Today's horrifying rumor is a proposed 4-1 deal that would bring us Milwaukee's Josh Hader, the long-haired, 26-year-old closer who imploded in the recent NL playoffs. Supposedly, the Brew Crew is putting him out for bids. Rumors have the Yankees trading Miguel Andujar, Deivi Garcia, Jonathan Holder and Chance Adams for Hader, who could then re-explain the racist tweets that introduced him to the world at the 2018 All-Star break. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot? I can see a few back pages on the horizon.
I shouldn't let these things rattle me. I should watch YES all day, the way old folks do Fox, and keep the blood pressure low. But the notion of trading Andujar and Garcia for a guy who - in a good year - will give us about 70 innings drives me batty. Who's running the rumor mill these days? Kellyanne Conway? Do they really believe the Yankees can "bullpen" the entire 2020 season? the way we tried to "bullpen" the 2019 playoffs? Because - ahem, excuse me - it didn't work. Midway through the ACLS, our pitching staff was a shredded Bounty paper towel, because our starters couldn't last five innings.
I realize that Cooperstown Cashman may have to trade Andujar and even Garcia - you can't keep them all - from bloodthirsty mosquito GMs who want to raid our roster. But these are damn valuable trade chips, and if they're going to go, the Yankees better address our main concern: Starting pitching. Another bullpen lug nut? Gimme a break.
Now, I can imagine a scenario where such a deal might work: If the Yanks were going to sign Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg, then bundling players for a 70-innings stud reliever could make sense. We'd address both issues, which basically amount to pitching, pitching, pitching...
Which brings me again to his Excellency, Sir Hal Steinbrenner, who - sadly but truly - remains the Papal Audience of One, the lone opinion that matters in the Yankiverse. It shall be Hal's executive decision whether the Yankees will spend the money it takes to lure a Cole or Strasburg to NYC - without giving up Andujar and half of Trenton. Yesterday, YES aired a Meredith Marakovits interview, in which she asked Commander Hal about Cole and Strasburg. He responded, in the purist dialects of HalSpeak:
"Let me just say that all options are open as far as I’m concerned. Anything that rolls along across my desk, I will be looking at real seriously."
Really? Do we have to experience this? I have too much respect for the phrase "mealy-mouthed" to apply it here. This is offensive, a ridiculous new low, even for someone who is known to blather drivel like water shooting from a fire cannon. "Anything that rolls along across my desk" - jeez. Is that how things work in the Tampa tower? They roll along across his desk? Dear God. "I will be looking at real seriously." So, if I'm getting this right, if a Tonka truck rolls along across his desk, he will pick it up and roar truck sounds, before putting it back down carefully because of its $19.99 price tag.
So, Meredith then asked her employer about the MLB luxury tax, which Hal is known to blame whenever he feels compelled to plead old-fashioned poverty. As with several big market teams, the Yankees $212 million payroll is currently over the first-tier threshold for luxury taxes, but it's $16 million below the second tier. Would Hal go higher, even above the third tier? He said:
"It's a big deal. It’s something we’d certainly prefer not to do, because there are June draft ramifications. There are numerous ramifications. But that is something that I would consider.”
So, there it is, folks. That's a big, fat, bloody, no. To say he'll "consider" things that come along, rolling across his desk, I assume he means slices of pepperoni pizza. To get a starter pitcher, the Yankees will have to trade talented young players, as they did with Sonny Gray and James Paxton. The Gray trade was a disaster. The Paxton deal is still to be judged. One message has come out of the Death Start, loudly and clearly: Hal is not going to spend his way out of this rotation mess. Don't get comfortable with the Yankee depth. It's about to disappear, and for a lot more than Jonathan Holder and Chance Adams.
Posts
17 comments:
Re: Hal's comments
1) "But that is something that I would consider.”
I used to use that trick with my kids. It took them years to realize
that, "I'll think about it." was actually a hard no.
2) The reason things "roll" across his desk is he likes to work on his yacht. In inclement weather the deck rolls as does various trade and free agent proposals.
Re: Hader's Tweets
Don't know what he's thinking now, but you are where you grow up. If his HS buddies were a bunch of racist yahoos and that's all you know, it would be hard not to be one as well. Doesn't make it right. But it is understandable.
If he still felt that way after getting out into the world and actually meeting different kinds of people then that would be trouble. So, while it doesn't make the racist tweets acceptable, a person can evolve. Let's hope he did.
Re: Hader in general
I agree that we should use our best chips for starters. Personally I would like them to keep AnDUar (He should be a DH. Why is it generally old guy? Enough with the EEs.)
They should absolutely keep Devi. We need at least two of our kids to stick.
What sucks, and we all know it and say it is that there are two great starters available for CASH!!!!
It's called having our cake (our prospects) and eating it too.
As a side note, I never understood why this is a saying. What's the point of having the cake if you don't eat it? Are you just supposed to look at it? Does anyone know why this is something people say?
But, if there's a way to add a guy like Hader without giving up those two, we should. Especially since Dellin is most likely gone, Chappy rarely hits 100 anymore, and you can never have too many solid bullpen arms.
Frazier plus German plus Florial?
Doug K.
As crazy as Cashgrab is there’s no way he makes that trade, not for a relief pitcher.
Doug, if you eat your cake you no longer have it. It's in your stomach, sure, but it's gone, baby, gone. So if you could eat that cake and still have it on hand for future eating...well, that would be some trick and the best of all possible worlds, Mr. Candide.
As for the rumors and tradebait, all I know is that the Yankees will do something stupid. They always do something stupid. Cashman always makes terrible deals for starters who hardly ever work out, so I expect him to make a terrible deal for some starter who won't work out.
When we start Spring Training, Bri and Hal will tell us how much they've strengthened the team and how the goal is to win it all. The first part will either be a delusion on their part or a bold-faced lie to assuage our restive spirits. The second is total bullshit, since the only goal is profitability and avoidance of payroll taxes.
And we will sadly wave goodbye to the young phenoms we had already started to love.
By the way, here's a radical thought. The Yankees' pitching was actually pretty damn good in the playoffs, but the offense--again--sucked, hit for a very low average and was terrible with RISP. Maybe we need real hitters instead of Ice Cream, John Carlo, and Judge. More guys like DJ. No guys like Eddie. You can look at the failure and pin it on the pitching, easy to do with that HR off Sweatballeroso, but if we only had guys who were real, situational hitters instead of free-swinging baboons...
Crackheads sit around and look for stuff they can sell to support their habit. Cash's habit it making moves that he thinks make him look smart. He's already spent the young phenoms that we love so much. He just hasn't decided exactly what he's going to trade them for. He's an asshole. I'm a Yankee fan forever, but it's getting tedious. If I spend ANY money at all on them this year, it'll be the one IIHIIF Meetup game, if we have one. Aside from that, fuck Hal. No swag, I cut my cable, and no e-coli specials from the Yankee grill.
It's too high a price for Hader, but he has 349 strikeouts in 204 2/3 innings. As for imploding in the post-season, this past fall he gave up 2 runs in 1 inning. That's all he pitched. In 2018 he pitched 10 scoreless post season innings. His career post-season ERA is 1.64. For the right price, he'd be a great addition.
I agree Hader would be a great addition, but not at the price of Andujar and Devi. Please do not trade Andujar. We will be very sorry. This guy has a special talent with the bat. DH sounds great. You can try him in LF and see how that works out. And what are we going to do when Gio likely flames out this season and reverts to what he was for his first few seasons?
Brett
Yanks could try to sign Addison Russell so we can have another domestic abuser on our roster...
JM,
So what you're saying is the expression is like a magic wallet where you spend a twenty and it's still there. Got it. Thank you.
JM and Brett,
As to more "hitters".
Yes. I agree. That's why the DH should be AnDUjar not our annual "he was great when he was younger and will find it again as a Yankee guy" because sometimes it works and most times it doesn't.
As far as the pitching staff goes... yes they were good enough to win the division and the playoff failures were largely on the batters and Ottavino.
Solid
A healthy Sevi
Paxton should be better
Tanaka is Tanaka
Iffy
Happ gets back to basics
Can German remember how to pitch by the time he's released from Gitmo?
Can Montgomery recovers from surgery?
Devi Dev-elops?
Anyway you look at it if you slap Cole at the top of that rotation then Tanaka becomes your #4 starter. (With a bunch of good options for #5.)
So, add Cole and we will have a great rotation. Maybe best in the league.
Add Hader in a trade and the bullpen is potentially better than last year.
Last, get Starling Marte to play center and we are good to go.
It's all doable. Hader and Marte are both available. Cole costs $$$. AnDUjar is the DH(when not Stanton/Sanchez) and spells Urshala at 3B.
Doug K.
"JUNE DRAFT RAMIFICATIONS"...(THAT'S "COOP SPEAK" AND A GREAT EXCUSE NOT TO SPEND).
"IT'S A BIG DEAL"...
"IT'S SOMETHING WE PREFER NOT TO DO"...
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN...
WE'RE FUCKED.
I would hope that 4 for 1 rumor is just a dumb rumor, because that would be a bad trade. I agree with you JimmyEatsHotDogs that it does not sound like a Cashman deal. He certainly has made some dumbass moves but that one just doesn't sound like his style.
The Hammer of God
I'm going to say this once and admit it: PLEASE GET RID OF SANCHEZ.
He is a drag on our offense and defense. His occasional moonshots are not worth all we give up to have him in the lineup.
Think what we could get for him.
And yes, we need Miggy because Gio had a great year due to the SuperBall. But like many, many others, he's going to fade. Badly.
When I see posts here from people I don't know, touting some bad trade, I think "Brian is posting again" or "Brian's assistant opened a new account." Sure - "for the right price." ANY deal could be good "for the right price." This is NOT the right price, though. And let me tell you, Cashman has been GM for this long due more to his dumb good luck in inheriting the Watson/Michael dynasty at peak foliage than anything else. It's certainly not due to all of the great seasons he has had with teams that are due entirely to him. Even '09, if could be argued, was the fumes of the last dynasty. Cashman's baseball acumen is abysmal. He occasionally gets lucky - unlike me in my extinct sex life, but that's another story - but mainly he's stupid, filled with hubris, and makes bad deals for bad pitchers or wildly overpaid position players who promptly get hurt forever. Cashman is lucky to work for someone who doesn't give a shit whether he wins or loses. If the Yankees started to REALLY suck and somehow start to LOSE money, Hal would jettison him from the nearest Death Star air lock into deep space. On no other team could Cashman spend this much money for such shitty results. Hal also inherited a money machine. Why fuck with that? Brian is comfort and continuity. He probably makes the same joke about George every two or three years, just to remind Hal of how integral he is to the legendary cause.
JM - YES - ditch Sanchez. You'll all stone me now to death, but I say if you really want to get creative, daring, edgy and out of the box, turn Sanchez and Judge into pitching. I love Judge, but he's done. I used to think he'd be Captain one day. I no longer feel that way. I won't elaborate, but his stock will never be higher than it is right now. And maybe you can buy a pint of blueberries for Stanton. THAT one truly is a lost cause.
Love it, Bitty! And I agree.
Keeping Coops is perfect for HAL. He's the perfect, highly motivated front man who will cover over all of HAL's mistakes by pretending he's in charge. Coops' pride is exactly what HAL needs.
And sure, it's possible—even likely—that someday the Yanks will slump to being so bad under Coops that it starts to cut into the Yanks' profit margins.
But when that day comes, Coops will serve HAL's purpose, too. He'll make the perfect scapegoat.
And far from stoning you, Bitty, I've been advocating trading Judge since 2018 (and I love him, too!!!). The sad truth is he can't hit on the road, he can't hit in the clutch, and he can't stay on the field. But they won't do it.
The time to get rid of Sancho was last year, when they reportedly could have traded him for Realmuto, which would've been a steal. But they didn't.
Nobody is going to take Giancarlo off our hands. Ever.
Cole isn't coming.
It's amazing how fast The Dynasty That Never Was came apart, when all it really seemed to need, even back in 2017, was one more good starter. But that's so often the way with Cashman teams.
I always feel like Cashman is just in the wrong place. He succeeds beyond the wildest expectations when he's in a difficult position, and fails miserably when he's in an easy position. His scrapheap acquisitions are legendary - they don't all work out, but he does find some legitimate stars that every other GM in baseball had written off for worthless. When his back is to the wall, as when the team he had assembled last offseason decamped en masse for the DL, he can improvise with the best of them. That his improvised emergency stopgaps this year proved to be far better than the team he wanted, speaks volumes. But as soon as he has a bit of young talent to work with, or Hal loosens the pursestrings a bit, Brian throws it all away for ageing veterans and magic beans that any fool can see will be disastrous.
If only there were a way to have Good Cashman without also having Bonehead Cashman! He might be great at rebuilding a tanking team, or building a small-market into a moderate contender. Then he wouldn't have the resources to make stupid gambles. But watching him helm the Yankees is incredibly frustrating.
Good point, Kaiser. It's the same way I often wished we could replace Joe Torre with Billy Martin in October.
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