Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Want hope? Move to Scranton

Watching Scranton last night, a ridiculous notion hit me: I'd happily trade their first five batters for our current Yankee lineup. At least there would be hope, or a sense of mystery - because right now, our hitters only deliver despair.  

Leading off was 24-year-old left-fielder Jake Cave, who's had a breakout season - .335 with 14 homers. While I love Brett Gardner as a person, a .260 corner outfielder isn't cutting it. (Yeah, he has 20 HRs; but so does every player on the eastern seaboard this year.) Gardy numbers are carved in stone; he is a middling LF for a middling team. Could Cave hit more than .260? I'd roll the dice. 

Batting second: Starlin Castro. Okay, that's a cheat. Obviously, we need Castro back ASAP, and we need him hitting as he did before his two - two - hammy pulls. (Not good planning Starlin.) I should note that Ronald Torreyes played wonderfully in his absence, so Starlin better come back hot.  

Batting third: Greg Bird, another cheat. Bird represents our last unplayed card of 2017. We still don't know what kind of player he'll be. (As opposed to, say, Todd Frazier, whose concrete ceiling is defined quite rigidly by years of output. If Frazier gets hot this week, it simply means he will get cold next week. He will end up hitting about .215. There is no mystery here. The past is prelude.) 

Which brings me to the guy batting fourth in Scranton: 22-year-old 3B Miguel Andujar, also enjoying a breakout season. (.326 with 8 HRs.) Frankly, I'd rather see him than Chase Headley (who has hit well lately) or Frazier. With Andujar, we are building for the future. Also, we know Headley will cool off and retreat to his .250 normalcy. I'd take a once-around-the-league from Andjuar and be happy.

Finally, in RF was Billy McKinney, 22, yet another breakout performer (.319, 10 HR in 43 games.) I hate writing this, but right now, I'd rather see Dopey Dildox play RF rather than Aaron Judge, who needs more time off than anyone on this planet. Last month, Boston rested the slumping Andrew Benintendi for several games, because he was pressing. It saved his year. Why the Yankees have not done the same with Judge is beyond bad management; it borders on insanity, and everybody in New York - everybody except the Yankees - knows this. This guy needs a reset button. How does Joe Girardi not see this?

Last year, the Yankees ditched their veterans and basically conceded the pennant race on August 1. Then a funny thing happened: They went 17-11 in August and vaulted back into wild card contention, infusing the Yankiverse with more hope than we'd seen in years. 

That "Baby Bomber" rebuilding plan ended three weeks ago. Since trading four of our ten best prospects for veterans - to the delight of the NY Gammonites, I should add - we are 9-10. We have fallen from the AL East race, and if not for a 4-game sweep of the bottomless pit known as the Mets, we'd be lagging in the one-game phony post-season wild card battle, too. The hottest teams in that race are Minnesota and Texas - both of whom were "sellers" last month. And the Boston hitter who most killed us last week was Rafael Devers, a 20-year-old that the Redsocks were forced to promote after we outbid them for Todd Frazier. (And when Bird returns, Headley likely will shift to third, making Frazier a fifth wheel on our wagon; we'll have traded Blake Rutherford for a new Chris Carter.)

In Hal Steinbrenner's last eight years of running the Yankees, we have seen at least four strategic plans launched and then pitched overboard. 

There was the Free Agent Surge of 2009, which saw CC, Tex and AJ Burnett push us to a World Series.

Then came the "Beggars Can't Be Choosers" era, when Hal was determined to cut payroll below the $186 million luxury tax limit. We refused to sign anybody, even letting Russell Martin go, rather than give him a modest two-year deal.  


Then came the "Farewell Gasp" tours for Mariano and Jeter, when we annually traded off prospects for veteran rentals (Alphonso Soriano, Ichiro, et al.) That drained our system and left us with old teams - Vernon Wells, Pronk and Ichiro - whom Hal broke his rule for and signed anyway. We went nowhere.

Last year, we trotted out the "Baby Bombers" with Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge, and actually restored hope. 

That plan lasted exactly one calendar year,. As soon as the scent of a wild card could be sniffed, Hal went back to all-or-nothing pursuit of the post-season, which now involves that miserable one-game lottery ticket. And we're losing with players who have been Yankees for three weeks.

I wonder if Hal will ever stick to a plan long enough to see whether it works. If we piss away our future, we are just three years away from the worst decade in Yankee history. But damn - it's a great time to be a fan in Scranton!

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

"it's a great time to be a fan in Scranton!"

Damn straight. Nobody builds a AAA dynasty like Cashman. If the RailRiders repeat this year, Cashman should move to northeast PA. He'll never have to buy another meal.

A Ferengi said...

Judge will rest when the gear stops selling and fans shun the Judge's Chambers. You expect Lord Hal to leave profits on the table? Fools!

I'm Bill White said...

I don't follow or have access to as much Inside Baseball as you do, but I am not sure that I agree that the Red Sox were forced to promote Devers when they lost Frazier. They forced the Yankees into a panic move for Frazier, intending to promote Devers.

We need 1,000 words from you on why we should remain Yankee fans in the Hal/Cash/Girardi dominion. Thank you.

Ken of Brooklyn said...

Great point IBW! There's probably no way I could ever leave, but, it grieves me to no end that there's such obvious mismanagement of this team,,,,

JM said...

They did it to us again. We know this. Every time it looks like there may be a future worth caring about, they pull the rug out from under us. They are remarkably consistent and incompetent and stupid. But we are fans, so we hope. We care. We think this time it will actually work out and they'll change.

Nope.

The dynasty that was, was built when Steinbrenner senior was forced to stay away. After he returned, he did find ways to fuck us up all through the 'aughts. Then he died and it was his sons' turn. 2009 was a one-time deal that ended up being an albatross for years after. And Torre...my God, Torre. Then Girardi...my God, Girardi.

We keep falling for it. As someone on Twitter said about our president, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a bazillion times, wtf????

And that's where we is. Living in a perpetual wtf????

Anonymous said...

MR. POSITIVE IS STILL HERE TODAY!!!

BOSTON LOST LAST NIGHT.

WE GOT A KID NAMED JORGE GUZMAN WHO IS 21 YEARS OLD WHO IS HITTING 102 MPH ON THE GUN.... AND THEY SAY HE ACTUALLY HAS GOOD CONTROL TOO!

WE HAVE ANOTHER KID NAMED LUIS MEDINA.... HE IS HITTING 100 MPH... HE JUST TURNED 18!
THAT'S RIGHT...I SAID 18 !!!

THE ECLIPSE SUCKED AND WAS OVERBLOWN.

HERE COME THE YANKEES.

Alphonso said...

Every fucking young pitcher in the universe now hits 102 on the fucking gun. That doesn't mean they can get anyone out. See Aroldis Chapman and the fucking gun he uses. The guy is a basket case.

What we need are players who can hit, field and run.

What we need is a manager not stuck in 1959.

What we need is a GM who has courage and will stand up and fight for a plan. It is obvious that a " youth-based, re-buiding approach is needed and Cashman won't see it. He is a fucking puppet with a glib tongue and no brain.

We are sunk until they are both gone.

But all of our top prospects will be gone, or ruined, long before that happens.

And Hal doesn't really care about winning. He just plays an owner.

Fucking guns.

You can throw 150 mph and if the ball is straight, it will get hit.

Though not by Aaron Judge.

Anonymous said...

YOU ARE RIGHT ABOUT "GUN LOVE"...THERE IS TOO MUCH OF IT THESE DAYS.

......BUT WOULD WE RATHER HAVE A 18 OR 21 YEAR OLD PROSPECT THROW A CUNNING 89 - 91 MPH?.... THE ANSWER IS NO.

YOU KNOW I USUALLY CAN'T STAND THE DECISION MAKING OF CASHMAN, GIRARDI AND HAL.

......BUT FROM THIS POINT ON, IS WHAT REALLY NEEDS TO BE WATCHED.

WE STILL HAVE A STRONG FARM.


GLEYBER TORRES
CLINT FRAZIER
MIGUEL ANDUJAR
BILLY MCKINNEY
TYLER WADE
ESTEVAN FLORIAL
JUSTUS SHEFFIELD
CHANCE ADAMS
JORGE GUZMAN
DOMINGO ACEVEDO
ALBERT ABREU
LUIS MEDINA
JUSTUS SHEFFIELD
....AND THERE ARE MUCH MORE.

WHAT WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT NOW BELIEVE IT OR NOT IS.....DEREK JETER!!

DJ IS PLANNING TO TAKE GARY DENBO WITH HIM TO FLORIDA.

DENBO HAS BEEN A MAIN COG IN BUILDING OUR FARM LATELY.

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP.

Joe Formerlyof Brooklyn said...


BOTTOM LINE: You can find a lot more reasons to be optimistic about 2018, and 2019, than about 2017.

The future is always better than the present. At least in one's mind. At the very least, every politician (including even Trump) knows this. The promise is always exciting, the present is something of a muck-up.

Unfortunately, many of us were not bestowed (at birth) with The Patience Gene.

THE MOST OBVIOUS THING IS: Perhaps we must be as patient with JoeyBinders, Cashmonkey, and Halbrenner as we have to be with Chance Adams, Aaron Judge, and others.

Does patience pay off? Well, it really isn't my strong suit; it is a major weakness for me, and has been for 63 years.

However, let's remember a few things:

1. Jeter retired. We were never going to have a decent SS again. But right now, Didi is a reason to smile (one of the few). And Glyber is behind him, somewhere.

2. Aaron Hicks sucked. THEN.....he didn't. Surprised the crap outta me. You?

3. We had The Killer Bs -- Brackman, Banuelos, and Betances. I can't find Brackman on the MLB player search. It appears Banuelos has spent the bulk of 2017 in the Atlanta minor league system. But we DID keep Betances and, despite some trying times, he's panned out (better right now than a $17-million-a-year garage shooter and woman-strangler).

I should add this, to be fair: The same a-holes who brought us Toddfather, Ellsberger, and Head Chasely are responsible for bringing in Didi, obtaining Hicks and giving him many chances, and sticking with Betances.

So maybe there are no absolutes in the life of a Yankees' fan?

I'm Bill White said...

This is probably the clubhouse leader for Why To Remain A Yankee Fan essay, as are many other comments here. Nicely said.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone else lose patience with el duque's desperate pleas for a youth rebuilding plan coupled with his lack of patience with young players? Anyone else sense a glaring self-contradiction here? Aaron Judge only leads the team in all the key offensive categories: OWAR, slugging, OBP, and OPS, and el duque would rather see anyone else in the world playing right field? And this guy patronizes the "Gammonites"? Compared to this arrant nonsense the New York daily sportswriters come off as the local chapter of MENSA.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah--I forgot to mention that Judge leads the team in overall WAR as well--and el duque, the ardent champion of youth rebuilding, would sooner see Dopey Dildox in right field.

And then he wants to dump Gardner based solely on the outmoded junk stat of batting average, without considering speed, defensive value, or on-base percentage.

This is just sloppy, sloppy sputtering. Not a hint of serious analysis anywhere.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Now wait a minute!

I yield to no man in my love of mindless self-contradiction. Not to mention sloppy sputtering.

But I think the analysis here is generally pretty damned consistent.

No, Brett Gardner should not be judged solely on his batting average. Yes, he should be judged on how frequently he gets hurt, and how every second half his stats drop off the map.

You could look 'it up, as Casey would say. Many of us value Gardner for his years of hard play, clutch performances, and general good works. (Did you know he's a finalist to take over Jerry's Kids?)

But at 33, and with his tendency to go south before the geese do, we just don't see him as the corner outfielder of the future.

I think we all love Judge here. But this slump has just been excruciating, and there's nothing wrong or self-contradictory in saying the manager ought to take him out of the lineup every now and then to get his head straight—as Girardi did so well tonight, breaking his notorious "K" streak.

Besides, Dopey Dildox has been tearing up the Carolina League of late.

Anonymous said...

HoraceClarke66 Gardner shouldn't be judged SOLELY on his batting average? How about not at all? You reel off another list of anecdotal junk but avoid the nub of the matter, like duque ignoring the speed and defense that make him one of the most valuable left fielders in the league. You're obviously unaware of the fact that his WAR of 3.4 puts him in a tie (with Hicks) for second on the team, and guess who's first at 5.5? The other Aaron . . . Judge.

So for all of the foregoing crimes against humanity you want to replace them with two unproven nobodies from Scranton who have yet to see their first major league pitch--and who will no doubt call forth the usual hailstorm of contempt from you and duque when they don't set the world on fire in their first two weeks.(Remember that duque didn't just want to rest him sporadically--he wanted to REPLACE him with Party X from Scranton, based on . . . you guessed it, that beaten horse so beloved of deadhead "Gammonites," BATTING AVERAGE. And not even a major league batting average--a AAA batting average, with no consideration of any other metric of player value. That is junk, and your lame apologia for it is junk squared.

I repeat--you can't bleat day and night for rebuilding and then show all the patience of . . . George Steinbrenner. If you don't see that point, you're blind.

Local Bargain Jerk said...


Hmmmm. Would this mark the return of the old Anonymous who used to keep everyone honest a few years back, or this just more from the new SABRAnonymous who's been hanging around here lately?

Anonymous said...

Ad hom milling from LBJ. We have a right to expect less frivolous "analysis" from the lead analyst on this blog.

Anonymous said...

Reading your guys get old. We get it you don't like Cashman , Joe and Hal. Blah blah , soon there will be about 10 of you reading this blog.

KD said...

All you WAR heros out there, do any of you truly understand the statistic? Yeah , we know what the letters stand for.

So dreary.

Anonymous said...

KD--Oh please trot out all the equations for us while sticking with your tried and true baseball analysis method, straight out of "Batting Averages for Dummies."

Anonymous said...

For the analytical troglodytes like KD et al.:

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/

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