"A sad tale for a chilly November morning…
"* The Yankees draft James Kaprielian in the 1st round of the 2015 Draft (at No. 16, he was the highest Yankee draft pick since 1993), passing on Walker Buehler, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Austin Riley, etc.
(By tanking in 2014, both Boston and Houston drafted ahead of us. The Redsocks took Andrew Benintendi, and the Astros grabbed Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman. The Yankees actually had two first-round picks that year; at number 30. They chose Kyle Holder.)
* The Yankees trade James Kaprielian as the headliner for Sonny Gray in July 2017.
(They dealt Kaprielian at the Aug. 1 trade deadline, as he was recovering from TJ surgery - his lowest value. They added Dustin Fowler [now of Miami] and Jorge Mateo [now an Oriole.])
* The Yankees trade Sonny Gray to the Reds for Shed Long in January 2019 after Gray’s disappointing tenure in New York.
(In 2018, Gray's 4.90 ERA prompted the Yankees to leave him off the post-season roster. Also, in the trade for Long, the Yankees threw in reliever Reiver Sanmartin, who last year posted a (small sample size) an ERA of 1.95. Final note: In 2019 with the Reds, Gray had a 2.80 ERA and finished 7th in the NL Cy Young balloting.)
* The Yankees trade Shed Long to the Mariners for Josh Stowers in January 2019.
(Because Gleyber Torres was clearly their long-term 2B, the Yankees shipped Long - supposedly an offensive 2B - to Seattle on the same day they obtained him. Last year, at 25, Long hit .191 for the Mariners. Meanwhile, Stowers - a CF - in 2019 hit .273 with 35 stolen bases for the Yankees in Single A. They touted their trade acumen for getting him.)
* The Yankees trade Josh Stowers to the Rangers for Rougned Odor in April 2021.
(This deal happened because Texas, one of MLB's worst teams, waived Odor and was/is still paying his full, hefty salary. By now, Torres was clearly the Yankees long-term SS, and they needed an offensive 2B - preferably one who hit LH. By taking Odor, they would overlook Tyler Wade at 2B, also one who hits LH.)
* The Yankees DFA Rougned Odor in November 2021.
(With the Yankees, Odor hit .202 and fanned 100 times in 322 at-bats.
And here we are...
Last year, at age 27, Kaprielian went 8-5 with a 4.07 ERA. Oakland views him as a frontline starter. Statistically, he outperformed the Yankees Jameson Tailon and Domingo German.
Sonny Gray remains in Cincinnati. Last year, his ERA was 4.19 in 135 innings. Statistically, he outperformed Tailon and German.
This weekend, the Yankees waived Tyler Wade. Last year, he hit .286 and led the team in stolen bases.
Kyle Holder is a minor league free agent.
Last year, in 32 games, most of them at SS and 2B, Mateo hit .280. He's 26.
Thanks again to Zachary A.
Enjoy the turkey.)
Maybe we don’t want Cashgrab making anymore trades after all. The Sonny Grey trade didn’t work out, the Andrew Miller trade didn’t work out, the Paxton trade didn’t work out and we’re about to see if the Chapman to the Cubs works out. That one hinges on Torres having a bounce back year.
ReplyDeleteI think we're the turkey. Except real turkeys have been put out of their misery and sent to supermarkets by now, while we continue to suffer.
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ReplyDeleteHow are they going to replace Oder. It's not easy to find a guy that strikes out 33% of the time, but then again they have the right GM to get it done.
ReplyDeleteActually the Yankees are more like a turducken.
ReplyDeleteA very expensive amalgamation of birds where at least two of them are playing out of position.
I wonder how much the scouting department relies on their wonderful analytics team? That might explain most of their draft failures.
ReplyDeleteWade traded to Angels for cash or PTNL. With inflation being what is, Hal probably needed the reserve funds for Xmas presents this year.
ReplyDeleteThey have no plan. No planning. No ability to plan. They are a confederacy of fuckers.
ReplyDeleteDoug K. You are The Very Best, sir.
ReplyDelete@Celerino...I'm guessing the PTBNL is NOT Mike Trout....
ReplyDeleteI agree with you ALL, they have no plan, or worse, it's some kind reactive plan based on crappy intel and a track record of failure after failure after failure,,, I have zero/zilch/nada faith in anything that materializes under the Cashman regime.
ReplyDeleteAnd Doug, I second Winnie's assessment, freakin' HILARIOUS!
Ranger, maybe it's Ohtani?
ReplyDeleteHilarious, Doug K.! Turducken comment of the week! (So far.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, Zach—and thanks for annotating this brilliant research, Duque. Nothing better illustrates, I think, the existence of the Cashman Conundrum. I await our Nobel Prize.
ReplyDeleteWhat's most amazing about this train of events is Cashman's almost uncanny ability to, as the Beatles might say, take a bad deal and make it worse(r).
Consider: Presented with rare, high draft picks, Cashman makes two poor-to-mediocre choices.
But in trying to rectify those mistakes, he makes everything exponentially worse. Hence, Kapriellian becomes Sonny Gray, who is reduced to Josh Stowers. But wait! His in-between acquisition, Shed Long, would ALSO have sucked! And then Stowers was eventually reduced to pure nothingness.
In the Cashman Conundrum, there is never any exit door. It's sort of the opposite of Schrodinger's cat. The cat is ALWAYS dead, unless it's dead and has also been eaten by rats.
"The cat is ALWAYS dead"
ReplyDeleteI laughed. I cried.
These fuckers would have totally fucked up Jeter's career.
ReplyDeleteCarl J. Weitz perpetuates the myth that the Yankees are awash in analytics. This is a travesty of the truth. The most successful teams--like the Rays, Dodgers and Astros--don't have separate analytics ghettos headed by incompetent time servers. The entire front office is steeped in analytics and is headed by the top Ivy League talent available--not dull-witted nepotism hires like Cashman. Clear enough, finally?
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