I nearly shed some tears during Aaron Boone’s spring training opening press conference last week. The near-tears weren’t tears of sadness. No, these tears that nearly came were of happiness.
I nearly shed some tears during Aaron Boone’s spring training opening press conference last week. The near-tears weren’t tears of sadness. No, those came after every one of Boone’s July, August and September postgame press conferences as he lied his way to the end of the season, telling Yankees fans how close his team was to “turning the corner” that never came on a straightaway to a postseason-less year. Instead, these tears that nearly came were of happiness after watching Boone answer questions for more than 28 minutes without fabrication. Like a proud parent watching their child graduate from college after seven years, here was Boone beginning his seventh spring training as Yankees manager and not acting and talking as though his team has the title of “defending champions” attached to them.
Boone has frequently behaved in a manner befitting of the manager of the late-‘90s, early-2000s Yankees rather than the manager of a collection of underachieving and overpaid players and pitchers that has never won anything (outside of Anthony Rizzo). Remember when the Yankees’ 2021 postseason lasted nine innings (in actuality, it didn’t even last a full inning thanks to Xander Bogaerts) and Boone, immediately after the loss, oddly said “the league has closed the gap” on his Yankees as if the team had done anything other than put together disappointing postseasons? That version of Boone, the only version of Boone Yankees fans have known through six season was nowhere to be found on Wednesday.
It turns out finishing in fourth place in the division, barely finishing above .500 (82-80) and not qualifying for the postseason when 40 percent of the league qualifies finally humbled Boone and his unearned cockiness. Multiple times last Wednesday Boone referred to the 2023 season as getting sand kicked in your face. I wish last season only felt like getting sand kicked in my face. Getting sand kicked in your face isn’t great, but it’s nothing rinsing your eyes out or taking a shower can’t fix. The pain is momentary. The 2023 Yankees were a months-long disaster. I tried to rinse my eyes out while watching them during a 10-15 July. I tried to shower away their 10-18 August. Neither worked.
Boone had to answer questions about last season — the worst Yankees season in more than 30 years — because he never answered for last season after it ended. No one did. The Yankees chose to not hold end-of-the-season press conferences for their manager and general manager, acted as though everything was fine, and then Brian Cashman showed up to the general manager meetings unhinged and looking to fight any member of the media who dare question the organization’s inner workings. This was the first time Boone had to really answer for his his managerial showing in 2023.
Between Boone’s references to sand kicking and his multiple uses of “the proof is in the pudding” he was cautious about predicting and projecting what 2024 would hold for a team that just finished eighth in the American League. The only time he appeared like himself was when he said the Yankees “have an elite offense once again.” The Yankees are coming off a season in which the only teams in the AL they scored more than than were the 84-loss Tigers, 86-loss Guardians, 101-loss White Sox, 106-loss Royals and 112-loss A’s. They added Juan Soto. They didn’t add 2017 Giancarlo Stanton (well, they did do that six years ago and Boone couldn’t win with that team). They didn’t add the 2019 version of DJ LeMahieu or Anthony Rizzo.
Once again, the Yankees’ master offseason plan is to hope that trio is going to stay healthy and be productive despite being a year older. Boone was asked several times about those players during his session with the media, and each time he refrained from providing wild predictions for any of them. A far cry from last February when he was asked bout Josh Donaldson bouncing back and said:
“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 when he doubled down on Donaldson saying:
“He had an amazing winter. He physically looks great. His assessments, everything, he’s moving really well.”
Boone did say ever pitcher and player he has seen in the facilities so far looks great, which makes me wonder what exactly he was looking at a year ago when Carlos Rodon showed up to camp, but in a very un-Boone-like way, he remained hesitant in speaking to any expected results, knowing nothing he or anyone within the organization says at this point means anything given how the second half of 2022 and all of 2023 went.
“We are ready to roll,” Boone said. “But again we gotta show you.”
Does Boone deserve to still be the manager of the Yankees? Of course not. He never deserved the job from the day he we given it, and with each passing season he has made it abundantly clear he’s unfit to continue in the role. But on the first day of spring training, for a day … well, for 28 minutes … he didn’t lie, he didn’t exaggerate and he didn’t act as though the Yankees have won anything with him at the helm. Then again, there wasn’t an automatic runner who had just been thrown out at third in extras for the first out of the inning for him to defend by saying he liked the aggressiveness. His $162 million starting pitcher didn’t blow a kiss to heckling fans for him to say at least he didn’t say anything to the fans, and that same pitcher didn’t just turn his back on the team’s pitching coach for Boone to say he would have disciplined the pitcher had the season not been almost over.
“I’m going to talk to you guys every single day and anything I say now, next week next month into the season we gotta go prove it,” Boone said. “I think we have a chance to be a really special team. That’s all it is right now.”
Like Boone said, he’s going to talk to the media every single day for the next hopefully eight-plus months. For as refreshing as it was to hear this version of Boone speak for even 28 minutes, that’s a lot of days for the Boone we have grown accustomed to to show up.
The Rangers are back to their winning ways. After winning in Ottawa over the weekend, the Rangers beat the Avalanche and Lightning at home over the last three nights to increase their lead in the Met. Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.
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The Rangers are back to their winning ways. After winning in Ottawa over the weekend, the Rangers beat the Avalanche and Lightning at home over the last three nights to increase their lead in the Met.
1. Through the first 37 games of the season, the Rangers were 26-10-1 and had been atop of the Met since opening night. Their outstanding play through 45 percent of the season had made it so they could play below-.500 hockey for the remainder of the year and still reach the postseason.
They decided to test that theory in the New Year, losing four straight to Montreal, Vancouver, St. Louis and Washington in the opening weeks of January. After back-to-back wins over Washington and Seattle to momentarily right things, they went to the West Coast and put together the absolute opposite performance from their early-season West Coast/Western Canada 5-0 road trip, this time losing four of five. They returned home and avenged their 5-1 loss in Las Vegas by losing at home to the same Golden Knights 5-2. The Rangers had lost 10 of their last 15 and were embarrassed twice in eight days by the reigning champion Golden Knights.
2. For the last six weeks, the Rangers’ contender status has been called into question, and at times, rightfully so. But it was impossible to believe the team that won 18 of its first 23 games was going to continue to win 78 percent of its games over the entire season. The Rangers’ success over the first three months of the season essentially guaranteed them a postseason berth, and the remaining three-plus months would be about getting and hopefully remaining healthy for the postseason.
3. The Rangers last six weeks wasn’t a decline, just part of the normal ebbs and flows of the 82-game season. Even if the Rangers did win 78 percent of the games for the entire season, none of it would matter once the playoffs started. Just like it won’t matter if they win the Met, finish as a 2- or 3-seed or fall to a wild-card berth. The entirety of the 2023-24 season will be evaluated on what happens from Game 83 on.
4. Because of that, the lull of the NHL regular season has set in for teams like the Rangers that know they are going to the playoffs and will spend the remaining third of the season preparing for such. A big part of that preparation will be getting Igor Shesterkin back to playing at the best of his abilities, or like Jonathan Quick called him on Wednesday night, “the best in the world.”
Shesterkin found himself on the bench for the third straight game on Wednesday, and he belonged there, whether it was an organizational plan or not. His recent play warranted him being on the bench. Peter Laviolette recently said, “Shesty is our guy,” but this season Quick has been the guy.
After picking up the win in Ottawa on Saturday, holding the Avalanche to a lone Nathan MacKinnon goal on Monday and then shutting down the Lightning on Wednesday, Quick improved to 14-4-2 on the season.
“When we need him to make a big save, he’s made them,” Jacob Trouba said. “I think everyone here kind of rallies around what he’s doing for us right now.”
5. The last couple of seasons the Rangers needed Vezina-esque goaltending on a nightly basis to have a chance, the same way they needed it for the entire Henrik Lundqivst era. Like Lundqvist for 15 years, if Shesterkin didn’t carry the Rangers to a win, they weren’t going to win. That hasn’t been the case this season with Quick turning back the clock.
“We’re fortunate to have a guy like Jonathan in the stable,” Laviolette said.
“He’s been a rock for us all season,” Jimmy Vesey said. “He just battles and competes and has some swagger in net.”
6. It was Vesey’s two goals (one an empty-netter) that gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead over the Lightning and put Wednesday’s game out of reach in the final minute. But on a night when all of the Rangers’ scoring came from the bottom-six (Brodzinski had the Rangers’ second goal) and Quick was on his game, the first-year Ranger acted as though the result was expected.
“You take what comes and you try to make one save after another,” Quick said. “When we play like we did, it gives us a good chance to win every night.”
7. The Rangers have been winning every night once again. The day after getting embarrassed by Vegas, the Rangers went to Ottawa and found themselves in a 2-0 before scoring seven unanswered goals for a 7-2 win. On Monday night, trailing the Avalanche 1-0 at the Garden late in the third period, Artemi Panarin tied the game and Alexis Lafreniere won it in overtime. Quick was in net for all three wins.
“He’s given us really quality games,” Laviolette said. “Every day he comes to the rink, he’s ready to play. You’re appreciative of everything he does.”
8. The win over the Avalanche was especially encouraging. The Avalanche have beaten the Rangers handily in recent seasons, and the game served as a strong litmus test for the Rangers against the second-best team in the West (points-wise).
“That was a big win against a really good team,” Lafreniere said. “We wanted to play better defense, and I think we did a really good job.”
9. The Rangers have made a habit of blowing multi-goal leads and allowing multiple goals minutes apart this season. Those horrible trends have come to a halt on the three-game winning streak, and holding the Lightning and Avalanche to two goals total in two games is a sign that maybe the Rangers’ team defense has turned a corner.
“We’ve gone over a lot of things on the defensive side,” Vesey said. “We’ve done a good job with two games we can build on.”
10. The Rangers are undefeated in 15 home games when their opponent scores three or fewer goals. Despite their recent “slump” they remain atop the Met, where they have been all season.
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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:
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.”
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.
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.
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.
