Sunday, April 18, 2021

What If...?


 Here is another idea as to what is handcuffing the Yankees:

Everyone ( mostly Boone ) says; " this is a great team, with great players, who will start hitting soon enough.  Everyone faces adversity in this game, and we just have to take ours now.  We have to get better."

What if that is only partly true?

What if the Yankees have a great looking line-up because they have a number of guys who each had one spectacular year?

The expectation, of course, is that each of those players will always have years like those.  So one can say, wow;  look at Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, Torres, Hicks and Voit.  Add in Frazier if you want to be selective for a period of time, rather than a full season. 

Find their best year and it is jaw dropping. 

But what if that best year, for each, was a " one and only?"

What if each has reverted to what they really are?  A bunch of .200 hitters who strike out a lot?   Or who, due to world record exit velocity, hit into double plays with ease?

What if none of them are ever any good again?  What if we only have DJ, Urshela and Higgy?

What does it mean that we have given a better chance to Odor ( hitting way below .200) than to any player who came up through our system?  What explains this?  

Or that we tried Jay Bruce rather than anyone in our system? 

Is it possible that the Yankees really have nothing, or very little?

Maybe this team only thinks is good.  


7 comments:

Scottish Yankee fan said...


Right now we are 5-10

Would you bet against us being 10+20 after the next 15 games?

I agree I think a lot of our players are playing on their reputation of having 1 brilliant season and since have been very ordinary

Anonymous said...

It's an interesting theory.

Doug K.

HoraceClarke66 said...

I still doubt if they could be quite THIS bad.

But you're essentially correct, Alphonso. Cashman has always operated on the assumption that anyone he gets will have their best year again.

That just won't happen—particularly as this team ages. As it stands, every single regular save The Gleyber and Frazier is at or past their baseball "peak age" of 28. (All right, Ragnar is 27. But that doesn't count. Or matter.) Same with nearly all of the pitchers.

In other words, this is a rapidly aging team already. They must win now or never.

The good news? This probably means that none of them are currently juicing. The bad news? Plenty of other people still are.

Anonymous said...

The old axiom is that you are never as bad as you look in a slump or as good as you are when you are hot.
Here, you must question some long term realities. Hicks has never been as they hyped him for example.
The trends are not good. A steep decline as if it is 1966 is on the horizon.
They lack the stability of a "gamer" and grinder like say, Booby Murcer or Roy White, even Tino. --- guys who put up solid above average numbers year after year for nearly a decade. The modern Yanks have very few gamers and many posers. Rich young men with their millions in the bank and executive suites on the road, with a manager that tells them that they are great. All seeking the next arbitration number for next year. The fact that Sanchez got a raise after the miserable year he had in '20 demonstrates the there is no accountability or logic. Why get better or try to change?
It is the Millionares Boys Club. I have no use for them
#2 pick in the 2022 Draft all ours!!!
The Archangel

Anonymous said...

This is why first and foremost you have to rely on good scouting and not just on stats. As John Sterling always emphasizes, stats are only a prediction of what will happen. There is nothing that says that a guy who used to hit .240 MUST hit .240 in this current year. The hidden assumption that is behind every stat is that the same thing will happen now as in the past.

The only way to try to balance reality with statistics is to scout your players and evaluate them as of right now and constantly thereafter. If they're your own players, it should be easy. The GM of a team watches every game, no?

For hitters: look at their mechanics, how close do they stand to the plate, do they use a big leg kick, how big of a stride do they take, how quick are their swings, how is their hand-eye coordination, do they have a good idea of the strike zone, are they a low ball hitter or high ball hitter, do they recognize the fastball or breaking ball, do they make adjustments to hit the breaking ball, do they hit the other way, can they turn on the fastball inside, do they make adjustments as the game goes along, how well do they make adjustments to break out of a slump, do they hit situationally, do they cut down on their swing to make contact with two strikes, do they guess on pitch location correctly by thinking along with the pitcher, are they coachable.

Using that approach: Hicks always was and still is a bench player. He shouldn't be starting. He's not a good enough hitter. Stanton is a head case and should never have been brought in. He's an incurable case of moonshot fever. From what I'm seeing of Odor, he's a left-handed version of Stanton.

Judge, Sanchez, Torres, Voit, Frazier: These guys should hit sooner or later. If Sanchez cuts down on his leg kick (it looks like he has finally) and takes a more professional approach, he should return to hitting at least .280. Voit has had the knee injury and will be coming back. But you notice that, combined with DJ plus Stanton, that is an awful lot of right handed hitting. There should have been some trades over the winter to balance the lineup. If no trade, bring up Florial and Wade.

The Hammer of God

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