But in recent seasons, Coney has shown himself to be a cultural everyman with insights into far more than balls and strikes. And over the first four games of 2022 - including one on his new platform, national TV - Coney's off-kilter pop references have been in rare form. For example, he has said...
After a strikeout: "Up jump da boogie!"
After a hit by pitch: "A Forest Gump pitch, 'just above the buttocks.'"
After a line drive up the middle: "It's chuck and duck!"
On the 9-pitcher Yankee bullpen: "It's march of the penguins."
Over the years, Coney's voyages into pop music often baffled Michael Kay and Pauly O'Neill, whose tastes seem to hover between Josh Groban and Kate Smith. They once reacted to his mention of the Violent Femmes - a 1980s punk band - as if he were speaking Icelandic. But times have changed. Last night, as if to prove himself "jiggy with it," Kay noted that a Toronto pitcher's walk-up song is "War Pigs" by Ozzie. And Pauly, who was surely biting his lip, didn't say, "Ozzie Smith?"
Cone, 59, grew up in Kansas City, and has never lost his astonishment about the crazy ride that brought him to NYC. He has found his voice, and this year, ESPN has found him. I think he is about to become very popular.
Here's my hope: May he never lose his enchantment with exit velo.
As for the Yankees...
Listen: We won't know how good or bad this team is until June.
Understand? June. That's the reality.
And here's another: The Yankee front office is not on our side. By making public Aaron Judge's contract offer, the Yankees not only sucker-punched their star but drove a wedge between their most popular player and their fans. Last night, Judge was booed. Judge... four games into a season... getting booed.
I wonder what the owner is doing - and why. The only answer? Money. The Yankee front office is grubbing for money, even at the expense of the team.
Last night, it came out that - for all their public posturing - the Yankees never made offers to Freddie Freeman or Carlos Correa. They just pretended to be in the bidding - as they once did with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.
We don't know how good this team is. But let's come to grips with one reality: Hal Steinbrenner is not his dad. He is not our friend. His goals for the Yankees are not ours.
The Yankees have had the lead in only 5 out of 38 innings played this year.
ReplyDeleteThat does not seem like a recipe for success.
True, Zach, but you only have to hold the lead in one inning per game. The ninth.
ReplyDeleteJudge could have made a minimum of $238,000,000.00, plus endorsements, if he had spent basically 10 years as a Yankee.
ReplyDeleteHe would have remained adored and he would have gone down in history as a "Yankee for Life" and joined that select cadre of Yankee Legends.
Instead, he opted for the money and will pull a "Pujols" to NY like Pujols did to St. L.
May whoever signs him to his mega deal, get "Pulosed" like Anaheim did.
Trade the -----
watch MILB instead.
Can't win any games by scoring zero runs. I wonder how the metrics work with that...
ReplyDeleteThat stat the A-Rod mentioned the other night that a team has never won a World Series with a player that had 200+ strikeouts in a season...hear that Joey Whiffs?
As for Judge, this is his first and last huge payday. It's in his right to get the most money he can get. Judge wants 9 years...the Yanks offered him 8. The Yanks have always hard-balled wrt contract negotiations. Ask Derek Jeter about that...
Hrrmm ... we know how bad this team is now. Right NOW. The disbelief phase of grief won't be over until June.
ReplyDeleteLook, Judge has every right to turn down an offer of 30.5 million per and see what the market offers. Just as most here would. And it's obvious that the Yankees had no intention of offering him that contact length and value. And they knew he would turn it down quickly. Personally, I think that contract is generous and he will probably regret not signing, especially when you consider the local and national endorsements and the uncertainty of him playing less games by being unvaccinated. In particular, when and if Co-Vid makes a strong return.
ReplyDeleteConsider this:
Mike Trout makes $37 million per year. How close in skill does Judge think he is in comparison?
Bryce Harper makes $27.5 million.
George Springer makes $ 27 million.
Christian Yelich makes $26 million per year. Is Judge a better talent? I do not believe so. The statistics do not reflect that.
Consider the comparison:
They are both the same age (Yelich is a few months older)
Career Yelich
WAR AB HITS HR 2B 3B BA Runs RBI SB OBP SLG OPS
33.4 4151 1211 160 236 27 .292 697 575 137 .380 .477 .857
Career Judge
26.4 2084 575 158 94 4 .276 404 366 25 .385 .552 .938
Obviously, Yelich has stayed healthier than Judge. He is a better outfielder than Judge.
Also, Yelich is the only player in MLB history to have 2 seasons hitting at least .325, 30 HR and 20 SB!
Who has a better chance of playing more baseball after this season?
Who would you prefer?
Certainly, contracts have inflated over the past few seasons. But I believe Judge and/or his team have overestimated his worth. I guess we will see in about 8 months.
>a team has never won a World Series with a player that had 200+ strikeouts in a season
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a pointless statistic since there's only been 10 players in MLB history to cross that 200 K mark. And most of those guys were on noncontenders anyway.
As strikeouts skyrocket league-wise, we'll see more of these 200-K seasons and eventually one of the guys will win a ring.
Gallo can strikeout 250 times IF he provides a .375 OBP/.500 SLG as the no. 6 hitter.
The problem is he's only provided us with a .310 OBP/.393 SLG line as a Yankee. That doesn't cut it.
Check out these strikeout rate numbers from 2021.
No. 5 Rays 24.8 K%
No. 6 Yankees 24.5 K%
No. 9 Braves 24.0 K%
All three teams had similar strikeout rates and were in the top-10 overall. Rays won 100 games and had the best record in the AL; the Braves won the World Series. The Yankees .... well, they were disappointing.
The Rays were 2nd in runs scored, the Braves 8th in runs scored, and the Yankees were 19th in runs scored.
It's not strikeouts that doomed the team. It was the lack of power and situational hitting. We might be seeing the same thing this year.
As mentioned, I think there are plenty of good reasons to trade Judge—or to HAVE traded him—and plenty of reasons why he should indeed have snapped up this offer.
ReplyDeleteBut the thing is, you can make anyone look stupid by reporting on every one of their demands during a negotiation—as the Mets proved with A-Rod, 21 years ago.
It's what your negotiator is supposed to do: go out there and ask for the moon. Then they make a counter-offer. (It's like "The Life of Brian," where Eric Idle as a bazaar merchant has to explain how bargaining works.)
What probably pissed off Judge as much as anything, is the fact that suddenly, the Yanks were going public with it all.
I think Duque is spot on. I think that it's now evident that HAL not only wants to keep spending down, but to seriously reduce it. The Brain is not capable of making a good trade this big, and I'm sure they don't want him traded because it will mean they won't be able to sucker us in for another "Wild Card race" this year.
So we're going to have a major asset walk off the team for nothing. This is terrible management, by executives who don't really give a damn about any of their customers.
"The Yankees were 19th in runs scored."
ReplyDeleteAnd what have they done to rectify that?
They are fuckers.
I certainly understand what everyone is saying about Judge.
ReplyDeleteI have always liked him and thought that he was good for the game and the Yanks, however,
He is injury prone,
He is 30, and his numbers since 2017 do not put him in the top -top tier.
He should have reasonably taken the contract which he had been offered which would have taken him to his late 30's.
He'd gotten paid no matter how much he got hurt.
Ramirez took a home town discount to stay in CLEVELAND for God's sake.
30+ mil a year is not insulting.
Bottom line, much like Pujols, a much better all-around player, he is a mercenary.
How many here in 2025 would be moaning about the length of the contract, etc., if Judge had signed.
I see Judge standing in the beautiful lawn of Yankee Stadium and think of what Mr. Buttari yelled to me 60 years ago, "Get off my lawn!!!"
GET OFFA MY LAWN, YOU DURNED KIDS!!!
ReplyDeleteYA LITTLE FUCKERS!! EVERY LAST ONE O' YA!!
ReplyDeleteWell, again, Archie, I can't argue with any of what you say (except that Pujols is obviously juiced to the gills).
ReplyDeleteBut okay, so our New York Yankees have decided to make the hard, cold-eyed decision not to re-sign Judge for what he wants. So just as Judge should've manned up and said, 'No, I'm not vaccinated, and I won't be,' the Yankees ought to man up, and face this situation.
To wit:
—Will Judge then be traded? No, he will not.
—Will Judge then be subjected to a year of raucous boos and jeers that totally turn him off New York? Yes, he will.
—Will the Yankees then let this major asset walk off the team without getting anything in turn, just to cut payroll? Yes, they will.
Judge will be just fine. HAL will be just fine. And once again, we the fans will be left wondering WTF we should care.
Alas, HC66, you are right.
ReplyDeleteBut think of the wonderful Winter of our Discontent when we will be told in January 2023 that the next wave of young Yankees will arrive just in time the knock off the World Champion Blew Jays (I do mean "blew").
Like the Drone of the impending mortar crash, we will be informed that you don't need a 200mil payroll to win, but we are hamstrung by the onerous contracts of Stanton, DJ and Hicks, not to mention Cole.
And the Gammonites will blame BamBam Muel.
And they will have probably trade Nestor because his spin rate is not high enough.
And I will be another year old and deeper in debt.
And my lawn will still suck
I wish it known now, that I am unlikely to leave a thoughtful or rational comment for the foreseeable future. I address the computer to compose a comment, but only profanity issues forth. That's not terribly surprising, I mean c'mon, you all know me, but I used to have some lingering control over my seat of reason. Now all is naught but F-bombs.
ReplyDeleteI'm just going with it.
THEY ARE FUUUUUUUCKERSS!!!!!!