Okay, let's breathe. It's barely been three weeks since the Dodgers cooked their books and purchased the 2024 NL West, and the first winter storms are only now buffeting North America - yet this offseason seems to have lasted 10 years. Now and then, it feels as if time has stopped, and we're sitting here, frozen in Hell, watching a 4-D Chinese Checkers match between Brian Cashman, Scott Boras, Aaron Rodgers, Travis Kelce and Death.
If the lords of MLB want us to yearn for spring training, the strategy is working: I cannot perform Godot much longer, especially when the wait turns out to be for Marcus Stroman and Luke Weaver.
Listen: Whenever Hal Steinbrenner spends money, we should cheer. That's what the Yankees are supposed to do. Still, in recent winters, Hal's spending splurges have seemed reactionary, unfocused, and aimed at contending, rather than actually winning something.
And so we now have Stroman, the latest door prize, once a prominent name on the franchise shit list.
Honestly, I'm not sure how Stroman rankled the Yankees. Apparently, Cashman once belittled the pitcher, prompting Stroman - then a Met - to do what all Mets do, which was to whine like a creaky door hinge. Or maybe I got it backwards. Whatever. Either way, $37 million will spackle over most disagreements. All animosities will disappear, if Stroman pitches well. And if he doesn't, God help us.
The problem is so obvious, it's like with Voldemort: I don't want to speak it aloud.
But Stroman looks incredibly like the pitching equivalent of Josh Donaldson, even down to his Toronto roots. Ten years ago, he was a future Hall of Famer. Now, he's barely a serviceable eater of innings. Over his last two years, he's never reached 140 innings (which is exactly where the Yankees drew their option clause for a third year.) That's below what Clarke Schmidt delivered. And the ERA...
Aw, fukkit: Let's not do stats. They can make the numbers jump through hoops. Soon, Stroman will turn 33, Jesus' age. He's 5'7" with attitude, but he's no Pedro. It's hard to see him staying fresh in October, unless he's missed a couple months. And October seems a million years from now, anyway.
Lemme say what everyone knows: Stroman is a starter, not a finisher. The '24 Yankees need pitching, and the signing looks like an act of desperation rather than planning. Yesterday, they also added Weaver, age 30, who bounced around all summer before reaching the Yankees, when nothing mattered. Come June, if Weaver is in the rotation, it probably means our main horses are in the ice bath.
So, where to now? Apparently, Jordan Montgomery remains enough of a competitor to still hate the franchise that traded him. And Blake Snell remains a mirage, a way to make the MLB Rumors and make the Yankees look like big time spenders at the flea market.
I don't know how Cashman fixes this rotation, but this we do know:
Yankees, as currently built, will miss the wild card by just two or three games, which might just be good enough for Hal.
And that, my friends, is the real problem facing the Yankees.
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14 comments:
The Intern fix a rotation?
I’m sorry, when did that ever happen?
One of this year’s most promising and exciting promo giveaways will be Yankee Fork Day where the first 24,000 fans receive an oversized pinstriped dinner fork, courtesy of Fan Duel.
At any point during the game when a pitching change is made, fans are encouraged to stand up, take out their forks and playfully poke the fan next to them as they’re invited to sing along with this happy little song:
You’re Done
I’m Done
Stick a FORK in us
We’re Done
The 2024 Yankees are
SO MUCH FUN!
Several sources have confirmed that Martin Short has signed on to perform the song in a series of accompanying 30 second jumbotron videos.
ESPN.com snuck the truth into it's post about the Yanks and Stroman: he was a fall-back because Snell is seen as "too expensive," at least until/unless his price comes down.
So it's Hal being a cheap asshole. Maybe it's because they had to pay Soto $31 million to avoid arbitration. (Jesus, if that's to *avoid* arbitration, how bad would arbitration have been? $40 million?)
Another year, another let's-not-go-too-crazy-here-Brian admonition. Trade away the future? Empty the vault of pitchers? Sure, no problem. Just don't pay Snell what he wants when we can get Stroman.
What a shitshow. Again.
I like Fork Day but knowing the Yankees they would probably prefer Spork Day because, you know, a spork can play two positions.
Maybe not as well but certainly a spork is less expensive than a fork AND a spoon.
Plus, if need be, the tines of a spork can be used as a knife or bat cleanup!
All Yankee Arb cases have settled. Soto 31M , Torres 14.2M
31M para Juan Soto…Charley Hustle, you bet!
Doug - being a die hard Trekkie - I have never been able to look at the word SPORK and not think of Leonard Nimoy raising his hand and advising me to live long and prosper.
��
Perhaps in a pair of fingerless mittens his hand would resemble a s p o r k.
One game over .500. I do not like the signing.
Ken Rosenthal says all the right things about how poorly the Yankees have been run and how inept their decision making has been.
https://theathletic.com/5197664/2024/01/12/yankees-rotation-marcus-stroman-rosenthal/
"Well, sorry, the rotation the Yankees assembled — at a time when Gerrit Cole is entering his age-33 season, Aaron Judge his age-32 season and Juan Soto is under club control only through 2024 — is not good enough"
"Whatever, the Yankees are settling for a pitcher that general manager Brian Cashman passed on at the 2019 trade deadline, saying, “We didn’t think he would be a difference-maker. We felt he would be in our bullpen in the postseason.” Stroman now is entering his age-33 season, after missing time with shoulder, hip and ribcage issues the past two years. And suddenly he is, what, the Yankees’ No. 2 starter?"
"But whose fault is it that the Yankees are in this predicament? "
"Oh, the Yankees are spending money. More than the Dodgers, in fact. Their cash payroll is up to $294 million; their luxury tax payroll is $305 million. The Dodgers’ numbers, thanks in part to Ohtani’s massive deferrals, are slightly lower. The problem is the Yankees do not always spend wisely, and it seems to be spooking them, at least with Snell."
"The team has been adept at developing starters, but in recent years has mostly used them for trades. That’s how they got Soto. It’s also how they got, ahem, Frankie Montas.
We could go on about missed opportunities involving hitters, from overhyping the Baby Bombers (only Judge and Gleyber Torres proved to be successes) to making ill-conceived trades for Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Gallo, Josh Donaldson and others. Dwelling on the past is useful if it leads to better decisions in the future. For the Yankees, the bigger issue is the present."
and finally...
"These are the New York Yankees, and they’re hanging around the backboard when they should be crashing the rim. Too many missteps in the recent past. Too many questions in the immediate future."
OUCH! And about time!
Beautifully described, Duque, and thanks for that (and the spork), Doug.
Hard to think of anything new to say. Obviously, there was enough grumbling—or ticket sales were down enough—for the Yankees to decide they had to do SOMETHING. So, Soto. And Verdugo for nothing and your chicks for free. But that won't get it done. In fact, it will likely just lead to greater disasters.
What they either don't understand—or, more likely, don't care about—is there is no risk-free option.
Yes, signing YY would've been a huge risk—with a huge upside. So they passed on that (I don't believe they were ever a real bidder; since when do the YANKEES finish third in going after a player they have two meetings with). Snell was a smaller risk—in terms of money and experience—with a smaller upside.
Passed again. And I believe they have not seriously approached Monty or Hader, or any other piece of the "super-charged" bullpen.
So they went for the minimal risk possible, in terms of money and years, with Stroman...
...which has ZERO upside. In terms of the team's performance on the field and its appeal at the box office, they would have been better off throwing that $37 mill into the East River. (Or, you know, giving it to us.)
They think they can go on with these sorts of cons forever. But they can't. This deal—as a culmination of dozens of other awful deals and signings—is an insult to Yankees' fans (and the New York taxpayers who have subsidized the team to a ridiculous extent for the past 55 years). It's throwing money—OUR MONEY—at a churlish mediocrity, who will now subject us to a year of controversies, of constant twitter outbursts, aches and pains, malingering and complaining.
But hey, it's not like you have to appeal to the public or anything.
Trevor Bauer, here we come.
Hal sucks. Cashman sucks. The stadium sucks. Too much of the team sucks. The prices suck. The bullpen is going to suck. The only things we get to watch are Cole being great, Judge being great, and Soto being great.
Everything else, just flush the season now.
Yankees 2024 will be a hate follow, I fear.
So dumb and Dumber are trading away a good chunk of the farm to acquire a one year rental with no guarantee of keeping him long term and then refusing to go all in? As was said before...... SHIT SHOW
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