Friday, January 11, 2019

The Yankee first base situation is desperately unhinged

FACT: Yankee fans love love love Luke Voit. 

Why not? Last fall, he was a breath of fresh air, a joyous, lumbering, barbell-lifting, opposite-field-slugging, over-achieving first-baseman. He rid us of Chasen Shreve. He has that haircut. He's 6'3" and 225, an outside linebacker and enforcer in our next bean-ball war. Today - Jan. 11 - he's our crazy, amped-up, lead-footed lug nut at fur-space, right? 

So... why do I think he's toast? 

Let me count the reasons.

1. Luke bats RH, like everybody else in the lineup. That means LH Greg Bird, the Yankee Rasputin - (he cannot be killed) - gets one more chance to heat up in March and win the position, or at least a platoon shot. Problem is, I'm not sure the Yankees will keep two full-time 1B on the 25-man roster. If Bird hits in Tampa, Voit is toast. 

2. Luke is a lousy fielder, more a pass rusher than 1B, and the 2019 Yankees definitely will need a glove man. (See Mitch Moreland in Boston last year.) With Miguel Andujar, Troy Tulowitzki and Gleyber Torres throwing Frisbees to first, a fan-friendly lump simply will not cut it. If Bird shows a better glove in Tampa - almost a certainty - Voit is toast.

3. Luke will have a hard time repeating his golden Yankee September. In less than 150 plate appearances, he hit 14 HRs and .333. Those numbers topped his minor league career, suggesting the month was an anomaly. (In the post-season, he hit .235.) In 2019, pitchers will adjust. If that happens in Tampa, Voit is toast.

4. Virtually every free agent signing the Yankees might make - from the Victoria's Secret supermodel Manny Machado to the Filene's Basement checkout clerk Josh Harrison - would unleash a domino-drop that obliterates Luke's future. Many would move Andujar to 1B where - because Luke also bats RH - he would be toast.

5. The Yankees simply are not done. Right now, their fate seems to hinge on whether Troy Tulowitzki can play SS for at least four months. I do not believe for one minute that Cooperstown Cashman will gamble the season - and his own career - on Tulo's tenderized tendons.

In hitter-happy Colorado, Tulowitzi was once a great player. Now, at 34, having been hobbled for two seasons, it's bat-shit crazy to think Cash would balance an entire season on such a player. The Yankees need to win this year. If they flop, Boston waltzes to an AL East title and maybe another ring, and the hordes would come for Cashman's mustache. 

Tulo could be Comeback Player of the Year - or tweak a gonad on March 1 and disappear into the void. Cash hasn't lasted this long in the Yankee House of Cards by taking such chances. It doesn't matter what he says in public. He'll have a backup strategy beyond Tyler Wade.

We once thought it would be Machado or Bryce Harper (who increasingly makes sense.) But Hal Steinbrenner simply cannot afford such players. They cost too much, and Yankees absolutely must tighten their belts! Money doesn't grow on trees, people! Good grief, the Yankees last year couldn't even afford to serve edible food at the stadium. This year, we'll be lucky to have clean jerseys. 

Last year, when 3B was open, Cashman brought to spring training Brandon Drury, Ronald Torreyes (now a Twin), Danny Espinosa, Jace Peterson, Neil Walker, Gleyber and Miggy. This year, he'll search the recycling bins for fur-spacemen. If Andujar moves to 1B, or Gary Sanchez, or Giancarlo Stanton, or Tulo, or - jeeze - almost anywhere you look, Voit is toast. It's only a matter of time.

15 comments:

TheWinWarblist said...

I'm so down hearted ...

TheWinWarblist said...

I hate hate HATE proto-hipster piss-boy Frank Zappa.

FZ said...

And Hendrix wonders why I don't miss the world of the living...

JM said...

Zappa had his moments musically, but yeah. Total asshole. And proud of it.

The anti-Voit.

KD said...

so quiet. so, so very quiet. Just the moment when our wizard ninja is least expected. We need management juju and we need it now. Juju is NOT ONLY FOR PLAYERS!!

Strike, Cashy, strike! NOW is the time! make the redsocks shit their panties!

Manny, Bryce, Bumgarner! Now is the time! NOW!!! NOW mutherfuker! NOW!!!!!

well, my job is done. i'll check back in tomorrow to see what you think of the new team and to reap my accolades.

I'm Bill White said...

I had a dream that Sal Fasano and Ron Hassey supplemented their retirement income by hauling freight from the Tri-State area down 95 to Florida. Sitting behind the wheel of a semi isn’t all that different from catching BBs behind the plate when you think about it. Sal was worried about what all the sitting would do to his heart but Hassey said they’d work enough of it off by walking the dog at rest stops and after they got to Florida. They had a dog named Clarence along for the ride, he’s a hound. I thought the dream would evolve into something like driving ICS’s suped-up Jeep down for Spring Training and how the guys talked about catching for the Yanks all those years ago and the broken bones from reaching for bad pitches off the plate but it didn’t go there. I saw bright orange light that became different shades of red and yellow like if you were laying on the ground on a fall day and then George Steinbrenner rapped me on the shoulder and said “cmon, we’re late.” We got into a 1978 Chrysler Córdoba and I kept trying to find the seatbelt and Steinbrenner said something about that, like what’s wrong with you? He turned on the radio and Rizzuto was calling a game with White and I think it was the July 4, 1983 no-hitter, but early in the game so they weren’t talking about it. I didn’t want to say anything about it to the Boss because I didn’t know if he was listening to this for the first time or not. I didn’t mind because it was nice to listen to a Yankee game like it was 1983 again. Steinbrenner asked if I wanted a hamburg, he left off the “er” part but I knew what he meant and said yes. So he reached down and pulled a McDonald’s bag from somewhere and that’s what we did. We ate hamburgs. I woke up in the bottom of the eighth.

Anonymous said...

Re Zappa:

He was way more than "Valley Girl" and a poster of him taking a crap.

115 Albums across the entire musical spectrum.

https://www.zappa.com/music/official

Plus he was a great social satirist with his relentless skewering of religious fundamentalists, fascists, media, hypocrites, sexual mores, etc.

Then there's this...

"... Nine years ago Lithuania broke away from the Soviet Union, leaving a lot of empty plinths that had previously been occupied by statues of Lenin, Marx and their regional disciples. An obvious question remained: what to do with the empty plinths?

Saulius Paukstys, a civil servant and member of the Vilnius bohemian set, saw the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong ambition. He founded the Frank Zappa Fan Club and commissioned a socialist realist sculptor to create a statue of Zappa on a patch of land in front of a children's hospital in the centre of the city.

"We were desperate to find a symbol that would mark the end of communism, but at the same time express that it wasn't always doom and gloom," Paukstys recalls. He now holds the post of national security chief. "

Obviously music, like everything else, is a matter of taste. I just wanted to give the man his due.

Doug K.

KD said...

lucky you awoke from that one, Bill. Papa Bear leads all true Yankees fans to the other side.

Ich bin der Chrome Dinette und du bist mein Sofa said...

It's a tough choice but I think my favorite Zappa album right now is "One Size Fits All". Inca Roads! Sofa, No. 2!!

Anonymous said...

Good choice. One of my favorites as well.

I use "Peaches en Regalia" as a ring tone for several of my friends but Sofa #2 would be fun.

Right now, for favorite, I'd have to say Joe's Garage Act I. But my favorite side all time is Side Three Roxy and Elsewhere with Cheepnis, Son of Orange County and More Trouble Every Day.

Doug K.

Retired Stratman said...

I might be moving to Montana soon. Gonna be a dental floss tycoon. By myself I won't have no boss - I'll be raising my lonely dental floss.

Moving to Montana soon...

Anonymous said...

I'm with you on Zappa, Doug K...my own fave Zappa album (w/ the Mothers) is, I suppose a more pedestrian choice: the Freak Out double album. Man, I remember my second & third year in college, smokin' something, listening to Zappa, and - - wait for it - - Freakin' Out.

Frankie could be in your face, but I don't think that makes him an asshole.

Just my take, as an OLD fur-spaceman (God, duque, I Looooove that); please tell me what you were consuming when you formulated that...pretty please).

Joe's Garage (Pt. I), and One Size Fits All are both pretty fine, too. I could bore Warby for weeks, with my roughly forty-some "live" Zappa albums...but I wouldn't do that to such a genial fellow. LB (No J)

HoraceClarke66 said...

I'm not that much of a Zappa fan, but I do appreciate what he did to help bring freedom to Czechoslovakia.

Also, I think he would make a better general manager than Brian Cashman.

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