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Tag: Josh Donaldson

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 • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Sep 11, 2015

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

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

New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

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

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

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

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

Do you believe this run is happening?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you expect out of Stroman?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Aug 14, 2015

Yankees-Blue Jays Begin Seven-Week Battle

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

Toronto Blue Jays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Were you surprised with last weekend?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Aug 10, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Worst Yankees Weekend

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

New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 28, 2015

The Yankees Are Getting the A’s at the Right Time

The Yankees are headed to the West Coast for a seven-game road trip and it starts with a four-game series in Oakland where the A’s are in last place.

Sonny Gray

The last six games are a good indication of the 2015 Yankees as they were swept at home by the Rangers and then swept what might be the best team in baseball in the Royals the following three days. After being nine games over .500 and erasing that in two weeks, the Yankees appear to be back on track and are headed to Oakland at the best possible time.

With the Yankees and A’s meeting for the first time this season, Alex Hall of Athletics Nation joined me to talk about what happened down the stretch to the A’s last year, the trades for Jon Lester and Jeff Samardzija and what’s gone wrong for the A’s to start this season.

Keefe: Last year in our email exchange, I asked you this:

When it comes to the A’s, what are the year-end expectations, especially after the team’s resurgence the last few years? Is just making the postseason enough for you, or are you tired of “just” making the postseason?

You answered with this:

This team is built to win right now and has actually mortgaged a little bit of its future to do so, and a failure to bring home a title, much less a league pennant, would be severely disappointing.

The A’s ended up blowing their AL West lead, settled for the second wild-card spot and then blew a late lead in that game to the Royals. Along the way there, they crushed the trade deadline and sacrificed potential future stars for Jon Lester and Jeff Samardzija, and neither of them are on the A’s this year. (We’ll get to that in a little.)

How disappointing was the finish to the 2014 season?

Hall: It was almost a worst-case scenario. The new pitchers helped a lot and the A’s probably wouldn’t even have made it to the wild-card game at all without them, but the rest of the team just fell apart. With the exceptions of Josh Donaldson, Josh Reddick, and Eric Sogard, the entire lineup either got hurt and stopped hitting or got hurt and just went on the DL. Meanwhile, the starting pitching was always just good enough to not win and the bullpen continued to be lights-out right up until it was time to seal a save. Everything that could go wrong did.

The wild-card game was much the same — two A’s left with injuries, including the catcher who was there specifically to halt the Royals’ running game, and they ended up losing one of the most heartbreaking games in MLB history despite scoring seven runs. The only way it would have been worse would have been finishing one game lower in the standings and missing the wild-card game completely — even a heartbreaking loss is better than not making it at all.

Keefe: I was ecstatic when the A’s traded for Jon Lester and took Boston’s homegrown ace in the middle of another last-place season for the Red Sox. Red Sox fans stupidly thought they would just end up re-signing Lester in the offseason and that it was just more of a loan to Oakland and that in 2015 they would have Lester back and have Yoenis Cespedes in the lineup, but they don’t have either player now.

That trade seemed to change the A’s offense down the stretch of the season and they were never really the same team after it. Cespedes had been a middle-of-the-order presence and had helped them climb to first place and distance themselves from the rest of the division, and was maybe a bigger part of the A’s than Billy Beane had thought.

Were you on board with that trade at the time? Do you think it destroyed the offense?

Hall: I will say that I wasn’t into the idea of trading for Lester before it happened. I wanted to roll the dice with the guys who had brought us to the top of the MLB standings. And there wasn’t a single person in Oakland who didn’t get sick when they woke up to hear that Cespedes was gone — he was massively popular here, as he will be wherever he plays. However, from a statistical standpoint, it did make logical sense to deal from an area of strength (offense) to beef up a weakness (thin rotation).

Even though I would not have made the trade, and even though I would undo it if I could go back in time, I still just don’t think it made any difference in the end. Losing Cespedes is not what destroyed the offense. That was accomplished when Brandon Moss’ hip turned to mush, when John Jaso got concussed, when Jed Lowrie missed time, when Stephen Vogt’s foot injury sapped his hitting, when Derek Norris wore down, when Coco Crisp’s neck injury knocked him in and out of the order, when Alberto Callaspo was an everyday player and even a DH, when Jonny Gomes failed to hit even one homer, when Craig Gentry got concussed, and when Adam Dunn OPS’ed .634 as an emergency replacement. The lineup was a juggernaut in the first half, and losing one guy did not destroy it — especially considering that, by the numbers, Cespedes was only the third-best hitter on the team after Donaldson and Moss. Losing him was one part of a larger puzzle, and it certainly didn’t help the offense when he left, but it took a lot more than that one loss to completely tank the entire unit.

Keefe: The A’s also traded for Jeff Samardzija last summer and had to give up Addison Russell to get him, who now looks to be the future of the middle infield for the Cubs. Then this past offseason, the A’s traded Samardzija to the White Sox to replenish their roster and try to salvage what was the lost in the trade for Cubs knowing that they wouldn’t pay Samardzija at the end of this season anyway.

Are you devastated that Russell was dealt last season knowing his potential?

Hall: It’s tough to see him begin to blossom so quickly in Chicago, but I’ve come to peace with that trade. I am 100 percent certain that the A’s season would have been even more disappointing if they hadn’t acquired a pitcher, and at the time it looked like the early bird might be the only one to get a worm. Plus, getting your guy in early July means you get an extra month of production out of your rental. It’s easy to look back now and say that Billy Beane should have waited longer for the market to develop, and I’ll admit that before the trade I was not interested in Shark nor Hammel, but it’s also true that Shark pitched like a legitimate ace in Oakland and so at least Beane got his money’s worth in that sense. He got what he was looking for in the trade, it just wasn’t enough.

On the other side, Shark was turned into four players from the White Sox. None of them are as good as Russell could be, but at least there is something left to show for him. If he builds on this promising start and becomes an All-Star then that will be a big bummer for A’s fans, but that’s the price of business if you want to take a big-time gamble for the big prize.

Keefe: Sorry to make you feel bad and harp on the end of the 2014 season (feel free to ask me about the 2013 and 2014 Yankees), but let’s talk about this year A’s team, which has gotten off to a horrific start, is 15 games under .500 and 13 1/2 games back in the West.

What has happened to the A’s team that was at times the best team in baseball over the last three years? Is there anything to feel good about right now other than Sonny Gray?

Hall; This has been a frustrating year to watch because the A’s have been playing pretty well but don’t have the wins to show for it. The rotation is among the best in baseball, and the lineup has been solid despite losing Coco and missing Ben Zobrist for a month. But the defense has been horrendous and the bullpen has been even worse, and every day they come oh-so-close to winning and then fall short in a new and amazing way.

The A’s are 2-15 in one-run games, and that kind of futility goes beyond a lack of skill or “clutch”-ness and into the realm of rotten luck. If the starting pitcher is good, then the lineup gets shut out. If the lineup scores, then the defense makes a major error. If the defense holds up, then the bullpen blows it with a big homer. It feels like flipping a coin and getting tails every time, and knowing that one of these days it’ll come up heads … but will it be tomorrow, next week, or next year?

Keefe: The A’s won the West in 2012 and 2013 and reached the playoffs as a wild-card team last year. It was the first time the team had made the playoffs in three straight seasons since they went to the playoffs in four straight from 2000-2003.

It seems like the window of opportunity for the A’s it always is so small and right when they are about to get over the hump, it closes and then it’s rebuilding mode again. After 94-, 96- and 88-win seasons over the last three years and now a 17-32 start, it looks like it’s rebuilding mode again.

What were your expectations for the A’s this season coming off three straight postseason appearances and what are they now after nearly two months of baseball?

Hall: The A’s looked like they were aiming for the playoffs again, but their sights weren’t set as hard on that goal as in the last couple years. They were willing to make a couple of win-now moves, but only after selling high on a lot of big names. This was a team with solid-but-not-huge playoff dreams, and while it’s shocking to see them lose this much it’s not like anyone was guaranteeing a postseason berth.

The A’s are still loaded with a lot of good players, and I’ve seen a lot of unlikely runs both from Oakland and from other teams in the last 15 years. I haven’t given up on the season, but I do realize that the chances of a comeback are slim and shrinking by the day. Realistically, the rest of this season should be seen as an audition for young players like Jesse Hahn, Kendall Graveman, Billy Burns, and Marcus Semien. On the other hand, big performances from those players would also be the path to the postseason, so one way or other my expectations are just to hope for the best from everyone and see what happens. Sonny Gray is pitching like he has Cy Young aspirations, so that will be something to watch regardless of the team’s record.

Oakland has a few pending free agents, so if they don’t turn things around more or less immediately then they could be sellers. But Zobrist already missed a month, Scott Kazmir just left his last start with shoulder soreness, and Tyler Clippard hasn’t had a chance to rack up many saves — it’s tough to say if the A’s could even get any good deals for those guys, or if they should hold onto them, hand out qualifying offers and see if they can retain any of them on one-year deals (or get draft picks as compensation).

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