The "WHAT IF ...?" series asks incredibly creative questions such as, "WHAT IF... Captain America was a woman?" Or "WHAT IF... Spiderman was a woman?"
There is no reason why this artistic conceit cannot be applied to the Yankiverse.
For example: WHAT IF... instead of selecting Cito Culver in the first round of the 2010 draft, the Yankees had taken Noah Syndergaard (who was chosen six slots later?)
WHAT IF... in game four of the 2004 ALCS against Boston, up 3-0 in the series, instead of Joe Torre sending Mariano out for a two-inning save, he used Tom Gordon, who had been unhittable?
WHAT IF... Carl Pavano was a woman?
You get the picture.
So here's a "WHAT IF... ?" for 2022?
WHAT IF... the Yankees thank Aaron Boone for his service and replace him with an old school, firebrand manager, such as Joe Melvin or Buck Showalter?
What if... instead of signing a free agent SS, the Yankees hold a competition in spring training and turn over the position to the best performing rookie?
What if the Yankees jettison Gary Sanchez and sign or trade for a defensive catcher?
What if the Yankees turn over CF to Estevan Florial?
What if the Yankees start 2022 with a younger team and the understanding that it's time for a long-term rebuilding?
Insane, eh?
I’m with you on all of that except Florial, that dude strikes out at a near Gallo level in the minors. Over a full season in the majors that number would be like just batting the pitcher
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWhat if Aaron Hicks continued to play golf next year?
What if Brian Cashman resigned and went to India to discover the meaning of life?
Cashman already has learned the meaning of life by rapelling up a Stamford high rise office building.
ReplyDeleteI always thought it was " look within not without" I guess his mantra is "look up not down".
What if Boone and Nevin never developed a bromance?
ReplyDeleteWhat if...Hal's family staged a coup and wrested the team from his control?
ReplyDeleteWhat if...they fired Cashman and Boone?
What if...they fired the stats department?
What if...roster and on-field decisions were made by "baseball men (or women)" who knew the game, its intangibles, and had the ability to make judgments about individual players in individual situations?
What if...the luxury boxes were torn out and converted to regular seats that anyone could buy, and ticket prices were lowered across the board to democratize game attendance?
What if...Marvel comic books cost 12 cents and monthly specials were a quarter?
What if...I hadn't eaten so many Mallo Cups, Frosted Flakes, mini lemon pies and Three Musketeers, or drank so much Shur Fine soda, and didn't end up with a mouthful of insanely expensive crowns and cavities?
What if...the Steinbrenner family then amassed an army and conquered the Mara family and made the Giants good again?
What if...Hollywood gave one of those fat Marvel superhero roles to a great but unlikely actor like Peter Dinklage?
What if...there really is a God but He/She/They/It doesn't believe in Him/Her/Their/Its self/selves anyway?
JM...the only character Peter Dinklage (Can't be he real name as it's too good) can play is The Atom.
ReplyDeletehis real name*
ReplyDelete"Why rebuild? Why change much? Stanton's wall balls are two feet higher, we win. Stay the course."-- Brian Cashman
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ReplyDeleteWhat if Harold got a visit from the ghost of his father telling him to win at all costs?
“Harold, I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done by The Intern and his toadies are burnt and purg'd away!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of the American League be
A couch for luxury tax and the damned wild card.
Avenge me Harold! Avenge me!
What if the Yankees finally recognize Tyler Wade’s talent and potential and make him the starting shortstop?
ReplyDeleteWhy is there an obligatory swipe at "stats" and analytics in so many posts? Such commenters need to reckon with this empirical reality: the chief baseball officers of the most consistently successful teams are guys who are steeped in analytics: Tampa Bay, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, and so on. They don't have analytics "departments" or ghettos; the entire baseball operaton is based on analytics.
ReplyDeleteI get the feeling that most people who toss these anti-analytics barbs have never read a book on the subject and are simply recycling reflexive prejudices they assimilate from equally uninformed daily sportswriters and bloggers.
So please--answer the question: Why are the most consistently successful and best-run teams steeped firmly in advanced analytics?
I don't think the concern here, or elsewhere in Yankees fandom, is that the Yankees shouldn't collect data, and analyze it. Or even that the organization is over-reliant on data analytics. The concern is that the organization is no good at data analytics. Data analytics is a tool. Other teams, led by men with IQs in the 130s, use the tool effectively. The Yankees, led by a man with an IQ in the 110s, use the tool less effectively.
ReplyDeleteEXACTLY
DeleteWhat Publius said, Barney. When you're consistently bad at something, do something else.
ReplyDeleteAMEN, JM
ReplyDeleteIt still wouldn't do any good if the same old, same old were doing the rebuilding.
ReplyDeleteMy wish is that Buck Showalter gets good and drunk one night, breaks into HAL's luxury suite, and announces, "I can make you twice the money you're making now with a team that might also win something. How about THAT?"
Baseball is dead to me.
ReplyDeleteDamn I got an Earth Shattering "WHAT IF"
ReplyDeleteWHAT IF CashMAN was a woman
-Marvel Analytics Department
JM -- since analytics is a powerful tool when done right, why not do it right rather than not do it at all? I agree with Publius's take on this--Cashman just isn't that bright, and neither he nor his superiors are really committed to analytics anyway. We keep hearing that Hal likes to listen to a variety of people before signing off on baseball decisions--scouts, his lawyers Randy and Lonn, no doubt Suzyn and John, his wife, his estate manager, the head groundskeeper, and so on. In other words, the organization is not committed to an analytics-oriented baseball operation in the same way that more consistently competitive teams are--they have a largely ignored analytics ghetto headed by one of Hal's tenured incompetents, and that's about it.
ReplyDeleteIn sum, this is one of the worst-run organizations in corporate American, not just in baseball, with blurred and overlapping lines of authority and a void of accountability in a senior staff that seems to enjoy lifetime employment regardless of results. Hence--l'abime.
Barn, es.
ReplyDeleteSorr, m keboard has some kes ha aren' workin. ein a new one oda!