1. Hal won't have to retire jersey #99. I vote that it goes to Clayton "3G" Beeter: 3G stands for Guy we Got for Gallo!
2. The new Aaron in RF... Hicks!
3. No more whining about how Yanks "buy pennants." In fact, we become "America's low-budget Cinderella team."
4. We still see Judge at least once per season, thanks to new MLB schedule.
But on which team? SportsBetting.ag is offering odds for Judge's next venue:
San Francisco Giants 2-1
New York Mets 3-1
Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1
Houston Astros 6-1
Texas Rangers 8-1
Boston Red Sox 8-1
Toronto Blue Jays 10-1
Chicago White Sox 10-1
Philadelphia Phillies 13-1
Ouch. Three teams - Mets, Dodgers and Astros - were ALREADY better than the 2022 Yankees. Imagine adding Judge to their powerhouse lineups.
Also, based on October, the Phillies are clearly superior. Any of these teams would instantly become MLB's gold standard - maybe a dynasty. Those national games on Sunday night, the mystique, the legacy... they'd no longer be the Yanks' domain.
Then there's Boston and Toronto -our chief AL East rivals. God help us. We'd face Judge 13 times, plus there's the double-whammy: We no longer have him. Imagine Judge batting in front of Vlad Jr. or Rafael Devers - far more protection than Rizzo/Stanton offered. And think of Judge at Fenway. Would he be chasing Barry Bonds?
No, none of those outcomes can be allowed. For the Yankiverse to continue, without blowing up, they simply must not happen.
Which leaves the favorite - San Francisco - as a franchise that Hal Steinbrenner might be secretly rooting for. Why?
1. Giants games start late on the West Coast. Outa Compton, outa sight, outa mind.
2. Hal can claim it's not his fault: Judge simply wanted to return home to the land of wildfires.
3. Hal can blame those scattered, shameful NY fans for booing Judge in the ALCS final game (along with Mendoza Donaldson; read Hoss' post below.)
One issue, though, with SF: The Yanks only see the Giants once in 2023, but it's a doozy: The first home series of the year.
Yeahp. Opening day. Imagine Judge wearing #99 for the Giants. All Rise... Up? I can see NYC dusting off the famous "STEINBRENNER SUCKS" cheer from Reggie's 1982 return as an Angel. (By the way, the Yanks that year finished 5th in the AL East, 16 games behind Milwaukee, with 79 wins. Just sayin'.)
I've often thought Hal's ownership trajectory is destined to follow his father's. If so, we're somewhere in the 12-year barf (1982-1994), and the Mets will soon rule NY. He's a few decades ahead of Daenerys Targaryen. But you can feel the dragon's breath from here. Pungent.
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22 comments:
Throughout the hot stove last year many here were hoping for a failure of a season, and hopes to that end were crushed when the Yankees generated comparisons to the 98 team - a heresy that ultimately became a sad joke.
Now, the Judge free agency has become a glaring side issue and we continue to hope for a complete collapse.
BUT…
Attendance at The Mall That Harold Built saw attendance climb to over three million, an increase of more than a million fans.
What’s going to change if the suckers keep showing up in droves? And why would any of us think that the Yankees are going to open the vault for Judge? Even if he goes elsewhere, Yankees Inc. will still be profitable.
If nothing changes, nothing changes. We’ll be back here again next year, disappointed and singing the same sad song. While we watch Realmuto and Harper spank the Asstros.
I hope the Yankee Crack Baseball Committee is watching how Philadelphia plays against the Rastros. Maybe they will learn how to assemble a team that can compete for the World Series... instead of this dumpster fire that played last week..
I never hope for a Yankees collapse, DickAllen—but I was expecting one! And yes, comparing them to the 1998 team was not only a heresy but a joke, and a joke on us, in the end.
It WILL take a while for the bottom to fall out of attendance, and TV viewership. But it could happen much, much faster than HAL thinks, especially if the Mets become constant contenders.
The loss of Judge would leave this a truly pathetic lineup—and they have absolutely no one, and no viable plan to replace him. Nobody to trade who anyone is going to give them anything for. Just a bunch of aged has-beens nobody wants.
Sure, all those infielders LOOK good...but so did the team they put together in 2017. And even if everything works out, making them bona fide major leaguers, bringing up outfielders and catchers, and finding pitchers...
Without Judge, there's nothing.
I know, ranger. And it should really tell us something: Verlander, beaten up by the Mariners in Game One. Beaten up by the Phillies in Game One. Absolutely dominant against us.
Hmm...
I watched the game from the 2nd inning on. This game was two different games forge-welded together. First time through the lineup: Phillies hitters looked like us. Phillies pitcher looked like our pitchers. Then, WOW!
Phillies did more damage against Verlasshole in two innings than Yankee hitters have in the last ten years! Verlasshole looked perplexed as he was getting beaten like a pinata!
And it all started with a dinky little single!
After the first go round, the Philly hitters started taking professional at bats. They started to work the counts. They took what they were given. They put together singles, walks, doubles. They were relentless. Tenacious. They came back from a 5-0 deficit to tie the score in two innings, all without even hitting a home run! I felt like a little kid in a toy store!
And they capped it all off by hitting a home run off a Houston guy, his name was Garcia, I think, who was doing his best impression of Charlie Chaplin walking a baby stroller.
And when the Philly hitters started coming alive, the Philly starter all of a sudden looked like a different pitcher. (Incontrovertible proof that it's all in the head. Psychology does make all the difference.) And the Phillies bullpen came in and made pitches. They pitched up and in. They got good hitters out. They played something called defense. And they made it look ... easy!
If I was a ballplayer, I would love to play in Astro-land. That place is a hitter's dream. A pop fly to left is off the wall for a double. A poke to right is a home run.
Once upon a time, after A-Rod hit a home run off Verlasshole during the regular season to win a game at Yankee Stadium, Verlasshole said it was a cheap home run into the short porch. But how many cheap home runs does he get in support from his team, now that he plays in Astro-land?
Yankee hitters turn into jello whenever they visit Astro-land. Their bats turn into rolled up newspapers. Wet, rolled up newspapers.
I give the Astro hitters credit as well as the Philly hitters. Both teams hit into holes. Both teams hit the other way. Both teams protected the outside corner with two strikes. Both teams made it difficult for the opposing pitchers. More professional at bats in this one game than you see from Yankee hitters in one full season.
And that's why Boone and the coaching staff should be fired. Yankee hitters don't take professional at bats. And Yankee pitchers don't know how to get good hitters out. They have the wrong approach. Completely lacking in fundamentals.
Yankee hitters are like idiot savants. Someone who is great at doing one, and only one, thing but who can't do anything else. Yankee hitters are great at hitting home runs off lousy pitching but they wilt when they run into good pitching.
Yankee pitchers are good at striking out lousy hitters, but they wilt when they run into good hitters. Always trying to get them to chase balls down and away with two strikes. Not enough pitching inside. Not enough reading the hitter. And too many dumb mistakes over the middle of the plate. Looking at you, Gerrit Cole!
You are all correct, of course. Hammer gets down to the core of it. The organization needs a major reset that can only be accomplished by bringing in new blood. A bit apples and oranges, but look at what the NY Giants have accomplished this year. Unfortunately, those who will fight change inside the org have a death grip on their positions and no incentive to change as long as the money continues to roll in. So change will only happen if the man on top suddenly changes his outlook, or the flow of money trends downward. The former will never happen, but the latter will as interest in baseball is declining, slowly but surely.
Re: Judge, I don't think it really matters if we sign him or not. Our coaching, player development, and roster construction is so flaccid that failure is baked in. Cashman's long term contracts have painted us into a corner we cannot escape without first making a mess of things. In a few short years the team's nucleus will all be in their mid 30's. Will Steinbrenner be spending 300m in salaries to compensate for Cashman's errors? I think not.
As Leonard Cohen once wrote, I've seen the future, and it is murder.
@borntorun999, "Our coaching, player development, and roster construction is so flaccid that failure is baked in."
Absolutely, Yankee management is doing almost everything wrong. That's why I was against bringing in guys like Machado, Harper, Realmuto. They're really good players, but you know that they would've come here and sucked, turned into toads and millstones. (I'm wiping the egg off my face right now, seeing how they're all doing so well on other teams, but as Hoss has said so many times on this blog, everyone who comes here sucks and gets injured.) Our coaching, player development, management are all rotten to the core.
And against all the odds, maybe that's why Judge's record breaking season was so amazing. I thought he might have a good year, but I didn't see 62 homers and A.L. MVP. (Unless those terrible sportswriters steal Judge's MVP, again.) And he almost got the triple crown too. Hitting him leadoff probably cost him the triple crown.
And you're right, it won't make much of a difference whether Judge stays or goes. This franchise isn't going to win for a long time. But I'm still hoping we keep him, because what's there going to be worth watching next year if he's gone?
It's not quantum physics...you want to get to the World Series, ya have to beat the Rastros. You have to build the team to beat the Rastros...to win, beat the Rastros...do I really have to repeat this 500 more times?
@ranger_lp, Build the team to beat the ASS-stros, no doubt, that's the goal. And to do that, first and foremost, the coaching and management have to change and get better. No matter who you bring in, if they continue to fuck everything up like Boone and Co., we won't win. That's what I was saying, Machado, Harper, Realmuto, and anyone else would be ruined by the poisonous crap here.
Conversely, you can look at the players we have here. If we swapped in the ASS-stros's Dusty Baker and his coaching staff and got rid of Boone & Co., this would be a vastly improved team. I don't know if they beat the ASS-stros, but it would've been close. Wouldn't have been a four game sweep, that's for sure. And if Boone and Co. managed and coached the ASS-stros, I think this Yankee team beats 'em.
I think we're fortunate that we didn't get a miracle series win over the ASS-stros. This Yankee wouldn't have beat these Phillies. Nothing can ease the pain of losing a World Series.
I don't know what this is worth. Today's Washington Post ran a column by John Feinstein -- which suggests the Yankees won't let Judge leave. AND: As he has not won a W.S. in a Yankee uniform, he's gonna stay.
Feinstein has written 45 books. You might remember his first, A Season on the Brink, about the Indiana basketball team's 1985-86 season, focusing on Bobby Knight.
Considering I wanted (as a young youth) to be a sportswriter, I guess he's lived the life about which I fantasized. I don't begrudge him that. My life has turned out very well (I've been lucky, which I did not deserve).
- - -
HOWEVER, I see one flaw in Feinstein's analysis/projection. I believe it's possible that Judge feels about Hal/Brian/LornaBoone - more or less - along the same lines many IIH posters and bloggers feel.
That is to say, he wants to be shut of them.
Remember, if they look stupid and evil from the distance from which we all get to view 'em, they've got to look hideously ugly and woefully short of common sense from close up!
Short of NOT rooting for the Yankees, WE can't get that triumvirate out of our lives.
Judge could get a $400 million offer from the NYYs -- and turn it down for fewer dollars somewhere else.
Not my prediction. But a possibility. And: If it comes down that way, wouldn't it be a kick in the head for these 3 guys....and, of course, all of us.
PLEASE SING ALONG WITH NOW...
Imagine there's no Cashman
He’s really not our Pal
No Boone below us
Above us, only Hal
Imagine the New York Yankees
Winning it all today
oo - oo - oo-oo
Imagine there's no Ass-tros
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to pout or boo for
And no Altuve, too
Imagine our New York Yankees
Going all the way
oo - oo - oo-oo
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday we’ll suck less
And have more championships won
(please tip your usher - thank you very much)
so say the yankees give Judge 400 million. does that leave them nothing left to improve the team? so then basically your going to have the same players next year? How does that play out when,not if Judge comes down to earth? And later in his contract when he's batting .245 with 28 homeruns and 75 rbi's and only healthy to appear in 100 games. reminds me of how everyone was happy when we got Stanton and how did that work out?
The sad truth is that The Intern bet heavily on international signings way back when and not one of them made any kind of an impact. Then he built a roster that came close in 2017 and then completely fell apart. He’s had one or three exceptions, but for the vast majority of his efforts over the last 8-10 years have been a dismal failure. Nearly everything he’s touched has turned to shit.
With any other organization, he’d be unemployed. There is no justification for showing him anything but the exit.
EXCEPT…
…he built a championship “caliber” team, just not a champion, and as long as The Organization turns a profit and the value of “The Franchise” continues to grow, nothing will ever change, Judge or no Judge.
I agree with Hammer: keeping Judge won't save the Yankees. But without him, this team is unwatchable.
And just to repeat what I wrote in comments on the last post, in case anyone missed it:
Archie, we have all been guilty of violating our best rule (no politics!). Myself included.
I'm sorry I lost my temper before. And I have plenty of problems with people on "our" side.
But I think that since the two sides don't even agree on basic points of reality anymore, it really makes no sense to talk politics. It's like people who can't agree on what color the sky is, trying to have a debate on meteorology. I joke, but it's a truly tragic set of circumstances, and I think there is a very, very dark future just ahead.
That said, I would like to preserve some little space for friendly conversation about something as wonderfully frivolous as baseball, before it all comes apart.
Well put, HC.
I noticed that betting site had no odds at all that the Yankees would sign Judge. Surely, they must be somewhere at the top of the list.
“And no Altuve, too”
Brilliant, AA - thanks for the laugh! That tune will be running through my head all day.
Thanks Retired Stratman - Glad you enjoyed my little song :)
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