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Tag: Dustin Ackley

Blogs • Yankees

Oct 6, 2015

The Wild-Card Game: Judgment Day

I went to bed on Monday night with a Christmas Eve-type feeling. That’s the feeling I haven’t gotten in three years.

I went to bed on Monday night with a Christmas Eve-type feeling because that’s the feeling I get the night before the Yankees’ first postseason game. That’s the feeling I haven’t gotten in three years.

All of the hours spent watching, writing, talking, reading and listening about this team all makes it worth it on Tuesday night. Well, that is if the Yankees win.

My confidence level for the wild-card game isn’t good. The Yankees will face the one pitcher (outside of 2009-2010 Cliff Lee showing up via the 4 train in the Bronx again) that I didn’t want them to face. They will face Cliff Lee 2.0, a pitcher who has dominated and beaten them twice without allowing a run in 16 innings this season. The only glimmer of hope in beating Dallas Keuchel is that he’s going to be pitching on three days rest for the first time in his professional career. Outside of that, the only positive I can get out of the Yankees and their left-handed heavy lineup against the best left-handed in the American League is looking at his line from Sept. 16 against Texas.

4.2 IP, 11 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 3 HR.

I’m not sure what happened that day. I have no idea how Keuchel gave up 11 hits or nine runs or three home runs or how left-handed hitters Rougned Odor and Prince Fielder hit home runs off of him. That game, nearly three weeks ago, is the only thing keeping me from feeling any less confident about this game than I already do.

Masahiro Tanaka is going to have to be perfect or close to it on Tuesday night. I would gladly sign up for two runs against Keuchel right now and that means one run against Tanaka to hand the ball to the bullpen and let Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller get this season to the ALDS.

It took two months of bad baseball for the Yankees to end up in this spot when they had a seven-game divison lead (and eight-game lead over the Blue Jays) the week of the trade deadline. They chose not to mortgage the future of the team for a run this season, watched the Blue Jays completely turn over their roster for the better and run away with the division, settled for a wild-card berth and backed into the first wild-card spot in the most depressing way possible. None of that matters now. What matters is one game to extend the season and to get to where this team would be pre-2012 in the old playoff format: in the ALDS.

I wasn’t a fan of the new postseason format when it was implemented and am still not today. The only thing the new format has done for Yankees is given us a few extra “meaningful” games in 2013 and 2014, which were just a tease to get excited about two teams we all knew weren’t going anywhere. And now all it’s gotten us is a one-game playoff against the Yankees’ most-feared pitcher. Maybe someday the second wild card will actually benefit the Yankees and be the reason they reached the postseason, but in four years it hasn’t and this year it hurts them, so I’m still against it.

There’s a good chance the Yankees wouldn’t be in this spot if they never let Chris Capuano start three games in May and didn’t let Stephen Drew and Brendan Ryan get five months of at-bats that should have gone to Rob Refsnyder. They likely wouldn’t be in this spot if Joe Girardi didn’t keep handing the ball to Esmil Rogers or turn to Branden Pinder and Caleb Cotham, or think it was 2009 or 2010 when he would call on Andrew Bailey. But they are in this spot and now they have to get out of it.

Two months of being a .500 baseball team put the Yankees in this spot though on Tuesday night they have the chance to erase questionable managerial and front office moves and the decision to stand pat (aside from acquiring Dustin Ackley) at the trade deadline. They have the chance to make everyone forget about their horrible August and September and their embarrassing finish. They have the chance to win their first playoff game at Yankee Stadium since Game 5 of the 2012 ALDS and get back to the ALDS for the first time since that season. They have a chance to begin the kind of run the Royals went on last season and go to Kansas City to continue that run.

The Yankees have a chance to change how this season will be remembered with a win on Tuesday night. But to do so, they will have to get through Dallas Keuchel.

I think I’m going to throw up.

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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Sep 28, 2015

Monday Mentions: Bad Pitching, Hitting, Managing and Contracts

The good news is that the Yankees are going to the playoffs for the first time in three years. The bad news is they’re going to be in the one-game playoff.

Joe Girardi

The Yankees are going to be hosting the one-game playoff next Tuesday thanks to what happened last week in Toronto. The good news is that they’re going to the playoffs for the first time in three years. The bad news is they’re in the one-game playoff. The worse news is if they win the one-game playoff, they’re likely going to have to go to Toronto and not Kansas City for the first two games of the ALDS.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about what happened over the last week to the Yankees.

I’m a Chasen Shreve fan, so it’s hard for me to talk badly about him, considering he was good for and only recently fell apart. I’m not sure if it’s fatigue or that the league has adjusted to him or a combination of the two, but something is certainly off with him. Look at these two pitching lines from him:

First 50 appearances: 53.1 IP, 33 H, 12 R, 11 ER, 27 BB, 60 K, 6 HR, 1.86 ERA, 1.125 WHIP.

Last seven appearances: 4.1 IP, 11 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 3 HR, 12.46 ERA, 3.695 WHIP.

The guy was lights out for nearly the entire season and helped save the bullpen and essentially the summer when Andrew Miller was on the disabled list. Outside of Shreve and Dellin Betances, and I guess Justin Wilson, there was no one and I mean no one else who could get an out in the bullpen. That’s when Esmil Rogers and David Carpenter were still being asked to pitch regularly. Here’s to hoping Shreve bounces back quickly and these last seven appearances goes down as nothing more than a bad stretch at a bad time.

https://twitter.com/Thereal_ktex/status/646513736316923905

After playing in the one-game playoff, the next scariest part of the postseason is that Joe Girardi will sit down and try to decide which pitchers not named Masahiro Tanaka, Luis Severino, Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia, Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances and Justin Wilson he is going to carry in the playoffs. After those seven, there really isn’t anyone worthy of a spot, but five or six more pitchers are going to make it.

If the Yankees win the one-game playoff and reach the ALDS and trail in any of those games are in any of the games in the postseason at all, Girardi needs to realize the game is not lost. You would think this would be obvious, but in the 2011 ALDS, he brought in Luis Ayala twice before bringing in David Robertson once, in games the Yankees started to mount comebacks in. In the 2009 World Series, he brought in Brian Bruney and Phil Coke into the ninth inning of Game 1 and they gave up two runs to increase their deficit from 4-0 to 6-0. In the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees had two on with no outs to start the inning. They only scored one run, but they were one swing away from being back in the game. Don’t bring B and C and D relievers into a playoff game. The division was already lost partly because of this.

https://twitter.com/MattyinMaine/status/646467891886452736

I never wanted Jacoby Ellsbury. I wrote about it the second Robinson Cano signed with the Mariners and the Yankees turned around and threw their Cano money at Ellsbury. It was the exact type of signing the Yankees preached about avoiding in the future because they were going through the effects from the contracts given to Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia and what they had previously endured with Jason Giambi. But that doesn’t mean I want to call Jacoby Ellsbury “The Thief”. I would much rather call him something that resembles him earning his $130,511.46 per game.

Outside of one great season in Boston, Ellsbury has been Brett Gardner. You could even say Gardner has been better than him. So why did the team give Gardner $13 million a season and give Ellsbury $21.1 million per season? They essentially bid against themselves since the Red Sox supposedly didn’t even make an offer to Ellsbury and none of the other big spenders were about to give that kind of money to a player whose entire game is based on speed and who is on the other side of 30.

It’s not out of the question that Ellsbury was given the worst contract in Yankees history. Everyone will always point to Carl Pavano, but he made his entire deal in less than two years of Ellsbury’s, and Ellsbury’s is a seven-year deal. If he’s this bad and this unproductive and this injury prone as a 32-year-old center fielder, what exactly is he going to be when he’s 36 and 37?

Hey, if me calling Ellsbury “The Thief” and Chase Headley “The Bum” could in any way turn around their seasons with a week to go and the one-game playoff waiting next Tuesday, I will gladly create a negative name for every player on the team. Though it will be hard to think of one for Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.

I gave Chase Headley the nickname “The Bum” recently because he perfectly fits the description of a “bum.” Well, so does Jacoby Ellsbury, but he’s already “The Thief,” so I have to spread the names around.

I remember the rumors that Headley’s agent started that he had an offer for five years and $65 million on the table. I know this was a rumor and never actually a real offer because his agent wouldn’t have had time to leak this number to the media because Headley would have been signing it as fast as humanly possible. Headley received four years and $52 million from the Yankees because they were desperate for a third baseman and there was nowhere else to turn on the free-agent market. If the team willing to spend the most money needed to fill a position and they gave you one year and $13 million less than you reportedly were offered, well, it never happened.

Headley has been horrible. He hasn’t hit for average, he hasn’t fit for power, he has played some of the worst defense in the league, he has no speed and his throws are wild. Is there an opposite of a five-tool player because that’s what Headley is.

https://twitter.com/Shane_Corey/status/646854052203102208

Joe Girardi definitely had a hand in the Yankees losing the division over the last week-plus when he turned to Triple-A relievers and made questionable decisions in the biggest games of the season. But for as bad as Girardi has been recently and for as much as I have crushed him, there are two real reasons why the Yankees lost the division:

Chris Capuano
The Yankees gave Capuano $5 million to return this season after he pitched to a 4.25 ERA in 65 2/3 innings last year for them (after he was released by the last-place Red Sox on July 1). You know who else got a one-year, $5 million deal? Stephen Drew. (We’ll get to him.) I guess a one-year, $5 million deal is the going rate for pitchers and players that aren’t good and that no one else wants. I’m pretty sure neither of those players was going to get that much money from any other team in baseball.

But it’s not about the money with Capuano. It’s about the fact that he was given three starts in May and lost all of them. And then he was brought into an extra-inning game against the Nationals on June 10 and lost that. And then in his next and what was his last start (to this point), he gave up five earned runs and got only two outs in the first inning in Texas, but luckily, the offense backed him with a 21-run game.

Second Base
All season we had to watch Stephen Drew and Brendan Ryan struggle to get base hits and at times struggle to field despite supposedly playing because of their defense. Everyone in the world had a theory as to why the two were being given unlimited chances to succeed while Rob Refsnyder kept on playing in Triple-A. Eventually, I gave up and just figured there was no chance Refsnyder would be given another chance, even after September call-ups, and had to settle for the idea he would have to win the job in spring training next year (though he should have won the job in spring training this year). Then, with a postseason berth on the line, Refsnyder started a game, and another one and another one and kept on starting. Between Refsnyder against left-handed pitchers (and sometimes against right-handed pitchers) and Dustin Ackley against right-handed pitchers, the Yankees suddenly had an unacceptable Major League platoon and weren’t giving up an out every time that spot came up in the order.

Now Ackley hadn’t been on the team all season and once he was traded to the Yankees at the deadline he instantly went on the disabled list after about 15 minutes. But Refsnyder has been with the organization and wasn’t allowed to play nearly the whole season until the stretch run with the team trying to clinch a playoff spot? How does that make any sense? If the Yankees really wanted him to wait until next season, they would be giving him at-bats here and there over these final weeks to continue to get his feet wet in the majors. But to make him the starting second baseman as part of a platoon with Ackley, while Drew and Ryan continue to sit goes against everything we have been led to believe by the Yankees this season.

Now that #GiveRobTheJob has worked and Capuano no longer hurts the team as a member of the rotation and barely a member of the bullpen, the Yankees are a better team. But they could have been this team all season and because they weren’t, they have to play in the one-game playoff.

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Blogs • Yankees

Sep 24, 2015

The AL East Is Over

The Yankees needed to win two out of three in Toronto to have a chance at the division, but they didn’t and now the race for the division is over. The Yankees are going to be a wild-card team.

Alex Rodriguez

Wednesday and Thursday night felt like playoff games. The Yankees had two games remaining against the Blue Jays with a 3.5-game deficit in the AL East with 13 games left in the season. Both games were must-win games for the Yankees when it came to winning the division with Tuesday being Game 6 of a playoff series they were trailing 3-2 in and Wednesday being Game 7 if they were to win on Tuesday. Lose either game and the AL East would be over.

The Yankees won on Tuesday after blowing a 2-0 lead and a 3-2 lead thanks to a Greg Bird three-run home run in the 10th inning. Joe Girardi used Justin Wilson (seven pitches), Dellin Betances (20 pitches) and Andrew Miller (42 pitches) to pitch the last four innings after Luis Severino gave the team an impressive six-inning, two-run effort, setting the stage for an AL East Game 7 on Wednesday night.

I didn’t want Ivan Nova to pitch Wednesday’s game, but there wasn’t another option. After Nova’s return sent Adam Warren to the bullpen, Nova’s incompetence sent Warren back to the rotation, so he wasn’t an option for the game, and with Masahiro Tanaka nursing a hamstring injury and Nathan Eovaldi being shut down, Nova won the start by default. But like that John Sterling saying goes, 11 days after Nova couldn’t get through two innings against the Blue Jays, there he was putting up zero after zero against them in Toronto with the chance to win the division over the final two weeks of the season.

With two out and no one on in the sixth, Nova’s 110th pitch of the night was a ball and Russell Martin went to first on a six-pitch walk. I told my girlfriend, “That’s it for him,” and sure enough, YES panned to Joe Girardi walking up the dugout steps. Girardi went to the mound and took the ball from Nova, who looked as good as he did in Game 1 (but kind of Game 2) of the 2011 ALDS against the Tigers, and then Girardi ruined the game.

First, Girardi gave the ball to James Pazos, who has faced 14 Major League batters in his career, to face the left-handed hitting Ryan Goins. On an 0-2 pitch, Goins ripped a line-drive single to center and Martin ran to third. After four pitches, Pazos was pulled.

Next, Girardi went to Caleb Cotham, the 27-year-old rookie, who has allowed 11 hits (two home runs) and five earned runs in eight career Major League innings, to face Yankee killer Kevin Pillar. On the first pitch, Pillar singled up the middle, Martin scored to give the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead and Goins went to second. Cotham stayed in to face the Blue Jays’ No. 9 hitter Ezequiel Carrera and he walked him on six pitches. He finally got out of the inning when he got Ben Revere to fly out to left on a 2-0 pitch though if a lesser defender than Brett Gardner had been out there, it might have been a bases-clearing double or triple.

The Yankees were unable to score in the top of the seventh, despite having two on and two out for Dustin Ackley, who hit a line drive right to Pillar in center. The Yankees had still been held scoreless and trailed 1-0, but Marcus Stroman’s pitch count was at 95 and the Blue Jays would have to turn the game over to the their shaky pen and the one flaw of their team, which had blown the game night before and had blown a three-run lead to the Yankees in Toronto in August.

Due up for the Blue Jays in the seventh were AL MVP Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. Three right-handed hitters and the heart of the best order in the entire league. In an ideal world, which reliever would make the most sense to face them? Betances, obviously. But unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in Girardi’s world where relievers have set innings and because Miller was unavailable, Betances was the closer for the night and ninth inning was his and maybe an out in the eighth inning. But not the seventh inning. Not the inning that made the most sense for the best right-handed reliever in the world to face three of the best right-handed hitters in the world in a row. Instead of Betances, Girardi brought in Andrew Bailey, who has thrown five innings in the Major Leagues since July 12, 2013. In the last 26-plus months, Bailey has faced 22 hitters in the majors, yet here he was being asked to hold a one-run deficit against the best 2-3-4 in the majors.

Donaldson crushed a 1-1 pitch to left field for his 40th double of the season to lead off the inning before Bailey got Bautista to ground out for the first out of the eighth. With Donaldson on third and one out, I thought it made the most sense to intentionally walk Encarnacion and then bring in Wilson to face Justin Smoak, which would force Smoak to turn around and hit from the right side. I thought Girardi was on the same page as me when he called for the intentional walk of Encarnacion, but then he left Bailey in.

The move worked out momentarily as Bailey struck out Smoak with Encarncion stealing second on the swinging third strike. Two on and two out for Russell Martin, the former Yankees catcher, who they let leave after the 2012 season because they felt Francisco Cervelli could be their catcher of the future, and who has played in the postseason every year (and will again this year) since leaving the Yankees, while they haven’t played in it once since he left. Martin fell behind 1-2, but after working the count to 2-2, he got a 94-mph fastball from Bailey right down the middle and he turned it around and ended the Yankees’ division hopes in one swing.

Outside of the All-Star break, the 2015 Yankees have been together and playing together since mid-February, more than seven months ago. And after those more than seven months that included the six-week spring training and now 151 regular-season games, it was James Pazos, Caleb Cotham and Andrew Bailey, who have now pitched a combined 17 innings for the Yankees, that decided their 2015 postseason fate.

How could Girardi let those three pitchers decide the biggest game of the season? According to what Girardi told reporters after the game, he was planning to use Justin Wilson in the eighth and Dellin Betances in the ninth with Andrew Miller unavailable. But how is it possible that Girardi managed for a situation that never presented itself and never actually existed in the biggest game of the season? How is that he was managing ahead in a tie game and then a game the team was trailing in? How could he play for the next inning with the division hanging in the balance in the inning right in front of him?

Maybe I shouldn’t care that the Yankees aren’t going to win the East and won’t go straight into the ALDS. Girardi and Brian Cashman clearly don’t. Girardi made that clear with his pitching moves on Wednesday, and Cashman made it clear the other day when he said he didn’t care how the Yankees got into the playoffs, but just that they got in. It was a fitting comment from the general manager of a team that made no trade deadline moves other than to acquire Dustin Ackley and whose team blew an eight-game lead since the deadline. It’s hard to blame Cashman for saying, at this point, that he is content with a wild-card berth since Cashman saying he would be disappointed if the team didn’t win the East would be him saying he’s disappointed in himself after the Yankees gave away their division lead in less two weeks in August. So of course he acted as though the wild-card berth is just as good as winning the division.

The wild-card berth is just as good as winning the division if you actually win the wild-card game. Right now, the Yankees would play the Astros in the one-game playoff, but the Twins and Angels are both within 1.5 games of the Astros, so the Yankees’ opponent is anything but finalized. The best-case scenario for the Yankees if they’re able to hold on to their four-game lead for the first wild-card spot is that those three teams have to go to Game 162 or longer to figure out who the second wild-card team is, so that they can’t set up their best starter to face the Yankees.

Over the next two weeks, outside of actually clinching, the Yankees’ top priority will be to give Tanaka as much rest as possible while also keeping him sharp and lining him up to start on Tuesday, Oct. 6 at the Stadium. The Yankees aren’t catching the Blue Jays now and the focus needs to be on preparation for 12 days from now. Some people might hold on to the pipe dream that the Yankees could overcome a 3.5-game deficit in 11 games to win the East and go straight through to the ALDS, but it’s not happening.

The Yankees needed to win two out of three in Toronto to have a chance at the division and with Girardi managing Wednesday night’s game as if it were some throwaway game with a postseason berth already clinched, the race for the division is over. The Yankees are going to the one-game playoff.

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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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Podcasts • Yankees

Aug 3, 2015

Podcast: Bald Vinny

The face of the Bleacher Creatures joined me to talk about the hype around Luis Severino’s debut, the Yankees’ decision to hold on to their prospects at the trade deadline and believing in Didi Gregorius.

Luis Severino

After their 10-game road trip to Minnesota, Texas and Chicago, the Yankees won’t play another game outside the Eastern Time Zone this season. For a team with a 5 1/2-game lead as they return home to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, the Yankees are in a perfect position for the stretch run and to lock up a spot in the ALDS for the first time in three years.

Bald Vinny of the Right Field Bleacher Creatures and Bald Vinny’s House of Tees joined me to talk about talk about the Yankees’ recent 10-game road trip, the hype around Luis Severino’s debut on Wednesday, the Yankees’ decision to hold on to their prospects at the trade deadline, believing in Didi Gregorius and not believing in CC Sabathia, missing the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, the Yankees-Mets rivalry gaining steam for September, who the Yankees’ MVP is through four months and Tanyon Sturtze and Charlie Hayes’ visit to the bleachers this coming Friday.

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