Jacoby Ellsbury – Keefe To The City

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.

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.

Is girardi real life bringing shreve into this game?@NeilKeefe

— thomas denapoli (@tdenap8) September 22, 2015

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?

@NeilKeefe the thief must be reading your tweets. Tweet about everyone struggling NAOOoooOOOOooo

— nunie (@righteousjorge) September 22, 2015

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.

@NeilKeefe I would gladly pay all of chase headleys contract for him to never be seen again #disasteratthird #disasterattheplate

— Phrank (@Hanks_n_Beans) September 23, 2015

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.

Blogs • Subway Series • Yankees

Sep 21, 2015

2015 Subway Series Diary: Citi Field

The most important Subway Series will always be the 2000 World Series, but after that, the three-game series this past weekend At Citi Field might be next on the list.

The most important Subway Series will always be the 2000 World Series, but after that, the three-game series this past weekend At Citi Field might be next on the list. This late in the season with the Yankees trying to pass the Blue Jays and the Mets trying to hold off the Nationals, there hasn’t been a Subway Series holding this much significance with this much at stake in a long, long time.

I decided to go to the diary format that I have used for the Subway Series in the past to look back at this weekend. Like always, just pretend like you’re reading this in one of those black-and-white Mead composition notebooks.

FRIDAY
I would have complained about Joe Girardi’s lineup on Friday night, but how can you complain about this lineup when the team has a 10-game lead in the AL East on Sept. 18?

Brett Gardner – CF
Chase Headley – 3B
Carlos Beltran – RF
Chris Young -LF
Greg Bird – 1B
John Ryan Murphy – C
Didi Gregroius – SS
Brendan Ryan – 2B
Masahiro Tanaka – P

With Alex Rodriguez, Brian McCann and Jacoby Ellsbury on the bench, that’s $59,142,857 worth of salary for 2015 on the bench for what is a crucial series in order to win the AL East. But that’s Joe Girardi for you. He doesn’t care if it’s April 18 or Sept. 18 or Game 1 of the ALDS, if there’s a left-handed pitcher on the mound, he’s going to tinker with his lineup as much as possible. It’s who he is.

It came as no surprise that this lineup scored one run in the first inning and then magically didn’t score for the rest of the game. It was painful to watch the Yankees load the bases in the ninth inning against Jeurys Familia, thanks to a walk from A-Rod and pinch-hit single from Ellsbury after the two start the game, only to lose because streaky Brett Gardner couldn’t get a hit and Chase Headley struck out, which he seems to do a lot.

The lineup was bad and the game was bad, but was the worst was after the game when Girardi said it was tough without A-Rod and McCann as if they were injured or suspended when it was Girardi’s decision to not play them. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Girardi!

SATURDAY
The Yankees always win on my birthday, so I wasn’t surprised when they won again on my birthday.

But if you watched the game on FOX, you would never have known that the Yankees won the game and lit up Noah Syndergaard. The FOX broadcast just kept saying over and over how great Syndergaard was pitching and if only he hadn’t given up a first-inning, three-run home run to Carlos Beltran and a sixth-inning, two-run home run to Brian McCann then he would have pitched a shutout. Where was this kind of analysis for Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS? If Kevin Brown hadn’t given up a first-inning, two-run home run to David Ortiz and hadn’t loaded the bases before Javier Vazquez gave up the grand slam to Johnny Damon then the Yankees would have won the game!

Of course Joe Girardi went to Dellin Betances in the eighth inning of a 5-0 game after having gone to Justin Wilson in the seventh inning with the score the same. And of course he brought in James Pazos to start the ninth to get one out and then brought in Chris Martin thinking he would end the game cleanly only to have to bring in Andrew Miller to close out a 5-0 game with two on and two out as if a three-run home run would hurt them or as if a five-run home run exists.

SUNDAY
The Blue Jays lost to the Red Sox on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, so the Yankees deficit in the AL East was down to 3 entering Sunday Night Baseball.

When CC Sabathia gave up back-to-back doubles to start the game, I was thankful for football season starting, so I could always resort to Sunday Night Football if the game got out of hand. Fortunately, it didn’t.

Future (most likely) Yankee Matt Harvey comes to pitch when he goes against the Yankees. After shutting them down in April when he allowed two earned runs over 8 2/3 innings at Yankee Stadium. You know he feels like he is auditioning each time he pitches against the Yankees and with the Mets looking to wrap up the NL East and the Yankees trying to stay in the AL East race, you knew he would come to pitch on national TV in primetime.

When the Yankees went down in order in the first, I thought he might pitch a perfect game. After Chase Headley walked in the second inning, I thought he would pitch a no-hitter. When Brett Gardner singled with two outs in the third, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. However, I figured the Yankees would go the entire game without scoring and blow the opportunity the Blue Jays gave them with back-to-back losses. But then Matt Harvey’s innings limit took over. Sandy Alderson told Buster Olney on ESPN during the fourth inning that the fifth inning would be Harvey’s last and that’s when I knew the Yankees could win the game.

I don’t really understand the Matt Harvey/Scott Boras/Sandy Alderson innings situation. Harvey isn’t a free agent until after the 2018 season, so it’s not like he’s on the brink of a nine-figure contract. He needs to stay healthy for the rest of this season and next season and the season after that and the season after that. I understand that this is his first year following surgery, but there’s no proof that him pitching a certain amount of innings this season or next season or any season is going to be prevent him from re-injuring his elbow the same way there was no way to know he would injure it the first time. But what I don’t get is how the player and his agent aren’t on the same page as the team and clearly haven’t been all season. Did Matt Harvey tell Scott Boras to enforce this limit? Did Scott Boras advise Matt Harvey not to go past the limit? Did Scott Boras change a limit that was already agreed upon with the Mets? Is Matt Harvey really going to shut himself down the way Stephen Strasburg did in 2012, which might have cost the Nationals a championship?

I could care less if Harvey pitches again this season or in the postseason. The only time I will care how often or how much Harvey pitches is if he one day plays for the Yankees. All I care about is the Yankees winning, and for now, Harvey helped them do that on Sunday night by coming out of that game.

ESPN continued to talk about Harvey as if he’s Clayton Kershaw while the Yankees continued to pour it on against the Mets’ bullpen, which will be their downfall in the postseason. Four runs in the sixth, one run in the seventh and five more runs in the eighth and in a game they could barely get a hit in for five innings, the Yankees won 11-2 and won the 2015 Subway Series 4-2.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I expected the city to be different since the Mets had apparently taken it back despite losing both legs of the Subway Series and watching their franchise ace come out of a game after five innings on Sunday Night Baseball. I thought I would get an email or a phone call to let me know the Mets had taken back the city, but I got nothing. The Mets and their fans are still and always will be the little brother.

Blogs • Monday Mentions

Sep 7, 2015

Monday Mentions: Mark Teixeira vs. Jacoby Ellsbury

Who is tougher between Mark Teixeira and Jacoby Ellsbury? That questions leads off another week of Yankees-related questions for the stretch run.

Unfortunately, the seven games left against the Blue Jays are going to decide the division. For as well as the Yankees have played for the last two weeks, they haven’t been able to overtake the Blue Jays in the AL East. And since it seems like no team is really going to give the Yankees enough help to get past the Blue Jays and create separation to avoid the one-game playoff and avoid me having to experience a one-game playoff, well, the Yankees are going to have to do it themselves.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about the Yankees in the final month of the season.

@NeilKeefe quick- who is tougher: Ells or Tex?

— Andrew (@Andrew_Rotondi) September 2, 2015

This is the hardest question I have ever been asked and there probably isn’t a right answer to it, but surprisingly, I’m going with Mark Teixeira.

For the most part, Teixeira has suffered some injuries over the last few years that have been real. He really had wrist surgery in 2013, he really hurt his hamstring at the beginning of 2014 the way he tore it in the 2010 ALCS and he really fouled a ball off his leg a few weeks ago that his left him with a bone bruise. If these had been the only injuries that had kept Teixeira off the field, I wouldn’t even have a problem with anything other than him not trying at all to hit the ball to all fields since 2011. But when you include the time he missed for rib cage, knee, lat, tired legs from being on the bases(!), light-headedness, pinky and neck injuries, which were all since the beginning of 2014, well, it’s ridiculous. Even after compiling this list, I’m somehow calling him tougher than Jacoby Ellsbury.

Ellsbury has yet (knock on wood) a significant injury with the Yankees. Last year, he played in 149 games, missing 13 for a few Girardis (these are unnecessary days for healthy players) and some minor things, but playing 92 percent of the season when you’re known as an injury-prone player is impressive. This year, however, Ellsbury has been the softest player in the league. He missed nearly two months with a mysterious leg injury and when trying to come back he kept getting fatigued from running, which postponed his return. He has missed games for getting the wind knocked out of him(!), running into the wall on a catch in which he claims he wasn’t hurt and most recently for a sore hip after an innocent sliding catch.

My choosing Ellsbury is also about him hitting .271/.335/.371 with seven home runs, 30 RBIs and 17 stolen bases this season and playing in just 64 percent of the team’s games this season. Ellsbury already isn’t good and this is his age 31 season. The next five years should be awesome.

@NeilKeefe what else is new? https://t.co/BQMqNest1v

— Jay Wertheimer (@LuvMetsandPets) September 5, 2015

How could I have forgotten this one?! Ellsbury left Friday’s game because he was sick and then Girardi gave him Saturday off only to use him from the seventh inning on. Five more years!

@NeilKeefe CC is added to new 6-man rotation Wednesday. Cuz ya know, why start Severino every 5 games in a pennant race when you have CC?

— Fire Nathaniel Hackett + Keith Carter (@GrushNYC) September 4, 2015

My favorite part about CC Sabathia being on the disabled list is the way YES has covered his rehab like it’s 2009. The videos they have shown of his bullpen and simulated game work as if anyone is anxiously waiting for his return to the rotation has been remarkable.

Sabathia has made 24 starts this season. He has won four of them. Four. FOUR. F-O-U-R. He is 4-9 with a 5.27 ERA, which is .01 points worse than his career-worst 5.28 ERA in eight starts last season. He hasn’t just been bad, he has been horrible and if his name were anything other than CC Sabathia or if his contract didn’t still have $25 million on it for 2016 with a $25 million vesting option for 2017, well, Sabathia would not only not be in the rotation, he wouldn’t be on the team.

The problem with Sabathia is that you can’t just take him out of the rotation and then hide him in the bullpen because he has never been a reliever and has one relief appearance in his career, which came in Game 5 of the 2011 ALDS. He pitched two innings out of the bullpen in that game, and gave up the run that would turn out to be the game-winning run.

When Sabathia comes back on Wednesday, it’s not going to help the team. It’s hard to imagine that a couple of weeks on the disabled list made him turn some corner and that he will return finally realizing how to pitch with diminished velocity. I guess the only good thing to come out of this is that he will miss facing the Blue Jays in the four-game series at the Stadium that starts on Thursday.

https://twitter.com/StephenDrewsAvg/status/639860626584694784

Every time Stephen Drew is about to get benched or possibly even designated for assignment, his bat comes alive. Every single time. And with September call-ups waiting, surely enough, his bat came alive on Aug. 30.

In four straight days, Drew went 9-for-12, with two doubles, two home runs and nine RBIs. He raised his average from .192 to .211. This led everyone to say he finally turned it around, that Rob Refsnyder and Jose Pirela weren’t needed and that Drew was getting hot at the right time. No one said he was beating up on pitching of two last-place teams in the Braves and Red Sox. Instead of thinking that might be the reason for Drew’s four-day success, I saw countless headlines and stories suggesting the Yankees should already bring him back for 2016. So yes, Mugatu, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

Since the series finale at Fenway, Drew has returned to being himself, going hitless on the current homestand with his average dropping back down to .203 and headed home to south of the Mendoza Line again.

I understand that Refsnyder and Pirela are unknowns and defensive liabilities, but at worst they would be Drew with the bat and considering he’s as low as it gets offensively, they could be better. Just because the Yankees have managed to stay within a game of the loss column against the Blue Jays for five months with essentially a pitcher hitting in their lineup every night isn’t a good thing. I’m willing to trade some defense for offense in a lineup that seems to score only one run every three games and could use anything that remotely resembles consistency at second base.

Love my buddy @MrazCBS breaking the Giants/Kam Chancellor talks. Now we just need to get Kam to New York. You driving @NeilKeefe?

— Gregg Sussman (@GreggSussman) September 5, 2015

We are six days away from Giants season, so I have started to think about football, and how I was forced to turn to it the last two seasons in early September because even though the Yankees were in the playoff race mathematically, they weren’t really in it. This season, the Yankees are going to the playoffs, so I won’t have to count down the minutes until the next Giants game while the Yankees play somewhat meaningless baseball.

The scary thing about the 2015 Giants is that once again no one expects them to be good. In 2013, even after they went 9-7 in 2012 and blew the chance to win the NFC East, the expectations turned out to be right with a 7-9 season. In 2014, it was the same way with a 6-10 season. If the Giants are going to continue to rack up the injuries and be a bad, non-playoff team for the third straight year then the Yankees have to make it to the ALDS. If they’re going to the one-game playoff, they better win it because I don’t want the Giants and Rangers to be the only things to watch in October.

Podcasts • Yankees

Sep 4, 2015

Podcast: Bald Vinny

The face of the Bleacher Creatures joined me to talk about why it takes Mark Teixeira so long to heal, Didi Gregorius and Stephen Drew turning around their seasons and what a CC Sabathia return would mean.

This is it. The stretch run. When spring training begins, you hope your time is playing meaningful September games and the Yankees are once again. Except for the first time in three years their games will have even more meaning since they are headed for the postseason and now it’s just a matter of being the AL East winner or a wild-card winner.

Bald Vinny of the Right Field Bleacher Creatures and Bald Vinny’s House of Tees joined me to talk about why it takes Mark Teixeira so long to heal from every injury, Didi Gregorius and Stephen Drew turning around their seasons, what a CC Sabathia return would mean and who should start a potential one-game playoff for the Yankees.

Blogs • Yankees

Aug 18, 2015

A Yankees Facebook Conversation

Somehow Stephen Drew is still a Yankee. To recognize his improbable roster spot, here’s a conversation on Facebook.

Today is August 18 and Stephen Drew is still a Yankee. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure how, but he is.

I decided to make a fake Facebook conversation with Drew announcing to his teammates that he could be designated for assignment any day now in hopes that he actually will be. (I have been waiting for him to be DFA’d since the day Brian Cashman inexplicably signed him to a one-year, $5 million deal.) Here it is.