Yankees – Page 146 – Keefe To The City

Apr 11, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: The Yankees Are in Trouble

The Yankees’ season has been two weeks of taking one step forward and two steps back as shown by their disappointing 5-7 record. Here are thoughts on the Yankees on this off day.

The great feeling of Opening Day was erased by back-to-back losses to the Orioles. The series-opening win over the Tigers was erased by two straight losses featuring blown leads. The weekend sweep of the Orioles to get back over .500 was destroyed by a sweep to the Astros. The Yankees’ season has been two weeks of taking one step forward and two steps back as shown by their disappointing 5-7 record.

The bad news is the Rays never lose, and at 10-3, continue to separate themselves from the Yankees with each Yankees loss. The good news is the Yankees are off on Thursday, so they can’t lose.

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

1. I’m going to reiterate the first thought I had in last Friday’s Off Day Dreaming blog.

The Yankees are in trouble.When you have Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton and Miguel Andujar out of your lineup, it’s hard enough to overcome. (Even the loss of Troy Tulowitzki is problematic because it means Tyler Wade needs to play.) Couple those injuries with being 5-7, having gone just 5-4 against the Orioles and Tigers and you have a recipe for disaster. The Yankees’ remaining April schedule is still very favorable as they have two games against the Red Sox and the rest of the month they will play against very bad to mediocre-at-best teams. That’s good because the current Yankees lineup is mediocre at best, but it’s bad because these are games they are supposed to win and games they need to win for the final standings. The Yankees were supposed to build a lead and get fat off their April schedule, instead they are looking to play .500 baseball.

To be completely honest, I would sign up for the first wild card right now. That’s not an overreaction or me giving up on the season. I know we’re seven games into the season, but none of the injured everyday Yankees are expected back any time soon. Gregorius’ best-case scenario is the All-Star break. Hicks just started baseball activities, which means he’s a few weeks away. Stanton isn’t close and season-ending surgery is still in play for Andujar. The Yankees have already exhausted their depth and batting Tyler Wade and Mike Tauchman is basically the equivalent of playing shorthanded in a Central Park softball league and having to take automatic outs at the end of the batting order. Everyone keeps talking about the Yankees’ need to stay afloat until they can get healthy, but they aren’t going to be healthy for a long time. At least if they were guaranteed the first wild card, they would most likely be healthy by then.

2. Everyone keeps talking about the Red Sox’ 3-9 start as if it’s some consolation or an excuse for the Yankees’ poor start. The Red Sox’ atrocious play has nothing to do with the Yankees and the last thing the Yankees or Yankees fans should be concerned with. They steamrolled the Yankees in the playoffs and won the World Series. They can finish in last place this season for all it matters. The Yankees and Yankees fans should worry about themselves.

The Red Sox aren’t even the biggest threat in the AL East. At least not right now. The Rays are 10-3 and there’s a good chance they could be 13-3 after this weekend against the Blue Jays since they apparently know how to take care of business against crap teams. The Rays have the reigning AL Cy Young winner in Blake Snell to go with Tyler Glasnow and Charlie Morton, a dominant opener strategy and a lineup full of nobodies who only gets hits and hit home runs when there are men on base. The Rays are for real and they aren’t going anywhere. The Yankees are 4 1/2 games behind the Rays right now, so if you’re going to worry about or focus on another team’s play, it should be them, not the Red Sox.

3. Let’s stop with the idea the Yankees have the greatest bullpen ever. Outside of Dellin Betances, who isn’t even active, and Adam Ottavino, is there any other reliever on the team you really trust to go out and pitch a scoreless inning? I don’t. Here is my current Yankees Bullpen Level of Trust (on scale of 1-10):

Dellin Betances: 9.1
Adam Ottavino: 8.5
Aroldis Chapman: 6.9
Chad Green: 6.2
Zack Britton: 5.5
Jonathan Holder: 4.3
Luis Cessa: 3.4
Tommy Kahnle: 3.3
Stephen Tarpley: 2.8

The bullpen has blown leads, increased deficits and been a major problem through the first 12 games. Yes, it’s only 7.4 percent of the season, but what was supposed to be the team’s biggest strength is far from that. The Yankees have had a lead in 11 of their 12 games and are 5-7.

4. I trust Joe Harvey right now more than I trust Tommy Kahnle or Stephen Tarpley, and he has 1 1/3 major league innings to his name. Unfortunately, Harvey is going to be the odd-man out when CC Sabathia is activated this weekend. Kahnle and Luis Cessa are out of options, so they are both staying, and the Yankees seem to love Tarpley, even though they have two other left-handed options in the bullpen.

5. I wonder if the Yankees and their pitching staff will ever figure out how to pitch to Jose Altuve. The free-swinging former MVP destroys fastballs and his miniature stature has no impact on his ability to hit them a long way as he showed by hitting four home runs in the Astros’ three-game sweep of the Yankees. Altuve is looking for a first-pitch fastball, and if he gets it, he’s swinging and it doesn’t matter where it is. So if your strategy for some reason is to throw him a first-pitch fastball, it would be ideal to not put it middle-middle for him to send to the MinuteMaid Park train track.

6. 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. It was hard to find anyone who shared my perspective. Paxton has been underwhelming at best in three starts as a Yankee with two of those coming against the Orioles. His season line: 15 IP, 20 H, 11 R, 10 ER, 6 BB, 19 K, 3 HR, 6.00 ERA, 1.733 WHIP.

My biggest problem with the Yankees acquiring Paxton wasn’t his performance since he has always pitched well, it 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. So now not only do I have to worry about Paxton’s seemingly inevitable injured list stint, I also have to worry about his actual performance.

If Paxton had gone to the Astros, there’s no doubt in my mind he would be a Cy Young contender, the way the Astros revitalized Justin Verlander’s career, enhanced Gerrit Cole and figured out how to make Charlie Morton nearly unhittable after a career defined by inconsistency. The Yankees have a reputation of being able to add velocity to their pitchers, but outside of that, any pitcher they acquire through trade or sign as a free agent in the Brian Cashman era hasn’t been able to duplicate their success in pinstripes, other than CC Sabathia (and he was awful for three seasons) and Masahiro Tanaka. Paxton started against the Astros four times in 2018 and went 4-0, allowing six earned runs in 26 1/3 innings (2.05 ERA). He puts on the Yankees uniform and suddenly he allows 11 baserunners in four innings and needs 95 pitches to get 12 outs against the same exact team he dominated last season.

Paxton has another 28 or 29 starts this season, if he stays healthy all season, which he has never done in his baseball career, and there is a lot of time for him to turn it around. It’s going to be a sad day if Justus Sheffield turns into a true front-end starter in the majors and Paxton is anything other than a No. 2 for this team.

7. The icing on the cake in the Yankees-Astros series was Aaron Boone holding Gary Sanchez out of Wednesday’s lineup for leg tightness, only to use him as a pinch hitter late in the game. Apparently, Sanchez was able to have one at-bat, but not multiple at-bats. Here is Sanchez’s schedule since the team’s last exhibition game on March 25:

March 26: OFF
March 27: OFF
March 28: C
March 29: OFF
March 30: C
March 31: C
April 1: C
April 2: OFF
April 3: C
April 4: C
April 5: OFF
April 6: C
April 7: DH
April 8: C
April 9: DH
April 10: OFF (Used as a pinch hitter)
April 11: OFF

Over the last 17 days, Sanchez has had eight games at catcher and two games at designated hitter. He’s had a complete week’s worth of rest through days off in the 17-day period. If Sanchez isn’t in the lineup every game this weekend against the White Sox with another off day on Monday, it better be because he needs to be placed on the injured list.

8. The Yankees don’t just have a mediocre lineup, inconsistent rotation and untrustworthy bullpen right now, they are also the worst fundamental Yankees team I can ever remember. Wild pitches, passed balls, throwing errors, fielding errors, nonsensical bunt attempts with runners on first and third and no outs in the second inning of a game, not running out bunts, misreading line drives, diving for balls and turning outs into singles and singles into doubles, outs on the bases and being unsure of what base to cover as a result of infield shifts. I’m sure I’m missing even more elements to the team’s embarrassing display so far this season.

9. DJ LeMahieu is quickly climbing the list of Yankees I want up in a big spot, and I think right now he’s second only to Aaron Judge. LeMahieu is everything no other Yankee is at the plate as he doesn’t look to hit the ball 500 feet with every swing, he changes his approach as the count changes and he allows the situation of the inning to determine his at-bat. It’s beautiful to watch. And oh yeah, he plays a Gold Glove second base and has been a vacuum at third base.

LeMahieu went 3-for-3 with a double and two RBIs on Wednesday night and is now batting .410/.455/.538, having reached base safely in 11 of 12 games. There’s no reason LeMahieu shouldn’t be batting leadoff until Aaron Hicks returns and possibly even once he returns. Unfortunately, Brett Gardner’s leadoff home run on Wednesday likely made him the leadoff hitter indefinitely. (Let’s be honest, he was going to be the leadoff hitter indefinitely even without the leadoff home run.)

10. I thought the Yankees would be 8-4 right now. I thought 7-2 was a reasonable ask against the Orioles and Tigers and then winning one out of three against the Astros. Or 6-3 against the Orioles and Tigers and winning two out of three against the Astros. Either way, 8-4 was the goal. So they are three games back of the goal. (The goal was created prior to half the team going on the injured list.)

After looking at what the Rays did to the White Sox the last three days in Chicago, a sweep this weekend isn’t a lot to ask for, but I will take a series win. Looking ahead at the Yankees’ remaining April schedule, going 11-6 should be more than doable, which would give them a 16-13 record at the end of the month. By then Stanton and Hicks could either be back or be close to being back, Betances will be back and I’m not sure when Andujar could actually return. (Let’s forget about Troy Tulowitzki since he might never play for the Yankees again.)

The injuries are certainly a big reason why the Yankees have been as bad as they have been in the early going, but the Rays don’t care. They are going to keep winning games with incredible pitching and timely hitting. The Yankees are 4 1/2 games back right now. Last year, it took them winning 18 of 19 to overcome their early-season deficit to the Red Sox, and then once they were unable to keep up their historic pace, they went right back down in the standings. It might still be early with 150 games left in the season, but the deficit in the division, no matter who it’s to, can’t keep growing at the current pace. It could take months to erase a six- or seven-game hole.

The Yankees need to get back the roster they anticipated having for this season and everything should be fine. But first, they need to start winning series with the roster they have.

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

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 11, 2019

Podcast: White Sox Dave

White Sox Dave joined me to talk about his team’s slow start, missing out on Manny Machado, and watching Chris Sale win a World Series.

After getting swept in Houston, the Yankees need to win games, and there’s no better team to do that against than the White Sox. Off to an abysmal 3-9 start, the Yankees have a chance to get back over .500 this weekend at home.

White Sox Dave of Barstool Sports Chicago joined me to talk about the White Sox’ bad start, the Yankees’ surprisingly poor start, missing out on Manny Machado, watching Chris Sale win a World Series with the Red Sox, the emergence of Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada, the struggles of Lucas Giolito and when White Sox fans should expect their team to contend.

Yankees Podcast: White Sox Dave (40:25)

Download the MP3

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

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 10, 2019

Get Stretched Out for the Yankees’ Upcoming West Coast Trip

Like a reliever stretching his arm out to join the rotation, you need to stretch out your life to watch the Yankees play on the West Coast.

The Yankees still have one game in this three-game series left against the Astros and then a nine-game homestand before they go on a nine-game, 10-day West Coast trip. While there are still nine games until the Yankees’ lengthy road trip, it’s time to start planning for it.

What happens when the Yankees play on the West Coast? Their games start three hours they would normally start. On the upcoming trip that begins on April 22, the Yankees will play four games starting after 10 p.m. ET and two starting after 9 p.m. ET. Most people will try to stay up to watch them, but will likely end up falling asleep in the second inning and wake up to the highlights on YES or the encore presentation in the middle of the night. But if you plan on staying up for those games, the plan starts now.

You wouldn’t ask a middle reliever to start a game and expect him to throw 100 pitches or go six-plus innings and you wouldn’t ask the normal Yankees fan who has a job to get up for to suddenly sleep three less hours. That’s where the plan comes in. Like a reliever stretching his arm out to join the rotation, you need to stretch out your life to watch the Yankees play on the West Coast.

Let’s say the average Yankees game gets over at 10:30 and you go to sleep right at the end of the game at 10:30. If you start staying up 15 minutes later per night starting tonight, you will be awake to see the Yankees play the Angels, Giants and Diamondbacks, and you will be awake to see Mike Trout play baseball.

Wednesday, April 10: 10:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 11: 10:45 p.m.
Friday, April 12: 11:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 13: 11:15 p.m.
Sunday, April 14: 11:30 p.m.
Monday, April 15: 11:45 p.m.
Tuesday, April 16: 12:00 a.m.
Wednesday, April 17: 12:15 a.m.
Thursday, April 18: 12:30 a.m.
Friday, April 19: 12:45 a.m.
Saturday, April 20: 1:00 a.m.
Sunday, April 21: 1:15 a.m.
Monday, April 22: 1:30 a.m.

Follow this plan and get stretched out for the next 12 nights. Or if the Yankees are unable to take care of business against the White Sox this weekend and the Royals next weekend, there won’t be a need to stay up and watch them anyway.

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

Blogs • Monday Mail • Yankees

Apr 8, 2019

Monday Mail: April 8, 2019

Is Aaron Boone in over his head? Why are players getting scheduled off days in the first week of the season? Why is Brett Gardner batting leadoff? This week’s Monday Mail.

That’s how you take care of business against the Orioles. After losing two of three to the Orioles a week ago, the Yankees swept the will-be last-place team this past weekend. Now at 5-4, the Yankees aren’t where I thought they would be following nine games against the Orioles and Tigers, but they appear to be headed in the right direction.

This week’s questions and comments are heavy on Aaron Boone and then there’s the problem with who leads off and why the Yankees didn’t take advantage of the best free-agent class ever and possibly the last star-packed free-agent class ever.

Email your questions to KeefeToTheCity@gmail.com or engage on the Keefe To The City Facebook page or on Twitter to be included in the next Monday Mail.

Aaron Boone needs to go back to calling games for ESPN and the Yankees need to Willie Randolph in as manager so that he can direct this team into the playoffs and beyond! – Mario

No, I didn’t want Aaron Boone to be named the manager of the Yankees prior to 2018. At the time, I thought the Yankees did the right thing by replacing Joe Girardi after 10 years, but had I known the first 176 games (regular season and postseason included) would go the way they have, I would have preferred to just retain Girardi.

Despite winning 100 games last year and the wild-card game, Boone didn’t do a good job. Winning 100 games isn’t much of an accomplishment in a season in which two other American League teams did the same, in a season in which five AL teams lost 89 games or more. The same goes for this season. Which teams are really trying to win in the AL in 2019? The Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Astros, A’s and Angels? Every other team either shed payroll, tried to move their star players to shed payroll, failed to sign any worthy free agents and basically went along with the idea that it’s more profitable to lose than win in baseball’s current state.

This season, Boone has once again gotten off to a rocky start, either unable or unwilling to make changes to his in-game management and actual baseball strategy to improve. Yes, the Yankees have an unheard of amount of players on the injured list, including four of their everyday players, two-fifths of their rotation and their best reliever. But that doesn’t excuse some of the moves Boone has made in the season’s first nine game. None of the simple decisions he could have made were related to the team’s injury problems, rather they were basic baseball moves.

I don’t trust Boone. This team is going to the playoffs in some capacity, and I’m petrified another year will be wasted because of his bullpen management. Boone helped throw away the ALDS last season and he has six months to get this team back there and then manage the way he’s expected to once they get there. I won’t count on him pushing the right buttons until I actually see him to do it.

I also don’t think Willie Randolph is the solution and I don’t think he would ever be considered for the position in the future either.

Are you kidding me? After five days of baseball Aaron Boone believes players need a rest, really? – Rob

It’s pretty ridiculous. The Yankees had two off days after their last exhibition game, played one game and had a day off, played five games and had a day off. And oh yeah, they basically had six months off before all of that.

It’s unclear why the Yankees believe they have figured out who needs days off and when they need them or why they truly think they have the solution to preventing injuries and maximizing performance. The team currently has more players on the injured list than any other team in baseball and they haven’t won anything in a decade.

Guess what? Injuries happen and there’s nothing you can do about them. Having scheduled off days won’t prevent a player from pulling an oblique in the next game or jamming their shoulder sliding back to third a week later. Pulling a starting pitcher after 85 pitches doesn’t mean he won’t tear his elbow on the first pitch of his next start and not using a reliever three days in a row doesn’t mean he won’t land on the injured list at some point anyway. There’s absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent injuries and there’s no exact amount of rest which will help players perform over the course of a season and in the postseason. The Yankees should know this better than any team.

When Aaron Judge said there needed to be more urgency I think he meant Boone. Boone doesn’t manage to win every game. – Stan

Here is the Aaron Judge quote:

“Every game is important because you can go at the end of the year and look back at how many missed opportunities and games that we should have won, but we just didn’t come up with the big hit, a costly error, stuff like that. Every single game is important.”

No, I don’t think Judge was referring to Boone with his words, but he should have been. Judge was simply frustrated with all the men left on base and the errors and sloppy play from the team in the second game of the season.

After coming within a win of the World Series in 2017 and then being embarrassed last October, I’m sure Judge is sick and tired of not getting the job, the way the fans are. Given that it was his gesture which turned “New York, New York” into the Red Sox’ victory song after their ALDS win, I’m sure he wants to erase that backfire as quickly as possible. The way the Red Sox’ destroyed the memory of the 2003 ALCS by beating the Yankees and winning the World Series the following year, the Yankees can erase the embarrassment of the 2018 ALDS by winning the 2019 World Series.

The easiest way to win the World Series is to avoid the one-game playoff and win the division. So Judge’s urgency makes all the sense in the world. The division will be won by which teams beats up on all the crap in the AL. The Yankees have to do a better job than they did last season against the last-place teams.

Fans who watched the moves in the offseason knew they didn’t do enough. Starting pitching not enough, lack of left-handed bats, same hitting coach that couldn’t fix it last season, same pitching coach who time has passed by. – James

I tend not to put too much stock into what the hitting and pitching coaches do, though I believe the pitching coach is more important than the hitting coach. The only hitting coach I ever really cared about or paid attention to was Kevin Long because he seemed to get all the credit whenever a player performed well, and was of any criticism when the team didn’t perform.

The Yankees could have done better this offseason. They could have signed one or both of the 26-year-old generational stars or the best pitcher on the free-agent market. Instead, they spread the money out after getting under the luxury tax and paying all their core players close to league minimum. It was an odd offseason plan and considering all young star players are getting long-term extensions, it might have been their last chance to ever make a significant difference through free agency.

I believe the Yankees missed an enormous opportunity to lengthen their current championship window and put the best possible team on the field. No, they don’t necessarily need any of the Top 3 free agents to win the World Series, but it sure would have helped.

The Yanks are the only team in the majors that Gardner could beat leadoff. He never swings at the first pitch and pitchers know this so they groove a fastball that he could make decent contact on but know he will take it … I was against bringing him back because of his diminished skills, now with the injury-riddled roster he has to bat somewhere, but leadoff? Boone has no clue, the computer spits out the lineup and he posts it. Don’t you just love analytics? – Mark

Brett Gardner has actually been better over the last few games since this question/comment was written, but that doesn’t change the fact that he should never lead off on this team. I hate to get on Gardner because this whole ordeal isn’t his fault. He didn’t offer himself the one-year, $7.5 million deal when there were better options to take his place. And he’s not the one penciling himself in as the leadoff hitter every game. But I need to know who is.

If it’s Boone, it’s strictly incompetence for a manager whose only redeeming quality seems to be that he’s a good buddy for the players. If it’s the front office and analytics team, we have much a bigger problem. The Yankees are driven by analytics and if it’s somehow analytics recommending Gardner as the leadoff hitter then find new math guys because any person, stat or formula saying Gardner should be at the top of the order can’t be trusted. We can’t have someone who creates an algorithm suggesting Gardner bats leadoff on this team also determining which players to target in trades and in free agency free agents the Yankees should target. But Maybe that’s why they passed on Manny FA and Corbin. Maybe it was the stat guys telling Boone who to bring in with the bases loaded in Game 3 of the ALDS.

Either the Yankees have a manager so far in over his head despite having a season under his belt or they have an analytics team which needs a complete overhaul and either way it’s a problem.

Want to be included in the next Monday Mail? Email your questions to KeefeToTheCity@gmail.com or engage on the Keefe To The City Facebook page or on Twitter.

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

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 8, 2019

Podcast: Chris McMonigle

Chris McMonigle of WFAN joined me to talk about our differences in regards to Aaron Boone’s managerial style and, early-season overreactions from Yankees fans.

This past weekend was certainly better than the Yankees’ opening weekend. After losing two of three at home to the Orioles to begin the season, the Yankees swept the Orioles on the road to improve to 5-4 on the season. It’s not exactly the record I envisioned the Yankees having after nine games against the Orioles and Tigers, but they are above .500 though things are about to get tougher with a road trip to Houston.

Chris McMonigle of WFAN and Mike’s On joined me to talk about our differences in regards to Aaron Boone’s managerial style, the scheduled off days for players in early the season, early-season overreactions from the Yankees fan base, the Yankees’ need to win the division and when to officially evaluate the season.

Yankees Podcast: Chris McMonigle (43:44)

Download the MP3

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