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Feb 11, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Offseason Almost Over

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.

A week from now spring training will have begun. That’s a beautiful sentence to write. Yankees baseball is nearly here.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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

Feb 11, 2021

Yankees Podcast: Less Than a Week to Go

Spring training is about to begin, and the Yankees’ health will be the focal point in 2021 after the last two seasons.

The Yankees’ 2021 officially begins next Wednesday in Tampa, and the health of the team will be the focal point of the season. The Yankees will need a lot to go right with this roster to win a championship, and it all centers around avoiding injuries.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Offseason

Feb 10, 2021

Another Fresh Start for Giancarlo Stanton

Because I’m a nice person, I’m going to give Giancarlo Stanton a clean slate for the a second straight season. I’m going to be positive when it comes to Stanton for as long as he lets me be positive.

Spring training begins next week. NEXT WEEK! The offseason is long as it is, and it’s made even longer when there have only been 67 Yankees games since Oct. 19, 2019. Baseball is almost here, even if it’s not real, meaningful baseball.

Just over a year ago (on Feb. 4, 2020 to be exact), I decided I was going to give Giancarlo Stanton a clean slate for the 2020 season. After an up-and-down first season with the Yankees in 2018, which culminated in him having one of the worst at-bats imaginable with the season on the line against Craig Kimbrel in Game 4 of the ALDS, Stanton barely played in 2019. A biceps strain turned shoulder strain turned calf strain kept him to only 18 regular-season games, and then he benched himself due to injury in the ALCS.

Three weeks after giving Stanton a clean slate for 2020, he was shut down with a calf injury. The clean slate was muddied before the end of February and I called him a joke and called him the new Jacoby Ellsbury. The season was delayed and it allowed Stanton to get healthy and not miss the time he would have missed had it began in late-March as scheduled. Then two weeks into the shortened season, Stanton was back at home on the injured list with a hamstring injury.

There’s no arguing Stanton’s is among the game’s best hitters when healthy, but for the last two years he hasn’t been healthy. Now he’s 31 years old, a full-time designated hitter according to Brian Cashman, and he’s played 53 games since the start of 2019. Maybe the new offseason workout regimen Stanton has implemented from director of player health and performance Eric Cressy will prove to be the difference in keeping him in the lineup in 2021. Im going to give him clean again.

Stanton is a generational power hitter. After playing in only 23 games in 21 months from end of 2018 until Opening Night 2020 (July 23), he still managed to crush a first-inning, two-run home run off Max Scherzer in his first at-bat of the season. After playing in only 23 games in the 60-game 2020 season, Stanton returned in time for the postseason and hit a home run (and six total) in the Yankees’ first five playoff games, while driving in 13. His bat went cold in Games 4 and 5 of the ALDS (like everyone else on the team), and he finished the postseason 1-for-7 with three strikeouts. But even with that two-game disappointment, he still hit .308/.387/1.038 in the playoffs. A 1.426 OPS. That’s what he’s capable of when he’s healthy.

Unfortunately, for Stanton, he entered Alex Rodriguez territory in his first Yankees season. That means he’s only as good to Yankees fans as his most recent at-bat. Once you reach that territory, there’s no going back. Last February, I wrote: Stanton could have the kind of postseason A-Rod did in 2009, and it won’t matter. And then he went out and had essentially the same postseason A-Rod had in 2009 in eight fewer games and half the at-bats.

Rodriguez in 2009 postseason: 19-for-52, 6 HR, 18 RBIs, .365/.500/.808
Stanton in 2020 postseason: 8-for-26, 6 HR, 13 RBIs, .308/.387/1.038

I said it won’t matter, and it won’t. Yankees fans won’t treat him any differently.

Stanton’s magical postseason ended with an ALDS exit for the Yankees because of a lack of timely hitting, no starting pitching and Aaron Boone’s ridiculous Game 2 decision. Stanton did everything he could to almost single-handedly carry the Yankees to the ALCS, but his teammates let him down, the way he and the rest of the Yankees let down DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres in the 2019 ALCS. It’s not Stanton’s fault the Yankees’ season ended against the Rays, but because they didn’t win, his postseason dominance might have not even happened.

I used to think Stanton was a luxury on the Yankees. They had gotten to within one game of the World Series the season before he became a Yankee, and in his lost 2019 season, they had won 103 regular-season games and gotten to within two wins of the World Series. But that was before it became apparent Aaron Judge might never play a full season again, before it became obvious Aaron Hicks wouldn’t spend part of every season on the injured list, before Gary Sanchez’s stopped hitting completely, and before Gleyber Torres regressed substantially after coming to Spring Training 2.0 out of shape last summer. Stanton is no longer a luxury on the Yankees. He’s become a necessity.

Because I’m a nice person, I’m going to give Stanton a clean slate for the second straight season. That means no sarcasm to start the season, no snarky comments, no “Ladies and gentlemen” tweets on Opening Day. I’m going to be positive when it comes to Stanton for as long as he lets me be positive. I wonder if he will let it last longer than the three weeks in February it lasted a year ago.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Offseason

Feb 8, 2021

I’m Ready for Yankees Baseball to Return for 2021

The moment Gio Urshela lined out to third to end Game 5 of the ALDS, I was ready for next season. I’m always ready for next season. I hate the offseason.

The moment Gio Urshela lined out to third to end Game 5 of the ALDS, I was ready for next season. I’m always ready for next season. I hate the offseason.

The 59-day winter gauntlet that is January and February was rather tame in the first month of 2021, but freezing temperatures and snow have become daily fixtures in the second month. Punxsutawney Phil didn’t help matters by seeing his shadow last week, and there’s still more than a month until the clocks get set forward.

We’re close to baseball, even if it’s just beat writers live-tweeting intrasquad games and batting practice. Reading about pitchers’ fielding practice and back-field infield drills and watching videos of bullpen sessions recorded on a phone through the spacing of a chain-link fence never sounded so good. After the 2020 season was delayed by four months, I said I would never complain about the monotony of spring training again, and I meant it.

I welcome the daily updates and the overreatctions to Gary Sanchez’s every move and every second of the upcoming season. I look forward to Aaron Boone once again unnecessarily batting Aaron Hicks third because he’s the Yankees’ only left-handed hitter and because Boone thinks he has to break up the right-handed bats in the middle of the order. I’m eagerly awaiting the storeis about all the players who reported to camp in the “best shape of their life.” I want to lose it over the last position player and last reliever selected for the 25-man roster and I want to be irrationally upset over the order of the rotation to open the regular season. That’s how ready I am for baseball.

The wait is almost over. Even if there is snow in the forecast for seven of the next 10 days, we’re close. The sun is once again setting after 5 p.m., pitchers and catchers officially report next week and position players the week after that.

I’m more than ready for the return of Yankees baseball. I have been since Oct. 9.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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

Feb 8, 2021

Yankees Podcast: One Last Roster Move?

The Yankees have one move left to make this offseason and that’s to bring Brett Gardner back.

The Yankees have one move left to make this offseason and that’s to bring Brett Gardner back. In order to stay under the luxury-tax threshold, it’s the only remaining move they “can” make. It’s now just a waiting game until pitchers and catchers report next week.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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