—The Yankees' 10-18 August is their worst August since the August of 1989, a year they finished 5th in the then, 7-team AL East.
—The Yankees' 10-18 August was their worst month, period, since 1991, when they went 9-19 in September, en route to another fifth-place finish in a 7-team AL East.
—Of the Yankees' 18 losses this August, 8 were by 1 run. Only 3 of their 10 wins were by 1 run. (Previously, they were 21-13 in one-run games.)
—According to one of the Sabremetrics rankings, Gleyber Torres is 193rd of all 199 major-league regulars in the second half of the season. This is outrageous and ridiculous, of course. According to another such statistical ranking, Gleyber is 195th out of 199 regulars.
—Giancarlo Stanton has now gone 45 straight plate appearances, dating back to July 15th, without hitting a home run.
—Gerrit Cole has the largest Adam's apple ever measured in a human being.
All right, I made that last one up. But it's true!
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12 comments:
Hosserator 66
Here's a question to ponder on this fine Thursday.
Given the August record of 10-18 - how many of these losses can be attributed to bad management by the BubbleMan?
I looked over the games and I'd put it at 6/7 of them.
Six to Seven of those 18 losses are on the disposable Aaron's shoulders.
(Don't even get me going on Cash and Hal)
Hoss, the thing we feared about the wheels coming off is happening. The team is showing its true colors. And it will probably get much, much worse in the next few years before it can get any better. Judge is a smart guy. He probably gets the hell of out of Dodge. The most hysterical thing will be if the Yankees actually make the biggest offer and Judge runs away without even looking back.
@AboveAverage, no question that Boone has effed up quite a few. But then again, it's quite possible, and even probable, that this team finds a way to lose most of those games, even if Boone had made the right moves.
For instance, last night, besides the no-show offense making another pitcher look like Cy Young, notice the vaunted infield defense comes apart at just the right moment for Ohtani's bang-zoom. They are finding ways to lose almost every game.
There is a new guy on WFAN sportstalk, Keith McPherson, a diehard Yankee fan, who has a little tid-bit section on the pre-game show called "tell me something cool". He is usually on after the Yankee post game. On this west coast trip, he was on before the pre-game, due to the late start times.
I love this guy. He is ripping Yankee management almost as much as us. The people who call up on his show are ripping Yankee management just as much as us. Refreshing! Previously, there were nothing but Cashman and HAL apologists on WFAN.
Ex: McPherson (facetiously) said that the Yankees are smarter than everyone else. That they hired a manager with zero experience because they liked his interviews and thought they'd be able to work better with him. He also has been saying that he doesn't believe that the Yankees are going to do anything in the playoffs, even if they make it. He too is in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode.
Amen, guys! And yes, happy to see much of what we've been raving about for years finally penetrating the mainstream!
Like manure, I would spread the blame all around.
Yes, Cashman is the head fiend, being in charge of building this team. Plenty of blame for HAL, too, for keeping him there, with his inane, soul-killing calculations that their current strategy will maximize profits.
Yes, Boone is an imbecile, even beyond the nonsense that Cashman forces upon him. And, obviously, an uninspiring clubhouse manager.
And...yes, these players are a disgrace. Many of them are simply too old and too mediocre, I know. But there is, as well, an all-around lack of pride or even, simple attention in their play. Their reaction to the sudden possibility that they could accomplished something incredible was...to take a big, summer-long nap.
They don't much care. And if they don't, I don't know why they think anyone else will.
HAM-LORD,
You are correct - however less internalized neurosis and more of a spontaneous and outwardly approach towards managing these players would benefit this team.
At Sunday's game in Oakland, many of the players and coaches seemed so utterly miserable about their collective ineffectiveness it was just surprising to see.
And it wasn't just the day game after an extra inning loss the night before bleariness.
When I complimented Taillon on his Thursday the 25th performance he dropped his head and said to me, "we needed it Man - we really needed it" with just enough gloom in his voice that I felt sorry for him.
This is a soul crushing stretch for most of these players.
The fault lies with Cashman and Steinbrenner and their flatlining deadline deals - but Boone is no wizard on the bench.
If this collapse continues through the end of the season it will become very uncomfortable to watch.
They're setting up Boone for the Gallows. He'll be the fall guy when the ship goes down. And she is going down.
We can't get rid of Hal.
Hal won't fire Cashman.
Even if Cashman fires Boone, the mind reels at the prospects of who he'll hire to manage. Roseanne Barr?
What we can do: Write a collective IIH letter to Judge and tell him we'll understand if he walks away. A formal statement, to which we can all sign on.
And now for an exciting new introductory episode of The Six Billion Peso Manager:
(Video of a midnight blue and white spaceship with interlocking "NY" logo plummeting toward earth)
Boone: I got a blowout, I can't hold her. She's breaking up, she's breaking up ....
(Cut to a medical laboratory, with Aaron Boone lying on an examination table, with many wires protruding from his head, surrounded by medical and computer equipment.)
Narrator (insert stock photo of Oscar Goldman's concerned face): Aaron Boone, Yankee Cosmonaut.... A manager barely in the pennant race.... Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic manager. Aaron Boone will be that man.... Better than he was before.
(Cut to video of scientists installing a shiny new HYPER SUX 3000 Quad Core Processor into Boone's brain. Cut to video of scientists installing a new vocabulary memory bank into Boone's brain. Then cut to another video of scientists installing a Darth Vader Touchless Throat Choke Pointer into Boone's right forefinger.)
Narrator: Better, shrewder, deadlier ....
(Cut to video of the new six billion peso Boone managing the Yankees. His brain is able to make astronomical probability calculations in a split second, so that he knows to pinch hit Gleyber Torres against Craig Kimbrel in the 9th inning of Game 7 of the 2022 World Series against the Dodgers, with the Yankees down 3-0. Torres hits a grand slam and the Yankees go on to win the World Series, with Lucas Luetge pitching a perfect 1-2-3 bottom of the 9th to save the game and the World Championship.)
(Cut to video of the press conference after the game.)
Meredith Marokovits asks "Aaron, why did you pinch hit Torres there when you had Benintendi, a lefty handed hitter, on the bench?"
Boone answers "I calculated that the odds of Torres hitting a grand slam in that situation was 99 in 100. This was due to the fact that I knew Torres had laid a brain fart in the 5th, 6th, and 7th innings of Games 1,3,4, and 6 and that he had been diagnosed with a punctured left eardrum after Game 6. In the very next pinch hitting situation, such a right handed hitter, hitting .025 for the postseason, with the same launch angle and exit velocity as Torres, and a newly diagnosed punctured left eardrum, against a right handed pitcher with Kimbrel's arm angle, fastball velocity and spin rate, would hit a home run in 99 out of 100 identical simulations."
Meredith Marokovits (visibly aghast): "Aaron, do you really expect us to believe this convoluted nonsense? And what about using Luetge in the 9th? Did you also calculate the odds of him ...."
Cut to video of Boone, pointing his right fore finger at Marokovits from across the press room. Cut to close up video of Marokovits's face, turning purple, eyes bulging out, gasping for breath as Boone finally lowers his finger, allowing her to breath freely again.
Boone continues, "Women belong in the kitchen, not in the press room after a big sporting event. What do you know about how my HYPER SUX 3000 functions? They even removed "you know" from my vocabulary memory banks, you know."
(Cut to alarmed faces of the Yankee rocket scientists monitoring the press conference, whispering "I told you we needed to install that special anti-sex discrimination module" and "yeah, but then we wouldn't have been able to install the new memory banks which are 300% larger because we removed 'you know' from his vocabulary". "Removed 'you know', you idiot, he just said 'you know' again"!)
Announcer: Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of The Six Billion Peso Manager!
I'd watch it, Hammer. Certainly over the average Yankees game.
And AA, you're quite right about "less internalized neurosis."
When things are looking worst, you need to have somebody break the mood.
In the 1958 Series, the Yanks got down, 3 games to 1, to the Braves. Milwaukee had beat them in 7, excruciating games the year before, and the Braves were all popping off freely, saying how the Yankees wouldn't finish 4th in the NL.
Micke Mantle then walked into the clubhouse with a fake, "arrow-through-the-head" gizmo (get it?). Everybody cracked up. Yanks won the next three straight, the last two in Milwaukee. The Braves made the World Series again in...1991. In Atlanta.
You need someone capable of doing that, too. Yanks don't have it.
They don't have "the right stuff", for sure. They don't have a lot of stuff they need.
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