One team, Houston, has literally become a national pariah; meanwhile, Boston appears on the verge of escaping penalties.
The lords of the game are seeking to jettison the farm systems that, for generations, tethered the sport to its rural American base.
A future work stoppage looms, in part because players believe the owners have widely colluded to keep down salaries.
And now, the season will unfold as coronavirus hits America.
Now, a caveat: It's one thing to blather doom and gloom scenarios about the Yankees, while farting in the cheap seats. That's what fans do, dammit, and to my dying day, I'll fight for our right to rant. It's another thing to sound off on politics or world events, and I generally try not to do that, without a joke or a wink. That said, we might start to ponder the coronavirus' impact on baseball this year.
Let's face it: The Yankees already face a pandemic of muscle tweaks and gristle strains, and it can no longer be attributed to chance. As Auric Goldfinger said, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." What the Yankees face is "enemy action," or something like that. They have a collection of finely honed china dolls, players who - for reasons beyond their control - are injuries constantly waiting to happen. I do not mean to question their character. They want to play, and when they do, they give it everything they've got. They run into walls. They dive into bases. They throw hard. And they pull something. We know these unfortunate players. None of them can stay on the field. They are:
THE DOOMED PATROL
Aaron Hicks
Giancarlo Stanton
Aaron Judge
Luis Severino
James Paxton
Meanwhile, there is a second tier who, historically, have often gotten hurt. Their next injury - any day now - will vault them into the above list:
THE WAITING ROOM
Gary SanchezClint Frazier
Miguel Andujar
Luke Voit
Zack Britton
Aroldis Chapman
Mike Tauchman
Jonathan Loiasiga
Ben Heller
Jordan Montgomery
Michael King
Brett Gardner
If we are looking for Yankee "iron men," guys who play 140 game seasons, the list is short: DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Gio Urshela... damn, that's about it.
Add to this a potential outbreak of respiratory flu, and 2020 could swing in any direction. Attendance would likely be depressed. Any team hit by just one player, or coach, or franchise official, could find its roster quarantined. If and when the virus gets into major cities, MLB could conceivably play games in empty stadiums, simply for TV audiences. It could be the strangest season in our lifetimes.
And in this case, it won't matter whether players are injury-prone or veritable Lou Gehrigs. The virus won't care.
Maybe I'm overstating these fears. Maybe it will be - as many media-fed scares turn out to be - just another load of hype, another Y-2K. I sure dunno. My guess is that last night, watching the Prez on TV, MLB started pondering reaction plans for the coming season. Hold onto your hats, folks. This was supposed to be the Yankee resurgence. Now, everything is on hold. This is going to get crazy.
Sanchez. He's doomed, just waiting for a hamstring to go ker-pop.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteYou are not overstating our fears.
Problem is, even were Cashman worthy of the "cooperstown" designation, there's damn little that can be done about this. Trade Judge? Trade Sanchez? Trade Gleyber? What could you get that would be worthwhile . . . what if one of these guys lives up to his potential, and stays (mostly) healthy?
On the other hand, give the Queen Of Corona Virus another few weeks, and the stands will be empty for every single MLB game this summer.
No Olympics. No national political conventions (hoo-ray!). No one riding the subway. Etc. We're a few weeks away from that. I'm not pushing the panic button -- someone else pushed it a few weeks ago. I'd like to remain vertical.
[side note: In 2000, I visited Spain on a much-anticipated vacation. Came back with Legionnaire's Disease. Spent 25 days in a (U.S.) hospital. The doctors+nurses saved my life. It was kind of like being hit in the head with a full bottle of booze -- not in a barfight, but while you were reclining on a beach, taking rays and reading a book. Last thing you might expect. Lesson I learned: You won't see it coming, whatever it is. What could I have done to avoid this? (a) Avoid Spain; (b) do not inhale.]
All 2020 games played in front of empty stadiums? Could be.
Season canceled in June? Maybe.
If any of this happens, I think we should blame the Astros, the Red Sox, the Mets, and, of course, Mike Pence.
Wow, that sounds awful, Joe. Glad you came through.
ReplyDeleteAs for what Coops could have done, though...supposedly, he had a chance to trade Sanchez after 2018 for Realmuto, even up. I would've done that in a heartbeat.
But potential trades aside, our big fear that guys will do better elsewhere comes from the fact that...they so often do. Which speaks to enormous deficiencies in the Yanks' coaching and training staffs.
Year after year, guys go to other places—such as Cole going from Pittsburgh to Houston, or Sonny Gray from here to Cincinnati—and get straightened out.
I can't put all of that down to the pressures of playing in the big town, or stealing signs, or PEDs.
The Yanks keep around guys like Larry Rothschild who just aren't major-league caliber. You know it, I know it, the American people know it, as Bob Dole used to say.
This seems to me about the easiest thing to improve on the team. Sign up the best coaching and training talent. Doesn't cost that much, and is easy to ascertain.
Coops, with his typical arrogance, ignores such ideas.
I am starting to enjoy watching Sanchez's face when he hits another pop up to short center.
ReplyDeleteJust after, of course, the voice-over people have told us of his uncanny power.
This scenario is not out of the question.
ReplyDeleteIf it occurs, get ready for the Great Depression.....21st Century Style.
ReplyDeleteI’m going to save a lot of time and just go hang myself
@ Hoss I agree with everything you said, except trading Sanchez. I think he does have tremendous talent. It's just that the coaching staff and the entire Yankee organization seem obsessed with launch angle, exit velocity, and swinging for the fences. Sanchez has one of the biggest leg kicks I've ever seen, and unfortunately for him, he hasn't been able to tune out the stupid nonsense that the coaching keeps feeding him: swing as hard as you can on every swing; use the perfect swing to get the right launch angle; it's alright to strike out 300 times a year, if you hit 50 moonshots; etc. It's not just the coaches who are driving this insanity. I think the analytics people have pretty much taken over the organization. They tell the coaches how to coach, and the players who don't have the experience listen to them. If Sanchez went elsewhere, like the Washington Nats, they would clean up his hitting mechanics (and his head), reduce that leg kick, and he'd probably hit .330 with 25 homers. If Realmuto came here, it's possible that he'd revert to a .180 hitter with the kind of nonsense coaching that goes on here. DJ LeMahieu is the only hitter who seems immune to the nonsense coaching. He does so well because he's a pure line drive hitter who knows what he's doing and often just takes what the pitcher gives him.
ReplyDeleteThe Hammer of God
@Hammer...blame metrics for that...players are being told that going for HRs is the way to go via data analytics...
ReplyDeleteGenius Cashman and his brilliant staff value STD Sanchez, Tissue Paper Stanton, Barren Hicks and Big Sap Paxton. These are players who cannot stay healthy. They are just playuing to the back of their Baseball Cards.
ReplyDelete
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