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Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Regardless of the outcome, prudent Yank owner inspires delirious new chants across the Bronx.

Last night, as the Yankees were losing by six, you could imagine a joyous chant rising throughout the stadium: 

"WE'RE SAVING MONEY!... WE'RE SAVING MONEY!" 

The fans, of course, would be paying homage to beloved owner Hal "Food Stamps" Steinbrenner and his quest to shrink the team payroll, so profits can rightfully go to the shareholders and executives, who make us proud to root for the Yankees. And if the team continues on its present course, maybe we'll soon hear that chant echoing across the Bronx.

"WE'RE SAVING MONEY!... WE'RE SAVING MONEY!"

I speak for fans everywhere in being thankful that the team ownership this week refused to budge from its personal rules of austerity, the first and foremost  which states that: "We, the Yankees, will not budge from our personal rules of austerity." 

Thus, instead of soon adding a former Cy Young starter - and having to spend money! - we can trade away our future next month, when Brian Cashman once again goes out in search of the prototypical pitcher that has eluded him over the years. He'll clean out the farm systeme for the next Sonny Gray (unless James Paxton has already filled that role; hence, we're now working on the next Paxton.)

Obviously, it's too soon to give up on Paxton. No, wait: Let me rephrase that: We have no choice but to keep trying Paxton. There's nobody else. The cupboard is bare, stems and seeds. Tanaka, CC, Paxton, Happ... who is the Yankee ace? While Dear Leader counts his dimes and sticks to his guns, the Yankee rotation is one tweaked gonad away from Nestor (Octavio) Cortes Jr, Chance Adams and David Hale. And we're going all in on Cashman's instincts to find a pitcher? Good luck with that, everybody.

Let's give Cash credit: Over the years, he has shown a great proclivity for finding position players: Didi, Voit, Urshela, LeMahieu, Maybin, etc. He's a savant for finding spare parts. His one consistent failure: Starting pitchers. Not only has he regularly obtained the bozos, but he whiffed on Jason Verlander, Chris Sale, Gerrit Cole, Patrick Corbin, et al. Instead, we get the Michael Pinedas.

Oh well, at least we don't have to hear folks carping about the Yankees buying pennants. That's for big-spending Boston, Chicago and LA. Good grief, we won't even shell out for a Wild Card birth. But we have an owner who sticks to his knitting. He values a nickel! Hooray for us. And soon, maybe we'll hear that chant: 

WE'RE SAVING MONEY!... WE'RE SAVING MONEY!... WE'RE SAVING MONEY!

Ah, the wonders of being a Yankee fan.

23 comments:

JM said...

Overspending for possible mediocrity is better than trading the potential future for guaranteed mediocrity.

I think Kant said that. Or was it Kiekegaard?

HoraceClarke66 said...

Or maybe Kiki Vandeweghe.

Well put, Duque. And I loved your summary, JM. That's exactly what. we're doing.

Of course, now we've so stripped down the farm system in pursuit of that elusive, great white whale that I don't know if we even CAN trade for the next disappointment.

I suspect the Giants will turn up their noses at Estrada alone, and I don't if we will literally have enough outfielders if we deal The Red Whiner.

It could be that Coops' past failures will for once restrain his hand.

I think Shakespeare wrote that.

KD said...

As a side bar, how about a ticker on Hal’s net worth and PROJECTED net worth some 5 years into the future. I’m sure the stat freaks have a formula and number for that. we can then see and judge the financial impacts of all his decisions. You know, give us something to REALLY root for!

Can you do that, oh powerful duque? Pretty please?

KD said...

Hal Steinbrenner: redefining what it means to be a Yankees fan!

Anonymous said...

JM,

It was Leo Wiser.

KD,

Good idea. Maybe we should have the Team Value Standings as well. First place baby!
The Knicks too! Best in the NBA!

All,

1) In the meantime, that's three series in a row that we've failed to win. All against poor teams teams. (or did the Mets make it .500 yesterday?)

2) Urshala is playing cocky. He should go back to playing hungry.


3) For the love of G-d someone tell Luke Voit to skip the HR Derby! Judge should grab him and throw him against the wall and get in his face but he'd only re injure himself.

Doug K.

TheWinWarblist said...

"THEY'RE SAVING MONEY!... THEY'RE SAVING MONEY!... THEY'RE SAVING MONEY!"

There ya go; I fixed that for you. They are saving money. We are still getting screwed on everything: merch, tickets, concessions, cable fees, everything.




FUCKERS!FUCKERS!FUCKERS!

Anonymous said...

LETS NOT FORGET...

FOR EVERY LUKE VOIT, THERE WAS A CHRIS CARTER.

FOR EVERY DIDI GREGORIOUS, THERE WAS A STEPHEN DREW.

FOR EVERY CAMERON MAYBIN, THERE WAS A BEN FRANCISCO.

FOR EVERY NICK SWISHER, THERE WAS A VERNON WELLS.

FOR EVERY DJ LEMAHIUE, THERE WAS A CHASE HEADLEY.

IF COOP GETS CREDIT FOR THE SUCCESSES, WHY DOESN'T HE GET BASHED FOR THE BOMBS?

Rufus T. Firefly said...

For every Slade Heathcott there was a Dante Bichette Jr.

Wait, wasn't one of them supposed to be good?

Anonymous said...

Hey Warplist--while you're playing Mr. Fixit, shouldn't that be "CALLASSALL FUCKERS"?

Anonymous said...

duque--

"Machado has been struggling all year and it has only gotten worse in the past week. His average is down to .238 to go along with a weak .723 OPS."

Your prescription for the Yankees ills is to lavish hundreds of millions of dollars on every suspect marquee name that shows up on the MLB radar. Where's the learning curve? You sound like spendthrift, star-struck George in his most unhinged and destructive days, when he was making a bad joke of the Yankee name.

Anonymous said...

Machado might be depressed. He wanted to be a Yankee and they didn't even make an offer. He knows he gave himself a bad rep on top of it.

Now he's on another small market team. So he could be trying to do too much or not giving a crap. Either way, he's undeniably talented even if he's having a bad year.

Also, duque is a big play the kids guy as well. But letting three prime FA's sign elsewhere just pisses us off. Corbin and Harper (and Dallas on principle).

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

Harper is having a lousy season as well. Machado was always a league-average-hitting third baseman away from Camden Yards. Harper has had exactly two really good seasons out of seven, and ini 2018 he sucked. These two were covered with red flags--and Cashman was wise to heed them.

Yes, duque wants it both ways--play the youngsters and dump buckets of cash on the suspect marquee names. But that's impossible. Cashman rashly rushed to sign Stanton, who was a disappointment as a Yankee and who is now possibly blocking . . . you guessed, it: a dynamic potential young star in Clint Frazier.

Moral of the story: you can't have it both ways.

Joe Formerlyof Brooklyn said...


To be accurate, Cashman DID NOT SIGN Stanton. The contract under which he plays (or does not) was originally negotiated and signed between him and the (pre-Jeter, I think) Marlins.

The NYYs traded Starlin Castro, Jose Devers, and a pitcher named Guzman to acquire Stanton.

So the acquisition of Stanton came at the cost of 3 players.

Starlin's 2019 slash line with the Marlins: 226/258/562. These are significantly below his career numbers. If you're thinking "they got rid of him and made room for Gleyber," then it seems like a good move -- to that extent, at least.

Guzman has a 3.93 era in AA minors. BA against is .224. 12 games, 12 starts.

Devers, who is age 19, is hitting .325 in "Class A Advanced" -- 123 ABs, 0 HR, 3 RBI

So -- it was a personnel dump, I guess. But an expensive quasi-catastrophe.

Jeter obviously prays to a very powerful god.

BillyMartinsHangover said...

Hello World!

HoraceClarke66 said...

Yes, that's what I was arguing at the time, Joe FOB—this will open a space for The Gleyber. And, I thought, put the Twin Towers back to back, and how can you possibly go wrong?

But Jeter understood that he was tying a nice, big millstone around Coops' neck, and pushing him overboard. Coops himself didn't understand even after he saw Stanton for a full 2018, talking to Klapisch for that silly book about how he made a fool of Jetes.

He was just asking the JuJu gods to smite him for that one. It will get even worse if Devers proves as good as his brother, now bashing in Boston.

BillyMartinsHangover said...

Give up on Paxton? We don't even give up on players well. Look at how they handled Sonny Gray. Our rotation is pretty scary at the moment. Thank god for Ironman Rothschild. He'll figure it out just like he always does.

Parson Tom said...

Jeter deserves credit for trading back-to-back NL MVPs. He makes Cashman look smart, unless you're a proponent of tanking and empty seats.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Well, in the usual, idiotic way MLB operates, they seem to have let ANOTHER undercapitalized owner buy another Florida team.

"Gee, we just can't figure out why those Florida teams don't do better. Just because we let some crony buy them, run the club into the ground, then demand we fork over public money to build them a huge new park—what's not to like?"

The plan seems to be that, once the team tanks and sheds payroll, they'll try to build on a small market basis. That's rather ridiculous considering the baseball potential in that state, but maybe it will work.

I suspect Jetes feels this is a good way to get into management. He sure as hell wasn't going to do it with the Yankees, considering how much Coops hates his guts.

Whether he'll be good at that end of the game, who can say? But I would still lay odds on him grabbing another ring before Hal or Coops do.

HoraceClarke66 said...

What Coops should've done, once he saw the fire sale was on, was see how little he could get Yelich for.

A Gold Glove outfielder who can steal bases, is younger than Stanton, and costs much less money—no, Coops wasn't falling for THAT one!

We can do the converse of ALL-CAPS' list, the player passed up for Coops' great get:

For every Stanton, there was a Yelich.

For every Mussina, there was a Manny.

For every Giambi, there was a Damon.

For every Mondesi, there was an Ortiz.

For every Sonny Gray, there was a Verlander.

Anonymous said...

The point is not the technical details of how Stanton was acquired--it is that his acquisition involved taking on a huge long-term contract for dubious return in performance and possibly blocking a young rising star--the moral still being that you can't have it both ways if you want to empty the vault for every marquee name that comes along.

Jeter was working under a financial imperative to cut expenses. He's building from the ground up. Let's see how dumb that looks in another three or four years compared to where the Yankees are at that time.

Anonymous said...

HC66 misses the point, AGAIN. It's not that there never has been or never will be a valuable or wise free-agent acquisition--it's that the Machado and Harper contracts were a terrible idea, and lots of people thought so BEFORE they were signed. Subsequent performance validates that judgment. Yet duque still deems it sound policy to empty the vault every time a big name floats by--yet also wants to retain, develop, and promote young talent. Can't have it both ways. Ask Clint Frazier.

Anonymous said...

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I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
I’m Stat Boy!
I just got off of my shift at The Pizza Pit. Mommy had a sandwich waiting for me in my basement apartment and I ate it. Then I picked my zits and changed out of my cool orange and red uniform. After I attempted to sooth my onanism, I decided the world should know of the depth of my baseball knowledge. I’m Stat Boy, and the world should pay for me being such a loser!
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