Keefe To The City

Jan 26, 2024

Aaron Boone Knows ‘Secret Sauce’ to Being Yankees Manager

February is less than a week away. The start of spring training is in less than three weeks. Yankees baseball is almost back. With Yankees baseball being almost back, Aaron Boone went on a little

February is less than a week away. The start of spring training is in less than three weeks. Yankees baseball is almost back. With Yankees baseball being almost back, Aaron Boone went on a little media tour this week, joining both the Foul Territory and The Show podcasts.

I still can’t believe Boone remains manager of the Yankees. It makes me sick to think given how each of his six years in the position have finished:

2018: Eliminated in four games in the ALDS by the Red Sox after losing both home games in the series, including the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history.

2019: Eliminated in six games in the ALCS by the Astros after losing four of the last five games of the series.

2020: Eliminated in five games in the ALDS by the Rays after losing three of the last four games of the series.

2021: Finished third in the division and fifth in the league and eliminated in the one-game playoff.

2022: Swept in the ALCS by the Astros.

2023: Failed to reach the postseason when 40 percent of the league reaches the postseason.

When the Yankees were barely able to eke out a winning season last year, the narrative was that the team was too analytically-driven in their decision making and their offense. Boone denied that claim, saying both new-school and old-school methods are needed in today’s game.

“I think the secret sauce in this job is striking that balance,” Boone said. “There are a lot of players that can handle a lot of different things and information … and reach their potential as players. There’s other players you try to kind of get out of their way.”

Boone thinks he knows the “secret sauce” to being a major-league manager and Yankees manager. This is important to remember during the season because when bad decisions are made or things go poorly (like all of 2023 went), Boone is not accountable for the results. Why should he be? There are no repercussions or consequences for losing as manager of the Yankees in this day and age. Boone maintaining his position as Yankees manager and being asked to be interviewed coming off of an 82-win, postseason-less year is proof of that. Here I was thinking someone like Bruce Bochy with his four World Series rings and five league pennants to his name owned the secret sauce to managing. Little did I know, Boone has also mastered managing in the majors.

“I think about it all the time,” Boone said when asked about the 2024 lineup. “Right now, probably Juan in the 2-hole and Judge third. We’ll see. We’ll see how the leadoff spot shakes out.”

On the 2024 lineup cards the Yankees plan on using, Soto second and Judge third should be printed on the templates. The other seven spots can be left blank to write in the other spots for that day. As long as though two are healthy (knock on all the wood), no other Yankee should ever bat second or third.

“I’m excited about the balance that we have,” Boone said of the current roster.

Ah, balance. What a concept. It wasn’t long ago the Yankees were trying to complete their second-great illusion of all time by telling fans an all-right-handed lineup can be just as successful as a lineup featuring both right-handed and left-handed batters. (Their first-great illusion is convincing Yankees fans their payroll is increasing commensurately with revenue each year.)

To me, the Yankees should open the season with this lineup:

DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Juan Soto, RF
Aaron Judge, CF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Alex Verdugo, LF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Austin Wells, C
Anthony Volpe, SS

That gives the Yankees a right-lefty alternation through the lineup and allows Wells and Volpe to get settled in and develop at the bottom of the order.

The problem with that lineup is Stanton batting seventh. If you think for even a second Boone would ever bat Stanton seventh, let alone to begin the season, you must be new around here. Stanton hit .211/.297/.462 in 2022 and never batted below fourth. Last season, he hit .191/.275/.420 and never batted below fifth. I didn’t say that’s the lineup the Yankees will use, I said “to me” it’s what they should use.

Stanton won’t hit lower than fifth on Opening Day (if he’s healthy and available). Boone goes out of his way to appease his players, especially veterans. Boone would rather not put out the best possible lineup than have to have a conversation about lineup spot or playing time with Stanton, or put Stanton in a position in which he would have to answer questions from the media abut his place in the order or playing time.

“I’m going to do whatever we need to do,” Boone said about not playing Stanton if he doesn’t produce. “That said, I’m excited about where I believe Giancarlo is.”

Boone is going into the 2024 season acting like it’s six years ago and present-day Stanton is the same Stanton who hit 59 home runs and won the NL MVP prior to becoming a Yankee. Over the last two seasons, Stanton has hit .202/.286/.442 in 211 game and 867 plate appearances. That’s not a small sample size, and there’s only one reason someone with those numbers gets to continue to bat in the middle of the order for a supposed contender: owed money. And Stanton is owed a lot of money. He’s getting $32 million this season, $32 million next season, $29 million in 2026, $25 million in 2027 and a $10 million buyout in 2028. That totals $128 million, of which the Marlins are on the hook for $30 million. Hal Steinbrenner isn’t about to eat $98 million. It’s going to take a lot of strikeouts for Stanton to not bat in the middle of the order. It’s going to take a lot more than that for him to not remain on the team for the majority of that $98 million owed.

“I think ‘Big G’ has had a great winter,” Boone said of Stanton.

I want Stanton to be good. Not good, great. I want nothing more than for him to be a .900-plus cleanup hitter for the Yankees. But I’m a realist. Stanton has played in 63 percent of games since becoming a Yankee. Over the last five years, he has played in only 55 percent of the team’s games. If you think Stanton is going to get healthier and better as a now-34-year-old, well you probably believed Boone last offseason when he said this about Josh Donaldson last February:

“The things he did this winter to get himself ready to go, I think you’re crazy to think that a bounce back is not in there offensively. This guy still has bat speed, and is super talented. He’s in a much better place than he was a year ago right now.”

Or this:

“He had an amazing winter. He physically looks great. His assessments, everything, he’s moving really well.”

Boone went out of his way to praise Donaldson as being “not far removed from 2021, where he was still a wrecking ball,” and then Donaldson went on to suck, get injured, suck again, get injured again and eventually be released.

“The season will declare itself on who should play and where and when,” Boone said. “I would not write off Giancarlo just yet. I’m excited where I believe he’s at.”

Stanton’s evaluation of Boone sounds eerily similar to his winter evaluation of Donaldson a year ago.

Stanton wasn’t the only one to garner praise for their winter work. The way Boone spoke about Carlos Rodon on both podcasts you would think Rodon, not Gerrit Cole won the 2023 AL Cy Young.

“I really feel like Carlos is one of those guys that has had an outstanding winter,” Boone said. “He looks good already.”

No one in the league looks better in the last week of January than Rodon. Then again, allowing 49 earned runs in 64 1/3 innings doesn’t happen by accident. It takes hard work, dedication and preparation. The kind Rodon is putting in this winter.

“A lot of (last year) was due to him starting with injuries,” Boone said of Rodon’s 2023 season. “He was just playing catch-up all year. It’s just about being healthy for him.”

If “it’s just about being healthy” for Rodon, here are his starts by season in his career:

2015: 23
2016: 28
2017: 12
2018: 20
2019: 7
2020: 2
2021: 24
2022: 31
2023: 14

The most starts and best year Rodon had came in 2022, going into free agency. Sure enough, the Yankees were there waiting with open arms and an open checkbook for him.

“There’s never a guarantee,” Boone said about Rodon being healthy in 2024. “Such is the nature with pitching.”

Sometimes there’s a guarantee. Like when you’re given a guaranteed $162 million over six years, like Rodon was.

“My biggest message to Carlos,” Boone said, “Is do everything you need to do to make sure you’re ready to go to the post every fifth or sixth day.”

What was his message to Rodon last year? Get shut down in spring training, make a comment about how if it were the playoffs you would take the ball, miss half the season, be atrocious upon returning, blow a kiss to heckling fans in Anaheim, turn your back on the pitching coach during a mound visit and be the worst starting pitcher in baseball during the second half of the season?

Thankfully, the Yankees added more oft-injured starting pitching this winter to mitigate a potential loss of Rodon by signing Marcus Stroman.

“This is the place that he wants to be,” Boone said of Stroman as a Yankee. “I’m very confident that he’s going to make us a lot better.”

This is where Stroman wants to be when he isn’t ripping the Yankees and inciting fights with fans on social media. The Yankees are confident Stroman makes them a lot better in 2024, they just didn’t feel the same way almost five years ago when he was having his best season.

Other than watching Soto play for the Yankees and seeing Soto and Judge hit back-to-back in the lineup, the thing I’m most excited about in 2024 is the return of Jasson Domínguez, who is expected back during the season. When exactly is he expected back?

“So we’re saying the summer,” Boone said about Domínguez’s return. “We’re going to make sure he’s fully back and ready to play the field full time.”

Boone saying, “We’re saying,” is telling. “We’re” means the Yankees and that means as an organization they have decided to give the most general return date as possible for Dominguez given all the return dates they have screwed up in recent years.

The dates of summer in 2024 are June 20 through September 22. That’s a 95-day window they have given for Dominguez’s return if you go by the official dates of summer. If you go on traditional summer dates of Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day, well, that’s a 103-day window. So expect Dominguez back sometime between late May and late September.

“I think he likes being up here,” Boone said. “The higher the league, the better it makes him.”

Boone thinks Dominguez likes being in the majors, earning a major-league salary, eating, traveling and living in luxury and being on the New York Yankees more than playing in the minors, traveling by bus and having a load of bread and some old condiments available as a postgame meal spread.

When Dominguez does return, he will be returning to an outfield that Boone plans on playing Judge in center field a lot in.

“I’m planning on playing Judge in center field a lot,” Boone said. “I really feel like Giancarlo can give us an occasional look in the outfield as well. He’s preparing for that.”

Boone feels like Stanton can play the outfield when he can barely handle hitting only. Back in February 2021, Boone said Stanton would play the outfield that season as well. He said it again in March, April, May and June and then eventually play Stanton in the outfield on the second-to-last-day in July.

Stanton has been the most-commented-on Yankee this offseason by the team’s general manager and manager. In November, Cashman went out of his way to shit on Stanton, only to then walk back his comments and try to claim they taken out of context less than a week later. That was back when Cashman was on his own media tour, which included his expletive-filled rant in which he said the 82-win Yankees “are pretty fucking good.” What did Boone think of that embarrassing rant from his boss?

“I pulled out my bag of popcorn and just kicked my feet and enjoyed him getting after it,” Boone said. “We understand, obviously, we’re coming off a year that’s not acceptable by our terms and our standards.”

“Obviously” the 82-80 season the Yankees are coming off of is acceptable by the organization’s terms and standards. How do I know this? Because Boone is able to give that quote and be interviewed as the manager of the Yankees despite finishing two games above .500 last year. Because Cashman is still employed by the organization.

The Yankees finished in fourth place in the division, were barely able to finish above .500, missed the postseason in a format in which 40 percent of the league recaches the postseason, and no changes were made in terms of decision makers in the organization. I don’t know how something can be considered “unacceptable” like the Yankees say 2023 was, and yet, there were no consequences or ramifications for it.

“Talk is cheap in the end,” Boone said. “We gotta go out and do it on the field.”

Yes, it is, and yes, they do.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Jan 19, 2024

Yankees Thoughts: Overly-Optimistic Offseason Continues

The Yankees introduced Marcus Stroman as their newest addition this week and Brian Cashman answered questions about other players and pitchers from his 2024 roster. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

The Yankees introduced Marcus Stroman as their newest addition this week and Brian Cashman answered questions about other players and pitchers from his 2024 roster.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Marcus Stroman is officially a Yankee. The newest Yankee said all the right things during his introductory press conference.

“I’m not someone who shies away from the limelight or the pressure, the lights,” Stroman said. “I think a lot of people avoid coming to New York and playing for the Yankees because of that reason. I feel like it brings out the best in me.”

We have heard similar things from other starting pitchers over the years upon becoming Yankees. James Paxton talked about how “pressure is a privilege” entering the 2019 season before proceeding to crumble under that pressure. Last winter, Carlos Rodon talked about how “just putting on these pinstripes is something special,” and then gave all Yankees fans a “special” season when he missed the first half of it and was the worst starting pitcher in the majors during the second half of it.

2. When the Yankees sign or trade for someone, they say it’s because they believe that person can handle New York without anyway of measuring or knowing who will or won’t perform well playing their home games in New York. When it doesn’t work out, they say it’s because that person couldn’t handle New York. It’s never because they targeted, traded for, signed or paid the wrong person.

“There is a population of Major League talent that does not want to play in the New York arena,” Brian Cashman said in introducing Stroman. “It’s too hot, it’s too difficult, it’s too much. That is not this player. This player wanted to be here.”

In Stroman, the Yankees are getting a pitcher who has pitched in big markets in Toronto, New York and Chicago, and in the postseason. They are getting a pitcher who is from New York, grew up a Yankees fan, has already pitched on the other side of the city and understands the microscope he will perform under every five days. It doesn’t mean it will work out. It doesn’t mean he won’t take to social media immediately following a bad start to instigate online fights with fans unhappy with his performance. For now, it just means he’s aware of what he has signed up for.

3. “The bigger the opportunity, he runs to the competition,” Cashman continued. “It’s how he seems to have been wired, all the way back to his amateur days.”

If that’s Cashman’s evaluation of Stroman, again, like I wrote last week, how was Stroman not a Yankee at the 2019 deadline? Especially since Cashman believes Stroman’s makeup dates back to his amateur days which predate 2019.

“Toronto, being in the division, was certainly going to ask more of us at that time,” Cashman said in reflecting on not trading for Stroman. “I just said, ‘For the amount of talent they wanted back, it wasn’t going to be enough of a difference-maker.’ That was my bad, because then how it played wasn’t certainly how it was intended.”

4. I wonder what the Blue Jays asked for in return in July 2019. Clint Frazier? Miguel Andujar? Tyler Wade? Estevan Florial? All the stud Yankees prospects who were later designated for assignment and released for nothing?

You have to admire Cashman saying the quote was “his bad” for how it played rather than saying it was “his bad” for not being willing to part with prospects that amounted to nothing or for not trading for Stroman, who may have helped the Yankees overcome the Astros in that year’s ALCS.

Everyone always seems to be misquoting Cashman or taking his words out of context. In mid-November after Cashman spoke about Giancarlo Stanton and said, “He’s going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game,” he later tried to backtrack and say his words were misconstrued. If Stroman fails as a Yankee, I’m sure Cashman will say his quote from this week about Stroman being “wired” to play for the Yankees isn’t what he meant.

5. Stroman can’t fail as a Yankee. He can’t because there are too many other questions marks in the rotation. Every starter other than Gerrit Cole has a lengthy and scary injury history, and it would be foolish to think the Yankees can navigate 162 games with the five names currently in their rotation. They traded away their starting pitching depth to acquire Juan Soto, and their master plan (their only plan to negate the depth they traded) fell through when Yoshinobu Yamamoto chose the Dodgers and their $75 million higher offer over the Yankees.

6. Cashman was asked about other Yankees on Thursday, including the disappointing Rodon and oft-injured Nestor Cortes.

“The feedback I’m getting is really good,” Cashman said of Rodon. “He looks like he obviously worked his tail off. Very optimistic that Rodon can return to form (and) be the pitcher that we know he’s capable of being.”

My nose still burns from the water I was drinking while reading that quote coming out of my nostrils due to uncontrollable laughter. I love a good “best shape of their life”-type story from the start of spring training, but to have one in mid-January for a starting pitcher who was the worst starting pitcher in baseball in his first year of a six-year, $162 million deal is truly absurd. Rodon looking “good” in mid-January should be the bare minimum to expect from someone who makes more than $800,000 per start whether he starts or not.

7. “All reports on him have been fantastic,” Cashman said of Cortes.

Here is the combined line for Rodon and Cortes from last season: 127.2 IP, 124 H, 87 R, 84 ER, 48 BB, 131 K, 26 HR, 5.94 ERA, 1.347 WHIP.

There’s a month until pitchers and catchers officially reports, five weeks until spring training games begin and 10 weeks until Opening Day. Let me know what kind of shape those two are in and how they look at the end of March, if they can both get to that point healthy and available.

8. When asked about Stanton, Cashman decided against unnecessarily criticizing his designated hitter like he did two months ago. Cashman commented that Stanton has a new “tact” to his offseason and that his training is “in a really good place between his diet and his offseason conditioning.”

I’m glad Stanton is eating vegetables and has possibly shied away from using a sledgehammer to pound a tire as part of his offseason strengthening routine. I don’t know that he’s an offseason workout change away from going from a .695 OPS in 2023 to even the mediocre .759 OPS (which he posted in 2022) in 2024. When Stanton wasn’t hurt last year, he was lost at the plate, taking middle-middle fastballs and swinging at sliders in the opposite batter’s box. It’s hard to believe a change in diet is going to help him with pitch recognition and pitch selection, but OK.

“He’s always been one of the most feared hitters in the game,” Cashman said of Stanton, clearly unknowing of the meaning of “always.” “And I think he’s locking forward to getting back to that.”

9. “The doctors have told us he’s 100 percent clear,” Cashman said about Anthony Rizzo’s health. “The type of concussion he hd, once he’s past it, will not return. I can’t speak to that. I’m not an expert. But there’s no looking back, just moving forward.

I’m glad Cashman clarified he’s not an expert on concussions. Here I was thinking Cashman was an expert on head injuries after he allowed Rizzo to play for three months and endure the worst three-month stretch of his career following a head collision. But nothing is better than Rizzo telling Aaron Boone of head fogginess prior to a three-game series in Baltimore in August, only to then play all three games before being shut down for the season after that series.

10. Aside from Jason Dominguez, who is expected to return sometime in the summer, every Yankee who is coming off a career-worst year or finished last season injured is either in fantastic shape or once again healthy. You don’t need to look at a calendar or outside your window in New York City to falling snow today to know what month it is. The overly-optimistic health and performance reports coming from the Yankees are all you need to know it’s mid-January.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Jan 12, 2024

Yankees Thoughts: Marcus Stroman a ‘Difference-Maker’ Four-Plus Years Later?

The Yankees added to their rotation by signing Marcus Stroman to a two-year deal.

The Yankees added to their rotation by signing Marcus Stroman to a two-year deal.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. At the 2019 trade deadline, the Yankees desperately needed to add starting pitching. Masahiro Tanaka was having the worst season of his career, James Paxton had been inconsistent and injured, CC Sabathia had an ERA hovering around 5, J.A. Happ was ineffective in his second season with the Yankees, and due to injuries, Luis Severino wouldn’t be available until September. The Yankees’ starting pitching situation was a mess with a lack of organizational depth that would grow more shallow with the eventual suspension of Domingo German.

2. The Yankees had an opportunity to improve that rotation by trading for 28-year-old Marcus Stroman, who boasted a 2.96 ERA in 21 starts for the Blue Jays through the end of July. They didn’t.

“We were interested, but we didn’t think he would be a difference-maker,” Brian Cashman said at the time about not trading for Stroman. “We felt he would be in our bullpen in the postseason.”

3. Three years before making the same claim about Jordan Montgomery (who it turns out is a pretty good postseason starter), Cashman and his team failed to properly evaluate Stroman. The Yankees went into the postseason with a three-man rotation of Tanaka, Paxton and Severino, put Happ and Sabathia in the bullpen and turned to Chad Green as an opener when they needed a fourth starter. In the ALCS, Tanaka, Paxton and Severino couldn’t give the team length, Happ allowed a walk-off home run as a reliever in Game 2, Sabathia blew out his shoulder in Game 4 and Green’s opening act in Game 6 put the Yankees behind three runs in the first inning. A masterclass in roster construction by Cashman. After the series ended, the Yankees’ elite relievers, all of which were no longer effective by Game 6 complained of fatigue. You know who would have likely prevented that fatigue? Stroman, who gave the Blue Jays and Mets length for the entirety of 2019.

4. That season was either Stroman’s best (137 ERA+) or second-best season (he had a 145 ERA+ in 201 innings in 2017) in the majors depending on how you want to view or value each. He was in his prime and had done an excellent job combating the juiced baseball, and still, the Yankees didn’t want him.

Stroman is now 32 and will turn 33 less than five weeks into the 2024 season. He’s coming off back-to-back seasons for the Cubs in which he missed 20 percent of his starts due to injury. Apparently, now the Yankees consider him to be a difference-maker.

5. On Thursday, after failing to increase their offer for the Yoshinobu Yamamoto and after lowballing reigning NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell, the Yankees signed Stroman to a two-year, $37 million deal.

So what changed in the four-and-a-half years since Cashman passed on Stroman at a time when the Yankees desperately needed him? The Yankees grew even more desperate is what changed.

6. Coming off an embarrassing 82-80 season in which the Yankees couldn’t qualify for the postseason in a format in which 40 percent of the league is eligible, the Yankees’ offseason plan was to trade for Juan Soto and sign Yamamoto. They used up every last starting pitching resource to acquire Soto, thinking the addition of Yamamoto would cancel out the lost starting pitching depth. When that failed, the Yankees were left without a plan, much like they were 13 years ago when Cliff Lee signed with Phillies, and the Yankees’ lack of a Plan B led to them replacing Andy Pettitte and the idea of Lee with Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia.

The Yankees’ rotation-enhancing options quickly went from penciling in Yamamoto as the No. 2 Carlos Rodon was supposed to be to either overpaying for Snell or Montgomery (who Cashman dealt in 2022 because he didn’t see Montgomery being a postseason starter for his team) or signing Stroman and all the baggage that comes with him. Knowing the cost of each, the Yankees made a “Hey, we tried!” offer to Snell then pivoted to Stroman.

7. Stroman has worn out his welcome at every place he has been: the Blue Jays, Mets and Cubs. The New York native, who was suspended in the minors for using a performance-enhancing substance frequently engages with critical fans on social media (which is always a good idea) and has spent the last four-plus years since Cashman made the “difference-maker” comment bashing the Yankees through social media. (Oddly enough, all past Yankees bashing done by Stroman has now been scrubbed from his social media accounts.) When Stroman pitches poorly, rather than be accountable, his first instinct seems to be to search for his name on X/Twitter and respond to anyone who has mentioned his most recent performance. Rodon blowing a kiss to heckling fans after he missed most of last season and then pitched poorly when he did pitch is minor-league softness compared to what Stroman is capable of.

Stroman has his issues, both on the mound where underlying metrics suggest his prime is over, and off the mound, where he will go off on fans when he doesn’t meet expectations. The Yankees had to fill their hard-to-root for quota somehow with the recent losses of Josh Donaldson, Domingo German and Jimmy Cordero, and by acquiring Alex Verdugo and signing Stroman, they are doing everything they can to fill those voids.

8. The Yankees’ rotation is now made up of the reigning AL Cy Younger winner (Gerrit Cole), the worst starting pitching in the majors in 2023 (Carlos Rodon), a starter who went down in the 2022 postseason with an injury and then made only 12 starts in 2023 because of injuries (Nestor Cortes), an oft-injured righty who just pitched a career high in innings to middling results (Clarke Schmidt) and Stroman, who again missed 20 percent of last season.

The Yankees still need to add another starter, whether it’s Snell or Montgomery. Bringing back Luke Weaver isn’t going to help me sleep at night, and the odds of Rodon, Cortes, Schmidt and Stroman all being healthy and available when the seasons starts at the end of March is a four-leg parlay I want no part of.

9. “Hope” should never be a word associated with the Yankees during an offseason. The Yankees have the ability to remove the idea of “hope” from their offseason plans every year, and yet, every year they continue to make that their organizational motto. You would think after 14 pennant-less and championship-less seasons, they would go back to their old way of doing business, signing and banking on sure-things rather than hoping and praying for bounceback seasons and Comeback Player of the Year nominations for members of their roster. But that’s all Yankees fans are likely left to do going into 2024 again: hope and pray that a group of oft-injured, over-30 players and pitchers somehow defy their individual injury histories and recent performance issues.

10. Hopefully, Stroman pitches well for the Yankees (as well as he would have in 2019 had they acquired him in his prime), and he doesn’t feel the need to search for his name on social media and wage a war with the largest fan base in the sport. If he doesn’t pitch well, or if he does come decide to take out any performance-related frustrations on fans, he’s at least in the right environment to do so where his new manager will be there to defend, support and lie for him to no end. Let’s “hope” Stroman is an All-Star again in 2024 like he was in 2023 and it all works out.

Blogs

Jan 2, 2024

My New Year’s Resolution (for the Fourth Time): Don’t Get Upset with Aaron Boone

Four years ago, I decided it would be better for my overall health if I didn’t get so worked up about Aaron Boone and his daily disasters, not all of which are even related to

Four years ago, I decided it would be better for my overall health if I didn’t get so worked up about Aaron Boone and his daily disasters, not all of which are even related to in-game moments. In six years as Yankees manager, Boone’s time has mostly been spent putting his players in the worst possible position to succeed, and on top of that, he has constantly lied to the media about everything from player availability to player injuries only to be outed as a liar within minutes or hours after his lies. He has made irresponsible bullpen decisions and inexcusable lineup choices during his tenure, and each season when I complain about his managerial ability, I’m told by fellow Yankees fans not to worry because he would never manage the way he does in the regular season in the postseason, and each season, he’s even worse in the postseason (when the Yankees even reach the postseason), like a managerial Nick Swisher.

Last year, I took a year off from these resolutions, knowing they are nearly impossible to accomplish. I decided achieving them was as likely as me pledging to run 30 miles a day. But after the most miserable Yankees season of my lifetime in 2023, I feel I must give them a try again in 2024. I’m quadrupling down on my 2020, 2021 and 2022 New Year’s Resolutions, all of which revolved around Boone. I can’t control the decisions of the Yankees manager, though I can control how I react to them. With Boone being given a seventh chance to manage the Yankees to a championship, I have to try them again. I just have to. For my health and for the health of those who live with me, I owe it to them to try to make these work.

Resolution 1: Don’t Get Upset Over the Lineup
After six full seasons of Boone as manager, we have enough data to know he has no idea how to build the best possible lineup. Thanks to Brian Cashman’s 2020 end-of-the-season press conference we know that Boone has full authority and final say on the lineup card delivered to the home plate umpire. While the front office nerds may have a say on who to bat where and who to play when, we know the unnecessary rest and inexplicable bullpen decisions that have run rampant during Boone’s tenure are all his call.

I need to take a deep breath when I see Giancarlo Stanton batting ahead of Anthony Rizzo or Gleyber Torres in 2024. Boone has been Yankees manager for 901 games (regular season and postseason combined). I shouldn’t expect him to suddenly use logic in determining who bats where.

Resolution 2: Don’t Get Upset About Scheduled Off Days
The Yankees’ scheduled days off and extra and unnecessary rest for their position players is out of control, and unfortunately, it’s not going to change. If anything, it’s only going to get worse. With Aaron Judge turning 32 in April, Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton 34 and DJ LeMahieu 35, get ready for the greatest amount of days off for regulars you have ever seen. Juan Soto is only 25, coming off a season in which he played in all 162 games and the Yankees don’t owe him a cent after this season and I can already see him getting one of the first four games of the season in Houston off, so the Yankees can “get him off his feet” because “it’s a long season.”

The Yankees aren’t going to go out of their way to win the division or home-field advantage in the postseason. They haven’t in a long time. They believe just getting into the postseason is enough (and they have a hard enough time doing that despite 40 percent of the league getting into the playoffs). They don’t care about giving away games as long as they just get in. It’s been working well for them for the last 14 seasons.

Resolution 3: Don’t Get Upset About Bullpen Usage
This will be the hardest of them all. I can deal with the lineup decisions (to a degree) and the scheduled off days (to a lesser degree). The bullpen decisions though? This resolution has less of a chance of happening than Stanton does of a playing a full season without an IL stint.

I don’t think I will ever get over Boone’s decision to use Albert Abreu in literally a “season-on-the-line situation” in Game 161 of 2021. Somehow, Abreu managed to remain rostered by the Yankees for all of 2022 and 2023, and this offseason none of the other 29 MLB teams wanted him, and he was forced to sign in Japan. A pitcher no other major-league team deemed worthy of a contract was part of Boone’s circle of trust multiple times over the last few seasons.

Abreu is just one of a litany of relievers that have nonsensically been given high-leverage work in Boone’s six years. Remember Jonathan Holder? Remember when Boone kept feeding Tommy Kahnle late-game work in 2018 when it was obvious Kahnle needed to work things out in Triple-A, which he eventually did. Remember when the same thing happened to Chad Green early in 2019 and Boone let him ruin a handful of games before Green was finally sent down to figure it out. How about when Clarke Schmidt, a starter by trade, was used in Game 3 of the 2022 ALDS over Clay Holmes (who Boone said was unavailable even though Holmes told the media after the game he was available) or when Boone went to Schmidt as the first reliever in a tie game against the Astros in Game 1 of the 2022 ALCS? These are some of the most high-profile disasters Boone has overseen, but for every one of these, there are 25 examples of him trying to steal outs with the last guy on the roster while his ‘A’ relievers are available and warm.

I understand these resolutions are rather meaningless since I can easily see myself breaking at least one or possibly all three within the first weekend (or on the first day) of the season (considering it’s a four-game series in Houston emotions will be heightened.) I’m really going to try to achieve them, but I know Boone will do his best to make it impossible.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Dec 22, 2023

Yankees Thoughts: Pitching Isn’t a Problem

The Yankees lost out on free-agent Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The Japanese star signed a $325 million deal with the Dodgers and a lot of Yankees fans seem worried. I’m not one of them.

The Yankees lost out on free-agent Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The Japanese star signed a $325 million deal with the Dodgers and a lot of Yankees fans seem worried. I’m not one of them.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I thought I would be more upset about the Yankees not landing Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but I’m not. Losing out on Yamamoto (and losing Michael King) hurts their overall pitching staff, but it’s not enough to ruin the 2024 Yankees. The Yankees may not have the pitching depth they had before trading for Juan Soto or the depth they thought they could replenish when Yamamoto was still an option, but pitching hasn’t been a problem for the Yankees in 15 years. The offense, however, is what has led to the demise of the current Yankees core in each of their postseasons and what prevented them from even reaching the postseason last year.

2. The Texas Rangers just won the World Series with a rotation similar to the Yankees’ and an inferior bullpen. They were able to win four postseason rounds and went on the road in the wild-card series to end the Rays’ season, swept the 1-seed Orioles in the ALDS, knocked off the Astros in Games 6 and 7 in Houston and then beat an NL Cinderella story that had eliminated the Brewers, Dodgers and Phillies.

3. Does that mean I don’t want the Yankees do anything else? Certainly not. The Yankees still need to build back up their starting pitching depth. It seems as though they are content with their current lineup situation, and because of that, pitching will be their primary focus for the remainder of the offseason. As currently constructed, the Yankees have a strong team on paper and in theory. On paper and in theory, it’s a roster full of household names that should return them to the postseason. In actuality, it’s a roster that is banking on the majority of its players to stay healthy and return to their usual form. I don’t want to go into 2024 with the roster representing the type of parlay card full of +400 and +500 underdogs the Yankees have put together in recent years. Parlays are for suckers and the recent rosters the Yankees have called “championship-caliber” were suckers. The long odds on that parlay card can be shortened by signing one or two of the leftovers starting pitchers with Yamamoto off the board.

4. The Yankees’ inability to sign Yamamoto makes their trade for Soto all that more important. If the Yankees hadn’t acquired Soto and were three days out from Christmas with a replacement-level outfielder the Red Sox didn’t want as their only move, then yeah, things would be bleak for 2024. Soto moved the needle that much for me and the 2024 Yankees. They will still need a lot to happen, but they need a lot less now that they have Soto.

5. Ultimately (credit to Aaron Boone for that word), the Yankees’ season will come down to the following:

Anthony Rizzo being healthy and the offensive force he was in April and May of last season.

DJ LeMahieu being healthy and productive.

Giancarlo Stanton having his first productive season in three years, and if not, the Yankees being willing to move him down in the order, bench him or release him.

Anthony Volpe taking a giant step offensively in his second full season after a rough rookie season at the plate.

Carlos Rodon not being the worst start pitcher in baseball.

Nestor Cortes staying healthy.

If all of those things happen, the Yankees will be fine. (Fine in terms of the regular season.) If half of them happen, they should still be fine in terms of reaching the postseason. If only the Rodon and Cortes needs work out, they will still be fine. If none of them happen, well, Yankees fans will have a lot of free time in August, September and October again like they had last season.

6. The addition of Soto helps mitigate a lot of the offensive issues and uncertainty, but had the Yankees signed Yamamoto they would still be hoping to hit on a few items from that list. Like Soto, adding Yamamoto would have lessened the need for those listed items to go the Yankees’ way, but neither Soto nor Yamamoto alone, nor together, would fully safe-proof the 2024 Yankees from some sort of roster parlay.

7. This offseason has felt longer than normal because the Yankees’ season was hanging on by a thread in mid-July and officially over on August 13. There was essentially seven weeks added to the length of his offseason because of how early the Yankees were out of it. When they open the season on March 28 in Houston, it will be more than seven months since they last played a truly meaningful game.

The Yankees’ lack of depth in all departments leaves little wiggle room for them to sustain injuries and underperformance the way they were able to in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. We saw last year what happens when the current roster is banged up, and next year’s roster currently has less depth than that. If you’re a Yankees fan who’s not already praying for a healthy 2024, you may want to start.

8. I don’t care how much money Yamamoto received and anyone who thinks it’s too much money for a pitcher who has never thrown a pitch in the majors or too much period has been fooled by the owners into thinking there is a limit to how much players can be paid. At least three teams offered Yamamoto $300 million and the team that landed him already invested $700 million in another player. That same team has more than $400 million committed to Mookie Betts and nearly another $200 million to Freddie Freeman and Tyler Glasnow each. Every team can pay and overpay for players. Some just choose to do it more than others.

9. The good news is I don’t see how the Yankees don’t re-sign Soto now with Yamamoto off the table. Hal Steinbrenner could have cried poor after 2024 and let Soto walk if he had just committed to a decade of Yamamoto at $300-plus million. But now? Now the only star position player for the Yankees under contract after 2024 is Aaron Judge. A year ago, Steinbrenner said, “Fans want to see stars,” and then paid a star-less lineup for most of 2023. The Yankees have two stars now and they will hit back-to-back in the order, representing the best back-to-back situation in the sport. I expect them to have both for 2024 and beyond. I have been under the impression the Yankees would re-sign Soto from the second they traded for him, and now I fully expect it. If they don’t, I will be right back to where I was as a Yankees fan the second before the deal for Soto was finalized.

10. Missing out on Yamamoto in this dreadful free-agent class means the Yankees can’t go into 2024 as the true odds-on favorite to win the AL. (Maybe that’s a good thing since they were the odds-on favorite for 2021 and finished third in their division and fifth in the AL and their postseason lasted nine innings.) The AL was wide open for 2023 and the Yankees chose not to be a part of it with their “Run It Back” roster. As open as the AL was last year, it’s similarly open for 2024. Without Yamamoto, the Yankees can’t truly separate themselves from the pack, but there are still free-agent signings they can make to at least have somewhat of an edge on the rest of the league.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Dec 7, 2023

Yankees Thoughts: Juan Soto the Necessity

After years of shopping in the clearance aisle for position players to no success, the Yankees finally acted like the Yankees once again and acquired a generational talent. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

After years of shopping in the clearance aisle for position players to no success, the Yankees finally acted like the Yankees once again and acquired a generational talent.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Last month when Hal Steinbrenner was staring into a laptop rather than publicly assessing the miserable 2023 season in person, nothing he said made me feel better about being a Yankees fan going into 2024. Unless Steinbrenner guaranteed he would stop at nothing to acquire Juan Soto, he wasn’t going to make me feel better about retaining his general manager and manager and his overall evaluation of his inherited franchise.

The Yankees acquired Soto on Wednesday night after days of negotiating, trading player names and finally reviewing the medicals of all of the arms the Yankees exchanged for the 25-year-old superstar. Today, I feel as good about being a Yankee fan as I have since the team won Game 5 of the 2022 ALDS over Cleveland. (That feeling lasted barely 24 hours with the Yankees losing Game 1 of he 2022 ALCS the following night. I expect this feeling to last longer.)

2. I have seen many Yankees fans who say they have been hard on ownership and Brian Cashman in recent seasons take a step back to applaud their work here. There will be no applause from me. This trade doesn’t erase last season. It doesn’t make up for the 2022 trade deadline disaster. It doesn’t negate not signing Bryce Harper, Manny Machado or Corey Seager when it would have only cost money — the Yankees’ greatest resource — to do so. Trading for Soto was necessary and it was the type of move the Yankees should always be willing to make. The trade for Soto is the Yankees as an organization doing their job, something they no longer often do. The Yankees doing their job every few seasons isn’t worthy of congratulatory praise.

3. This deal wasn’t a luxury move, the way it was when the Yankees acquired 28-year-old Alex Rodriguez in February 2004. This move was a necessity. The Yankees desperately needed a middle-of-the-order, superstar, left-handed bat to complement Aaron Judge, and paying whatever price San Diego demanded was going to be worth it. I have seen commentary suggest the Yankees overpaid for Soto or that the Padres somehow “won” a trade that isn’t even a day old. To me, the Yankees didn’t give up anything they couldn’t afford to lose, they acquired the best player in the deal, and it will take the Padres hitting a massive parlay with the arms they received to somehow come out on top from the deal after trading away a unique talent like Soto.

4. During the negotiating period, I came across real people who were worried the Yankees were overpaying for one guaranteed year of Soto by moving Michael King and Drew Thorpe. King was a great late-game, multi-inning reliever for the Yankees and showed exceptional promise as a starting pitcher over the final two months of this past season. He also blew up his arm when he fractured his elbow in July 2022 and the 104 2/3 innings he threw in 2023 represent the most innings he has thrown since 2018. Thorpe had a great season in the minor leagues, but again, it was the minor leagues and his success in High-A and Double-A is in no way indicative of his future success or potential success in the majors. Neither pitchers are good enough to prevent the Yankees from acquiring Soto, and thankfully they weren’t.

5. Soto isn’t a superstar, he’s a generational superstar. He’s a unicorn in terms of plate discipline in today’s game as he has more walks (640) than strikeouts (577) in his career, and only in his rookie season (when he was 19 years old) did he not outwalk his strikeout total (79 to 99). He has the fifth-highest OPS+ for any player with 3,000 plate appearance through his age-24 season with the only players above him being Ty Cobb, Mike Trout, Mickey Mantle and Jimmie Fox.

6. Soto just turned 25 at the end of October and has already played six full seasons in the majors. What he accomplished through his first six years and his age-24 season is ridiculous: posted a .923 OPS as a 19-year-old, led the Nationals to a championship as a 20-year-old with a .949 regular-season OPS and 1.178 World Series OPS; won the batting title (.351 average) as a 21-year-old, recorded the first 145-walk season in 17 years (Barry Bonds) as a 22-year-old; drew another 135 walks and added a Home Run Derby crown as a 23-year-old; played in all 162 games with 132 walks and a .930 OPS as a 24-year-old.

7. To put into perspective just how young Soto is and how absurd it is that he has been in the league for six years already, here is Soto compared to the ages of other Yankees considered “kids” by the organization and fan base:

Estevan Florial: 26.0
Juan Soto: 25.1
Oswaldo Cabrera: 24.9
Austin Wells: 24.5
Anthony Volpe: 22.7

8. Once Jasson Dominguez returns in the summer, the Yankees have the ability to use this lineup:

DJ LeMahieu
Juan Soto
Aaron Judge
Jasson Dominguez
Gleyber Torres
Anthony Rizzo
Giancarlo Stanton
Austin Wells
Anthony Volpe

Here is a real lineup the Yankees used in September:

Estevan Florial
Aaron Judge
Gleyber Torres
Austin Wells
Anthony Volpe
Jake Bauers
Oswald Peraza
Oswaldo Cabrera
Everson Pereira

9. In the past, Soto has said he prefers to hit third. Whether he still feels that way and if it will be Judge then Soto or Soto then Judge in the Yankees lineup is now the team’s biggest offensive problem. For long stretches of last season, Josh Donaldson, Giancarlo Stanton, Willie Calhoun, Harrison Bader and Jake Bauers took turns hitting second and third. The team has come a long way since late last night.

10. I don’t think the Yankees traded for Soto with the idea of taking one shot at ending the championship drought with him on the roster. I think they made this move with the idea they will do whatever it takes to extend him (unlikely with Scott Boras as his agent) or re-sign him. Ideally, the Yankees would pay him before the other 29 teams have a chance to, but if they aren’t able to (and I don’t think they will be able to with the way Boras operates) then at least they have a season together to lay the groundwork needed to keep him a Yankee for the rest of his career.

The Yankees have passed on too many mid-20s position players in recent years (Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Corey Seager) with their decisions to pass immediately coming back to haunt them. The focus for the Yankees with Soto can’t just be for 2024.

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Thoughts

Dec 7, 2023

Rangers Thoughts Presented by Vintage Hockey: Awful Effort in Ottawa

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The Rangers’ latest winning streak came to an end in Ottawa with a 6-2 loss to the worst team in the Eastern Conference.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. It’s difficult to be upset when the Rangers play as poorly as they played on Tuesday in Ottawa. Sitting atop the Met and the East with the league’s best record by points percentage, it’s easy to brush aside games and efforts like the one the Rangers produced against the Senators.

2. Playing the East’s last-place team after a day off, the Rangers fell behind 2-0 in the first period on goals by Brady Tkachuk and Claude Giroux. Artemi Panarin cut the deficit in half 39 seconds into the second period on the power play when he threw a shot into traffic from the point, and the puck found the back of the net like it alway seems to do off Panarin’s stick.

3. Five minutes later, the Senators answered with a goal from old friend Vladimir Tarasenko, who scored to make it 3-1. (Tarasenko added a empty-netter as well because why wouldn’t he? Every ex-Ranger has to score against hte Rangers. That’s the rule.) Twenty-two seconds after Tarasenko made it a two-goal game again, K’Andre Miller scored to trim the Senators’ lead to 3-2. But that’s all the Rangers would get for the rest of the game, as the Senators’ three-goal second was too much to overcome.

“The second period was a track meet,” Peter Laviolette said. “I mean, it went up and down the ice at 100 miles an hour. One way going 100 is fine, but the other way, we have to have better reads and better decisions coming out of offensive zone play.”

4. The Rangers allowed five-plus goals for a second straight game and it was their fourth time allowing four-plus goals in their last six games.

“There’s things we did that didn’t give ourselves the best chance at being successful,” Laviolette said. “I think that they’re easy things to fix.”

Too many odd-man rushes against, too many turnovers and general sloppy play is what I think Laviolette is referring to as the Rangers were outplayed by the East’s worst team.

5. “Obviously, we didn’t like how we played,” Jacob Trouba said. “You’re going to have some games like that.”

Trouba is right, every team is going to have “some games like that,” even the Rangers who have played .750 hockey through the first quarter of the season. That’s why it’s hard to do anything other than “turn the page” like Trouba also said.

The loss was one of 82, just like the other regulation losses this season to Columbus, Nashville, Dallas and Buffalo were. The only issue is when you read through the names of those teams, outside of Dallas, the Rangers clearly have an issue playing down to their opponent’s level.

6. Ottawa is in last in the conference, Columbus is in second-to-last and Buffalo is right behind Columbus. (The Rangers needed a game-tying goal with 11 seconds left in regulation and a shootout win the last time they played Columbus to avoid being 0-2 against the Blue Jackets.) Nashville has played better of later, but the Predators are unlikely to be a postseason team. The Rangers have also lost to the West’s fourth-worst Wild (a game in which the Rangers blew a three-goal lead) and barely eked out a win against the league-worst Sharks last weekend.

7. Now you could argue some of those losses have been negated by wins over Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Detroit. Yes, the Rangers have come out on top against the best teams they have played (aside from Dallas), but it would be easier to stomach some of their losses if they weren’t letdown performances against the worst teams in the league.

That is about as much complaining as one can do about the Rangers right now, and it’s not even really complaining since it’s just the truth: the Rangers have not played well against bad teams.

8. To the Rangers’ credit, they played on Saturday night in Nashville, returned home to play on Sunday night at the Garden, had Monday off and then played in Ottawa the following night. Three games in four days in Tennessee, New York and Canada is not nothing.

9. It was another multi-point game for Panarin, who now has 13 of those in 24 games. Miller scored for the third time in the last four games and fourth time in the last six games, Adam Fox (who you would never know missed 11 games) picked up a point as well. That was about all the good from the game.

10. After having a back-to-back last weekend (Nashville and San Jose), the Rangers will have another this weekend in Washington D.C. and home against Los Angeles. They will play back-to-backs every weekend in December. The quick trip to play the Capitals will be followed by three straight home games and six of the next eight at the Garden.

The Rangers had recorded at least one point in 17 of their last 19 games before the loss in Ottawa. They will look to add to their East-leading point total and avoid losing back-to-back games for the first time this season on Saturday against the Capitals.

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Thoughts

Dec 5, 2023

Rangers Thoughts Presented by Vintage Ice Hockey: Artemi Panarin Puts Sharks in Place

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

After a mid-week win over Detroit and a Saturday night win in Nashville, a Sunday night home game against league-worst San Jose was set up to be a trap game for the Rangers.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. I was worried about the Rangers and their league-best record hosting the Sharks and their league-worst record. Having played the previous night in Nashville and playing for the third time in five days, I had visions of David Quinn walking out of Madison Square Garden holding his head up high with a smile on his face after knocking off his former employers. Thankfully, Artemi Panarin put my fears to rest, handed the Quinn’s Sharks another loss and pushed him a little closer to the door in San Jose.

2. Panarin produced his league-leading 12th multi-point game of the season (in just 23 games), scored his fifth career hat trick, added an assist and the Rangers won 6-5.

“He leaves you speechless sometimes,” Mika Zibanejad said of Panarin. “I couldn’t be happier having him on our team.”

Panarin is up to 35 points in 23 games and a 125-point pace over 82 games. He has never scored more than 32 goals in a season and he’s one away from being halfway to that total with more than 70 percent of the season to play.

“He’s been outstanding,” Vincent Trocheck said of Panarin. “He’s taken another step, somehow, and he was already a world-class player.”

3. In what was a wild game, the Rangers overcame two deficits, blew a one-goal lead and nearly blew a two-goal lead.

“It was loose defensively, but we can’t make excuses about that,” Trocheck said. “We have back-to-backs all the time in this league. Whether it’s a great team or a team that’s maybe not in a playoff spot, you still have to come out the same way.”

4. The Rangers’ first deficit came 3:50 into the game when Anthony Duclair undressed Jonathan Quick with a breakaway deke to give the Sharks a 1-0 lead. The former Ranger who was traded away as a 19-year-old rookie is now a 28-year-old vet, having played for seven teams within the last decade. There’s a chance he could return to the Rangers later this season as he has been a popular name tied to the team as a potential trade deadline target, and I’m all for bringing him back to where he started.

5. Five minutes after Duclair opened the scoring, the Rangers tied it on the power play with Panarin’s first on the night — a wrist shot from the point through traffic. The Sharks regained the lead less than four minutes later, and then just 34 seconds after the Sharks scored, Panarin tied it at 2. Zibanejad scored his sixth of the season at 16:42 of the first period in what was the final goal of a five-goal first.

The Sharks got a power-play goal at 9:16 of the second to tie it at 3, and later in the period, Will Cuylle broke the tie with his first goal in 10 games (and his first point in nine).

“He’s a young player who gives everything he’s got every night,” Peter Laviolette said of Cuylle. “He’s learning, but he’s off to a good start.”

6. Jonny Brodzinski got a chance to play with Zibanejad and Chris Kreider in his latest and best attempt to stick in the NHL, and he didn’t disappoint with his second straight two-assist game. The four-point weekend and the chemistry with Zibanejad and Kreider will certainly give Brodzinski an extended look in the Rangers’ top-six.

“He had a really good training camp,” Laviolette said of Brodzinski. “He was generating lots of scoring chances, attempts, pucks at the net and doing lots of good things.”

7. The Rangers extended their lead in the third, making it 5-3 on Panarin’s third of the game, and then 6-3 on K’Andre Miller’s fourth of the season. With a three-goal lead, the remaining 6:56 seemed like a formality, especially with the Sharks as the opponent, but a couple of turnovers at the top of the offensive zone led to Sharks’ goals at 14:38 and 15:50 to cut the Rangers’ lead to 6-5. Fortunately, there was nothing more after that.

“They made it interesting in the end,” Zibanejad said. “We’ll take this win and these four points this weekend.”

8. “Give our guys a ton of credit,” Quinn said. “They came ready to play tonight and had a chance to tie it late.”

Yes, the Sharks came ready to play, allowing six goals and losing on the road for the 11th time in 12 rod games his season.

The win improved the Rangers to a ridiculous 18-4-1 on the season and 9-0-1 in their last 10 games against the Sharks.

“It’s a good feeling,” Panarin said. “We look pretty good right now. I hope we can play this way all year.”

9. For as good as the Rangers have been this season, and they have been unbelievable, it’s hard not to think ahead to their eventual postseason berth and what type of team they will be come April. At this point, the Rangers playing in April is a given. They have a 97 percent chance to make the playoffs as of now, which represents the highest odds in the Eastern Conference. With 37 points through 23 games, playing .500 hockey for the rest of he season would give them more than enough to reach the playoffs. For now, I will try to stay in the moment and enjoy this magical run.

10. Next up is a game in Ottawa on Tuesday, and then another weekend back-to-back in Washington and home against Los Angeles. Nine games over the next 19 days before Christmas break with five of them at home and all nine in the Eastern Time Zone. After a grueling, ugly schedule over the first two months of the season, the schedule finally favors the Rangers, and so far thy have made the most of playing at home and on the East Coast. I don’t expect them to stop now.

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Thoughts

Nov 25, 2023

Rangers Thoughts Presented by Vintage Ice Hockey: Three Wins in Four Days

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

The daunting three games in four days schedule sandwiched around Thanksgiving for the Rangers resulted in three wins. The Rangers won in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and then knocked off Boston in New York.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. After blowing a two-goal lead, allowing six unanswered goals and losing to Dallas 6-3 on Monday night, the Rangers bounced back with a 1-0 win in Pittsburgh. It was the Preseason Problems Game as Alexis Lafreniere’s goal 5:10 into the game stood up with Jonathan Quick making 32 saves for his second shutout in five starts as a Ranger. Those two were the ire of many Rangers fans for their late-September and early-October play, but their performance in actual, meaningful games that count have served as a reminder that the preseason is meaningless.

Quick made five power-play saves and one shorthanded save in the game, but no save was bigger than him getting a piece of Sidney Crosby’s wrister as the Penguins legend was left alone in the slot in the final minute of play. Evgeni Malkin found Crosby by himself and as a Rangers fan (and Rangers +100 money line bettor), my heart momentarily sank.

2. The Rangers had a rather quick turnaround from Wednesday night’s win to Friday’s early-afternoon game in Philadelphia. Earlier in the week, it was shocking to see the Flyers sitting in second place in the Met. Sure, they had played more games than teams right behind them, but still, it’s the Flyers, and they suck. Seeing them in second place through six weeks whether teams had games in hand on them or not is not something anyone should have expected at this point. It only took a day’s worth of the Rangers beating up on them and the rest of the division getting back into action for the Flyers to tumble to down the standings.

This one was over rather quickly. Mika Zibanejad scored just 45 seconds into the game, for his third of the season, first in November and first in 25 days.

One minute and eight seconds later, the Rangers scored again. Travis Sanheim threw the puck in front of his own net and it was as if he were wearing a Blueshirt as it was placed perfectly on Chris Kreider’s tape. Kreider banged it home to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead. MSG quickly panned to the Flyers’ bench where John Tortorella looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world other than behind his team’s bench.

Just under eight minutes into the second, Zibanejad scored again. Here is what I wrote about Zibanejad on Wednesday:

One of these games, Zibanejad will go off, net a hat trick and get right back to being his usual self. With the season 20 percent over, it would be nice if that happened in the near future, and no better time than this week where the Rangers will play three games in four days and five games in eight days. This is the most opportune time for Zibanejad to start finding the back of the net.

He came one shy of a hat trick, but the two-goal game was a welcome sight. In 27:41 of play against the Flyers, Zibanejad doubled his season goal total, and with a three-goal lead against this Flyers team, the remainder of the game was a formality in an eventual 3-1 win.

A day later, the Rangers were back home for the first time in nearly two weeks to host the Bruins in a battle of the Eastern Conference’s best. It was a game that drew my attention when the schedule was released in the summer, and a game that saw its attention grow exponentially over the first fifth of the season.

3. With Igor Shesterkin having played in Philadelphia, Quick was given the start in the second game of the back-to-back, and it was another quick start for the Rangers’ offense as well.

Nick Bonino scored his first goal as a Ranger when he gathered the puck near the top of the circles, spun around and wristed it past Linus Ullmark to give the Rangers a 1-0 at 5:58 of the first. Five minutes later, the Rangers extended their lead to 2-0 with Kreider picking up a rebound on the power play. The Bruins responded to the early deficit by calling timeout. The Bruins looked like nothing like advertised through the first 12-plus minutes of the game as they didn’t record their first shot until there was just 7:21 left in the period. It’s quite possible (and extremely likely) they took advantage of landing in New York in the early evening on Friday and having a night out in the city. But whatever Jim Montgomery said to them during that timeout changed their play and demeanor. The Bruins tied the game with goals 22 seconds apart. Then it was Peter Laviolette’s turn to call a timeout.

“There was a rollercoaster of emotions in the way that the game was played, and that was one of them,” Laviolette said. “To me, just to stop the game to reset, it’s now back to even, back to work.”

I figured the Rangers may collapse the way they have so many times in recent seasons with two-goal leads in game. They had just blown a two-goal lead and lost four days earlier in Dallas and it wasn’t that long ago they blew a three-goal lead and lost in Minnesota. When Erik Gustafsson went off for hooking with 1:34 to go in the first, a two-goal lead becoming a one-goal deficit seemed inevitable.

But 15 seconds after Gustafsson went off, the Bruins turned the puck over at the top of the offensive zone, Kreider fled the zone and Jacob Trouba hit Kreider in stride for a breakaway. Kreider, the last person you ever want on a breakaway, finally converted one for a shorthanded goal and the Rangers had the lead back.

“It was a great read by Jacob, ” Kreider said. “Nice pass right on the tape.”

4. The lead didn’t last long. The Bruins began the second period on the same power play and when the Rangers failed to clear the puck near the blue line, the Bruins turned it into a 3-on-1 below the top of the circles. David Pastrnak hesitated, got Quick to open his five-hole and jammed it past him to tie the game.

The game remained tied for more than 16 minutes of play, until a delayed Bruins penalty turned into a 6-on-5 for the Rangers, which turned into Jimmy Vesey’s fourth goal of the season. About three minutes later Mika Zibanejad left a drop pas for K’Andre, who walked into it with all 6-foot-5 of his body and blasted a ridiculous slap shot past Ullmark. 5-3 Rangers.

“That was back and forth, a lot of emotions probably from both teams,” Laviolette said. “I thought the guys showed a lot of resiliency.”

5. It was the best and worst game of the season. Best in terms of putting up a 7-spot on the league’s second-best defense (the Rangers entered the game first in the league in terms of goals against average) and beating the Rangers’ direct competition for the East’s 1-seed by three goals. It was the worst because of the blown two-goal, two blown leads and uneasiness of the Rangers’ own defense from the midway point of the first period through the second period.

This time the Rangers wouldn’t blow the lead though. 5-3 became 6-3 on Tyler Pitlick’s first as a Ranger. A minute later, the Bruins cut it to 6-4, but two minutes after that, Artemi Panarin slammed the door, making it 7-4, which is how it would stay. (After three straight pointless games, Panarin had a goal and two assists against the Bruins.)

6. “Doing that against a Top 2, Top 3 team in the league is always nice,” Miller said. “It shows we have a pretty good team.”

Not just a “good team” but the best team in the Eastern Conference. The Rangers lead the Met by nine points. They have lost in regulation once (Dallas) in more than five weeks. They have only twice (Dallas and Minnesota) in six weeks (and they held a multi-goal lead in both games). The Rangers started the season 2-2 and are 13-1-1 since.

7. “Our guys are going into a game expecting to win, expecting to play a certain way,” Laviolette said. “And if we do that, we can see the results. Today, I think was just a little but more challenging because of the schedule that we’ve been in.”

The schedule is something I wrote about on Wednesday:

The Rangers’ schedule has been rather odd to this point. After a pair of road games and a pair of home games to begin the season, they went on a 10-day, three-time zone road trip in which they went west (Seattle), east (Calgary), north (Edmonton), west again (Vancouver) and east again Winnipeg), They returned home for one game and then went back on the road and out of the time zone for one game in Minnesota. (Why not just play in Minnesota after Winnipeg?) Then they played three home games before having six days off. Now they are on a road trip that covers New Jersey (OK, not really a road trip), Dallas, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

When you’re winning, like the Rangers have been, it makes a frustrating and outrageous schedule less of an annoyance.

8. “I still don’t think we’ve played our best hockey yet,” Miller said, “which kind of scary and fun to say at the same time.”

I think Miller is somewhat right. The Rangers have played their best hockey, it just happened to come on opening night in Buffalo. That performance is likely to never be duplicated as it was the best and most complete effort from the Rangers in a decade. It’s scary that they are capable of that level play, and it’s even more scary that they haven’t come close to matching it and have a 15-3-1 record.

10. “We worked hard,” Laviolette said. “We worked smart to secure the two points.”

That’s all the Rangers seem to do: secure two points. Now the crazy schedule to date loosens up a bit as the Rangers remain home for two more games (Buffalo and Detroit), and then the schedule softens with back-to-back games next weekend at Nashville and home against San Jose. A lot of favorable opportunities over the next week to secure two points.

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Podcasts • Rangers • Rangers Podcast

Nov 22, 2023

Rangers Podcast: Important Week Awaits

The Rangers will play five games in eight days. Their opponents will be the Penguins, Flyers, Bruins, Sabres and Red Wings.

Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!

Beginning on Wednesday, the Rangers will play three games over four days and five games in eight days. Their opponents will be the Penguins, Flyers, Bruins, Sabres and Red Wings. The Rangers could get Adam Fox back next week, and hopefully, during these challenging eight days, Mika Zibanejad will break out of his scoring slump.