season, with Travis getting some more development time in Triple-A, but Izturis suffered a “groin strain” a couple of weeks into camp and still isn’t play rehab baseball, so the way was cleared for Travis.

Travis started out spring very slowing, going hitless in his first 5 games, but soon after started crushing the ball. He’s become my favorite in record time.

But the whole “watch a rookie” thing hasn’t gone all that well for the Jays. We started the season with six rookies on the roster, but three of them have been optioned to the minors already.

Keefe: When Jose Bautista didn’t tear apart the Yankees in the opening series, I figured he would go off after he left the Bronx, which would be a nice change. But after a month of games and with a shoulder strain for a few days, Bautista has yet to look like himself every game. I still don’t want him up in a big spot against the Yankees, but he looks off. Is Bautista healthy? What’s been the issue with his slow start?

Dakers: Jose hasn’t been terrible, but he hasn’t quite been Jose Bautista yet. He does have 5 home runs and he is getting on base. Part of his problem is the sore shoulder, he’s been just DHing for the last 7 games, after missing a couple.

He also seems to be getting more than his share of bad strikes called against him. There seems to be at least one a game, where the ball is clearly 6 inches or so off the plate but it is still called a strike, and it seems to happen at the worst times, like when he’s at a 1-1 count. Having those calls go against him makes him feel the need to go after pitches off the plate more than he normally would. He has a very good eye at the plate, but you get a bad call and you think that you have to swing at everything.

He has been doing a better job at controlling his temper on those calls. In the past he might have given the umpire a blast, but now he’s more just shaking his head and trying not to show his displeasure as much.

Keefe: Living in New York and dealing with the Mets and Mets fans I know how frustrating it can be to watch Jose Reyes since it seems like he’s always hurt. Reyes is on the DL with a rib injury and even when he was playing he wasn’t his old self.

Are you frustrated with Reyes’ health issues? Is he losing his abilities?

Dakers: He isn’t a good defensive shortstop anymore. He doesn’t have the range you’d like to see at short. Offensively, he actually started the season hot, and was hitting .417/.444/.500 after the first week of the season, but trying to play through the cracked rib was a mistake.

The Jays seem to have this habit of hoping guys can play through painful injuries, instead of giving the players time off to heal up. I wish they would stop that.

Keefe: Before the season started I thought the AL East would be a six-month fight that would come down to end of the season with no team ever really running away and hiding with a division lead. After almost a month, 4.5 games separate the entire division, which is the smallest gap of any of the league’s six divisions.

After a month of baseball, what are your feelings on the division and how it’s projecting for the summer?

Dakers: It really doesn’t look like there is a team that is ready to run away with the division, at least at this point, which has been good news for the Jays, because they could have buried themselves by now if one or two of the other teams had a hot start. I think the division is likely to start close, no team seems good enough to rattle off a 6-10 game win streak and get themselves a bit of space.

If the Jays want to stay on the edge of the race, the pitching, especially the starting pitching, will have to come around. They are in a bad spot, about all they really can do is hope that their starters figure things out.

Mark Buehrle has been particularly terrible, and when he looks this bad, you start thinking that maybe he’s lost it and maybe he just can’t compete in the MLB anymore, but he was awful to start the 2013 season too. At about this point in 2013, he had an ERA over 7 and then he turned things around and had a normal Mark Buehrle-type year. The Jays have to hope that he, and the other starters can do that again.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 27, 2015

The Yankees and Rays Will Be in Tight Race All Year

After nearly a month of baseball, every team in the AL East is in a battle for first place and that’s likely to continue for the entire season.

This season was supposed to be a down year for the AL East, but after three weeks, it’s been the best division in baseball. Two games separate the five teams and the Yankees and Rays are atop the division at 11-8 with a three-game series between the two teams starting on Monday.

With the Yankees and Rays meeting in the Bronx for the first time this season, Daniel Russell of DRaysBay joined me to talk about losing the Rays’ impressive start, Rays fans’ perspective of A-Rod, Chris Archer’s dominance of the Yankees and how the AL East will play out this summer now that both teams have seen every team in the division.

Keefe: Since the last series between the two teams, the Rays have gone 5-1, winning a series against the Red Sox and sweeping the Blue Jays. After their hot start, the Rays were recently 6-8 and I thought it might be the start of their decline with the roster turnover and injuries they are dealing with, but they have rebounded to share the lead in the division with the Yankees.

For a team that was expected to have to win a lot of 2-1 and 3-2 games this year, they have done that, but they have also had no trouble putting up big numbers here and there in the first month of the season.

Given the names in their lineup, the Rays’ offense was supposed to be the weak link for 2015, but it has managed to do just enough to win games with great pitching. I guess we should all just be used to that by now?

Russell: The Rays continue to be a team built off run prevention and just-enough offense, but you’re right, the offense has done well. Most of that comes from matching up well in the handedness department. Guys like David DeJesus, Tim Beckham, Brandon Guyer and Logan Forsythe have been critical.

For any team to find success, there needs to be a little luck involved, and the Rays have done particularly well in their pinch-hitting department. That’s remarkable, as the team topped out its disabled list at 12 guys on Wednesday among several other playing-hurt guys like Souza, Cabrera, and Jennings.

Now as the starters come back into the fold, it will certainly be interesting to see what the Rays do with the guys off the bench who’ve delivered.

A lot of that has to do with taking walks as well, which we are all well acquainted with in the division. The only three teams in the American League with 10 percent walk rates are the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox, but it’s true the offense has been putting up strong numbers.

Tampa Bay chips away at their opponents, and it’s been paying off. Their 113 wRC+ is fifth in the American League, ahead of New York at sixth (107).

Keefe: Evan Longoria hasn’t really been a part of those big numbers. He’s hitting .306/.413/.468, but he also has just one home run and four RBIs, which puts him in the Jacoby Ellsbury Club (one home run, two RBIs) early this season.

Where has Longoria’s power been? Do you ever worry about him?

Russell: Longoria has been ridiculously productive this month, so it doesn’t bother me yet that he hasn’t homered since opening day. All 19 games of the season thus far have been played in domes or under roofs, so the longballs will come.

In the mean time, Longo has a 14.7 percent walk rate and a 14.7 percent strikeout rate, while batting a .306 AVG at a 152 wRC+. It’s too soon to panic.

Keefe: The Yankees went to Tampa as a bad baseball team. They couldn’t hit or pitch with any consistency and their defense and base running was atrocious. They were 3-6 before the first game of that three game series, but then everything changed on that Friday night. Everything changed when Alex Rodriguez took over the game.

A-Rod finished 3-for-4 with two home runs and four RBIs and hit the go-ahead single in the top of the eighth in the Yankees’ win. Since that night, the Yankees have gone 8-2 to climb to the top of the AL East.

Last night on Sunday Night Baseball against the Mets, A-Rod got the Yankees started with an opposite-field home run, his fifth of the season, just two weeks after saving the Yankees’ season on Sunday Night Baseball against the Red Sox with a first-inning, bases-clearing double.

I am a huge A-Rod fan and supported, mainly because he has been treated so much worse and differently than other PED users, but also because he helps the team win. From an outsider’s perspective and from someone who watched their team lose a game single-handedly because of him, what are you feelings on A-Rod?

Russell: I’m not all Rays fans, I’m sure the fan base hates him, but what I love about baseball – and sports in general – is entertainment and narrative. A-Rod getting clean, then coming back and being the dominant baseball player he always was supposed to be, is just pure entertainment.

The Yankees winning just makes me hate the Yankees more. That sort of passion is reserved to the laundry for me.

Keefe: For the second series this year, the Yankees will thankfully miss Chris Archer as he pitched the day before the start of both series.

In six career starts against the Yankees, Archer is 5-0 with 1.93 ERA. Outside of Felix Hernandez, I think Archer is the active pitcher with the most dominant performances against the Yankees. So of course I’m ecstatic we won’t see him again this week.

What makes Archer so special? Is he considered to be the ace of the staff with Cobb and Moore still out, and is he the ace even with them back?

Russell: Archer can thrive on two pitches two times through the lineup. Thanks to some added strength this off-season he’s pushing 98 with the fastball and has a wipe out slider. When the third time comes around, he introduces the change and no one knows what to do with it. It’s a joy to watch.

He’s also an intelligent kid, a big personality, and someone who constantly gives back to the community. He signed a longterm deal thankful for everything the club has done for him.

They don’t make ’em like Archer too often.

Keefe: The Yankees and Rays are tied atop the AL East at 11-8 with the entire division separated by two games. I have a feeling it’s going to be like that the entire season with all five teams in the race and no one really pulling away and riding and hiding for the summer with the division lead.

What are your early thoughts on the division now that you have seen the Rays play all the teams?

Russell: I’ll agree I expected the division to be pretty tight, I don’t really see any club pulling ahead. New York and Toronto are susceptible to injury, the Orioles and Red Sox to pitching problems and Tampa Bay to the offense slipping away.

The fact that the Rays have not only tread water in the division, but been able to pull ahead some of the other teams, has been really something. If this is what the Rays’ B-Team can do, I’m excited to see what happens when the injured players are re-introduced.