They'll trade a fan-fave. They'll trade their MVP. Hell, they'll trade their mom for a 17-year-old Dominican with a decent haircut. Baseball is war, and they are Putin, and if you've got a barking gonad, consider your ticket punched to the Dodgers, (though you might want to avoid a private plane.)
The Yankees, on the other hand, cannot seem to bring themselves to plan a future beyond tomorrow's lineup on Turner Movie Channel. That's how they find themselves treading water in the ocean, unsure of which direction to swim.
Case in point: Last night's win over mighty Tampa, a team that not only has come to own us, but likes to torture its food. Sure, it's nice to beat the hateful Rays, to wipe the fratboy smirks off their fuzzy chins, to quiet that giant echo chamber/ping pong ball that they call a baseball park. But a win did nothing.
It raises our odds of reaching the 2023 postseason - calculated by Fangraphs - to 0.40 percent, less than a half of a hiccup. On the YES postgame show, they barely even mentioned the wild card. They have a better chance of winning America's Got Talent. This season's outcome - tomato can - is settled science.
The victory set us back in the Tankathon, where we are again tied with the lowly Angels, with a 0.90 percent - less than one percent - chance of reaching the 2024 draft lottery.
We are going nowhere.
September is almost here, and the Starr Insurancers have no HR record to chase, no young stars to introduce, no great reason to think the team will improve in 2024. The last time the Yankees fell apart so vividly was 2016, when they at least unveiled the likes of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Tyler Austin and Brigadoon Refsnyder.
This year, we have Everson Pereira, whose meteoric rise through the system suggests a front office desperation. Also, last year's model - Oswaldo Cabrera - set back the gears of hope for at least five years. How could a player with such charisma turn out be so ineffective?
So, this evening the Yankees will attempt the impossible: Two wins over a contender The last time they won a series, it was against KC, currently No. 2 in the Tankathon. We swept the Royals and announced to the world that the Yankees - champs of 2009! - were back. Then we sank without a bubble.
Well, we still suck. And if we win tonight, we'll still have less than a one percent chance of playing on Oct. 6. Imagine, six weeks left to play, and the Yankees are on the outside of everything, an after-thought after your after-thoughts. Are we really supposed to get excited about chasing .500? Frankly, I'd rather be tankly.
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5 comments:
Very sad. And there won't be anything to anticipate for next year. But at least there's baseball, even if they do suck at it.
Cole was a beast yesterday. He may very well become one of the rarest of animals on the planet: a Cy Young winner for a last place ball club, a feat that hasn't been seen in these parts for over fifty years. So at least I'll tune in when he pitches.
True, Dick, Cole has been really good, but he's no Rocky Colavito.
.4 percent? So that's a 4 in 1,000 chance of making the playoffs? How does fangraphs come up with these asinine calculations?
The real current probability of these bums making the playoffs is more like 1 in 100,000. Soon it'll be 1 in 1,000,000 and so on until the moment before they are mathematically eliminated, it'll be 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Great piece, as always, Duque!
The Yankees are caught in the B O R I N G LIMBO!
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