Sunday, November 3, 2019

Chap sticks

In this intensely polarized world, who doesn't appreciate compromise... both sides accepting a fallback. Instead of hot pants, bell-bottoms! Instead of piercings, tattoos! Instead of gonorrhea, herpes! Last night, at about 20 minutes to dead midnight, the Death Star and Aroldis Chapman split the diff on a long-term deal and signed a pact to keep El Chapo in happy pinstripes for one more year... three more, overall.

He'll be a Yankee through 2022, at $18 M per season, the fourth-highest paid player (after Giancarlo Stanton, Masahiro Tanaka, and Jacoby Ellsbury.) The deal appeals to both sides, though I'd argue the Chap-Stick would have been lucky to score more on the free agent market.

The key is whether ol' Chappaquiddick can become an artsy, finesse pitcher, because his fastball is dropping faster than Kamela Harris, losing velocity, except for when it's thrown 10 feet over the catcher's head. He's no longer Earth's most feared flame-thrower. If anything, Yank fans have come to fear him. 

Still, a compromise is a compromise... 

I can't lie: I hoped he'd jump. I hate to wallow in economics, because the one-percent Steinbrenners have more money than most Third World countries; they are Putin-level rich, and I refuse to accept Food Stamps Hal's little parlor game of poor-mouthing. For Hal, there is no payroll budget beyond an arbitrary number, which he imposes for self-gratification. There is no earthly reason why the Dodgers, Cubs and Redsocks should ever outspend the Yankees, yet that's what we have witnessed. And if Hal, for the goof of it, is seeing just how cheaply he can build a World Series champion, he has failed. Look at those top three salaries - only Tanaka is worth it - and our fourth highest-paid player this year was J.A. Happ, who couldn't warrant a playoffs start. 

So, it's the Chapster for three more years. It could be worse. But he's like a spouse who has been caught in bed with the pool boy. Things have happened that cannot be unseen. Remember when he blew the lead and needed to be bailed out by Chasen Shreve? Or when when the rookie Rafael Devers hit that game-tilting HR off him, effectively killing the Yankees' season? And then there is this year's season-ender, just another addition to the memory pile.

The Man of Chap's numbers peaked between 2014 and 16, when he was virtually unhittable. Then, his highest ERA was 2.00. Two years ago, it drifted to 3.22, pretty lame for a closer. This year, he finished at 2.21 - not horrible, but every game seemed to end with the tying run at third, and the winning run at second. He'll turn 32 in February... 35 when this contract ends. 

Well, he's ours. It's one less item on our punch-list, I suppose. A compromise. Let's see what happens next. Winter is here.

26 comments:

  1. Austria's Only Baseball FanNovember 3, 2019 at 8:18 AM

    NOT the news I wanted to hear on another dreary, cold, and rain Sunday morning. The Yankees are fast receding to mere farce for me as news of the 2020 roster trickles in. I have a feeling that next season I shall be watching the Nats a lot more and just checking the Yankees' website to see who was credited with the loss and by how much.

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  3. A wasted decade. The Yankees aren't supposed to win a title here and there. They are supposed to have recurring dynasties. The last dynasty ended in 2000. The single title in 2009 is near meaningless. The Yankees are not the Royals or the Cubs. Their fans may be satisfied for decades with a single title, and good for them, the miserable inbred monger halfwits. I am not. The Yankees should be built to RULE and to DOMINATE MLB and all sports. The era we are suffering through is a plague, a stain on their noble and storied history. All because Collusion Hal didn't understand the true potential of the Yankees. He is a miser who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The profits of a dynastic team would bring a pang to his small cold unimaginative heart. Always a volatile individual, my anger at him is now volcanic. This team has, had? the potential to be great were it not for Hal's penurious soul.


    I wish illness on you Hal. I wish cancer and death on you. A cruel debilitating cancer that deprives you of your ability to "lead" this noble franchise and then after interminable suffering takes your life before your time.

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  4. First off, we can now look forward to clutching the pillows we sit on every time this asshole comes to the mount in a tight game. His numbers belie his uselessness. He gets saves that others can get. He blows big games that another closer might win. He's a dick. A spectacular dick.

    Second, this means that Cashman will never change. Same old stupid, unimaginative, never-outside-the-box thinking that got us here - with one World Series in the last 15 years and that was a bit of an outlier. He is a HORRIBLE GM and we have wasted more or Poor Hal's money on bad pitching than the whole league combined.

    Third - King George, the mad asshole that we loved and hated in equal parts, would have already had a lunch date planned with Strasberg for this coming week, would have hired a shrink to advise him how best to woo the guy, and would have also been talking to Cole's parents, girlfriend/wife/whatever and his friends. by December 1st, he would have signed them both. Am I being unrealistic? Maybe, but you all know that he would have been TRYING, at least. Hal is probably getting his pubes waxed and his asshole bleached at this moment and thinking about something, ANYTHING, except baseball.

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  5. You tell 'em, Warbler.

    And it's gotten steadily worse. 2001-2003, as the Team That Stick Built slowly trickled down, there were still amazing if frustrating moments.

    A freakish loss in Phoenix, a series dropped to the wildly juiced-up Angels when HOFer Mussina could not continue with a 6-1 lead. Another World Series loss when Nick "Sling Blade" Johnson got picked off third, Bernie's ball almost got out of the park, and Wells couldn't go...

    All very frustrating, and an omen. But the kind of freaky stuff that can happen under the idiotic, "everybody into the pool" playoff rules of the New Baseball.

    Then it started to get worse. The Fiasco in Fenway that was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my sports-watching life.

    Then the way we started to lose repeated series to the same teams. We couldn't beat the Angels, then we couldn't beat the Tigers, then the Red Sox, now the Astros...

    These weren't flukes anymore, but indications that other teams were just better.

    Still, we contended as long as we had the remaining Core of Four from the ancien regime, picked up that 2009 trophy. Cashman couldn't WAIT to push those guys out the door. After 2012, it was all done, and we'd see what he could do on his own.

    And here it is: The Dynasty That Never Was, its stars already having lost their luster, imploded, blinked out.

    We hung on to some of the old crew—such as CC—too long out of nostalgia and gratitude for what they had done.

    We're hanging on to Chapo out of...what, exactly? Our nostalgia and gratitude, as Duque notes, for the Devery home run, the Altuve home run? His sparkling personality and lovable character?

    Soon we'll have more to add to that list. Thanks for the memories, Chappie. And how can we miss you when you won't go away?

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  6. THERE IT IS!

    THE FIRST BAD MOVE OF 2020!

    COOP IS RIGHT ON SCHEDULE!

    INSTEAD OF WORRY ABOUT TOP NOTCH STARTING PITCHERS AND FREE UP A BUNCH OF MONEY FOR THAT, COOP AND THE GANG CAVE, AND WORRY ABOUT THE BULLPEN AGAIN.

    UNBELIEVABLE.

    NEXT GARDY WILL BE BROUGHT BACK FOR A "BARGAIN" AT $9 MILLION.

    HOW DO WE EXPECT TO WIN A WORLD SERIES IF WE KEEP REPEATING THE SAME SHIT EVERY OFF SEASON?

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  7. I blame the Red Sox. Our front office still looks to them when making decisions.

    The Red Sox did not sign their closer last year.

    They then failed to make the playoffs.

    Uh oh! We'd better sign our closer or that will happen to us!

    (Sigh)

    Doug K.




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  8. Today I get to watch my kid play baseball on his NCBA team

    National Club Baseball Association) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Club_Baseball_Association

    It's a road game so I won't be around to comment much so here's my...

    "Chappy" Yankee Thought #12

    He won the Rolaids Fireman of the Year or what ever they are calling it now. The Beech Nut Life Saver? The Red Bull Bullpen... I don't know.

    Anyway he was, by some standard that clearly does not include actually watching the guy pitch under pressure, he was the best reliever (The Flomax Best Reliever?) in the American League. So at least he doesn't suck most of the time.

    Gotta go.

    Doug K.

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  9. Dumb fucking move.

    Does he have a no-trade clause?

    On the other hand, he does spend more and more time on the injured list. Maybe he and Ells and Stanton can rent a mansion in Tampa. With multiple whirlpools.

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  10. I wonder if Ells has a Cubii?

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  11. Watch Chapman go for Tommy John next week and be out a year and a half to make this contract a truly brilliant one.

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  12. Austria's Only Baseball FanNovember 3, 2019 at 3:41 PM

    The MLB website offers a list of the hottest free-agent pitching arms potentially in play.

    I can hear HAL to Cashman: "How about none of them? Will none be OK with you?"

    Cashman: "Yes, master. May I ask, have you signed the new multi-year contracts for Gregorious - Gregarious? - Oh, you know how I am with all these foreigner's names! Anyway, his contract and the one for the Gardener. We have to keep the grass looking nice."

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  13. Don't refer to whoever the new pitching "coach" is by name. When speaking to me, just say the word "Nutsack" and I'll know of whom you speak.

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  14. Interesting NYPost article on "luxury tax implications" of signing Arold.

    The headline is misleading. The article's beef (toward the end)is about the luxury tax implications of everything and everyone.

    In short: Beyond the feeling on this website that THIS should not have happened (considering the player's limitations and, well, sweating) -- shedding the $$$ would have been a heck of a lot smarter than adding to the freaking tab.

    Incidentally, the article doesn't take that position -- it just lays out the $$$ facts.

    https://nypost.com/2019/11/03/the-luxury-tax-implications-of-aroldis-chapmans-yankees-extension/

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  15. Thanks, Joe FOB, it was indeed very interesting.

    I think the HAL calculation here, though, is that if he did NOT keep on Chapo with this small, average bump, the pressure would've become overwhelming to get a top starter, a Strasburg or a Cole, for at least something like $30 mill a year and maybe $300 mill for the whole contract.

    That is simply unacceptable for HAL who, we must remember, has assigned himself the difficult task of maximizing profits while still convincing us, the fans, that he is sincerely trying to win the World Series. This can be a fine line, and I think he's walked it here, convincing all those optimists you read on other blogs that our great, world-beating closer is coming back and, hey, maybe the Yanks have a plan!! (They don't.)

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  16. I would have let him walk, especially @ $18m/year.

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  17. Doug K., the thing is, statistically—which is all that matters to Coops and the Analytics (also the name of my new garage band)—Chapo IS pretty good.

    We've been spoiled by The Great One—and, for some of us going back even further—the likes of Lindy McDaniel, Sparky Lyle, Goose Gossage, Dave Righetti, etc.—but more often, even top relievers have careers like Chapo's, up one year and down the next, getting a big save here, blowing another one there.

    The difference is that we and all other sentient human beings have noticed the weirdness: the sweating, the periodic lack of control, that strange little grin. And we understand this bodes no good.

    Coops is pretending he doesn't notice it so, when the TJ surgery comes—good call, Anon!—or the positive PED test, or another episode of violent misogyny, or whatever...he can tell us and the Lloyd's of London man, "Why, I had no IDEA!"

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  18. He's "good" but, when he's bad, the season ends. He's a fucking disaster. I'll never trust him on the mound.

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  19. YOU MEAN TO TELL ME AFTER WHAT WE JUST WITNESSED, THIS TEAM IS NOT GOING TO PURSUE A TOP LINE STARTING PITCHER?

    ARE THEY FUCKING KIDDING ME?

    I DON'T GIVE A SHIT HOW THEY SKEW THE STATS, OUR STARTING PITCHING IS NOWHERE NEAR GOOD ENOUGH TO TAKE US TO AND THROUGH THE WORLD SERIES.

    PAXTON PITCHES 1 GOOD GAME AGAINST THE ASTROS, AND EVERYBODY FORGETS ABOUT THE OTHER START WHEN WE TOOK HIM OUT IN THE 4TH INNING.

    SEVY STILL KIND OF CRAPPED THE BED, AND TANAKA WAS GOOD BUT EVEN HE IS NOT A TRUE "ACE".

    WE HAVE NO "ACES".

    NONE.

    ASTROS HAD 3 ACES. (COLE, VERLANDER AND GREINKE).

    WASHINGTON HAD CLOSE TO 3 ACES. (SCHERZER, STRASBURG, AND CORBIN).

    WE HAVE NO ACES.

    ZERO.

    WE HAVE A FEW DECENT INTERMIXED #3 STARTERS, AND THAT'S IT.

    NO ACES.

    GOT THAT HAL?

    NO "CHAMPIONSHIP CALIBER TEAM" DOESN'T POSSESS EVEN ONE TRUE "ACE".

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  20. Absolutely, All-Caps, absolutely. What you said. Amen.

    Fuck Hal.
    Fuck Brian.
    Fuck Chapo.
    Fuck Rob Manfred
    Fuck Randy Levine
    Fuck Curt Schilling
    Fuck Buck
    Fuck Boone
    Fuck Nutsack
    Fuck Randy Johnson
    Fuck Javy Vaszquez, however it's spelled
    Fuck Ellsbury
    Fuck Stanton
    Fuck Carl Pavano
    Fuck The Boston Announcers
    Fuck the friends of our enemies
    Fuck the Yankee Haters
    Fuck Hank for not drowning Hal back when he was three and could have gotten away with it
    Fuck the Mets
    Fuck the Red Sox
    Fuck the Astros
    Fuck Verlandet, but not his wife
    Fuck Football
    Fuck Hockey
    Fuck Basketball
    Fuck the Dolans
    Fuck the JETS, who stole four decades of my life
    Fuck the bullies
    Fuck the Sox fans who sing along to "Sweet Caroline"
    Fuck em all.

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  21. Sorry about the Jets, Bitty.

    Man, that safety near the end, on the snap, had "This decade's Butt Fumble" written all over it. Then they came within inches of giving up a SECOND safety within about two minutes, which would've been some sort of record.

    Yeah, it's brutal out there without the Yanks. And brutal with them.

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  22. Oh Dear Sweet Bitty, sometimes it's like you're speaking straight to my heart!! 💓 💞 💓

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  23. With the Albatross Brothers of Stanton and Ellsbury on the roster and Happ getting an absurd $ 17 million, there's no fucking way Cole or Strasburg end up on the Yankees. They might get a Steinbrenner face-saving dinner and Stadium tour at the most. Hal is probably still getting stomach cramps for buying Manny dinner AND wine last winter.

    Fuck Hal Steinbrenner. May a highly anomalous and severe gale suddenly take aim and smash his sailing yacht into the Rock of Gibraltar with he and the entire Bloated Front Office aboard. No survivors, sniff sniff.

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  24. Speaking of the Jets.....take the G-Men AND the 7 points. Ride the first wave of their minimum 3 game winning streak. The Giants will win outright tonight. Bet the ranch, baby!

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