Yankees – Page 137 – Keefe To The City

Jul 3, 2019

Zack Britton Is a Big Problem

Zack Britton is going to receive special treatment for his name and he’s going to pitch in high-leverage spots three months from now when the Yankees can’t afford to have him walking the park and failing to miss bats.

The Yankees are going to win the AL East. Actually, they already have. They are going to the playoffs and that means everything between now and the last game of the regular season is to get ready for the postseason.

I have two legitimate fears when it comes to the 2019 Yankees and their chances at winning the World Series this October. The first is the lineup will get shutdown against elite pitching in a short series, the way they were last season and the way they were in Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the ALCS the year before. The second is Aaron Boone will ruin and destroy the season the same way he did in Games 3 and 4 of the ALDS last season.

We know Boone has little to no actual power as manager of the Yankees. He’s essentially the Queen of England, a figurehead for the organization, who acts as if he’s important when talking with the media. There’s no way Boone truly owns the lineup card, there’s no way the front office and analytics team lets him decide where batters hit in the order and when players get a scheduled day off and I highly doubt he has any real input on who’s on the 25-man roster each day. But the bullpen is a completely different story.

Most likely, Boone has a guide or map on how to manage his bullpen, provided to him by the analytics team. Bring Reliever A into Situation B, and if Situation X happens, bring in Reliever Y. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in the Yankees dugout, Boone has a card similar to a multiplication table or a blackjack cheat sheet to help him navigate his own bullpen. The issue here is that once the game starts, Boone is free to do whatever he wants. Sure, he might hear about it later from Brian Cashman, but in the actual moment, he has all the power and can easily disregard the guide or cheat sheet and determine which reliever to bring in and when.

I believe this is what happened in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS when Boone let Luis Severino go out for the fourth inning when every ball in play to that point had been a hard line drive and Severino clearly didn’t have it. Boone let Severino load the bases in the fourth with no outs before finally removing him, and needing a strikeout more than ever, Boone brought in Lance Lynn, the last man on the postseason roster. The Red Sox immediately immediately cleared the bases and put the game out of reach.

I believe this is what happened in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS when Boone let CC Sabathia go through the Red Sox’ order a second time, later using the excuse he liked the matchup of Sabathia vs. Jackie Bradley, the Red Sox’ 9-hitter. Boone liked the matchup so much, he let Sabathia lose the game by going through the first eight hitters in the lineup.

Boone is in over his head as an actual in-game manager. We know this because he’s proven it for 250 games as manager of the Yankees. Cashman stood by Boone’s side after the season, giving his manager “A’s across the board” when asked about his his first season. Boone had been Cashman’s choice and there was no way he was going to turn on Boone after he had recently appointed him as manager to lead a team in a championship window. There’s no way Cashman thought Boone’s bullpen decisions in Game 3 and 4 of the ALDS were the right moves that just didn’t happen to work out.

If you think Boone has learned from his mistakes in the 2018 regular season and 2018 postseason, you haven’t watched him this season. The Yankees aren’t in first place because he suddenly figured out how to manage. They’re in first place because DJ LeMahieu is the AL MVP, Gary Sanchez has returned to his pre-2018 self, Luke Voit is a combination of power and discipline, Gleyber Torres is on his way to superstardom, the bullpen has been mostly good, the Replacement Yankees got timely hits and the Yankees have taken care of business by beating up on the bad teams in the league, which there are a lot of once again. Boone isn’t responsible for any of those things. He doesn’t have some magic touch to give LeMahieu a hit nearly every time he’s up and he didn’t fix Sanchez at the plate. He didn’t find the diamond in the rough that is Voit and didn’t instill the amazing baseball talent in Torres the middle infielder has had his whole life. He didn’t make the elite relievers elite since they all came from other organizations and were already elite. He didn’t tell most of the teams in Major League Baseball to cut payroll and not be competitive. The only thing Boone could be given credit for is keeping the clubhouse and plane rides and road trips loose and fun, and there’s no way of knowing if he’s done that, and even if he has, there’s no way of measuring it.

The only thing we can measure when it comes to Boone is his in-game bullpen decisions, when he clearly tosses aside his cheat sheet and starts managing on his own. He has made the same egregious mistakes over and over, failing to follow his guide. I say he’s failing to follow it since there’s no way anyone with an Ivy league degree who’s part of the Yankees analytics team suggests or recommends the moves Boone makes with his bullpen or agrees with them.

At times, it’s hard to get on Boone for his bullpen decisions. When you build a super bullpen like the Yankees have, fans are more inclined to blame the reliever than the manager for a poor result. When you have so many big-name relievers on one team, nearly every pitcher Boone brings in is on the Yankees because of an elite resume, established with another organization. No one more than Zack Britton.

The Yankees were able to acquire Britton from the Orioles at a discounted rate last season since the left-handed closer was still on his way back from an Achilles injury, was nowhere near the pitcher he had once been, was an impending free agent and wasn’t going to re-sign with the Orioles. His walks were up and his strikeouts were down, but the Yankees felt the more removed from his Achilles injury he was, the better he would be.

Britton pitched in 25 games for the 2018 Yankees and rarely ever pitched like you would expect Zack Britton to pitch like. If his name had been anything else, he would have been viewed as a good to very good reliever, not someone who at times was the most dominant reliever in the world. Britton was good but not great in the 25 regular-season games, and no Yankees fan trusted him to put up a zero or get out of a game-threatening jam. So it came as no surprise when he gave up an opposite-field solo home run to the light-hitting Christian Vazquez in Game 4 of the ALDS, which would be the difference in the 2018 Yankees’ elimination.

The Yankees decided to bring Britton back for 2019 and 2020 and 2021 with a three-year deal, and after a four-appearance scoreless streak against the lowly Orioles and Tigers to open the season, Britton has been a disaster ever since.

The first-pitch, go-ahead double in the eighth inning allowed by Britton to Michael Conforto on Tuesday night wasn’t a shock, it was expected. There was a time when Britton would have gotten out of the inning without a problem, especially facing a left-handed batter, but that was a long, long time ago.

I wrote this on Monday and it took one appearance for Britton to come through on it:

Don’t let Britton’s 2.55 ERA fool you. He has walked 20 and struck out 26 in 35 1/3 innings this season. Since May 20, he has walked 12 and struck out four in 15 innings. I don’t know what’s worse, the four strikeouts or the 12 walks. But I do know a pitcher with those kind of numbers can’t be trusted to pitch the eighth inning in close games and can’t be viewed as an elite option. It’s only a matter of time until Britton’s high walk rate and low strikeout rate translate into earned runs. He can’t pitch like this and escape damage forever and he better figure it out before it gets to that point.

Britton has now appeared in 38 games for the Yankees this season and has failed to record a strikeout in 16 of them, which seems impossible given his stuff and history. But since May 31, Britton has faced 50 batters and struck out two of them. To make matters worse, he’s walked 11 of those 50 and this season he has only struck out 26 and walked 20 in 36 innings. I was more worried about him walking in a run when facing Conforto on Tuesday night due to his command and control issues, and likely fearing the same thing, he grooved a middle-middle pitch to Conforto to lose the game. No, Britton didn’t put the runners on base, Adam Ottavino did, Britton hasn’t been good with clean starts to innings, let alone with runners on base as 40 percent of his inherited runners this season have scored.

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

Yes, the Yankees have a seven-game loss column lead over the Rays and an 11-game loss column lead over the Red Sox, but this isn’t a problem which can simply be shrugged aside by saying, “The Yankees are in first place, stop complaining.” The Yankees aren’t in first place because of Britton, and the goal of the season isn’t to be satisfied with finishing in first place or winning 100-plus games. The goal is to win the World Series, something the Yankees haven’t done in going on a decade.

Everything the Yankees do between now and the end of the regular season is to prepare to win 11 games in October and that includes getting Britton right. He will never be the pitcher he was four and five years ago, but there’s no reason he should be this bad either. Britton has 79 games to figure it out because Boone is going to use him in the postseason whether he deserves to pitch or not, and once Britton’s in the game, it’s on him to perform, whether he’s been put in the best position to succeed or not.

***

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Jul 1, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Have Clinched AL East

The Yankees have won the division. Yes, on July 1, with essentially half the season left, I’m calling the division for over for both the Rays and Red Sox.

I wanted the Yankees to go to London and win one game, not lose any ground in the standings and take two more games off the schedule. They did even better, sweeping the two games and pushing their division lead out of reach for their competition.

This is going to be a fun, relaxing and enjoyable summer with no chasing for the Yankees to do. For the first time in a long time, Yankees fans can sit back during the second half and not worry about the division title or wild-card seeding.

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

1. The division is over for the Rays and Red Sox. O-V-E-R. Yes, on July 1, with essentially half the season left, I’m calling the division for over for both the Rays and Red Sox. I called it over weeks ago for the Red Sox, but I’m eliminating the Rays from the AL East now as well.

If the Yankees were to play .500 baseball over their remaining games and go 40-40, the Rays would have to go 46-32 (.590) to tie them and the Red Sox would have to go 50-28 (.641) to tie them. Both winning percentages represent higher win percentages than both teams are currently playing to, though that doesn’t even matter since the Yankees aren’t going to become a .500 baseball team for the next three months. The level of competition in baseball this season won’t let them.

The Yankees currently have a .659 winning percentage (54-28), so let’s say they win 60 percent of their remaining games, which still might be low. That would give them a final record of 102-60. The Rays would then have to go 54-24 (.692) to tie them and the Red Sox would have to go 58-20 (.744) to tie them. So yeah, the division is over.

2. The Yankees return home from London with a two-game series against the Mets and then four games in Tampa against the Rays. The best part about having such a big lead in the division is the Yankees no longer have to win series against their direct competition. They don’t have to go to Tampa this weekend looking to win three of four to gain ground on the Rays or create more separation. All they have to do is play .500. Win two of the four and that’s four more games off the schedule and four more games off the schedule between them and the Rays.

It’s a beautiful feeling to have this type of division cushion that I forgot what it felt like. It’s been nearly seven years since the Yankees last won the division and have had only a handful of division, some only for a day or two, in that time. The second half of this season is going to be about getting healthy, staying healthy, acquiring a starting pitcher and preparing for the postseason. It’s just like the old days: the regular season is set up as a formality for the postseason. I couldn’t be happier.

3. The problem is the Yankees could go out and win 100 games again like last season or 105 or 110 and it won’t matter if they don’t get those 11 wins in October. I hate to rain on the parade of the best team in the AL, especially after they destroyed the Red Sox this weekend, but it’s the truth. Nothing matters if the Yankees don’t finish the job for the first time in a decade in October.

4. What a weekend it was for the Yankees. Putting up 29 runs in the two games against the Red Sox and ruining any small chance the Red Sox had of getting back in the division race. The Red Sox are now 12 games back in the loss column of the Yankees and two games back of the second wild-card berth. The best-case scenario for the Yankees would be for the Red Sox to play themselves out of the postseason completely since they would have the best chance of winning the AL Wild-Card Game among the competition and that would most likely set up a best-of-5 with the Yankees. The Yankees might own the Red Sox this regular season, but that would mean nothing in October, and I don’t want to find out if the Yankees can continue their 2019 success against their rival.

5. I think DJ LeMahieu should officially change his first name and replace the DJ with Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter LeMahieu. We are watching Derek Jeter at the plate when LeMahieu comes up. A contact-first, opposite-field approach that not only works, but is every bit as good as Jeter’s was. LeMahieu is up to .345/.392/.534 on the season with 12 home runs and 61 RBIs, playing first base, second base and third base. If the season ended today, LeMahieu would be the AL MVP. Remember when he wasn’t in the Opening Day lineup and was going to be used a super utility player?

6. I don’t care that Aaron Hicks hit a home run on Saturday and I don’t care that he hit that seventh-inning triple on Sunday, Hicks should never bat third for the Yankees. He shouldn’t bat higher than seventh, and even putting him seventh might be too high. The only person Hicks should ever bat higher than on this current Yankees team is Brett Gardner. That’s it.

Hicks isn’t Bernie Williams, though the Yankees keep treating him like he is. He has no business batting between Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez with Luke Voit and Giancarlo Stanton both out, and he has no business batting higher than Edwin Encarnacion or Gleyber Torres either. For some reason, the Yankees keep confusing Hicks’s ability with Torres’s ability, batting the 23-year-old star at the bottom of the order in favor of the career two-month wonder. Come postseason time, if the team is at full strength, this should be the lineup:

DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Aaron Judge, RF
Gary Sanchez, C
Luke Voit, 1B
Giancarlo Stanton, LF
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Edwin Encarnacion, DH
Aaron Hicks, CF
Didi Gregorius, SS

Unfortunately, the Yankees would likely not bat Sanchez ahead of Voit and Stanton since there’s no amount of records Sanchez can break to solidify himself as the team’s No. 3 hitter, wouldn’t bat Voit ahead of Stanton, wouldn’t bat Torres ahead of Encarnacion, wouldn’t bat Hicks behind Torres and would never bat Gregorius ninth. But that’s what the lineup should be. I don’t care about breaking up the right-handed bats since there are too many that you can’t break them up.

7. Given the odd travel schedule, playing baseball in a soccer stadium and everything being weird about the London games, it makes sense to give Masahiro Tanaka a pass for Saturday’s disaster. No pitcher pitched well in London, so it’s hard to get on Tanaka for a bad inning when Rick Porcello managed to do worse and the teams combined for 50 runs in two games. Even if you remove Saturday’s first inning from Tanaka’s season ledger, it doesn’t change the fact he has one inning nearly every game in which he lets the game get away from him.

London aside, Tanaka is the team’s best and most consistent starter right now. He’s going to get the ball in the postseason, whether it’s in Game 1, 2 or 3 and I have all the faith in the world he will pitch as brilliantly as he has in the last two postseasons. I’m not worried about his regular-season inconsistencies because I trust him more than any other Yankees starter and I know when the calendar turns to October he’s unbeatable.

8. I have a feeling if Luis Cessa let the Red Sox extend their lead considerably on Sunday, it might have finally been his last game as a Yankee. Instead, Cessa went out and pitched four shutout innings, keeping the Yankees in the game, and allowing them the chance to come back and tie the game before taking the lead for good.

This doesn’t change the fact that Cessa isn’t good and doesn’t belong on the Yankees. Give any fringe major leaguer enough chances and eventually they will be successful in some capacity. That game wasn’t Cessa turning a corner or figuring it out once and for all, it was just the last man in a major league bullpen having a good outing. Don’t be surprised when he’s now trusted in a bigger spot in the coming weeks and fails to come through. That’s who Cessa is, not the pitcher from Sunday.

9. Zack Britton is a problem. A real problem. Normally, on a team like this, a bad reliever would eventually be removed of his late-inning role and would pitch in mop-up duty or meaningless games. But because of Britton’s contract, resume and stature, he’s going to get the ball in high-leverage situations no matter what, and I’m petrified he’s going to lose a game in October, just like he did last October.

Don’t let Britton’s 2.55 ERA fool you. He has walked 20 and struck out 26 in 35 1/3 innings this season. Since May 20, he has walked 12 and struck out four in 15 innings. I don’t know what’s worse, the four strikeouts or the 12 walks. But I do know a pitcher with those kind of numbers can’t be trusted to pitch the eighth inning in close games and can’t be viewed as an elite option. It’s only a matter of time until Britton’s high walk rate and low strikeout rate translate into earned runs. He can’t pitch like this and escape damage forever and he better figure it out before it gets to that point.

10. My expected record for the Yankees for June was 15-11 and they finished 17-9, two games better. When they started the month 4-8, it looked like they weren’t going to come close to the mark I set for them, but winning 13 of their last 14 certainly helped.

The Yankees play 25 games in July. They are off today, four games for the All-Star break and again on July 29. My expected record (by expected record, I mean a record I would be content with them having) for July is 13-12. That doesn’t seem great, but with 12 games against the Rays and Red Sox, and a bunch of other somewhat decent matchups, playing a game over .500 isn’t bad. August is when they can get fat again with 13 games against the Orioles, Blue Jays and Mariners. If the Yankees are 67-40 through the end of July, they will still have a comfortable lead in the division with only 55 games left.

***

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

Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees

Jun 28, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Keep Finding Ways to Win

Despite their injury and starting pitching issues, the Yankees are set up for a relaxing second half, one in which they won’t have any chasing to do in the division for the first time in a long time.

The Yankees are the hottest team in baseball, having won 11 of 12, and have opened up their lead in the division to seven games in the loss column over the Rays and 10 games in the loss column over the Red Sox. The Yankees are a good weekend in London and a bad Rays weekend from being set up to coast to their first division title in seven years.

The Yankees are off for the second straight day today and then again on Monday. They will then play six straight before the All-Star break. After the All-Star break though, they will play 38 games around one off day. The dog days of summer are about to be here, and the Yankees have set themselves up to make it a relaxing summer, one in which they won’t have any chasing to do for the first time in a long time.

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

1. Giancarlo Stanton retuned to the Yankees on Tuesday, June 18. The Yankees then gave him the Wednesday, June 19 game off and the Sunday, June 23 game off as well. He still got hurt. It’s just another example of the extra, unnecessary rest the organization feels the need to instill, which prevents nothing. Injuries happen and there’s nothing you can do about them. Somehow, the Yankees still haven’t figured this out.

Stanton slid into third base, got his hand spiked by a cleat and ended up on the injured list with a PCL strain in his knee and is now out until at least August. Another odd injury in what has become a long list of odd injuries for him this season, a now lost season.

If you’re a Yankee and you get injured, expect to go on the injured list. Aaron Boone said the tests on Stanton’s initially-diagnosed knee contusion “were good” only for his knee contusion to become a PCL strain.

If Stanton were to come back on August 1, which he won’t, there will be 55 games left in the season at that point. If he were to play in every game, which is impossible since there are already two doubleheaders scheduled along with all the extra unnecessary rest he will receive, he would finish the season with 64 games played (his nine games played so far plus the 55 remaining games). But Stanton isn’t going to come close to playing in 64 games this season and the Yankees would be lucky if he finished the season with 54 games played, the equivalent of one-third of the season.

Stanton will come back sometime in late August since Brian Cashman said, “I would say it’s safer to look into August,” when asked about his return, and because we know of the potential setbacks or maybe inevitable setbacks is a better phrase to use when talking about Stanton, I don’t see him coming back before August 15. When he does come back, he will be inserted into the middle of the order and will be asked to return to the height of his abilities in only a few weeks times leading up to the postseason.

After Stanton’s performance last October and what’s gone on with him this season, he can’t afford to be swinging-and-missing his way out of the batter’s box down the stretch and again in the postseason, and the Yankees can’t afford it either. He won’t have much time to get back into a groove and make sure that doesn’t happen, if he’s not back until late August, and I don’t like where this is all headed.

2. The Yankees are in London and Clint Frazier is in Triple-A. The Yankees have decided using Brett Gardner as an everyday player, which has gone as bad as expected this season, and letting Mike Tauchman, who doesn’t belong in the majors, serve as the fourth outfielder is better than having Frazier on the roster.

Cashman cited Tauchman’s defense as the reason why he’s on the team for the London trip, saying, “This ballpark has a lot of foul territory. The corner would be be best served with having somebody that can really go get the ball and go a long way.” Does that mean Tauchman might actually start or play in this series? I sure hope not.

Cashman also said Frazier isn’t being punished for taking three days to report to Triple-A after being sent down.

“His send-down was tougher than most because of how good he performed here and how much he helped this club. If he needed the extra time to process being the odd man out, I was OK with that personally. It had nothing to do with him not being selected coming here.”

If the Yankees already had their roster set and departed for London prior to knowing Stanton would need more than just the two off days to recover from his knee injury, then these decisions make a lot more sense. But if Frazier isn’t on the 25-man roster on Tuesday when the Yankees return to play the Mets at Citi Field, then we’ll know the truth.

3. This latest Stanton injury could possibly save Frazier’s Yankees tenure. I still think the team is going to move him in a deal for starting pitching after botching better money-only pitching options, but the Yankees might be forced to keep Frazier now.

Gardner can’t play every day. He can barely play as a role player. He’s a near automatic out at the plate, and in the field, it’s obvious he’s not what he once was, with his arm looking like it left him in the offseason. Sure, he can play this weekend against the Red Sox, but after Monday, the Yankees play six straight heading into the All-Star break and then after the All-Star break, they play 38 games with one day off. There’s no way the team can think Gardner or Tauchman is going to be in the lineup for those games.

Stanton has proven he’s both prone to injury and doesn’t heal quickly. An August return seems reasonable for a PCL strain, but no one would be surprised if August become late August and late August became September. The Yankees have a capable everyday player in their system with Frazier, and maybe, just maybe he won’t be dealt for starting pitching.

4. The more James Paxton sucks, the better the chances are the Yankees make a rash decision for starting pitching at the trade deadline. And nearly every start, Paxton sucks.

Wednesday was Paxton’s 13th start of the season and for the sixth time he failed to go five innings and for the 10th time he failed to go six innings. I was one of the fools who thought his back-to-back starts against the Red Sox and Royals in April were him turning a corner, but since then he’s pitched to a 5.35 ERA in eight starts and has landed on the injured list once. Paxton hasn’t been any different as a Yankee than he was as a Mariner: a left-handed starter with lights-out stuff who can never seem to put it together consistently.

I have no idea how the Yankees have been able to build a seven-game lead over the Rays in the loss column and a 10-game lead over the Red Sox in the loss column with their replacement lineup for the first two months of the season coupled with their disastrous rotation. Outside of Masahiro Tanaka right now, which Yankees starter does anyone feel good about? Paxton? No. CC Sabathia? No. J.A. Happ? No. The opener combination of Chad Green and Nestor Cortes? No.

The Yankees are going to go out and get at least one starting pitcher and then hope Domingo German comes back and performs well and that Luis Severino might even come back at some point too. The Yankees, as currently constructed, are built to win in the regular season since most of their games are against teams not even trying to be competitive, but they are hardly built for the postseason, and that’s what this is all supposed to be for.

5. I love DJ LeMahieu. How can you not? Expected to be somewhat of a super utility player despite being a two-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner and former batting champion, LeMahieu went from being on the bench on Opening Day to becoming the Yankees irreplaceable leadoff hitter. LeMahieu leads the league in hitting with a .336 average, is three home runs shy of his his season-best total (15) with 82 games left, has a .385 on-base percentage, rarely ever strikes out, and on top of all that, he has played first base, second base and third base. I have said before he is essentially Derek Jeter at the plate and after a few years of watching too many strikeouts from the team and too many home run-or-nothing players come through the organization, LeMahieu is a breath of fresh air and as fun to watch hit as anyone on this team.

6. Edwin Encarnacion has been bad in his small nine-game sample size with the Yankees. Sure, he’s hit three home runs, which is what the Yankees got him to do, but he’s batting .152/.263/.455 in pinstripes. I thought he was going to come over to the Yankees and immediately go off the way so many other veterans have once they put on the pinstripes, but I guess it’s going to take Encarnacion a little time to get going. That’s not a problem since the team is winning and has gone 8-1 in the nine games he has played, but he’s going to hit somewhere in the middle of the order because of his career and reputation, so it would be good if he hit like someone deserving of his lineup spot and not like Kendrys Morales.

7. Speaking of Morales, I feel safer now that he’s no longer a Yankee. Knowing he was still part of the organization and looming on the injured list with a chance to return and unfairly take a roster spot from an actual worthy major leaguer made me fearful. But now Morales is gone and I and all Yankees fans don’t need to worry about seeing his bat-only game (minus the bat) in the lineup and a few weak groundball outs in every game he plays. Morales finished his Yankees tenure batting .177/.320/.242 with a home run and five RBIs in 19 games. He was every bit as bad as his .562 OPS suggests he was and I have to think the Yankees were his last chance in the majors. At least he provided the Yankees with a 3-for-5 day on June 11 in what will likely be his last major league game.

8. I don’t think I have to tell anyone how ecstatic I was for Jonathan Holder to be sent down. Thankfully, the final straw for Holder came in a game win which the Yankees still won, and he didn’t cost the team yet another game in the standings on his way out.

My dislike of Holder isn’t really his fault. He’s not very good and he’s used in spots in which a relief pitcher who is actually very good should be pitching. That’s not Holder’s fault. It’s not his fault the front office and Boone feel he’s capable of pitching in high-leverage situations, and it’s not even Holder’s fault when he blows leads or loses games. He shouldn’t be allowed to. He should pitch when the Yankees are up by a lot or down by a lot and have little to no chance of blowing the game or winning the game. If he were used the way his abilities say he should be used, I would have no problem with Holder. Unfortunately, for the second straight season, the Yankees asked him to be a pitcher he’s not, and now he’s in Triple-A, where he can’t ruin anymore games.

9. Holder realizes he deserves to be sent down and everyone knows he should have been sent down a long, long time ago before it ever got to this point. Green was sent down three weeks into the season and is much more established and has a much better career resume than Holder. But Holder has to be wondering, like everyone else, how Luis Cessa is still a Yankee.

The answer is: options. Cessa is out of options and the Yankees would have to pass him through waivers to remove him from the 25-man roster. So because the Yankees are worried about one of other 29 teams claiming Cessa, they continue to roster a pitcher who has no role, but does have a 5.11 ERA to go along with his 4.79 career ERA. Cessa has pitched in 22 games this season and has allowed runs in 11 of them. Every other time he comes out of the bullpen, he’s giving up runs and many times, they come as a result of a home run, which he’s now allowed eight of in 37 innings.

For as bad as Holder has been, Cessa has been worse and worse for a long time. But for some reason, the Yankees are scared they might lose him.

10. The Yankees began June 4-8 and are now 15-9 in the month. My expected record for them this month was 15-11, which seemed impossible a couple weeks ago, and now they can’t do any worse than it.

I will gladly sign up for one win in London this weekend, which would keep the Red Sox 10 games back in the loss column and take two more games off the schedule, and more importantly, two more games between the two teams off the schedule.

***

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

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 18, 2019

Clint Frazier Doesn’t Have a Yankees Future

My biggest fear since the Yankees traded for Clint Frazier is coming true: Frazier is going to get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees.

Since the day the Yankees traded Andrew Miller and received Clint Frazier in return, I have been fearful Frazier would get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees. Between the Yankees’ full roster and lineup, owed salary to established and veteran players, potential trades for starting pitching and Frazier’s own injuries, there has always seemed like too many obstacles in his way of becoming an everyday player for the Yankees.

This was before Frazier decided to pull his disastrous public relations stunt, dodging the media earlier this season following a forgettable Sunday Night Baseball game against the Red Sox. And this was before a roster number crunch made him the odd man out for the acquisition of Edwin Encarnacion. There might not be another team in baseball willing to send down a former first-round pick, who’s now 24 years old and batting .283/.330/.513 with 11 home runs and 34 RBIs, but the Yankees are.

Frazier doesn’t belong in Triple-A. He has nothing left to prove in a league in which he batted .305/.388/.562 in 54 games last year. He’s proven his former draft worth and has displayed the “legendary bat speed” Brian Cashman has raved about since the moment the Yankees traded for him. Unfortunately, for Frazier, the Yankees don’t make roster decisions based on performance.

Frazier’s injuries as a Yankee coupled with roster depth limited his chances to play in an everyday role with the team. Outside of a minor ankle sprain earlier this season, which he valiantly wanted to play through, Frazier has been as close to an everyday player for the Yankees as he’s ever been and he’s performed. He’s played both corner outfield positions (granted, not very well) and has hit everywhere from third to eighth in the lineup. Even in his last game before being sent down on Sunday, Frazier was the cleanup hitter. There were times when he was the best hitter in the lineup, surrounded by a long list of Replacement Yankees, and times when he single-handedly won games with his bat. He was finally (mostly) healthy and on his way to his talent ceiling in his fourth season with the organization.

The Yankees decided to not address their starting pitching issues in the offseason and again recently and now it’s going to likely cost Frazier his Yankees tenure, barring a truly significant injury to Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Hicks by July 31. Even then, Frazier remaining a Yankee might have to come at the cost of significant injuries to two of those three. Brett Gardner would likely go back to an undeserved everyday role after one injury with someone like the unworthy Mike Tauchman becoming the fourth outfielder.

The Yankees gave Gardner a one-year, $7.5 million deal the second free agency opened this past offseason, betting on a soon-to-be 36-year-old coming off the worst season of his career. His seniority and now contract are blocking Frazier from a roster spot in what should be his last season with the Yankees and in baseball, and the Yankees aren’t putting the best possible 25-man roster together or thinking about their future because of Gardner’s presence. A .234/.319/.392 hitter over his last 206 games and 869 plate appearances is sending Frazier to the minors. A late-game defensive replacement is keeping Frazier off this team. It’s not the first time a career resume, history with the team or owed money has been the deciding factor on a roster spot on a team claiming to trying to win the World Series every season, and it certainly won’t be the last.

The Yankees are about to having a starting outfield of Judge, Stanton and Hicks with Encarnacion as the primary designated hitter. There’s no place for Frazier with that setup and no place for him with the team committed to Gardner no matter how long his cold streaks last and how many of them he has. Frazier had his chances with the Yankees, not many of them, and was either injured playing the game hard or demoted for a more established and much older name. Now it looks like he’s out of chances with the Yankees’ inability to address their starting pitching issues in either of the past two offseasons or as recently as two weeks ago.

There’s a good chance Frazier won’t wear the pinstripes again. At least not at this point in his career. Maybe the team will trade for him again in 10 years when they need a right-handed power bat in the lineup to take away the roster spot of their 2029 version of Frazier.

Every sign points to Frazier being moved within the next six weeks and my biggest fear coming true: Clint Frazier is going to get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees.

***

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

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 13, 2019

This Is Not the James Paxton the Yankees Traded For

We’re nearly halfway through the season, and overall, James Paxton has been the guy I feared the Yankees trading for aside from a pair of April starts. He needs to better. He has to better.

Back on April 16, James Paxton dominated the Red Sox for eight shutout innings. The game was at the height of the Replacement Yankees era when the team needed pitching to keep them in games, so their makeshift lineup wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting. Paxton was brilliant, allowing two hits and a walk with 12 strikeouts over 110 pitches.

The following day, I wrote, “That’s the James Paxton the Yankees Traded For” in response to his first big start as a Yankee. I raved about him accepting and welcoming the pressure that comes with playing for the Yankees and his “We want to beat Boston every time” line to the media. I finished by writing the following:

I certainly don’t have to worry about Paxton’s mindset, and after Tuesday’s start, I don’t have to worry about his performance, knowing he has that level of dominance of him.

Well, not even two months later, I’m worried about his performance.

Paxton still has that level of dominance of him, but we have only seen it twice this season: the April 16 game against the Red Sox and his following start on April 21 against the Royals. Paxton pitched 14 scoreless innings over those two starts with 24 strikeouts as those were the only two starts of the season in which he went at least six innings. His other eight starts?

His other eight starts have been a disaster. OK, seven of his other eight starts have been a disaster since there was his return from the injured list on May 29 against the Padres when he threw only 66 pitches over four shutout innings and was treated more like an opener in that game. Outside of his April 16 and 21 starts, Paxton hasn’t gone six innings in any other start. Actually, forget six innings, Paxton has failed to go five innings in five of his 10 starts as a Yankee.

Last year at the trade deadline, I called James Paxton “blah” and in the same category as Chris Archer and Michael Fulmer, pitchers who I didn’t think were worth trading for since they wouldn’t really make the Yankees that much better and certainly worth giving up high-end prospects for. It was hard to find anyone who shared my perspective. His raw stuff wasn’t the reason I referred to him as “blah”, it was his combination of injuries and inconsistency. When Paxton was on, he was among the best pitchers in the world, but he was rarely on in consecutive starts or for any reasonable stretch of time. We have seen that now with the Yankees as well.

My biggest problem with the Yankees acquiring Paxton was the fact he has never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a single season and is good for at least one injured list trip per season. I wasn’t necessarily worried about his overall performance since I knew he would dominate at times and also lay some eggs at times. I was worried about his health, and rightfully so, as he landed on the injured in the middle of his seventh Yankees start, and now says his knee injury is something he will have to pitch through and deal with. After his starts against the Red Sox and Royals, I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about his performance, but he’s been hit around by teams like the Orioles, Giants, Blue Jays and Mets and has provided no length, so now I’m more than worried.

After the Yankees won the first game of the Subway Series doubleheader on Tuesday, I figured they would sweep the day. Paxton against the soft-throwing, left-handed Jason Vargas? That’s about as good of a matchup as you can ask for if you’re the Yankees. But Paxton gave up a double, single and three-run home run to open the game and was eventually pulled in the third inning. He put nine baserunners on in 2 2/3 innings and allowed six of them to score. His line: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR. It was his shortest effort of the season and the most earned runs he’s allowed in a game as a Yankee. As he left the game, Michael Kay said, “Not Paxton’s night.” But when is it going to be his night again outside of those two April starts?

The Yankees need Paxton to either be great or give them length. If he’s going to be a five-inning pitcher, something the Yankees have too many of, then he needs to be great for those five innings. If he’s not going to do that then he needs to give them length. The combination of underperforming and going less than five innings isn’t going to work. It’s not just Paxton either, it’s who the Yankees’ rotation has been through 41 percent of the season. The Yankees have now played 66 games and their starters have pitched six innings in 25 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. Paxton has been a problem, though he’s just part of the problem. But given his stuff and ability, he shouldn’t be part of the problem.

The Yankees chose to pass on Dallas Keuchel, who would have offered them durability and length at just the cost of money. Instead, they will have to address their starting pitching performance and depth issues through a trade, considering they are out of in-house rotation candidates, which will likely cost them both money and prospects. And with the way the trade market has historically played out, the Yankees are about six weeks away from upgrading their rotation.

Even if the Yankees do upgrade their rotation, Paxton is still going to be a part of it and he’s still going to be counted on. We’re nearly halfway through the season, and overall, Paxton has been the guy I feared the Yankees trading for aside from a pair of starts against the Red Sox, who are .500, and the Royals, who have the worst record in the majors.

He needs to better. He has to better. He hasn’t been the James Paxton the Yankees thought they traded for.

***

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