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Tag: Jose Reyes

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 • 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

Aug 3, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Post-Trade Deadline

The trade deadline has come and gone and it was uneventful for the Yankees unless you like adding former highly-touted prospects that turned into busts and now can’t hit and have no position.

The trade deadline has come and gone and it was uneventful for the Yankees and Yankees fans unless you like adding former highly-touted prospects that turned into busts and now can’t hit and have no position. If you like players like that then you must like the Yankees’ trade for Dustin Ackley.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about the Yankees now that the trade deadline is over.

The answer is three since that’s how many the Yankees have now.

I’m not sure why the trade for Ackley was made. Is it because he was the second overall pick in 2009 and the Yankees think he will now develop into that talent at age 27? Is it because he hit two home runs against Masahiro Tanaka after the All-Star break? Is it because he is a lifetime .296/.397/.481 hitter at Yankee Stadium?

The most puzzling part of the Ackley trade is that the Yankees don’t see him as a second baseman, but rather as a first baseman and outfielder. As long as Robinson Cano was sad when Ackley informed his teammates that he was being traded to the Yankees then I’m OK with the trade since I want Cano to feel the pain I have felt with him in Seattle and the Yankees starting Brian Roberts, Kelly Johnson, Stephen Drew, Gregorio Petit and Brendan Ryan at second base since he left.

Apparently, you’re not aware that Stephen Drew’s dad and Brian Cashman’s dad were roommates in college and Brendan Ryan is married to Brian Cashman’s cousin. That’s the only explanation I have for these two to still be on the team at the SAME TIME while everyone else around them gets designated for assignment. Here’s to hoping Stephen Drew never touches .200 this season.

The Yankees definitely had an odd trade deadline strategy. They weren’t willing to give up any of their top prospects, which is fine, but then they were targeting Craig Kimbrel rather than a starting pitcher. Unless their plan was to pitch Kimbrel, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller for three innings each every fifth day, I’m not sure how not going after a starting pitcher helped improve their shaky rotation.

If Kimbrel had been traded to the Yankees, it would have been intereting to see how the Yankees handled the ninth inning. Kimberl has always been a closer and has led the National League in saves the last four years, which were his first four full seasons in the league, but Miller has been a perfect 23-for-23 in save opportunities this season and dominant in the role. It’s an impossible decision and I’m happy it’s one that doesn’t need to be made now.

That’s a good way to make me cry. The Yankees could have had Johan Santana for three pitchers that are no longer with the organization.

Santana won 16 games in 2008 for the Mets with a 2.53 ERA. The Yankees went 89-73 and missed the playoffs by six games. Darrell Rasner made 20 starts for the Yankees, Sidney Ponson made 15, Joba Chamberlain made 12, Ian Kennedy made nine and Phil Hughes made eight. Those five pitchers won 12 games combined with Kennedy and Hughes winning none.

Santana gave the Mets three great years from 2008-2010 before missing 2011 and then making 21 starts in 2012, and he hasn’t pitched since. I would have gladly paid Santana to not pitch in 2011, 2013 and 2014 if it meant having him for 2008-2010.

On another trade note, remember when Brian Cashman wouldn’t include Eduardo Nunez in a deal for Cliff Lee in July 2010, so the Rangers got Cliff Lee, beat the Yankees in the ALCS and then Lee signed with the Phillies in December 2010? I don’t remember it either.

CC makes about $700,000 per start. That’s a seven followed by five zeroes. Here is what he has done in his last two starts:

5.2 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR

5.0 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 3 HR

In years past, it would be an automatic loss with Sabathia facing the Red Sox at the Stadium like he is on Thursday, but it’s actually a blessing. The Yankees play the Blue Jays on Friday at the Stadium and the new-look Blue Jays missed out on facing Sabathia by one day. On Monday, the first four hitters for the Blue Jays were Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Incarnation. However, the Yankees and Blue Jays have 13 games left this season, so while the Yankees might be able to hide Sabthia from the Blue Jays this weekend and next weekend, it’s going to be hard to hide him forever against the Blue Jays unless they remove him from the rotation.

Mets fans are always so quick to go from a laughingstock to the most overconfident irrational fans in the world. I was at Citi Field on July 23 for Clayton Kershaw’s near perfect game against the Mets and the team was an embarrassment and the fans couldn’t have been more quiet and Citi Field couldn’t have been less full with the best pitcher in the world pitching. Fast forward to Sunday Night Baseball with the Mets looking to sweep the Nationals and the Citi Field crowd chanting “OVER-RATED” at Bryce Harper, who is hitting .330/.454/.667 with 29 home runs and 68 RBIs, which are as bad and ill-timed as the “Yankees suck” chants that will be coming at the end of the month at Fenway Park with the Red Sox a million games behind the Yankees.

I remember the good old days of “Reyes is better than Jeter” debates, which were equally as funny as the “Nomar is better than Jeter” debates I had to listen to growing up. Reyes is 32 years old, now playing for his fourth team in five years and is owed $22 million in 2016 and 2017 with a $22 million team option of $4 million buyout in 2018. There’s a 100 percent chance that option gets bought out when Reyes is 35. When Jeter was 35, he won his fifth World Series. Good debate.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 4, 2015

The Yankees and Blue Jays Continue AL East Battle

The Yankees’ early-season AL East schedule continues on to Toronto for the first time this season against the Blue Jays.

New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

The Yankees are on fire. After a weekend sweep of the Red Sox in Boston, the Yankees have now won their last five series after dropping their first three series in what was a disastrous start to the season. The AL East-heavy schedule to start the year continues on with a trip to Toronto this week.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting for the first time in Toronto, I did an email exchange with Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter to talk about Jose Bautista’s early-season struggles, the emergence of rookie Devon Travis and the continuous health issues with Jose Reyes.

Keefe: The last time we talked was before Opening Day. The Blue Jays took two of three in that series and would have swept if not for an late-inning implosion in the second game of the season. The Yankees looked like a bad baseball team during that series and continued to for another week, falling to 3-6 on the year. But the Yankees have won 13 of 16 to improve 16-9 and take over first place. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have gone 10-13 since the opening series and have struggled to find consistency.

What’s been the Blue Jays’ problem after a month of baseball?

Dakers: Pitching, pitching and pitching. The pitching has been every shade of awful imaginable. The starters have been terrible and the relievers haven’t been that much better. The starters have been so bad that the Jays have made a little cottage industry of calling up whoever was to start the next day’s Triple-A game, to throw long relief out of the pen. None of the starters have been good.

Keefe: Devon Travis is leading the Blue Jays in average, home runs, RBIs, OBP and SLG. He’s a rookie second baseman, who only has 88 career at-bats. If he were a Yankee, they would still have him in the minors the way they do Jose Pirela and Rob Refsnyder.

How fun is it to watch a rookie get the chance to play and succeed in your team? I only ask because the Yankees are against it.

Dakers: Devon Travis has been so much fun to watch. There was a bit of luck involved in him winning a starting job. Going into spring the idea was that Maicer Izturis was going to be the second baseball, at least to start the season, with Travis getting some more development time in Triple-A, but Izturis suffered a “groin strain” a couple of weeks into camp and still isn’t play rehab baseball, so the way was cleared for Travis.

Travis started out spring very slowing, going hitless in his first 5 games, but soon after started crushing the ball. He’s become my favorite in record time.

But the whole “watch a rookie” thing hasn’t gone all that well for the Jays. We started the season with six rookies on the roster, but three of them have been optioned to the minors already.

Keefe: When Jose Bautista didn’t tear apart the Yankees in the opening series, I figured he would go off after he left the Bronx, which would be a nice change. But after a month of games and with a shoulder strain for a few days, Bautista has yet to look like himself every game. I still don’t want him up in a big spot against the Yankees, but he looks off. Is Bautista healthy? What’s been the issue with his slow start?

Dakers: Jose hasn’t been terrible, but he hasn’t quite been Jose Bautista yet. He does have 5 home runs and he is getting on base. Part of his problem is the sore shoulder, he’s been just DHing for the last 7 games, after missing a couple.

He also seems to be getting more than his share of bad strikes called against him. There seems to be at least one a game, where the ball is clearly 6 inches or so off the plate but it is still called a strike, and it seems to happen at the worst times, like when he’s at a 1-1 count. Having those calls go against him makes him feel the need to go after pitches off the plate more than he normally would. He has a very good eye at the plate, but you get a bad call and you think that you have to swing at everything.

He has been doing a better job at controlling his temper on those calls. In the past he might have given the umpire a blast, but now he’s more just shaking his head and trying not to show his displeasure as much.

Keefe: Living in New York and dealing with the Mets and Mets fans I know how frustrating it can be to watch Jose Reyes since it seems like he’s always hurt. Reyes is on the DL with a rib injury and even when he was playing he wasn’t his old self.

Are you frustrated with Reyes’ health issues? Is he losing his abilities?

Dakers: He isn’t a good defensive shortstop anymore. He doesn’t have the range you’d like to see at short. Offensively, he actually started the season hot, and was hitting .417/.444/.500 after the first week of the season, but trying to play through the cracked rib was a mistake.

The Jays seem to have this habit of hoping guys can play through painful injuries, instead of giving the players time off to heal up. I wish they would stop that.

Keefe: Before the season started I thought the AL East would be a six-month fight that would come down to end of the season with no team ever really running away and hiding with a division lead. After almost a month, 4.5 games separate the entire division, which is the smallest gap of any of the league’s six divisions.

After a month of baseball, what are your feelings on the division and how it’s projecting for the summer?

Dakers: It really doesn’t look like there is a team that is ready to run away with the division, at least at this point, which has been good news for the Jays, because they could have buried themselves by now if one or two of the other teams had a hot start. I think the division is likely to start close, no team seems good enough to rattle off a 6-10 game win streak and get themselves a bit of space.

If the Jays want to stay on the edge of the race, the pitching, especially the starting pitching, will have to come around. They are in a bad spot, about all they really can do is hope that their starters figure things out.

Mark Buehrle has been particularly terrible, and when he looks this bad, you start thinking that maybe he’s lost it and maybe he just can’t compete in the MLB anymore, but he was awful to start the 2013 season too. At about this point in 2013, he had an ERA over 7 and then he turned things around and had a normal Mark Buehrle-type year. The Jays have to hope that he, and the other starters can do that again.

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Blogs • MLB

Jul 14, 2014

The 2014 All-Animosity Team

With Major League Baseball ready for the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game, It’s time to announce the 2014 All-Animosity Team.

John Lackey

The Midsummer Classic is this week and that means it’s time for the four longest days of summer: the four days without baseball. I mean real baseball and not the Home Run Derby or the All-Star Game because without real baseball to watch and talk about, the baseball world becomes talking heads spending Monday and Tuesday debating who should and who shouldn’t have made the All-Star Team and how the All-Star Game can be fixed. And then those same talking heads will spend Wednesday and Thursday spewing meaningless “second-half” predictions and giving us their “midseason” awards for Cy Young and MVP.

Instead of complaining about the Home Run Derby format or Chris Berman’s broadcasting techniques and instead of debating if the Home Run Derby messes up a hitter’s swing or if the All-Star Game should determine home-field advantage, I thought now would be the best time to announce the one midsummer roster that matters: the 2014 All-Animosity Team.

It’s the Fifth Annual All-Animosity Team and once again the team consists of one player at each position, along with a starting pitcher, a closer and a manager from around the league. The standards to be considered for the team are simple and only one of the following three requirements needs to be met.

1. The person is a Yankee killer.

2. The person plays for the Red Sox.

3. I don’t like the person. (When I say, “I don’t like the person” or if I say, “I hate someone” I mean I don’t like the person who wears a uniform and plays or manages for a Major League Baseball team and not the actual person away from the game. I’m sure some of the people on this list are nice people. I’m glad we got that out of the way since I can already see Player X’s fan base in an uproar about me hating someone who does so much for the community.)

So, here is the 2014 All-Animosity Team with the winners from the previous years also listed.

C – Mike Napoli
(2013 – Jarrod Saltalamacchia, 2012 – Matt Wieters, 2011 – Jarrod Saltalamacchia, 2010 – Jason Varitek)

Jason Varitek hasn’t played baseball in four years, Jarrod Saltalamacchia is in Miami and Matt Wieters had Tommy John surgery. Usually if I’m having trouble, I can always turn to the Red Sox, but A.J. Pierzynski just got cut and David Ross isn’t worth giving the time of the day to. With a limited number of unlikeable catchers, it was hard for me to not break my own rule of not putting any Yankees on the team and put Brian McCann in this spot. So while Napoli has never caught in any of the 214  games he has played for the Red Sox and hasn’t been a catcher since 2012, I’m penciling him in here.

Even with David Ortiz saving the Red Sox’ season against the Tigers in the ALCS and then hitting .688 in the World Series, Napoli was the face of the 2013 Red Sox. With his Duck Dynasty beard, he became the face of a team built on the notion of “We can win a championship if every single thing goes our way” and every single thing did go their way for the whole season as they got bounce-back seasons from their entire roster and overachieving seasons from several players who had become perennial underachievers.

After agreeing to a three-year, $39 million deal and then having that deal voided because of a failed physical, Napoli was almost not even part of the 2013 Red Sox. He signed a one-year, $5 million contract with $8 million of incentives and then went on to hit .259/.360/.482 with 23 home runs and 92 RBIs, which isn’t very impressive, but what is are his 2013 numbers against the Yankees: .375/.453/.804 with seven home runs and 20 RBIs. This year, Napoli has cooled off a little against the Yankees (.306/.405/.667), but he still has three home runs against them and one game-changing home run against them when he got a two-strike fastball from Masahiro Tanaka in the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium a few weeks back before calling Tanaka “an idiot.”

1B – Chris Davis
(2013 – Chris Davis, 2012 – Adrian Gonzalez, 2011 – Adrian Gonzalez, 2010 – Kevin Youkilis)

I wasn’t going to put Chris Davis here with a .199 average at the break, but after his two-run home run against the Yankees in the bottom of the fourth inning on Sunday Night Baseball gave the Orioles a 2-1 lead in an eventual 3-1, rain-shortened win, I had to. Eff you, Chris Davis. And eff you, rain-shortened losses in a huge division game that is the difference between being three games back or five.

2B – Dustin Pedroia
(2013 – Dustin Pedroia, 2012 – Dustin Pedroia, 2011 – Dustin Pedroia, 2010 – Dustin Pedroia)

For as long as I have an All-Animosity Team and for as long as Dustin Pedroia is the second baseman of the Red Sox, he will be in this spot. So as I have done the last few years, I will just put down what I have about Pedroia.

Pedroia is like Tom Brady for me. He has that winning instinct that you just don’t see all the time these days, he plays hard and he’s the type of guy you want on your team. But if I didn’t put him here again it would just be weird.

3B – David Wright
(2013 – David Wright, 2012 – Robert Andino, 2011 – Kevin Youkilis, 2010 – Chone Figgins)

David Wright is the face of the Mets. And for that alone, he gets this spot.

SS – Jose Reyes
(2013 – Jose Reyes, 2012 – Jose Reyes, 2011 – Jose Reyes, 2010 – Jose Reyes)

Sometimes I miss the days of the Jose Reyes being the Mets shortstop when Mets fans would try to engage me in fights about Reyes being better than Derek Jeter. And sometimes I miss the days when Mets fans would call WFAN and talk about how Reyes is “the most exciting player in baseball” as if there were any true way to measure a statement like that. But I always miss the days when Mets fans would call and say the team has to re-sign Reyes before he hit free agency after the 2011 season. Since Reyes left the Mets for free agency and signed a six-year, $106 million deal with the Marlins (and was then traded to the Blue Jays), he has played in 332 of a possible 420 games and has become a shell of his former self offensively, even playing for an offensive power like the Blue Jays.

I can only dream about the state the Mets would be in right now if they had Reyes playing shortstop a $16 million per year for an under-.500 team trying to rebuild and can only imagine the types of calls that would be flooding the sports radio phone lines with the trade deadline looming and Mets fans waiting on hold for hours to share their fantasy trades for Reyes. I miss the days of the Jeter-Reyes debates, even if they were one-sided and ended the same way as all the Jeter-Nomar debates, and I miss Reyes being a Met and giving that fan base years of false hope.

LF – Wil Myers
(2013 – Carl Crawford, 2012 – Delmon Young, 2011 – Manny Ramirez, 2010 – Manny Ramirez)

Here is what Wil Myers has done this season: .227/.313/.354 with five home runs and 25 RBIs.

Here is what Wil Myers has done against the Yankees this season: .375/.429/.813 with four home runs and 14 RBIs.

That means 12 of Myers’ 45 hits (27 percent), four of his five home runs (80 percent) and 14 of his 25 RBIs (56 percent) have come against the Yankees. Excuse me while I throw up.

I watched Myers round the bases on his inside-the-park home run from Section 203 at the Stadium on May 4 and watched him encourage all of 203 to continue to taunt him as he continued to beat the Yankees. Unfortunately, he is 23 years and will likely taunt me for years to come.

CF – Adam Jones
(2013 – Ben Zobrist, 2012 – Josh Hamilton, 2011 – B.J. Upton, 2010 – Vernon Wells)

I was shocked to realize Jones hadn’t been been part of the All-Animosity Team before, given his knack for killing the Yankees offensively and defensively. This year Jones is hitting .324/.359/.514 with two home runs against the Yankees and it’s usually Jones in the middle of any Orioles rally against the Yankees or the one killing a rally with a Web Gem. I miss the days of a young Adam Jones, who hadn’t realized his power yet and could easily be struck out in a big spot.

RF – Nick Swisher
(2013 – Nick Swisher, 2012 – Jose Bautista, 2011 – Magglio Ordonez, 2010 – Magglio Ordonez)

Before the Yankees started a four-game series in Cleveland last week, Nick Swisher was hitting .197/.287/.317 with five home runs and 39 RBIs in what was becoming a disastrous season for the Indians’ highest-paid player making $15 million this season. Swisher’s struggles this season brought a smile to my face the same way I was smiling when he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in the one-game playoff last season.

But during the four-game series against the Yankees, Swisher went 5-for-18 with two home runs and five RBIs, including the two-strike home run against Tanaka in his last start before he hit the disabled list. And since the start of the Yankees series, Swisher is 9-for-10 with three home runs and seven RBIs. There’s nothing quite like the Yankees letting a sub-.200 hitter in July get hot and start to turn his season around againts them, especially when it’s the hated Nick Swisher. OK, maybe “hated” is the wrong word to use when talking about Swisher since he is extra sensitive.

SP – John Lackey
(2013 – Josh Beckett, 2012 – Josh Beckett, 2011 – Josh Beckett, 2010 – Josh Beckett)

I never thought any pitcher other than Josh Beckett would earn this spot, but Lackey had been knocking on the door for a few years and finally busted it open this season.

Let’s put aside his personal life issues and even his double-fisting beers in the clubhouse and even his belittling of the media, who do sometimes need to be belittled, and let’s talk about Lackey’s contract status.

Lackey signed a five-year, $82.5 million deal with the Red Sox from 2010-2014 with a club option for 2015 at the league minimum is Lackey misses significant time with surgery between 2010-2014 for a pre-exisitng elbow injury. Lackey did miss time because of surgery and missed the entire 2012 season and is now saying he will never pitch for the league minimum ($500,000) and will retire before doing so.

John Lackey is pure scum on top of scum and I’m not sure how he has a single fan. He signed a five-year, $82.5 million A.J. Burnett deal before 2010 and in the first two years he went 26-23 with a 5.26 ERA. Then he missed the entire 2012 season. Last year he went 10-13 with a 3.52 ERA on a division-winning and World Series-winning team. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he is upset that he would only make $500,000 next year, but it’s a little ironic that he didn’t think he should only be making $500,000 when he had a 1.619 WHIP in 2011 or when he threw zero pitches in 2012. Poor John Lackey.

CL – Fernando Rodney
(2013 – Fernando Rodney, 2012 – Jose Valverde, 2011 – Jonathan Papelbon, 2010 – Jonathan Papelbon)

It was actually hard to fill the closer role this season, but watching Rodney celebrate saves over the years and then turn in an ugly line (1.1 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 1 HBP) in two appearances against the Red Sox in the ALDS en route to their third championship in 10 years was enough to put him back on the team.

Manager – Mike Scioscia
(2013 – Mike Scioscia, 2012 – Bobby Valentine, 2011 – Mike Scioscia, 2010 – Joe Maddon)

I really wanted to put Mike Matheny here for his managerial decisions in the World Series, especially his decision to bring in Seth Maness and his awesome pitch-to-contact stuff to face Jonny Gomes in Game 4. Thanks, Mike! But I don’t care enough about Matheny or the Cardinals for this spot considering how many choices there are from the American League.

This spot has gone to Joe Maddon and Mike Scioscia and the legendary Bobby Valentine (whose Stamford, Conn. restaurant I ate at on Saturday and it was actually good) in the past and once again it goes to Scioscia, whose Angels are finally playing up to their payroll for the first time since 2009. And because the Angels are looking like a lock for either the West or the first wild card, that means we are going to have to hear about how great of a job Scioscia did in 2014 despite having Mike Trout, Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols in his lineup. Don’t forget, no team goes first to third and plays fundamentally-sound baseball better than Mike Scioscia’s team!

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