The Yankees added another starting pitcher to their rotation by trading for the Pirates’ Jameson Taillon. The right-hander hasn’t pitched since 2019 after undergoing a second Tommy John surgery, and he joins a Yankees staff
The Yankees added another starting pitcher to their rotation by trading for the Pirates’ Jameson Taillon. The right-hander hasn’t pitched since 2019 after undergoing a second Tommy John surgery, and he joins a Yankees staff that is full of starters who are returning from injuries and who haven’t pitched much, if at all, over the last few seasons.
The trade was a no-brainer for the Yankees considering Taillon’s salary ($2.25 million) and what they had to give up. If healthy, the Yankees could have a very good rotation. But “if healthy” is asking a lot.
This August will be five years since Gary Sanchez hit his first career home on Aug. 10, 2016 in Boston. Five years since he hit 20 home runs in only 229 plate appearances. Five years
This August will be five years since Gary Sanchez hit his first career home on Aug. 10, 2016 in Boston. Five years since he hit 20 home runs in only 229 plate appearances. Five years since his at-bats became must-see TV. Five years since he temporarily became the face of the Yankees.
Over the last three seasons, Sanchez has fallen out of favor with Yankees fans to the point the majority of them have (wrongfully) clamored for Kyle Higashioka to be the team’s starting catcher. And he has fallen out of favor with his manager to the point Aaron Boone gave into the idiotic fans and actually benched Sanchez in the postseason.
Recently, Marly Rivera of ESPN spoke with Sanchez from his home in the Dominican Republic, and he had a lot to say about the state of his career.
On being benched during the playoffs. “I played the second game in Cleveland, and I played well. Then we went to San Diego, to the bubble … After almost a week without playing, it didn’t go well for me in the second game … I struck out three times, but I felt like I was taking good cuts, good swings. I felt so much better. But I didn’t play.”
If Sanchez doesn’t play in Game 2 against Cleveland, the Yankees’ season ends the next day in Game 3 and they never get to embarrass themselves in the ALDS against Tampa Bay. (So maybe he shouldn’t have played Game 2 in Cleveland because it would have prevented Yankees fans from enduring the worst managerial strategy in team history in Game 2 of the ALDS). It’s over because if Sanchez doesn’t play, they lose Game 2 to Cleveland, and then J.A. Happ starts Game 3 against Cleveland and they would have lost with Happ on the mound.
Sanchez’s two-run home run in the sixth inning of Game 2 in Cleveland gave the Yankees an 8-6 lead. (Zack Britton and Jonathan Loaisiga combined to blow that lead in the seventh.) After Aroldis Chapman did what he does best in the playoffs in the eighth inning by allowing a run, the Yankees trailed 9-8 for the ninth. The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs for Brett Gardner, and he struck out, bringing Sanchez to the plate. Because of Gardner’s inability to put the ball in play and score the tying run, the game was essentially all on Sanchez. If he failed to bring in Giancarlo Stanton from third, the Yankees would no longer be able to tie the game by making an out. Sanchez drove the 1-1 pitch to deep center fielder to tie the game with a sacrifice fly, and after a DJ LeMahieu single, the Yankees took the lead for good.
After that game, Sanchez started and played in one more game in the postseason: Game 2 of the ALDS. To be benched for the remainder of the series and the final three games because of his Game 2 performance (0-for-4, 3 Ks) was completely ridiculous and unfair. If Sanchez was going to be benched, then why wasn’t Aaron Judge (0-for-5, 3 Ks) or Luke Voit (0-for-3, 3 Ks)? Why didn’t Boone bench himself for his irresponsible pitching plan with Happ? The Yankees needed a scapegoat to hide Boone’s disastrous managing and the team’s Game 2 loss and they chose Sanchez. The Yankees have said they don’t believe in hot or cold streaks, though they apparently believe players should be able to hit Tyler Glasnow after six days off.
Boone wasn’t even willing to use Sanchez as a pinch hitter in Games 3 or 5, choosing to go with Mike Ford, who had been sent down to the team’s alternate site in the regular season. Ford wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee in September, but he was good enough to be a Yankee in October and get at-bats over Sanchez (and Clint Frazier).
On speaking with Boone about his postseason benching. “I asked for and had a respectful and very positive conversation with Aaron Boone. I explained to him that I thought I deserved an explanation for what happened. We had a good conversation, and we talked about all of that and cleared things up.”
Joe Girardi’s tenure at as Yankees manager came to an end because of his supposed lack of communication with the (at the time) young Yankees. In hiring Boone, Brian Cashman and the Yankees praised his communication skills, even though he had never managed or coached at any level of baseball in his life. Our new manager is awesome at this skill he has never actually performed! Well, so much for being a great communicator since Sanchez had to seek him out to talk about being removed from the lineup.
Sanchez has been the Yankees’ starting catcher since August 2016. If he’s suddenly not going to play, he should be told why. It’s bad enough he doesn’t play when Gerrit Cole pitches because the supposed best pitcher in the world needs to coddled, but to bench him outright in games not started by Cole in the postseason does deserve an explanation whether he hit .147/.253/.365 in 49 games or not.
Sanchez has had bad stretches in his career before, like any player. If 2020 hadn’t been a shortened season and he had time to correct himself and enhance his numbers, I’m not writing about this right now and Kyle “Let’s Hope He Hits a Ground Ball Just Past the Outstretched Glove of the Shortstop” Higashioka isn’t starting over him in the playoffs. Sanchez had 178 plate appearances in 2020, which is one-third of his career-high 525 plate appearances from 2017. It’s easy to see how he could have had a bad one-third of a season and then rebounded over another 350 plate appearances. The shortened season needs to be treated as and evaluated on what it was: 37 percent of a standard 162-game season.
Sanchez needs to find a way to stay healthy for an entire season (which can also be said about Judge, Stanton and Aaron Hicks). The reason his career-high for plate appearances in a season is 525 is because he was hurt and missed significant time in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Sanchez needs to produce in 2021, but he also needs to stay healthy.
On being asked to change his defensive setup. “I understand that the team is trying to help me, and I like that. I know all they want to do is see me improve. But this offseason, I have to focus on trying to recover that form from last year (2019) and be able to mix everything that I improved upon by adding lowering my right knee.”
Since the Yankees’ 2009 season, the farthest they have gone in the postseason was when they lost Game 7 of the ALCS In 2017. Sanchez was their No. 3 hitter that season and during that postseason run. In his most recent game for the Yankees (Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS), Sanchez batted ninth. Could anyone envision Sanchez batting third for the Yankees now? Imagine the shitstorm it would cause if Boone penciled his name into the 3-hole. That’s how far Sanchez has fallen in three calendar years.
I attribute his decline to two things: the first being his inability to lay off breaking balls low and away, and the second being the Yankees’ relentless attempts to try to make him Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate. The Yankees couldn’t just let Sanchez hit 30-plus home runs a season and use his exceptional arm to throw out would-be basestealers. They decided the passed balls were too much! So instead of letting Sanchez be the player they gave $3 million to as a 17-year-old and who climbed to the majors and set historical home run records upon reaching the majors, they had to screw him up. Then they decided he needed to be better at framing pitches! The Yankees are now trying to get Sanchez back to being the player he was in 2017 and 2017 and 2019 even though they played a large role, and possibly the only role in him no longer being that player.
If the Yankees were to make Sanchez the perfect defensive catcher and he were to still post 2020-like offensive numbers, he would still be criticized. No fans wants Sanchez to block every pitch in the dirt and steal a few strikes in a season and not hit. They want him to get on base 35 percent of the time and hit 30-plus home runs. They want the offense over the defense. The Yankees want it all. They want Sanchez to be the perfect, complete player. That player doesn’t exist, especially not at catcher.
On the negative criticism from Yankees fans. “I have to listen to all the negative comments, everything that everyone has to say about me, because the truth is that I played badly at the plate. That’s why I have to take everything anyone says. Let them say what they want. I deserve it. That will make me better and stronger.”
As President of the Gary Sanchez Club (and one of the few remaining members, possibly the only remaining member), this comment broke my heart. Sanchez became the scapegoat for the underachieving 2019 and 2020 Yankees and unfairly so.
No, Sanchez didn’t hit in the 2019 ALCS against the Astros, but unless your name is DJ LeMahieu or Gleyber Torres, you are to blame for the offense failing in that series. Judge went 6-for-25 with 10 strikeouts and had one extra-base hit in the six games. Didi Gregorius: 5-for-23. Gio Urshela: 5-for-21. Gardner: 3-for-22 with 10 strikeouts. Edwin Encarnacion: 1-for-18 with 11 strikeouts. Hicks: 2-for-13 with five strikeouts.
Sanchez went 3-for-23 with 12 strikeouts in the series, but at least he hit a three-run home run in Game 5 in an attempt to keep his team from the brink of elimination.
On his 2020 season. “It just wasn’t me. That 2020 thing, that wasn’t me. It was a bad year.”
Everyone needs to remember how good Sanchez has been. Historically good. In 2016, he nearly won Rookie of the Year (and should have won it over Michael Fulmer) despite playing in only 53 games. In 2017, he was an All-Star and Silver Slugger, hitting 33 home runs with an .876 OPS, earning him MVP votes. 2018 was a disaster, as he was hurt for most of the year, playing in only 89 games and needing offseason surgery. But the Yankees’ only win in over the Red Sox in the 2018 ALDS was single-handedly because of Sanchez, who hit two home runs and drove in four runs in Game 2. In 2019, Sanchez rebounded, and while the average (.232) and on-base percentage (.316) weren’t there, he still slugged .525 for an .841 OPS after hitting 34 home runs. And then there was 2020.
Sanchez’s 162-game averages are absurd. They would be absurd for any player, but for a catcher they are seemingly fake: 94 runs, 25 doubles, 44 home runs, 110 RBIs, .236/.320/.502. Yankees fans are upset their catcher averages only an .823 OPS over 162 games.
On getting back to being his old self in 2021. “I went through something similar in 2018: I was hurt all year, and there was so much criticism. [In 2019], I came in proved my self and had one of the best years of my career.”
Sanchez is going to need to get off to a fast start in 2021 because the majority of Yankees fans are done with him, and Boone, the idiot, has already set a precedent that he will turn to Higashioka, considering he did in the biggest games last season. If Sanchez gets off to a slow start, the Higashiokers will be out in full, just like the Rominers (Yankees fans who wanted Austin Romine to play over Sanchez) were. This could very well be the last season of Sanchez as a Yankee even if he doesn’t play well and play well right away. Otherwise, Yankees fans will likely watch him win the 2022 World Series with the Padres.
I get why Yankees fans are frustrated with Sanchez. They remember how good he has been. I don’t get why Yankees fans have given up on him. I’m frustrated with him too, and I want him to return to being that player. I’m nowhere near ready to give up on him. I still believe in him.
The Yankees’ roster seems like it’s all but complete. I still think a certain bald, left-handed outfielder will be a Yankee in 2021, but aside from his return, what you see right now is what the Opening Day roster will be.
The Yankees’ roster seems like it’s all but complete. I still think a certain bald, left-handed outfielder will be a Yankee again in 2021, and aside from his return, what you see right now is what the Opening Day roster will be.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. Can we get an announcement from the Yankees that they have officially signed DJ LeMahieu and Corey Kluber? What’s holding this up? Neither are actually Yankees yet and that worries me. What is preventing either of them from signing their reported contracts? I need these deals wrapped up, so I can stop lying awake at night and thinking about it. As of now, Tyler Wade is an everyday player for the Yankees and Jordan Montgomery is the No. 2 starter. Sign the contracts.
2. The Yankees are right up against the luxury-tax threshold, and they aren’t going to go over it. I know they aren’t going to because they spread out LeMahieu’s money over six years. If they didn’t care about the luxury tax (which they shouldn’t because they’re the Yankees), LeMahieu would be getting his $90 million over four years at most. It’s disappointing the Yankees are scared off by paying interest on their roster and an amount that is so inconsequential for the organization. Hal Steinbrenner isn’t going to have to live off of ramen noodles from a styrofoam cup for the next year if the Yankees go past the threshold. The Steinbrenners would make much more money than they would have to pay in luxury tax by hosting more home playoff games and possibly winning the World Series for the first time in 12 years.
3. The Yankees have seemingly enough room to bring back Brett Gardner on a very cheap deal. I didn’t want Gardner back after 2018, but now he’s needed. Not because he’s good. It’s because he’s a better option than Mike Tauchman or Greg Allen, and we’re the inevitable Aaron Hicks injury and Aaron Judge injury away from Tauchman or Allen playing an important role on the 2021 Yankees. This is all based on the Yankees finally making Clint Frazier the everyday left fielder, but after Aaron Boone’s lineup management in the postseason, that’s not guaranteed.
4. The Blue Jays aren’t screwing around. After an unexpected postseason berth in an expanded postseason field, the Blue Jays are surrounding their young, very good, inexpensive core with established major leaguers. Three-plus years ago, the Yankees reached the postseason unexpectedly and made a run to Game 7 of the ALCS. How did they surround their young, very good and inexpensive core? By cutting payroll by $50 million, that’s how. The Blue Jays recognize their window is just opening. The Yankees, on the other hand, are doing everything to help their already-opened window close. While the majority of the teams in the league are purposely tanking and fielding non-competitive teams to save money and increase the bank accounts of their billionaire owners (Cleveland currently has a $35 million payroll, which is the equivalent of Gerrit Cole and Luke Voit), the Blue Jays are going for it.
5. The AL East is now a three-team race. Even with the trade of Blake Snell, the Rays were still going to be a problem for the Yankees, and now the Blue Jays are as well. The Blue Jays finished one game behind the Yankees in the 2020 standings and had passed them in the standings for a period of time. Sure, it was a 60-game season, but it showed the Blue Jays could hang with the Yankees for at least 60 games. Now with their team having that much more experience, coupled with the addition of George Springer, and who knows who else before their roster is complete, the Blue Jays are a decent threat.
6. I say “decent” because the Blue Jays still lack starting pitching. They have less quality starting pitching than the Yankees and the Yankees have basically done all they can to have the most incomplete rotation for a team expected to contend for a championship. After Hyun Jin Ryu, the Blue Jays’ next best starter is Robbie Ray, who had a 6.62 ERA and 6.50 FIP in 12 games and 11 starts for Arizona and Toronto last season. Ray had been good in the three seasons before last (3.72 ERA and 4.09 FIP), and maybe he shouldn’t be evaluated on 51 2/3 innings in a shortened season. His 1.897 WHIP did happen, and it’s hard to ignore.
7. Even if Ray were to return his 2017-2019 self, having Ryu and Ray atop their rotation isn’t worrisome for the Yankees because they are both left-handed and the Yankees would have nine right-handed bats against them in any start. Now if the Blue Jays were to go out and sign Trevor Bauer then I would start to be really worried.
8. I don’t want Bauer on the Yankees, but I don’t want him in the AL East or on the Mets. I don’t want him standing in the way of the Yankees and a division title, and I also don’t want the Mets to be good because they’re the Mets. I want Bauer to end up with the Angels. The Angels suck and continue to waste the career of possibly the best player in the history of baseball. They aren’t signing Bauer away from being a threat. They need much more than the outspoken right-hander who has had one great full season in his career (2018) and then 11 great starts in 2020. Someone is going to overpay for Bauer because it’s a weak free-agent class for starting pitching. Let it be the Angels.
9. J.A. Happ signed with the Twins. A one-year, $8 million contract for the 38-year-old left-hander. I want to laugh at the Twins. I’m not going to go. With ALDS wins over the Twins in 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2019 and the one-game playoff win over them in 2017, the Twins are more than due to break through in the postseason, specifically against the Yankees. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Yankees and Twins meet in October and to have the Twins finally beat the Yankees with Happ leading the way. That’s the way this works. A former Yankee and goes on to haunt them. Recently, Eduardo Nunez did it. So did Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Pearce and Brian McCann. Eight shutout innings from Happ against the Yankees in the ALDS seems about right.
10. It seems like spring training is going to start on time. Who knows if that will actually happen, but with less than a month to go until the scheduled start of it, there hasn’t been any word of it being delayed. That means we are so very close to the return of baseball, and it feels fake because I have been under the idea since the end of the 2020 season that the 2021 season would be delayed. It still could be, though as of now, we are a few weeks away from the 2021 season beginning. That makes me happy.
The Yankees can no longer only worry about the Rays in the AL East. The division is now a three-team race.
The Yankees can no longer only worry about the Rays in the AL East. Coming off an unexpected postseason berth, the Blue Jays have decided to surround their young, very good and inexpensive core with established major leaguers. The Blue Jays added former Yankee Kirby Yates to the back end of their bullpen and then went and gave George Springer a six-year, $150 million contract.
The Yankees are going to try to win in 2021 with nearly the same team from 2020. It’s a wild, ill-advised and irresponsible plan for a team in a supposed championship window, but it’s the Yankees’ plan.
The Yankees weren’t good enough to win the World Series in 2020. They weren’t good enough to get out of the division series. They weren’t even good enough to win the division in the regular season. And it looks like they are going to try to erase their soon-to-be-12-year championship drought with nearly the same roster in 2021.
During the 2010s, when the Yankees failed to reach the World Series for the first time in a decade since the 1910s, the team would use corny slogans to try to depict the organization and help boost ticket sales. Everyone remembers “Pride. Power. Pinstripes.” and “Our History. Your Tradition” and “A Timeless Legacy” from in-game commercials on YES. Well, if there’s a new one for 2021, it might as well be “Complacency” or maybe “Luxury-Tax Threshold.”
The Yankees have grown complacent since their last championship with the goal of simply getting in the playoffs, not caring how they get there. Home-field advantage doesn’t seem to matter for a team that keeps losing because of it, and having a strong, durable rotation or a lineup that can frequently put the ball in play aren’t important either.
Brian Cashman has made it clear the Yankees’ goal is to reach the playoffs and then hope to have luck and random chance on their side once they get there. Many times Cashman has called the playoffs a crapshoot, which means the general manager thinks the Yankees were just one really, really, really lucky team in four out of the five years from 1996 through 2000. They were extremely fortunate to have the dice land the way they did in 2009 as well.
It’s obvious the Yankees are doing everything they can to stay under the luxury-tax threshold for 2021 and have to avoid forfeiting an amount of money that’s probably equal to a homestand’s worth of Coors Light sales in the at the Stadium. (If Coors Light was $12 in 2019, what’s it going to be the next time fans are allowed to attend games with all of the supposed lost revenue the Yankees have suffered? $15? $18? $20?!) DJ LeMahieu’s contract says as much with the Yankees spreading his $90 million across six years rather than the expected four or even five. Their decision to replicate their pre-2008 season plans by possibly having both Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt in their rotation like they did Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy also makes it clear: avoid the luxury-tux penalty.
That means the team you see today (with LeMahieu and Corey Kluber counted as sure-things even though the team has yet to announce either as officially signed) is the team you will see on Opening Day. You can probably add Brett Gardner as well though it wouldn’t surprise me if the Yankees are prepared to replace an inevitably injured Aaron Hicks or Aaron Judge with Mike Tauchman and Greg Allen. But after Gardner, that’s it. There’s barely enough room under the luxury-tax threshold to add Gardner and have space for any in-season call-ups or potential trade acquisitions. Then again, after the Yankees stood completely pat during the 2020 deadline when they had glaring weaknesses and needs, why would they be active at the 2021 deadline, especially with no wiggle room before the penalty.
When Cashman finally decided to pull the plug on Sonny Gray as a Yankee because Cashman’s pitching department couldn’t tap into the pitcher who David Ortiz referred to in 2015 as “the toughest guy I’ve faced in the last few seasons,” Cashman said the following: “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results.”
Each time Cashman has had a chance to put the Yankees over the top in the last four seasons, he has failed to do so and ownership has failed to allow him to do so. The Yankees could have had Justin Verlander at the August 2017 deadline, but they didn’t want to take on his salary. So he went to the Astros and single-handedly swung the ALCS with wins in Games 2 and 6.
The 2017 Yankees came within one win of the World Series after not trading for Verlander, and then they decided to cut payroll by $50 million for 2018. The Red Sox and Dodgers greatly outspent them that season, and guess which two teams met in the 2018 World Series?
Cashman tried to bolster the team’s staff for 2019 by trading top pitching prospect Justus Sheffield for the oft-injured James Paxton, who had never thrown more than 160 1/3 innings in a season in his career, a career which had been and still is one long injured-list stint with some innings in between rather than the other way around. In two seasons with the Yankees, Paxton was bad then hurt then good then hurt then bad then hurt again. The 24-year-old, left-handed Sheffield didn’t miss a start for the 2020 Mariners, pitched to a 3.58 ERA and 3.17 FIP and allowed only two home runs in 55 1/3 innings. The Yankees could have used that arm against the Rays in the ALDS.
For 2020, the Yankees finally had starting pitching depth. Cashman and the Yankees created a rotation of Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ with Jordan Montgomery as insurance. But that was in February and before Severino needed Tommy John surgery and before Paxton underwent back surgery. The Yankees’ inability to properly diagnose Severino’s elbow injury from the previous October and Paxton’s back injury from the previous September had altered their 2020 plans. The Yankees had four months from the time the 2020 season was shut down until it finally started to add to their rotation, and they didn’t. When Tommy Kahnle went down in the first weekend of the shortened season, the Yankees decided not to add to their bullpen. The trade deadline came and went and the Yankees willingly decided to take their chances with a makeshift rotation, the kind of makeshift rotation they always seem have to by the time October rolls around, and three trustworthy bullpen arms.
Right now, the Yankees’ rotation is Cole, Corey Kluber and his eight starts over the last two seasons, Montgomery who is 11 starts removed from Tommy John surgery, and two rookies. The other rotation option is noted scumbag Domingo German, who it’s now impossible to root for, the same way it’s impossible to feel anything other than awful to need to also root for noted scumbag Aroldis Chapman to close out games for the Yankees. Unfortunately for Hal Steinbrenner, I haven’t forgotten that either is a scumbag, the way he hoped Yankees fans would when he allowed the Yankees to trade for Chapman and then gave him a five-year deal and said, “Look, he admitted he messed up. He paid the penalty. Sooner or later, we forget, right?” I haven’t forgotten, and I certainly didn’t forget when for the second straight season the highest-paid reliever of all time gave up a home run to end the Yankees’ season.
The Yankees are going to try to win in 2021 with the same lineup that wasn’t good enough in 2020 or 2019. They are going to try to win it all with a rotation that desperately needs Luis Severino to return completely healthy midseason and have no adjustment period after having only made five starts in what will be nearly two years. They are going to try to win it all with a bullpen that is now down to three trustworthy relievers in Chad Green, Zack Britton and Chapman with the departures of Kahnle and Dellin Betances over the last two years and the disappearance of an effective Adam Ottavino.
It’s a wild, ill-advised and irresponsible plan for a team in a supposed championship window, but it’s the Yankees’ plan. The Yankees are going to go through the same exercise and expect different results.
