For years, I've agreed with you. Now... not so sure.
I think something has torn the fundamental juju fabric of the Yankiverse - that our incredible spring amped up expectations like never before, and that this team's fate will be inexorably shared with its GM. If the Yankees flounder and fail - as they've done for 13 years - those fake pillars outside baseball's ugliest stadium are destined to topple. Yankee Reality, as we know it, has changed.
In Tuesday's trade deadline, Cashman traded a solid, 29-year-old starting pitcher and lifelong Yank for a player who - for now, at least - cannot play. If this team falls in October, if the trade for Harrison Bader goes south, it will be a cold and unforgivingly harsh winter in Tampa. Someone will pay, and I doubt Aaron Boone will be enough.
Remember how Fox & Friends used to play for "the Audience of One?" That's how Cashman has survived: In the end, all he ever had to do was appease Food Stamps Hal. And they have so much in common - Hal is 52, Cash is 55; plus, they both owe everything to Old George. They might as well be cousins, identical cousins. They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike. You can lose your mind.
Still, I do believe this is different. The world has changed. The Yankees no longer own NY. The Mets have a pitching staff made for October. If the Yankees botch this one, Aaron Judge will leave, and we'll end up replacing him with Danny Tartabull and Steve Kemp. If we blow this one, the Yankee Doomsday Clock will hit midnight. Armageddon outahere.
Other off-day observations:
1. Breaking News: GALLO SINGLES. Incredible! Man's on fire! He's hitting - let's see now, carry the naught - .250! Two-fifty. That's nearly 200 fucking points above his Yankee career! And he singled to the opposite field! And only struck out twice!
Wednesday, Michael Kay took batting practice on Gallo, ripping a straw man claim that Gallo blames Yank fans fans for his failures. I read the interview and didn't see Gallo saying that, but who cares, right? A rant is a rant.
And Kay is right, sorta - I mean, Gallo sucked. Still, whenever a talk show host - who is paid by the bucket of bullshit -goes self-righteous over anybody, it always seems rather creepy. For all his miscues, John Sterling never rips players.
Hearing Kay's rant, I actually found myself aligning with Gallo. I didn't think that could happen.
Anyway, he's gone, and we're still waiting for Andrew Benintendi to show us an improvement. I wish Gallo luck in LA. But he better spend next winter retooling his swing, as did JD Martinez, Justin Turner and Matt Carpenter to save their careers. If so, Gallo might yet make it. And if Yankee fans did make him miserable, well, he got paid $10.2 million.
2. Heading into the dog days, the Yankee staff looks thin as a coat of Windex. For years, they used Scranton as a de facto extended rotation. Today, if and when a starter goes down, we have one replacement: Clarke Schmidt. After him, it's Jhony Brito, Ryan Weber, Matt Krook and the infamous shrinking prospect Deivi Garcia - still only 23, still only 5'9" - now at Double A, moving downward through the system.
Seriously, after Nestor Cortez, who can we count on? And keep in mind that Nestor he has now thrown more innings this season - 103 - than in 2021 and 2020 combined. Saturday, Domingo German pitches against Montgomery. When I think of that matchup, I cringe. And so should Brian Cashman. Food Stamps may have lived most everywhere, from Zanzibar to Berkley Square, but Cash has only seen the sights a guy can see from Brooklyn Heights. What a crazy pair!
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33 comments:
Is Pinstripe Alley owned by the Cashman family? All of sudden Master Bader is the second best player in baseball behind Ohtani. Had anyone ever heard of Bader before this trade? So the playoff rotation is Cole, Cortes & Montas. Cortes has never pitched in the post season. Montas has pitched against Houston once and has a 12 ERA and we all know how big Cole was against the Sox last year. Cashman traded away the entire batch of minor league pitching hopefuls and the team at best stayed the same or slid backwards. If he's not gone after this year, then I would assume he and Hal have more than a platonic relationship.
El Duque, that is absolutely hilarious!
I LOVE YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR!!
It is so charming that you have even a glimmer of hope that Harold will shitcan The Intern, or that Boooooone will somehow be tossed back into the broadcast booth!
Somehow we Yankees fans have become cursed, something like loveable losers, ever destined to win one championship every fifty years or so. As long as the cash register keeps ringing, we can expect the same disappointment that faces Royals fans face every spring, wallowing in the knowledge that our year will end in a loss. Only difference? Royals fans know they are fucked right out of the gate.
And here’s the best part of it: we have hope, and we all know it’s the hope that kills you.
The Intern is NEVER leaving. EVER. Booooone is an enduring mediocrity, and the only good news is that the football season will be starting soon. Oh, wait. Check that: there are Giants fans here and what’s worse: I root for the Jets.
It will never end. We are all totally fucked.
Celerino,
I'll take Cortes in a playoff game any day. The others, not so much.
And the intern must have negatives of HAL with the dead woman or live boy. (Edwin Edwards reference. "Vote For the Crook. It's Important.").
Duque,
I also took Callo's interview to not be whining about the fans. I took it that other players felt bad for him and it just made it worse for him. He said more than once that he would have booed also.
@Celerino Sanchez, I'd never heard of Bader before this. But I don't follow NL action and when was the last time Yanks had played the Cardinals? But I agree with you, all of a sudden Master Bader is the greatest defensive CF ever. What a hoot. Don't we already have a good defensive CF in AAA, some guy named Florial? Or maybe those other blogs say Florial's defense sucks too, along with his hitting, and maybe Florial has turf toe and can't run either, unlike our broken foot Master Bader.
@DickAllen, I love how you put that, "so charming" that El Duque would have a ray of hope that the intern would get booted. Yeah, I agree with you. Intern ain't never leaving except in a hearse. About Boone, I disagree with you. Didn't that interview sound like the intern was setting up Ba-Boone for execution this winter? They did get rid of Torre and Girardi before, so past history does seem to indicate that Yankee dugout puppets, er, managers are expendable.
I admire your optimism, Duque. We have sent the maid out for fetch you some smelling salts.
We all get a case of the vapors once in a while, I understand. And while I love the Patty Duke references, I just don't know. Remember "Billie," the movie with Patty? She's kind of misunderstood and ostracized for trying to be a runner in a man's world. My memory is fuzzy but, in the end, I think everybody is pregnant and lives happily ever after, but only after they have to live down the town's judgementalism. Judginess?
What does that have to do with this season? I don't know. I keep thinking that Brian is Billie, but my brain hurts. I have to go to Queens today and don't want to. I'm not going to see the bigger team in town. It's just business kind of shit.
And Dick is right - it's the hope that kills you, which is why we're all dead men walking right now. Actually, I have had not hope for this team - zilcho, nada, negaatori - since the hot stove season, so I'll be safe. I was not fooled by the winning streak. But that's nothing to brag about, being soul-murdered by the biggest conmen in sports.
I think Hal and Brian will continue their man crush for a long time, no matter what happens. Brian will point to all the successes and take credit, then he'll point to the implosions and slough off the blame and the "bad breaks" and whatever. Hal will consult with his bookkeeper and all will continue. The price of the compromise will be that they do not re-sign Judge.
You're right about the pitching staff, though, and it's the staff that got us here. We still can't hit for shit and now we can't pitch.
Just to play devil's advocate a bit, I read a NY Post article by Mike Vaccaro, https://nypost.com/2022/08/03/gerrit-coles-dud-adds-to-growing-angst-around-yankees-rotation/
that takes a rare stab at Cashman & Co. To paraphrase, according to the Post, Cole said after his disastrous start that "we've gotten baseballed", referring to how his start fell apart so quickly. And then the following quote from Aaron Boone about how the pitching has been banged around lately, along with the stab at Yankee management by the Post writer:
'“There’s some wonky weirdness attached to that,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.'
"Is it really weirder than trading away a reliable, proven starter for no apparent reason? Yankees fans may have to ask themselves at some point if they aren’t the ones being baseballed." (Mike Vaccaro, NY Post)
Yeah, it's a new term! We're being baseballed!
Duque:
Well stated. I will say it again and keep saying it, Genius Cashman is a one man wrecking crew. Crybaby Joey can hit all he wants in L.A. The Yankees fans made me feel like shit. No Joey!, batting .159 over two years made you feel like shit. Growing up a Yankee fan, I cannot even look at the logo. If you were a true fan, you should have been prepared. So much for many feeling sorry for Joey. When joey bitched about the traffic in NY, I knew the Yankees were in trouble. Actually when I first looked at Joey's stats in Texas, I knew Joey would not make it in NY. Only a GM like Genius Cashman would want such an atrocity.
I still can't get over it. Why trade a starter, probably a #4 type, but who might have been a #3 in an emergency, for a defensive CF with a bad foot? And if, as some have suggested, there was another deal with the Marlins for a pitcher, then why weren't the deals made contingent on each other? And perhaps the biggest follow up question, why make one stupid deal plus one good deal?
Take this logical exercise: Let us assume that the Montgomery-Bader deal was a "stupid" deal. Assume also that the Marlins deal, whatever it was, was a "good" deal. If they were separate deals, not contingent, the question remains, why would you make the stupid deal. Why not just make the "good" deal; why not just walk away from the stupid deal? If the roster spot is needed, why not just send down a bullpen lugnut? Why couldn't Cashman get a better return for Montgomery?
At the end of the day, Cashman made a trade that we wouldn't be able to do in reverse. I mean, can we trade a Locastro, a Florial, or a Hicks for a (healthy, decent) #4 lefty starter?
" If they were separate deals, not contingent, the question remains, why would you make the stupid deal. Why not just make the "good" deal; why not just walk away from the stupid deal?"
You'd think right?
Although, the stupid deal isn't as stupid if you've got the replacement.
That said, once the replacement deal fell through, the stupid deal is nothing but stupid.
I notice that Joel Sherman and Heyman are starting to bring up that the price for Lopez was to high The Marlins wanted Gleyber. I say bullshit. They were ready to trade Gleyber (as are a lot of us). This is just Cashman saving face. He got screwed by FLA and can't admit it.
Because, as you point out, why only do the stupid deal?
If he wasn't betrayed then, is it because he is a moron? Let's shake the 8-ball.
Signs point to yes.
Duque, I found myself humming the “Patty Duke Show” along to your post. Those 60’s sitcoms were some weird wacky stuff, as Johnny used to say…
Yeah, I think Cashman will be back. But his contract is up after this season, so it would be a logical time to part ways, kick him upstairs, whatever…still, I think we’re in for another heapln’ helpin’ of both Boone and Cash (sounds like a misbegotten 80’s buddy movie)
As for Darth Bader, I’m sure he’s a perfectly OK player, but trading our greatest current need (SP) for our least important need (OF) makes zero sense. The prevalent theory seems to be that Miami somehow pulled the rug out from under us by reneging on an agreed upon trade. I’ve yet to see anything to back this up, but if true it speaks to the incompetence of Cashman, an incompetence born of arrogance coming from being in power for too long. But Cashman, the Bader Trader, will continue, on and on, world without end, Amen.
Cashman will never be fired by Hal. If he was inclined to do so he'd already be gone. Cashman's job is to save money by shopping on the scrap heap not winning a World Series
And rumor has it that Gallo is donating 50% of his remaining salary to the LA Tourettes Syndrome Foundation.
Here is Ken Rosenthal's explanation of why the Yankees made the Montgomery trade:
https://theathletic.com/3479834/2022/08/05/trade-yankees-montgomery-angels-ohtani?source=user-shared-article
Carl,
Paywall.
Celerino,
Regarding Pinstripe Alley's big time homer-ism... I've often wondered that myself. They are shameless in their promotion of the Yankees. I can't recall ever reading an article that was critical.
Hilarious, Duque!
"Where HAL enjoys a (kinky-booted) minuet," a "rat dog makes The Brain lose control."
What a crazy pair, indeed.
Yes, I fear that both Cashie and Boone will be back with us next year, and maybe for many years to come. The red-hot first-half, followed by the injuries, are the perfect scenario for both men:
"Hey without those devastating injuries that happen to us every single season and that we could not possibly have predicted..."
They'll make a big drama of "Can we re-sign that greedy Judge?" leading to much relief when they do. Coops will talk about what a better team this will be in 2023, what with a full year of Tots in center, and Frankie Says I Pitch in Oakland Montas for an entire season in the rotation, blah-blah-blah...
...BUT.
The Jerkston Trio IS playing closer to the edge than they ever have before. There IS nothing to prevent Judge from taking a better offer after another collapse.
Or even a worse one ("Dudes, thanks, I already have enough money—I know that's an impossible concept for you, HAL—and I want to play in a World Series before I retire. Yeah, I know that Donaldson says he's retooled his swing. Right, I think IKF might hit a home run this year, too. But seriously...")
The hot first half WAS—as several of you stated—a double-edged sword. Or to quote The (Real) Boss: "Nothing is forgiven or forgotten/ When it's the last time around."
A collapse followed by the Judge leaving the courtroom might just knock Humpty Dumpty off his pedestal.
Carl Weitz, I'm blocked on The Athletic. What was Ken Rosenthal saying?
@Horace…
Because they believe Bader will be more valuable going forward into 2023. Can’t make that shit up. Also Rosenthal mentions in passing Bader will have a lower salary in 2023 as Montgomery is arbitration eligible.
I’m sure it’s not the money though (eyeroll).
Thanks, Mildred. Sigh. Yes, that sounds all too likely!
@ Horace...here you go:
It’s an old baseball adage: You can never have enough pitching. So how is it that the Yankees traded a quality starting pitcher for an injured center fielder at the trade deadline, perplexing many of their fans and even some in the industry?
The answer comes down to this: The Yankees, according to major-league sources, believe Harrison Bader will be more valuable to them than Jordan Montgomery would have been through 2023, especially in the postseason.
The exchange is not without risk. If one or more of the Yankees’ current starters gets injured or struggles, general manager Brian Cashman very well might regret this move, perhaps even before the postseason begins. The Yankees, after lacking home-field advantage in their ALCS losses to the Astros in 2017 and 2019, want to maintain their 1 1/2-game lead over Houston for the best record in the AL.
Bader, recovering from plantar fasciitis in his right foot, is not expected to return before September, eliminating any short-term benefit from the trade. But the Yankees still believe the calculus of the deal is in their favor, in large part because they did not see Montgomery starting a postseason game over Gerrit Cole, Frankie Montas, Nestor Cortes and Luis Severino, who is on the 60-day IL until mid-September with a right lat strain, but already has resumed throwing.
Jameson Taillon is another Yankees starter who might have bumped Montgomery from the postseason rotation, depending upon the matchup. Domingo Germán will replace Montgomery in the rotation. Clarke Schmidt, currently back at Triple A, offers further protection against injury. So, that’s six potential starters for the stretch run, plus Severino once he returns.
Earlier this season, Cole said of Montgomery, “the more he pitches, the better he gets.” Over time, Montgomery has gained confidence in his stuff, becoming less afraid to pitch to contact. The change in mentality led to better results — his 4.9 percent walk rate and 14.9 pitches per inning are both the lowest of his career. Yet from the Yankees’ perspective, he still wasn’t good enough.
The Yankees did not envision using Montgomery out of their bullpen in the playoffs. Even if he somehow had made it into the rotation, he might not have lasted more than the four innings he pitched in his only career postseason start, Game 4 of the 2020 Division Series against the Rays. Montgomery threw only 62 pitches that night and allowed only one run, but the Yankees deployed their bullpen aggressively, as teams often do in October.
Harrison Bader (Gregory Fisher / USA Today Sports)
So then the question becomes: What will Bader offer once he is healthy?
For starters, defense. Center field is the Yankees’ worst defensive position, according to the advanced metrics. Since 2018, Bader leads all center fielders in Statcast’s Outs Above Average. His sprint speed this season is in the 94th percentile. And while he struggled offensively before getting injured, his OPS-plus in both the shortened 2020 season and 2021 was 14 percent above league-average.
In the Yankees’ view, Bader is simply a more useful part than Montgomery might have been. On most nights, he will start in center. But if the matchup calls for say, an outfield of Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Andrew Benintendi, with Matt Carpenter at DH, Bader can come off the bench as a defensive replacement or pinch-runner.
The Bader-Montgomery talks grew out of the Yankees telling teams, “If we import another starter, we would have a starter available.” Yet the Yankees kept trying to acquire another starter even after adding Montas, sources said, pursuing deals for the Marlins’ Pablo López, Giants’ Carlos Rodón and Tigers’ Tarik Skubal. So obviously, they were not entirely comfortable with their rotation.
Both Bader and Montgomery are under club control through 2023, and the Yankees will save a bit of money in the exchange. While the difference in remaining salary between the two this season is negligible, Montgomery’s salary will rise from $6 million next season in his final year of arbitration, while Bader’s will remain flat at $5.2 million.
The Yankees, though, did not make this deal to save a few million, or protect themselves against the possible loss of Judge in free agency; if Judge leaves, they will need a lot more than Bader. No, they made the deal for the same reason teams usually make deals. Because they believed it improved their overall team.
@ Doug K... And others that want to read articles in publications they don't subscribe to:
I have a subscription to The Athletic. But there is an easy way to bypass ANY paywall.
1) Go to: archive.md (also known as archive today).
2) Copy the article URL.
3) Paste the URL in the red box.
4) Click save.
Thx Carl, will try with nytimes.com!
So much for our vaunted analytics department:
Although I don’t fully understand defensive rating per BBREF, in 2022, MasterBader had a NEGATIVE rating in nearly ever defensive category. In short we got a defensive specialist who isn’t, especially, as many people have already pointed out, considering his plantar problem, an injury that doesn’t ever really go away.
We may have another Gallow on our hands, or in this case, our feet.
The Intern has once again gotten hosed.
Perhaps Zachary, our own personal analytics department can shed more light on this subject.
The Athletic: "The Yankees, though, did not make this deal to save a few million, or protect themselves against the possible loss of Judge in free agency...."
I think that last paragraph is key. I don't think any of us have mentioned that part yet. It slipped my mind as well. Shows how smart that weasel Cashman actually is.
So the Montgomery-Bader deal was a hedge against the possibility of Judge leaving, plus more importantly, a bargaining chip to use against Judge during winter negotiations. Judge's agent, doubtless, would bring up that "Judge is a natural centerfielder, and he played very well in CF this year, so that raises his price even more". Cashman counters with, "yes, maybe with some other team without a CF, but we now have a real CF who can play the pants of Judge in CF, so let's not even bring that up. Judge will be strictly a right fielder for the remainder of his Yankee career. We'll negotiate strictly from the standpoint of Judge as a RF"
Presumably, in the minds of Yankee management, that would bring down the price of Judge's contract. That was the kind of thing that they were hoping to do with Gallo, but increasing public scrutiny of Gallo's rapidly diminishing, microscopic batting average forced their hand to dump Gallo. That left them with having to bring in what they consider a "legitimate" center fielder to use against Judge in contract negotiations. I think it's a masterful piece of preparation for contract talks. They might have saved themselves 50 million bucks. Neat, eh?
@DickAllen, doesn't matter if Bader really is good or not. They're just using Bader as a contract negotiating tool. It was a masterpiece of sly scheming. They also sacrificed Montgomery. Now it all makes sense. The move was not for this year; it was for the Judge talks this winter.
I'm telling you guys, Yankee management ain't that stupid. With baseball decisions, they're stupid, for sure. But as far as finances, they know what they're doing. When they want to throw around money, they'll do it. When they want to skimp on 500,000 here or there, they'll do that too.
Thanks, Carl Weitz! And...if I ever hear the term, "advanced metrics" again, I will scream.
What's especially annoying is that Bader is not even what they got him for. Thanks to his foot injury, he's not even a great defensive centerfielder.
And let's not forget what is so often forgotten in these analyses: in baseball, fielding counts way, way less than hitting. It just does.
People can talk all they want about going from the worst to the best fielder at any position. But usually, that means one more ball dropping in or getting by every few games. Whereas the gap between best and worst hitter at any position is usually monumental.
We did get hosed.
Carl, thanks for the tip!
Hammer, all due respect, I don’t think the Bader trade has anything to do with the Judge negotiations. Bader is too mediocre to throw in anyone’s face, especially with a reoccurring medical condition. My wife who worked on her feet all day, suffered from it off and on for over 2 years. I see it as a move move they made for this year and next year.
All: The Bader trade kind of falls apart when you consider the role “the experts” carve out for Bader is essentially the same one that we use LoCastro for. We also have Florial who could do almost the same with the virtue of being LH hitter at YS. OH- I forgot the something-something about his barrel rate against off speed pitches delivered with a three-quarter motion. More to the point, there’s every possibility that Taillon and Cortes break down due to this year’s heavier workloads. German? C’mon! You just can’t position yourself as a legit championship contender then give away starting pitching you can’t replace.
Look, When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras. The simplest explanation? Cashman fucked up and made a bad deal, exposing the team as poseurs who don’t care whether the team wins the WS or not. Finally, the emperor has no clothes.
@borntorun999, "I don’t think the Bader trade has anything to do with the Judge negotiations. Bader is too mediocre to throw in anyone’s face, especially with a reoccurring medical condition."
Ah, but it's not what you or I think, it's what the Yankee management thinks, and that's what they were thinking, for sure. Hell, they were planning to throw Gallo in Judge's face as a negotiating ploy, until it finally blew up. This guy with a broken foot ain't playing this year, and Yankee management knows it, we all know it. He's purely a negotiating tool. Even if he knocks down Judge's contract by 20 million, it was a win for them. That's the way they think.
And absolutely, management doesn't care about winning. It's risk management/finances that they care about.
Not looking forward to the whole Judge sideshow this winter. Imagine if he does hit 60? Jesus!
This is where the stupidity, baseball decision making, and finance all intersected.
If they were intelligent, they would have put Florial in CF, Andujar at DH (at least for the present), and kept Montgomery.
Instead, they dumped Montgomery for a guy who they'll use as a negotiating tool and a potential CF if his foot heals next year or the year after. They were willing to take a chance on torpedo-ing this year to try to save money on Judge's contract.
We all keep saying it was a stupid mistake, and nothing more. But put yourself in their shoes, think like them, it was perfect. They may or may not save money, but they think it's a win win. Whether Judge leaves, whether Judge signs, they think they have a CF who plays defense.
Now, his defense probably sucks, and he probably never even makes it back from the foot injury. But that doesn't matter to management right now.
Duque, you nailed it as usual. The Brain needed one more decent starter, instead... As usual, we have nobody in AAA who could propel us through the playoffs. Now if I could only stop having Patty Duke dreams....
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