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Blogs • Off Day Dreaming • Yankees • Yankees Postseason

Sep 26, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Draw Best Possible ALDS Opponent

This is it. The Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.

This is it: the Yankees’ final off day of the 2019 regular season. The Yankees have three games remaining and then it’s the postseason. Growing up, this time of year was always a given as a Yankees fan, and for the third year in a row, it’s back to being a given.

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

1. The goal of being the 1-seed and having home-field advantage for the American League playoffs won’t be accomplished. The Yankees trail the Astros by three games in the loss column, which means four games overall for the 1-seed, and with the Yankees only having three games left, the Yankees will be the 2-seed in the AL. The Yankees also now trail the Dodgers by a 1/2 game for home-field in a potential World Series.

It’s still possible the Yankees could have home-field for both the ALCS and World Series. The Astros could get upset in the ALDS by the Rays, A’s or Indians (I wouldn’t count on it) and the Yankees could either finish with a better record than the Dodgers, or the Dodgers could get upset as well. But if the Yankees advance to the ALCS, plan on them playing the Astros.

I wanted the Yankees to have home-field in the event they reach the ALCS and play the Astros because I think they need it to win. The 2017 ALCS was completely lopsided in favor of the home team, the Astros have the best home record in baseball this season (60-21) and Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole have been nearly unhittable in Houston, though they have been nearly unhittable everywhere. The Yankees have had success against this Astros core in New York, and it was these Astros who admitted to being intimidated by the Yankee Stadium crowd in the postseason. The Yankees can beat the Astros, but it would have been easier to do so with the first two games, and four of the seven games of the ALCS at home.

Now the Yankees are either going to need to have an unlikely upset in the other ALDS or do something they have a lot of trouble doing in Houston: hitting, scoring and winning.

2. I’m scared of Verlander in the postseason, but I’m just as scared of Cole, who has better strikeouts numbers than Verlander, and who the Yankees have seen a lot less of in recent years.

I stayed up on Wednesday night to watch the Astros-Mariners game (because I had an Astros-A’s two-team parlay), and during the broadcast, there was a graphic shown about Cole and how for more than four months now he is first in every single pitching category in the league.

Cole was originally drafted by the Yankees, but chose to attend UCLA instead, and was later redrafted by the Pirates. The Yankees unsuccessfully tried to trade for him before the 2018 season, but the Astros landed him, and he helped lead them to the ALCS, before laying an egg, which helped the Red Sox advance to and win the World Series.

I can’t help but envision Cole shutting down the Yankees in the ALCS the way he was unable to shut down the Red Sox last season, and then watching the Yankees greatly overpay to sign him in the offseason only to have him come to New York and be more like the pitcher the Pirates dealt than the one the Astros acquired. That seems like something that would happen. Then again, the Yankees probably won’t sign him in the offseason, opting to once again shop from the starting pitching clearance rack.

3. The type of game we saw from the Yankees on Wednesday night against Charlie Morton and the Rays is the exact type of game that keeps me up at night for fear of it happening in the postseason. The Yankees’ right-handed heavy lineup (missing two more right-handed hitters in Gary Sanchez and Edwin Encarnacion) was completely shut down by Morton for six innings and the Rays’ bullpen for the final three. The Yankees were one-hit in the game and managed to score only one run in the 21 innings in the two-game series. For now, I’m going to chalk it up as just two games of 162 at a time when the Yankees are just trying to go through the motions and stay healthy against a team with everything to play for still.

Morton has owned the Yankees away from Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees have owned him in New York (like they did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALCS), only further proving how much better the Yankees are at home than on the road. Wednesday night’s game was essentially a duplicate performance of Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS for Morton. In that game, Morton shut out the Yankees for five innings, only allowing two hits, before Lance McCullers Jr. came in and threw 100 straight curveballs to finish the game.

The Yankees and Yankees fans should be extremely grateful Morton is no longer on the Astros. Outside of Verlander and Cole, he’s been arguably the best pitcher in the AL. It’s bad enough the Astros’ third starter is Zack Greinke, but if it were still Morton, the Yankees could pack up the bats and balls and try again next season.

4. It’s hard to put a lot of stock into how badly the Yankees have played recently, and they have played badly, going 7-7 since their unnecessary bullpen management loss in Detroit back on September 10, because they haven’t been using their best possible lineup and have been avoiding using their elite relievers.

I’m not worried about the team playing poorly at the end of the regular season because nothing that has happened this month and nothing that will happen in the last three games of the season this weekend will matter come next Friday night at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could be on a 15-game winning streak or 15-game losing streak heading into October and it wouldn’t matter, and the team’s lack of hitting this week against the Rays, doesn’t worry me. I have long been worried about the offense disappearing in the postseason like it did in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS, and the last two games didn’t change that.

5. With each game the Yankees use a lineup that features Brett Gardner and Didi Gregorius breaking up the right-handed bats, the more nervous I get about this sort of lineup being used in the postseason. I don’t know who actually creates the lineup, and I highly doubt it’s Aaron Boone, but whoever it is, Gardner and Gregorius can’t be hitting anywhere other than the bottom third of the lineup. This isn’t the 2017 postseason when the Yankees had Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Starlin Castro to hide. The lineup is too good, whether it’s right-handed heavy or not, to have those two batting anywhere higher than seventh.

If Gardner and Gregorius bat where they should, here’s a lineup I think we could see.

1. DJ LeMahieu, 1B
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Gleyber Torres, 2B
4. Giancarlo Stanton, LF
5. Edwin Encarnacion, DH
6. Gary Sanchez, C
7. Didi Gregorius, SS
8. Gio Urshela, 3B
9. Brett Gardner, CF

I don’t agree with Stanton batting ahead of Encarnacion or Sanchez, but the Yankees are going to hit Stanton at least fourth and possibly even third. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Gregorius bats ahead of Sanchez because the Yankees desperately like to hit inferior hitters ahead of superior hitters whenever they can.

6. This lineup doesn’t include Luke Voit, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to play. Between Voit, Encarnacion and Urshela, two of the three will play. I think you need Urshela in the lineup, not only because he’s earned it, but because he’s been so good at third base, that even if he were to stay in his current slump in October, his glove is enough to keep him in the lineup. That leaves the final lineup between Voit and Encarnacion.

Encarnacion will return to the lineup this weekend in Texas and try to get as many at-bats as he can in the three-game series (though I’m sure the Yankees won’t let him play in all three games) to get ready for the postseason. As long he shows he’s healthy, he’s going to play.

Voit, on the other hand, claims he’s healthy and over the hernia injury that landed him on the injured list twice, but he hasn’t hit since returning nearly a month ago. Voit is batting just .222/.341/.375 over 85 plate appearances with two home runs since the end of August and has looked overmatched most of the time. He still has a .383 on-base percentage and an .856 OPS on the season, but you have to go back to the end of July to find the last time he was truly a feared, middle-of-the-order presence. If Encarnacion is healthy, Voit is on the bench to begin the postseason.

7. It can be worrisome to be the 1-seed and have had nothing to play for in weeks and suddenly be playing a postseason game against a team that has been in Game 7 mode for as long as you have been coasting. The Twins are a lot like the Yankees in that they have known for a while they are going to the postseason, even if they didn’t officially clinch the AL Central until Wednesday. Now the Twins can sit back and relax, like the Yankees have been doing, and play spring training lineups and wait for next Friday.

Despite not being the 1-seed and not having home-field advantage no matter what and not getting to face the wild-card winner who will have had to play an extra game and burn their best starter to get to the ALDS, I think the Yankees ended up with the best possible first-round matchup.

I’m not scared of the Twins. Not at all. This doesn’t have to do with the Yankees historically owning the Twins and eliminating them in five postseasons since 2003. This has everything to do with the Twins having the weakest starting pitching in the AL postseason field. If the Yankees were to lose to them, it wouldn’t just be an upset, it would be an absolute disaster. The Yankees would claim it’s the result of a short series and small sample size and the MLB postseason being a crapshoot, but it can’t happen. The Yankees can’t lose in the ALDS.

8. The best chance the Yankees have of not seeing the Astros in a potential ALCS is if the A’s win the wild-card game. The Astros would steamroll both the Rays and Indians, but I could see an A’s upset of the Astros, and from a gambling perspective, there would be a lot of value in taking the A’s series money line.

The A’s took three of four from the Astros in Houston two weeks ago and have won six of the last eight against them. The two teams know each other the same way the Yankees and Red Sox do, and there wouldn’t be any surprises in a series between them.

A series which wouldn’t have been allowed prior to the five-team postseason format is the last thing the Astros want after earning the 1-seed. It’s the only real ALDS matchup which could end the Astros’ season early or at least screw up the order of their rotation for the ALCS.

9. The Yankees are going to finish the season with either 102, 103, 104 or 105 wins depending on how the weekend in Texas goes in what will also be the last three games ever at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

It’s been a fun six months and an enjoyable season, the third in a row, after the previous three out of four were miserable. But now the real season begins. Everything since March 29 has been to prepare for next Friday night in the Bronx and Game 1 of the ALDS, and if the season doesn’t end the way the last nine have failed to, nothing since March 29 will have mattered.

10. This was the 19th and final Off Day Dreaming of the regular season. There will be a similar blog after each postseason game this October as there has been in past postseasons.

Thank you for reading Off Day Dreaming throughout the regular season on the worst days of any Yankees season: off days. The next regular-season Off Day Dreaming will be on Friday, March 27, 2020.

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

Blogs • Giants • NFL • NFL Picks

Sep 26, 2019

NFL Week 4 Picks

A win in Week 4 and the Giants will have their fans believing in the team and thinking they could possibly go to the playoffs, only to be let down once again later in the season.

I know what’s happening with the Giants because I have lived it many times.

The Giants start 0-2 and then win a couple of games to reel me back in after I gave up on them and the season. Then they lose a couple of games and I feel like an idiot for getting tricked by them. Then they win a couple more games and I fall for their postseason chances once again, all while at the same time injuries in the NFC East and poor play from the rest of the conference has cleared a path for the Giants to potentially reach the playoffs despite being a mediocre-to-bad team.

I have lived that exact season in many Giants season and it’s happening again.

The Giants were blown out in Week 1 and embarrassed in Week 2 before being gifted a win in Week 3. Now they have a home game against a defense as bad as theirs and an offense that is nowhere near theirs, even without Saquon Barkley. There’s a very real chance the Giants could be and should be 2-2 after this week, and with the Eagles at 1-2 facing a tough matchup and the Cowboys going on the road to New Orleans, the Giants could be in second place and one game back in the division on Sunday.

But then the other shoe will drop, the way it always does. The Giants will lose to the Vikings and Patriots in Weeks 5 and 6 to remind everyone who these Giants really are. But then they will bounce back against the Cardinals at MetLife and possibly in Detroit as well, finishing up with the Cowboys and Jets before their bye.

I thought the Giants were going to leave me alone this season. I thought this season was going to be about Daniel Jones gaining valuable experience and the team being bad enough to get defensive help near the top of the 2020 draft. But now it’s definitely going to involve me trying to map out the remaining schedules for all NFC teams with postseason chances and trying to find a path for the Giants to play in January.

I can see this unfolding from a mile away. I want to be strong enough to not fall for it, but the Giants are the most persuasive bad major professional sports team there is.

(Home team in caps)

GREEN BAY -4 over Philadelphia
In order for the Giants to toy with my emotions and waste three-plus hours of 13 of the next 14 Sundays for me, they’re most likely going to need some help. Considering their defense, they’re definitely going to need some help. That means having other NFC East teams and other average NFC teams losing. The Eagles are one of those teams.

I’m sure the Eagles and their fans had Super Bowl aspirations entering this season and probably still do. If not for Alshon Jeffrey tipping that eventual interception up in the air in the divisional round, the Eagles might have returned to the Super Bowl and might have even won it. They were good enough to.

But now the Eagles are 1-2, after coming up short on their final drives against the Falcons and Lions in back-to-back weeks. Six of their next seven games are against Green Bay, Minnesota, Dallas, Buffalo, Chicago and New England. The easiest of those is on the road against the undefeated Bills. Outside of Week 5 against the Jets, it’s a gauntlet. The Eagles’ season isn’t in trouble yet, but it’s headed that way. Because I’m on my way to believing in the Giants again, I’m going to need the Eagles pushed out of the way.

New England -7 over BUFFALO
For last week’s 23-point line in the Patriots-Jets game, I wrote:

This line could be 35 and I still couldn’t take the Jets. I get that it’s ridiculously high and if the Jets were to ever find the end zone even once it might complicate things since their defense is solid, but I don’t think they’re going to find the end zone on offense. Maybe on defense or special teams, but that can’t be counted on.

The Jets’ special teams and defense did both find the end zone to impact the line and cover for the Jets, but I would still give the 23 points every time.

The Bills might have a strong defense and an improved offense, but they’re still the Bills, and they’re still playing the Patriots. I will be rooting for the Bills to win, but I certainly can’t pick them to cover here.

Tennessee +4 over ATLANTA
The Titans have let me down after their impressive Week 1 win in Cleveland. Then again, the Browns are nowhere near as good as people thought they would be because they added Odell Beckham, and the Titans look to be the same 7-9 or 8-8 team they usually are. The Titans can turn their season around with winnable games the next three weeks, starting in Atlanta this week. The Falcons are also trying to save their season, but as always, I will be rooting against them not to.

BALTIMORE -6.5 over Cleveland
The Ravens are the real deal. The Browns aren’t. I laughed at those who picked the Browns to go to the AFC Championship and laughed harder at those who picked them go to the Super Bowl. Even picking the Browns to be a playoff team should have warranted some laughs with the way they have looked through three weeks.

If 10 wins gets you a playoff berth, and the Browns have one win, it’s hard to find where they are going to get nine more wins in 13 games. They do have Cincinnati and Pittsburgh twice and Miami once, but that would only get them to six. They would still need three more wins from a schedule which includes Baltimore twice, San Francisco, Seattle, New England, Buffalo and not necessarily easy matchups on the road at Denver and Arizona.

The Browns might have Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry and Nick Chubb, but everything about them says they’re a seven- or eight-win team.

The Ravens, on the other hand, are a playoff team and the likely NFC North champion. For now, they don’t appear to be a real threat to the Patriots or Chiefs for the AFC, but they’re levels above the Browns.

Kansas City -6.5 over DETROIT
Nothing sums up the chaotic nature of football more than the Lions’ first three games.

In Week 1, they blew an 18-point fourth-quarter lead to a rookie head coach/quarterback combination and eventually tied. In Week 2, they won a defensive matchup against the much-better-on-paper Chargers. In Week 3, they went to Philadelphia and held off the Eagles for a three-point win thanks to a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown and a pair of recovered fumbles.

Anyone who has watched the Lions this season would find it absurd that anyone would ever wager money on football. But to that I say, the unlikely outcomes and unpredictable results like the three Lions games have had is exactly why gambling on football is so fun.

When it comes to picking Kansas City games, if I’m going to go against them, I’m going to need at least a touchdown, and most likely more.

HOUSTON -4.5 over Carolina
Panthers fans have to feel more confident with Kyle Allen as their starting quarterback than with Cam Newton, right? In his second career start, and really first actual start since the Week 17 game against New Orleans last season was a formality game for both in advance of the postseason, he was outstanding. Allen threw four touchdown passes and looked like something Newton hasn’t in a long time.

Newton won’t play again this week and Allen will start. I have never listened to North Carolina sports radio, but if Allen plays well again, I think I’m going to have to check it out. I want nothing more than for there to be a quarterback controversy with the Panthers.

INDIANAPOLIS -6.5 over Oakland
I like this Colts team. They have a solid defense and possibly the best offensive line in the league, and when you have that combination, wins will follow, no matter if your quarterback is Andrew Luck or Jacoby Brissett. The Colts have followed up their season-opening overtime loss at the Chargers with impressive wins at Tennessee and over Atlanta. The Colts were a playoff team with Luck last season and I think they are again without him this season. The Raiders shouldn’t be getting anything less than a touchdown against playoff teams.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS -15.5 over Miami
Normally, I don’t take the Chargers when they have to leave California and the Pacific Time Zone, but exceptions have to be made when it comes to games involving the 2019 Dolphins.

I don’t trust the Chargers to cover in this game and it wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up as an unbelievable upset. But there’s just no way I can take the Dolphins, who have scored 16 points total in three games to cover any sort of spread, especially when they are losing on average by 39 points.

NEW YORK GIANTS -2.5 over Washington
I know what’s happening here because I have lived it many times. The Giants start 0-2 and then win a couple of games to reel back in all of their fans who gave up on them and the season. Then they lose a couple more games and those fans who were reeled back in feel like idiots. Then they win a couple more games and those idiots are once again tricked into believing because injuries in the NFC East and poor play from the rest of the conference has cleared a path for the Giants to potentially reach the postseason despite being a mediocre-to-bad team. It’s happening again.

The Giants were blown out in Week 1 and embarrassed in Week 2 before being gifted a win in Week 3. Now they have a home game against a defense as bad as theirs and an offense that is nowhere near theirs, even without Saquon Barkley. There’s a very real chance the Giants could be and should be 2-2 after Sunday. And with the Eagles at 1-2 facing a tough matchup and the Cowboys going on the road to New Orleans, the Giants could be in second place and one game back in the division.

But then the other shoe will drop, the way it always does. The Giants will lose to the Vikings and Patriots the next two weeks to remind everyone who these Giants really are. But then they will bounce back against the Cardinals at MetLife and possibly in Detroit as well, finishing up with the Cowboys and Jets before their bye.

I can see this unfolding from a mile away. I want to be strong enough to not fall for it, but the Giants are the most persuasive bad major professional sports team there is.

ARIZONA +5 over Seattle
The Seahawks beat the now-winless Bengals by one point at home then beat the Ben Roethlisberger-less Steelers by two points on the road and then lost to the Drew Brees-less Saints. The Seahawks aren’t any good, but that’s what happens when most of your salary cap is tied up to your quarterback. Everyone needs to stop thinking of the Seahawks as the defense-led team which won the Super Bowl, and start thinking of them as a team that’s been average since they built their roster around Russell Wilson.

LOS ANGELES RAMS -9.5 over Tampa Bay
The Buccaneers lost to the Giants. When you lose to the Giants, you should be getting no less than double-digit points the following week, especially when you have to fly across the country to play the defending NFC champions.

Minnesota +2 over CHICAGO
This game should be played the exact same by each team: run-first offense combined with great defense. The Vikings and the Bears are similarly built and both led by untrustworthy quarterbacks. The Vikings have more playmakers on offense, while the Bears have more on defense. It’s about as even of a matchup as you could ask for.

The Vikings giving up the usual third point as a road team in a divisional matchup says a lot, and as long as Kirk Cousins doesn’t run the game, the Vikings should win. But thinking Cousins won’t ruin a game is like thinking Mitch Trubisky won’t ruin a game. I will probably regret this pick the first time Cousins drops back against the Bears’ pass rush.

Jacksonville +3 over DENVER
Gardner Minshew got his first career win and the Jaguars got their first win of the season, and now they both have a 10-day layoff to get Minshew more acclimated as the starting quarterback. With Nick Foles, I have to think the Jaguars’ Week 1 loss to Kansas City is much closer and that they score more than 12 points and probably win in Week 2 against Houston. But at 1-2, their season is still alive, and with their defense, they will have a chance each week, even without Foles. It’s never easy going on the road to Denver, but it’s a little easier going against this year’s underwhelming Broncos’ offense.

NEW ORLEANS +2.5 over Dallas
After waxing poetic about Teddy Bridgewater in last week’s picks, he went out and led the Saints to a win on the road in Seattle, where it used to be impossible for road teams to win. Bridgewater threw two touchdown passes and didn’t turn the ball over, playing the exact way he did when he led the Vikings to the playoffs in 2015.

The Cowboys have yet to be tested after getting the awful defenses of the Giants and Redskins in Weeks 1 and 2 and then the Dolphins, who might be the worst team in the history of the NFL, in Week 3. The Cowboys are good, but they’re not undefeated, class-of-the-NFC good. Right now, they’re riding high, and probably thinking they’re the cream of the crop in the NFC, as their fans are, but this week in New Orleans should be a nice wake-up call for them after having the easiest opening schedule through Week 3 in the league.

Cincinnati +4 over PITTSBURGH
Nothing says Monday Night Football like two 0-3 teams battling to be the less embarrassing franchise.

Last week: 9-7
Season: 23-25

Sep 23, 2019

Off Day Dreaming: Yankees Set Postseason Rotation

Joe Torre always said he wanted his best starting pitcher going in the pivotal Game 2 of any postseason series. This postseason, the Yankees will have their best starting pitcher going in Game 2.

It’s the last week of the regular season. The last week! There are only five regular-season games remaining for the 2019 Yankees and then next Friday night they will open the postseason at Yankee Stadium.

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

1. The Yankees announced the upcoming end-of-the-season rotation and it goes James Paxton followed by Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka, which means that will be the order of starters in the ALDS. I recently wrote in the last edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Power Rankings that I wanted it to go Severino then Paxton then Tanaka, but I’m fine with the way they set it up.

It does worry me that everyone seems to have forgotten the Paxton we saw in March, April, May, June and July and seems to think the one we have seen in August and September is guaranteed to show up in Game 1. Those same people are likely the ones who think Severino can’t be trusted in Game 1 because he has only pitched nine innings this season, which to me, makes him more trustworthy. It’s essentially the end of spring training or the beginning of the season for Severino, and he’s not tired from a season’s worth of work. Look at how dominant he has been early in the season the last couple years and that’s the Severino we’re getting now. But with this setup, Severino is either going to have a chance to put the Yankees up 2-0 in the ALDS or avoid them going down 0-2 before leaving New York. Joe Torre always said he wanted his best pitcher in Game 2 and that’s why Andy Pettitte — the winningest pitcher in postseason history — would pitch that game. The Yankees have their best pitcher going in Game 2.

2. After the first edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Power Rankings, James Paxton went out and got rocked by the Red Sox (4 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 4 HR) and his ERA rose to 4.72 on the season. But since getting embarrassed in Boston, Paxton hasn’t lost, winning 10 straight for an undefeated August and September after the Yankees lost all five of his July starts.

Over this nine-game winning streak, opposing hitters are batting .167/.241/.273 against Paxton as he’s beaten the Red Sox twice, Indians and Dodgers along with the pesky offenses of the Rangers and Blue Jays twice. He’s looked like the pitcher I thought the Yankees traded for and not the pitcher who gave them four-plus months of mediocrity to begin the season.

In the first edition of the rankings, after he struggled through the first four months of the season, I wrote: He has two months to change my mind, and he has a lot to do in those two months to change it. Well, he’s changed it.

Earlier this season, YES showed an interview of Paxton talking about how he wants to be a Yankee and wants to pitch where he’s expected to win. He will now get that chance at the end of next week in Game 1 of the ALDS.

3. I really missed Severino this season and his return has made me realize how much I love everything about him. I love his demeanor and pace, his velocity and control, his command and attack of the strike zone. He throws a pitch the ball, gets the ball back and is immediately ready to throw the next pitch. He doesn’t waste time and puts each batter on defense for the entire at-bat. He’s a refreshing presence on the mound, and as close to a guaranteed win as you can get every five days for the Yankees.

In two starts this season, Severino has been dominant (9 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 13 K) and I would have trusted him starting a postseason game without these two performances, but now I trust him more than anyone.

Severino’s 2017 wild-card game disaster came in his first postseason start after throwing a career-high 193 1/3 innings. He bounced back to pitch well in that ALDS and ALCS and again in the 2018 wild-card game before the 2018 ALDS Game 3 disaster, in which he was late to warmup for reasons we will never know. But Severino has yet to really deliver that memorable postseason performance, and it’s likely because in both postseasons he has been a part of, he was coming off six months of career-high work. This time he will be the most rested and freshest starter of the entire postseason field, and has the chance to be the Yankees’ difference-maker in potential series against the Astros and Dodgers.

4. I like Tanaka getting the ball in Game 3. He won’t be scared into melting down on the road and he won’t let the crowd or non-Yankee Stadium mound affect him. He’s proven himself on the road in October with strong starts against the eventual champions in each of the last two seasons. In the hostile postseason environments of Houston (6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K) and Boston (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), Tanaka delivered, and I trust him in Game 3 of the ALDS to either finish a potential sweep of the series, swing the series in the Yankees’ favor or save the season (like he did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS).

5. It seems like the Yankees are going to give the ball to J.A. Happ in Game 4 of the ALDS rather than go with an opener and I really hope they don’t. If Paxton is getting the ball in Game 1 because of what he did this season then there’s no way Happ should get the ball for a postseason game because of what he did this season. I don’t think Happ or CC Sabathia should be starting a playoff game based on their regular-season performances and not counting their postseason starts in the 2018 ALDS which were as bad as possible. Let Chad Green open Game 4 and piece together the remaining 21-24 outs. Don’t let Happ ruin a postseason game in the first inning.

6. I’m scared of three things in the postseason. One of them is the offense disappearing with an abundance of strikeouts, which is what happened in Games 6 and 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS. That can’t be planned for or prevented and all you can do is pray a slump doesn’t occur at the worst possible time in a short. The other two can be planned for or prevented …

7. Didi Gregorius has no business batting third or fourth and Brett Gardner has no business batting anywhere other than ninth in the postseason. I don’t care that they bat left-handed and that they could be used to break up the right-handed bats. They will be the two weakest bats in the postseason lineup and they belong at the bottom of the order.

The Yankees constructed a right-handed heavy lineup, and they have to live with that. There’s no reason to bat either of them ahead of anyone on the Yankees, especially when the lineup is in some order made up of DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit, Edwin Encarnacion and Gio Urshela. Gregorius eighth and Gardner ninth. Don’t build your lineup for some late-innings relief strategy which might not and most likely won’t happen.

8. The other thing which can be prevented is Aaron Boone’s managing. It’s great that the team has won 100-plus games in the first two seasons as manager, but none of it will matter this season like it didn’t last season if he manages this October like he did last October.

There’s no point of needing only 12 outs from your starting pitcher if your manager isn’t going to pull the starting pitcher at the right time and utilize the bullpen in the order it’s meant to be utilized. Boone ruined the ALDS last season when he left Severino in too long in Game 3 and Sabathia in Game 4. He then doubled-down on his egregious decisions to leave both starters in too long with the relievers he brought in to follow them.

I’m most scared of the Astros’ deep lineup and starting pitching and it will be the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to winning a championship this season. But after that, I’m scared of Boone managing the Yankees out of the playoffs. Until he shows he’s learned from his mistakes and is a capable postseason manager, it’s hard to think otherwise.

9. It seems like Yankees fans suddenly started caring about home-field advantage in the postseason after the Yankees clinched the division. They should have been worried about it all along. The division has never been a problem. I wrote back on July 1 that the Yankees clinched the division, following the two games in London. Even if it took them another two-and-a-half months to make it official, they were always going to win the division. Home-field has been the bigger issue these last two-plus months, and now it’s no longer an issue since the Astros are going to win it.

The Astros have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Yankees for home-field because of the head-to-head tiebreaker, and with only five games left to play for the Yankees, even if they won them all, they still might not win it. And it’s going to be hard to win them all since they said the Goof Troop of 40-man relievers would be doing the pitching in the two-game series in Tampa this week.

So if the Yankees and Astros meet in the ALCS, the first two games of the series will be in Houston as the Astros will get four of the seven games at home. The Yankees will have to figure out a way to beat Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole or Zack Greinke on the road, and also take care of business at home. Yankees fans will want to root as hard as they are for the Yankees in the postseason for the wild-card winner to win the other ALDS matchup.

10. My expected record for the Yankees in September is 15-10. They are currently 13-7, which means they have to finish at least 2-3 to meet expectations.

The Yankees have 102 wins and only need to win one of their remaining games to match the 2009 Yankees’ 103-59 record. But if the postseason doesn’t end with a win like it did for the 2009 Yankees, it won’t matter.

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

Blogs • Giants

Sep 23, 2019

Giants-Buccaneers Week 3 Thoughts: Daniel Jones, Defense Get Game-Winning Gift

I want this to be the beginning of the Giants’ return to being competitive, but for that to happen, the defense is going to have to greatly improve, no matter how well Daniel Jones plays.

I was supposed to be at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday. I was going to go Tampa to watch the Giants play the Buccaneers and then see the Yankees play the Rays at Tropicana Field during the week. When the Yankees decided they would play spring training lineups until the playoffs started and the Giants proved to be as bad as ever in the first two weeks of the season, I canceled my trip. It didn’t make sense to go all the way to Florida to watch my teams play meaningless games.

Then last Wednesday happened and Pat Shurmur announced Daniel Jones as his starting quarterback, effectively ending Eli Manning’s career, and I began to think about if I should uncancel the trip to see the official start of a new era of Giants football. But that thought was quickly wiped away by the visions of the Buccaneers going up and down the field at will against the Giants defense, the way every other offense has against the Giants since the start of the 2017 season. I ultimately decided I didn’t want to be in the building for the first game in the post-Manning era, and I would rather see if the quarterback attached at the hip to the job of the Giants general manager and head coach was capable of playing in the NFL from my couch.

I didn’t know how to feel for Sunday’s game. As a Giants fan, I want Jones to succeed so that the Giants can play meaningful football past Week 3 in future seasons, but I don’t want Shurmur or Dave Gettleman to be part of the organization for future seasons, and if Jones succeeds then they stay. As a Manning fan, I don’t want the Giants winning a game or games changing the narrative to the reasons behind this multi-season mess and the blame then being pinned on the best quarterback in franchise history because of it. It’s quite the predicament and it created a weird way of watching Sunday’s game. Tiki Barber’s glowing praise for Jones and subtle shots at Manning combined with his glee for getting to broadcast a game in which Manning was the backup didn’t help matters.

I was impressed by Jones in his first real NFL action. He exceeded expectations from a stat perspective, throwing for 336 yards and two touchdowns, while rushing for two touchdowns as well, and also from a poise and demeanor standpoint, never looking out of place as a rookie making his first career start. It wasn’t all good as he lost two fumbles, but it was mostly good and certainly more good than bad. It was the first time in more than two seasons, Giants fans could feel good about their team and the future of their team, and it was the first time ever Giants fans could feel good about something Gettleman and Shurmur have ever done for the Giants. Though Shurmur would try to erase any goodwill he had for the day late in the game with weekly nonsensical challenge. (At least his failed challenge attempt was on a play that could actually be challenged. Progress!)

Jones’s memorable debut and the Giants’ first win of the season was made possible by Buccaneers kicker Matt Gay’s horrific game in which he missed two extra points and a would-be, game-winning 34-yarder. Without Gay’s awful day, the Giants would be 0-3 and it would have been another loss made possible by the Giants’ embarrassing defense, which was picked apart in the final minute of the game to set up Gay’s eventual miss. But instead of another crushing fourth-quarter loss, the Giants were finally on the right side of a time-expiring field-goal attempt.

The story today is Jones and should be after his impressive debut and his go-ahead, seven-yard touchdown run on fourth down with one minute and 16 seconds left in the game. But the story should also be the Giants’ defense, which allowed 499(!) yards and did everything it could to give away another game. It’s hard to look at the win in a positive light without recognizing it was completely gifted to them by Gay, and it’s hard to feel entirely good about it when the defense looked the worst it has all season, and continues to get worse rather than better as the season progresses. Overall, a win is a win, and when you record as few of them as the Giants have over the last two-plus seasons, you take them in any way you can get them, even if it’s because the opposing kicker missed two extra points and a 34-yarder to win the game.

The Giants won a game on a fourth down play Manning isn’t capable of making: a seven-yard run. They won a game they haven’t been fortunate enough to win in a while: on a missed field-goal attempt. They won a game, which is something they haven’t done much of for a long time. I want this to be the beginning of the Giants’ return to being competitive, but for that to happen, the defense is going to have to greatly improve, no matter how well Jones plays.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Postseason

Sep 20, 2019

Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings: Fourth Edition

The third edition of the power rankings was supposed to be the last edition to figure out the postseason rotation, but there needs to be a fourth edition because there needs to be a fourth starter.

The first edition of the Yankees’ Postseason Rotation Power Rankings was on July 23. The second edition was on September 3. I wrote that the third edition on September 18 would be the last edition, but there now needs to be a fourth edition because there needs to be a fourth starter.

Game 1: Number 40, Luis Severino, Number 40
I love everything about Luis Severino. I love his demeanor and pace, his velocity and control, his command and attack of the strike zone. He throws a pitch the ball, gets the ball back and is immediately ready to throw the next pitch. He doesn’t waste time and puts each batter on defense for the entire at-bat. He’s a refreshing presence on the mound, and as close to a guaranteed win as you can get every five days for the Yankees.

I saw all I needed to see from Severino on Tuesday night in his season debut (4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) to give him the ball in Game 1 of the postseason. Everything was working for him over four shutout innings and it was the exact kind of start the Yankees are looking for from each of their starters in the postseason: two times through the order or 12 outs, whichever comes first.

It doesn’t matter to me that Severino was facing an inferior opponent with a losing record, and one he won’t see in October. It was his first time on a major league mound since Game 3 of the ALDS and he looked like he hadn’t missed the first five-plus months of the season. Pitching under a limit of about 75-or-so pitches, that limited will be extended the next time Severino pitches (likely on Sunday against the Blue Jays) and extended again in his final regular-season start (Game 162 against in Texas). That would line him up on to pitch Game 1 of the ALDS on Friday, Oct. 4 on normal rest.

Like David Cone said on YES during Tuesday’s game, the Yankees don’t need to have Severino stretched out for something crazy like 120 pitches. They only need him to get 12 outs or throw however many pitches it takes to go through the order twice. He was able to do that on 67 pitches against the Angels, and 12 of them came in the first at-bat of the game.

Most likely, the Yankees are thinking the way I am given the way the schedule and calendar plays out and why Severino was brought back to start on Tuesday night. Back on July 23, in the first edition of these rankings, I wrote: It would be a lot easier if Luis Severino would return this season and return as his 2019 first-half self. My wish was granted. Severino in Game 1.

Game 2: Number 65, James Paxton, Number 65
After the first edition of these rankings, James Paxton went out and got rocked by the Red Sox (4 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 4 HR) and his ERA rose to 4.72 on the season. But since getting embarrassed in Boston, Paxton hasn’t lost, winning nine straight for an undefeated August and September after the Yankees lost all five of his July starts.

Over this nine-game winning streak, opposing hitters are batting .170/.251/.282 against Paxton as he’s beaten the Red Sox twice, Indians and Dodgers along with the pesky offenses of the Rangers and Blue Jays. He’s looked like the pitcher I thought the Yankees traded for and not the pitcher who gave them four-plus months of mediocrity to begin the season.

In the first edition of the rankings, after he struggled through the first four months of the season, I wrote: He has two months to change my mind, and he has a lot to do in those two months to change it. Well, he’s changed it.

Earlier this season, YES showed an interview of Paxton talking about how he wants to be a Yankee and wants to pitch where he’s expected to win. He will have his chance to meet those expectations in Game 2.

Game 3: Number 19, Masahiro Tanaka, Number 19
Twice I wrote: Masahiro Tanaka could pitch to a 15.10 ERA for the rest of the season and I would still give him the ball in Game 1 of the ALDS. Tanaka has proven his worth in the postseason in three different postseasons now with the worst of his five starts being two earned runs over five innings in a game the Yankees were never going to score in let alone win (2015 AL Wild-Card Game against Dallas Keuchel). But that was before the return of Severino and Paxton pitching to his ability for an extended period of time as a Yankee.

That doesn’t mean Tanaka can’t start Game 1 or that I would be upset if he did. I still trust him explicitly, even if advanced metrics suggest he’s been the same pitcher in the postseason as the regular season, with a little more luck, while his postseason success has been attributed to a small sample size.

Tanaka won’t be scared into melting down on the road and he won’t let the crowd or non-Yankee Stadium mound affect him. He’s proven himself on the road in October with strong starts against the eventual champions in each of the last two seasons. In the hostile postseason environments of Houston (6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K) and Boston (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), Tanaka delivered, and I trust him in Game 3 to either finish a potential sweep of the series, swing the series in the Yankees’ favor or save the season (like he did in Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS).

Game 4: Number 57, Chad Green, Number 57 Chad Green
The Yankees have no choice other than to go with an opener as a starter in Game 4. Do you really want CC Sabathia or J.A. Happ starting? Not unless you’re the team opposing the Yankees in the postseason. Unfortunately, I could see the Yankees going with Happ as a regular starter or going with Sabathia for two innings before I could see them going with Green and using their entire bullpen for a full game, which is essentially what they did in the 2017 wild-card game.

Aside from the egg Green laid on August 15 against Cleveland (0.1 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 2 HR), he’s been outstanding in the opener role. Only in three of his 14 “starts” has he allowed runs as the Yankees have gone 12-2 in games Green has opened.

My preference would be to have Green go one inning and maybe two innings depending on how he looked in the first inning. Then I would go right to the bullpen. Get 18-plus outs from Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman. Worry about the next game when you get there.

This season, Green has either been dominant or a disaster with very little in between. He’s either looked like he did in 2017 or given up a crooked number while only getting an out or two. The opener plan with Green starting the game is far from a guarantee, but there’s no such thing as a guarantee in the postseason.

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