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Oct 9, 2019

Postseason Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Have Near-Perfect ALCS Setup

The Yankees are one Rays win away from having home-field in the ALCS, and at the worst, they will get a much different Astros rotation than expected.

There’s been too much going on to not bring the Off Day Dreaming blog from the regular season back for the postseason. The Yankees are resting for the second straight day, while the Astros and Rays are in Houston preparing for Game 5 on Thursday. It’s never felt so good to not have Yankees baseball for so long.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. I don’t want Aaron Hicks to return to the team. Not that he’s necessarily going to because him saying he’s ready to go and him actually being deemed ready to go by the Yankees are two very different things, but the Yankees don’t need him and I don’t want him.

Hicks only played in 59 games this year, hasn’t played since August 3 and wasn’t good when he played. He batted .235/.325/.443 in his limited time with 12 home runs and 36 RBIs, and while the home runs translate to a 33-home run season over 162 games, that’s not all that impressive given the state of the baseball and home run totals around the league. And projecting numbers for Hicks out over 162 games, as if he would ever play a full season is funny.

Even if Hicks were to return and have only a reserve role on the team, it would likely mean Cameron Maybin would lose his postseason roster spot. Maybin deserves to be a part of this time now after earning it throughout the regular season, and he’s a better option for a role off the bench, which he most recently displayed in Game 3 with his ninth-inning home run to give the Yankees a much-needed insurance run.

Unfortunately, this is a lost season for Hicks, in what was another season in which he got hurt multiple times and failed to stay on the field. The Yankees don’t need him and they don’t have a place for a player who hasn’t played in more than two months.

2. There’s this idea it’s unwise to want to pick your opponent in the postseason, but I disagree. If given the choice before the ALDS, I’m sure the Yankees would have rather faced the team with no starting pitching in the Twins than the Astros or Rays, and when it comes to the ALCS, there’s no chance the Yankees would rather face the Astros over the Rays. A matchup against the Rays means home-field advantage for the series, a shorter flight for Games 3, 4 and 5 and the chance to play in a familiar setting where the majority of the crowd will be Yankees fans.

If you want the Yankees to face the Astros or if you’re not rooting for the Rays to win Game 5 because you don’t want to root for a division rival or because you think picking your postseason opponent has negative repercussions, take a lap.

3. Even if the Rays lose Game 5 of the ALDS to the Astros on Thursday night, they have already done more than enough to help the Yankees for the ALCS. Justin Verlander starting Game 4 of the ALDS means the earliest he can pitch in the ALCS is Game 2, and Gerrit Cole having to start Game 5 of the ALDS means the earliest he can pitch in the ALCS is Game 3. Instead of the Yankees getting Verlander in Game 1 and Cole in Game 2 in Houston (where the duo is nearly unbeatable) they would get Verlander in Game 2 in Houston and Cole in Game 3 in New York. And after seeing Cole get knocked around in Boston in the 2018 ALDS, he’s far from a sure-thing away from his home of MinuteMaid Park.

The Astros having to go the distance against the Rays means their rotation would look something like this in the ALCS:

Game 1: Zack Greinke
Game 2: Justin Verlander
Game 3: Gerrit Cole
Game 4: Wade Miley
Game 5: Zack Greinke
Game 6: Justin Verlander
Game 7: Gerrit Cole

4. If the Rays are to pull off the historic upset and eliminate the Astros in Game 5, then things get even more advantageous for the Yankees. The Yankees would then have home-field advantage for the ALCS and would play Games 1 and 2 in New York on Saturday and Sunday rather than Games 3, 4 and 5 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That means a more raucous Stadium crowd with all day to pregame and no work obligations either day.

It also means the Yankees would face the overall lesser opponent, who they went 12-7 against in the regular season with two of the losses coming in the last week of the season when the Yankees had nothing to play for (and provided the lineups to prove it) and the Rays had everything to play for.

It’s hard to predict the Rays’ rotation if they advance to the ALCS because it’s hard to know if Charlie Morton or Blake Snell will need to come out of the bullpen in Game 5 in relief of Tyler Glasnow. But let’s say the Rays stick to their expected rotation and Morton and Snell go in turn, this is what the Rays’ ALCS rotation would look like:

Game 1: Blake Snell
Game 2: Charlie Morton
Game 3: Tyler Glasnow
Game 4: Opener
Game 5: Blake Snell
Game 6: Charlie Morton
Game 7: Tyler Glasnow

The Yankees would get Snell and Morton in New York where neither has had success.

Snell has been a disaster at the Stadium in his career, pitching to a 5.82 ERA, 1.616 WHIP and allowing nine home runs in 43 1/3 innings over 11 starts. He’s fared much better against the Yankees at Tropicana Field, but if the Rays use this rotation, he will only face the Yankees once at home, and the series might be over before he even gets to.

Morton has been a dominant postseason pitcher, and handled the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS (5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K), but in Game 3 of that series, he was removed in the fourth inning after getting rocked (3.2 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 1 HR) at the Stadium. This season he shut the Yankees down over two starts at Tropicana Field, but couldn’t get anyone out in two starts at the Stadium.

Tropicana Field: 11.2 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 19 K, 1 HR, 0.77 ERA, 0.857 WHIP
Yankee Stadium: 9.2 IP, 9 H, 10 R, 8 ER, 8 BB, 10 K, 3 HR, 7.45 ERA, 1.758 WHIP

With this rotation, Morton would only face the Yankees in New York, where he’s been Pirates Charlie Morton and not Astros/Rays Charlie Morton.

5. Even going back to the beginning of the season, I have always been against CC Sabathia getting a postseason start, and there’s no chance of it happening now, which is great. But being on the roster and pitching out of the bullpen? That’s a different story.

Aaron Boone managed himself into a pretzel in Game 3 when he used Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino and Chad Green in the fifth inning. Thankfully, the Yankees were able to win the game by only using their elite relievers and it never truly came back to hurt the team or ruin the series. But because of his dangerous decisions, Tyler Lyons was warming up at one point. The same Tyler Lyons the Yankees signed in August after he was released by the Pirates and who gave up three home runs in 8 1/3 innings for the Yankees in the regular season. The only reason Lyons is on the roster is because both Sabathia and Dellin Betances are hurt.

I would have felt much more comfortable had Sabathia (even on one knee and with a bad shoulder) been warming up instead of Lyons. And moving forward, I hope Sabathia is healthy enough to be on the active roster, so that it will be him instead of Lyons warming up when Boone inevitably mismanages the bullpen.

6. I think it’s beyond silly to bat Brett Gardner third in the lineup and have him bat ahead of Edwin Encarnacion, Giancarlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres and Gary Sanchez, but the Yankees feel it’s necessary to break up the right-handed bats (the same way they feel it’s necessary to give their players scheduled days off to prevent injuries), so they’re going to have a left-handed bat there against right-handed starters. Because of that and because the team is undefeated in the postseason with that lineup, you can expect to continue to see it in the ALCS against right-handed starters.

The right-handed starters the Yankees will see in the ALCS are either Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zack Greinke, or Charlie Morton, Tyler Glasnow and probably opener Diego Castillo. Against left-handed pitching, Gardner would most likely slide down to the bottom of the order, and the Yankees would place Gio Urshela between Gardner and Didi Gregorius. That would give the Yankees a lineup looking something like this:

DJ LeMahieu, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Edwin Encarnacion, DH
Giancarlo Stanton, LF
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Gary Sanchez, C
Didi Gregorius, SS
Gio Urshela, 3B
Brett Gardner, CF

Now that’s a lineup. That’s the lineup the Yankees would use against Wade Miley and Blake Snell. I think it’s the lineup they should use every game.

7. Ottavino was used oddly in Game 3 of the ALDS, facing only Nelson Cruz before being removed for another right-handed pitcher in Green to face a left-handed hitter. It’s clear Boone is being told by the analytics department to not allow Ottavino to face left-handed batters, and that won’t be a problem if the Yankees face the Astros. Ottavino will have his work cut out for him with anticipated matchups against George Springer, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel and Carlos Correa, so while it was head-scratching to see Ottavino used in a limited role against the Twins, you can expect to see a lot of him against the Astros.

If it’s the Rays who advance, Ottavino’s role will be less prominent as the Rays have a much more balanced lineup, but even then, their left-handed bats are nowhere near as fearsome as the left-handed bats of the Twins or Astros. Either way, expect to see more Ottavino in the next round, and expect to see a lot of him if the Yankees play the Astros.

8. Aside from sweeping the division series and getting a four-day, complete-day layoff before the ALCS, the best part about the ALDS was that everyone in the lineup contributed.

LeMahieu hit two doubles, a home run and had four RBIs. Judge reached base in seven of his 13 plate appearances. Gardner homered in Game 1 and drove in the huge second run in Game 3. Encarnacion went 4-for-13 with two doubles and two RBIs. Stanton reached base in five of his 11 plate appearances. Torres gave the Yankees the lead in Games 1 and 3, had three doubles, a home run, four RBIs, two stolen bases and a 1.378 OPS and was the ALDS MVP. Sanchez reached base in five of his 12 plate appearances and saw 28 pitches in Game 3.Gregorius had the grand slam in Game 2, drove in two insurance runs in Game 3 and led the team with 6 RBIs in the series. Urshela had three hits, including a double.

When the worst hitter on your team in a series is your 9-hitter (Urshela here), which is supposed to be your worst hitter, and even he goes 3-for-12 with a double in the series, you know things are going well. When you score 23 runs in three games despite not getting a home run from Judge, Encarnacion, Stanton or Sanchez, well, that’s just scary.

Too many times since 2001 have the Yankees lost postseason series because the entire team or nearly the entire team is cold at the same time. I don’t expect the Yankees to have the kind of three-game offensive outburst they had in the ALDS in the ALCS or the World Series if they make it that far, but getting production and timely hits from different players each game, like they did in the ALDS, is what wins in October.

9. Odds are the Yankees will stay with their ALDS rotation in the ALCS, but there are a few things for them to think about depending on which team wins.

If the Rays win, I think it’s a guarantee we see the same rotation order in the ALCS, setting up this rotation:

Game 1: James Paxton
Game 2: Masahiro Tanaka
Game 3: Luis Severino
Game 4: Opener/J.A. Happ
Game 5: James Paxton
Game 6: Masahiro Tanaka
Game 7: Luis Severino

That would allow both Paxton and Tanaka to pitch at home in Games 1 and 2 and would bring Tanaka back at home in Game 6, where’s he much better than on he is on the road.

If the Astros win, things could change. Paxton, despite being a left-hander against the Astros’ right-handed heavy lineup of Springer, Altuve, Bregman, Gurriel and Correa has dominated the Astros in his career, winning all four of his starts against them in 2018 as a Mariner. I wouldn’t feel great about having a lefty opening the series on the road against that right-handed lineup, but I still think he would be the Yankees’ Game 1 choice, even though he pitched the worst of three starters in the ALDS.

I think the Yankees might flip Tanaka and Severino if they have to play the Astros. Tanaka did pitch well in Game 1 in Houston in the 2017 ALCS, and Severino did OK in Game 2 of that series, but it’s clear the Yankees would rather have Tanaka start at home than on the road this postseason. If the Yankees were to leave Paxton and flip Tanaka and Severino, the rotation would look like this:

Game 1: James Paxton
Game 2: Luis Severino
Game 3: Masahiro Tanaka
Game 4: Opener/J.A. Happ
Game 5: James Paxton
Game 6: Luis Severino
Game 7: Masahiro Tanaka

The Yankees have a lot to think about when it comes to their rotation, and I’m sure they already know what they will do depending on which team wins the other series, but at least they will get to line up their rotation on their terms after sweeping their division series.

10. I needed this four-day layoff as much as the Yankees after spending Friday and Saturday at the Stadium and then having the stressful Game 3 on Tuesday. It’s nice to sit back and enjoy the other series and not have to worry about a winner-take-all game like Astros, Rays, Dodgers, Nationals, Braves and Cardinals fans have to worry about on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Yankees might not have won home-field advantage for the American League postseason in the regular season, but they are one Rays win from getting it, and they are now in a much better position to face the Astros if the Astros win.

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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!

Sep 26, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Draw Best Possible ALDS Opponent

This is it. The Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.

This is it: the Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. The goal of being the 1-seed and having home-field advantage for the American League playoffs won’t be accomplished. The Yankees trail the Astros by three games in the loss column, which means four games overall for the 1-seed, and with the Yankees only having three games left, the Yankees will be the 2-seed in the AL. The Yankees also now trail the Dodgers by a 1/2 game for home-field in a potential World Series.

It’s still possible the Yankees could have home-field for both the ALCS and World Series. The Astros could get upset in the ALDS by the Rays, A’s or Indians (I wouldn’t count on it) and the Yankees could either finish with a better record than the Dodgers, or the Dodgers could get upset as well. But if the Yankees advance to the ALCS, plan on them playing the Astros.

I wanted the Yankees to have home-field in the event they reach the ALCS and play the Astros because I think they need it to win. The 2017 ALCS was completely lopsided in favor of the home team, the Astros have the best home record in baseball this season (60-21) and Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole have been nearly unhittable in Houston, though they have been nearly unhittable everywhere. The Yankees have had success against this Astros core in New York, and it was these Astros who admitted to being intimidated by the Yankee Stadium crowd in the postseason. The Yankees can beat the Astros, but it would have been easier to do so with the first two games, and four of the seven games of the ALCS at home.

Now the Yankees are either going to need to have an unlikely upset in the other ALDS or do something they have a lot of trouble doing in Houston: hitting, scoring and winning.

2. I’m scared of Verlander in the postseason, but I’m just as scared of Cole, who has better strikeouts numbers than Verlander, and who the Yankees have seen a lot less of in recent years.

I stayed up on Wednesday night to watch the Astros-Mariners game (because I had an Astros-A’s two-team parlay), and during the broadcast, there was a graphic shown about Cole and how for more than four months now he is first in every single pitching category in the league.

Cole was originally drafted by the Yankees, but chose to attend UCLA instead, and was later redrafted by the Pirates. The Yankees unsuccessfully tried to trade for him before the 2018 season, but the Astros landed him, and he helped lead them to the ALCS, before laying an egg, which helped the Red Sox advance to and win the World Series.

I can’t help but envision Cole shutting down the Yankees in the ALCS the way he was unable to shut down the Red Sox last season, and then watching the Yankees greatly overpay to sign him in the offseason only to have him come to New York and be more like the pitcher the Pirates dealt than the one the Astros acquired. That seems like something that would happen. Then again, the Yankees probably won’t sign him in the offseason, opting to once again shop from the starting pitching clearance rack.

3. The type of game we saw from the Yankees on Wednesday night against Charlie Morton and the Rays is the exact type of game that keeps me up at night for fear of it happening in the postseason. The Yankees’ right-handed heavy lineup (missing two more right-handed hitters in Gary Sanchez and Edwin Encarnacion) was completely shut down by Morton for six innings and the Rays’ bullpen for the final three. The Yankees were one-hit in the game and managed to score only one run in the 21 innings in the two-game series. For now, I’m going to chalk it up as just two games of 162 at a time when the Yankees are just trying to go through the motions and stay healthy against a team with everything to play for still.

Morton has owned the Yankees away from Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees have owned him in New York (like they did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALCS), only further proving how much better the Yankees are at home than on the road. Wednesday night’s game was essentially a duplicate performance of Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS for Morton. In that game, Morton shut out the Yankees for five innings, only allowing two hits, before Lance McCullers Jr. came in and threw 100 straight curveballs to finish the game.

The Yankees and Yankees fans should be extremely grateful Morton is no longer on the Astros. Outside of Verlander and Cole, he’s been arguably the best pitcher in the AL. It’s bad enough the Astros’ third starter is Zack Greinke, but if it were still Morton, the Yankees could pack up the bats and balls and try again next season.

4. It’s hard to put a lot of stock into how badly the Yankees have played recently, and they have played badly, going 7-7 since their unnecessary bullpen management loss in Detroit back on September 10, because they haven’t been using their best possible lineup and have been avoiding using their elite relievers.

I’m not worried about the team playing poorly at the end of the regular season because nothing that has happened this month and nothing that will happen in the last three games of the season this weekend will matter come next Friday night at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could be on a 15-game winning streak or 15-game losing streak heading into October and it wouldn’t matter, and the team’s lack of hitting this week against the Rays, doesn’t worry me. I have long been worried about the offense disappearing in the postseason like it did in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS, and the last two games didn’t change that.

5. With each game the Yankees use a lineup that features Brett Gardner and Didi Gregorius breaking up the right-handed bats, the more nervous I get about this sort of lineup being used in the postseason. I don’t know who actually creates the lineup, and I highly doubt it’s Aaron Boone, but whoever it is, Gardner and Gregorius can’t be hitting anywhere other than the bottom third of the lineup. This isn’t the 2017 postseason when the Yankees had Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Starlin Castro to hide. The lineup is too good, whether it’s right-handed heavy or not, to have those two batting anywhere higher than seventh.

If Gardner and Gregorius bat where they should, here’s a lineup I think we could see.

1. DJ LeMahieu, 1B
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Gleyber Torres, 2B
4. Giancarlo Stanton, LF
5. Edwin Encarnacion, DH
6. Gary Sanchez, C
7. Didi Gregorius, SS
8. Gio Urshela, 3B
9. Brett Gardner, CF

I don’t agree with Stanton batting ahead of Encarnacion or Sanchez, but the Yankees are going to hit Stanton at least fourth and possibly even third. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Gregorius bats ahead of Sanchez because the Yankees desperately like to hit inferior hitters ahead of superior hitters whenever they can.

6. This lineup doesn’t include Luke Voit, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to play. Between Voit, Encarnacion and Urshela, two of the three will play. I think you need Urshela in the lineup, not only because he’s earned it, but because he’s been so good at third base, that even if he were to stay in his current slump in October, his glove is enough to keep him in the lineup. That leaves the final lineup between Voit and Encarnacion.

Encarnacion will return to the lineup this weekend in Texas and try to get as many at-bats as he can in the three-game series (though I’m sure the Yankees won’t let him play in all three games) to get ready for the postseason. As long he shows he’s healthy, he’s going to play.

Voit, on the other hand, claims he’s healthy and over the hernia injury that landed him on the injured list twice, but he hasn’t hit since returning nearly a month ago. Voit is batting just .222/.341/.375 over 85 plate appearances with two home runs since the end of August and has looked overmatched most of the time. He still has a .383 on-base percentage and an .856 OPS on the season, but you have to go back to the end of July to find the last time he was truly a feared, middle-of-the-order presence. If Encarnacion is healthy, Voit is on the bench to begin the postseason.

7. It can be worrisome to be the 1-seed and have had nothing to play for in weeks and suddenly be playing a postseason game against a team that has been in Game 7 mode for as long as you have been coasting. The Twins are a lot like the Yankees in that they have known for a while they are going to the postseason, even if they didn’t officially clinch the AL Central until Wednesday. Now the Twins can sit back and relax, like the Yankees have been doing, and play spring training lineups and wait for next Friday.

Despite not being the 1-seed and not having home-field advantage no matter what and not getting to face the wild-card winner who will have had to play an extra game and burn their best starter to get to the ALDS, I think the Yankees ended up with the best possible first-round matchup.

I’m not scared of the Twins. Not at all. This doesn’t have to do with the Yankees historically owning the Twins and eliminating them in five postseasons since 2003. This has everything to do with the Twins having the weakest starting pitching in the AL postseason field. If the Yankees were to lose to them, it wouldn’t just be an upset, it would be an absolute disaster. The Yankees would claim it’s the result of a short series and small sample size and the MLB postseason being a crapshoot, but it can’t happen. The Yankees can’t lose in the ALDS.

8. The best chance the Yankees have of not seeing the Astros in a potential ALCS is if the A’s win the wild-card game. The Astros would steamroll both the Rays and Indians, but I could see an A’s upset of the Astros, and from a gambling perspective, there would be a lot of value in taking the A’s series money line.

The A’s took three of four from the Astros in Houston two weeks ago and have won six of the last eight against them. The two teams know each other the same way the Yankees and Red Sox do, and there wouldn’t be any surprises in a series between them.

A series which wouldn’t have been allowed prior to the five-team postseason format is the last thing the Astros want after earning the 1-seed. It’s the only real ALDS matchup which could end the Astros’ season early or at least screw up the order of their rotation for the ALCS.

9. The Yankees are going to finish the season with either 102, 103, 104 or 105 wins depending on how the weekend in Texas goes in what will also be the last three games ever at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

It’s been a fun six months and an enjoyable season, the third in a row, after the previous three out of four were miserable. But now the real season begins. Everything since March 29 has been to prepare for next Friday night in the Bronx and Game 1 of the ALDS, and if the season doesn’t end the way the last nine have failed to, nothing since March 29 will have mattered.

10. This was the 19th and final Off Day Dreaming of the regular season. There will be a similar blog after each postseason game this October as there has been in past postseasons.

Thank you for reading Off Day Dreaming throughout the regular season on the worst days of any Yankees season: off days. The next regular-season Off Day Dreaming will be on Friday, March 27, 2020.

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

Sep 23, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Set Postseason Rotation

Joe Torre always said he wanted his best starting pitcher going in the pivotal Game 2 of any postseason series. This postseason, the Yankees will have their best starting pitcher going in Game 2.

It’s the last week of the regular season. The last week! There are only five regular-season games remaining for the 2019 Yankees and then next Friday night they will open the postseason at Yankee Stadium.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. The Yankees announced the upcoming end-of-the-season rotation and it goes James Paxton followed by Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka, which means that will be the order of starters in the ALDS. I recently wrote in the last edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Power Rankings that I wanted it to go Severino then Paxton then Tanaka, but I’m fine with the way they set it up.

It does worry me that everyone seems to have forgotten the Paxton we saw in March, April, May, June and July and seems to think the one we have seen in August and September is guaranteed to show up in Game 1. Those same people are likely the ones who think Severino can’t be trusted in Game 1 because he has only pitched nine innings this season, which to me, makes him more trustworthy. It’s essentially the end of spring training or the beginning of the season for Severino, and he’s not tired from a season’s worth of work. Look at how dominant he has been early in the season the last couple years and that’s the Severino we’re getting now. But with this setup, Severino is either going to have a chance to put the Yankees up 2-0 in the ALDS or avoid them going down 0-2 before leaving New York. Joe Torre always said he wanted his best pitcher in Game 2 and that’s why Andy Pettitte — the winningest pitcher in postseason history — would pitch that game. The Yankees have their best pitcher going in Game 2.

2. After the first edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Power Rankings, James Paxton went out and got rocked by the Red Sox (4 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 4 HR) and his ERA rose to 4.72 on the season. But since getting embarrassed in Boston, Paxton hasn’t lost, winning 10 straight for an undefeated August and September after the Yankees lost all five of his July starts.

Over this nine-game winning streak, opposing hitters are batting .167/.241/.273 against Paxton as he’s beaten the Red Sox twice, Indians and Dodgers along with the pesky offenses of the Rangers and Blue Jays twice. He’s looked like the pitcher I thought the Yankees traded for and not the pitcher who gave them four-plus months of mediocrity to begin the season.

In the first edition of the rankings, after he struggled through the first four months of the season, I wrote: He has two months to change my mind, and he has a lot to do in those two months to change it. Well, he’s changed it.

Earlier this season, YES showed an interview of Paxton talking about how he wants to be a Yankee and wants to pitch where he’s expected to win. He will now get that chance at the end of next week in Game 1 of the ALDS.

3. I really missed Severino this season and his return has made me realize how much I love everything about him. I love his demeanor and pace, his velocity and control, his command and attack of the strike zone. He throws a pitch the ball, gets the ball back and is immediately ready to throw the next pitch. He doesn’t waste time and puts each batter on defense for the entire at-bat. He’s a refreshing presence on the mound, and as close to a guaranteed win as you can get every five days for the Yankees.

In two starts this season, Severino has been dominant (9 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 13 K) and I would have trusted him starting a postseason game without these two performances, but now I trust him more than anyone.

Severino’s 2017 wild-card game disaster came in his first postseason start after throwing a career-high 193 1/3 innings. He bounced back to pitch well in that ALDS and ALCS and again in the 2018 wild-card game before the 2018 ALDS Game 3 disaster, in which he was late to warmup for reasons we will never know. But Severino has yet to really deliver that memorable postseason performance, and it’s likely because in both postseasons he has been a part of, he was coming off six months of career-high work. This time he will be the most rested and freshest starter of the entire postseason field, and has the chance to be the Yankees’ difference-maker in potential series against the Astros and Dodgers.

4. I like Tanaka getting the ball in Game 3. He won’t be scared into melting down on the road and he won’t let the crowd or non-Yankee Stadium mound affect him. He’s proven himself on the road in October with strong starts against the eventual champions in each of the last two seasons. In the hostile postseason environments of Houston (6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K) and Boston (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), Tanaka delivered, and I trust him in Game 3 of the ALDS to either finish a potential sweep of the series, swing the series in the Yankees’ favor or save the season (like he did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS).

5. It seems like the Yankees are going to give the ball to J.A. Happ in Game 4 of the ALDS rather than go with an opener and I really hope they don’t. If Paxton is getting the ball in Game 1 because of what he did this season then there’s no way Happ should get the ball for a postseason game because of what he did this season. I don’t think Happ or CC Sabathia should be starting a playoff game based on their regular-season performances and not counting their postseason starts in the 2018 ALDS which were as bad as possible. Let Chad Green open Game 4 and piece together the remaining 21-24 outs. Don’t let Happ ruin a postseason game in the first inning.

6. I’m scared of three things in the postseason. One of them is the offense disappearing with an abundance of strikeouts, which is what happened in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS. That can’t be planned for or prevented and all you can do is pray a slump doesn’t occur at the worst possible time in a short. The other two can be planned for or prevented …

7. Didi Gregorius has no business batting third or fourth and Brett Gardner has no business batting anywhere other than ninth in the postseason. I don’t care that they bat left-handed and that they could be used to break up the right-handed bats. They will be the two weakest bats in the postseason lineup and they belong at the bottom of the order.

The Yankees constructed a right-handed heavy lineup, and they have to live with that. There’s no reason to bat either of them ahead of anyone on the Yankees, especially when the lineup is in some order made up of DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit, Edwin Encarnacion and Gio Urshela. Gregorius eighth and Gardner ninth. Don’t build your lineup for some late-innings relief strategy which might not and most likely won’t happen.

8. The other thing which can be prevented is Aaron Boone’s managing. It’s great that the team has won 100-plus games in the first two seasons as manager, but none of it will matter this season like it didn’t last season if he manages this October like he did last October.

There’s no point of needing only 12 outs from your starting pitcher if your manager isn’t going to pull the starting pitcher at the right time and utilize the bullpen in the order it’s meant to be utilized. Boone ruined the ALDS last season when he left Severino in too long in Game 3 and Sabathia in Game 4. He then doubled-down on his egregious decisions to leave both starters in too long with the relievers he brought in to follow them.

I’m most scared of the Astros’ deep lineup and starting pitching and it will be the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to winning a championship this season. But after that, I’m scared of Boone managing the Yankees out of the playoffs. Until he shows he’s learned from his mistakes and is a capable postseason manager, it’s hard to think otherwise.

9. It seems like Yankees fans suddenly started caring about home-field advantage in the postseason after the Yankees clinched the division. They should have been worried about it all along. The division has never been a problem. I wrote back on July 1 that the Yankees clinched the division, following the two games in London. Even if it took them another two-and-a-half months to make it official, they were always going to win the division. Home-field has been the bigger issue these last two-plus months, and now it’s no longer an issue since the Astros are going to win it.

The Astros have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Yankees for home-field because of the head-to-head tiebreaker, and with only five games left to play for the Yankees, even if they won them all, they still might not win it. And it’s going to be hard to win them all since they said the Goof Troop of 40-man relievers would be doing the pitching in the two-game series in Tampa this week.

So if the Yankees and Astros meet in the ALCS, the first two games of the series will be in Houston as the Astros will get four of the seven games at home. The Yankees will have to figure out a way to beat Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole or Zack Greinke on the road, and also take care of business at home. Yankees fans will want to root as hard as they are for the Yankees in the postseason for the wild-card winner to win the other ALDS matchup.

10. My expected record for the Yankees in September is 15-10. They are currently 13-7, which means they have to finish at least 2-3 to meet expectations.

The Yankees have 102 wins and only need to win one of their remaining games to match the 2009 Yankees’ 103-59 record. But if the postseason doesn’t end with a win like it did for the 2009 Yankees, it won’t matter.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming

Sep 16, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Have Two Weeks to Figure Out Postseason Plan

For a team with 98 wins with two weeks left in the regular season, the Yankees sure have a lot to figure out before the end of September.

For a team with 98 wins with two weeks left in the regular season, the Yankees sure have a lot to figure out before the end of September. When will their current injured players return? Who will be on the postseason roster? What will their postseason rotation be? What will their postseason lineup be? Will they be the 1- or 2-seed in the postseason? And most importantly, who will their ALDS opponent be? All of that will be answered between now and September 29, though Yankees fans won’t be made aware of all the answers by then.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. Well, that didn’t take long. After writing Yankees Can Have Postseason Home-Field Advantage If They Want It on Friday, the Yankees gave away their two-game lead over the Astros by losing two of three to the 59-win Blue Jays. The two losses in Toronto gave the Yankees a 4-6 record at Rogers Centre for the season against a team on its way to almost 100 losses.

I have written many times about how the Yankees don’t really care to win home-field advantage. To the Yankees, if it happens and they fall into home-field, great, and if they don’t, oh well. That was once again clear on Friday night when they brought Tyler Lyons in before more established relievers and he promptly gave up a walk-off home run to Bo Bichette, and it was clear on Sunday when Nestor Cortes was brought into a 3-3 game and allowed to face the top of the Blue Jays’ order. Bichette singled, Cavan Biggio walked and Randal Grichuk hit a three-run home run, his second of the game. (There’s a reason I had Grichuk starting in the outfield of my 2019 All-Animosity Team. He now has eight home runs and a .990 OPS in 16 games against the Yankees this season as 29 percent of his home run total (28) have come against them.)

So now the Yankees are back to being tied with the Astros and back to being the 2-seed in the American League because the Astros won the season series. The Astros’ schedule is much easier for the final two weeks of the season, so barring the Astros not caring about home-field, get ready for Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 of a potential ALCS being in Houston.

2. Sunday isn’t the reason I’m questioning Cortes being a Yankee, I have questioned it all season. Now with September call-ups and the 40-man roster he’s not going anywhere, but he never should have been here to begin with. Cortes came back to the Yankees after being unwanted by the 2018 Orioles. The 47-win Orioles who are one of the worst teams in the history of baseball didn’t want Cortes, and after more than four months of him pitching for the Yankees, we all know why.

Cortes now has a 5.54 ERA on the season, which is the highest its been outside of when it was 13.50 briefly following his Yankees debut (2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 3K, 1 HR) and when it was 9.00 following his second Yankees outing (4 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HR). Cortes has given up earned runs in 18 of his 34 appearances, including six straight, and has allowed an astounding 14 home runs in 63 1/3 innings. I have no idea how he’s survived a demotion in more than four months, but I guess good for him? He’s been a New York Yankee, making a major-league salary and traveling in luxury nearly all season, earning service time toward his future pension. Good for him. Bad for Yankees fans.

3. It was beautiful watching Dellin Betances return to the Yankees and strike out the only two batters he faced on eight pitches. It would have been even more beautiful to watch him get to complete an inning of work, but apparently he was on a two-batter or eight-pitch limit, and you have to trust the Yankees in these situations since they have been the model franchise for preventing pitching injuries and keeping their players healthy.

If the Yankees are getting the real Betances for the postseason then they’re getting the best relief pitcher in all of baseball for the last five years. That means everyone gets bumped down in the bullpen pecking order and hopefully means a few less stress tests for Yankees fans in high-leverage situations in October.

I trust Betances more than any other Yankee reliever, and that holds true whether he’s pitched all season or thrown eight pitches.

4. Here is my current Yankees’ Bullpen Trust Rankings (scale of 1-10):

Dellin Betances: 9.6
Aroldis Chapman: 8.2
Adam Ottavino: 7.5
Chad Green: 6.9
Tommy Kahnle: 5.2
Zack Britton: 4.3

I don’t trust Chapman from a runners-on-base standpoint, but I trust him to pitch a scoreless inning. Ottavino’s control issues when he doesn’t know where his slider is going is worrisome for October, but when he’s on, which is most of the time, he’s unhittable. After the worst month of April from a reliever ever, Green has regained my trust heading into the postseason. I want to trust Kahnle as much as Aaron Boone does, but his love for Kahnle against lefties because of his changeup scares me, and I have a bad feeling about Kahnle giving up a home run in a big spot in the postseason. When Britton starts striking batters out again and not putting two on everytime he pitches, we can talk about trusting him again.

5. Luis Severino is going to start on Tuesday and if he looks like his usual self like Betances did, he has to start either Game 1 or 2 of the postseason. I know there’s been a push over the last month-plus by James Paxton to be the Yankees’ Game 1 starter, and he might continue to earn that honor over his last few starts, but Severino belongs starting one of the games.

Masahiro Tanaka has been my Game 1 starter all season, based on his five-start postseason career, and the fact Paxton sucked for most of the year, Severino hasn’t pitched, the Yankees are unsure of what to do with Domingo German and because CC Sabathia and J.A. Happ shouldn’t be anywhere near the mound in October. I would still be happy with Tanaka getting the ball to open the postseason for the Yankees, but with the return of Severino and the run Paxton has been on since the beginning of August, I don’t think Tanaka is the go-to guy anymore, especially if recency bias is going to determine the postseason rotation.

But that’s fine. Give the ball to Tanaka for Game 3 on the road. I trust him on the road more than anyone, and he proved himself on the road in the 2017 ALCS in Houston and the 2018 ALDS in Boston. No matter what the rotation is going to be, it’s looking a lot better than it was at the trade deadline, as long as Sabathia and Happ aren’t a part of it.

6. The groin injury sufferd by Gary Sanchez is both unfortunate and ill-timed. It seems he might miss the rest of the regular season and essentially play his rehab games in the ALDS. Either that, or Austin Romine or Kyle Higashioka will start in the postseason, and the Yankees will be without their biggest lineup advantage. Sanchez was hurt on a stolen-base attempt, injuring his groin, which seems to get injured once a month. Sanchez had five career stolen-base attempts prior to this one, and Aaron Boone took responsibility for allowing Sanchez to go. Either Boone is protecting his player and Sanchez is dumb for trying such an unnecessary thing, or Boone is dumb for thinking it was clever to allow his catcher to attempt to steal a base with two weeks left in the season. I don’t know who’s truly at fault here, but either one or both of them are idiots.

7. As for the injury to Edwin Encarnacion, I’m not sure what to expect. The Yankees have said it’s minor, but anything the Yankees say is minor usually turns into major, and without many regular-season games left and Encarnacion’s age, it’s hard to know when and if Encarnacion will return.

His absence solves the lineup problem when Giancarlo Stanton returns and doesn’t force someone who deserves to play to the bench, but I would rather have Encarncion healthy and available and force that decision to be made. It seems like whenever the Yankees are just about to activate an injured player, another player is hurt. In this case, with the return of Betances, Severino and Jordan Montgomery, the Yankees lost Sanchez and Encarnacion. Had they lost Gleyber Torres after an awkward play at shortstop over the weekend, it would have been a disaster, but expected. That’s the way this ridiculous season has gone.

8. The Yankees’ magic number is down to 3. Any combination of Yankees wins and Rays losses totaling three and the Yankees are division champions. That could happen as early as Wednesday. If it were to happen after play on Wednesday, the Yankees would have 16 days and nine regular-season games until Game 1 of the ALDS to get everyone healthy, feeling comfortable at the plate and to line up their rotation. It will also mean a whole lot of Cortes, Tyler Lyons and Breyvic Valera and the other 40-man call-ups. Get ready for three- and four-inning games from the regulars.

9. The team I most want the Yankees to play in the ALDS is the Rays. After them, it’s the Indians then the Twins then the A’s. It’s looking more and more like it’s going to be another Yankees-Twins ALDS the way it was in 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2019, which all led to ALCS appearances for the Yankees.

I pray that the Yankees somehow fall into home-field over the final two weeks because it will mean facing a lesser opponent which will have had to burn their best starter to get to the Yankees, along with having to travel from wherever the wild-card game is to New York with only one calendar day in between. It also means being able to host the ALCS. To me, it means everything.

10. My expected record for the Yankees in September is 15-10. They are currently 9-5, which means they have to finish at least 6-5 to meet expectations. That shouldn’t be hard given their schedule during a normal time of the season, but will be hard since there’s no way of knowing how they are going to handle the final two weeks once they clinch the division.

The Yankees have 98 wins and only need to win two of their remaining games to match last season’s 100 wins. I think they easily pass the 2009 Yankees’ 103-59 record and possibly even get to 105 wins. But if the postseason doesn’t end with a win, it won’t matter.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Sep 5, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Home Run-Happy Yankees Make Me Happy

I miss this feeling. This feeling is the feeling of knowing September Yankees games are meaningless (aside from home-field advantage) and that the result ultimately doesn’t matter because of their enormous division lead.

After losing on Monday to the Rangers, the Yankees won on Tuesday and Wednesday to win the three-game series and continue their home series winning streak, which dates back to April. If you don’t think home-field advantage matters in the postseason, like the Yankees seem to think, you might want to rethink your stance on that.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. I missed this feeling. This feeling is the feeling of knowing September Yankees games are meaningless (aside from home-field advantage) and that the result ultimately doesn’t matter because of their enormous division lead. For the four NFL Sundays in September, I can watch football and not be completely focused and worried about the Yankees. It’s been a while since Yankees fans have had this luxury and I forgot how good it felt. I won’t take it for granted.

2. The Yankees aren’t going to go all out to win home-field advantage. I think they need it to win the American League pennant and get past the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup, but clearly the Yankees don’t feel the same. Aaron Boone has shown us they don’t feel the same.

In Sunday’s game, Boone brought in reliever Ryan Dull with the game tied to start the seventh inning against the A’s. Dull had already been released by the A’s and Giants this season, found his way to the Yankees and somehow was a September 1 call-up. Why? Because he’s in the Top 20 percent in spin rate.

3. This is Dull’s line pre-Yankees this season: 9 IP, 19 H, 13 R, 12 ER, 4 BB, 8 K, 4 HR. Throw in the one batter he hit and he put 24 baserunners on in nine innings. How is he on the Yankees’ 40-man roster and how did he get a September 1 call-up, and why is he pitching in the seventh inning of a 0-0 game? Dull was every bit as bad in that seventh inning as he was prior to joining the Yankees. His line: 1 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K.

Later in that same game, Boone brought in Adam Ottavino with the Yankees trailing. So he goes to the shouldn’t-be-in-the-majors reliever when the game is tied and he goes to the elite, top-tier reliever with the team trailing. If you don’t think Boone’s logic and bullpen management is going to be a problem in October, you must have missed last October.

4. The Yankees came back to win the game 5-4, thanks to back-to-back home runs from Brett Gardner and Mike Ford in the bottom of the ninth off Liam Hendricks, who can’t seem to ever get the Yankees out. Because of the win, Boone was saved from being questioned about his nonsensical bullpen management as the postgame focus turned to the second walk-off win in as many days. But not for me. I was happy the Yankees won, but not happy about how they won because it’s decisions like pitching Ottavino when the team is losing and using a lesser reliever when the game is tied that will arise in the postseason. Boone was dealt a 15 with the dealer showing a 10. Boone inexplicably stayed. The dealer flipped over a 3, pulled a 2 and then a 10 to bust. Boone thinks he made the right decision because he won the hand.

This type of bullpen management happened last October after everyone spent the entire regular season under the idea Boone would manage differently in the postseason. If you’re not scared about Boone ruining this season, you should be.

5. I updated my Postseason Rotation Power Rankings on Tuesday, but didn’t really update them since I’m currently staying with Masahiro Tanaka in Game 1, Domingo German in Game 2, James Paxton in Game 3 and Chad Green as an opener in Game 4. If Luis Severino comes back then everything changes. Or if Paxton continues to pitch the way he has since the beginning of August.

After the Yankees lost all five of Paxton’s start in July, he has won seven straight. His line over those seven straight wins: 42.1 IP, 25 H, 14, 14 ER, 15 BB, 51 K, 5 HR, 2.98 ERA, 0.944 WHIP. That’s the Paxton the Yankees thought they were trading for with opposing hitters posting a .545 OPS against him.

6. Through all of his ups and downs over the last two seasons, I have never said, written or tweeted anything negative about Gary Sanchez. How could I as President of the Gary Sanchez Fan Club? And after last year’s dismal season which ended with offseason surgery for Sanchez, he has repaid those who believed in him and ridiculed those who wanted Austin Romine to be the team’s starting catcher. (That will always be the most ridiculous Yankees storyline of all time.)

Sanchez homered twice on Tuesday night to give him 34 on the season, breaking his Yankees’ single-season home runs for a catcher record he set in 2017 with 33. After becoming the third fastest player ever to 100 home runs, Sanchez is the second fastest to 14 multi-home run games. He’s the best hitting catcher in baseball and the Yankees’ biggest advantage in the lineup because of his position as a middle-of-the-order bat.

Now I just need Sanchez to continue his record-setting slugging ways in October, where he already owns five postseason home runs in 18 games and 75 plate appearances.

7. Aaron Judge hit his 20th home run on Wednesday night and Sanchez said he thinks Judge can get to 30. That would be 10 more home runs in 21 games, most of which Judge won’t be playing the full game or playing at all since the Yankees will have clinched the division.

Judge isn’t going to get to 30 this season, but his 20 in 84 games is the equivalent to hitting 39 in 162 games. His 27 in 112 games last year was also the equivalent to hitting 39 in a full season.

Judge’s only full season so far has been his Rookie of the Year 2017 season, in which he hit 52 home runs and had a 1.049 OPS, finishing second for the AL MVP to Jose Altuve. It’s unlikely Judge will ever match his magical age-25 season, but it would be nice to see if he actually could by playing a full season in 2020. Can we please get one freak-injury- and oblique-injury-less season from Judge? Is that too much to ask?

8. If the Indians don’t blow their 3-1 lead to the Cubs in the 2016 World Series or finish off their remarkable comeback in Game 7 of that World Series then Aroldis Chapman for Gleyber Torres might be the worst trade of all time. A closer for a middle infielder with 40-home run ability? If not for the Cubs’ World Series comeback to end their 108-year championship drought, it would go down as the worst trade of all time.

Torres already has 58 home runs and an .855 OPS in 251 career games despite being 22 years old and playing two premium defensive positions. Judge and Sanchez might get all the attention now as this being their team, but it won’t last long with a superstar up the middle for the foreseeable future.

John Flaherty brought up a good point during Wednesday’s broadcast about looking forward to seeing how Torres performs in the postseason after he looked jumpy and not ready last October. I agree with Flaherty that Torres never looked like himself at the plate in the five postseason games last year, and I’m sure it had to do with the A’s and Red Sox’ planning for him as well as it being his first experience on that stage. Torres did manage to hit four singles in the postseason, but he was nowhere near the hitter he is now with the experience he has gained. Put Torres in the middle-of-the-order for good, Boone. It’s well overdue.

9. A year ago when the 2019 schedule came out, I figured this weekend’s four-game series against the Red Sox would cause me to finally purchase a respirator and quite possibly send me to the hospital. Thankfully, it means nothing other than for the Yankees to increase their odds at obtaining home-field advantage.

But it does mean something for the Red Sox who are clinging to the smallest of chances at a wild-card berth. The Red Sox are six games back in the loss column of the A’s and five games back in the loss column of the Rays and Indians with three weeks to play. The Yankees have a chance to go to Boston and officially eliminate the Red Sox from the division (the Red Sox’ division elimination number is 7), and also completely ruin the Red Sox’ chances at sneaking into the playoffs as a wild-card team. I want the Yankees to leave Boston with the Red Sox’ division elimination at 0 and their wild-card elimination greatly diminished (it’s 18 now).

10. My expected record for the Yankees in August (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) was 17-13. The Yankees finished the month 21-9, four games better than I would have been content with.

The Yankees are now 92-49 (my expected record for them in September is 15-10) and they have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Astros for the best record in the AL and a 1/2-game lead over the Dodgers for the best record in baseball. The Yankees only have to go 8-13 to win 100 games for the second straight season and 9-12 to beat last year’s 100-win total. It’s hard to know how the Yankees will play the final two-plus weeks of the season once the division is officially clinched, but they have a chance to win 105 games in a year in which they broke the record for the most players on the injured list a season. What a season it’s been.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Aug 29, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: If Healthy, Yankees Will Have Hard Postseason Personnel Decisions

If the Yankees ever get completely healthy, there’s going to be a lot of debate about the postseason roster, lineup and rotation. They’re going to have to win the World Series to avoid a litany of second-guessing.

The Yankees started their nine-game West Coast trip by getting swept by the A’s. They turned an 0-3 start into a 5-1 finish by taking two out of three from the Dodgers (and could have taken all three if not for an egregious umpiring decision) and sweeping the Mariners. The Yankees return home with the best record in baseball despite not having played a single game at full strength this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. As much as I want the Yankees to win home-field advantage for the American League playoffs (and a potential World Series), and as much as I think they need to have home-field advantage to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup, I don’t think they’re going to win home-field advantage. It’s not because they’re not good enough, it’s because their remaining schedule and the Astros’ remaining schedule suggest they won’t.

One-third of the Yankees’ remaining 27 games will be against teams fighting for a wild-card berth (Oakland, Boston and Tampa Bay), while the Astros’ only remaining games against any team with a real postseason chance is a four-game series against the A’s. Unfortunately, if the Yankees and Astros meet in the ALCS, the Yankees are going to have to win at least one game in Houston — something they were unable to do in the 2017 ALCS — and one game against either Justin Verlander (Game 1), Gerrit Cole (Games 2 and 6) or Zack Greinke (Game 7). If the Yankees are going to beat any of those three in the postseason, they’re most likely going to have to win the way they did in Los Angeles: with the home run.

2. The Yankees took two out of three from the Dodgers by hitting home runs against Hyun-Jin Ryu and Clayton Kershaw. With the nearly impossible task of stringing together multiple base hits against elite pitching, the Yankees were able to use their home run prowess to defeat the NL All-Star Game starter and ERA leader on Friday and the best pitcher of his generation on Sunday. It’s part of the formula the Yankees are going to need to win in October: home runs + five innings from the starter + 12 outs from the bullpen.

I had a lot of Dodgers fans and in-laws in Los Angeles tell me how impressed they were by the Yankees since they don’t get to watch them much. The majority of those fans and in-laws also felt like the Yankees would beat the Dodgers if the two teams were to meet in the World Series. While that made me happy, it doesn’t mean anything other than to know Dodgers fans are petrified of having to play the Yankees and possibly lose a third straight World Series.

3. After dominating the Dodgers in the series opener and then beating the Mariners in Seattle without his best stuff, James Paxton has now recorded a win in six straight starts, finishing August a perfect 6-0 (after the Yankees lost all five of his starts in July) with this line: 35.1 IP, 24 H, 14 R, 14 ER, 14 BB, 39 K, 5 HR, 3.57 ERA, 1.076 WHIP.

In my yet-to-be-updated Postseason Rotation Power Rankings from July 23, I gave Paxton the Game 3 start in the ALDS with Masahiro Tanaka getting Game 1 and Domingo German getting Game 2. I think I’m ready to give Paxton at least Game 2.

But the reason I haven’t updated the rankings yet is because I have been waiting on more and more information on Luis Severino.

4. Severino is going to make his first rehab start of the season on Sunday in Triple-A. As long as he stays healthy and keeps progressing, we’ll likely see Severino pitching for the Yankees in mid-September, giving him a little more than two weeks of the regular season to get ready for October.

If Severino does stay healthy and returns as his usual self, it changes everything about the Postseason Rotation Power Rankings. He could be anywhere as high as the Game 1 starter to a long reliever to a middle reliever in the postseason. I want him back as a starter, but Severino in any role is better than no Severino at all.

5. It wasn’t even two weeks ago when Aaron Judge’s 2-spot in the order was being questioned. Over the last 11 games, Judge is hitting .383/.408/.872 with five doubles, six home runs and 10 RBIs, quieting all of his critics who wondered where his power and pull power went. It’s good to have one of the best players in the world back to being one of the best players in the world. It’s even better that he’s back entering the final month of the season.

6. Maybe Gary Sanchez was playing through an injury for a while which eventually led to his late-July/early-August injured-list stint. In 17 games since returning from IL, Sanchez has six home runs and 11 RBIs and a .917 OPS, hitting his 100th career home run and 30th home run in the process. I’m sure Sanchez will always provide us with frustrating moments and painful-to-watch slumps, but he’ll also always provide us with streaks like the one he’s currently on, and for that, he’s irreplaceable.

7. There was an article on MLB.com the other day citing a storyline to watch for each team over the last month of the season. The Yankees’ storyline was getting J.A. Happ back on track and the article said he might not get a postseason start as of now and would be pitching out of the bullpen in October. Clearly, the author rarely watches the Yankees.

No, J.A. Happ won’t be getting a postseason start, and there’s a better chance of David Cone pitching out of the bullpen in the postseason than there is Happ. It would take an abundance of injuries for Happ to even be on the postseason roster at this point. Some very worthy players who have helped the Yankees to the best record in baseball aren’t going to be on the postseason roster, let alone Happ, who has done very little to help the 2019 Yankees get to where they are and has done more harm than good. Happ has a month and say five-or-so starts of five innings and three earned runs or more left in his season.

8. This week the Yankees said they would “probably” call up Clint Frazier on September 1. “Probably”? If Frazier isn’t on the Yankees on September 1 then this whole thing will be taken to another level of ridiculous and the Yankees will no longer be able to hide behind the idea that he’s working on his defense in Triple-A or that he doesn’t fit on the current roster.

9. If the Yankees ever get completely healthy and get Severino, Dellin Betances, Luke Voit, Edwin Encarnacion, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks all back, there’s going to be a lot of debate about the postseason roster, the postseason lineup and the postseason rotation. It’s likely that if everyone is healthy, Gio Urshela could be on the bench in the postseason as well as Brett Gardner and either Luke Voit or Edwin Encarnacion. If the Yankees don’t win the World Series, there’s going to be a lot of room for second-guessing the lineup, rotation and roster decisions which were made.

10. In the Off Day Dreaming on August 1, I said my expected record for the Yankees for August (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) is 17-13. Well, as of today, they are 20-8, so at worst, they are going to finish the month three games better than my expected record.

My expected record for the Yankees in September is 15-10. If they win of the two remaining games in August against Oakland, and meet my expected record expectations for September, they would finish the season 104-58, four games better than their 2018 record.

Now this October just needs to go better than October 2018.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Aug 19, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Only Have to Worry About Home-Field Advantage and Health

It’s going to be difficult to come out of the American League playoffs this season, but it’s going to be nearly impossible if the Yankees aren’t the No. 1 seed and don’t have home-field advantage throughout.

There’s less than six weeks left in the Yankees’ season. On Tuesday, the Yankees will begin their third-to-last road trip and last trip to the West Coast of the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. The division has been long over. It’s been over for nearly two months now. But if anyone out there is still worried …

The Yankees are 83-43. If they play .500 for the rest of the regular season and go 18-18 in their final 36 games, they will finish with a 101-61 record. The Rays would have to go 28-9 to tie them and the Red Sox would have to go 34-2. The question isn’t if the Yankees win the division, it’s when, and the sooner the better to rest their position players and line up their rotation accordingly.

2. At least the last two weeks of the season are going to be meaningless from a division standpoint, but they are going to mean everything from a home-field advantage standpoint. It’s going to be difficult to come out of the American League playoffs this season, but it’s going to be nearly impossible if the Yankees aren’t the No. 1 seed and don’t have home-field advantage throughout.

The most likely scenario in the AL playoffs is a Yankees-Astros ALCS. They are going to be the 1- and 2-seeds and they are the two best teams in the league. Two years ago in the ALCS, the Astros went 4-0 at home and the Yankees went 3-0 at home. The Astros outscored the Yankees 15-3 in Houston and the Yankees outscored the Astros 19-5 in New York. This season the Astros are 43-15 at home and the Yankees are 49-20 at home, the best two home records in the AL. Home-field advantage matters, especially in this postseason, and the Yankees can’t take their foot off the gas once they clinch the division. The goal is to win the World Series, and having home-field advantage will greatly increase their chances of accomplishing that goal.

3. CC Sabathia wasn’t good again on Sunday in his return from his second injured-list stint. He gave up four earned runs on four hits and three walks in three innings, including a three-run home run. He was on a limited pitch count and was pulled after 67 pitches.

Why is Sabathia on a pitch count? He’s retiring at the end of the season and has roughly six regular-season starts left in his career. There’s absolutely no way he can be given a postseason start unless the Yankees didn’t learn their lesson from last season and want to relive that misery. So Sabathia’s six-or-so remaining regular-season starts are the last of his career. There’s no need to protect his arm for October or for 2020. He’s done after Game 162. There’s no need for him to save pitches for retirement or leave anything in the tank. When it’s his turn to start, let him pitch until he wants to come out of the game. Let him eat innings, so I don’t have to watch Nestor Cortes or Luis Cessa anymore.

4. When it comes to the postseason rotation, Sabathia isn’t the only one who can’t get a start. J.A. Happ can’t either. That means the Yankees’ postseason starting pitcher option are currently: Masahiro Tanaka, Domingo German, James Paxton or an opener.

I haven’t updated the Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings since July 23 because they remain the same. Tanaka in Game 1, German in Game 2, Paxton in Game 3 and an opener in Game 4. The only way that will change is if Luis Severino comes back.

5. I’m getting more and more excited that Severino is going to return. I realize any setback now means his season is over with only five-plus weeks left in the regular season, but he threw off a mound over the weekend and said he felt great and is now very, very close to pitching in rehab games. Because of the end to the minor-league regular season in a couple weeks, it’s likely Severino will pitch a couple of games in the minors and then really build up his pitch count with the Yankees.

If Severino were to come back as his old self, to me, he would be the Game 1 starter in the postseason. But I could see the Yankees starting Tanaka in that game no matter what, given his postseason success (1.50 ERA in five starts) and having Severino pitch the second game. Either way, Severino is seeming more and more like an actual option this October, which will make me feel a lot better about the Yankees’ rotation and chances in the postseason.

6. The return of Dellin Betances is as important as the return of Severino. Aroldis Chapman is going to pitch the ninth inning no matter what, but I have trust issues with Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle and Adam Ottavino, and I don’t have any trust in Zack Britton. Betances was the best reliever in baseball for the last five years before this season-ruining injury, and I expect him to be the same Betances once he returns. That pushes everyone down in the bullpen pecking order and takes some of the high-leverage situations away from those who have trouble navigating them.

The Yankees are 40 games over .500, going to win the division with at least two weeks left in the season and could win the World Series right now, as currently constructed, and they’re close to having their best starting pitcher and best reliever back for the first time this season. I wish I could bottle this emotion to feel this way every day.

7. Luke Voit is nearing a return, Giancarlo Stanton is rehabbing his way back from yet another lengthy injured-list stint and at some point, Edwin Encarnacion could return as well. The Yankees aren’t going to have any roster issues with September 1 less than two weeks away, but they’re most likely going to have some problems come October. Let’s say the Yankees were at full strength for the postseason, who would be on the postseason roster?

Gary Sanchez and Austin Romine are two roster spots. Voit, Encarnacion, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Didi Gregorius and Gio Urshela are another six. Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner and Stanton bring the total to 12. Severino, Tanaka, German and Paxton make it 16. Chapman, Betances, Ottavino, Britton, Kahnle and Green equal 22.

That leaves three spots for Mike Tauchman, Cameron Maybin, pinch runner Terrance Gore, CC Sabathia and J.A. Happ, not to mention the possibilities of Clint Frazier, Jonathan Loaisiga or Deivi Garcia. (I’m assuming Luis Cessa and Nestor Cortes have no chance at making the roster.)

8. The actual postseason roster isn’t as much an issue as to who will be in the starting lineup. Either LeMahieu, Voit or Encarnacion will play first. Either LeMahieu or Torres will play second. Either LeMahieu or Urshela will play third. Either Torres or Gregorius will play short. One of the two odd men out could be the designated hitter, but then that would mean Stanton plays left field and Gardner is on the bench.

The Yankees are going to have a real lineup issue in October if everyone is healthy and there’s no consensus lineup to make everyone happy. On top of that, because there are too many good, worthy players for not enough spots, whichever lineup they go with is going to need to work because there will be equal or possibly even better players not in the lineup making everyone wonder what could have been if it doesn’t work out.

For this to happen, the Yankees would have to be completely healthy for the first time this season, which isn’t something I would count on. But because they haven’t been healthy all season, I could easily see the postseason being the first time they are finally at full strength to make things complicated.

9. I’m happy to see the Yankees have a “thing” again with Judge pretending to be Gardner hitting his bat against the dugout roof when he reached base via a hit yesterday. It seems like that motion is going to be the 2019 version of the 2017 “thumbs down” which the Yankees used through the end of the season.

What started out as Gardner’s frustration over striking out might be his way of rallying the team now, which is why he was confused over his ejection on Saturday. If Gardner is going to use the bat banging as a way to get a rally started, I’m all for it, but if he’s going to do it following called third strikes, it’s embarrassing.

10. In the last Off Day Dreaming on the Yankees’ last off day back on August 1, I wrote that my expected record for the Yankees in August is 17-13. They are currently 15-4 and would have to go only 2-9 for the rest of the month to achieve my expected record (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having).

Between this off day and the next off day on Thursday, Aug. 29, the Yankees will play nine games on their West Coast trip against the A’s, Dodgers and Mariners. The Yankees have a 3 1/2-game lead over the Astros for home-field advantage in the AL and a one-game lead over the Dodgers for home-field advantage in the World Series. Home-field advantage and health. Those are the only two things the Yankees have to worry about now.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Aug 1, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Astros Operate Like Yankees Once Did

The Astros are going for it, and not just talking about going for it like the Yankees do, they’re really going for it, for the third straight season. I’m jealous of the Astros.

Today isn’t a great day to be a Yankees fan. Despite the team’s first-place standing and enormous division lead, their direct competition to win the American League went out and did everything possible to be the best team in the league. The Yankees? They added a 20-year-old minor-league pitcher.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. I feel the way I do when the Yankees’ season ends. The way I feel when the Yankees are depressingly walking off the field while another team celebrates around them. The way I feel when the postgame scene in the Yankees clubhouse is silence aside from players giving interviews about how they didn’t get the job done, while the postgame scene in the opposing clubhouse is victory music, champagne and beer. The way I feel when there’s no baseball for the next six months.

I realize I shouldn’t feel that since the season is far from over and the Yankees are still a first-place team with a chance to win a championship, but how can you not feel that way after the team the Astros built? Had both the Yankees and Astros done nothing, like we all initially thought at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, I would have been upset the Yankees didn’t improve their starting pitching, but I wouldn’t be distraught.

It was always going to be hard to come out of the American League in the postseason and represent the league in the World Series. Now, it seems impossible.

2. The Astros aren’t messing around. They know they’re in the middle of a championship window and they’re trying to build a dynasty, clearly not content with sitting back and having 2017 be their only championship. Over the last three seasons, they have acted like the Yankees once acted, taking on Justin Verlander’s salary, trading for Gerrit Cole, signing Michael Brantley and now trading for Zack Greinke. I’m jealous of the Astros. They’re going for it, and not just talking about going for it like the Yankees do, they’re really going for it, for the third straight season.

3. The Yankees half-assed their way to building a roster once again. They put together the best run-producing lineup in baseball and the deepest and most vaunted bullpen as well. But when it comes to their rotation, they were cheap before Luis Severino got hurt and remained cheap as James Paxton got hurt and struggled, CC Sabathia got hurt and struggled and J.A. Happ struggled. Knowing. Domingo German (who also got hurt) would be pitching this season with an innings limit also did nothing to open their wallet.

The Yankees could have addressed their rotation in the offseason by signing Patrick Corbin or Charlie Morton or once draft pick compensation was no longer attached to Dallas Keuchel. They chose not to each time, forcing themselves into a corner on deadline day. And with Marcus Stroman having been traded to the Mets and Trevor Bauer going to the Reds, the viable options dried up. The Yankees mishandled the offseason, misread the trade market and mismanaged the days leading up to and on deadline day.

4. What has been the Yankees’ goal this entire time? What has been their plan? Was it to hope Severino will eventually come back healthy sometime in August or September and be healthy enough and good enough to be the team’s No. 1 starter again for the postseason? Was it to think Paxton would eventually find himself for the first time since mid-April? Was it to pray Sabathia, in his final season, and Happ, in his age 36 season, would get better as the season progressed and the pitches and innings piled up on their veteran arms?

Brian Cashman has said countless times in his tenure as general manager that starting pitching is “the keys to the kingdom” in terms of winning a championship. But if he truly believes that (which he should) then why does he rarely construct a rotation capable of holding the keys to the kingdom? Why does he think the current Yankees rotation gives the team the best possible chance to win a championship in their current championship window? How could he feel comfortable pitting this rotation against the Astros, Twins or Red Sox in a short series?

5. The starting rotation has always been the 2019 Yankees’ glaring weakness. It was even after they traded for Paxton and brought back Sabathia and Happ. It was even more so when Severino went down in spring training and when Paxton, Sabathia and German all spent time on the injured list, and when Paxton struggled, and when Sabathia and Happ weren’t any good.

Signing Corbin, Morton or Keuchel and trading for someone prior to July 31 wasn’t going to guarantee the Yankees a championship, but it would have put them in a better position to win one. There was a time when the Yankees gave themselves every chance to put together the best possible roster. We are far removed from that time.

6. Supposedly, the Yankees were trying to add relievers in the hour leading up to the deadline when it became apparent the starting pitching market wasn’t going to work out. This was another way of the Yankees admitting their starting pitching is unreliable as they tried to acquire bullpen help to potentially further shorten postseason games. But all the elite relievers and bullpen help in the world doesn’t matter when the team manager’s doesn’t have the slightest idea on how to manage a bullpen during a game.

7. Unless Luis Severino comes back and pitches like he did in the first half of 2018 or James Paxton magically becomes the pitcher the Yankees thought they were trading for, Masahiro Tanaka is getting the ball in Game 1 of the ALDS. I have no problem with Tanaka getting the ball in Game 1, and currently want him to, because I trust him more than anyone in the postseason. It’s a problem when Aaron Boone doesn’t even trust him to go five innings against the Diamondbacks in July.

8. It’s OK to be a Cashman fan, but it’s another thing to be on board with every decision ownership or the front office makes, thinking they are never wrong. If you find yourself today defending the organization’s decision to do nothing for months to improve the starting rotation, go take a lap. Take a few laps. Maybe just keep running until the postseason starts when we can all evaluate their decision to not completely go for it in a championship window.

9. There’s a good chance both Luke Voit and Giancarlo Stanton (if he ever resumes baseball activities) will return to the team with only a couple weeks left in the regular season to get at-bats. By then, the division will be officially clinched, so the results of the games might not matter, but there’s not going to be a lot of time for two middle-of-the-order bats to get back to their normal everyday routine and comfort level at the plate. I pray the Yankees will recognize this and not bat them in the Top 5 in the lineup in the postseason if they’re not their usual selves because of their career resumes or recent resumes.

10. My expected record for the Yankees for July (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) was 13-12 and they went 14-11, one game better. In August, the Yankees have a chance to get fat again in the win column with a rather easy schedule, including 14 games against the Orioles, Blue Jays and Mariners.

My expected record for the Yankees in August is 17-13, which would give them a 85-52 with one month to play.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Jul 29, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Can’t Rely on This Rotation

The starting pitching is a very, very big problem. Normally, to me, a loss is a loss no matter the score, but having your rotation get embarrassed every night is a different story.

That wasn’t the best weekend. The Yankees lost three of four to the Red Sox and lost two games off their loss-column lead in the process. But that loss-column lead is still 10 games, and the division is still over. A bad week of pitching and a series loss to the Red Sox doesn’t change that.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. The results of the last week aren’t as bad as you think. I’m not talking about the pitching (we’ll get to that), I’m talking about actual wins and losses. I wanted the Yankees to go 3-4 on their road trip and with Sunday night’s series-salvaging win, they did exactly that. Sure, they lost two games off their 12-game, loss-column lead to the Red Sox, but a 10-game, loss-column lead is more than enough of a comfortable cushion. Let’s get to my favorite game: If the Yankees play .500.

The Yankees have 57 games remaining, so they can’t play .500 baseball, so let’s say one-game-over-.500 baseball. If the Yankees play one-game-over-.500 baseball for their remaining 57 games and go 29-28, they would finish with a 96-66 record. The Rays would have to go 36-18 and the Red Sox would have to go 37-18 to tie them. The Yankees aren’t going to go 29-28 though, considering they have 23 games remaining against the Orioles, Blue Jays, Mariners and Tigers. The division is still over. This past weekend did nothing to change that. The Yankees’ magic number is 48.

2. The starting pitching is a very, very big problem. Normally, to me, a loss is a loss no matter the score, but having your rotation get embarrassed every night is a different story.

If the Yankees think this team, as currently constructed, is good enough to win a World Series, they are probably going to be let down and could be let down as early as the ALDS. This team has 2002-2008 written all over it with an offense that can outhit its mediocre starting pitching for 162 games, but isn’t built for short series in October. The Yankees have until Wednesday 4 p.m. to address this glaring weakness, and if they don’t, the bats aren’t going to be able to go quiet for a second in October, or the 2019 Yankees will be another division-winning Yankees team which failed to accomplish their ultimate goal.

3. Marcus Stroman is now off the board, having been traded to the Mets on Sunday in a puzzling move. The Blue Jays were willing to give up their best starting pitcher with team control through 2020 for the Mets’ sixth- and seventh-best prospects, and a team five games under .500 just enhanced their rotation, while the Yankees took more time off the trade deadline clock, inching closer to having to start CC Sabathia, J.A. Happ or Chad Green in October.

Stroman was always my No. 2 in this trade market with Madison Bumgarner sitting at No. 1. So this is potentially good news for me if the Yankees are going to do what’s necessary now to get Bumgarner. But it’s potentially bad news if Bumgarner isn’t available with the Giants’ recent surge or high price tag is high with the demand for him now greater. This could mean the Yankees have to look at lesser options like Matt Boyd or Robbie Ray or some other lateral moves who won’t really improve the rotation. Maybe the Mets only acquired Stroman to flip him to a contender, or maybe they acquired him so they can move Noah Syndergaard. Because it’s the Mets, I could see them standing pat, holding on to both starters and trying to make a run at the second wild-card spot even though they are six games back and need to pass five teams to get there. That’s probably what the Mets will do.

4. I wrote the first edition of my Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings last week and in it I had the following:

Game 1: Masahiro Tanaka
Game 2: Domingo German
Game 3: James Paxton
Game 4: Chad Green, opener/bullpen

Even with the way Tanaka and Paxton got lit up and the way Green got lit up in relief, I wouldn’t change the order. German finally put together a respectable start to right the rotation, and while Tanaka got destroyed for 12 earned runs, I would still give him the ball in Game 1. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t feel confident entering the ALDS against any opponent with this rotation, but this is the best possible order for it. If Luis Severino doesn’t return and return as his 2018 first-half self or the Yankees don’t trade for Bumgarner, the rotation isn’t getting much better. The Yankees are going to have to slug their way through the postseason or receive a miracle with these starters going on a magical, unexpected run for a month.

5. James Paxton is the left-handed A.J. Burnett, and we’re getting to a point where saying that is an insult to Burnett.

Back on June 13, I wrote This Is Not the James Paxton the Yankees Traded For. Paxton had just come off a start in which he got knocked around by the Mets (2.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR) and his ERA sat at 4.04 through 10 starts as a Yankee. Since then, Paxton has made eight starts and has pitched to this line: 40.2 IP, 57 H, 28 R, 25 ER, 15 BB, 53 K, 12 HR, 5.53 ERA, 1.770 WHIP. In that time, hitters are batting .333/.387/.526 against him. Yes, he’s allowed a 1.013 OPS against him since June 16.

Like Burnett, Paxton’s “stuff” is raved about with his no-hit history and high strikeout totals. But like Burnett, you never know which Paxton you’re going to get. Are you going to get the guy who pitched 14 scoreless innings against the Red Sox and Royals, striking out 24, in back-to-back April starts, or are you going to get the guy who has failed to pitch five innings in eight of his 18 starts?

Paxton isn’t going anywhere and he’s going to be given the ball in a postseason game. I wish between now and then he would find consistency from start to start, but he has never been able to in his career, so I have a hard time believing he’s going to find it in the next two months.

6. Part of the reason I don’t think Paxton is going to all of a sudden find consistency is because of Larry Rothschild. Whether you’re the pitching coach, hitting coach, first-base coach or third-base coach, you don’t want casual fans to know your name. You want to stay out of the spotlight, fly under the radar, be part of a major league organization, collect a nice paycheck and have about four months a year off. It’s not good that Rothschild had to speak with the media following Saturday’s loss and it’s not good that his name is becoming a household name for casual Yankees fans.

Brian Cashman and his staff have never known pitching. They have drafted an endless list of failures, have signed free agents to big-money deals only to have them flop and have traded for young, controllable starters who could never figure it out while wearing the pinstripes. The last trade Cashman made for a starting pitcher who worked out was Roger Clemens, and that was 20 years ago, and acquiring arguably the best pitcher in history wasn’t exactly a roll of the dice.

Cashman’s trades for controllable starters like Paxton, Sonny Gray, Nathan Eovaldi, Michael Pineda, Javier Vazquez and Jeff Weaver all failed, despite those pitchers having success before or after they were Yankees. Outside of CC Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Mike Mussina and El Duque, Cashman has failed miserably signing free-agent starters as well.

Cashman and the front office are the ones who have to approve and sign off on these decisions, but then it’s Rothschild’s job to either maintain the success the pitcher had prior to them being a Yankee or try to regain the success they once had, which is why the Yankees wanted them. There has always been this idea that Rothschild is one of the best pitching coaches in the game and it’s why he continues to get new contracts from the Yankees, but the growing sentiment of late seems to suggest otherwise.

7. Gary Sanchez is on the injured list with another groin problem, which means Austin Romine is the team’s No. 1 catcher, even though Boone said Kyle Highashioka would be getting equal playing time in what could be some offseason roster foreshadowing. So if Romine is currently the team’s starting catcher, why was he pitching in a blowout game on Thursday night? Is Aaron Boone that clueless?

Romine relieved Luis Cessa, who had thrown 18 pitches. In July, Cessa has appeared in four games, making three appearances since July 4. On top of that, he’s the 25th man on the roster and has no actual value to the Yankees this season or in future seasons. In a game which eventually ended 19-3, Cessa should be in until the game ends, whether it takes him 18 pitches or 81 pitches to get the remaining outs. Boone has done a lot of idiotic things in his short time as Yankees manager, but that decision is right near the top.

8. I have zero confidence in Zack Britton and if Dellin Betances doesn’t come back this season, I don’t know how I’m going to survive the eighth inning of playoff games.

Britton is going to receive special treatment for his name and not his performance and he’s going to pitch in the eighth inning or other high-leverage spots two months from now when the Yankees can’t afford to have him walking the park and failing to miss bats. If Betances doesn’t pitch this season, Boone is going to keep giving the ball to Britton in crucial spots because of his career resume, not his season resume, and because of what he once was, and not was he currently is.

Britton isn’t good let alone trustworthy at this point, and this is now going back to when the Yankees traded for him a year ago. I thought the more removed he was from his return from his Achilles injury the better he would be, but it’s been the opposite.

9. I don’t see how Clint Frazier could possibly still be a Yankee after 4 p.m. on Wednesday. He was passed over for Mike Tauchman when Giancarlo Stanton got hurt and passed over again for Cameron Maybin when Brett Gardner got hurt. There has been the need for a starting left fielder and plenty of at-bats for Frazier and the Yankees didn’t call him up. They can no longer use the excuse that he needs to play every day since he would be playing every day in the majors right now, so it’s clear it’s more than that and he has fallen out of favor with the organization for off-the-field issues.

It’s going to suck to see Frazier traded and get an everyday chance with another organization for the rest of this season and future seasons. What’s the team’s plan for 2020? Make Tauchman the starter? No. Bring back Gardner? Please no.

Maybe there’s a small chance Frazier survives the deadline once again and survives offseason trade rumors once again, but that’s quite the parlay that would need to hit. On June 18, I wrote Clint Frazier Doesn’t Have a Yankees Future, and it looks his tenure is close to ending.

10. Today is the Yankees’ first non-All-Star Game off day since July 1, the day after the London games. They have an off day again on Thursday and after that they won’t have one again until August 19. Starting tomorrow, the Yankees will play 21 games in 21 days, even with Thursday’s off day, thanks to a pair of doubleheaders (August 3 against Boston and August 12 against Baltimore).

Back on July 1, my July expected record for the Yankees (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) was 13-12. They are currently 13-10 with two games against the Diamondbacks remaining in the month. The Yankees can do no worse than my expected record. Next month, the Yankees have 11 straight games against the Orioles and Blue Jays and another three against the Mariners. August is when the Yankees’ can truly get fat again from an easy schedule.

The Yankees have the following things to do this season in this order:

1. Upgrade the rotation at the trade deadline
2. Get Luis Severino, Dellin Betances and Giancarlo Stanton back
3. Win the No. 1 overall seed to get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs
4. Stay healthy

The Yankees are going to the playoffs and everything they do between now and the last out of Game 162 is to prepare for the playoffs. That starts with Wednesday’s trade deadline.

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Jul 8, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Won’t Be Chasing Any Team in Second Half This Season

The first half of the season is over and the Yankees have already clinched the division. I forgot what it felt like to win the division so early in the season and it feels even better than I remember it feeling.

The first half of the season is over and the Yankees have already clinched the division. I forgot what it felt like to win the division so early in the season and it feels even better than I remember it feeling.

The Yankees are off until Friday when they will begin the second half. They have 74 games remaining and will play their next 38 games with only two off days in between. Thankfully, they won’t be chasing any team for the rest of the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.

1. The first “half” is over and the Yankees are 57-31. Last year, through 88 games, they were 58-30, so they are one game worse than they were last year. But because the Red Sox aren’t having the most improbable, fluky season in the history of baseball, the Yankees aren’t 2 1/2 games back in the division like they were in 2018. Instead, they have an eight-game lead over the Rays in the loss column and a 10-game lead over the Red Sox in the loss column.

Despite losing their last two games of the first half to the Rays, the Yankees did what I wanted them to do: win at least two games in Tampa. If the Yankees play .500 baseball against the Rays and Red Sox the rest of the way, they won’t lose any ground and will take a huge portion of games off the schedule.

However, it would be nice if the Yankees didn’t play like they have already won the division. Yes, I believe they already have, but that doesn’t mean they should be giving as many players days off as possible in the first week in July. This isn’t the last week of September. The lineup Sunday at the Trop was ridiculous. The Yankees had three days off surrounding the London trip and have four days off this week. Yet, they still gave their All-Star position players Sunday off because they will play a few innings on Tuesday. Sure enough, the Yankees lost by one run. The unnecessary rest will never end.

2. Masahiro Tanaka said he was surprised to be an All-Star and there can’t be a baseball fan who wasn’t surprised. Tanaka has a 3.86 ERA, 7.7 strikeouts per nine and 2.1 walks per nine. There’s nothing he’s doing that’s All-Star caliber, unless you count having one disastrous inning per start, which he’s been the best at. This is the second-worst season of Tanaka’s six-year career and somehow he’s an All-Star. I love that he’s part of the game, whether he pitches or not, because it means more Yankees are on the American League roster, I just have no idea how or why he was picked.

3. I had two friends text me on Saturday night when Aaron Hicks hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning asking me if he would receive “Ladies and gentlemen” immunity for the home run. The answer was no. The immunity standards haven’t fallen like the All-Star selection standards have. With such a big lead in the division race, Hicks is going to have to do something in the postseason to be immunity-worthy and given his history against teams like the Astros, Indians, Red Sox and the postseason as a whole, it would be nice if he did anything in the postseason.

I don’t know what it’s going to take for Hicks to removed from the top or middle of the order, but I have no idea how for a second straight season he continues to bat ahead of better and more established bats. How is Gary Sanchez batting behind him and how is Gleyber Torres hitting four and five spots behind him? Like I said last week, everything between now and Game 162 is to get ready for the postseason or not, and even without Luke Voit and Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup, it’s time for Hicks to find a home at the bottom of the order because that’s what where he better be hitting come Game 1 of the ALDS.

4. What’s left to say about Luis Cessa that I haven’t already said in nearly every Off Day Dreaming blog this season? I don’t care that he’s the last man in the bullpen or the 25th man on the roster. His most recent appearance, on July 4, led to him nearly blowing a five-run lead in the 10th inning. All he had to do was get three outs before giving up five runs and he came dangerously close to not doing so after he allowed two hits and two walks in the inning. If Cessa can’t be trusted to get three outs before giving up five runs, there’s no place for him on this team, or any major league team for that matter. We are way past the time to give someone else a chance to be the last man in the bullpen, I’m just not sure if it will ever happen. Considering he has a 5.93 ERA since April 30, there might be nothing he can do to pitch himself off the roster and out of the organization.

5. Every time I watch Charlie Morton pitch, I can’t help but think that the Yankees could have and should have had signed him. The Rays gave Morton a two-year, $30 million deal. The Yankees gave J.A. Happ $4 million more and a vesting option for 2021. Morton is 10-2 with a 2.32 ERA and 142 strikeouts in 112 2/3 innings. Happ is lucky if he gets through five innings each start.

Morton is the kind of power pitch the Yankees always go after and with the way he pitched in Houston and pitched against the Yankees in Houston, his 35 years of age shouldn’t have mattered to the Yankees in free agency since Happ’s 36 years of age clearly didn’t.

Morton beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS and I have a bad feeling they could be seeing him in Game 1 of the 2019 ALDS, and then again in Game 5, if the series were to go that far.

6. Dallas Keuchel has now made four starts for the Braves after two mediocre starts, he’s pitched seven innings and and 7 1/3 innings in back-to-back starts, allowing two earned runs in both. The Yankees could have had him for only money and now they will instead have to further dismantle their farm system to acquire starting pitching this month.

7. We are just under three weeks until the trade deadline and I have been under the impression all along the Yankees will trade for either Marcus Stroman or Madison Bumgarner. The Blue Jays showed last year at the deadline they could care less about trading with the Yankees and within the division with the Happ deal, so I don’t see there being an issue with Stroman, except that he’s currently injured. Prior to the injury, I thought Stroman was the unanimous choice for the Yankees to land, but now it seems and feels like Bumgarner. If both were healthy, I would prefer Bumgarner, not because I think he’s still the same pitcher he was five years ago like some do, but because I think a postseason run with the Yankees could revitalize his career the same way it did for Justin Verlander in 2017. Bumgarner hasn’t pitched in a postseason game since 2016, is on a last-place team this season, was on a 73-win team last season and a 64-win team in 2017. It’s impossible to know if that’s contributed to his career downswing after four straight All-Star Game appearance from 2013-16, but how could it not? Reaching the majors at 19, throwing 1,750 regular-season innings and another 102 1/3 postseason innings is what’s mainly responsible for diminished numbers, as it would be with any pitcher, though pitching in meaningless games for three straight seasons has to be part of it as well.

The Yankees won’t be getting 2016 Stroman or 2016 Bumgarner if they trade for them, but both 2019 versions are still better than most of the starting options they have now.

8. I did some math and the least amount of games the Yankees will win this season is 96, and that’s a very low number. The Yankees would have to go 39-35 in the second half to win 96 games, and that’s with a lot of games remaining against the Orioles and Blue Jays.

If the Yankees were to win 96 games and play only .527 baseball for the rest of the season, the Rays would have to go 44-27 and the Red Sox would have to go 47-25 just to tie them. So despite everyone getting upset with me last week for calling the division over after the London games, the division is over.

9. Aside from the Yankees’ already big division lead and their rather easy August schedule, the 10 games remaining between the Rays and Red Sox might be the Yankees’ greatest advantage to winning the AL East. At the same time the Rays and Red Sox play a four-game series at the end of September, the Yankees will be playing the Blue Jays, who are on pace to lose more than 100 games and will be a week away from the offseason and vacation.

10. My expected record for the Yankees for July is 13-12, and they are off to a 3-3 start, so they are right on pace. Again, that might not seem like a good record given the way the team has played through the first 88 games, but August is when they can get fat again with 13 games against the Orioles, Blue Jays and Mariners.

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