Monday, December 17, 2018

"And eternity in an hour..." The next Yankee decade could boil down to what happens Wednesday

Wednesday, Manny Machado visits the Yankees. Let's imagine it: 

At the front gate, Manny and his entourage are greeted by supermodel sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid, wearing only Yankee jerseys with No. 13 - Manny's old number. Escorting him through the concourse, beneath the giant pictures of the Babe, the Mick and Yogi, they recite Yankee lore. At the main office, Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone await them. They nod to the Jumbotron, which shows Manny's image in a Yankee cap.  

They talk for an hour. Manny tells how the Yankees were always his first choice, and Cashman declares that the Yankees agree. The meeting goes longer than planned, because of the hearty laughter and good will. In pops Reggie Jackson, with a Reggie bar refitted with Manny's name. 

There's a knock-knock in the doorway. "I heard we had a visitor!" Hal Steinbrenner chortles. Everyone slaps their knees. Hal leads the group to his private Yankee Owner's bar and sushi house, where A-Rod and Jennifer Lopez are waiting. In pops Sofia Vergara! Billy Crystal! Penelope Cruz! Shakira! John Leguzamo! Mayor Bill de Blasio! U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez! A bell gongs, and in comes the Broadway cast of "Kinky Boots!" Hal dons his signature red leggings and leads the merry group in Christmas carols, between toasts of his finest champagne from... Jared Kushner!

Then... holy crap! In strides Santa himself! who turns out to be... the legendary voice of the Yankees... John Sterling! With the crowd hushed, The Master performs his first-ever Manny Machado home run call: 

MAN O' MANNY! MACHADO ES MAS MACHO!

Bedlam! Joy! They're slithering around on the floor! Jared reads Tweet proclamations from his father-in-law and Vladimir Putin. Finally, it's the ultimate guest: Yankee President Randy Levine... serving ice cold hot dogs, straight from the Yankee commissary, covered in mouse turds, cockroach parts and month-old romaine... 

Okay, let's ditch the foodstuffs. Seriously... Wednesday could be the most important Yankee date in the rest of our Yankee fan lives. 

Seriously. I am not kidding.

If the planets line-up - if Manny says the right things, and Hal reaches for his wallet - the 2019 Yankees could be on the verge of a massive reformation. They would hit Opening Day with the highest expectations since the pressure cooker days of old George's mega-payrolls. Here's the potential lineup.

Aaron Hicks, cf
Manny Machado, ss
Aaron Judge, rf
Giancarlo Stanton, dh

Miguel Andujar 3b
Gary Sanchez, c

Gleyber Torres, 2b
Luke Voit/Greg Bird, 1b

Brett Gardner/Clint Frazier lf 

Wow. How does that team NOT set a new MLB season HR record? But there is a glaring problem: Too many RH bats. 

Until Sir Didi returns - (perhaps creating another problem, who plays where?) - the lone LH hitters, Gardy and Bird, scare nobody. Thus, it's easy to imagine Andujar and/or Red Thunder being traded for pitching (Bumgarner? Kluber?) It's easy to picture a cascade of trades before spring training... all stemming from what happens Wednesday.

Or... maybe not. Maybe Manny gets stuck in traffic, arrives 45 minutes late, and the highlight moment is Lonn Trost puking eggnog onto Larry Rothschild's seeing-eye dog. Maybe Manny signs elsewhere. The Yankees could still bring an imposing lineup, and - wait a minute - maybe yet another big day could loom: The visit from Bryce?  

I dunno about Harper. Manny seems to be on the radar. And everything happens Wednesday. We may someday view December 19, 2018 - the Wednesday before Christmas - as the day everything changed. (And not necessarily for the better.) 

11 comments:

KD said...

Put Harper on 1B and I'm in!

13bit said...

They are DEFINITELY signing him and we are looking at another ten year playoff drought. Fuck these guys. Life is too short for morons and assholes.

Anonymous said...

MANNY AND HIS AGENT SIT AT THE TABLE....

HAL AND COOP SETTLE IN....

MANNY'S AGENT SAYS, "CAN'T DO LESS THAN 10 YEARS."

COOP INTERJECTS, "6 YEARS."

MANNY AND AGENT WALK OUT.

2 WEEKS LATER, BRYCE AND HIS AGENT SIT AT THE TABLE....

RINSE AND REPEAT.

WE GET NOTHING.

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether or not Hal spends the money but I don't understand how signing one of the best baseball players in the world in Manny Machado, a guy who is 26 and entering his peak years, could make the team worse. He would represent a huge addition.

So would Harper.

Take your pick for Left field: Red Thunder (All potential, injury makes him a HUGE risk - hasn't done anything of note yet and Gritty Gutty Brett Gardner - benched for McCutchen and who is actually our back up center fielder.

Or

One of the best baseball players in the world in Harper, a guy who is 26 and entering his peak years, How does this make the team worse? He would represent a huge addition.

Will Hal do it? I wish he would. Both of them!

Doug K.

I'm Bill White said...

This may have been covered already and if so I’m sorry. But this is probably the biggest news of the offseason and the way I see things it has been misreported to date. We all know what pineapple means.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/calltothepen.com/2018/12/13/boston-red-sox-send-extra-pineapple-pizza-new-york-yankees/amp/

Anonymous said...

Bill White,

Wow! That's amazing. Maybe the Red Sox read this blog! If they do: Hey Red Sox, bite me!

Doug K.

I'm Bill White said...

Torreyes—Bridwell—Loup

TheWinWarblist said...

Of course the Red Sox read this blog. I'm 99% convinced 'Phonso is Theo Epstein and ALLCAPS is Nomar Garciaparra.

13bit said...

I don’t think Manny is that great, especially in the post season. I think that the whole strategy of cheaping out on everybody else in order to spend big on one guy who may not be a team player is really faulted. Everybody on this blog was coming in their pants when they signed Stanton. How did he work out so far? Fuck what the stats say about him. Is he clutch with men on base? And did anybody ask him why he named his dog after Kobe Bryant? There is more to this than meets the eye. I’m tired of the Yankees thinking that one bloated fucking superstar is going to save them. They don’t think in terms of “team.” If they sign Manny, the most of setting thing to me, aside from the anchor of a contract it would surely be, is what it says about Cashman and how dull-witted and unimaginative he is. He’s a fucking moron.

JM said...

Sign 'em all and let God sort it out. Let's go for the first billion dollar payroll. We'll set box office records everywhere we play.

And get eliminated in the wild card game.

Go, team.

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