Scott Reinen of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about everything the Yankees need to figure out before the postseason.
There are only two weeks left in the regular season, but the Yankees still have a lot to figure out before the postseason. Between setting up the postseason rotation, sorting out the postseason roster and figuring out who will be in the postseason lineup, the final 16 regular-season games will be eventful.
Scott Reinen of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the Yankees’ recent lineups and bullpen management if they’re trying to win home-field advantage in the postseason, which ALDS opponent would be the easiest for the Yankees, the return of Luis Severino, Dellin Betances and Giancarlo, who should be in and out of the postseason lineup and what Yankees fans should be worried about the most heading into October.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
The Yankees might have lost to the worst team in baseball, but they were able to rest some of their best players and pitchers, and to the Yankees, that is more important than winning home-field advantage.
When it was announced that Nestor Cortes would start (or open) for the Yankees on Tuesday and when the lineup against the Tigers was posted and DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge and Luke Voit weren’t in it, I shook my head in disbelief like Lee Trevino in Happy Gilmore. The Yankees were once again trying to erase a game on their schedule rather than trying to win home-field advantage for the postseason.
The Yankees have made it clear in recent weeks they aren’t going to go all out to win home-field advantage, but now they aren’t even trying to win. With an eight-game division lead and only 16 games remaining, the Yankees are being managed as if they have won everything when they haven’t won anything. It was bad enough when Boone managed the season finale against the A’s like a mid-March game in Florida, but Tuesday night’s managing took the Yankees’ late-season, huge-division-lead approach to a whole other level.
It began with the decision to start Cortes, a pitcher the 2018 47-win Orioles didn’t want, and someone who was bad when the Yankees called him up and somehow has gotten progressively worse. Entering Tuesday, Cortes had a 5.13 ERA and 1.468 WHIP this season and has managed to remain not just in the Yankees’ system all these months with those numbers, but on the major league roster. With an opportunity to sweep the worst team in baseball and put the pressure on the Astros to keep pace, the Yankees were giving the ball to Cortes for his major league start. Cortes lasted 2 1/3 innings and was pulled after he put seven batters on and turned a six-run lead into a two-run lead.
Next up was Luis Cessa, who entered Tuesday with a 3.80 ERA from 80 appearances in the lowest of low-leverage situations. He has somehow picked up quite the number of fans this season, who seem to have short memories when it comes to Cessa having any success and who seem to be OK with disregarding his career as a whole, only focusing on his ability to protect seven-run leads in the eighth and ninth innings or hold six-run deficits in the middle innings. Cessa, trying to hold a small lead on Tuesday, failed to do so like he has so many times in his career, and the Yankees’ early six-run lead was erased. (The lead might have been saved if not for a Gleyber Torres error, but could the pitching staff pick up their star middle infielder for once after all the times he has picked up the pitching staff this season? Instead, Torres would later pick himself up with a solo home run to retake the lead.)
After Cortes and Cessa made the six-run lead disappear like the magicians they are, Cory Gearrin was next out of Boone’s bullpen. Gearrin, who was let go by the 59-win Mariners, has become a Boone favorite, pitching just about every other day since becoming a Yankee in late August despite pitching to a 6.48 ERA. Gearrin faced three batters and two of them singled. With an 8-7 lead in the sixth and two on with one out, the situation called for a strikeout from one of the Yankees’ actual major league relievers. Or at least it would have if the Yankees were actually trying to win. Instead, Jonathan Loaisiga got the call.
Single, sacrifice fly, single, walk, walk is how Loaisiga’s night went. He allowed both inherited runners from Gearrin to score and one of his own for good measure. The Yankees had lost leads of 6-0 and 8-6 and Boone had seen enough. To stop the bleeding he went to the one and only Ryan Dull.
Dull came to the Yankees with this 2019 line: 9 IP, 19 H, 13 R, 12 ER, 4 BB, 8 K, 4 HR. Throw in the one batter he hit and he put 24 baserunners on in nine innings before becoming a Yankee. Since his September 1 call-up, he had only appeared in one game for the Yankees (1 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K), but here he was, the next in line in a long line of pitchers who don’t belong in a major league bullpen. I have always been for 40-man rosters in September, but this game changed my stance. Give me the 28-man September rosters next season, so the Yankees are forced to be managed to win.
After Dull miraculously recorded an out without allowing a baserunner, the Yankees took the lead back thanks to a two-run home run from Edwin Encarnacion. At 11-10, Boone decided he was going to try to win the game. He went to Adam Ottavino, but after a walk, passed ball and single, the game was once again tied.
Boone stayed with his major league relievers in the eighth, pitching Zack Britton, who had 1-2-3, nine-pitch inning. But then after proving he did in fact want to win the game, Boone went back to his pregame and early-game strategy of using the entire 40-man roster, calling on Chance Adams for the ninth inning. I expected the game to end with a ninth-inning, leadoff, walk-off home run off Adams, but it didn’t end until three batters into the inning. The Yankees might have lost 12-11 to the worst team in baseball, but to Boone and management it was a win: they didn’t pitch Ben Heller, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle or Aroldis Chapman and they were able to give complete days off to LeMahieu and Judge, and that is more important than winning a game or winning home-field advantage for the postseason.
It’s clear the Yankees don’t care about having home-field advantage throughout the postseason. They don’t care to face the wild-card winner in the ALDS after that team will have already burned their best starting pitcher just to reach the ALDS the way the Yankees had to the last two years. They don’t care about facing Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole in Games 1 and 2 of the ALCS in Houston rather than New York and they don’t care about boarding a plane for a cross-country flight to Dodger Stadium for the first two games of a potential World Series to face the second-best home team in baseball. The Yankees are content with being the 2-seed in the American League. They are content with not having any and every edge they can obtain for October. They are content with taking the path in the postseason filled with “Go Back to Start” obstacles.
For a team which allows analytics to drive every decision, how could the Yankees not care about home-field advantage? How could they not remember the toll the wild-card game took on their rotation and bullpen the last two seasons and not want to face the wild-card winner in the ALDS? How could they not see the Astros’ 56-18 home record and feel it would be best to avoid playing the first two games of a series at MinuteMaid Park and an extra game in a series there as well? How could they not remember how the home team won every game of the 2017 ALCS and how could they forget that they scored three totals runs in the four losses in Houston in that series?
The Yankees are setting themselves up for their right-handed heavy lineup, which has a propensity to strike out excessively, to face the two best power pitchers in baseball, who sit 1 and 2 atop the strikeout leaderboard, and who also happen to be right-handed. They are setting themselves up to have to win at least one road game against Verlander, Cole, Verlander again or Zack Greinke. They are setting themselves up to have their entire season ruined because they took their foot off the gas for the final month of the season, playing as if they had clinched the best postseason possibilities when they hadn’t even clinched the division.
There’s certainly the chance the Astros could be upset in the ALDS and don’t reach the ALCS. There’s also the chance the Yankees could upset the Astros in the ALCS despite not having home-field advantage. But the odds of either happening aren’t likely and aren’t in the Yankees’ favor, and the Yankees’ entire organization is based on decisions made to put the odds in their favor. Why is it that the Yankees care about lefty-righty matchups in every situation and extreme defensive shifts tailored to probability percentages, yet when it comes to being the 1-seed in the postseason, something which will decide their season more than anything, they could care less?
The Yankees have determined days off are more important to achieving postseason success than home-field advantage. For a team which now holds the all-time record for the most players put on the injured list in a single season, you would think the players have had enough days off this season. If the Yankees are wrong in their decision to favor days off over home-field, their season will end early for the 10th straight year. At least then, the players can have more days in October off.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
The Giants are now 0-1. One loss closer to another season ending before September does. One loss closer to another losing season. One loss closer to the end of the Eli Manning era.
The first game of a Giants season is special. There’s this feeling of anticipation about what the next four months (or possibly four-plus months) will bring and the expectation that the season at hand might provide a magical and memorable ending. Even going into Sunday’s game, in a season in which the Giants are expected to be one of the worst teams in the league, I began to have that feeling.
Despite everything I have read and said about the 2019 Giants leading up to to their Week 1 kickoff in Dallas, I thought for a moment, Maybe they will be better than I thought. And for a moment they were.
The Giants forced the Cowboys to punt on the season-opening drive, and the Giants took over possession at their own 9 for their first offensive drive of the season. The first play of the Giants’ offensive season was a short pass to Saquon Barkley, and in typical Giants fashion, Barkley, who has never fumbled in his NFL career, put the ball on the ground. It was so Giants it made me laugh. A turnover on the first offensive play of the season in Dallas? It was the same beginning as the 2013 season when Eli Manning threw an interception on the first play of the season in Dallas. Somehow, Eli Penny was able to jump on the ball and retain possession for the Giants, and I thought, Maybe things are going to be different this season.
Barkley took off for 59 rushing yards on the next play, and five plays later, Manning found Evan Engram in the end zone for a one-yard touchdown. The Giants had gone 91 yards in four minutes and seven seconds, never faced a third down and watched their star player pick up 72 yards on the first drive of the season. As a Giants fan, the Barkley fumble resulting in a loss of possession would have made sense. A 91-yard touchdown drive to open the season? As a Giants fan, I didn’t know how to react.
For the first six minutes and 54 seconds of football on Sunday, things were different. The Giants looked like the team ownership promised to the fans, the team Dave Gettleman built despite heavy criticism and the team Pat Shurmur preached about in training camp and the preseason. For the first six minutes and 54 seconds of Sunday’s game, the Giants were better than the Cowboys. Unfortunately, there was still 53 minutes and six seconds of football to be played.
The feeling I had when Engram scored to give the Giants an early lead was the last good feeling of the game. The Cowboys scored touchdowns on their next five possessions in what would eventually be a 35-17 loss for the Giants. It was a depressing, humiliating and disappointing loss. It was the exact kind of game the Giants have provided their fans with since the end of the Tom Coughlin era, the second year of the Ben McAdoo and nearly every week of the Pat Shurmur era.
The Giants trailed 21-7 at halftime after the Giants’ defense allowed three touchdowns and 305 yards. Despite the two-score deficit and lopsided team statistics, the Giants were receiving the ball for the second half and still had a chance to get back into the game. The Giants began the second half on their own 15, and on the first play of the half, Manning hit Cody Latimer for a 43-yard gain to the Cowboys’ 42. After successfully converting a critical fourth-and-8, the Giants were able to move the ball to the Cowboys’ 11 before settling for a field goal. The Giants had cut the deficit to 21-10, and the offense finally looked in sync for the first time since the opening drive.
I’m not sure what went on in the locker room with the defense at halftime, but clearly there weren’t any adjustments made. It took the Cowboys three plays with a 45-yard pass, five-yard run and 25-yard pass to go right down the field and once again open up the game at 28-10.
The Giants were able to march right back down the field themselves, and facing a third-and-2 at the Cowboys’ 8, the Giants decided to run the ball with Penny instead of Barkley, and Penny picked up one yard. Clinging to the smallest of chances to come back in the game, and desperately needing to convert the fourth-and-1 at the 10, the Giants’ play resulted in Manning rolling out to his right, and when the intended receiver Sterling Shepard was covered (more like tackled), Manning had nowhere to go. Rather than try to run the two yards in front of him, Manning froze up, got sacked and fumbled. With the game officially on the line, the Giants chose to not give the ball to their best player and the best offensive player in the league on either play. If Barkley isn’t going to be given the ball when the Giants need one yard, then what’s the point of anything? Twice in the game, the Giants went for it on fourth down and neither time did Barkley get the ball.
The game was a disaster. It went about as well as every Giants game has gone in Dallas for the last seven years aside from 2016. Nearly every snap in the game provided a perplexing moment from the Giants whether it came from the offense, defense or sideline. Between Manning’s intentional grounding and his fourth-and-1 decision to the defense’s entire game to Shurmur to trying to challenge inside of two minutes and just yelling “That’s bullshit” all games at the officials to Daniel Jones fumbling away possession in his NFL debut, the game was an all-out embarrassment.
All I could do at the end of the game was laugh. Laugh at the playcalling for avoiding Barkley and using him as a decoy with the game on the line. Laugh at the defense for thinking they deserve their game checks after allowing a quarterback who can’t throw to pass for 405 yards. Laugh at Shurmur for not knowing the challenge rules and for showing no signs of improvement or adjustment in second season as head coach. Laugh at Dave Gettleman for constructing this team. Laugh at ownership for trying to get Giants fans to buy into the organization’s plan for this season. And more than anything, laugh at myself for even having a second where I thought, Maybe things are going to be different this season.
Sunday’s loss might seem like it was only game, but it wasn’t. It was a continuation of the last two seasons in which nothing has changed when it comes to the Giants. There might be a different general manager and head coach and coordinators and players, but the Giants are the same losing team they have been since the start of the 2017 season.
The Giants are now 0-1. One more loss for a team which has now lost 26 of their last 34 games. One loss closer to another season ending before September does. One loss closer to another losing season. One loss closer to the end of the Eli Manning era and the beginning of the Daniel Jones era.
Ed Valentine of Big Blue View joined me to talk about the Giants’ quarterback controversy and preview the season.
Giants football is back. The Giants begin their 2019 season, in what will be the last season of the longest-tenured player in franchise history, on Sunday afternoon in Dallas. It might be a rebuilding year for the Giants, but there’s a lot to look forward to as the team sets the foundation for the future.
Ed Valentine of Big Blue View joined me to talk about when Eli Manning will be replaced by Daniel Jones, what to expect from the new-look defense, how exactly Dave Gettleman is building the team, improvements Pat Shurmur will make in his second year as head coach and expectations for the team’s record in this season preview.
The Giants have decided the answer to getting back on track and returning to NFL royalty is by pushing Eli Manning out. They have unsuccessfully tried everything else and are down to their last out.
At the 2018 draft, there was the notion the Giants should pick their next quarterback with the No. 2 pick under the premise they wouldn’t be picking at or near the top of the draft again for a very long time. That very long time became the very next season and the 2019 draft.
The Giants didn’t need to draft a quarterback in the first round of the 2019 draft, and they certainly didn’t need to use the higher of their two first-round picks on one. Just because they chose to not select the heir to Eli Manning the year before didn’t mean they had to select him this year. But they did.
The Giants threw away any chance to truly contend in 2019 when they used the sixth overall pick on Daniel Jones. After ridding themselves of Damon Harrison, Eli Apple, Landon Collins and Odell Beckham, the Giants used their best asset to draft a player whose position was already filled on the roster. It made no sense from a personnel or salary-cap perspective to both bring back Manning and use the sixth pick in the draft on a quarterback. Their highest-paid player and highest-picked player now played the same position, of which, only one of them could play at a time.
The surprising moment when the Giants reached for Jones to send nearly the entire fanbase into shock meant the end for Manning. At some point, Jones would take over for Manning, sending the most-tenured player in franchise history to the bench for good. When that point will come is unknown, but with every Giants loss it will be called for. If the Giants lose in Dallas in Week 1: “Start Jones!” If the Giants lose to the Bills in Week 2: “Bench Eli!”
Manning is no playing for his career on a week-to-week basis, a 16-game season of one-game playoffs for the 38-year-old quarterback. The only way for Manning to avoid going to the bench in what’s likely his final season in the league is to win and keep on winning as the Daniel Jones era won’t start as long as the Giants are in postseason contention. The only problem is the front office has once again failed to build a team around Manning capable of postseason contention.
For all of the untimely interceptions and frustrating fumbles Manning has provided Giants fans with over the years, ownership and the front office has failed him many more times than he has ever failed them, struggling to consistently build an offensive line for him to play behind and a defense to hold his leads. No matter what the Giants’ problem or problems have been in this recent slide for the franchise, the blame has always been put on Manning, and he has taken it and accepted it when he has been far from the reason to blame. Now the organization is once asking telling him to play for his career without the necessary pieces to do so. The Giants have given Manning an impossible task, setting him up to fail and ensuring Jones will become the Giants’ starting quarterback this season.
I knew this day would come at some point. No one can play forever, and while I still feel Manning is a starting quarterback and still on the same level as his 2004 draft peers, he hasn’t been given the same opportunity to succeed. Ultimately, Manning is taking the fall for the final years of the Tom Coughlin era, the second and final season of the Ben McAdoo era and the disaster that has been the Dave Gettleman-Pat Shurmur era. The Giants have decided the answer to getting back on track and returning to NFL royalty is by pushing Manning out and giving his job away. They have tried everything else from hiring and firing their general manager and head coach, only to bring in equally-as-bad replacements and they have let those equally-as-bad replacements trade away all of their top talent. The Giants’ last out is to now end Manning’s career, and if that doesn’t work, the equally-as-bad replacements will be replaced as well. Giants fans have to accept the fact Jones is going to replace Manning this season. They don’t have to like it, but they have to accept it. Accept it and pray it works out, or in a few years, ownership will replacing Gettleman and Shurmur and drafting a different heir to Manning.
Sunday is the beginning of the end for Manning. A fate which was decided back on April 25 is now nearing its final stages. Each snap Manning takes could be his last as the starting quarterback of New York Giants, and with each loss, the inevitable will grow closer.
