Kevin Baker's book is here!

Kevin Baker's book is here!
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Saturday, July 15, 2017

Mayday... Mayday... Come in, Star Fleet... If you're hearing this message, our planet has been destroyed...

This morning after Yankeegeddon, Night of the Living Pineapple Suppository, let us count the nightmares...

1. The 2017 team won't win nuttin,' honey. That steaming bag of shit under the Christmas tree doesn't mean a pony's waiting out back. Hope Week came and went. Anybody who still sees this as a team of destiny - well - stay on the Fentanyl. Between now and Oct. 1, we'll get hot and win a few, but we're middling among the mediocre. From here on, our battle is with Tampa, for second, with the Mets, for NYC tab covers, and with Buck Showalter, for - I dunno - just for old times' sake.

2. We have the exploding Cuban cigar known as Aroldis Chapman for five long, excruciating years. Five fucking years. By the time he's gone, I'll be in a home, conversing with Suzyn Waldman and playing with my stool. Five years. Amazing, eh? We were on the verge of finally escaping A-Rod's Burmese python of a contract, and we were halfway through the Jacoby Ellsbury-as-appeasement-for-losing-Robby Cano debacle, and now - holy crap - we have El Chapo for five more seasons. 

Everybody, take out a pencil and paper. Now write down how many blown saves will Aroldis give us in the next five years? I predict 25, a low ball number, because at a certain point, he will not be allowed to pitch after the sixth inning. If I'm right, we'll be paying about $2 million per blown save, though I must remind myself here: Hal's money supply is closer to infinity than zero.

Today, we have the most blown saves in baseball. El Chapo's ERA - always below 2.00 in the past - is around 3.15. He's legitimately awful. Did he throw one off-speed pitch last night? (Clearly, he's terrified of his slider; it must be a floating cupcake.) Between Chapman, Betances and Clippard, we have a Japanese monster movie of a bullpen, akin to the infamous QuanGoMo - Paul Quantril, Flash Gordon and Mariano - which collapsed in 2004, the last year of the Yankee millennium. No lead is safe. Five more years. The names already haunt me. Tired Clippard. Dellin Bet-against-us. I-can't-hold-this Chapman.   

We can't trade El Chapo. We already did that. Will he become the highest paid mop-up man in history? A LOOGY? Will he permanently destroy Hal's willingness to sign free agents, starting with Otari, next year's Japanese hitting/pitching sensation? Five years... 2022. Will there even be polar glaciers? 

3. Greg Bird is probably gone for the season. Something about ankle surgery - sorry, folks - I just couldn't read it. This will be his second straight year of sitting around in hot tubs, healing. Obviously, we must proceed with the assumption that he will never, ever, play for the Yankees in any meaningful role. That way, whatever we do get will be a pleasant surprise. 

4. For now, that would be Garrett Jones - I mean Garrett Cooper, the mystery man from Colorado Springs. Last night, he was D.B. Cooper, jumping from the airplane. Three strikeouts in four at bats. Listen: I'm no scout, and I try not to judge players' skill sets. But those long, loping swings - wow. You'd have to go back to the days of Zealous Wheeler and Antoan Richardson to find someone who looked so blatantly future-less. Did Chris Carter have an evil twin? Today, Coop gets Chris Sale. Wonder how that will turn out. By Monday, he could be 0-12 and in Scranton. We actually might have lost the Tyler Webb deal. Wow. Does anybody have some leftover Oxicontin? Bulk order, preferably.

5. What do we have to trade on July 31? Nuttin', honey. Nobody will take Ellsbury, even if he's wrapped in Bitcoins. Chase Headley might bring a Satan-cursed doll. Matt Holliday is hardly Carlos Beltran, who last year netted a collapsed former prospect that Texas had punted on. Trade CC? Why bother? The truth is, we have no one to dangle before the thirsty contenders, no one who would bring a Glyber or Clint. We can trade crapola, and we can receive crapola. Either way, it sits under the tree, and there is no pony.

6. Jeez, I'm sorry: I cannot BELIEVE how negative I feel about the Yankees today. I hate this team. I hate myself. I hate everybody, everywhere. Go away. Christmas? Bah! Last night killed me. Over the last month, we have endured some of the most horrible losses in modern Yankee history. One after another. This is not a mere losing streak, or a stutter-step. This is the dark void. What we saw last night was a team that cannot move runners, that boots critical grounders, that cannot hold leads. There is no God!

7. Or leadership. Nothing will change at the top. For reasons that belong between him and his therapist, Hal Steinbrenner simply cherishes, loves, adores Brian Cashman. Mark my words, someday, Cash will get a plaque in Monument Park (and we will view it the way Black Lives Matter activists see statues of Jefferson Davis.) Same for Joe Girardi. Neither is going anywhere. We have been looking toward 2019, the year when we would rise, but maybe we're wrong. Maybe the Clock of Hope should be pushed back to 2022, when El Chapo is calling play-by-play for Cuba Today and dating Jennifer Lopez. Or maybe we won't live long enough. That light at the end of the tunnel, it's steaming.

3 comments:

KD said...

I think we could get something for Tanaka. Otherwise I totally agree with you. Last night was such a pineapple. And the thing is, I could see it coming. Those are the worst losses. The ones that take the "hope" right out of my soul.

Cash needs to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Anonymous said...

TRADE CHAPMAN AGAIN.

SOMEONE MAY BITE.

EVEN WITH HIS SALARY.

ELEVATE GREEN. (NO TEAM HAS TOUCHED GREEN IN WEEKS).

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