Tuesday, January 16, 2024

The Jeter Downs Era could soon end: Is he the Yankee Oumuamua?


You've probably heard about the massive interstellar turd, dubbed "Oumuarmua," which buzzed our solar system in 2017, prompting one Harvard know-it-all to claim it was a space shit ship, a strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

Barring a Twilight Zone "To Serve Man" live sequel, we'll never know whether Oumuarmua was a dead rock or alien probe. It came and went - outa sight, outa mind - and humanity had better things to do, like genocide and stuff. 

But the Yankiverse may soon see the twilight of our own Oumuarmua - the famously named Jeter Downs, who signed with the Death Barge on December 19 and might be gone before his first month anniversary.

Downs is the 25-year-old former Redsock prospect and lynchpin in the Mookie Betts giveaway/trade of 2020. Thus far, in his brief career, he has bounced around like a superball in an elevator: We are his fifth MLB franchise, counting the Reds, Dodgers, Redsocks and Nationals. 

He's a glove SS who just hasn't hit. (MLB 50 plate appearances, .182.) When the Yankees plucked him off waivers, everyone at IT IS HIGH had a grand chuckle, because we now had both Downs and Alex Verdugo, two of the three pieces of bounty Boston received for Mookie. Ha ha! Few life events bring as much joy as a certified Redsock fiasco. Downs and Verdugo can remind us that, however awful the Yankees may be, Boston might even be worse. Ah, the little things in life!

But our Jeter Downs Era might soon end, and the culprit could be - gulp - Luke Weaver, a cold reminder of our ongoing pitching kerfuffle. Weaver is an earnest but pre-owned, 30-year-old swingman, who will join a Yankee staff that, entering 2024, could be mistaken for that of a 4th place team. 

Right now, the Yankees have 42 players earmarked for their 40-man roster. When Marcus Stroman and Weaver pass their physicals, assuming they can turn their heads and cough without fainting, they will immediately join the team, and two current members will disappear.

Right now, there are three most likely to go:

Oscar Gonzalez, a 26-year-old OF.
Bubba Thompson, a 25-year-old OF.
And Downs, the 25-year-old SS. 

I won't waste your time by speculating. Who knows? Downs might survive the current crunch, but it's hard to believe the Yankees are done signing players. They'll probably add, at least, a bullpen lug nut, rather than let such a thin staff threaten the season. Downs looks like a candidate to disappear, like Oumuamua, into vast interstellar space.

Of course, he might pass waivers and land in Scranton. You never know. Either way, we had good fun, mocking Boston for a few weeks. In that regard, he's done his job. Wherever the interstellar winds guide him, I say, "The universe beckons, o, Oumuamua! To infinity, and beyond!"

16 comments:

  1. "Jeetsie, we hardly knew ye."

    Meanwhile, I'm getting worried about how much we are super-charging this bullpen in the winter weather. I can just see the battery blowing and burning down the house.

    How soon before it will be like early 1978, when we had Sparky, Goose, and Rawley Eastwick, all scrambling for a prime spot?

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  2. Nice post - loved the references - for some strange reason I expected some Ozempic to find its way in - but that’s OK.

    There will be other opportunities.



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  3. How about getting rid some really useless players, like Stanton, Rondon & Matt Crook

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  4. So Boras wants 240 million over seven years for Snell, and the Yanks offered 140. Yeah, that'll do it.

    Jesus.

    But it's not over til it's over. We may yet land him, for better or worse. And with the current rotation, it can't be worse.

    As for Weaver, "He joins a group including Luis Gil, Cody Poteet, Cody Morris, Yoendrys Gomez, Clayton Beeter and Will Warren who figure to help out beyond the club’s top five starters." So sez msn.com.

    What the hell. Screw Snell. Let's go with the kids and discards. Aside from Cole, we won't have any great pitching, anyway. It's all about Judge and Soto, and what they might push each other to do.

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  5. As JM points out, we already have a whole lot of nothin’ to round out the back end of the rotation. Problem is, when the injury bug bites (and you know it will) some of that group will have to step up to the front end of the rotation.

    It all goes back to acquiring Soto as a one year rental; if we are indeed going “all in” this year, why field a starting rotation full of question marks that will seem even worse in October, if we even get there. To me, it just reinforces the concept that Soto was brought in to help boost attendance & interest and that winning is secondary to revenue.

    Jeter Downs? Just a blip on the radar.

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  6. True, BTR. The Soto deal makes no sense unless it's just one of several acquisitions, basically on the pitching side.

    Just stupid.

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  7. ...assuming they can turn their heads and cough without fainting...

    This made me laugh. It reminds me of an amusing piece of Simpsons trivia:

    Q: What's the name of the beauty parlor where Marge Simpson gets her blue hair done?

    A: "Turn Your Head and Coiff"

    It's painted on the outside window when she walks in.

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  8. "The Soto deal makes no sense unless it's just one of several acquisitions, basically on the pitching side."

    Hal does this sometimes. I still believe that he got rid of Monty for Bader because he thought he had a deal with the Marlins to replace him . He probably fooled himself into thinking he had Yamamoto signed and delivered.

    Bad arrogant GM.

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  9. RIP - Norm Snead

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EXn32BnTpc

    I couldn't find the "Norn Snead has big feet" one.

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  10. Trading for Soto only makes sense if it's to see if he likes New York. As for Snell, just what we need, another five inning pitcher that gets paid like he's Walter Johnson. Hard pass. This off-season would be a great name for an album, "Pretzel Logic". Wait, there's something kinda familiar with that title...

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  11. Norm Snead, one of those quarterbacks who could have been great with a good team. Quarterbacks are never fairly judged. Glory and shame are so often heaped upon them because of the players they are surrounded with. I saw that he retired in 1976. Suddenly I feel like I'm a contemporary of Glenn Miller.

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  12. Knowing elite minds like Brian Cashman are hard at work producing the next Yankee championship team charges my batteries like a Tesla on a cold Chicago night.

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  13. Love "Pretzel Logic"!

    And hey, Kevin, Glenn Miller died 32 years before Snead's retirement in 1976, whereas it's now 48 years since 1976. So, it's more like we're contemporaries of...Rudy Vallee, who formed "Rudy Vallee and the Connecticut Yankees" 48 years before Snead's retirement.

    (Kill me now.)

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  14. I can definitely see passing on Snell—especially for $240 mill. And I still don't think the offer for YY was ever sincere. Incredibly enough, for the New York Yankees, incompetence is often a charade that Cashman falls back on.

    But it's all but impossible to see what the plan was here. I'm with 999—this just seems like a straight-out grift, designed to keep up ticket sales for another year, with no real thought of what happens afterwards...

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  15. A perfectly good back-up plan if they had sincerely tried to sign YY and failed (they didn't) would have been to go all-out to bring Monty back, and add Hader and a couple other good relievers out there on the free-agent market.

    They're not going to do any of that, and they won't sign Snell. So...what's this all about? Genuine incompetence? Incompetent grifting? I dunno anymore. The Yankees have become a riddle, wrapped inside an enigma, stuffed into a very nasty, Stadium rat dog.

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