1. Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole have had their peak seasons. We cannot expect more from them.
2. Giancarlo Stanton has now gone two straight years hitting below .211, with an on base percentage below .300. He'll be 34, and he can't run. His problems run much deeper than merely the batting coach.
3. The Yankees can spend $240 million to merely recreate last year's lineup. That's over the luxury tax threshold, and it wouldn't solve the holes in LF, CF and 3B.
4. It increasingly looks as though nobody in management will be held accountable for last year's collapse.
5. Hal Steinbrenner has figured out what we have long feared: That mediocre Yankee teams can still turn a profit. All they must do is contend through mid-September. With a 12-team playoff system, that's not hard.
6. Because they own the principle media that covers them, the Yankee ownership escapes the scathing criticism that players regularly hear.
7. The Mets and Redsocks are poised to spend big this winter. Both teams strategically tanked this season, seeking better draft picks.
8. The farm system is so-so. (The Mets revived themselves by trading Verlander and Scherzer, and Boston's is considered top 5.)
9. Our premier impact rookie, Jasson Dominguez, will be out until July. (And we still don't know if he's for real.
10. Carlos Rodon has lost his fastball. That's not a pitch you can tweak.
And Taylor Swift has chosen football. She won't be attending Yankee games.
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Here are five more...
1) We are forced to watch players like Aaron Hicks drive in five runs in a single game.
2) The small pleasure we thought we'd get from watching Aroldis Chapman implode has, so far, been denied us.
3) I thought the NY Football Giants would be better and not the WORST football team I have ever seen. (And I went to Brockport State in the 70's.)
OK, I know there are a lot of Yankee fans that like other teams but the noose around my neck is starting to cut off the blood to my head so I can't be held accountable. Maybe I need to buy a bigger SAD light.
Better wrap up....
4) The Houston Asstros are in a position to REPEAT as World Champs.
and last and worst by far...
5) We are not getting any younger.
Here's another one: John and Suzyn may not come back. Though Suzyn seems to be holding her own working with other play-by-play guys, none of them any fun and nowhere near as knowledgeable as The Master.
As for the Giants, I would never have guessed they'd be this bad after last year. They seemed so...improved, but it was obviously a hallucination.
Especially 1, 4, & 5,
ED - you stated that Giancarlo can’t run. Then you turn around and say his problems run much deeper. I am so confused now.
So very confused.
Top four reasons: Clueless and Cheapskate Hal; Genius Cashman; Fat Slob Randy and Looney Lon.
It's very simple with these huge mega-contracts: you have to win within the first two or three years, and the rest of it is going to be crap time. They knew when they were doing these deals that the last half would be putrid, that it would time to pay The Piper when the bus fell off the cliff. Well, The Piper has come to collect on Giancarlo Stanton. It's time to just let him go. Do the right thing for the club and release him, eat the rest of the money. After all, they knew this was going to be the case when they inked this deal. So Yankee front office has got to stop with the bullshit and get on with business. These contracts were never meant to be fulfilled to the end, barring some kind of fountain of youth miracle.
And this is all the more reason why the front office has to move quickly and decisively during the winter to get its work done. Young players in the minors have to be moved up aggressively. Ineffective coaches have to excised quickly. When holes appear in the roster and lineup, they have to be dealt with quickly.
Mets owner, a few months ago, put it very well. He said "hope is not a strategy". He means that he's not going to sit on his ass and just hope that everything turns out for the best. He's going to do the things that he believes will make the club better.
Yankee front office better get with it, if they want to compete in 2025. At the very least, they better sign The Moto Man. Then promote guys like Spencer Jones to the majors by early July 2024, if they're not going to go after Juan Soto. And they better trade guys like Gleyber Torres, Domingo German, Clarke Schmidt, Clay Holmes, Kyle Higashioka. Upgrade the talent level in the minors. Move out the dead wood immediately, like Stanton.
@ Doug K., Gunslinger Aroldis Chapman was always a guy who walked the razor's edge between total dominance and total implosion. It's just that, during his time with the Yankees, he got tilted further and further toward implosion that he finally fell off and completely imploded.
I thought that he would get it back when he went elsewhere. Looks like he's avoided the total implosion.
Yankees better look into overhauling their pitching coaches. As far as I'm concerned, it's not good enough that they cannot get excellence out of most of their pitchers. There are just too many guys here who implode and can't get up. We've talked about the mysterious case of Sonny Gray. There's also Montgomery, Severino, Rodon, Chapman. Even Clarke Schimdt. (Yes, Mr. Prima Donna Cole finally had a great year. But that's just one guy who seems to have figured it out now. Or maybe he had a great year because the rest of the team sucked so bad that there was little pressure.)
Whatever Matt Blake is doing doesn't seem to be clicking with Rodon. I think they're crazy if they keep Blake around next year, enough is enough. Time to try something else. They can't fire the players. That leaves only one alternative.
Agreed, Doug—and MY alma mater once lost 44 games in a row.
I also used to watch Fran Tarkenton chased from pillar to post back in the 1960s-70s—and that line looked like the Seven Blocks of Granite compared to these guys (Seven Blocks of Wet Tofu?)
You nailed it, Hammer. But the same fear that keeps Cashman from dumping so many guys keeps him from cutting lose the likes of Giancarlo.
He fears that all these guys will do much better elsewhere—and he's usually right. But for whatever reason, that never convinces him to turn over his personnel. I really think the reason is that he is afraid anyone good will try to replace him.
Hoss, I don't think there is any doubt about it, that Cashman is always protecting his own ass. With every move he makes or doesn't make, he's considering how best to protect himself, not what's best for the ball club.
So, in advocating strongly for the FINANCE theory, I think I've been remiss in not emphasizing that there is that extra layer of sponge cake through which we have to view all this. It's the Cashman Ass Protection Plan (CAPP). He has his orders from HAL about the finances, but at the same time, he's always looking to protect his own ass. The man is a corporate survivalist. Any one else who screwed up things for this long would've been long gone from any other company in America.
Cashman is so damned good at surviving that HAL has basically come out and said that Cashman will never be exorcised. Win, lose, or draw, whatever happens, Cashman will be here until a hearse with his name on it shows up.
WE NEED SOME DAILY POETRY SELECTIONS HERE TO EASE THE PAIN OF EXISTENCE.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/161107/sidewalk
Very uplifting poetry.
I think I'll go listen to Black Peter on an endless loop.
This is Robert Burns's finest work in my opinion written after he ploughed a field and destroyed a nest of a mouse
It has the translation as some of the 18th century Scots is quite difficult to understand
In this present world with war destruction hatred lies and general horribleness, this speaks of real humanity and care and how both humans and animals we all share a common need to feel safe and loved and we all on this planet have so much more in common with each other than we realise.
Steinbeck used of mice and men in his novel title of course
If you have not read it before I hope you enjoy it
https://www.rcsdk12.org/cms/lib/NY01001156/Centricity/Domain/3732/to-a-mouse-translation.pdf
DAMN! We missed by ONE BATTER getting to see Aaron Hicks hit against Torrents Chapman, with two outs and the bases loaded.
Such a confrontation might well have created such a fissure in the time/space continuum that it could have sucked Brian Cashman right out of our universe.
Instead, Texas brought in Leclerc, who retired Hicksie on a routine groundball to first.
And did you see the last out of the game? Leclerc, with the count 0-2, blue bayou fastball up and in, batter so surprised that he swung right through it, even if he took the pitch, it would've been a called strike 3! Notice that there was no 0-2 slider down and away; no 1-2 slider down and away; no 2-2 slider down and away; no 3-2 slider down and away; no BB!
It's good to see aggressive pitching. When you've got the stuff, go after the hitters, don't pussy foot around for 6 pitches.
And, yeah, I would've paid to see Hicks versus Gunslinger Chapman! Was looking forward to it, before Bochy pulled the plug.
If it was Aaron Boone managing, I think we'd have seen the gunfight at the O.K. Corral between the two ex-Yankees!
Genius Cashman X 10.
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