From our own Carl J. Weitz...
The team may have lost the game yesterday, but there's a bright side! Most people didn't realize it, but the Yankees proclaimed "FAN LIBERATION DAY." All non-Yankees fans will be charged an additional 25% on tickets and concessions. THIS WILL QUICKLY LOWER THE PRICES WE PAY and enable Hal to spend heavily from this moment on for free agents. No more losing. We're going to be rich. MAKE THE YANKEES GREAT AGAIN!!!
Hey, I kid, I kid. Time to take a razor to that mailbox!
A certain Mr. Hammer from Planet Earth wonders if the Yankees are deliberately holding back the progress of Jasson Dominguez (of Planet Mars) to delay having to pay him—maybe even deliberately blowing out his throwing arm.
He wonders if the Yanks' signing of (bad) free agents over developing the kids is part of the same plot.
I feel ya, Hammer—but no need to go full conspiracy theory on us.
At last month's NYC SABR meeting—yes, I am everywhere—Anthony McCarron (helluva nice guy, incidentally), told us that "Hal is not cheap," pointing to the Yanks' $300 million payroll.
No question: $300 million is a lot of money. But if you're so willing to spend that in the cause of winning it all...why would you possibly keep Brian Cashman in charge of it?
As you may have heard, Cashman, at 28 years and counting, is now the longest serving GM of any North American sports team who did not also own said team...with the exception of Red Auerbach, who ran the Boston Celtics for 56 years.
Auerbach—and Red, knock it off with the cigars, already—won a total of 16 NBA championships (9 while doubling as coach).
Cashman championships on teams that did not include the Core of Four? 0. That's zero, zilch, nada.
So...why would you keep this guy on if you wanted your $300 million spent wisely? Only to AVOID winning the World Series.
No need to hatch plots to injure guys. Just leave the obedient fool in place to keep the team sort of contending, without ever winning it all. The result? Ever-increasing profit margins.
That's all ye can know, and all ye need to know on this earth (Hey, steal from the best!).
Incidentally, Duque? You're wrong: Hal's management is proof that there IS a God. He's just way too merciful to lesser cities.
Well, gotta step. Eternity doesn't last forever, you know—even though it probably seemed so at that Yankees game last night.
And like I always say: Numquam ponenda eat pluralitas sine necessitate.
See ya round the ballpark.
Five games in, any reaction is a kneejerk, and the wisest critique of the 2025 Yankees is to STFU and flush the toilet.
We can bemoan the bottom of the batting order, as the zeroes march to and from the plate. But tonight could bring a deluge, and we'll just look more like the overreactive fools that we are.
Here's a cheap prediction: One month from now, we will be embarrassed by whatever the fuck we said this week. Fortunately, we don't know what's coming. Otherwise, we'd grab the loaded Luger.
But but BUT... in the spirit of Warner Wolf, here are five fast takeaways.
1. In the super Dodgers - now 8-0 - MLB might finally be glimpsing the Babadook.
Entering last winter, they had the best team in baseball, which they then supplemented with the best player from Japan and the best free agent pitcher, with the highest payroll. They will steamroll the NL West - (San Diego's 7-0 is a blip) - then win the NLCS, and then the world series. And next winter, they'll do it again.
For decades now, the Yankees' vast upper level mediocrity has saved MLB from the super team that buys pennants. (When I look at Hal, I always have the same thought: There is no God.) Rather than spend on yesterday, the Dodgers build for tomorrow. The baseball world is witnessing what money and acumen can do. The Yankees did it in the 1990s, nearly 30 years ago. They didn't learn.
2. By June, talk this talk about torpedo bats will draw chuckles and - if there is a God - embarrassment from the chatterers. To make a bat actually matter, you must hit the baseball. Therein lies the problem.
Last night, the Yankees struck out 16 times. That's not a typo. They average 10 per game (ahead of six teams, including Boston, with 11.) Every spring, they bring in a new batting guru, with a new scheme and new philosophy - a new bullshit reason for us to think things will change. Then we watch everything coagulate into a chasm of strikeouts, walks and home runs.
Last night, as they marched to home plate - and then back to the dugout - one conclusion rose above all others: I can't watch nine innings of these games. It's just... boring.
3. Cody Bellinger can play CF. Last night, he handled blasts that I shudder to imagine how The Martian would have played. He turned his back to the ball, ran to the track, spun around and made it look easy. He saved Carlos Rodon from what could have been a two-inning battering.
Thus far, in the late innings, the Yankees have been replacing The Martian in LF, due to his still-questionable fielding. They move Trent Grisham into CF, and Bellinger takes left. But make no mistake: Bellinger can hold his own.
4. It's hard to note all the changes in the 2025 Yankees - Soto, Bellinger, Dominguez, et al - when this team so resembles last year's disappointing finale. Yeah, they won the AL pennant, but this lineup seems to have picked up right where Game 5 left off.
It is becoming part of Yankee lore to strikeout three or four times a game. Everybody does it. I wonder: Can Judge lead us from this fog?
5. Okay, gotta mention Babe Volpe. He's had a week. By golly, if he can hit, say, 30 HRs - that is, keep going to RF - this could be a breakout season. Everybody else, thus far, looks the same. Volpe looks different.
Then again, it's Overreaction Week.
The great Yankee bubble of 2025 has popped. It didn't last long: three (3) games to be precise, against a measles outbreak from Milwaukee, before our bullpen blew like a tire on the Thruway.
If you're scoring the category of GAMES WE SHOULDA FUCKINANY WON, the total now stands at one (1). In the Don Zimmer Thesaurus of terse explanations, we fuckinay shoulda won.
So, buck up and get used to it? Maybe. But the jolt will linger. For three games, we nosed the red button and received a food pellet. Last night, we nosed it and got 500 volts. The YES announcers reran Scott Brosius' world series HR, and Paul O'Neill relived his stadium tribute, but grainy videos cannot restore the last era when the Yankees ruled - an experience we probably won't see again in our lifetimes.
It happened against Arizona, which - it must never forgotten - celebrated its 2001 world series victory by mockingly playing "New York, New York" over the P.A. system, only days after the World Trade Center fell. I never need motivation to beat Arizona. I just remember them singing sarcastically with Frank.
But but BUT... this is not about 2001. It's about last night, when the Death Barge blew a completely winnable game - an outing we assumed would be ours, until it wasn't.
Grand slams will do that. Something about a Yankee Grand Slam Loss - it leaves a lifetime mark. Before last night, we were still mulling Freddie Freeman's blast in the 10th inning of game one, the homer that - in retrospect - sealed LA's championship march. But the list of Yankee soul-crushing HRs - from Mazeroski to Altuve, from Damon to Devers - rolls from our memories like bloody sequences from David Cronenberg films. Once seen, never forgotten.
You could call last night a bullpen loss, and - technically - you wouldn't be wrong. But that would mean ignoring our first four batters - Goldy, Bellinger, Judge and Jazz - who went 0-15 with nine strikeouts. So much for outlawing the torpedo bat. (If you're luxuriating in Boston's current woes, here's a Calgon Bath Oil Bead: Rafael Devers is 15 for 19 in strikeouts, he hates DH, and the Redsocks are 1-4. Ha ha.)
Generally, an out-of-body loss in April gets pitched out with the AARP junk mail. It's too soon to suffer a mortal wound. It's one game - one that WE FUCKINAY SHOULDA WON. Get used to it. There will be about 60 more.
Torpedo! From the Latin Tor, meaning a book publishing company specializing in Science Fiction paperbacks, and pedo, meaning uh, let’s not go there.
Torpedo!
No longer the answer to a trivia question about McHale's Navy, torpedos are back.
Hey, quick question... If the Yankees sink the Dodgers pitching staff in this year's World Series by means of their torpedo bats will any body make that connection? And will they lose their job?
But I digress...
Quick side story here…
During the 1980’s I had a friend who had a friend whose father was a jobber. He had several warehouses down in Santa Ana. I got invited to go look at them for some reason that is still not clear to me and in one of them, in sacks stacked floor to ceiling were actual Wham-O superballs. Real ones with the atomic sign on them and everything.
There were so many of
them that the floor of the warehouse was covered in loose ones that fell out of
ripped sacks, and you could glide across the room like on ball bearings.
They guy said I could take some and, being polite, I took ten. I should have stuffed my pockets. I still have two. I gave away
three and five more suffered from the fate of all superballs… the dreaded
second bounce into oblivion. Gone!
He told me that the ones in the warehouse were bought from the government. Apparently the Air Force was looking into using giant bowling ball size superballs as a weapon.
The idea
was to drop a superball into a building and let the bouncing action destroy the
room without an explosion or fire. It would also limit the damage to the room
in which it was dropped.
Couldn’t tell you how the bowling ball sized superball got
into the room but hey that’s what tax dollars are for. The plan obviously failed as any of us could
have told them. You drop it on Moscow. It bounces once. Hits Prague. And then
right into the Adriatic Sea. Gone!
But I digress…
Look, the Torpedo Bat is just an equipment upgrade. Like bigger infielder gloves or running shoes.
Did anybody complain when runners switched to running shoes?
I mean aside from Buster Brown whose ill-fated attempt at the Bruce Jenner
Buster Brown Running Shoe was a large part of why Buster Brown went out of
business.
If they stuck around they could have tried again with a line
of high heels.
But I digress…
As long as the bat is made of wood and meets the height,
weight, and length MLB specifications it’s fine. Besides, there’s a downside to moving the sweet spot,
in closer to the hands. The wood available for the outside pitch is reduced, affecting
the velocity when going to the opposite field on an outside pitch.
And therein lies the solution for the pitcher. Don’t come
inside. Work the outer half of the plate as much as possible to reduce the efficacy
of the torpedo bat.
In other news…
Rafael Devers is still hitless and has struck out 15 times 19 at bats. People are blaming it on weight gain. Maybe he’s been ordering too many of the wrong kind of torpedos.
(Don't watch this. It's stupid!)
Or, it could be because he’s trying to suck his way off the Red Sox because they gave 3B to a guy who can actually play the position.What does this mean for the Yankees? Well, we still haven’t overpaid for a third baseman yet and we’ve gotten third basemen from Boston before, albeit with mixed results. Boggs and Youklis. I hope this doesn’t come to pass although, I’ve heard pinstripes are slimming.
If Volpe can hit, say, 30 HRs, it would herald a breakout year. He could become a bedrock part of the Yankee infield and an offensive weapon. He's off to a great start: Two HRs! It's not exactly Ruthian: He's one of 34 MLB hitters with two or more. So, in a perfect world, NYC would be celebrating Volpe's potential big year. Start spreadin' the news, right?
Well, no. Sadly, Volpe's output has become Exhibit A in the media's ongoing prosecution of the Yankees, a tribunal that never ends. Instead of hope for Volpe, Austin Wells and Jazz Chisholm - each of whom has two or more HRs - the tabloids have questioned whether "torpedo" bats have caused the recent surge. Last night, like trained seals, the network TV news reports weighed in: Are torpedo bats a threat to your children? Do they undermine truth, justice and the American way?
It was as if Volpe didn't hit the HRs. His bat did.
Listen: If the KC Royals had belted 15 HRs over the weekend in Milwaukee, think we'd know about it? But in NYC, someone's gotta channel Al Pacino: "I'M OUTA ORDER? YOU'RE OUTA ORDER!" There's always an outrage, a reason to scream.
Listen: I'm not bemoaning "fake news." Warts and all, the feral news media remains one of the NYC's great traditions. Be it Pizza Rat or Abe Beam, there's always something to raise our blood pressure. But if you're a Yank fan - or if you follow any NY team - here we fucking go again.
The Yankees enjoy three high-scoring games, and - of course! - they must be using illegal undocumented bats. The Mets sign Juan Soto, and - of course! - they're overpaying. The Giants keep their coaches, because they cannot change. The Jets fire their coaches, because they are unstable. The Knicks and Rangers - fuckit - they're the Knicks and Rangers. Now, we can add St. John's basketball, and every glorious flop will reassure us that the media's doomsday rage was right all along.
Can't we ever have nice things?
Must we break every toy, moments after unwrapping it?
Listen: As cynical and pessimistic Yank fans, we know what's coming:
A market correction. Instead of 10 runs in one game, we'll score one run in 10. Volpe's third HR? It might come in May.
Is anything less meaningful than the first weekend of a baseball season. A guy hitting .400? An opposite field HR? A new season of Tracker? Something, anything, to do with a Kardashian? Damn...
But every year, we pour all our hopes into NY teams, and nothing changes, except - what? - the barrel of the bats? Gimme a break. Wake me at the end of April, then we'll debate Volpe's power surge.
 |
| MLB HR leader board |
As a physicist, sportsman, and advocate for pure science, I feel compelled to pose the essential questions here: What the fuck? And... holy shit?
Have the Yankees found a competitive advantage? Could machine-engorged Yankee barrels bring about a new era of tape-measure self-pleasure? Did some MIT big brain find baseball's Arc of the Covenant? And if so, how long before our enemies catch up, and turn baseball into Pete Alonso at the HR derby? A month? A week? The next few days?
Listen: Baseball history is full of system hacks. Remember Moneyball? Or when Tampa led the world in defensive over-shifts? The Rays also invented the bullpen start. The Astros used cameras and garbage cans. The Dodgers have built an underground railroad for Japanese free agents. The Mets have uncorked limitless wealth. And have the Yankees tweaked the system with bats shaped like "torpedoes?" Fifteen HRs in three games says, maybe. But before we assign asterisks to BAs, a few thoughts:
1. They were three games against Milwaukee.
2. They were the first three games of 2025. Remember last year, when Oswaldo Cabrera mimicked like the Second Coming of Mike Schmidt?
3. Five came against Nasty Nestor Cortes, who we figured - in returning home - would either spin a revenge masterpiece or get raked. Turned out to get the latter.
4. Several were Yankee Stadium HRs, into the right field gift shop. That's Yankee baseball, folks. (And let's see if Tampa can replicate the numbers in their mini-stadium.)
5. Aaron Judge - with 4 HRs - hasn't used the torpedo.
6. Giancarlo used it last season, had a normal Stanton year, and it might have fucked up his elbows.
But but BUT... in the name of Gaylord Perry, who used the spitball as a psychological ploy - the Yankees should spread forth the notion that they have found an advantage. They should guard the torpedoes like a recipe for chicken salad. Let the world think that Anthony Volpe has turned into A-Rod, that Jazz Chisholm will hit 50, and that our routine pop flies will land in the bullpen.
Should there be a physicist wing in Cooperstown? If a few more balls start landing in Monument Park, who knows?
It's why we're so deliciously reviled. To flash a Yankee cap in Bumfuck, Alabama, is like wearing MAGA crimson to a Tesla protest. The toothless, flyover dorks see NY and think it stands for "Not You," while we relentlessly pleasure ourselves in a four-hour beatdown. They think that, as insufferable Yank fans, we should be grateful for all the winning seasons, for the Danny Tartabulls, even when everything drains into pure humiliation, as last October did. They think we have it cushy, better than we deserve, and we don't appreciate it.
And, honestly, on a 20-run win, they're sorta right... which only infuriates them more.
Me? I'm livid - LIVID - that Aaron Judge's late-inning double - hardest whack of the day - hit the top of the wall, denying him a 4th HR by the length of a Boone bubble gum balloon. WTF, juju gods? If Judge finishes 2025 one HR shy of the all-time record, that ball will be the reason. It should have gone out. His ticket to Cooperstown should have been punched. On any true scale of power, Judge yesterday hit four.
So, yeah, of course I'm pissed! The greatest Yankee slugger of our lives - look at the numbers; there can be no argument about this - nearly inscribed his name into history, along with 16 others, including Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays and Mike Schmidt. Instead, he's in the three HR category with more than 100, including Bo Bichette and Ben Rice. And we're supposed to be happy? Hoo-fucking-ray.
Okay, let's appreciate that the Yankees scored 20 runs on 16 hits, including 9 HRs.
The joke says they faced Nasty Nestor, a secretly embedded Yankee spy. This would explain three gophers on his first three pitches. If I were a Brewers fan, I would be terrified, because most ex-Yanks, upon returning, kill us. It's something about their anger and sense of betrayal. When Cortes was listed as starter, I automatically figured he'd go seven. He managed two, with eight runs. Ouch.
Unfortunately, Max Fried couldn't last five, to receive a courtesy win. Boone ended up dredging the bullpen with the law firm of Gomez, Headrick and Carrasco. You could argue that everyone got a chance to start 2025 - Carrasco, the vaunted reclamation project - got beaten up for three runs on five hits. Should we worry? Of course.
Today, we'll learn whether the Yankees just used up their juju allotment for the next month. We've seen it often. They score 10, then give us a week of zeros. Maybe today will be different? Maybe today, we can decide to celebrate?
Don't worry: This is not a game write-up.
Instead, for a brief exercise in self-torture, take a long, lingering glance at the roster to the right. Focus on each name. Do you feel lost? Do you feel tired? Wanna feel old? Consider this: Brandon Leibrandt - who started yesterday for Scranton - is the 32-year-old son of Charlie Leibrandt, who once pitched for the KC Royals.
"A veteran pitcher who understands how to pitch," summarized manager Shelley Duncan, who also might make you feel ancient.
Three active Railriders - Eric Reysaleman, Jorbit Vivas and Everson Pereira - were born in this millennium. Everybody else is side-eyeing 30, either having languished in the Yankee system, or having hooked up this winter, when they realized the franchise would be going through pitchers like Lucy devouring chocolates on a deranged assembly line.
What you don't see is Spencer Jones, the former first-round pick, who hit .250 this spring with three HRs in Tampa, and who played 122 games last year at Double A Somerset, where he hit .259. Apparently, Jones did not make the Triple A roster. Not sure why. Would it be optimism to hope that he's got the measles?
Whatever. Either way, Jones' absence denied Yankee fans their chance to follow a legitimate top 20 franchise prospect.
The current Railriders are a collection of journeymen, spare parts and and third-chancers, such as Vivas and Pereira. I don't mean to demean them; either could play an important role in 2025. But they are not youngsters who generate long term hope. The franchise does have a few distant stars - George Lombard Jr. and Roderick Arias top the list - but aside from Jones, Scranton might not see any of them this summer. (And let's face it: If Jones doesn't hit in Somerset, his Triple A arrival could be delayed.)
I don't mean to be negative. But it's now been about five years since the Yankees boasted a top-rated farm system, which was Brian Cashman's original long term management strategy. Eons ago, when Cashman assumed control, he vowed that the Yankees would build up their core from the minors and supplement through free agency.
What a joke. What a complete and utter failure. Instead, for the last 15 years, the Yankees have been consistently hogtied by horrible contracts to aging players, and here we are, watching a Triple A team that cannot even field one major impact prospect.
And by the way, it can be done. Year after year, the Dodgers and Tampa Rays maintain some of most fruitful farm systems in MLB. The Dodgers supplement with free agents. The Rays are just too cheap.
This year, we can also beware of Boston, which is stocked to the gills with young players.
And Spencer Jones will start - gulp - in Somerset? WTF? He had 482 ABs there last year. Four hundred eighty two. He hit 17 HRs. He's going back for year II? WTF?
Per my now six year old tradition on Opening Day, I bring a photo of my dad sitting in his recliner up on my laptop and watch the game with him.
Not necessarily in that order.
Of all the things I miss about his not being around, talking to him during a game is easily number one. I can't tell you how many times I still reach for the phone in the course of a year.
He was former high school basketball coach in the Bronx and helped me to see the game inside the game and, whatever sport we watched, he always brought insight and compassion.
For example, he didn't like booing. He believed that athletes are always giving their best. Then again he never got to see Gleyber play. So there's that.
His favorite player was DiMaggio.
He would have loved Judge.
It's hard to for me to comprehend but he never got to see him play.
Moreover, what I realized yesterday, is that by passing away seven years ago, he missed the entirety of my participation on this blog.
He would have gotten a real kick out of reading all of us. Well except the "Fuck Boone. Fuck Brian. Fuck Hal." part. He might have felt similarly in terms of disappointment but would have expressed it differently.
Opening Day. The Yankees won and I got a nice visit in. Sometimes that's all you get. Sometimes that's enough.
Five takeaways from Opening Day...
1. "Hey now!" Dave Sims, the Seattle-honed radio replacement for The Master, seemed to charm Suzyn, the most important person in the Yankiverse. Several times, she seemed utterly tickled by Sims. (Though, it apparently remains her job to rain down the incessant in-game commercials, electrified by the Jeep brand.)
In the late innings, with a 6'8" Brewers pitcher on the mound and shadows roiling everyone's vision, Sims noted that "he's so tall that his head is in the sun," causing Suzyn to chuckle. For all their famous chemistry, I cannot recall John Sterling saying something that drew from her a belly laugh.
Instead of Sterling's HR calls, Sims shouted his trademark, "Hey, now!" And the game ended without a Win Warble. It certainly isn't the same - it cannot be. But Sims is a pro. He seemed to win over Suzyn. That's a start.
2. The newly minted closer, Devin Williams, did not win over anybody, except maybe the cardiac unit at Mount Sinai. At one point, ESPN analyst Bill Schroeder touched a nerve, mentioning that this was a "typical" Williams save.
Excuse me? A "typical" inning? Tying runs on second? Two hits and a walk? Are you kidding me? I cannot take another Aroldis "Houdini" Holmes - that is, the closer who always fills the bases, who always sends us to the point of madness. Nope. That's not how this guy was sold to us. He was supposed to throw "the air-bender," which nobody can hit.
Later, the ESPN team inferred that Williams is why Owner Hal eliminated the Beard Ban. Is that a joke? For this, we went scruffy? Hey, now!
3. In the Mets loss, Juan Soto went 1-for-3 and left a runner in scoring position. Ha ha. Fuck you, Soto. NY went 0-6 with Runners In Scoring Position.
Looks like Soto brought with him some of last year's Yankee magic. Let the negative juju commence.
4. Troubling was the drop off in the heart of the Yankee order. Goldy, Jazz and The Martian: 0-10 with four Ks. Of course, one game means nothing. But that bottomless hole signifies the sum of all our fears:
That once a pitcher gets past Judge, we fall into a crevice.
For a brand new lineup, yesterday looked quite familiar:
We score early and then go into hibernation. We had so many opportunities to break open the game, and we did nothing. Over the last 10 years, how often has that scenario played out?
5. Nice to see Luke Weaver throw a relatively quick eighth. (One walk.) Weaver remains a mystery, almost too good to be true. There were reports out of Tampa that his mph has dropped a couple ticks. He looked good yesterday.
The Yankees really need a setup guy. They might even need a closer.
Unbottled, unbrewed and unbuttoned. I'll take it.
Wins Judge HRs Martian BA
Hammer of God 96 65 .320
Rufus T. Firefly 94 50 .280
Doug K 93 52 .281
RtotheE 93 63 .260
Parson Tom 92 43 .251
PgPick 92 57 .255
Mattingly’s
Mustache 92 50 .293
Hinkey Haines 91 50 .261
Jaraxle 91 47 .266
Local Bargain
Jerk 91 49 .278
Gary Frenay 90 50 .260
Bern Baby Bern 90 49 .248
JM 89 45 .233
Oliver Tiberius
Cat 89 45 .269
Vampifella 88 50 .225
Coplius 88 54 .270
Dick Allen 87 56 .310
Carl J Weitz 87 56 .283
Alphonso 87 43 .238
Kevin 87 57 .275
Ken of Brooklyn 86 51 .223
Ranger LP 85 45 .218
Acrilly 84 48 .227
Mildred Lopez 84 43 .251
BTR999 84 27 .239
Platoni 83 53 .250
Der Kaiser 82 38 .247
Publius 82 41 .221
Scottish
Yankee Fan 82 31 .228
Above Average 81 46 .256
Wezil1 80 42 .262
Pocono Steve 79 46 .269
Chaz 79 39 .267
El Duque 78 60 .232
13BIT 75 43 .251
Stang 73 75 .199
HoraceClarke66 66 31 .223
Predictions taken until Noon Thursday.
Posts
All Comments
