It’s been a clean week of health for the Yankees in spring training. That’s all I care about this month. No injuries. Performance is meaningless. Not losing anyone to injury is all that matters.
It’s been a clean week of health for the Yankees in spring training. That’s all I care about this month. No injuries. Performance is meaningless. Not losing anyone to injury is all that matters.
1. Jameson Taillon and Corey Kluber have both pitched and both looked good and both came out injury-free. The results don’t matter in March, but the health certainly does, and the Yankees’ 2021 championship aspirations rest on the elbow of Taillon and the shoulder of Kluber. It’s not exactly what you want for a team built to win now, but it’s what the Yankees have built. Each day of March in which you don’t hear the words “soreness” or “discomfort” or the phrases “being evaluated” or “shut down” is a good day. There has only been one of those days so far (Clarke Schmidt’s injury). Let’s keep it that way.
2. Aaron Boone has said he’s going to bat Aaron Hicks third this season. I’m not surprised because I was expecting this. He batted him third in the past and in the postseason, so why wouldn’t he bat him third in 2021? It’s the same reason why I think he will have Kyle Higashioka unnecessarily serve as Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher and why he won’t hesitate to play Brett Gardner over Clint Frazier. Hicks is not a 3-hitter. He’s just not. If DJ LeMahieu leads off and Aaron Judge bats second, there is still the option of batting Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres or Frazier third. (I would even bat Sanchez third like it’s 2017 over Hicks, but I know that’s not realistic right now.) The idea the right-handed hitters have to be separated in the Yankees’ lineup makes no sense because if Frazier really is going to be the everyday left fielder over Gardner, then there will be eight right-handed bats in the Yankees’ lineup “every” day. That means no matter where Hicks bats, there’s going to be eight consecutive right-handed batters. Over the course of the season, Hicks shouldn’t be getting more at-bats than Stanton, Voit, Torres or Frazier, or Sanchez (if he’s right this season).
3. Sanchez looks right in spring training. Two home runs already and one that nearly left Tampa. I know it’s March and these games don’t count, but having two home runs is better than having none, and if Sanchez had none right now or was 0-for-spring training, he would be hearing about it. I think he will bat no higher than seventh to begin the season, and I can see him batting eighth ahead of Gio Urshela or even ninth behind Urshela. If 2016-17, the Yankees will have the best 8- or 9-hitter in history. If that Sanchez returns, there will be a lot of Yankees fans who owe Sanchez an apology, and I want handwritten apologies, not social media apologies.
4. Opening Day is four weeks from today. Four weeks! This is what I would do on Opening Day against the Blue Jays’ left-handed Hyun Jin Ryu:
DJ LeMahieu, 2B Aaron Judge, RF Giancarlo Stanton, DH Luke Voit, 1B Gleyber Torres, SS Clint Frazier, LF Gary Sanchez, C Aaron Hicks, CF Gio Urshela, 3B
(I know that’s not what’s going to happen.)
5. I think this is what we will see on Opening Day:
DJ LeMahieu, 2B Aaron Judge, RF Aaron Hicks, CF Giancarlo Stanton, DH Luke Voit, 1B Gleyber Torres, SS Clint Frazier, LF Gary Sanchez, C Gio Urshela, 3B
6. No one from the fifth starter “competition” has pitched yet, so the “competition” has yet to actually start. However, I don’t think there’s a competition anyway. It’s Domingo German’s job. As I wrote on Monday, the Yankees didn’t keep scumbag German through his suspension and through all the negative attention, publicity and backlash to not have him pitch. They didn’t purposely insert a cancer into their clubhouse and then try to tip toe around his presence by not having him address his teammates until the team’s veteran bullpen leader spoke out against him to send him to the minors. German is still a Yankee because the Yankees think he can help them win and think his disgusting act will be forgotten if he helps them do so.
7. Miguel Andujar, Mike Tauchman, Derek Dietrich and Jay Bruce seem to be competing for one roster spot. If the Yankees are going to have four bench spots, one goes to Higashioka, one to Gardner, one to Tyler Wade and one to one of those four. As a left-handed outfielder, Tauchman is redundant with Gardner, so I don’t see how he’s on the 26-man roster. Andujar can play third base and I guess outfielder and first base? The Yankees will want Andujar to get everyday at-bats, and he’s yet another right-handed hitter on a team full of them, so I don’t see him being on the Opening Day roster.
8. That leaves one spot for Dietrich and Bruce. Dietrich can play first, second, third and outfield, and Bruce can play first, second and outfield. Right now, I think Dietrich holds an edge on Bruce. He’s younger, more versatile and a much better on-base option. I would pick Dietrich for the final bench spot.
9. There’s also one spot available in the bullpen, if the Yankees have 13 pitchers. Yes, they can have 14 relievers to begin the season and then send someone down for the fifth starter when they eventually need a fifth starter for the first time, which could be April 6 or 7 depending on if they go in full rotation or go back to Cole after four days of rest. If they go with 13 pitchers and go with five starters, and then you count Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Chad Green, Darren O’Day, Justin Wilson, Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa, that leaves one spot. If they hold off on the fifth starter, there’s two spots.
10. Albert Abreu is out of options, so he might be the front-runner if there’s only one spot. If there are two spots, Michael King and Nick Nelson would then seem to be competing for the last spot. No one should care about the last man in the bullpen because they should only be pitching in lopsided games, but when it comes to the Yankees, you can never count out seeing the last man in the bullpen in a high-leverage situation they don’t belong in. Every bullpen spot matters on this team.
It’s been an eventful first week of spring training for the Yankees. A little more eventful than any Yankees fan should want. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
It’s been an eventful first week of spring training for the Yankees. A little more eventful than any Yankees fan should want.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. It took six days for the Yankees to have their first injury of 2021. Six days. Even for the Yankees that’s ridiculous. Clarke Schmidt was shut down on Monday for the next three to four weeks with a tendon strain in his elbow. The same Schmidt who has previously undergone Tommy John surgery and has had elbow issues since that surgery. When asked how it happened, Schmidt said he was overthrowing in his bullpen session trying to make an impression on the coaching staff to earn a roster spot, likely the fifth spot in the rotation. So that awesome starting pitching depth Aaron Boone mentioned at his spring training-opening press conference and that others like Luis Severino and Aaron Judge have also cited this spring, well, it’s already down one arm.
2. Schmidt was likely seventh on the Yankees’ Opening Day starting pitching depth chart (and eighth if Severino were healthy), so it doesn’t impact the Yankees’ early-season plans … yet. They still have more than five weeks of bullpen sessions, pitcher’s fielding practice and exhibition games to get through unscathed without any of their other starters getting hurt, and that includes Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon who have barely pitched over the last two years because of their own injuries and surgeries. Right now, the Schmidt injury doesn’t hurt the Yankees overall, but that doesn’t mean it won’t before he’s able to return.
3. Judge spoke for the first time in 2021 and gave his annual “I hate to lose” quotes, and vowed to stay healthy this season. He was asked about Fernando Tatis’ 14-year, $340 million and if he had talked with the Yankees in the offseason about a potential long-term deal himself. He said no. Thankfully. It’s not that I don’t want Judge to be a Yankee for a long time, it’s that I need to see him prove he should be a Yankee for a long time. We all know his ability as one of the game’s top players when he plays, but over the last three seasons he hasn’t played much, missing about one-third of all regular-season games since the start of 2019. Judge discussed his offseason workout changes led by Eric Cressey, and maybe that’s what will finally keep Judge on the field for his first full season since 2017. If it’s not, I don’t know what will at this point.
4. On Wednesday, Boone said this about Giancarlo Stanton playing the outfield in 2021:
“I don’t want to be completely resigned to him just being a full-time DH. I think the more he can continue to stay athletic and be an option on defense, I don’t think it’s out of the question. Ultimately, it might be something that actually does help him stay more healthy.”
This is what Brian Cashman said at his end-of-the-season press conference after the Yankees lost to the Rays in October.
“Given the injuries that we’ve experienced with him thus far, I think a safe bet would be to focus with him at the DH level.”
Boone can say whatever he wants (which he does), whether it has any real traction is another thing. I would say the only way Stanton plays the outfield in 2021 is an emergency situation.
5. Brett Gardner is officially back, and that’s bad news for Clint Frazier. Boone has said a few times over this past week that Frazier is the team’s starting left fielder, and maybe he will be on Opening Day, but don’t think for a second Boone won’t inexplicably play Gardner over him. He did so in the team’s most recent games in October when he started Gardner over Frazier in left field in five of the seven playoff games. Hearing Boone say, “I expect Clint to be our left fielder and to be in that starting lineup,” holds no weight after Boone chose Gardner over Frazier and his .905 OPS in the postseason. Boone chose Mike Ford over Frazier as a pinch-hit option with the season on the line! So yeah, I will believe Frazier is the “everyday” left fielder when it happens every day.
6. The Yankees made the Justin Wilson signing official, reuniting the left-hander with the team that traded hi mto Detroit for Chad Green and Luis Cessa. To open a space for Wilson on the 40-man roster, the Yankees designated Greg Allen for assignment, who they had traded for earlier in the offseason. So for now, Mike Tauchman if the next in line to playing time after Gardner.
7. With Wilson back on the team, the Opening Day bullpen pecking order (if all are healthy) seems like it will be:
Aroldis Chapman Zack Britton Chad Green Darren O’Day Justin Wilson Jonathan Loaisiga Luis Cessa Nick Nelson/Michael King
8. That’s eight relievers. Boone says the Yankees would like to have 13 position players and 13 pitchers on their 26-man roster. Both Nelson and King or another reliever could be on the Opening Day roster and the Yankees could open the season with four starters because of the early-season off days, and call up a fifth starter once they need one. Let’s hope Nelson or King or another reliever in that spot or as the ninth bullpen option only sees a regular-season mound because the Yankees are winning by double digits.
9. I have a feeling the fifth starter spot is going to go to scumbag Domingo German rather than Deivi Garcia. I don’t think the Yankees have kept German all this time through his disturbing actions to not have him pitch for them. It’s a shame and it’s disappointing as a fan of the team that eight percent of the 26-man roster has been suspended for despicable behavior, and 15 percent of the pitching staff. The handling of the whole situation by the Yankees has been an embarrassment. Not as embarrassing as continuing to roster a scumbag like him, but pretty close. The same way Chapman should have never been a Yankee, German shouldn’t be one now.
10. The Yankees will play their first spring training game on Monday. I normally don’t care for any spring training game aside from the first inning of the first one, but I think this March will be different. After the winter weather in New York City for the last month and having only had 67 Yankees games in 2020 and having had no baseball or sports or live entertainment for more than four months nearly a year ago at this time, I welcome meaningless spring training games in 2021.
Aaron Boone gave his season-opening press conference at spring training on the state of the team, and the Yankees manager made it clear he thinks the 2021 team is championship-caliber.
Spring training is here. On Wednesday, the Yankees began their 2021 season with pitchers and catchers reporting to Tampa.
The start of spring training also means the annual start-of-spring-training press conference for Aaron Boone. The Yankees manager spoke at length about the state of the team, and the longer Boone is asked to speak in any setting, the more wild his answers get. So for this week’s Yankees Thoughts, rather than the normal 10 thoughts format, I’m going to go break down 10 quotes from Boone’s press conference.
1. On if the 2021 Yankees are equipped to chase a world championship. “Talk is always cheap, obviously, at this point, but I really like the winter that we’ve had with some of the additions that we made that I think are going to be impactful to go along with the makeup of this team that is already of championship caliber. And certainly, that’s what we’re here to try and do and try to accomplish.”
Talk has always been cheap for Boone, not just at this point, but at any point. It was cheap the last three Octobers when he had to give an end-of-the-season press conference before the end of the baseball season and tried to say the Yankees were just as good as all the teams still playing and the eventual champions. This will be the fourth time Boone manages a team expected to win the American League, and if they win the AL, it will be the first time he has done so.
2. On the depth of the pitching staff. “I think depth is obviously going to be important and we feel like we have 10, 11, 12 pitchers that aren’t just capable of going out there, but are capable of going out there and thriving.”
The Yankees have a lot of pitchers that are capable of “thriving” in theory. But the baseball season doesn’t work in theory. In theory, the Yankees had a 2020 rotation of Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ with Jordan Montgomery as insurance. By the time October came, the Yankees’ rotation was Cole and Tanaka, and they pitched both Happ and Montgomery in October as last resorts.
In theory, the Yankees currently have a lot of big-name pitchers with immense talent. If the Yankees were to get all of them to stay healthy and pitch at the peak of their abilities then there will be a parade in lower Manhattan this fall. But if you think the entire Yankees’ pitching staff is going to go an entire season without an injury or without at least one of their starters underperforming then you probably also think Judge and Hicks will both play at least 150 games in 2021.
3. On if the 2021 roster is better constructed than previous seasons. “As I look at our pitching staff and what I believe is the potential of that staff, I feel like it’s in a lot of ways as good as it’s been certainly since I’ve been here.”
This is going to be Boone’s fourth season with the Yankees. I would put the rosters he had in this order:
2018 2019 2020 2021
I put them in that order because the Yankees have gotten a year older, progressively worse and less productive each year.
The 2018 Yankees were coming off a season in which they blew two chances to win the AL over the Astros in Houston. Aaron Judge was coming off a Rookie of the Year season and what should have been an MVP season, Gary Sanchez was the best hitting catcher on the planet, and Gleyber Torres was about to debut. On top of that, they essentially turned Chase Headley, Jacoby Ellsbury and Starlin Castro into reigning NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton and Torres.
The 2019 Yankees had signed DJ LeMahieu, traded for James Paxton and had a bullpen featuring Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle and Chad Green.
The 2020 Yankees, on paper, were stacked in February and had arguably the best rotation, lineup and bullpen in baseball. Then injuries struck like they had in 2019, and by the time the season actually started the team wasn’t what it was planned to be, and by October, they were fortunate to have even made the postseason.
The 2021 Yankees are like one massive parlay that needs to hit to win. There are so many unknowns and question marks regarding injuries and performance that it’s impossible to say how the team will do.
4. On who the fifth starter will be to open the season. “I see a lot of competition there, frankly. German, Deivi, Schmidt, Jhoulys Chacin, who we’ve brought in, all of these guys we feel like are certainly capable of stepping into that role, but we’ll see how the next five, six weeks unfold.”
Jhoulys Chacin threw five innings last year. Five not great innings in which he put nine runners on base and allowed four earned runs. The year before that he pitched to a 6.01 ERA and 5.88 FIP over 25 games and 24 stars for the Brewers and Red Sox, so at some time this season, we will be three years removed from the last time Chacin was any good. German is a scumbag who should no longer be part of the Yankees the way Chapman never should have been. That leaves Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt. I don’t see how the job isn’t Garcia’s, spring training stats or not.
5. On using Kyle Higashioka with Gerrit Cole like he did in 2020. “I don’t have a plan of pairing those two to start.”
I highly doubt this and I look forward to revisiting this quote on Opening Day on April 1. If there’s a place where I can wager right now on if Kyle Higashioka will start at catcher on Opening Day on April 1 to catch Gerrit Cole, I’m putting everything on it. If Boone was so adamant of having Higashioka catch Cole last season, why would that change this season? It wouldn’t.
6. On James Paxton no longer being a Yankee. “I love Pax. He pitched so many big games for us in 2019 and I know how much he put into it.”
Boone’s memory isn’t the best. Paxton pitched in big games for the Yankees, he didn’t “pitch big games” for the Yankees. There’s an enormous difference.
Paxton made three postseason starts for the Yankees: Game 1 of the 2019 ALDS, Game 2 of the 2019 ALCS and Game 5 of the 2019 ALCS. Here is his line for each game:
ALDS Game 1: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 2 HR ALCS Game 2: 2.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K ALCS Game 5: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 9 K
He pitched well in one of the games (ALCS Game 5). The Yankees covered up his poor ALDS performance by scoring 10 runs, and he put six runners on base in Game 2 of the ALCS before being taken out in the third inning of an eventual extra-inning loss. Paxton’s time with the Yankees was “blah” and mediocre at best.
7. On the players who struggled in 2020. “When you’ve been close like many of our players have been now for several years, those are tough, tough blows. The ending is really, really cruel. Whether it’s me, whether it’s the players, when you don’t do everything maybe possible that you could have done … those things always kind of haunt you and eat at you, especially when you are one of those teams expecting to win it.”
The only player who has been close on the Yankees to winning the World Series the last several years is Geritt Cole, who sat in the bullpen and watched his Astros blow Game 7 of the 2019 World Series. The only other Yankee who has been close is Corey Kluber, who started Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, and he hasn’t even really been a Yankee yet. Other than that, the Yankees haven’t been close to winning the World Series, unless you consider losing Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS as somehow being close to winning the World Series.
8. On if he feels the 2020 Yankees were really that close to getting to the World Series. “Yeah, I do feel like it’s that close, and I felt that way in ’18 and I felt that way in ’19, and last year, we’re late in the game against the team that goes on to the World Series again. So we have to find a way to get over that last hump and beat that team that’s going on to the World Series. But I also think it’s important we realize how close we are and how razor thin the margin is when you get into the postseason. It’s the bounce of the ball, it’s one play, it’s one pitch, and we feel like we’re certainly very close to that.”
Boone mentioned the bounce of the ball or one play or one pitch, but he didn’t say “or one game when you come up with the most idiotic pitching plan in franchise history to force J.A. Happ into a playoff game.”
I will give Boone 2019 for it being OK for him to feel like it was close, but that’s it. The margin for the Yankees to get to the World Series wasn’t razor thin in 2018 or 2020.
In 2018, the Yankees lost in four games to the Red Sox in the ALDS. They lost both Games 3 and 4 at home and were outscored 20-4. It’s hard to agree with him that the Yankees were close to getting past the Red Sox when they finished eight games behind them in the regular season and then were run out of their own stadium against them in the postseason. Had the Yankees beaten the Red Sox, they still would have had to then beat the Astros, a team that eliminated the Yankees in both 2017 and 2019. It’s not like if the Yankees beat the Red Sox, they’re in the World Series because the Red Sox beat the Astros, the way Boone likes to think it works.
The same goes for 2020. The Yankees went to a Game 5 in the ALDS against the Rays, losing on yet another home run against Chapman. But that game could have gone 37 innings and the Yankees weren’t going to score another run. They had used up all of their elite relievers (all three of them) and the Rays could have kept trotting out unhittable options for days. Had the Yankees beaten the Rays, they again would have had to beat the Astros to advance to the World Series, something they have never been able to do. If you lose in the division series to the team that eventually represents the AL in the World Series, it doesn’t meant that you would have represented the AL in the World Series if you had won your division series. I’m not sure why Boone thinks that’s the case.
9. On if he sees Clint Frazier as the starting left fielder at this point. “I do. Clint has obviously come a long way in every aspect of his game and certainly earned his place last year when obviously nothing was given to him. He had to earn everything really the last couple of years… Last year really proved he was ready to grab an everyday role on this team.”
The last time the Yankees played, Clint Frazier wasn’t the team’s starting left fielder. Despite posting a .905 OPS, single-handedly carrying the offense when Judge and Stanton once again missed extended time and when Sanchez and Torres couldn’t hit, and improving his defense to the point he was named a Gold Glove finalist, Frazier rode the bench for both games against Cleveland and the last three games of the ALDS against Tampa Bay. Of the Yankees seven playoff games, Frazier started two of them as Boone started and played Brett Gardner over him. So Frazier “proved he was ready to grab an everyday role with the team” so well last year that he wasn’t an everyday palyer in the postseason.
The last time the Yankees played Frazier wasn’t the team’s starting left fielder, so how did he suddenly earn the job now? Were there real, meaningful games over the last four months no one is aware of? And what happens when Gardner inevitably re-signs with the Yankees? Does Gardner continue to start in left field forever no matter how badly his skills erode and decline? How can someone go from not being the starting left fielder and not playing in October to earning the job by mid-February?
Boone’s right in that last yer Frazier proved he was ready to grab an everyday role on this team. And then in the biggest games of the season, Boone didn’t play him. With the season on the line in Game 5 against the Rays, Boone chose to use Mike Ford to pinch hit for Kyle Higashioka over Frazier. The same Mike Ford who was sent to the alternate site ate the beginning of September for lack of performance. Ford wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee in September, but he was good enough to get pinch hit twice in the ALDS in October.
10. On the 2021 Yankees being a championship team. “I understand how hard it is, certainly, to get to the top of that mountain. We haven’t gotten there yet, but I also know how when I look at ultimately the last several world champions, how close we are though. So I think it’s important to understand where we need to continue to get better to put ourselves in the best possible position to kick the door in and ultimately get there. Understanding that there’s things that happen in the playoffs that sometimes it is about the ball bouncing the right away, it is about being hot or getting that big hit or whatever it may be at a different time. But I also think it’s important that we take a step back too and take the emotion out of it and realize the roster and the group of players and the core group of players that we have here are certainly I believe on the short team list of teams really capable of winning a championship.”
This is the quote of all Aaron Boone quotes maybe ever. Well, this and the time he lied to everyone and said Aaron Judge was taken out of a game in 2020 as a precaution and then Judge went on to miss half the season. There is so much here and it’s all so unbelievable.
Boone knows how hard it is to lose in the postseason because that’s all he’s ever done. He has never been to the top of the mountain as a player or manager and in the four seasons he has been part of the Yankees (one as a player and three as a manager), his teams have lost in the ALCS, ALDS, ALCS again and ALDS again. How can you know what it takes to get to the top of the mountain and win the last game of the Major League Baseball season when you have never done it?
The Yankees weren’t all that close the last few years, as I wrote earlier. The Dodgers had a much balanced lineup and a rotation featuring Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw. The Nationals had Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin. The Red Sox embarrassed the Yankees in both the regular season and postseason. The Yankees weren’t better than any of the previous three champions since Boone has been manager.
Boone mentions all of the things a team needs to go right to win the postseason, but he failed to mention not sabotaging your own team’s chances by trying to pull a starting pitching magic trick against the Rays in a pivotal Game 2. He also brings up the idea of “getting hot” which he and the Yankees have previously said they don’t believe in. It’s why they give players a day off a day after hitting multiple home runs in a game. But maybe he and the Yankees are changing their minds when it comes to a player being “hot” since it’s why he played Gardner over Frazier in the playoffs, and it’s now why he thinks a team can win in the postseason.
The core group of Yankees players have never won anything, and they all have gotten older, worse and injured since they came within one win of the World Series the season before Boone arrived. Judge hasn’t played a full season since 2017. Sanchez is closer to being an ex-Yankee than he is being the player he was even two years ago. Severino has made five starts since the end of 2018. Torres was so bad in 2020 that many wanted him to no longer be the starting shortstop. That’s the “core” I think of when I think of these Yankees.
I want to like Boone. I really do. But it’s going to take him changing a lot as a manager in 2021 for that to happen. It’s going to take him doing everything he can possibly do in October to possibly win, something he admitted to having not done last season. Brian Cashman has said he wants Boone to be the Yankees’ manager for 10 years the way Joe Torre and Joe Girardi were. For that to happen, he’s going to have to start doing a much better job than he has in his first three seasons.
1. We did it. Well, we have almost done it. This is the last Yankees Thoughts of the offseason. A week from today, Yankees spring training will already be in its second day and baseball will be back. The grind of the offseason is nearly over, and now it’s time to focus on the next eight months (it better be eight-plus months) of Yankees baseball.
2. Again, the only move left to make for the Yankees (to stay under the luxury tax, which they blatantly want to) is to bring back Brett Gardner, but that doesn’t seem imminent. I still won’t believe Gardner won’t be a Yankee again until he’s not announced on Opening Day, though there has reportedly been no negotiations between Gardner and the Yankees. Gardner’s agent claims the Yankees said they would discuss yet another re-signing of their longest-tenured player once they took care of their more important offseason business. That business has been taken care of for a while. DJ LeMahieu was re-signed. Corey Kluber was signed. Jameson Taillon was traded for. Adam Ottavino was traded. Masahiro Tanaka left the league. Darren O’Day was signed. There’s nothing else for the Yankees to do at this point, and that makes it odd that Gardner and the only team he has ever known aren’t even talking.
3. I have never wanted Gardner back so much. I didn’t want him back after 2018. I wanted the Yankees to sign Michael Brantley. Gardner had lost his starting job to Andrew McCutchen and was coming off the worst year of his career. The Yankees still brought him back. Following 2019, he was undoubtedly coming back whether or not I wanted him after he posted a career-high 28 home runs with the super baseball. Now I want him back because I’m petrified of Mike Tauchman or Greg Allen becoming everyday players once Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks inevitably land on the injured list. It would be very Yankees for the team to not bring Gardner back the one time they actually need him.
4. There will be a lot made about Gary Sanchez’s every waking moment in spring training, but my focus will be solely on the pitching staff. The Yankees’ entire pitching staff aside from Gerrit Cole has dealt with serious injuries the last two years and anytime they are doing anything related to pitching, it could mean a season-ending injury. Any bullpen session, any fielding practice, any jogging, any anything, and I will be watching it as intently as I would watch The Weather Channel growing up when I had a paper due and there was potential for snow and a snow day to buy me an extra day.
5. I have spent the last three-plus months watching my wife open deliveries to our home from her father full of Dodgers World Champions gear. Sweatshirts, T-shirts, you name it, we have it. The Dodgers won the World Series and still decided to pay Trevor Bauer a ridiculous $40 million to pitch for them in 2021. Brian Cashman thought the Yankees would have the highest payroll in the league, but he was wrong, and wrong by a lot. The team the Yankees should be operating like will have the highest payroll. The team that combines player development with their financial might to put together the best possible roster.
6. I didn’t want the Yankees to sign Bauer. Not because of the money. I didn’t want the Yankees to sign a 30-year-old with one great full season to his name (2018) and then a great 11 starts (2020). Bauer had a 4.30 ERA (4.06 FIP) from 2014 through 2017. Then he had that awesome 2018 (2.21 ERA and 2.44 FIP) and a 4.48 ERA and 4.34 FIP in 2019 before his Cy Young 2020. Maybe he finally figured it out for good last season in Cincinnati, or maybe it was just the equivalent of a spectacular one-third of a normal season (which is what it was). I also didn’t want him on the team because of his past with Cole, whether it’s settled or not. The Dodgers have the best rotation in baseball. Dodgers fans think they just signed a sure-thing, though Bauer is anything but a sure-thing.
7. I just wanted the Yankees to do more this offseason. They supposedly didn’t counter an offer by Cleveland for a Francisco Lindor trade. It would have been nice if they had acquired Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. I guess they felt re-signing LeMahieu would be enough, and that maybe Gleyber Torres would show up in shape this season and be able to make routine plays at shortstop. It also means they really believe in Gio Urshela to maintain his 2019 and 2020, and the same for Luke Voit. It means they believe their right-handed, one-dimensional (aside from LeMahieu) lineup can finally come through in October after failing miserably to do so the last two Octobers.
8. I wanted them to do more with their pitching. Why not re-sign Tanaka, sign Kluber, trade for Taillon, keep Ottavino and sign O’Day? None of those moves were tied to each other, and they could have all of those pitchers on their 2021 roster, if not for the imaginary salary cap. Instead, get ready for a steady diet of Michael King, Nick Nelson, Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga and maybe even a little Tyler Lyons and Nestor Cortes this season.
9. It’s unfortunate the Yankees cut payroll by $50 million for the second time in three years when they could have gone all out to make themselves the clear favorite in the American League. Forget the league, they might not even be the favorite in their division. I’m very worried about both the Blue Jays and Rays, and all Yankees fans should be. The Yankees’ starting pitching isn’t exactly exuding confidence when it comes to health, the bullpen isn’t what it once was and the lineup is the same lineup that failed in October in both 2019 and 2020. Add in a manager that has shown no signs of progress or development after three seasons, and you can see why I’m nervous about the 2021 season.
10. That doesn’t mean I’m not excited for baseball to be back. I’m as excited as I am every year at this time. It’s just hard to see how the Yankees don’t have the same injury problems they had last year and the year before when they have retained all their injury-prone players and then added more injury-riddled pasts to their roster. There will be plenty of time to bring up the Yankees’ roster failures if the team fails, but this is the team Yankees fans have been given to root for this season. For now, baseball is about to be back and that’s all that matters. For now.
Every plate appearance, every swing, every throw, every ball in the dirt for the Yankees’ catcher will be magnified and dissected this season.
Yankees baseball is close to returning. With the Major League Baseball Players Association rejecting the owners’ proposal to delay the start of the season, which would have unnecessarily expanded the postseason field again, the season is scheduled to start on time. We are a couple of weeks away from baseball.
1. It seems like the season is going to start on time, and within the next two weeks, the Yankees will begin to arrive and start training in Tampa. Some Yankees are already there, the way there are every year, and batting practice videos of Luke Voit is about all the Yankees baseball action there is right now. With the start of spring training approaching, there are two major storylines this season that will be at the forefront from the first official day of spring training until the final game of 2021, whenever that may be.
2. The first being the health of the Yankees’ new-look rotation. When Jordan Montgomery, who is 52 innings removed from his 2018 Tommy John surgery, is your second healthiest starter, it’s not great. Here are the Yankees’ starters and the amount of innings thrown since the start of 2019:
Luis Severino (unavailable until midseason): Five starts and 20 1/3 innings since start of 2019 Corey Kluber: Eight starts and 36 2/3 innings since start of 2019 Jameson Taillon: Seven starts and 37 1/3 innings since start of 2019 Montgomery: 12 starts and 52 innings since start of 2019
Then there’s Deivi Garcia (seven career starts and 35 1/3 innings, including his “start” in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS) and Clarke Schmidt (one career start and 6 1/3 innings).
3. If Kluber and Taillon both can’t stay healthy, it will be a disaster for Cashman and his team. It will be a horrible look for the luxury-tax champion Yankees, who will have passed on re-signing Masahiro Tanaka, instead choosing Cashman’s so-called “two-for-one” strategy by using the money for Tanaka to sign both Kluber and Taillon. A lot is riding on the health of a bunch of starting pitchers who have been anything but healthy for at least two years. And a lot if riding on a training and medical staff who has about the worst possible back-to-back seasons a training and medical staff could have to keep them healthy.
4. The second is Gary Sanchez. Sanchez’s entire season will be magnified and dissected. His spring training plate appearances will be live tweeted by beat writers and anything he does behind the plate that isn’t throwing the ball back to the pitcher will be reported. There has never been more pressure on Sanchez than there will be this season. There has never been more pressure for a regular-season position player Yankee in the Brian Cashman era.
5. Cashman apparently said the Yankees considered non-tendering Sanchez in December, which would have made him a free agent. There can’t be any truth to that. He would have been signed the second it was announced he had become a free agent. This has to be Cashman trying to motivate Sanchez, otherwise it’s time for a new front office. Kyle Higashioka is going to be 31 in April and isn’t a starting catcher and the Yankees have zero major-league-ready depth at the position. It’s why they signed 40-year-old Erik Kratz (who I love) last season.
“The fact that he’s still with us is proof of how we felt and how we feel,” Cashman said. “I know he’s looking forward to proving last year was a fluke. We look forward to him justifying our continued commitment to him and his talent level. We’ve invest our time, effort and money into him, for good reason.”
6. The only reason the Yankees would have non-tendered Sanchez would have been to stay under the luxury-tax threshold and not pay him the $6.35 million he will make in 2021. I’m honestly surprised penny-pinching Hal Steinbrenner didn’t instruct his front office to let Sanchez go because of that. Steinbrenner would rather pay Higashioka to hopefully hit some groundball singles through the hole on the left side of the infield than try to revitalize Sanchez’s historic production.
7. Hall of Fame catcher (and brief Yankee) Ivan Rodriguez was asked about Gary Sanchez at the Thurman Munson Awards, and a lot of what “Pudge” said I agree with.
“What the Yankees organization needs to do is just let him play baseball,” Rodriguez said. “He has tremendous ability, defensively and offensively. I know that he’s been struggling in both sides of the game, but I think right now it’s more mental.”
It’s nearly impossible to pin underperformance on being mental since no one knows what it’s like inside Sanchez’s head (other than opposing pitchers who know all he wants to do is pull the ball and any low-and-away breaking ball will get him to chase), but I agree Sanchez needs to be allowed to just play. Let him do whatever he was doing in 2016 and 2017 that got him to the majors and briefly made him the face of the future of the Yankees, resulting in him setting all-time home run records.
8. Sanchez needs to figure it out either offensively or defensively. If he can hit the way he did in 2016 and 2017 and to a lesser extent in 2019, then everyone can live with subpar defense and passed balls. If he can become great defensively and his offense takes a hit because of it, then OK, that’s what nearly every other team deals with at the position. But the Yankees need to stop interfering with his defense, stop trying to make him the perfect all-around player, and just let him play the game however he used to play it. If then, he still can’t put it together on at least one side of the ball, whether that be or offense or defense, so be it, and maybe it will be time to move on. Before it gets to the point of moving on, he needs to be given the chance to play how he wants and used to and not how coaches or catching instructors want.
9. This is it for Sanchez as a Yankee. If Cashman is telling the truth that the team considered moving on from him after 2020, then there’s no way they won’t if he doesn’t perform in 2021. The Yankees do have depth in the minors at the position, so it’s rather easy to envision him having another poor year and the Yankees cutting ties with him and letting Higashioka be the everyday catcher in 2022, or finding a one-year stopgap until Austin Wells or Anthony Seigler or Antonio Gomez or Josh Breaux emerge as the next everyday catcher (if one of them ever emerges). If Sanchez doesn’t revert back to his former self, or something close to it in 2021, that will be it. The Yankees will move on and he will likely sign with the Padres, grow facial hair and win the World Series in 2022, while hitting close to 40 regular-season home runs.
10. As President of the Gary Sanchez Fan Club, I believe in him. I truly think he will quiet his critics (who are now pretty much every other Yankees fan other than myself) this season and return to being the Yankees’ biggest advantage at any position in the lineup.
