So... altogether now... how many overall runs did those homers produce? Anybody? Class? Come on, take a guess. Anybody? Somebody?
No, not seven. (You all guessed seven, because you thought this was a trick question, and that I would be reveling in such an inconsequential show of power, right? I know you people.)
Eight. Judge's second homer came with a runner on base. Seven homers, eight runs.
By the way, the Yankees split the two games, winning the one where they whacked six homers, losing the game where they hit just one. If you live by the HR, you die by the lack of it. That was the secret slogan of the 2018 Yankees, and little seems to have changed. Only DJ "General Curtis" LeMahiue - our big-spending superstar free agent acquisition - skews us less toward a batting lineup of the three fundamental outcomes: HR, BB, or K. (And mostly Ks, by the way.)
Look, it's Monday and the plows are rumbling, and we all need a lift, so let's be bubbly for a change. Let's postulate the best-case scenario for the Yankee lineup, homer-wise. Here it is, with HR projections, and tell me if I'm ridiculously optimistic.
Hicks 30
Judge 40
Stanton 40
Andujar 30
Sanchez 30
Bird/Voit 25
Torres 20
Tulowitski/Gregorius 25
Gardy/Frazier 25
LeMahiue 1
Others 10
That's 276 - nine more than last year, when the Yankees broke the all-time single-season team record (and finished with a wild card.) Of course, this holds leaps of faith: Hicks, Stanton, Bird, Tulo, Sanchez and Frazier are injury-magnets, meaning after one lousy weekend, we could be watching Matt Lipka patrolling RF. But truth be told, this team should sleepwalk its way to 200 home runs, which probably guarantees 85 wins. We definitely will contend for - you guessed it - the wild card.
The fear, of course, is that from those projected 276 blasts, the Yankees will achieve what they did yesterday: 277 runs. And checking the lineup, we see only one hitter maybe batting .300 - Andujar. Moreover, we've seen a withering de-evolution in batting averages from Hicks, Sanchez, Gregorius and Torres, as they morph into HR-happy, all-or-nothing Dave Kingmans. Each could be a great player, if they don't get drunk on swinging for the fences.
And with a team this power-laden, that can be easy to do. It could be Aaron Boone's biggest challenge: Coax a few singles from his hitters. (Of particular concern is Aaron Hicks. If his decline in batting average continues, he'll hit about .220 this year. So much for being the second best CF in baseball, eh?)
The 2019 Yankees will hit a pile of HRs. But to finagle an old punch line, Who's on first? The answer might - wayyyyy too often be... Nobody.
“If nobody sets the table, we don’t get to eat.”
ReplyDelete~Confucius
"New Season. New Start. New York. Same Expectations."
ReplyDeleteThis is what popped up in my Facebook feed today as the title of a sponsored ad from Los Yankees. It's the same line of shit, the same sipped cup of pablum, that we have been fed for a while, but there is no longer any basis to it. If I thought they were smarter and if I were inclined towards legalese trickery, I would note that "expectations" are different from "promises" or "demands" or "goals" even. Yes, we all expect to win, whatever that means. Actually, I'm not sure sure I expect us to win this year.
Maybe the noun is different from the verb? When I expect something to happen, there is some degree of certainty, tinged by a bit of doubt. An "expectation," though?" Here's what the online dictionary says about "expectation":
"A strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future."
A "belief?" You mean like the tooth fairy kind of belief? Santa Claus? Satan? Jainism? Belief is just vapor in many ways. Yes, strong beliefs can sustain us through hard times and all that, but believing is different from expecting. Anyway, for someone who hated it when my fourth grade teacher tried to parse the meaning from a poem, I sure am laying it on thick here.
I can only say that the ad keeps appearing in my FB feed and it keeps rankling me. It's kind of like I don't...believe them. My expectations are lowered. Maybe it would more honest to have less of their bullshit fake bravado. Maybe really tough teams don't have to brag about being "fully operational death starts." Maybe serious teams talk with their bats, and I'm not talking home runs - which I love as much as any other red-blooded American - but I'm thinking of grinding out hits, setting the table, and maybe THEN going for a homer. When every schmuck tries to hit a homer with every at bat, it's a sign that there is no strategy, no guidance, no plan, NO COACHING.
Which leads me to my next thought. Hal is here forever, Cashman is here for a long time or until Hal gets tired of the pheromones he puts out on those fishing trips they take together to Skull Island to hunt for King Kong. Rothschild is like Rasputin and getting rid of him will be just as hard. So, what's the best low-hanging fruit we could toss into the toilet bowl and replace in order to make this team better? You got it. Rhymes with "rheumy, moony, looney, and puny." Mr A. Fucking Boone. It's like have a self-driving car, but with a 1998 computer at the controls. He is useless. He cannot even motivate. Forget his baseball "skills." He is just dead weight on the bench. The only good news is that, if they really start to suck, Cashola will throw him under the bus faster than projectile diarrhea coming out of a dogs asshole.
We'll just have to wait and see.
As a great man once said, "So's my dick."
ReplyDeleteI WAS THINKING THE SAME THING...
ReplyDeleteLOTS A HOME RUNS...
NOBODY ON BASE....
ANNOUNCERS BRAGGING...
.....AND THE RED SOX WON YESTERDAY, SCORING 9 RUNS WITH ABOUT 7 LESS HOMERS.
Of course, we'll set a new team record for home runs. Hell, maybe even a league record for home runs. Or an MLB record for home runs. But the media isn't screaming that we'll set a similar, parallel record for strike outs.
ReplyDeleteAnd that, friends and neighbors, is how rallies die.
Yeah, double plays, too, but we'll die on strike outs.
You can feel the breeze that's on the way.
More walk, strikeout, home run...Manfred Mann needs to do something about this...
ReplyDeleteHilarious, 13bit!
ReplyDeleteJohn M., right now we hold all-three: record for team, league, and MLB home runs. It got us an early seat on the couch last fall. This year, we could easily break our own record—and, I think have at least two guys break the single-season strikeout record.
Hurrah.
ReplyDeleteOFF TOPIC: Let me paint you a picture --
ESPN.com has a story -- I don't care much for the verbiage -- that includes a graphic. I am not web-savvy, so I don't know how (or even If) the thing can be copied and pasted here by a commenter on IIH.
But here's the URL - page down just a bit
https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/3/4/18249260/new-york-yankees-manny-machado-bryce-harper-nolan-arenado
....and here's the gist:
In 2005, the Yankee payroll was 213% of the average of the other 29 teams.
In 2018, the payroll advantage was 29%
It's really a devastating graphic if you look at it for 3 seconds. Tells the story of what we all are bemoaning about Hal/Cash/etc., personally and on this site.
Wow. That's pretty devastating, Joe FOB. Thank you. If you charted a few other things on that graph, it would be even more damning.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers say it all. It's a shame that the stat-driven types who work at the Yankees don't look at this stuff.
Oh, the front-office types see it, alright, bitty, but they operate by the old Spanish motto, "en boca cerrada, no entran moscas".
ReplyDelete(Flies don't enter a closed mouth) - - for all of you who don't comprendo Hispaniola - - like our cursed leaders. LB (No J)
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