Yeahp. So much for that.
Well, folks, the Babadook is here, the wolf at the door. It's time to break glass, to call the Wagner Group, to run the Bat Signal and to shinny down the pole into the bunker and recheck the sell-by dates of our canned spaghetti. Somebody said you can't predict baseball. Screw dat. The 2022 Yankees are leaking everywhere, like that Ukrainian nuke plant, and getting shelled every day. The tattoo is infected, the dialythium crystals are cracking, the matter-antimatter pods are converging, and Captain, she's a-ready to blow.
Remember those grinning assurances that the Yankees would surely win the home field advantage, that they would surely win the division, that they would surely make the postseason... well, with 36 games left, there is nothing assured about this team beyond its innate ability to crap the bed.
And if we do reach October 4, what then? Can anyone reasonably have faith in this team? Please, I beg you: Tell me why we should expect anything more than a first-round exit? This team staggers from drought to drought, sandwiching a few wins here and there. We cannot score without HRs. We have baseball's best hitter and nobody to protect him. We have absolutely no bullpen; no lead safe. And if a starter falters, as Clarke Schmidt did yesterday, the game is over. You can feel the energy flowing out of the dugout, like fans leaving to beat the crowd.
A four-game split against the worst team in the AL.
Our lead in the loss column is now seven. We face the hate-filled Rays and Redsocks six more times, each. We'll play three against the BJs and Orioles, including the season-ending series with Baltimore that begins with Gerrit Cole Bobblehead Night. We needed an ace. What we got was a vertically integrated promotional opportunity.
So, Suzyn, here's a prediction: The 2022 Yankees will be remembered as a snake-bitten team that somehow put together a great May and June, only to fall back to earth and be decimated by a string of trades that exposed its weaknesses rather than solve them.
Are we really supposed to think everything will get better when Harrison Bader arrives? We just produced five hits in 18 innings. Will a good glove CF solve that problem?
Are we supposed to believe that Aroldis Chapman will ever return to form? The guy hasn't hit 102 mph since Russian invaded.
Should we believe that Gleyber Torres will suddenly become the star infielder we once sought? Or that Josh Donaldson will start hitting? That Setback Sevy won't have another setback? We're supposed to buy all this?
We should be running away with the division, so far ahead that nobody bothers to watch a scoreboard. Instead, we are bracing for the worst. And how can you not feel that sense of impending dread?
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24 comments:
You know that Buster Olney, Joel Sherman and every other Cashman lackey has the story written about how injuries killed the season. Who would have thought that Severino, Stanton & Hicks would miss time. Who knew that Zac Britton wouldn't make it back from his 50th injury as a Yankee. Who would have thought that Cortes would get hurt, even though he's never pitched 125 innings in a season. That Chapman would be poisoned by a Tattoo artist. How the savior Master Bader, couldn't make it back for the season, but he's a NY kid, he'll be back next year to hit .225. As George Harrison wrote "It's all too much for me to take"
ANALytics killed this team a long time ago.
Remember to miss strikes hard.
My perspective is personal. I'll be 69 yrs old in October. I might live a few more years.
I'd like my team to win (always). I only root for the NYYs and, to a less extent, the Nationals.
These teams are on the downstroke. The Nats gave up on Soto with 2+ years left on his contract. I take that to be a commitment to winning some time later than 2024.
The NYYs traded a perfectly serviceable pitcher for a speed merchant with a foot in a boot. I take that to be a Brain Trust conclusion that 2022 isn't going to be the year.
I would like to see the Yankees MISS THE PLAYOFFS this year (there, I said it) -- if the benefit that brings is dumping Cashman and Boone. BOTH.
Personally, I love coming to this site and learning from youse.
BUT: If the Cashman/Boone era is going to extend into 2023 and beyond, I don't think I will, in the near future, be able to summon up the effort to give a flying Fart.
Gang, cheer up.
the FCL Yankee team just won the League Championship.
That means that in 2025, Cashole can trade a couple of 20-something pitchers for a 2d Baseman in a sling.
Thank you, el duque, you’ve come back down to earth along with this team that seems to be burning up like a meteor entering earth’s atmosphere..
I’m relieved to see you’ve shed you’re misguide optimism (which was surely the Revenge of the Juju these last two games).
Now I can rest easy knowing the veil has been lifted from your besotted eyes and we can now all march happily towards the inevitable.
And, we can surely recognize the manifestation of The Supreme Juju in the human form of The Intern, a garden gnome amidst the desiccated vegetables. Defeated destiny, thy name is Cashole.
Not even sure they will make the playoffs. Not even sure they care. Not even sure why we care.
Help us, Obi-Wan. You’re our only hope.
"A vertically integrated promotional opportunity"! Love it, Duque!
But yes, this is the most unlikable, the most unwatchable Yankees team I have ever seen. To root for them is a chore—and nothing is getting better.
If I were Judge, I would run.
And 999, the only reason I care anymore?
I don't want them to break the record for the biggest lead ever blown, so that I never stop hearing it from my Red Sox-fan friends, whom I've been torturing for 44 years over 1978.
That's it. That's the one thing I want from this miserable pile of a team.
There was a time long ago, when I first started visiting this site, when this type of crisis would elicit an International JUJU Intervention, flashing lights at the masthead, a coordinated charging of the television sets or radio at an appointed time, it was a FUN desperate move to move the needle in the right direction. Now, all of the fun has been leeched from this team. I'm living within the existential crisis of possibly rooting against the team with the hope that it jettisons Cashman, with the knowledge that he will most likely be around for many more years. Seeing this EXACT 'crisis' play out year after year after year, with the realization that no amount of JuJu on our end will change anything,,,,, fuck fuck fuck, THAT is the saddest part of all of this, they've taken away the fun for me!
RIP Tinkerbell!
LONG LIVE IIHIIFIIC!
I'm watching the Captain and I want to second whoever said the part about Jeter vs. Cashman in arbitration made him dislike the weasel even more.
The Yankees will never win with this guy. I read that he's getting renewed for three more years. (Unofficial)
If they don't win the division and he gets three more years... There are no words
Actually there are.
But the words I could use would make a Winnie rant seem like a speech given in front of the Girl Scouts of America.
They would make any telling of "The Aristocrats" seem like something you'd say to the Pope on Easter.
They would make the final sequence in "Ugga Bugga" the more acceptable alternative when talking to the Dean of Admissions at an Upper West Side private preschool.
But I'll hold off for now.
But I'll hold off for now.
Please don't. You put up some pretty good shoes via the Girl Scouts, the Pope, and a Dean of Admissions at a preschool.
That's a perfect setup for some good comic writing. Those other shoes are waiting. Time to let 'em drop.
Please.
For Ca$hman, the important thing is that The Railriders are 3 games out in the AILC...
@ Doug K, brilliant! And concerning your version of The Aristocrats, hopefully it eclipses the vulgarity of of the late great Gilbert Gottfried's, LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's just a bad team, now, one that it's no joy to watch.
And Cashman has put himself completely at the mercy of events beyond his control. All Judge had to say after this year is, "Hey, I appreciate the huge offer, but for $10 million less, I'd just as soon go home/ go across town/ go somewhere, anywhere I actually have a chance to play in a World Series. Sorry!"—and the Yanks are toast.
They are probably toast anyway. I can't see Donaldson even getting through next season, Hicks is clearly done, Rizzo is rapidly deteriorating, The Gleyber is reverting to the last couple years, and the pitching is already shaky.
Hell, we don't even know if Tots Bader can play!
If Judge goes, too, we're talking every possibility of a last-place team next year, and maybe for years after that.
@Celerino Sanchez "that Chapman would be poisoned by a tattoo artist". Hilarious!
@DickAllen "Now I can rest easy knowing the veil has been lifted from your besotted eyes and we can now all march happily towards the inevitable." Waxing poetic, eh? Loving it, that's Shakespearean! You are at your best today!
@JoeFOB, as Bob Dylan sang:
People are crazy, times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but ... things have ... changed
@Hoss, yep, that appears to be the only thing I desperately want them to avoid, breaking the record for the biggest regular season collapse ever. Excruciating, but it looks like they have a great chance to break the record. We have to steel ourselves for the inevitable sinking of the Yankee Titanic.
What a sickening, gruesome, disgusting loss. Yet another game where they're getting no hit through 5 or 6 innings.
After the game, on the WFAN post game, Sweeney Murti talked about how all this is because they've stopped hitting home runs. A power outage in August, he called it. On the surface, yes, true, because this team only scores when it hits home runs. But the real reason is not a lack of homers. It's a total lack of any kind of good hitting, caused by too little offensive talent in the lineup. The other night, for instance, one freaking hit in 11 innings, are you effing kidding me?
It reminds me of a time when I used to be on another blog. And the Yanks lost a playoff game with only a hit or two. And I said they have to stop swinging for the fences. Some buffoon then says that they should swing harder and try to hit more home runs, because if you're only getting two hits, you might as well hit two home runs. That was basically the last straw for me with that blog. I just couldn't take any more.
We all know stats don’t tell the whole story, but this one’s a doozy
(From: YanksGoYard)
Yankees offense with Matt Carpenter on the active roster:
.251/.339/.468 (131 wRC+, 1st in MLB)
Yankees offense since Matt Carpenter got hurt:
.157/.242/.234 (39 wRC+, last in MLB)
bornto
that IS telling!
Yep, losing Carp was a major disaster. Short-term, arguably, more than trading Monty.
So here's an amusing vacation story. I was talking to a couple from Vegas one evening and discussing movies. I mentioned The Aristocrats as being simply hysterical. The wife said, oh, that's a terrific movie. Love the music. And the husband said, the artwork is fantastic, classic of its period.
That's when the lightbulb went off. No, no, no, I said. Not The Aristocats. The Aristocrats. It's a really old joke with a million permutations, about a family that goes into an agent's office and does the most disgusting, perverse and horrible things to each other (and possibly pets), then when the agent asks them for the name of the act, they say The Aristocrats.
Which made me start to laugh just thinking about it. But they had no idea what I was talking about. Hip duo, too.
A somewhat awkward moment. I think a nascent friendship died right there.
Bornto
What's sad is they have Iron Mike, Jackie Donaldson, Frank Rizzo, DJ, Aaron "No MAS" Hicks all making 10m plus and the guy off the scrap heap is 'THE STRAW THAT STIRS THE DRINK".
That's an AMAZING stat, 999!
And a telling comment, Celerino. Yet AGAIN, Cashman is forced to try to salvage his most carefully constructed team by grabbing something off the scrap heap—and I guess it almost worked. Although the team was already starting to head south, well before the Carp was left flopping about near the batter's box.
The Intern is an imbecile.
Not true Mildred. For Sunday home games, there's a special trolley from downtown Scranton to the mountains of Moosic and PNC Field (35 minutes, give or take). Plus, Scranton's favorite son and renowned Choo Choo enthusiast Joe Biden has led the effort to bring back Amtrak passenger rail between NYC and Scranton. As a result over the next decade or so tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars will find their way into a variety of bank accounts up and down the eastern seaboard and off-shore, with precious little of it contributing to a passenger rail project that is unlikely ever to be realized anyway. But what the hell, somebody will get rich. Go RailRiders!
Yep, it's indicative of the lack of left handed hitting on the team. And absolutely another incrimination of Cashman, that he had to resort to dumpster diving to get a lefty bat.
And in the middle of all this bullshit, yet again, Florial got a cup of coffee and then was sent down again. Someone in a NY Post's article, comments section, pointed out that Florial hasn't hit (.050 average). But please, are you effing kidding me? Florial has had 20 at bats scattered over months. He gets called up and has 3 or 4 at bats, then gets sent down again for a month or so. So the 1 for 20 (.050) is absolutely meaningless. Not just meaningless but completely misleading.
The stat is SSS, certainly. Maybe the eye test after years of observation?
Possibly, but you'd think they'd give him a week or two. One week, is that too much to ask? Geez, Gallows got a half season, plus another half season.
Anyway, why put Hicks out there? We all know what Hicks is, a .200 hitter who has a hot streak for a few days, then gets hurt. While waiting for one of his hot streaks, you could easily die of boredom.
And they think Florial ain't good enough to hit .200 and strike out half the time? Which is pretty much what these clowns were/are doing. At least he is 24 and has an upside.
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