Today, the state of the Yankees is strong, dilly dilly!
UPGRADES OVER 2017:
Sonny Gray above Michael Pineda
David Robertson far above Tyler Clippard
Tommy Kahnle far above Chase Shreve
Chad Green far above Holder, Heller, whoever
Healthy Greg Bird far above the injured Bird/Chris Carter
Giancarlo Stanton far, far above Matt Holliday
More mature (age 25) Gary Sanchez (defensively) above Sanchez
23-year-old Clint Frazier above 22-yr-old Frazier
David Robertson far above Tyler Clippard
Tommy Kahnle far above Chase Shreve
Chad Green far above Holder, Heller, whoever
Healthy Greg Bird far above the injured Bird/Chris Carter
Giancarlo Stanton far, far above Matt Holliday
More mature (age 25) Gary Sanchez (defensively) above Sanchez
23-year-old Clint Frazier above 22-yr-old Frazier
DOWNGRADES FROM LAST YEAR:
Gleyber Torres below Starlin Castro (but not on defense)
Miguel Andujar below Chase Headley/Todd Frazier (on defense)
34-year-old Brett Gardner slightly below 33-year-old Gardner
37-yr-old CC Sabathia below 36-yr-old CC
Miguel Andujar below Chase Headley/Todd Frazier (on defense)
34-year-old Brett Gardner slightly below 33-year-old Gardner
37-yr-old CC Sabathia below 36-yr-old CC
UNCHANGED GRADES/ WILD CARDS
Dellin Betances
Aroldis Chapman
Jordan Montgomery
Didi Gregorius
Aaron Judge
The upper tier of the farm system: Justus Sheffield, Jake Cave, Billy McKinney, et al.
Seven upgrades, four downgrades, six wild cards. If Torres and Andujar come of age, who knows? If anybody from the farm wild cards arrives, it's a huge boost. If the five other wild cards recreate last year, we win the Division by 10 games.
Right now, only injuries can derail us.
Right now, anyway.
Meanwhile, it's like the song says:
ReplyDelete"The nights get colder
Suddenly you're older
And there's still nothing on
The team you love..."
No Yanks, no soccer. Which keeps Soccer ahead, by 11-1 in the NYT "sports" section.
Gotta love a songwriter named "Rufus".
ReplyDeleteDilly, Dilly!
...and I'd say the line-up is slightly improved from last year.
ReplyDeleteGoing to spring training game against the Marlins. Hopefully they send a few of the regulars to the east coast. Buying a # 15 jersey (with no name desecrating the back) for the occasion. My buddy that went in on the Fenway Bucky Dent brick is going with me. Hope I can pace the bourbon long enough to make it to the part where it looks like a triple A game.
The Marlins have regulars?
ReplyDeleteIt would be cool if there were some graphic web-based widget-y gizmo/app/thingie that looked like a meter and had one single needle on it that went from red on the left to green on the right, where red means the state of the yankeeverse is weak and green means strong, kind of like a "fire danger" thing. some people might even give up reading commentary and just trust a quick glance at the widget.
ReplyDeleteHoss,
ReplyDeleteI'll be at the game in Jupiter, FL. Hoping the Yankees bring (at least some of) their regulars.
The Marlins have irregulars. That was an IBS lady reference...
ReplyDelete13bit:
That's an interesting concept. The programming underlying a "graphic web-based widget-y gizmo/app/thingie" is fairly straightforward. Far more difficult, of course, would be determining which data points would be used to influence the position of the needle.
Just to get a discussion started, let me throw out some ideas. I think the angle of the needle would be determined through the accumulation of "bad points", e.g., signing Todd Frazier to a 5-year contract, Greg Bird getting injured playing pickup basketball with Aaron Boone, etc. Each bad thing would be worth a certain amount of points. "Good" would simply be defined as the absence of "bad". Every season would start with zero points and then we'd add up the bad, subtract some credits for good and see where the needle pointed.
For example:
1) Starting pitchers on the DL (200 points per pitcher on the DL multiplied by a factor 5 if it's the #1 starter, by 4 for a #2 starter, by 3 for the #3 starter, etc.) Tanaka gets injured? That's 1000 "bad" points.
2) Relievers on the DL (200 points per reliever on the DL multiplied by 1 for a middle reliever, by 2 for a setup man, and by 3 for a closer.) So, El Chapo goes on the DL, that's 600 "bad" points.
3) Position Players on the DL (100 points per player on the DL)
4) Number of players on the starting roster over 32 years of age (100 points per fogey).
5) Number of bad contracts 100 points times number of years remaining). Ellsbury gives us 300 bad points right out of the gate.
Now let's talk about good points:
1) Team ERA is < 4.00. Subtract 500 points.
2) Team BA is > .275. Subtract 100 points.
3) Subtract 50 points for every individual batter hitting over 300.
4) On pace to win 90 games, subtract 100 points.
...and so on. That should get us started.
Again, green would be to the left and red would be to the right. Theoretically, perfect green would be zero points (all clear) and red would be as high as it goes. (We'd have to figure out what the theoretical maximum of sucky things would be. For example, if all starters were injured, all 25 contracts sucked and were 5 years each, we were on track to win 70 games, team ERA was 6.22, etc.).
The above isn't science -- yet -- but we could start it off and tweak the factors as we go. If we discovered that some factor caused the needle to jump too much (or not enough), we could tweak the base points and/or the multipliers involved so that the "needle" appeared in a position that made sense ... from our completely subjective and biased perspectives.
We could publish such a thing and then argue about it until we were all blue in the face. I.e., sounds like fun.
What other factors have I missed?
Manager is a Genius/Bonehead
ReplyDeleteDoug K.
LBJ - GREAT post and thanks for picking up that ball and running with it. I am trying to get to bed early because I have to hit the road tomorrow, but I do not see this as complete unless you get some data points in there on bowel movements and possibly something to do with Randy Levine. This is a sober assessment, mind you. I like the idea of us publishing this and then arguing about it all summer.
ReplyDeleteLove the widget, LBJ and 13bit!
ReplyDeleteAnd you mention the IBS Lady, Rufus?
Be still my heart! (And of course, my bowels.)
So, A-Jax signed for two years, $6 mill in SF.
ReplyDeleteSome are saying that means they don't need Jacoby anymore, some say they still need a centerfielder.
Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.
Some say the Mets are looking at Bartolo Colon, which is truly terrifying.
BEWARE THE BLACK SWAN.
ReplyDelete
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