No Gammonites here. No Boone quotes. No controversy over a rosin bag, or the ball boy's haircut. Just names and numbers - page after page of stats, standings, schedules, starters and scores - box scores - as far as you can see. You know that movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once? It should be about the sports agate page - an instant avalanche that online sites cannot match. (Yes, it's nice to click on a name and access an entire Wikipedia file, but you're soon lost in the weeds.) The baseball agate page is the greatest sports forum ever devised.
If the lords of the game worry about a dearth of millennial fans, it's because their generation grew up without newspapers. And my friends, that ship has forever sailed.
But in here lurk secrets of the Sphinx, all with Yankee connections. For example...
1. Toronto has the top three hitters (with Matt Chapman batting at almost twice his normal average.) They cannot keep this up. They'll soon go cold - though Vlad Gurerrero Jr. is for real. The Yankee connection: He hates us.
How delightful it will be when we sign him at age 40.
2. It took a while, but Jorge Mateo may have finally blossomed into the star the Yankees once projected. We traded him to Oakland (with Dustin Fowler and James Kaprielian) for Sonny Gray. Last weekend, I think it was John Flaherty who noted that O's announcer Jim Palmer claims Mateo is the greatest fielding SS he's ever seen in Baltimore. That statement left Michael Kay stunned. They started rattling off names - Belanger, Ripkin, Tejada, Apparicio... holy shit. It's still a bit early, but that Sonny Gray deal might someday be Cooperstown Cashman's W.O.A.T. (worst of all time.)
3. Look who's ranked 8th: Old friend Geo Urshella. It's worth noting that last year, Geo outhit Jackie Donaldson by a healthy 60 points. The Yankees love to tout Jackie's glove, but I wouldn't say he's better than Urshela. (Remember Geo throwing out baserunners from his butt, or flying into an opposing dugout to snare a foul?) Another Cashman Crash. The W.O.A.T.?
4. Rafael Devers leads the AL in HRs. For my money, he remains baseball's preeminent Yankee Killer. He is on a par with Judge, Vlad, Harper and Ohtani.
5. Thank God for Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole. Around here, we have a nasty tendency to judge players by their contracts. It's easy to do - and I'm guilty - in part because that's how the Yankee-owned media covers the team. It judges players from the eyes of the front office.
Let's remember that Cole and Judge are worth every penny - and let's accept that a time will come when that is not the case. Players get old, they get hobbled, and nobody stays great forever. But those two are Yankee greats, now and forever, and as long as we have them, we have a chance.
And remember: The truth doesn't necessarily come in headlines, but it's always there in the agate page.
ReplyDeleteJust checked the stats. Juan Soto is hitting .164.
I thought NOT getting him was a huge error.
Could be I was wrong . . .
Trading Gio and getting Jackie was another WOAT Cashman move.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many, it's really impossible to rank them. He's likely the worst GM in baseball, but he's treated like one of the best.
Every clever dumpster dive signing that pans out for a couple of months is offset by a stack of trades that seriously damaged our chances for current and future World Series.
Five more years. Five more years. Five more...
JM -
ReplyDeleteWell how else was Hal going to get rid of Sanchez! It's not like he could have just released him instead of taking on a massive salary for an inferior player to get it done.
I mean just releasing Sanchez and eating a few million would have been crazy!
Right? Right?
We need another pitcher. Maybe Hal can trade Hicks for Patrick Corbin's contract.
@ JoeFOB It's early yet. Although there were some troubling signs of decline before the Nats traded him to SD. Could it be that Soto has pulled a Yankee style flame out? I'm tellin' ya, athletes these days can be old by the time they're 24.
ReplyDelete@ JM & Doug K. Absolutely!
ReplyDeleteBut don't tell the dumbasses about trading Hicks for Corbin. They might do it if they think of it. That's the kind of thing they would do.
See, I think they did know what they were getting in Donaldson. He was in decline for a long time already. They wanted to take on his salary to replace the salary that was leaving.
When Stanton finally goes away, they will replace his millstone contract with another millstone of equivalent weight. It's practically a sure thing. This has been the way they operate for a long time. They're very predictable.
The Bader-Montgomery deal last year might be a WOAT contender?
ReplyDeleteFrom the Athletic:. The Cardinals’ outfield depth is ridiculous and only Walker, their right fielder, is untouchable.
The Yankees used the third man in their rotation to get the Cardinal's 5th outfielder!
Yep, that is exactly what they did!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely brilliant, Duque. And very true, JM, Doug.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget, the Sonny Gray deal, rotten as it was—he chose to go for Sonny over Justin Verlander, thereby costing the Yanks at least two World Series with that one deal alone—it was all compounded by turning around and trading Gray and a minor-league reliever, Reive Sanmartin, for Shed Long, Jr. and "2019 competitive balance Round A pick."
I have no idea who that pick turned out to be—or even what it is—but not content to stop there, Cashie promptly dealt Long for a nondescript, minor league outfielder named Josh Towers, who was out of the Yankees' by 2020, and who is now in the Dodgers' system, at Double-A, at the age of 26.
Don't get me wrong. I thought Gray was a major choker, who was never going to pitch well in NYC and has never really been a star. But he still had considerable trade value, and is off to a good start this year with the Twins.
Cashman just threw him away, for nothing really, as he so often does.
Every observation in duque's essay today is marred by the small sample size.
ReplyDeleteStudies in myopia: because el duque's thoughts revolve around the Yankees, those of opposing players must do the same.
ReplyDeleteFurther studies in myopia: Get ready for it--HC66 is preparing to unleash a torrent of 2,000-word screeds explaining that Shohei Ohtani ranks just behind Marv Thronberry in MLB history.
ReplyDelete