The Yankees keep talking about how they are trying to win home-field advantage for the best-of-3 series, but they’re clearly not trying their hardest.
The Yankees keep talking about how they are trying to win home-field advantage for the best-of-3 series, but they’re clearly not trying their hardest. If they were, why was Michael King starting or opening on Monday night against the Blue Jays? It was a perfect opportunity to give Clarke Schmidt his first major league start, and instead, the Yankees went with the guy who has pitched a combined 14 innings over four starts/opens this season with an 8.36 ERA.
The Yankees are headed to the postseason and can use the last week of the regular season to set up and plan for it.
The Yankees are going to the postseason. It’s something we have known since Opening Day when it was announced the postseason field would be expanded to eight teams. Now it’s official and the Yankees can use the last seven games of the regular season to get ready for October.
The Yankees are headed back to the postseason. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees with a week left in the season.
The Yankees will be playing baseball in October. The moment the postseason field was expanded to eight teams they were going to be playing baseball in October, but now it’s official.
Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. The Yankees’ winning streak had to come to an end at some point. Unfortunately, it came to an end against the Red Sox and the Yankees finished the season series 9-1 against their “rival.” I use that term loosely now since the Red Sox were bad last season, horrendous this season and there doesn’t seem to be a timeline on when they migth be good again. For the forseeable future, the Yankees and Yankees fans will have to worry about the Rays and Blue Jays.
2. The AL postseason field is essentially set: Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, White Sox, Twins, Indians, A’s and Astros. The order of the teams isn’t set, but those are the eight teams. With only seven games left for the Yankees and six for other teams, it seems as though they will be the 4-, 5-, 6- or 7-seed, and that means they will likely not face the Astros, Indians or Blue Jays, leaving the Rays, White Sox, Twins and A’s as possible opponents in the best-of-3. My preference for the best-of-3 opponent in order: Twins, White Sox, A’s, Rays.
3. It’s crazy the postseason begins in eight days and it’s sad the Yankees’ season could be over in nine days. It feels like the baseball season is just beginning (because it pretty much is) and now it’s over. And once it’s over it will be back to an offseason hiatus after this past offseason lasted nearly nine months. The postseason is about winning a championship, but it’s also about extending the season and shortening the offseason as much as possible. A series win in the best-of-3 means at least another three games and another week of baseball. A series win in the ALDS means at least another four games and another week of baseball and so on. I’m not ready to go back to a baseball-less world after this past offseason.
4. I agree with Aaron Judge in that I also hate the playoff bubble. I get why the league has to do it and I understand that any positive test could ruin the postseason, I just hate the fact October will be decided in neutral stadiums, even if there would be no fans at teams’ actual stadiums. If the Yankees get through the best-of-3 series and get into the bubble, are they going to wear pinstripes for their “home” games? I hope not. Just wear the road grays for every bubble game. Again, if they get there.
5. Rob Manfred has alluded to the eight-team postseason format becoming a permanent thing. The second it was implemented this season, it was going to be a permanent thing. Did anyone think the owners, who proved they could care less about the actual game or the integrity or long-term future of the sport this year, were going to not want more guaranteed postseason money after 2020? If it were up to the owners, all 30 teams would make the postseason and play a month-long, bracket-style tournament to decide the World Series. They don’t care that a 16-team postseason field would render the regular season meaningless and destroy their fan base over six months as long as they get that guaranteed money in October. They don’t care if regular-season ratings and attendance (when it’s allowed again) decline. Guaranteed postseason money and the most possible postseason games is what drives their decision making.
6. As a Yankees fan, a permanent eight-team postseason means the Yankees will never miss the playoffs. Never. There’s no chance the Yankees aren’t a Top 8 team in the AL in any season. The last time the Yankees weren’t a Top 8 team in the AL was back in 1992. Even when Lyle Overbay was batting cleanup every day in 2013 or in 2016 when they sold and finally gave in to a rebuild, they were still a Top 8 team. It also means it will be signfiicantly harder for them to win a championship with the additional best-of-3 series. I hate everything about the eight-team postseason format. The one-game playoff in the current five-team format is awful enough, but letting more than half the league into the postseason is the worst possible idea.
7. After J.A. Happ laid an egg against the Phillies in the first week of August, I wrote J.A. Happ Can’t Start Another Game for Yankees and recorded a podcast titled Remove J.A. Happ from Rotation. I stand by both of those. If given enough chances, Happ would eventually turn in some good starts, and he was given those chances because of money owed and the Yankees’ refusal to let Clarke Schdmit take his rotation spot. Since that clunker against the Phillies, Happ has been very good in six starts: 37.1 IP, 27 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, 36 K, 4 HR, 1.93 ERA, 0.857 WHIP. Now only one of those starts has come against a postseason team (Toronto), a team only going to the postseason because of the ridiculous eight-team format, and the other five have come against the Mets (2), Red Sox (2) and Orioles. Happ has been great of late, but his competiton hasn’t been, and I don’t trust him for a second come October. He could throw a perfect game with 27 strikeouts this week and I still wouldn’t feel confident in giving him a postseason start. The lineups he will face in the postseason are nothing like the four lineups he has shut down over these last six starts. Unfortunately, Jordan Montgomery has been mediocre to bad to horrible in the majority of his starts and the Yankees don’t have another choice other than to let Happ start with no days off in either the ALDS or ALCS.
8. There’s not anyone out there who still thinks Mike Tauchman is a better player or better for the Yankees than Clint Frazier, right? Unless you’re part of Tauchman’s immediate family, you can’t think that. Even if you’re a relative of his, but not in his immediate family, you can’t think that. Frazier has solidifed his role in the 2020 Yankees’ starting lineup and has likely made it so that one of Tauchman and Brett Gardner aren’t on the 2021 Yankees. (I would pick Gardner over Tauchman.) Along with DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit, he has carried the Yankees’ offense, has vastly improved his defense and has become a complete, all-around player. Now maybe the Yankees will stop batting him at the bottom of the order and several spots behind Aaron Hicks when the “A” lineup is used.
9. I have a bad feeling. A very, very, very bad feeling Hicks will bat third in the postseason against a right-handed starter. The Yankees did it last year with Gardner and it might have cost them the ALCS with his first-inning at-bat in Game 3 against Gerrit Cole with Gleyber Torres inexplicably batting fifth. The Yankees have a lot of options and different ways they can construct their Top 6 for the postseason. It shouldn’t include Hicks. It shouldn’t, but it will.
10. Erik Kratz’s inning of work on the mound was easily a Top 5 moment this season. It might even be Top 3. Everyone loves Kratz. I have called for him to be the Yankees next manager as early as next season. (The Yankees already handed over their team in the middle of a championship window to a manager with no managerial or coaching experience, why not do it again?) But I’m rescinding that wish and wish for him to be re-signed as a third catcher/reliever for 2021. Between his knuckleball and his 81-mph fastball that kept Red Sox hitters off balance (aside from J.D. Martinez who sucks so bad now he can only hit against position players), to me, Kratz is the most trusted current Yankees reliever after Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Chad Green, Adam Ottavino and Jonathan Loaisiga. I might even trust him a little more than Chapman and Ottavino. But I certainly trust him more than Jonathan Holder, Luis Cessa, Michael King and Nick Nelson. I’m not kidding. Give me that knuckleball over those four.
My wife Brittni and I welcomed our first child Cameron this week, and he has never seen the Yankees lose a game and has never seen a Yankee get injured.
These thoughts are late. They were supposed to be posted after the Yankees swept the Blue Jays, but it’s been a busy week in the Keefe household where my wife Brittni and I welcomed our first child Cameron. I’m currently writing this on about five hours of total sleep over the last six days as this week has sort of just been one long day.
One thing that has helped with my lack of sleep between 20-minute naps has been the Yankees’ current nine-game winning streak. A week ago I was worried about the Yankees holding off the Orioles, Tigers and Mariners. Now I’m worried about them once again having home-field advantage for the best-of-3 wild-card series.
My son (when will that stop being weird to say?) has never seen the Yankees lose a game. Never. In his world, the Yankees are undefeated. All he has known are wins, record-setting home runs, making history and embarrassing the Red Sox at Fenway Park. I’m jealous.
Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. I spent the majority of the week sleeping in a hospital chair and my back started to feel like Aaron Hicks’ after that 35-minute bus ride in spring training last year. I was able to quickly recover though, and my timeline wasn’t delayed by two-and-a-half months. I did manage to catch a quick nap in the actual hospital bed when the nurse briefly removed my wife from it, and in the moment, I would have signed off on a 10-year, $150 million deal for Tyler Wade for that nap. It was worth it. So worth it. Not only would I have been OK with a decade of Wade, I would have been OK with the Yankees retiring Nick Swisher’s number, giving him a monument in Monument Park and naming him manager.
Even as I was learning how to care for a newborn, changing my first diaper (I had been practicing on a stuffed animal, which is just a little easier than a human with no core melting down and crying) and trying to find the right amount of force for burping, I still managed to watch the Yankees-Blue Jays series. Those are the Yankees I thought we would see in 2020. Cameron Keefe hasn’t had to live in a world where Jordy Mercer is playing shortstop for the team with the highest payroll in the league. He hasn’t had to watch Michael King open a game, Luis Avilan try to protect a lead or Mike Ford bat third. He has only ever known winning and he has only ever known Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton as healthy and available players. What a world to live in.
2. Is Cameron the Yankees’ good luck charm? Since his birth, the Yankees are 4-0. They swept the Blue Jays on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then beat the Red Sox on Friday. The Yankees outscored the Blue Jays 43-15 in the three games and then came back down four runs to improve to 8-0 against the Red Sox this season. I think he is.
3. Since Cameron was born on Monday night, the Yankees have gotten completely healthy. On Thursday, the Yankees had their first day of the 2020 season in which no players were on the 10-day disabled list. With newest Yankees fan Cameron in the world, the Yankees returned Judge, Stanton and Gio Urshela from the injured list. The Yankees are at full strength, which is something I never thought they would be this season.
4. Cameron’s birth has coincided with Aaron Boone finally figuring out how to create a lineup. On Friday, Boone put together this lineup:
DJ LeMahieu, 2B Aaron Judge, RF Giancarlo Stanton, DH Luke Voit, 1B Gleyber Torres, SS Aaron Hicks, CF Gio Urshela, 3B Gary Sanchez, C Clint Frazier, LF
It’s not perfect and I would make a few adjustments, but compared to what Boone ususally comes up with when the Yankees are healthy, it’s night and day. I’m proud of Boone. Maybe he is growing as a manager. Judge and Stanton batting back-to-back is something I expected to see for many years, and then the Yankees scrapped it early in Stanton’s Yankees’ tenure deciding it would be a good idea to separate their best hitters with Hicks or Brett Gardner. I’m happy to see Boone and the analytics department have come to their senses. (There’s a good chance that lineup will only be used against left-handed pitching and I will have to retract my praise for Boone.)
5. Cameron has been around for four games and he has already seen history as the Yankees hit 19 home runs over a three-game span, which had never been done in major league history. On top of that, the Yankees homered five times in an inning on Thursday, something no Yankees team has ever done.
6. As President of the Gary Sanchez Fan Club, I have long defended the oft-criticized Yankees catcher. I have gone out of my way to support a player who was hitting .127/.243/.322 through Sunday. Since Cameron was born on Sept. 14, Sanchez is 6-for-18 with two doubles, three home runs and nine RBIs. His double on Friday night ignited the Yankees’ comeback and his game-tying home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth saved the game and their winning streak. Sanchez is batting .333/.368/.944 with Cameron here and looks like 2016-17 Sanchez. He can thank Cameron for that 1.313 OPS.
7. I don’t care about individual awards, except for the batting title. My care for the batting title comes from growing up needing to watch every Derek Jeter at-bat and needing to check the box score to see what he did in any games I missed. I was disappointed when DJ LeMahieu was unable to become the first player in history to win the batting title in both leagues last season after Tim Anderson won it despite missing 40 games. This season, though, LeMahieu is right there once again to accomplish the feat, and once again he will need to fend off Anderson to do so. Since Cameron was born, LeMahieu is 9-for-18 and leads Anderson .367 to .365 in the batting race. In addition to the .500 average over the last four games, LeMahieu has hit four doubles and four home runs with 10 RBIs to go with four walks. LeMahieu is awesome and an MVP candidate and was so before Sept. 14, but his game seems to have gone to another level since then.
8. The Yankees could win the next five World Series and Brian Cashman could retire some day with 10 rings as general manager, and trading Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos for Luke Voit and international bonus slot money will go down as the pinnacle of his front office career. Voit has had a glorious season and has been one of the season-long bright spots for the Yankees. But since Sept. 14? 7-for-19 (.368), one double, four home runs and 10 RBIs. Voit now leads the majors with 20 home runs and is on a 69-home run, 162-game pace.
9. I was a month old when my biggest fear came true: a Mets-Red Sox World Series. It’s a Yankees’ fan’s nightmare. There are no positive outcomes. One team has to win. Thankfully, I don’t have memories of it, and thankfully, it hasn’t happened again. I’m sure as a Yankees fan my dad was disappointed for his second son’s first World Series to be between the two most hated teams. Cameron will be spared the same matchup this October with the Red Sox having been eliminated in the first week of the season and the Mets having had another Mets season.
10. Winning in September is fun and all, but winning in October is what matters. Right now, Cameron thinks his father is always happy watching baseball and that the team in home pinstripes or with “New York” written across their chest on their road gray uniforms always wins. Well, he would think that if he knew I wasn’t just a guy who brings him a bottle when he cries and struggles to change his clothes or if he knew what baseball was or if he knew what pinstripes were or if he could read.
Cameron will be in for a rude awakening in 10 days when the real season begins and when the guy who brings him bottles when he cries and struggles to change his clothes is no longer enjoying the colorful lights on the black rectangle on the wall. He will be surprised when the laughter of the Yankees going back-to-back-to-back against Blue Jays pitching is replaced with fear when the opposing team gets the leadoff runner on in any inning.
Cameron is a Yankees fan. He was born into it. Here’s to him experiencing as much winning being one as I have.
This week has been wild, so the picks are going to be short and sweet, which doesn’t leave much for me to congratulate myself on a 8-7-1 start to the season.
This week has been wild, so the picks are going to be short and sweet, which doesn’t leave much for me to congratulate myself on an 8-7-1 start to the season. Week 2 is the hardest week of the entire season because everything you thought you knew about the league’s 32 teams was likely changed in Week 1 and now you only have one week of information to base your opinions and picks on.
(Home team in caps)
CLEVELAND -6 over Cincinnati If the Browns can blow out the Bengals at home on a short week then it’s going to be another long season for them.
NEW YORK GIANTS +5 over Chicago Can the Giants avoid 0-2 for the fourth straight season and the seventh time in the last nine? I doubt it. But I think they can keep the game close enough to possibly pull of an upset.
San Francisco -7 over NEW YORK JETS There will be a time this season when the line gets so high that I will have to pick the Jets to cover. We aren’t there yet.
Atlanta +5.5 over DALLAS We might see a 7-9 team could out of the NFC East this season. The Giants, Eagles and Cowboys all lost in Week 1 with only the Redskins winning. The Giants and Washington Football Team will likely lose in Week 2, the Eagles could lose and the Cowboys could as well. The Giants could be 0-2 and be a 1/2 game out of first. Go Falcons!
MINNESOTA +3.5 over Indianapolis Kirk Cousins is so unbelievably bad that he has to be the most overpaid athlete relative to performance. The Vikings’ window might have already close, but I’m willing to give them another week for me to find that out.
TAMPA BAY -8 over Carolina I would like to know how many times Tom Brady has lost back-to-back games. I could look it up, but I know it’s a low number. It might be even once. It’s not happening here.
Rams +1.5 over PHILADELPHIA The Eagles blew a 17-0 lead to Washington and cost me a four-team parlay. I still hadn’t learned that you can’t trust the Eagles, but now I know.
Buffalo -6.5 over MIAMI The Bills’ defense is enough for me to possibly not pick against them all season.
GREEN BAY -6.5 over Detroit The Lions blew yet another game under Matt Patricia and the Packers continued where they left off last season after going to the NFC Championship Game. Per usual, I have a hard time believing in the Lions.
PITTSBURGH -6.5 over Denver The Broncos aren’t good. That’s all.
TENNESSEE -7.5 over Jacksonville I really like the Titans. I would like them more if Ryan Tannehill weren’t their quarterback, but Mike Vrabel (my favorite head coach in the league) has turned him into an actual quarterback and an actual threat. The Titans’ defense against Gardner Minshew seems almost too easy.
Arizona -7 over WASHINGTON I like this Cardinals team and I like them even more after their upset win on the road over the 49ers. As for Washington, they cost me a monetary win last week, but they hand the Eagles an all-important divisional loss if the Giants are ever able to compete for a postseason berth this season.
Kansas City -8.5 over LOS ANGELES CHARGERS There will never be a day when I pick Tyrod Taylor to cover a spread against Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs could be -28 and I would take them and would be fine with losing the pick if they didn’t cover.
Baltimore -6.5 over HOUSTON I won’t be picking the Texans to cover against any even somewhat decent team this season. Against a Super Bowl contender? Nope.
New England +4 over SEATTLE It’s so weird to see Cam Newton in a Patriots uniform and not see Brady as their quarterback. It will never not be weird. It’s also weird to see the Patriots as much as four-point underdogs.
New Orleans -5.5 over LAS VEGAS I hate picking Saints games. I either pick them to cover and they screw me, or I go against them and they screw me. After last week’s win I don’t have a choice.
