Saturday, September 26, 2020

Shoot me: Baseball's worst defense, five DPs, and the insane inability to bunt crush the Yankee season

In the end, last night came down to one fundamental difference:

In the 10th, the Marlins could bunt. The Yankees could not. The Marlins advanced their runner to third. We popped up. 

You can add that we also horribly blew two gift-wrapped second chances. We flubbed a rundown - your basic Little League hotbox - letting Miami stay alive. Then, with the bases loaded, we failed to score the tying run.

So it went. So it goes. Another miserable loss in a season of bed-crappings. Another pile of steaming what-ifs? Another post-game of the zombie Aaron Boone, dead but not knowing it, claiming that so-and-so is ready to breakout, and the such-and-such shows positive signs. If not for that - (choose your excuse) - bad call, bad hop, bad plate of clams... aw, why bother? 

For the record, the Yankees are tied with Pittsburgh (18-40, MLB's worst team) for the most errors in baseball. They average 0.81 per game. Last night, they added four.

They rank fourth in hitting DP grounders per game, last night contributing five - including the reverse walk-off.

They are fourth from the bottom in defensive DPs, converting just 0.62 per game.

Worst of all, by a wide margin, they lead all of baseball - no, all of sports - in excuses. They average 100 per post-game.

One of the Hollywood's great lines comes at the end of King Kong, when Carl Denham points to the big, hairy, lifeless head and says, "It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

Today, looking at the big, hairy, lifeless head of the 2020 Yankees, let me proclaim that it wasn't power, or speed, or opposing teams that exploded Cooperstown Cashman's "fully functioning Death Star." Nope, it was the rank fundamentals that are supposed to be learned in high school. Somewhere along the way, the Yankees exchanged honest baseball for the mid-season All Star Break Home Run Derby.  

I wonder - because nobody gets to see batting practice anymore - do the Yankees ever practice bunting? Do they even try? Half this team could add 100 points to their batting averages and crash the defensive over-shifts that are killing them... if only they learned to bunt. Remember how David Ortiz did it? He'll make the Hall of Fame. But the Yankees - with careers swirling the drain - cannot (or will not) learn that fundamental skill.

At this point, I'd like to put on my Yankee Nostradamus cap and make a prediction: Long after we are dead, some Yankee manager will impose a crackdown like Andrew Cuomo and capture the hearts of NYC with a hustling reincarnation of Billy Ball. Someday, it will happen. Until then, the Yankees will continue to be the team that gets killed by quality pitchers, that cannot advance the winning run, that cannot score without long balls - and that always goes home in early October.

Today, I suggest we all start preparing for Phase Two of the pandemic. We had a two-month run, with nights full of Yankee games. It's going to end soon, probably by end of next week. Last night, we caught a glimpse, and it wasn't pretty. When the end comes, have your affairs in order. Kong is looking dizzy. Look out, below.

16 comments:

ranger_lp said...

Championship teams win with defense...agree totally with you...

Anonymous said...

I have come to the conclusion that we should sign free agent Didi Gregorius. It will tighten the defense by moving Torres back to second and add some desperately need left handed power. We should also re-sign LeMahieu and use him the way we originally intended...at 1B, 2B and 3B. If we're going to give everyone days off based on some secret formula, let's not replace them with Wade and Estrada.

Sanchez must be traded. J.T. Realmuto will be a free agent.

Let's remember that Happ's big contract, as well as Gardner's, will be coming off the books (and maybe Tanaka). Those three total $50 million. Sevy should be back in the rotation with Cole, Monty, Garcia and one of the other kids.

Don't know how to get rid of Hicks and who should replace him.

......Since 56 said...

Also, give Stanton the Ellsbury treatment....pay him to stay home or eat most of his contract in a trade.

Do not sign Judge for a long term big contact....

Unload Sanchez at any cost.

Somewhere in the organization, somebody knows how to bunt...promote him immediately.

Anonymous said...

Actually, they do plan to "give Stanton the Ellsbury treatment." Beginning in 2021 the Yankees are on the hook with Stanton for 7 years and $188 million. That includes the $30 mil being paid by the Marlins that convinced Cashman the deal was such a steal. The Ellsbury contract was for 7 years and $153 million. To put these numbers in perspective, Miami paid Giancarlo $200k in 2017 for winning the MVP, but he will receive $197.5k per scheduled game in 2023, 2024 and 2025 !!

Also, it's sad to say, but Judge is soft--both physically and mentally. None of us liked David Ortiz, but imagine the calls Judge would get if he similarly bullied the umpires.

-Melquíades

Anonymous said...

...To be clear, the 200k Stanton received in 2017 was a bonus.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you didn't blame Trump or conservatives, are the riots spoiling your narrative? It's really quite obvious the the loss of your great Liberal icon "RBG" has the whole team demoralized. Maybe Booney is a Russian spy? The reality is Cashboy has once again put together a paper tiger based on poor baseball judgement, and Hal missed out on Daddy's sperm allocation. Cashboy will die on the cross of Boone over Girardi and that's a good thing!

Anonymous said...

A few things...

1) Luke Voit

His feet look like they are descending into Birdland (Greg Birdland.)

Give the guy a day off!!!!!!!

BTW He is everything Stanton is not.

That said, I fear he is doing permanent damage. Next season we will need a new 1B.

2) Bench Coach

Why do I not know this guys name?

I am a regular here, read the NY Post, Daily News, Pinstripe Alley etc. ad nauseum. Every day. All year. I could name the last ten bench coaches and still firmly believe that Zim was the real manager of the Yankees in the Torre years.

Why do I not know this guys name? Is he that unassuming? Is he a robot?

3) Hitting Coach

If Marcus Thames can't teach them to bunt he should be fired. Period. Learning to bunt would, as mentioned above, add 20 points to everyone's BA and break up the shift.

How the hell is this not a priority! Get a bunting special coach. Whatever it takes! It is unconscionable.

4) Defense

Next year Gleyber to second permanently. That will fix most of it. Well, after we get a real shortstop somewhere.

5) Stanton

Is there a more depressing phrase in the English language than, "Now batting Giancarlo Stanton."

6) Sanchez

Oh right, there is, "Now batting Gary Sanchez"

7) Last

As much as I will miss watching base ball there is no part of me that will miss watching these guys.

And that may be the most depressing phrase of all.

Doug K.








Retired Stratman said...

Wow, Doug, tell us how you really feel. You’re right, though, and I agree with every word. Expecially (as Paul O’Neill always says) the part about Sanchez.

HoraceClarke66 said...

I agree with almost everything, guys. But there's no way Brain will or can do almost any of it.

Partly this is because he will never admit a mistake. I'm sure Coops figures—with good reason—that ever showing yourself to be fallible in front of a Steinbrenner is akin to walking into a lion's cage with a big, juicy rib-eye.

As for bunting, I would settle for just hitting to the opposite field. But no can do. And I'm sorry to say that I agree with Melquiades about Judge. We wanted him to be the next Mickey Mantle but instead he's the next Irv Noren, or maybe Dan Pasqua, a nice enough guy who because of injuries or what have you just can't ever fill out that potential. Pity.

JM said...

New York, with its crowded outdoor restaurants and noisy partygoers and not a rioter to be seen, casts its votes for Realmundo and Gregorius.

We also ask, why have so many forgotten German as a member of the rotation in days to come?

And why was Don Sutton on Match Game in the 70s?

HoraceClarke66 said...

What I resent most of all is this team clinching, then just mailing it in.

Yes, I remember only too well the 2000 season, when with the division all but clinched, the Yanks suddenly staggered in frightening fashion.

But that was an aging team, fighting injuries, which had just played 61 games in 63 days before they slumped—and was coming off two world championships. When the bell rang for October, they were ready, and joined the immortals with their third ring in a row and fourth in five years.

This team hasn't earned the right to get distracted. They've barely played more than a third of a season, and won nothing. What's more, with everything that people are going through right now, they owe it to all of us to at least concentrate and try.

What they're giving us right now is garbage.

Anonymous said...

And the 2000 season was (or should have been) a wakeup call to the front office that the team was getting old and ineffective. Time to start making some changes if you want to keep the ball rolling. But not much happened over the winter, nothing significant anyway. They did make it to the 2001 WS but lost there and again in 2003. Aside from 2009, the same thing has been happening about every year. Coming up short, with nothing significant happening over the winter. (Oh, we would sign a big free agent here and there. Perhaps trade for another slugger here or there. But we never traded away any aging veterans at the trade deadline for new young talent to replenish the farm system in those days.) The front office continued hoping that some kind of miracle hot streak would happen in the playoffs and the players would ride that to victory lane. In a game of percentages, that is a sucker's bet, a losing gamble, something of a 1 out of 20 shot. And it just so happens that it actually worked out that way. We have one championship in 20 years.

This year, Covid 19 or no, promises to be no different. We have all kinds of problems that have been festering for years. We'll run into a fundamentally sound team or a young hungry team with better pitching this postseason. Such a team will make us look like the Bad News Bears, as Luke Voit recently referenced in a quote after a pathetic loss. And nothing of any significance will happen over this winter.

The Hammer of God

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the Yankees' management somehow thinks the fanbase likes watching the over-the-hill veterans. We don't.

ranger_lp said...

Toronto won tonight. Yanks will have to win or Toronto loses tomorrow to clinch the fifth seed in the Wild Card bonanza. So they wont rest players then.

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