Monday, November 4, 2019

Hot Stove! The Outfield!

The Yankees' outfield situation headed into 2020 is best compared to your basic, Neolithic mammoth trap.

You're stomping along, squashing all those little cavemen like so many bugs, when suddenly you put your foot down on what looks like a perfectly ordinary patch of vegetation...and find yourself plunging into a gigantic pit dug by some bunch of idiots.

I'm sure that the Yanks' potential 2020 outfield looks great on paper, which is Cooperstown Cashman's favorite playing field.

Judge, Gardy, Stanton, Tauchman, and maybe Hicks, if he can show pluck similar to this year and make it back from that operation before September.

Oh, and Ellsbury.  Did I mention Ellsbury???  And then there's Estevan Florial and the Very High Ceiling...

On second thought, this doesn't even look that good on paper.

You can count on Judge to be injured for about a third of the season, and to disappoint for the other two-thirds.  Once Gardy gets his new deal, is he going to keep juicing?  Or just revert to the old Gardy, who inevitably got hurt and drooped in the second half?

Who knows if Tauchman is for real—and that weird injury had PEDs written all over it, I have to admit.  And surely we can count on Giancarlo Stanton, the Blanche DuBois of MLB, coming down with another case of the fantods.

And how the hell can you be the New York Yankees and not have a single, minor-league outfielder ready to step up to the big club?

What would I do?  Here's your quick fix:  if El Matador, Andujar, can throw, see if he can play left field, where his relative speed and the arm he used to have should work well.

Keep Tauchman, and give it a long, hard think before you cut Maybin, who can do a lot of things.  You might have to keep Gardy as insurance, if Andujar can't move to the outfield.  Seriously consider signing Martinez if the Red Sox cut bait, though of course he's mostly a DH.

But above all, give The Red Menace a clean slate, and let him show what he can do.  Maybe even in centerfield, where he'd have one less wall to deal with.  He may be too broken to fix, but we need to take that chance.

WWCCD?  Exactly what you expect.

Frazier will be traded—and with Coops having systematically destroyed his value, he will bring even less than Cashman's disastrous Sonny Gray deal netted.  Maybin will almost certainly be cut.  And of course HAL is not going to sign off on a big signing like Martinez.

That leaves an outfield thinner than finely shaved Swiss cheese:  Judge, Stanton, Tauchman, and a Gardner doubtless signed for entirely too much money and too much time.  Coops will, as usual, assume that the best-case scenario will undoubtedly come true—that Hicks will be gamboling about the Stadium grass by June, and Florial will suddenly blossom.

Don't count on any of it.  We will be lucky if Tyler Too and Thairo the Pharaoh aren't patrolling the outfield come July.






8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or we could do this.

https://www.pinstripealley.com/yankees-analysis-sabermetrics/2019/11/3/20944940/yankees-free-agent-shogo-akiyama-outfield-offseason-japan-npb

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

Hoss,

Thanks for doing the write ups.

Here's my take...

I have to believe that Cashman is trying to get out from under Stanton's contract.

Why you ask?

Because it's been two years and he knows he made a mistake and that it's crippling his ability to build a team with the budget he has.

Will he find a sucker? No. So Stanton, Tauchman, Frazier would be LF. Stanton will get hurt so really it is the other two.

CF: I advocate getting either the Japanese player from my earlier comment or, even better Starling Marte from the Pirates. $11M a year. Good CF guy AND when/if Hicks comes back he becomes this year's Curtis Maybin.

Can play all fields, GOOD pop, .280 hitter.

Cashman should 100% figure out how to do this.

RF: Judge til he gets hurt. Then we're screwed.

Please don't re-sign Gardy. Please Please Please. He's so done.

Doug K.

JM said...

The Yankees made the following roster moves today:
• Reinstated 3B Miguel Andújar, 1B Greg Bird, OF Jacoby Ellsbury, and RHP Jonathan Holder from the 60-day IL.

• Reinstated RHP Jake Barrett from the 60-day IL and assigned him outright to @swbrailriders
.

(1/2)
New York Yankees
@Yankees
·
1m
Additionally, LHP Tyler Lyons has elected free agency in lieu of accepting an outright assignment to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

JM said...

Marte. Good idea.

Joe Formerlyof Brooklyn said...


Now for something completely different:

This web site claims 10 players received Qualifying Offers.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/11/10-players-receive-qualifying-offers.html

....Didi is not among 'em.

Anonymous said...

HERE IS THE THING THAT IS ENRAGING....

HAL AND COOP MADE THE MISTAKES OF ELLSBURY, AND STANTON, SO WHAT SHOULD THEY DO?

OWN UP TO IT, THEN FIX THE PROBLEM!

REALIZE THEY ARE COLOSSAL MISTAKES, AND RE-WORK THE TEAM!

THIS WILL TAKE SOME CREATIVITY, AND NEW SPENDING TO RIGHT THE WRONGS.

YOU DON'T LEAVE EVERYTHING THE WAY IT IS, AND LET THE TEAM (NOT TO MENTION THE FANS), SUFFER.

YOU FIX THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

THAT IS TRULY SUCCESSFUL OWNERSHIP.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Doug K., I think you're right about Marte. He could be a nice addition. Decent pop, good speed, two Gold Gloves in the past, good arm, and can play center and left.

Only drawback: he's another righty.

Shogo Akiyama might be all right, too, on a short-term basis, and he is a lefty.

Of the other Japanese outfielder available, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo—

https://www.nj.com/yankees/2019/10/mlb-rumors-yoshitomo-tsutsugo-to-yankees-japanese-slugger-attended-alcs-at-yankee-stadium-will-be-posted-in-winter.html

—there's this: “The main concern with Tsutsugo is that some believe he might end up being a one-dimensional strikeout-or-home-run player in the MLB."

Nuff ced.

Isiyku Abdulahi said...


I really want the world to know about this great man who brought back happiness into my life again after my husband left me and the kids 3 years ago for another women online when i contacted Dr Believe he cast a love spell for me within 48 hours my ex husband start calling me and begging for forgiveness for everything that have happened between us. I was so happy to have my family back together with love again here is the email of Dr Believe via believelovespelltemple@gmail.com a man with the great powers you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348156148821
God bless you
I am very grateful for your help in my marriage.