I looked over at the Texas Rangers roster and noticed a familiar name.
Ezequiel Durán, is hitting .295/.343/.500 (.843 OPS) in 178 PA while playing 2B/SS/3B/LF.
Remember when we traded him away for Joey Gallo?
Certainly couldn't use a guy like that right now.
I looked over at the San Francisco Giants roster and noticed a familiar name.
Thairo Estrada is hitting .296/.347/.485 (.832 OPS) in 251 PA, while playing 2B/SS/LF.
Remember when we gave him up for cash considerations?
Certainly couldn't use an athletic, toolsy guy like Thairo around here.
I was on FanGraphs and noticed Estrada was 7th in the National League in WAR among position players.
Seems to me like when your GM gives up a guy like that for nothing but cash it's not a good thing.
But what do I know.
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20 comments:
Duque:
Are you surprises? Genius Cashman has no clue of who to retain and who to trade or release.
Yes, Zach, great analysis, as always. Yet another example of how Charybdis Cashman just throws away talent.
I'm especially bitter about Thairo Estrada (and no, it's NOT because of the 10,000 "Thairo the Pharaoh" headdresses I still have moldering in a Bronx warehouse). They just sold him. Un-fucking-believable.
This is a guy who literally took a bullet, and battled back to play. And Cashie wasn't interested.
Duran, as you point out, also looks terrific. What a waste!
Yeah, but at least we got Joey Gallo.
Actually what we got for Estrada may have been better
Boone is an idiot, but Cashman is worse. Far, far, far worse.
Too bad any hubbub over IKF's steal of home was lost in the Boonefied late innings last night. Actually, his whole time on base that inning was great. Steals second, draws a wild throw, goes to third, then steals home.
I was never an IKF hater, but did hate the way he was misused to accommodate Jackie "Old Man" Donaldson. Now that he's been freed of SS duty, he's a much better player all around, and an amazingly decent center fielder.
There are probably advanced sabermetrics that show that he really sucks this year and his WAR, huhn, what is it good for. But fuck that. He adds a little life and spark to this team sometimes, and they need that badly.
IKF also appears to be more confident and loose out there. Aside from the occasional collisions and near misses - he is playing a more exciting and entertaining kind of baseball.
Loved the “10,000 "Thairo the Pharaoh" headdresses I still have moldering in a Bronx warehouse” - Hosssss.
A question for our resident X-Files avaTee, JM -
If something “molders or is left “moldering” can it also scully?
Asking for a friend.
I’ll break it down to the simplest terms:
Since Judge went down Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson, Gleyber Torres, and DJ LeMahieu have combined to hit .127 (15-for-118) , with an OBP of just .236.
We are 3-5 in those games with the pitching keeping us from being 0-8. At this rate we could be buried by the time Judge returns, whenever that will be.
Let's not forget Garret Whitlock, Trevor Stephen, Eric Swanson and Roansy Contreras. I'm probably missing a few more
Clint Frazier drove in the go ahead run for White Sox against Dodgers last night. Against Kershaw. He's a contributing major leaguer, it seems.
Don't neglect to mention Gallo, Sanchez, Hicks and even Mike Ford, all thriving in new environments after being freed from the Bronx Zoo. Maybe it's the water.
I agree, giving away Thairo was stupefying, to say the least. FWIW, he seemed to have the best metrics of the glut of probable utility infielders that we once had. Duran was one of those guys that you have to give up to get Gallo. Gallo, at the time of the trade had many things that the metrics people swoon over. Yeah, he struck out a LOT with a low batting average. But guys with 40 home run seasons under their belt, who walked a lot, and carried a Gold Glove don't come freely. He had a lot of elite ISO numbers as well. But, on the negative side of the ledger, he didn't score or drive in many runs which worried me. But the metrics guys had all that figured, right? Was he a true star? No. He was a guy that you bat sixth or seventh on a good team. Herein lies the problem with "Cashman & The Analytics Boys". They don't seem to have the capacity to think through how to put together a winning lineup. They fell in love with analytics, never grasping the idea of "why did so many
successful GMs and managers come to the same conclusions when it came to building rosters and lineup construction". IMHO, I think that Cashman fell in love with looking for "market inefficiencies" like his idol Brad Pi, er, Billy Beane. And here we are, Cashman is obsessed with being the "smartest man in the room". That's a tall order, and when you insist on believing that you are, you can get burned. They used to call people like him "fools". I'm sure that there is a more PC term.
"Don't neglect to mention Gallo, Sanchez, Hicks and even Mike Ford, all thriving....." Let's not get carried away, there's a lot of small sample statistical noise at present.
Brilliant analysis, Kev. And hence his getting fleeced by Derek Jeter—who OUGHT to have his job. Bob Klapisch wrote a whole book—with Cashie's eager cooperation—about how great that was, and what a dope Jeter was.
First rule of being a great negotiator (it would seem to me): don't write a book about what a great negotiator you are, bragging about how you really took some mark you actually name.
And thanks, AA. It woulda been beautiful, don'tcha think? 10,000 people dancing through the stands to the tune of "Walk Like An Egyptian" when Thairo got another big hit.
Cashman does not know baseball. Hal tolerates him. That's a wrap, folks.
Jimmy, as your name states, if you want to see a lot of stars at Yankee Stadium, indulge in a rodent feces-infested, undercooked rubber hot dog. With the bubonic plague or food poisoning, you'll surely see a mid- season classic's amount of stars.
Horace, you ever get the idea that other GMS don't seem to want to really deal with him? IMO,a lot of people have come to dislike the loudmouth.
Cashman fell in love with analytics? A dope who signs a slew of bigname dead weights to long-term contracts well into their thirties? That is traditional stupidity, not analytics. The LeMahieu signing was a prime example: a nonathletic singles hitter who had a couple of very good years in Colorado, but also a slew of mediocre offensive years in a hitters' park. A second grader with an abacus could have figured out that this was not a smart move. Cashman as analytics guy is blog stereotype that does not withstand even casual scrutiny.
So if the Yankees kept and played Estrada and Duran? The sickness/malaise of this team would have gotten to them just like everyone else. For my money it's Boone that's the root cause of it all even if Cashman has certainly and royally screwed this team up too with all his mistakes.
Take your meds, Statbaby.
@ Piiax, Yeah, I agree. That's why, other than Judge, they haven't developed any position players for more than a decade. Boone, the hitting coaches, strength training coaches, all suck here. Boone is nothing more than a glorified baby sitter. It would be interesting to know which of them is more stupid, Cashman or Boone?
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