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Tag: David Price

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Sep 11, 2015

A Seven-Game Yankees-Blue Jays Series for the Division

The Yankees and Blue Jays are separated by 1 1/2 games and over the last 25 games the two teams play each other seven times. One team will win the AL East and the other will play in the one-game playoff.

New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

The Yankees and Blue Jays are separated by 1 1/2 games in the standings and over the last 24 games of the season, the two teams play each other seven times. One team will win the AL East and the other will play in the one-game playoff.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting for a crucial four-game series, Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter joined me to talk about the Blue Jays’ run since the trade deadline, Josh Donaldson’s incredible MVP campaign, R.A. Dickey’s unbeaten streak, the return of Marcus Stroman and if the Blue Jays will win the East.

Keefe: The last time we talked the Yankees were 62-51 and the Blue Jays were 64-52. I said the two teams were set to begin a seven-week battle for the AL East with the loser going to the one-game playoff. Since then, the Yankees have gone 15-10 and the Blue Jays have gone 15-8.

Over their last 12 games, the Yankees have gone 8-4. Unfortunately, the Blue Jays have also gone 8-4, so the Yankees haven’t made up a single game and still trail the Blue Jays by one game in the loss column.
I understand the Blue Jays are a magical run and have rarely lost since the trade deadline, but this is out of control. Every time I check the Blue Jays score I expect to see them having scored 10 runs and am shocked when they don’t.

Do you believe this run is happening?

Dakers: It has been a fun month and a half. The Jays have been good all season, but their record has been far short of their Pythagorean Record all season, so we hoped that, at some point they, there would be a correction. Well, we got it.

When you look at the team, you do wonder if they will ever lose again, but no matter how good the team, slumps happen. The nice part is, no one guy has to carry the team. In the past, if Bautista and Encarnacion were to slump, we wouldn’t win. Now Donaldson or Tulowitzki or even Chris Colabello can take up the slack.

Adding Price, Tulowitzki, Revere, Hawkins and Lowe added some life to the team, made the team think that they can win every game and well as filling the weak spots on the team. Jose Reyes’ defense was not good enough, he showed little range and had this ability to make an error at the worst possible moment. Tulowitzki’s bat hasn’t been what we hoped, but it’s nice to have a shortstop with real range. And Ben Revere is much better defensively than Chris Colabello in left. David Price gives us the Ace we really needed. And adding Lowe and Hawkins to the pen has given us a nice deep pen.

Keefe: Does Josh Donaldson ever get out? He is hitting .307/.374/.592 this season with 37 home runs and 115 RBIs, but since July 29, he’s hitting .363/.434/.747 with 13 home runs and 47 RBIs in 38 games. He’s slugging .747! That’s insane. What’s even more insane is he is making $4.3 million this season. Stephen Drew is making $5 million.

I have been tweeting at Donaldson and Jose Bautista to remind them the bars in New York City stay open until a 4 a.m. in hopes that they will go on a bender this weekend and not perform well against the Yankees. Maybe they will listen.

What are you going to send Billy Beane to thank him for trading Donaldson to the Blue Jays?

Dakers: He can have my first born, or my right arm or really anything he wants. I have no idea what Beane was thinking. When you have one of the best players in the game, who is still under team control for several more seasons, you don’t trade him. I’ve always thought the way to build a team is to find those guys who are among the best in the game and build around them.

I liked Brett Lawrie, good player, Canadian, fun to watch on defense, but he’ll never be close to as good as Josh. The pitchers we gave up don’t look to be much better than back of the rotation types, so I really don’t understand where Beane thought he was getting fair value for Donaldson.

Add in that Donaldson seem to have the equal intensity to Jose Bautista (something I didn’t think was possible) he’s really helped give the team a “nothing short of winning is acceptable” attitude.

Keefe: The last time R.A. Dickey lost was on July 9 despite giving up two earned runs in seven innings. Since then he is 7-0 with a 2.68 ERA in 11 starts and the Blue Jays are 10-1 in those starts.
It seems like Dickey is finally pitching like the ace the Blue Jays thought he would be even though he no longer needs to be that guy with David Price in the rotation.

Are you impressed with R.A. Dickey this season?

Dakers: He’s had an up and down time of it. In his wins, he’s had an ERA of 2.39, in his losses his ERA is over 6. He seems to be very good or very bad, and there is little in between. He’s followed the same pattern in each of his 3 seasons as a Blue Jay, a poor first half (this year 3-10 with a 4.87 ERA and a good second half (7-0 with a 2.68 ERA).

I came into the season thinking that there was no way the Jays pick up his $12 million option for next season, figuring that, at 41, he’ll be reaching the age that even knuckleball pitchers have a hard time providing value. But if he continues to pitch like this, and we have a bit of a playoff run, they might prove me wrong.

Keefe: Of course Marcus Stroman is coming back to the Blue Jays’ rotation in time to face the Yankees. Why wouldn’t he?

What do you expect out of Stroman?

Dakers: I’m cautiously hopeful. I really didn’t expect him back this yeah but Stroman is someone you should never bet against. He’s got such a strong work ethic. I do imagine he could have a couple of rough starts, he’s only had two rehab starts (well in real games, he had some simulated games too), one very good, one not so good. In a perfect world, I’d like to see him get a couple more rehab starts, but then the minor league seasons are ending (and there isn’t all that much major league season left) so he gets thrown out there quicker than we would like.

The good news is that it was a knee injury, so he kept his throwing arm in shape all along. He’s been throwing hard in this rehab starts. I think, by playoff  time, he’ll be the Marcus Stroman we saw last season. It is just a question of how quickly he gets there.

Keefe: If the Blue Jays win the AL East, what is your ALDS rotation?

For me it would be Price, Dickey, hopefully Stroman and Buehrle. If Stroman doesn’t prove ready, then move Buehrle up and put Marco Estrada in the 4-spot.

Keefe: And if they have to play in the one-game playoff, I’m guessing you’re going with David Price. But let’s say he’s unavailable, who do you turn to?

Dakers: If Dickey keeps pitching the way he is right now, it would have to be him. He’s averaged over 7 innings a start, his last three times out there, and has an ERA of just 2.08. But then, Marcus Stroman has a month to show that he’s as good as last year, if he can do that, it the job might be his.

But, I think he idea of trading for Price as to have him make a one-game playoff start. I’d hope they will make sure that he is ready for the game.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Aug 14, 2015

Yankees-Blue Jays Begin Seven-Week Battle

Two weeks ago, the Yankees looked like they would cruise to the ALDS and now they’re fighting for their season and to stay out of the one-game playoff.

Toronto Blue Jays

Two weeks ago I thought the Yankees would cruise to the ALDS and possibly earn the 1-seed in the AL. Now I’m writing this wondering if I have enough alcohol for to get me through this weekend’s series against the Blue Jays.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting for the second time in a week, Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter joined me to talk about the Blue Jays’ recent run and bandwagon in Toronto, David Price’s domination with the Blue Jays and if Blue Jays fans would now consider the wild card a disappointment.

Keefe: Two weeks ago, the Yankees were set. They had an eight-game lead in the AL East and their team was healthy and getting hot at the right time, proving they didn’t necessarily need to make a deadline move. Then Michael Pineda got hurt. The entire offense stopped hitting and the starting pitching and bullpen faltered. The Blue Jays on the other hand made their moves and haven’t lost since and might never lose again.

Last week you told me Toronto was going wild for the Blue Jays and since then they have moved into first. How much better has the mood gotten?

Dakers: Yeah, we are getting bandwagon fans by the thousands. Games are selling out weeks in advance. The team has opened up seating that has been covered for years and are talking about selling standing room only tickets. National news broadcasts are talking about the team. Everyone is talking about the team. When I’m walking around wearing my Jays cap, people will stop to talk about the team.

Baseball, of course, is game number 2 (at best) in Canada. Hockey is the big sport. To get the attention of the casual fan, the Jays have to really do something. It’s nice that they have the public’s attention again. There is a new song about the Jays by a Canadian band, The Isotopes, has the line “Let’s party like it’s 1993”. I’m hoping we do that.

Keefe: The Yankees needed to win once last weekend. Instead they didn’t win at all and scored two runs in three games. The Blue Jays swept them in the Bronx and put me into a depression I might not ever get over if the Yankees continue to spiral out of control.

Were you surprised with last weekend?

Dakers: Yeah I was, I was hoping for a series win, a sweep was too much to hope. And I didn’t expect our pitching to be that good. Holding the Yankees to one run over three games (and a run that needed a long replay timeout, at that) was better than my best dreams. The pitching has been the concern all season. For the first half of the season it was far worse than we had figured. This month has made up for that.

And manager John Gibbons has finally enough good arms in the bullpen to use it the way he would like. Earlier in the year, the only pitching he trusted was Roberto Osuna, and Roberto was pitching a lot and would go more than an inning to get a save at times. Now he has setup men he trusts. And, if Osuna needs a day off, he has guys he’s willing to put out there to get a save.

The offense is something we expect, the pitching has been the surprise. If they can keep pitching like this, we should be seeing playoff baseball in Toronto.

Keefe: I hope the David Price the Yankees embarrassed in April and last August shows up on Friday.

Price looks like he has kicked it into a gear on his new team in a playoff race. Does he seem and look better than expected?

Dakers: The big surprise, for me, is how well he’s fit in and how he seems to be saying and doing all the right things. He’s clearly enjoying his time in Toronto. He had a little scooter to make the short trip to Rogers Center for games, and some of his teammates asked him about it and he ordered scooters for any teammate who expressed any interest.

On the mound? Yeah, two games 15 innings, six hits, one earned, 18 strikeouts, yeah even though we had high hopes, he’s cleared that bar easily. He sure isn’t hurting his free agency value. I’m hoping he enjoys being in Toronto enough that he considers sticking around.

Keefe: At some point the Jays’ top four hitters have to go cold? Right? RIGHT?

I don’t know why teams still pitch to them rather than attack the bottom of the order, but it keeps happening and I guess there’s no way around it.

The scary part is the starting pitching just has to be decent for the Jays to keep winning. Quality starts are guaranteed wins.

Maybe if I keep talking positivity about them, a reverse jinx will kick in?

Dakers: You know that Josh Donaldson hasn’t been intentionally walked yet this season? Of course with Jose Bautista hitting behind him, it’s a touch choice on who you would rather face. As a team, we’ve only been handed six intentional walks, which seems very low, considering all the power hitters.

The great part is there is a new hero every day. No one guy has to carry the team on his shoulders. Heck, Ryan Goins hit a three-run homer yesterday, to give us a 4-2 win. R.A. Dickey, who has a 1.80 ERA for August, talked about how great it feels to know that you just have to do your job, that you don’t have to be the star every time out.

The Jays have gotten more out of the bottom of the order than I expected. They have been good at, at very least, getting on base enough to get us back to the top of the order again quickly.

Keefe: Last week you said there was enough time to win the division and boom it happened. Now that the Jays are in first will you be upset if they don’t win the East and play on the wild-card game?

Dakers: No, I wouldn’t be upset. I think we have the right guy for a 1-game playoff, I think Price would be tough to beat in that game.

There are enough games left that the team will likely have a couple of hot and cold stretches, but I am feeling pretty good about our chances. All season long the Jays have been underperforming their Pythagorean Record, we hoped that there would be a correction at some point.

The nice and more unnoticed part of the deals made at the deadline is the improvement in defense that the Jays have made. Troy Tulowitzki is hugely better than Jose Reyes was at the shortstop position. He has fair more range and doesn’t seem to have Reyes’ ability to make an error at the worst possible moment. And, as much as Chris Colabello is hitting far better than we had any right to hope, he played defense roughly as well I would in left. Ben Revere is at least average in left and makes all the catches you’d expect and the occasional excellent one. Now I don’t shutter every time a ball goes towards left field. We’ll gone from an average defensive team, with a couple of black holes. Now I think we have a good defensive team.

I’m hoping, going forward, that the Jays won’t be an offense only team, that they can win some games with pitching and defense.

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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Aug 10, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Worst Yankees Weekend

The Blue Jays have gone from eight games back in the AL East to 1 1/2 games back in 12 days and the Yankees’ postseason chances are fading the same way they did the last two years.

New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

I want to pretend that I didn’t spend all of Sunday night wondering if the Blue Jays are going to prevent me from watching the Yankees in the postseason. I want to pretend that the Yankees’ unwillingness to trade for David Price isn’t going to be difference between going straight to the ALDS or having to worry about winning a one-game wild-card playoff. I want to pretend like the Blue Jays haven’t gone from eight games back in the AL East to 1 1/2 games back in 12 days.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about the Yankees’ disastrous weekend against the Blue Jays.

It’s hard to win games when you don’t score. The Yankees scored one run, ONE, in their biggest series of the season and the biggest series they have played since the end of 2012 and let the Blue Jays get within 1 1/2 games of them after a Stadium sweep. The Yankees needed to win one game this weekend to keep the Blue Jays five back in the loss column and prevent the weekend from being a complete disaster, but they couldn’t do that. Their best chance to win a game this weekend was on Friday, which is the only game they scored a run, but before they could score a second run, Joe Girardi lost the game.

I have written an unhealthy amount of words on set innings for relievers and how absurd it is, but Girardi is a big believer in having a seventh-inning guy and an eighth-inning guy and a ninth-inning guy and no matter the situation, he’s going to stick with it.

On Friday night, the Yankees and Blue Jays were tied 1-1 in the seventh inning. Nathan Eovaldi was still pitching and after a Mark Teixeira error and a Chase Headley bobble, the Blue Jays had runners on first and second with one out. Girardi called on Justin Wilson to relieve Eovaldi and he struck out Ben Revere on four pitches. Then Girardi called on Dellin Betances to relieve Wilson and he walked Troy Tulowitzki on four pitches and then got Josh Donaldson to ground out.

Betances returned in the eighth inning and after a Jose Bautista leadoff single, he retied Edwin Encarnacion, Justin Smoak and Russell Martin to end the inning.

Girardi called on Andrew Miller to relieve Betances in the ninth and he needed just six pitches to get through the inning against the Blue Jays’ 7-8-9-1 hitters.

The Yankees were unable to score in the bottom of the ninth, so the game went to 10th, and Girardi relieved Miller with rookie Branden Pinder to face the middle of the Blue Jays’ order: Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. This would have been a frustrating but understandable move if it were the 14th or 15th inning, but it was the 10th inning. But it wasn’t the 14th or 15th, it was the 10th, and it was irresponsible for two reasons.

1. Miller had thrown SIX pitches in the ninth inning. SIX. Miller had thrown five pitches on Sunday against the White Sox and 17 pitches on Thursday against the Red Sox. So after Friday’s ninth inning, he had thrown 28 pitches in six days or 4.7 pitches per day for the week. Is 28 pitches over the course of a week too much? Was the nine pitches it took to retire the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth too much of a layoff between innings for Miller to return for the 10th?

2. Wilson, Betances and Miller had been used. So let’s pretend like Miller really couldn’t go a second inning after throwing SIX pitches and that Girardi had to go to the bullpen. Chasen Shreve and Adam Warren were both still in the bullpen yet Girardi decided that rookie Branden Pinder and his 14 2/3 career innings was the best choice to get through the heart of the order of the best team in Major League Baseball in as close to a playoff game in the regular season as there can be on Aug. 7.

I’m not going to get into Girardi’s bullpen decisions on Saturday and Sunday, which were also incredibly questionable, because the team didn’t score a run in either game. The Yankees are going to have a hard enough time keeping the Blue Jays from overtaking them in the AL East, they don’t need Joe Girardi managing them to losses.

I really don’t understand what Adam Warren’s role is with the team. After being the most consistent starter for the first half of the season, the Yankees put him in the bullpen and left CC Sabathia in the rotation because of money and now Warren is randomly used. Sometimes he pitches with a lead, sometimes he pitches to hold a deficit, sometimes he pitches in the sixth inning, sometimes he pitches in the eighth innings, sometimes he faces on batter, sometimes he pitches multiple innings.

I have no idea when Warren will come into a game or how long he will stay in one. I have no idea what the long-term plan for him is because I have no idea what the current and short-term plan is for him. He went from most reliable starter to being put behind Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, Justin Wilson and Chasen Shreve on the bullpen pecking order. I would say the Yankees’ handling of him has been very odd, but then again, this is exactly how the Yankees handle pitchers.

https://twitter.com/craigmiller/status/629088613301657600

That tweet was from last Wednesday and five days ago. After that tweet, Drew went 0-for-9 in three games to watch his batting average drop back down to .192 after having gotten it up to a season-high(!) .199 on Sunday in Chicago. Drew has never seen .200 this season. Not on Opening Day. Not in the first week of the season when averages change hundreds of points with each hit and out. Never.

Today is Aug. 10. Stephen Drew is still a Yankee. How that is possible hurts my head to even think about. Drew has started 79 games this season and has gone hitless in 37 of them. So in 47 percent of Drew’s starts, he hasn’t gotten a hit.

The Yankees clearly don’t like Rob Refsnyder as a player and don’t want to give him a chance to become the everyday second baseman. Maybe he does have an attitude problem, which has been rumored, but who cares? If he can hit, I don’t care if one person on the team likes him. If the Yankees aren’t willing to give him a chance right now, what makes anyone think they are going to give him one in September when rosters expand? Just because they won’t have to DFA anyone to have him in the majors at that point doesn’t mean he will playing and not riding the bench, especially if the team is fighting for a postseason spot.

The Yankees chose not to improve the roster at the trade deadline while the Blue Jays and Orioles made big moves to make a run at the division and wild card, while the Royals, Astros, Angels and Rangers all made moves to improve their teams to contend. The Marlins were willing to trade Dan Haren to the Cubs with the Dodgers still paying all of Haren’s $10 million, so I’m pretty sure the Marlins would have been willing to trade Martin Prado back to the Yankees, considering the Yankees were already paying $3 million of his $11 million salary this season and next.

The Yankees traded for Dustin Ackley, designated Garrett Jones for assignment, put Michael Pineda on the DL, called up Luis Severino, put Ackley on the DL and re-signed Jones. Those were the Yankees’ trade deadline moves. Essentially, they did nothing. Ackley would have been the same or worse than Jones, Drew and Brendan Ryan and Severino replaces Pineda, so basically, everything cancels each other out.

https://twitter.com/Timbo367/status/630482347666862080

On July 31, the Yankees had a six-game lead in the AL East. Today, that lead is 1 1/2 games. In the span of nine games, the Yankees managed to blow 75 percent of their lead and now they are a bad road trip in Cleveland and Toronto from being in second place in the division and suddenly in the wild-card game.

But since I was asked … If the Yankees play .500 baseball the rest of the season and go 26-26, here is what the rest of the AL East would have to do just to tie them: Toronto 26-23, Baltimore 31-21, Tampa Bay 31-19, Boston 37-13. That closed quickly.

There is this rhetoric that even after the weekend and even after going 1-4 in their last five games that the Yankees are still in first place. That’s nice, but like I said in that tweet, it’s like being up $1,000 at a casino and giving $950 back and still technically being “up”. The Yankees still have a lead in the division, but from where it was a week ago, or even three days ago, it doesn’t feel like they do.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Aug 7, 2015

Yankees-Blue Jays Feels Like Fall Baseball

The Yankees-Red Sox series was supposed to be a meaningful late-season series, but it’s the Blue Jays series this weekend that is actually the more postseason-like series.

The Yankees-Red Sox series the last three days at the Stadium was supposed to be a meaningful late-season series, but for the third straight year, the Yankees and Red Sox haven’t really played anything resembling a series of importance in August or September. Instead, the Blue Jays series this weekend is actually the more postseason-like series.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting this weekend in the Bronx for the biggest series in three years at the Stadium, I did an email exchange with Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter to talk about the Blue Jays acquiring Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, if Blue Jays fans are worried about sacrificing their future, the mood in Toronto with the team winning and if Blue Jays fans want to win the division or are content with the wild card.

Keefe: The Blue Jays didn’t just tinker with their lineup at the trade deadline, they basically changed their entire roster and in the last week or so they have become a different team. When the Red Sox having just left town in what was another late-season letdown series between the rivals, it’s actually the Blue Jays series this weekend that will have a playoff feel.

The Blue Jays haven’t lost with Troy Tulowitzki in the starting lineup, going 8-0, and they have now gone 8-2 in their last 10 games and riding a five-game winning streak coming into the weekend.

Were you surprised by the Tulowitzki trade? I know I was.

Dakers: Yeah I was surprised, stunned, almost knocked off my feet.

We had Jose Reyes and he was perfectly acceptable as a shortstop. Sure, his range was limited and he was making more errors than you would like to see, but he’s making a ton of money and I figured that he was untradeable. And he could be very exciting on offense. I didn’t think of shortstop being a problem position, at least not in the way that starting pitching was.

But, if you get a chance to get a player like Troy Tulowitzki, you really have to take it. He is much much better on defense and also an improvement offensively. He gives us another power hitting right-handed batter. You can’t turn down another great player just because you already have others of the same type.

Keefe: I was hoping the Yankees would trade for David Price given instability of their rotation, but the Yankees held on to their top prospects and decided against adding a true ace and giving themselves the chance to sign him to a long-term deal before he would become a free agent this offseason. Instead, he went to the Blue Jays and is back in the AL East and I have to worry about him being the difference in a possible division title.

After years of having inadequate pitching to go with their incredible offense, the Blue Jays finally have an ace. Price allowed one earned run in eight innings with 11 strikeouts in his first start

Like the Tulowitzki trade, were you surprised by the trade for Price?

Akers: Yeah, surprised would be the right word. We needed another starting pitcher, but I expected, especially after the Tulo trade, it would be a lesser name. Maybe someone like Tyson Ross, from the Padres, or Jeff Samardzija, from the White Sox. Good pitchers, but not an Ace like Price.

I’m thrilled that was got Price. If we were to make it to a one-game playoff, we have a pitcher I’d trust for that game. If we were in a longer playoff, we have a game one starter.

Keefe: The Blue Jays gave up a lot to change their team for the stretch run this season and when it comes to Price, there’s a good chance they might only have him for two months.

Are you worried that the Blue Jays went over board with their moves to make a run at a possible division title or a wild card when it could mean destroying their future? Or was enough enough with missing the playoffs since 1993 and needing to get back to the postseason and makes any and all moves at all costs?

Dakers: Yeah, we gave up some good pitching. Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris could turn out to be very good pitchers. But then, how often do we have a good shot at making the playoffs. The only ‘rental’ players they picked up are Price and LaTroy Hawkins. Hawkins is planning to retire at the end of the season. Price? Well he does seem to be enjoying being in Toronto. He said that the atmosphere, for his first start at Rogers Centre, was the best he’s ever seen in a regular season game. Maybe he can be convinced to stay?

Keefe: Here in New York with Mets fans there is a rejuvenated fan base that is now expecting to make the playoffs with their new-look roster.

What is the mood in Toronto? I have a feeling is similar to that among Mets fans since those are the two hottest teams in baseball right now.

Dakers: Yeah folks are pretty excited. Price’s first start was a sellout. TV ratings are way way up, right across Canada. The Jays said that the day the Price trade was announced the team sold 35,000 tickets and 29,000 the next days. And, on the weekend after the trade, the team sold 1,400 jerseys and t-shirts with either Price or Tulowitzki’s name on.

It has been a long time since the Jays were making this sort of news in August. People seem to be talking about the team everywhere you go. It really is kind of cool to think we could have playoff baseball in Toronto again, after all this time.

Keefe: When we talked in April, you thought the Blue Jays could win 89-90 games and contend. When we talked in May, you thought they would stay involved in the AL East race. Well, here we are on Aug. 7 and they are 4 1/2 games out of first in the division and 1 1/2 games up.

The good news for me is that the Yankees have a six-game lead in the loss column over the Blue Jays. And if the Yankees play just one game over .500 for the rest of the way and go 28-27, the Blue Jays would have to go 31-21 just to tie them. I’m scared of the Blue Jays, but I shouldn’t be that scared. The Yankees just need to win at least six of their remaining 13 games against the Blue Jays to keep them at bay.

Are you looking at the Blue Jays winning the division or are you content with the wild card?

Dakers: Oh wouldn’t give up on winning the division yet. The team has gone from being 8.5 back to 4.5 back in less than two weeks, so clearly there is a chance still. I wouldn’t start thinking that the wild card is the only possibility until a week or two into September.

The Jays have a great offense (kind of an understatement, they have scored 59 more runs than any other team in baseball) and the pitching seems to be coming around. Over the last month the team has a 2.94 ERA. The starting rotation and the bullpen are both looking much better. And adding Tulowitzki, at short, Ben Revere in left has shored up the defense at our two worst positions.

I don’t see why the team shouldn’t be able to put together two good months of baseball.

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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Jul 27, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Trade Deadline

Here is the first installment of a weekly series focused on questions and comments about the Yankees with the trade deadline this Friday.

Brian Cashman

Sometimes on Twitter I get asked a question that 140 characters won’t do justice to so, I decided I might as well use the space on Keefe To The City to answer some of the questions more in depth.

Here is the first installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments about the Yankees with the trade deadline this Friday.

I want either David Price or James Shields on the Yankees for the same reason I want rent in the Upper East Side to go down instead of up and for my dog to be able to walk himself in the winter and for the 4 train to Yankee Stadium to be express all the way to the Stadium: because it would make my life better.

Right now the Yankees’ postseason rotation is Masahiro Tanaka or Michael Pineda in Game 1, Masahiro Tanaka or Michael Pineda in Game 2 and then either Ivan Nova, CC Sabathia or Nathan Eovaldi in Game 3. I would go Tanaka then Pineda then Nova, but who knows what the Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi are thinking? As long as CC is healthy and on the team he is going to get consideration for a postseason start and my nerves going into a potential CC Sabathia postseason start in 2015 will be way worse than they ever were for any A.J. Burnett postseason start.

But let’s say the entire Yankees rotation makes it through this week healthy leading up the trade deadline. If the Yankees trade for a front-end starter then someone has to go to the bullpen between Nova, Sabathia or Eovaldi or either Nova or Eovaldi has to be traded. It would be ridiculous to go to a six-man rotation for the rest of the season, but ridiculous is how Cashman and Girardi like to do things, so it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

The Yankees don’t need to trade for a starting pitcher. Their rotation is good enough to hold off the rest of the AL East during the regular season and win in the postseason. Here are the playoff rotations for the last five World Series since the Yankees won in 2009:

2014: Madison Bumgarner, Jake Peavy, Tim Hudson, Ryan Vogelsong
2013: Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jake Peavy, Clay Buchholz
2012: Barry Zito, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, Matt Cain
2011: Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson,
2010: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner

A combination of Tanaka, Pineda, Nova, Sabathia and Eovaldi is just as good as all of those and probably even better than all of them.

https://twitter.com/JD944/status/625681043635445760

Road trip? I’m willing to ride a bicycle, scooter or skateboard there. I would walk there and carry Price back if needed. According to Google Maps, it’s 618 miles from Yankee Stadium to Comerica Park and by car it would nine hours and 31 minutes to get there. It’s only a 588-mile walk there, but it would 194 hours, which is a little over eight days. However, for me to do any of those things, Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers would have to agree to not ask for any of the Yankees’ top prospects.

I’m against the Yankees trading Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, Jorge Mateo and even Rob Refsnyder. At some point the organization needs to develop a young core again and they are close to doing that now. The 2015 Yankees are currently hitting the massive parlay they didn’t in 2013 and 2014 to stay relatively healthy and have older player produce. Unfortunately, this carriage could turn back into a pumpkin next season the way the Red Sox have since winning in 2013 and it would be devastating if this season didn’t end with a World Series and the Yankees sacrificed their future for Price, Shields Cole Hamels or another high-priced starter.

Yes, I wrote “Nathan Eovaldi Is Far From ‘Nasty‘” on June 17 and said that trading for him is a mistake. And yes, he pitched eight innings on Sunday, allowing two earned runs on eight hits with five strikeouts and one walk to improve to 10-2 on the season.

The idea that Eovaldi is as good as his 10-2 record suggests is comical. He has a 4.27 ERA and 1.478 WHIP. He has made 20 starts and failed to pitch six innings in 11 of them. He only has 80 strikeouts in 111 2/3 innings despite having a fastball between 97 and 100 mph and he has allowed the sixth most hits in the majors. Eovaldi’s record is solely the product of his run support, which is 5.31 runs per game on average.

Since we’re talking trade deadline, when it comes to Eovaldi, it’s a complicated situation. He’s still young at 25, but he’s also with his third team in the majors at just age 25 despite possessing that can’t-teach fastball. He’s under team control through 2017 and it’s obvious Cashman and the Yankees are high on his ability and potential and wouldn’t think about putting him in the bullpen. But if the Yankees are to trade for another starter and a better starter, someone has to get bumped from the rotation, or traded and that leaves either Eovaldi or Nova.

If Eovaldi can pitch to the low-4 ERA he has in 20 starts for the rest of the way, he is valuable at the back of the rotation. I wouldn’t give him a postseason start and wouldn’t trust him in a postseason game, but I guess I can deal with him every fifth day for the rest of the regular season.

I wanted the Yankees to re-sign David Robertson and also sign Andrew Miller. I thought if they didn’t then they were making a mistake even though they had traded for relievers in Justin Wilson, David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve. Fortunately, Shreve turned out to be the best of the bunch, which made up for Carpenter being awful and eventually DFA’d, or the bullpen would be Betances and Miller and multiple trips to the liquor cabinet every night.

Here is what I said about the Yankees’ decision to not sign Robertson after the Winter Meetings in December:

The idea of having Robertson and Betances and Miller to lock up games after the sixth and asking a rotation that aside from Masahiro Tanaka has trouble going past the sixth inning anyway is such a beautiful idea that it makes me physically sick to think that it could have happened and now it won’t. And it could have easily happened. The White Sox gave Robertson four years and $46 million. The Yankees gave Andrew Miller four years and $36 million. So for $46 million, the Yankees could have had the best on-paper bullpen in the entire league and arguably their best bullpen since … well, ever. If you think $46 million is a lot of money to give to someone to pitch about 65 innings, just remember that last year, the Yankees gave a five-year, $85 million deal to Brian McCann with catcher being the deepest position in their farm system, three years and $45 million to a then-36-year-old Carlos Beltran and oddly enough he broke down, couldn’t throw a baseball and played in only 109 games and seven years, $153 million to Jacoby Ellsbury, which was money that could have been used to re-sign Robinson Cano. The Yankees could have re-signed Robertson, they just didn’t want to, and I’m not sure why.

The Yankees have a dominant bullpen with Betances, Miller, Shreve and Wilson right now and if Robertson were part of it, or if they make a move for Craig Kimbrel, it will be stupid. Stupid in a good way.

It was only 17 days ago that the Yankees started a three-game series at Fenway Park and Red Sox fans thought their team had a chance of getting back into the race. “If the Red Sox sweep the Yankees, they will be three games back in the loss column with the whole second half to play,” was what I kept hearing from my friends and enemies in Boston. The Yankees won two of three to extend their lead over the Red Sox and before Monday night’s games, the Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox had grown to 12 games (13 in the loss column).

Boston fans shouldn’t wonder how the Yankees are winning because their team did it two years ago. The 2013 Red Sox championship is the most amazing championship in the history of sports. All sports at any level ever. Everything they needed to go right went right, no one got hurt and they got timely hit after timely hit in the postseason, winning with a rag-tag rotation.

The 2015 Yankees haven’t even been close to as fortunate as the 2013 Red Sox. The Yankees’ arguably best starter (Masahiro Tanaka), position player (Jacoby Ellsbury) and reliever (Andrew Miller) weren’t all healthy at the same time from April 24 to July 7, yet the team somehow managed to get to first place. Chase Headley has been bad, Stephen Drew has been the worst, CC Sabathia has been horrible, Nathan Eovaldi has been frustrating and Carlos Beltran has been inconsistent. If not for the resurgence of A-Rod and Mark Teixeira, the rebound of Brian McCann, the revival of Chris Young and the always streaky Brett Gardner having an extended hot streak, the Yankees would be in a bad place right now. But for the first time in three years, things are going their way and it feels great.

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