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Saturday, April 10, 2021

Judge Not.

From the discombobulated computer - but combobulated mind - of HoraceClarke66. 



 

Aaron Judge missed Wednesday night’s game due to “general soreness.” It was the 150th Yankees game he had missed since joining the club for good in 2018, and on Friday he missed his 151st.

 

That’s 151 games by the very start of what will be his fifth full season with the Yankees, and if Covid had not canceled most of 2020 that total would undoubtedly have been much higher.  He was not ready to go in April of last year, laid up with the usual combination of battered ribs, strained obliques, aching muscles everywhere.

 

This is a great pity, for Aaron Judge is a smart and talented ballplayer when he can play, with a life story that would have led that noxious corporate entity known as MLB to make him the poster boy for all of baseball.

 

That’s highly unlikely to happen, now, as is what once seemed his great good chance of having a career as the next Yankee superstar, complete with his personal cheering section, leading the team to one World Series after another.

 

Judge has been compared unfavorably to Mickey Mantle of late, which is unfortunate, for who compares well with a dead god?  But the salient fact is that Mantle, through his own first five, complete seasons with the Yankees, missed only 58 games. 

 

In other words, Aaron Judge has already missed almost three times as many games in his first five as The Mick, the most famously injured ballplayer in history, brought up in a literal, Superfund toxic waste site, torn by the sprinkler head in the Stadium, ripped asunder by a fence in Baltimore, etc.

 



 

This is not meant as a judgement upon Aaron Judge.  Everybody has their own pain threshold, and their own point where they just can’t play effectively, whether they’re in pain or not.  Obviously, Judge is not going to be the player of our dreams, or America’s dreams, or MLB’s dreams and that’s all right, because he doesn’t owe any of us anything.

 

But his condition does speak, once again, to the sheer blindness and incompetence of the Yankees’ general manager.  Some of us have been saying since 2018 that Brain ought to face the reality of Judge’s physique and trade him while he could still get something worth the trading.

 

He didn’t, because Brian Cashman never does anything anyone advises him to do, even when they’re obviously right.  He never found a training regimen that could keep Judge on the field, and he didn’t trade him, and now he can watch him continue to decline.  And the same can be said for Sanchez, and Torres, and Andujar, and Severino, and who knows how many other players, along with those who have already gone ahead. 

 

Everyone gets hurt, and no one gets better.  That’s the reality of this oh-so-promising New York Yankees team over the last five years, and it’s Brian Cashman’s legacy.  It’s a pity, but such a stupid and needless one.

 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You misspelled Mickey's last name, it was" God, " not god.

P.S., the best thing about yesterday's game was that it let commence drinking early
The Archangel

Anonymous said...

@Hoss, you may have underestimated how bad the Yanks will stink this year. Might be something like 70-92. The Tampons actually have a very good lineup, a lot better than the Yankees. They still have a better pitching staff, a lot better than the Yankees. Their entire bullpen may be hurt right now, but it's still better than our bullpen. Actually, I cannot think of any other team that is more poorly constructed than this lopsided Yankee club. So we'll play 18 against the Tampons this year. If we go 5-13 in those games, it'll be a miracle. I'm thinking we're probably going to be 2-16 against them this year. What an f-ing disaster.

The Hammer of God

ranger_lp said...

German now getting clocked. How did he have a great spring and pitch lousy now? He did that against Single-A and Double-A players.

Betcha some of you on this board pitch scoreless against those lineups for an inning or two...

HoraceClarke66 said...

It is a very real possibility, Hammer.

As many have noted here, baseball is more than ever a young man's game, featuring pitching by brigade. The Yankees have adjusted to neither reality. As you say, they have a lopsided team of injury-prone, one-dimensional, right-handed sluggers, and a threadbare starting and relief staff...with little to nothing backing that up in the minors.

I could be wrong. Luck could swing more our way. But when you're reduced to hoping for luck, you leave yourself at the mercy of the juju gods, and those are very dark and pitiless deities indeed.

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a nasty disheartening loss. Zero offense. Only 8 games into the season, but it does indeed look like this is the year that all four wheels are coming off. Another loss tomorrow, then lose 2 out of 3 to the Blue Jays, then get swept again by the Tampons. That's what reality looks like. I guess I was seeing them through rose colored glasses when I predicted 88 wins and 3rd place. 3rd place is still possible but it'll be closer to 70 wins than 88.

The Hammer of God

Anonymous said...

Really depressed. This feels like you are watching a toddler fall down a flight of stairs and you are too far away to catch him/her. You know that it is not good, but you hope the damage is not too bad.
I would totally blow up this team.Pick some good trade pieces and send them. We have to keep Cole and maybe a few more. But everybody else is up for the taking. Even Stanton if someone will take him if we pay most of the salary.
Boonie is terrible because, at least publicly, he allows theses players to collect their salaries with no consequences for their levels of ineptitude.
Joe Girardi must be laughing his butt off.
Stop going to games, buying merchandise and watching this sheet show on TV may be the only way to get Cashman fired. We have to hurt Hal's bottom line
The Archangel

Anonymous said...

@The Archangel At the end of the miserable 2020 season, I thought this thing should've been blown up. I would've kept Cole, Deivi Garcia, Louisiga and Cessa. All other pitchers would have been available for the right price. I would've kept DJ LeMahieu, Clint Frazier, Andujar, Tyler Wade, Thairo Estrada and Higashioka. Everyone else would've been available for the right price. I would've brought up Estevan Florial. If the GM makes three or four good trades, we might have been legit contenders again. Instead, it's the same old shit. Only it's looking now like this year will be worse, maybe much worse.

The Hammer of God

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