Yankees – Page 116 – Keefe To The City

Feb 18, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Aaron Boone Believes He Has Championship Team

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.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees (kind of).

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.

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 16, 2021

Yankees Should Regret James Paxton Trade

The Yankees’ pre-2019 trade for James paxton didn’t work out the same way nearly every Brian Cashman trade for starting pitching hasn’t worked out.

Nearly three years ago at the 2018 trade deadline, I called James Paxton “blah” and in the same category as Chris Archer and Michael Fulmer. They were all pitchers I didn’t think were worth the Yankees trading for since they wouldn’t really make the team that much better and certainly weren’t worth giving up high-end prospects for. It was hard to find anyone who shared my perspective.

The allure of Paxton’s raw stuff and ceiling to be among the game’s best when he was on is what made him attractive to the Yankees and most Yankees fans, the way A.J. Burnett likely had. The problem is Paxton was the left-handed version of Burnett: unhittable when consistent, but rarely consistent. I referred to him as “blah” because of that inconsistency combined with his lengthy injury-riddled past. I agreed when Paxton was on, he was one as dominant as anyone in the league, but he was rarely on in consecutive starts or for any reasonable stretch of time.

Paxton was “blah” as a Yankee. He came to the team having never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a season (2018), and he fell under that mark in 2019 with 150 2/3 innings after spending a month on the injured list early in the season with a knee injury. After putting together an impressive second-half run to emerge as the Yankees’ top healthy starter, he hurt his back in his final regular-season game of 2019, and then was shaky in the ALDS (three earned runs in 4 2/3 innings) and couldn’t give any length in the ALCS (8 1/3 innings over two starts). The back injury lingered until February 2020 when he underwent surgery to resolve it. Once he returned when the season started in late July, his velocity had disappeared, and he turned in one quality start in five attempts before being shut down with a 6.64 ERA, effectively ending his Yankees tenure.

Paxton’s time with the Yankees was a letdown, and all my fears of trading for him came to fruition. To his credit, with the Yankees, he was exactly who he had been his entire career. There were no surprises. He ended up on the injured list in both seasons with the Yankees, the same way he had in every season with the Mariners, he was at times great, mostly OK, and mainly inconsistent. There were flashes of brilliance like in early 2019 against the Red Sox and Royals and in the second half of that season, but there were too many uninspiring, disappointing performances from a guy the Yankees sacrificed their top pitching prospect for, and a guy who was supposed to slot behind Luis Severino in the Yankees’ rotation.

That top pitching prospect the Yankees traded away to acquire Paxton was Justus Sheffield. The same 22-year-old Sheffield current and former Yankees raved about during spring training in 2018. Sheffield never started a game for the Yankees, making only three relief appearances in 2018, and then had mixed results in seven starts and eight games for the 2019 Mariners. But in 2020 and now 24, Sheffield broke out with a 3.58 ERA and 3.17 FIP across 10 starts for the Mariners. He had become the kind of starter the 2020 Yankees could have used in the ALDS to survive the Rays, instead they had Paxton, who had been shut down long before October with his latest injury on Aug. 20.

The Yankees made the move for Paxton recognizing their “window” at the time of the deal, choosing the veteran Paxton over the unknown Sheffield to help put them over the top. It didn’t work out like nearly every Brian Cashman trade for starting pitching hasn’t worked out and Paxton became the latest name in a long list of starter’s names who didn’t work out in New York.

In 2021, Sheffield will be in the same Mariners’ rotation as Paxton after the team brought Paxton back on a one-year deal this past week. The same way the Yankees traded Justin Wilson after 2015 in exchange for Chad Green and Luis Cessa, and now have all three, the Yankees were clearly on the losing end of the Paxton-Sheffield trade. It’s now easy to say the Mariners won the deal. It was a blowout win for the Mariners, a team that hasn’t done much winning in any regard since 2001. The Mariners received a package headline by Sheffield, didn’t have to pay Paxton the $21.075 million the Yankees did for 34 inconsistent regular-season starts, three postseason starts of varying success and two injury-plagued seasons.

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

Feb 12, 2021

Joe Girardi Deserves Monument Park Plaque for 2013 Performance

Joe Girardi had a great deal of success in his 10 years at Yankees manager, but 2013 was his best given the roster he had to work with.

It’s easy to forget how bad the Yankees were just five, six and seven years ago. Sandwiched between 18 postseason appearances in 19 years from 1995-2012 and another four straight from 2017-2020 were the “dark” years of 2013, 2014 and 2016. (I will give 2015 a pass because the Yankees did appear in the one-game playoff, and would have been in the ALDS in pre-2012 format.) Yes, I realize posting winning records in 2013, 2014 and 2016 isn’t necessarily “dark” compared to other franchise, but those seasons were dark in Yankees’ terms.

The darkest of them all was 2013 when injuries from 2012 lingered, new injuries in spring training popped up and the longest performance-enhancing drug suspension of all time followed the Yankees’ season. I remember going to the Stadium on Opening Day of the 2013 season against the Red Sox and thinking the Yankees would be in contention once again after their disappointing ALCS sweep at the hands of the Tigers the October before. I was wrong.

The Yankees’ Opening Day lineup:

Brett Gardner, CF
Eduardo Nunez, SS
Robinson Cano, 2B
Kevin Youkilis, 1B
Vernon Wells, LF
Ben Francisco, DH
Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Jayson Nix, 3B
Francisco Cervelli, C

(Facing a left-handed starter, the team had the vaunted Travis Hafner and Lyle Overbay on the bench)

It was no surprise that Yankees team started the season 1-4. Maybe the mid-2000s All-Star Team wasn’t a way to go about building a roster. Then in the sixth game of the season in Detroit, they surprisingly pummeled Justin Verlander in a 7-0 win and went on to win four straight, seven of eight and nine of 11. At 10-6, the power of putting on the pinstripes never seemed so powerful. Sure, many former All-Stars and elite players had revitalized their careers wearing the Yankees uniform, but this was taking it to another level.

The 34-year-old Vernon Wells who had been unceremoniously let go by the Angels and hadn’t played a full season in three years hit .317/.394/.619 with five home runs in the first three weeks of the season. The 36-year-old Travis Hafner, who hadn’t played a full season in six years, hit .349/.440/.767 with five home runs in those three weeks. Kevin Youkilis at 34 with his career in serious decline had an .883 OPS with a pair of home runs, journeyman Brennan Boesch had an .857 OPS, newly-appointed starting catcher Francisco Cervelli was batting .310 with a .944 OPS. When the Yankees won in 11 innings over the Blue Jays on April 20 to improve to that 10-6 mark, Ben Francisco was batting second, Youkilis fourth, Wellls fifth and Cervelli sixth. Eduardo Nunez and Jayson Nix batted eighth and ninth and made up the left side of the infield.

Nearly three weeks after that, the Yankees swept the Royals in Kansas City to move to ten games above .500 at 23-13. In the third game of that series, Wells hit his ninth home run of the season, Ichiro was batting fifth, Chris Nelson (yes, who?) was playing third base and Chris Stewart was catching.

The Yankees’ success to that point was mainly due to their starting pitching. CC Sabathia (3.23 ERA) had yet to fall apart, Hiroki Kuroda continued to be one of the most underrated Yankees of all time (2.31 ERA), soon-to-be-40-year-old Andy Pettitte was masterful (3.83 ERA) in his final season, Phil Hughes’ career hadn’t completely collapsed (4.43 ERA) and David Phelps had given the team consistency as the fifth starter (3.44 ERA in three starts through May 13). Add in the dominant David Robertson and the still somewhat unhittable Mariano Rivera at 43 years of age amidst his farewell tour, and the Yankees’ early-season success made some sense.

The success didn’t last. The Yankees went 62-64 the rest of the way, finishing 85-77. They managed to keep the franchise’s winning-season streak alive (it began in 1993 and is still alive) and would have made the postseason under the 2020 eight-team format.

Wells’ power dried up and after hitting that ninth home run on May 12, he only hit two more over the next four-and-a-half months. Youkilis only played in 28 games total and Hafner 82. Aside from Robinson Cano’s .314/.383/.516 season, the only other bright spot was the return of Alfonso Soriano midseason, as he turned back the clock to 2002, hitting 17 home runs and driving in 50 in only 58 games with the team. There was also the Derek Jeter leadoff home run on the first pitch he saw in 2013, but Number 2 ended up playing in only 17 games.

Jeter wasn’t the only other expected regular to miss significant time. Curtis Granderson played in 61 games and Mark Teixeira in 15 games. Alex Rodriguez appealed his suspension, but was a shell of his former self, hitting seven home runs with a .771 OPS in 44 games.

Here were the players who appeared the most at each position for the 2013 Yankees:

C: Chris Stewart
1B: Lyle Overbay
2B: Robinson Cano
3B: Jayson Nix
SS: Eduardo Nunez
LF: Vernon Wells
CF: Brett Gardner
RF: Ichiro Suzuki
DH: Travis Hafner

David Adams (43 games), Mark Reynolds (36), Zoilo Almonte (34), Brennan Boesch (23), Ben Francisco (21), Reid Brignac (17), Brendan Ryan (17), Luis Cruz (16), Alberto Gonzalez (13), Brent Lillibridge (11), Chris Nelson (10), Melky Mesa (5), Thomas Neal (4), Corban Joseph (2) and Travis Ishikawa (1) all also played for the 2013 Yankees.

In 10 years as Yankees manager, Joe Girardi never had a losing season, went to the postseason six times, won the World Series (2009) and went to the ALCS in three other years (2010, 2012, 2017), but it was 2013 that was his best season. That Yankees team had no business winning 85 games. They had no business winning 75 games. Girardi deserved to win American League Manger of the Year for that team’s performance. He deserved to win Manger of All Time. He deserved to have the award named after him. The roster, lineups and batting orders are somewhat funny to look back on now, though I’m still not over that wasted season, so it will take a few more years to truly be funny. But it’s easy to recognize and appreciate the work Girardi did that season to keep his team afloat when it shouldn’t have made it out of April.

It was miraculous, yes an actual miracle, the 2013 Yankees finished with a winning record and eight games above .500. It was Girardi’s finest work as Yankees manager and maybe the finest work any manager has ever had in the history of the game. I just never want to experience a season like it again.

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 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!