I speak for the Yankiverse in whispering "Hooray, hooray, hoo-dafuk-ray." Two win - over Detroit, no less - as meaningless as if they happened in February.
Damn. We can't even tank properly.
Can anything worse happen to this rancid organization?
Well, in a way, I suppose... yeah...
So, yesterday, around happy hour, the phrase "Brian Cashman" began trending on Twitter (whom Elon Musk, the Brian Cashman of tech, calls "X.") It came about because the Death Barge finally severed ties with two of Cashman's 5th grade science projects: Josh "Jackie" Donaldson and hometown hero Harrison Bader, the pride of Bronxville.
Who here did not celebrate the end to Donaldson's age of darkness in NYC, a debacle to be remembered for bat flips on pop flies and runners left on base. Donaldson was the cog in one of Cashman's worst career trades - a list that is still expanding, as we speak.
He's gone. Finally. No more booing. No more brooding. Looking back, it's a wonder that Donaldson survived the Tim Anderson dust-up, when he mockingly called an African-American player "Jackie." A lot of people have lost their jobs for less. But the Yankees thought Donaldson would eventually hit, so they pretended it was a gentle ribbing, and nothing was wrong. And the juju gods laughed.
Listen: There are times in baseball when - from the moment a player is acquired - everything is fukinay wrong. Remember Omar Moreno in 1983? "Omar the Out-Maker," according to Bill James? From the moment he donned pinstripes, all was lost. Or Jesse Barfield in 1989, for whom we traded Al Leiter. Or Lyle Overbay in 2013. Or Ichiro that same year. Or Vernon Wells that year. Actually, everybody on the team that year, even Robbie Cano, if you look back.
That's Donaldson's time as a Yankee. A horror show, start to finish. In fact, I'm still thinking it cannot end. In The Babadook, the mom keeps throwing away the haunted book, but it shows up the next day. I fear seeing Donaldson playing 3B, as if nothing happened...
And then there is Harrison Bader.
To be honest, it was Bader that caused Cashman to trend yesterday. "Bader" was right behind him. No one knows what demon possessed Cashman two summers ago to trade for Bader, who was injured at the time, but the guy did everything the Yankees said he would. He played excellent defensive CF but didn't hit. Supposedly, that's what the Yankees wanted. Until they didn't.
In recent weeks, Bader expressed hope that the Yankees would re-sign him over the winter, that he could stay with the organization he rooted for as a kid. Yeah, right. In the name of Bryce Harper, they ditched his ass.
I suppose you could argue that the Yankees did right by cutting both players. They can sign with other teams and play meaningful baseball in the month of September.
But the Yankees are run by suits who never pay for their blunders. The same guys who assured us that Bader would be a star now tell us that Estevan Florial cannot play at the MLB level. Maybe they're right. But damn, they sure have been wrong.
Look, I don't want to make this about Florial. The poor guy has suffered enough. And - honestly, I hope Donaldson and Bader go to a contending team and play well. I hope they embarrass the Yankees. I hope they take revenge on this team. I hope the Yankees lose to Detroit and continue racking up losses all the way to the draft lottery. There is no reason to root for such a wretched organization. They are not the Yankees anymore. They are Starr Insurance.
Four wins below .500.
Juju gods, hear me: Make it rain!
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23 comments:
Bader is still here at the moment, right? On waivers, like a lot of other guys suddenly are.
I have no idea how these stupid rules work.
MIGGY'S FAREWELL
Detroit said its Oct. 1 season finale against Cleveland has sold out. That is expected to be Miguel Cabrera's final major league game.
Will they have a Jackie D day sometime in September?
Harrison Bader on how he learned he was waived: “I was in the lunch room and saw it on ESPN”
Says everything about the Yankees FO...
What happens in the lunchroom - stays in the lunchroom (until its ready - then it gets launched in the bathroom)
I’m no fan of Donaldson on or off the field, but people forget / conveniently overlook the fact that it was Anderson who called himself “today’s Jackie Robinson (source: Sports Illustrated), so Donaldson’s comment in this case can be seen as him rightfully puncturing Anderson’s egotistical comment. If there’s a bigger jerk in MLB than Donaldson, it might be Tim Anderson. Having said that, the Donaldson trade was a terrible miscalculation by Cashman, part of the Yankee belief stated by Steingrubber, that Yankee fans want to see “stars” as opposed to winning baseball. Typical of the wealthy capitalist class to look down upon the working class fans as a mass of mindless, slavering dolts who can’t distinguish good from bad.
As far as Bader is concerned, he’s been the player he always was, so no surprise there. I have no particular axe to grind against him, other than his stupid mouthguard and hideous lime green accouterments. He plays hard and is a good fielder, just a poor hitter on a team full of them. Yet many saw him as a savior, and that team had somehow “won” the trade. The fact that the team failed to deal him at the deadline, and now is dangling him on wavers as a cost cutting measure is an embarrassment. Again we see the incompetence and dysfunctia of the Front Office. I refuse to believe they couldn’t have gotten something for him, if just a lottery ticket player. In the end, we gave away Jordan Montgomery for nothing. Yes, embarrassing to be a Yankee Fan now.
Unwaveringly Embarrassing.
JM - good article in the Post on Oswaldo meeting Miggy (who is his idol) and just how emotional it was for him.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/yankees-oswaldo-cabrera-thrilled-to-meet-miguel-cabrera/
bornto -
"I’m no fan of Donaldson on or off the field, but people forget / conveniently overlook the fact that it was Anderson who called himself “today’s Jackie Robinson (source: Sports Illustrated), so Donaldson’s comment in this case can be seen as him rightfully puncturing Anderson’s egotistical comment. If there’s a bigger jerk in MLB than Donaldson, it might be Tim Anderson."
Totally agree.
All -
Players get placed on waivers all the time. What makes it weird is that it was reported on ESPN and that's how he found out - and then had to play the game.
If he get's picked up. Good. He seems like a decent guy. If he stays he knows his time as a Yankee is most likely coming to an end anyway and he needs to produce before he hits free agency.
Well put, Doug.
I know for a fact that Bader is a nice guy and is very dialed in to the young fans of the game.
In Oakland he gave a my friend’s young son almost everything he used during the game (sans his jock and mouth guard, BTR) .
I hope he lands somewhere where he can get some rewarding playing time.
Shitty treatment of Bader. From a shitty organization.
Yeah, I gotta agree with JM and Doug on both counts: horrible trade, manufactured outrage, by Tim "Duane Boric" Anderson and Tony La Russa, the last of whom just wanted to jumpstart his dead-in-the-water team.
But...Donaldson should've known better and let sleeping dogs lie. The Yanks were hot, the ChiSox were phoning it in. But Josh couldn't keep himself from kicking them.
And yes, Bader is a pity. But really, an awful trade from the get-go. And most awful in that the guy, like so many other Yankees, simply can't stay on the field.
Also insane that the front office can't even do "waiving" now. Though they do waver.
Unwavering waivering!
Getting Bader was a preparatory move to try to reduce the value of Judge's contract. Bader was nothing more than a pawn they were using to save potentially $90 million. And you know what? It worked, because Judge, who probably could've commanded upwards of $450 million/10 years, re-signed with the Yankees for only $360 million/9 years. He reportedly walked away from $400 million/10 years from the Giants/Padres.
Rightly or wrongly, what was going in Brainless Cashman's noodle was that Bader would check all of the boxes for them, regardless of what happened with the Judge negotiations: (1) If Judge was going to stay, they had a CF in Bader, so they could negotiate with the premise that Judge playing CF was no longer necessary. It was to show that they didn't have to pay through the nose for Judge, if he wouldn't re-sign for a reasonable contract, that they had an alternative plan if they couldn't re-sign him. (2) If Judge went to another team, they had a CF and could more easily fill the corner outfield spots, maybe with one big RF free agent signing and two or three dumpster pickups for LF. (3) In their minds, Montgomery was not good enough, and they were going to take a chance on bringing in a CF with a broken foot, in the hopes that they caught lightning in a bottle. Now that Bader has turned out to be basically a dud, he's become fully expendable.
Whether the Bader acquisition actually bluffed Judge into taking less doesn't really matter. Brainless Cashman probably told HAL that it did, which is why he got his five year renewal contract. HAL thinks Brainless saved them $90 million. Therefore, Brainless got rewarded.
HAL/Cashman don't give a crap about winning or losing. It was all about finances. It's still all about finances. That's why Judge is still playing on a bum foot in a season that was over three weeks ago. They're taking a chance on wrecking their $360 million investment, in order to keep the seats filled for the rest of this dreadful season. They're taking a chance on Judge not being ready for the 2024 season. What does that tell you about where winning is on the priority list for HAL/Cashman?
According to Suzyn Waldman, being placed on waivers just means that another team could put in a claim for him. He's still on the Yankees and still playing. If another team claims him, I would think the Yankees could pull him back, if they wanted to keep him. It might be just a preparatory move before bringing up someone from the minors. But it does tell you that they don't see Bader as their 2024 CF.
Moving on from Bader would be the right move, for once, by Brainless Cashman. This last place team doesn't need to re-sign a 29 year old righty hitting CF, who doesn't hit much. They could go with a near-endless list of prospects in CF, including the never-say-die Estevan Florial.
But putting Bader on waivers does ignore the elephant in the room. Why isn't Giancarlo Stanton on waivers? At least Bader has a pulse and can run. Giancarlo is just a statue who hopes to run into a fastball that he can launch into orbit. Yeah, yeah, I know. Stanton has too big a contract to throw away. They have to try to get their money's worth until the last day of the contract.
To understand HAL/Cashman, you have to think stoopid, real stoopid. And only about the finances. At first, I didn't understand the stupidity of the Montgomery/Bader deal. But then it dawned on me, that this was what was going on inside Brainless's head. It all makes perfect sense, if you put yourself into Brainless's rotten head.
We should separate the baseball decision making from the finances. As far as the finances go, these guys are real smart. They'll probably turn a big profit even this year, with a last place finish. A truly terrible season. The worst Yankee season that I've ever seen. But HAL will still congratulate Cashman for a job well done, financially speaking. As a matter of fact, even if they finish dead last every year through Cashman's current contract, as long as they did well financially, I'm sure HAL will renew Cashman again for another five years.
It's time to suck it up and do whatever it takes to move Stanton. Whether it takes 50-60-70% of his salary to get someone to take him. I don't care if they get anything back. It would be addition by subtraction
The need to release Bauers and Rortvedt and a few others...those two will not win a World Series as Yankees...oh btw, that Spencer Howard move was stellar...jeez
s t a r t i n g
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First...they notified the Martian's parents and are flying them to Houston to watch their son's first MLB game on Friday.
Today's starting lineup:
DJ LeMahieu (R) 1B
Aaron Judge (R) RF
Gleyber Torres (R) 2B
Giancarlo Stanton (R) DH
Anthony Volpe (R) SS
Harrison Bader (R) CF
Everson Pereira (R) LF
Oswald Peraza (R) 3B
Ben Rortvedt (L) C
Per Jack Curry, Austin Wells will also be brought up on Friday...
Pretty brilliant analysis, Hammer!
And yes, it is all about money. When it comes to players, Brian Cashman is like a color-blind individual, trying to read traffic lights. He can't, so they're all the same to him.
Instead, he concentrates on the money. And if, as Hammer says, he can convince HAL that he is a super duper wonder at making money for a team that, really, has probably not lost money on a season since Frank Farrell and Big Bill Devery owned it, well, then he can go on running the Yankees forever, no matter where they finish.
Confirmed Dominguez and Wells are coming up Friday, they can slide right into the 2 extra roster spots.
I remember when we used to bring up 6 or 7 x players for the Sept. stretch drive. The only stretch this Sept is boone stretching the truth in his post game pressers.
What number for JD. He wore 7 in the minors, no can do that here.
How ‘bout 77?
88 for Wells?
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