I present to you, the 2023 Yankees All-Star Team What Never Was!
1B—Freedie Freeman. Folks, I have to admit, I was as stupid as Cashman on this one, which is sayin' somethin'. When the Yanks signed up Anthony Rizzo instead of going after free agent Freeman, I thought, Hey, they're essentially the same player: aging, left-handed sluggers with good gloves and some pop. What's the difference?
Rizzo? Well, he mainly gets injured. Another stat on Freeman: according to the All-Star game broadcast, Freddie has missed 10 games in the last 5 years.
Middle infielders—Thairo Estrada and Ezequiel Duran. Both only do everything and play everywhere. Thairo is at .761 OPS, with 9 homers already; Duran at .870, batting .308 with 12 homers.
Thairo the Pharaoh was sold—SOLD!–to the Giants for an undisclosed amount of cash. Duran went to Texas, as part of the Joey Gallo super-deal. O joy.
Shortstop—Corey Seagar. There was a plethora of shortstop free agents available the last few years, and Cashie decided...to pass on all of them. I foolishly thought we should get Correa. Many larger brains, though, lobbied for Seagar, former rookie-of-the-year, and member of the World-Series winning Dodgers.
Turns out, that would have been the right choice. Seagar didn't have a great first year in Texas, but he did slug 33 home runs and make the All-Star game. This year? He's leading the AL in hitting at .353, with a 1.026 OPS, and playing a fine shortstop.
I know that can't come close to Anthony Volpe's potential, but...
Nah, didn't want that guy. Oh, and his back-up? The now sadly injured Gio Urshela, who thoroughly outplayed Jackie Donaldson last season, and was doing the same this year before breaking his femur or whatever it was.
Catcher—J.T. Realmuto. Supposedly, the Yankees had a chance to deal Gary Sanchez for Realmuto, during the same, awful 2018 season when Sanchez crashed to earth.
Did they? No, they did not. Nor did they sign Realmuto as a free agent after the season. In Philly—where he made the Series last year, J.T. has only established himself as the very best catcher in baseball, winning two Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers. Whereas Sanchez...well, let's not talk about that.
Outfield—Christian Yelich. When Derek Jeter was conducting a fire sale in Miami, and tried to fob Giancarlo Stanton off on the Yankees, did Brian Cashman say, "Uh, that's great, Derek, but how do we get that young talent out in center?"
Of course not. Yelich went on to Milwaukee in exchange for 4 obscure players who have remained obscure. He won the MVP in 2018, and nearly again in 2019, with two of the best all-around seasons anyone's seen in the past 25 years. Injuries have slowed him considerably since then, but hey, that would've meant only two rings...
Outfield—Bryce Harper. Another free agent who came to the Yankees, offering a discount. Another great lefty bat, another MVP, another guy who got his team to a World Series. Nothing to see here!
Outfield—Juan Soto. Yanks didn't even feign interest in the young star when Washington moved him last year. Derek Jeter revived the idea with his comments during the All-Star Game, but it's too late baby, now, it's too late—and Derek suggesting it was probably the kiss of death to Cashie. Soto, incidentally is still only 24.
Designated Hitter/Outfield—J. D. Martinez. Another possible alternative to Giancarlo. Boston took him instead, and all he did up there was spend five years raking, and taking the Sox to their 2018 title. Now in L.A....he continues to rake, as we saw in the All-Star Game. Martinez is 35, but somehow I suspect he will still be raking when Stanton is out of the game.
But Gray was still a wanted quantity in the majors when Cashie moved him on, and could've brought in something of use.
Instead, The Brain pretty much gave him away, for a low-minors outfielder nobody had any faith in. (And their lack of faith was rewarded!)
I don't even understand what that one was about. Yet another Cashman attempt to show what a genius he is? In any case, let us not forget that Cashie went for Gray in the first place...over Justin Verlander, whose presence alone only would've guaranteed us another 4 rings. Not to mention Max Scherzer, who Cashman has turned his back on in trades and free-agent markets dating back to 2009...
All right, I've depressed you enough already. At this rate, I'll soon be ranting about how the hell it was we signed Gary Sheffield over Vladimir Guerrero, Sr.
"These are the saddest of possible words..."
There are some common threads running through all of those Cashman mistakes and failures. (1) He brings in the wrong guys for zillions of dollars; (2) Because he brought in the wrong guys for zillions of dollars, there is no more money to spend on the right guys; (3) even when he got the right guy(s), they fail to perform when they come here; (4) even when he develops new players who look like future Hall of Famers, they soon fall off a cliff into mediocrity or obscurity.
ReplyDeleteThe first two are pretty much self explanatory. Because of exorbitant busts like Stanton, management/ownership pleads poverty and refuses to spend on more free agents like Freeman or Seager. Okay, I guess that could happen. It has happened in plenty of other ball clubs.
The most interesting implosions are the last two. Why do guys perform well elsewhere and then suck when they come here? Cole and Sonny Gray, for instance. Cole hasn't completely sucked but he has performed nowhere near what he did in Houston. And Gray was a complete, unmitigated disaster. Gray is a very interesting case. He was good before he came here, he sucked here, and then he was good after he left. Think it might have something to do with the coaching here?
The last category of debacles concern the reverse alchemy experiment we have going here. In the old days, alchemists sought to find a way to turn lead into gold (and thereby make themselves rich! Hey, imagine if all this dog poo would turn into gold!). Here, Yankee alchemists ... er ... coaches turn promising prospects and great new players into ... Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres. Again, think it might have something to do with the coaching here?
Therefore, even if we had signed guys like Freeman or Seager or traded for Juan Soto, I don't know that they would have performed to expectations here. Based on what has been going on here for over a decade, all of those guys likely would have come here and ... SUCKED!
Lot of good points there by both of you. one thing though re: Cole in Houston... sticky stuff. Big time. so there is no way he could be as good here as he was there.
ReplyDeleteGreat points, Hammer. And Gray's All-Star performance seemed to verify what you are saying. Somehow, suddenly, he was biting off everything, had a great spin on all his pitches...Where did that come from? Somebody else's coach, of course.
ReplyDeleteBut that's part of the Cashman Experience, too. There is never any thought given to looking at other teams and saying, 'Hey, that guy's had great results. Let's bring him here!'
The reason, I suspect? Brian Cashman sees every capable assistant as a rival for his job. That's why they must be people he's picked personally, with little experience elsewhere, and why they must pledge to think exactly as he does.
That's a terrible philosophy for any executive to have—and it's especially terrible when you don't really understand the business you're in.
These guys hitting .300 have awful launch angles. You can’t hit solo HRs every other game if you’re hitting singles & doubles. That’s old school. Catch up on your analytics
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ReplyDeleteFor all you guys who endlessly gripe that Hal is cheap and doesn't spend enough money: the Yankees are among the top three payrolls in bsaeball, and all three of these teams--the Yankees, the Mets, and the Padres--are. at the All-Star break, out of playoff contention. So perhaps this is good time for the bloggers here to shed the obligatory "Food Stamps Hal" trope: he spends a lot, but like other owners who preside over mismanaged teams, it gets him nowhere. Perhaps it's time to consider that it's not dollars but analytic baseball smarts--as in the kind practiced most rigorously by the Rays--that win the day. There is no evidence, despite the other blog cliche about Cashman's "alogrithms," that the Yankees are steeped in analytics or that they implement that mode of analysis with any consistency or efficacy. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary. But that empirical reality will not deter the usual suspects from their ritual thrashing "algorithms" (as if any of the critics even know what that means), mistakenly using the failed Yankees as their analytics whipping boy instead of acknowledging that the successful Rays are the real case study in analytics. Then they would have to acknowledge that analytics, consistently and rigorously applied, actually work. Then the critics might actually be spurred to read a book on the subject that they reflexively criticize but don't understand.
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