1. “Pay Juan Soto!” Jazz Chisholm emphatically yelled into Meredith Marakovits’ microphone as champagne and beer showered the duo in the Yankees’ clubhouse.
“I’d ask you how much, but we’ll leave that for another day,” Marakovits jokingly responded, not expecting an answer.
“$700 million!” Chisholm shouted back.
For all of the talking Chisholm has done this postseason, I finally agree with him.
Whether the Yankees end their championship drought after having now ended their World Series appearance drought or not, this can’t be it for Soto as a Yankee. There can’t only be between four and seven games left of him in pinstripes.
Like I have written many times in these Thoughts this season, if he’s not a Yankee in 2025, I will have to retire from the game. A clean break. It’s been a good three-plus decades. If he’s not a Yankee in 2025 and beyond though, I won’t be around to watch. I will learn an instrument or a new language or do whatever people who don’t watch baseball daily from late-March through October do.
Watching Soto this season has been like sitting in first class on an international flight with a cabin, personal bathroom and all-you-can-eat-and-drink options. I don’t want to go back to sitting in the last row of economy in a middle seat next to the bathroom. That’s where Yankees fans were while being forced to watch Jake Bauers, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Billy McKinney, Willie Calhoun, Aaron Hicks, Franchy Cordero and Greg Allen as outfielders last season before the trade for Soto. I’m not going back to that. I will retire as a Yankees fan and baseball fan if I have to go back to that. If the team that generates the most revenue in the sport can’t sign the best available free agent in the sport, then what are we even doing?
“We need him to stay,” Giancarlo Stanton said. “He’s going to stay. We need to bring it home and then we’ll bring him home also.”
2. Soto’s 10th inning at-bat against Hunter Gaddis that ended with a three-run home run over the right-center wall was a perfect summation of Soto as a hitter. He fell behind 1-2, never panicked, fouled off three straight pitches and then on the first fastball of the seven-pitch at-bat, he sent it 402 feet to send the Yankees to the World Series.
“I’d already faced him a couple of times this series,” Soto said. “I knew everything he had, so I was just waiting for the mistake and trying to do damage.”
Jeff Francoeur on the broadcast said Stephen Vogt should walk Soto and have Gaddis face Aaron Judge in the 10th, even though it meant loading the bases. Earlier in the game, Francoeur said Vogt should walk Stanton and pitch to Chisholm. Had Francoeur been managing the Guardians in Game 5, the Yankees likely would have been shut out.
3. Because like Soto, Stanton also hit yet another clutch, mammoth home run in the sixth inning with a runner on and two outs. And to that point in the game the Yankees offense had done nothing. Nothing except have Gleyber Torres inexplicably sent home with no outs (and Judge and Stanton due up) and thrown out at the plate. Tanner Bibee had shut the Yankees out for 5 2/3 innings and had already struck Stanton out twice. Vogt figured Bibee could do it again, and when Bibee got ahead 0-2 from Stanton taking two swings as if he were blindfolded, it looked like Bibee would hand Stanton a hat trick. Instead, Stanton took a slider, curveball and changeup, and then at 3-2, crushed a hanging slider 446 feet.
“That guy’s gotten booed so many times, at the Stadium, road, everything,” Judge said. “He’s been battling some tough injuries along the way, but the guy always shows up when we need him.”
Stanton finished the ALCS with four hits in five games, all home runs. He homered in Games 1, 3, 4 and 5 leading to him being named ALCS MVP.
“This ain’t the trophy I want,” Stanton said holding his series MVP award. “I want the next one.”
4. In order to get the next one, the Yankees are going to have to clean up some things between now and Friday, starting with the baserunning gaffes that plagued them in both the ALDS and ALCS (after being an issue all year in the regular season). Whether the Yankees face the Dodgers or the Mets, they are both a far cry from the Royals and Guardians, and running into outs on the bases is something that can’t happen in the next round.
5. They’re also going to need better starts from their rotation, as they have received two quality starts in nine outings in October. Here are the starting pitching lines from the ALDS and ALCS.
ALDS Game 1 (Gerrit Cole): 5 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR
ALDS Game 2 (Carlos Rodon): 3.2 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR
ALDS Game 3 (Clarke Schmidt): 4.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
ALDS Game 4 (Cole): 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 K
ALCS Game 1 (Rodon): 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HR
ALCS Game 2 (Cole): 4.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 4 K
ALCS Game 3 (Schmidt): 4.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R , 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR
ALCS Game 4 (Luis Gil): 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K
ALCS Game 5 (Rodon): 4.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K
On paper, the Yankees will have the rotation advantage against both potential World Series opponents. They need to make ensure that advantage happens in actuality. We just saw what happens when your starters fail to give you length in a postseason series: it exhausts the bullpen and forces pitchers like Mark Leiter Jr. and Tim Mayza into games. It also makes the elite relievers lose their eliteness by pitching nearly every day and facing the same hitters repeatedly in a short span. The rotation has to be better.
6. The offense will also have to start coming through with runners in scoring position. The lineups of the Dodgers and Mets are vastly superior to that of the Royals and Guardians. Relying on two- and three-run home runs nightly to cover up offensive issues likely won’t be enough. Leadoff doubles need to score. Runners on third with less than two outs need to score.
7. Boone will have to be wiser. No stealing outs. No early pinch running for important bats only to not attempt to steal. No not starting runners with double play candidates at the plate. Only using Leiter Jr. Mayza and Marcus Stroman in emergency and desperate situations. Remembering that Clay Holmes is an untrustworthy risk. Not needing to bat a lefty between Judge and Stanton. These are all very simple changes.
8. When it comes to Boone, I’m happy he finally got a team to the World Series and with four more wins he can stay as long he wants (as if he isn’t already going to be able to stay as long he wants just for getting to the World Series). It doesn’t mean I won’t be critical of him in the future even if the Yankees win the World Series and it doesn’t rewrite history and change what happened from 2018 through 2022 under his watch, but I will finally respect him if he makes logical choices in the World Series and the Yankees win it all.
9. After the final out of the 2017 ALCS, I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t angry, mad or disappointed. The Yankees weren’t expected to make the playoffs that season and instead they came within a win of the World Series. That surprising, memorable October run saw them overcome a three-run deficit in the wild-card game and an 0-2 series deficit in the ALDS, and they nearly overcome an 0-2 series deficit in the ALCS. They had a young, talented core with budding stars and were less than two months away from acquiring Stanton. I wasn’t sad because it seemed like getting to the World Series was about to become the norm again after an eight-year hiatus.
It never happened.
The core got older, underachieved, became oft-injured and failed miserably. They lost both home games in the 2018 ALDS, hit .214/.289/.383 in the 2019 ALCS, scored one run in Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS, got run out of Fenway Park in the 2021 wild-card game, were swept in the 2022 ALCS after scoring nine total runs and then missed the postseason entirely in 2023 with the franchise’s worst record in three decades.
Seven years after that Game 7 loss in Houston when I thought going to the World Series would happen as frequently as it once did, the Yankees have finally reached it. Fifteen years after winning Game 6 over the Phillies, the Yankees are back in the World Series.
10. Getting to the World Series isn’t enough. After taking for granted the appearances from 1996-2003, I learned my lesson from 2004-2008. The last 15 years have been a painfully excruciating lesson in the realization of how hard it is to get there. Once you’re there you better win because you don’t know when you’ll be back.
Seven down, four to go.
Last modified: Oct 23, 2024
