If he stays, has a great year, reclaims the form of 2018, and leads us to a ring, he could become a Yank for life - Monument Park, supermodels, Saturday Night Live, the whole left side of the menu - cue the fly-over. But here's where everything gets weird:
I'm not sure the Yankees want him to stay. Let's think this through together.
If Didi leaves...
Gleyber becomes SS. Problem solved, right? Hmm. I dunno. Do we really want Gleyber at SS? He can become the game's best 2B, our No. 3 hitter (maybe even No.2) Would the pressure of SS undermine his ascension? Why mess with a good thing?
LeMahiue moves to 2B - no problem, there. But 1B reverts to a clump of clankers: Voit, Ford and Bird. One thing we learned: First base is not the place to hide your DH. A great fielding 1B saves everyone. Voit, Ford and Bird... for an entire season? I dunno.
Some say Miguel Andujar can play 1B. Hmm. We never did find out if Andu could play 3B. So Gio would probably stay at third... could he play SS, or 2B?
Wow. If Didi leaves, our whole infield is slightly askew. Same players, but everything has shifted an inch.
And if Didi stays...
Well, I see dead people. We have too many bodies. The infield stays intact - Urshela, Didi, Gleyber, DJ - but what of Andujar? Left field, you say? What a waste of a great, young, generational talent. Trade him? Ouch. Talk about trading at a low point in value.
And there's another result of Didi staying: That $17.8 M price tag: Surely, it wil l mean that Food Stamps Hal hides under the bed, when the big free agents visit NYC. (Note: This will probably happen anyway. A Joel Sherman article this weekend, surely influenced by Cashman, throws cold water on the Yankees spending plans, simply due to the team keeping Aroldis Chapman. They're already grooming Yank fans to accept another "Hal needs a new yacht" austerity budget.)
If Didi stays, does he return to old form? After all, his problems this year stemmed from missing the first three months, right? Well... not necessarily. Here's a troubling stat:
When Didi returned in June, he hit .290. In July, he hit .256. In August, .222. In September, .190. A straight line - downward. By the season's end, he had adopted a full Grandyman mode, seeking to hit every ball out of the area code. That won't do.
So... whadda I think? Jeez, I thought you'd never ask.
I think Didi has two, maybe three, good years left at SS. Then the body sags. He turns 30 in February.
I think this is Didi's best shot at a huge, multi-year deal. If he waits until 2020, no matter how he hits, GMs will start seeing his age and getting nervous.
I think we will make the qualifying offer today and see WTF happens. But the Yankees could surprise us. They did with El Chapo.
Most of all, I think I'm glad everything will happen quickly. It's a long winter, and it's just begun.
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The infielder problem is a good problem. All solutions work. Hal's a miserly fucker. We need a solution to that problem.
A wasted decade. The Yankees are 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.
I THINK THE REAL (GOOD) PROBLEM HERE IS SEEING HOW AMAZING LEMAHIEU LOOKS AT 2ND.
THAT IS HIS BEST POSITION, AND THAT IS WHERE HE REALLY BELONGS.
URSHELA, AT 3RD, GLEYBER AT SHORT, AND LEMAHIUE AT 2ND, MIGHT BE OUR BEST INFIELD DEFENSIVELY, BUT DIDI IS NO SLOUCH.
BAD PROBLEM ABOUT DIDI GOING IS LOSING ANOTHER LEFT HANDED HITTER.
NOT GOOD.
WE HAVE ALMOST NO GOOD LEFT HANDED HITTERS IN OUR EVERYDAY LINEUP.
IF DIDI GOES, NO DIDI, NO OVERRATED HICKS, AND MAYBE NO GARDY (WHICH I AM FOR).
LETS SEE IF COOP AND HIS GENIUS "SKILL SET" CAN FIX THIS PROBLEM WHICH HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR A FEW YEARS NOW.
POWERFUL STUFF WARBLER...
VERY ACCURATE.
Here's what I don't understand...
If they offer Didi the qualifier he costs 17 Mil. So we're giving him a raise and he takes it because it gives him a year to rebuild his reputation. And, if he does... he leaves.
So the reason the Yankees would make the offer is in the hope that he will decline it and we get a draft pick.
And if he accepts then another huge chunk of budget gets eaten up in what would be a massive overpay with no future upside.
This as opposed to offering him say, $12M Same as last year and let him rebuild his career and apply the money to somewhere else. (cough Starters! cough)
Also, DJ is in the final year of his contract. We talk about him like he's a permanent fixture. He's not.
I don't want to get too far ahead but maybe they should do something more radical because our 2021 infield is (Voit/Ford/Meh), No one, Gleyber, (Urshala/AnDUjar/Meh)
Doug K.
IS IT JUST ME, OR IS ANYONE ELSE NOT HAPPY WITH TURNING ENCARNACION AWAY?
TAKE AWAY THE HOUSTON SERIES, AND HE WAS MAYBE OUR BEST POST SEASON HITTER AGAINST THE TWINS.
EVERY TIME HE CAME UP, I WAS HAPPY, PLUS HE WAS A GREAT STOPGAP TO HAVE AT FIRST BASE.
THINK OF THIS....
DO WE REALLY WANT HIM GOING TO BOSTON?
GOT A FEELING HE'S GONNA WIND UP THERE...
NOT GOOD.
"Best post season hitter against the Twins" is damning with faint praise.
My God, is it 10:30 already? I have laundry to do.
Oh, yeah, Didi. Whatever. He'll be with us next year, and probably beyond. DJ should get a nice contract after 2020.
My God, is it 2020 already? I should go to the gym...
Hal's fear of the luxury tax arises from philosophical, not logistical, considerations. He can afford it. It might even pay for itself if they win a few championships. Most importantly, spending on good pitching could restore the glory that has fled us.
Hal, though, doesn't want to pay the tax on principle. Taxes are the death of billionaires. Why should he pay taxes? Leave that to the poor schmucks who have to pay increased consumption taxes on food, cigarettes, gasoline and consumer goods. Avoiding taxes, for the super rich, is like a sport or some way to prove that they are smarter than the pool shlub who did NOT inherit billions from Daddy.
Fuck Hal
Fuck Hal
Fuck Hal
Sell the Yankees to someone who cares about baseball, you flaming, frat-boy, preppie asshole pile of goat shit. Fuck you, Hal.
Indeed, Bitty. Remember that little "thought exercise" we did this season?
You put the numbers together, and the Yankees could have assembled a super team—a staff of Verlander, Scherzer, Sale, and Cole, among other things—that would probably at least make the Series every year, and cost only about $30-$40 million more than the team does now.
The increased revenues in everything, from that, would surely more than make up the extra cost, even the luxury tax.
But that sort of capitalism is what American capitalists—including Yankees owners—USED to do (at least sometimes).
Col. Ruppert, Mad George, Topping and Webb—nasty SOBs though they were, they were out to make money by putting the best, most exciting possible product on the field.
What HAL has figured out is that going all-out to build a real winner is risky.
Your idiot GM might just fill the team with Ellsburys and Stantons. (Of course, you COULD always hire a GM who knows something, but that would mean hiring someone who doesn't slavishly praise you at every opportunity. Let's not get ridiculous.)
And even if you do win...winning just begets higher payrolls, for all those successful ballplayer the fans now adore.
Better to figure out a way to primarily just contend, every season. Keep dangling that carrot.
ALL-CAPS, it's already a team full of guys who are or should be 1B/DHs. EE did have some big hits, and he may have another year in him, but I don't think we need him.
If he's the DH up in Boston instead of Martinez...well, I think we're still ahead of the game.
I agree with Doug K. that we shouldn't make Didi THAT high a qualifying offer if we don't have to. But I would like to have the draft pick, if we don't sign him.
Duque, I'm not sure why putting Andujar in left would be "a waste of a great young generational talent."
Because his comparative worth over other left fielders would be less than it would be—potentially—over third basemen?
But isn't this the whole logical fallacy at the heart of WAR?
I mean, were the Cardinals a lesser team when Stan Musial was playing left? Andujar would still be in the lineup, still be doing what he does best, which is hitting.
Andujar might—MIGHT—be a perfectly good left fielder. AND if, at the same time, there's a guy hitting almost as well and playing at Gold Glove levels at third—again, some big "ifs"—well, then, isn't that BETTER?
Also, while I imagine he can conquer the position, I don't know if we would really be so much better with LeMahieu at1B. At times in the playoffs, he looked like a man swatting at squirrels out there.
I think Andu would probably be a fine left fielder. He can run and has a very strong arm. Let Frazier try center. I think that was his original OF position before the Yankees. Do not sign Gardy. Give the roster spot to Frazier. Stanton, when not healing from a PED-induced injury can rotate from DH tp LF. I'd keep Didi as he is a good teammate, i an excellent SS and a left-handed threat that we need. One year 15 million.
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