a) an overly hyped Paris Olympics
b) an overly hyped solar eclipse
c) an overly hyped cicada bloom
d) an overly hyped Trump trial
e) an overly hyped Taylor Swift album
e) an underly hyped Yank batting order.
After a decade of Yankee drought, this would be the Year of the Bat. With Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, plus comebacks from our tribal elders, the Death Barge would score 6-to-10 runs per game and bludgeon its way to - well - better than last year. The problem, as usual: Pitching, pitching, pitching...
Well, for now, the key to the Yankees' glorious April is a list of names we barely noticed last January.
Gil, Ferguson, Weaver, Burdi, Santana, Cousins, Poteet, Gonzalez, Marinaccio, Beeter...
That's the Bleacher Creature rollcall that should thunder across the Bronx this afternoon against the Sacramento Oakland A's of Las Vegas.
This season, the Yankees have given up only 79 runs, lowest in the AL East and 3rd best in baseball. They did this without Gerrit Cole, Jonathan Loaisiga, Tommy Kanhle and the free agent pariahs - Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery - who occupied our primal scream therapy sessions throughout March.
Ah, Snell-Gomery... don gemme started. I still believe the Yanks will regret Hal's cheapo refusal to buttress the rotation, which is already sweating in the April dog days. If Cole cannot return, the hole might be too large to spackle. But right now, we have nine pitchers who have yet to give up more than one earned run - and no Aroldis, that is, a rapidly disintegrating ex-star who must be used because of the money he's being paid. Our bullpen is a bunch of inexpensive no-names who won't appear on prospect rankings, and who are perpetually one bad outing from finding a bus ticket in their locker vent.
The problem, Suzyn: This is baseball, and we cannot predict how long this bullpen will last. If Carlos Rodon doesn't start pitching into the 6th and 7th, rather than the 3rd and 4th, cracks in the dike will inevitably widen. This weekend, our staff shut down Tampa, and if our Olympian batters had simply plated one stinking run on Saturday, we'd have sent hateful Tampa home with a Ryan McBroom up their Florida sink holes.
A few other reflections...
1. One of these days, Aaron Judge will start hitting. Seriously. Let's worry about the polar ice caps, the price of gas, and Taylor's latest album sales. Let's not fret over Judge. How can I speak such blaspheme? Easy. We've seen his slumps before. Many times. And the problem isn't his swing. It's his desire for pitches low and away. One of these days, he will stop flailing at them. He will hit.
2. Good to see Verdugo get a big single. I was starting to worry that the reason Verdugo wasn't hitting was that he no longer can play against the Yankees.
3. FYI: Baltimore has four of the top six RBI leaders in the International League, and they're all legit prospects. I don't know where they'll fit in, but if the O's need anything - anything - come July/August, they have a huge stash of trade chips.
In building baseball franchises, nothing succeeds like a 10-year tank-athon, and with Baltimore, that's what the Yankees are up against.
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22 comments:
Please, please, please. Do not include Santana on that list. He sucks. And Ferguson ain't so hot, either. Gil, on the other hand, is looking better and better.
Will Judge suddenly start to hit? Will he? I hope so. Because for the past three weeks, he's looked like a lot more like Minnie Mouse than Minnie Minoso. He looks bad, and Soto and Oswaldo are making him look worse. Thank God the Athletic says his "underlying metrics are in line with his past couple of seasons." Wow, that's a relief. Is there a batting title for underlying metrics? I know there isn't one for hitting .170.
We've got to judge the Judge
Got to find the finds
We've got to scheme the schemes
Have to line the lines
We must swing the swings
And toe the toes
We must take the takes
And core the cores
Try to place the place
Where we can face the face.
We got to face the face
Try to place the place
Where we can face the face
Face the face, got to face the face.
Face the face, got to face the face.
His sweet-spot percentage is down JM. Happens to all of us eventually.
JM, Judge is living proof of the fallacy of metrics. Yes, his performance will improve but by how much? He’s on a 24 HR pace now.
I feel like every year I have to call out the hitting coach, although I wonder if these guys listen to him at all.
Early game on a Monday, I suppose because Passover begins tonight. Happy Passover to all who celebrate!
AA, that's deep.
Mildred, I did read about the sweet spot and barrel rates being way down. Which is a fancy way of saying he's hitting like an old lady.
And yes, Happy Passover. A celebration of the Angel of Death moving through Egypt and killing everyone's first born male child, except for the Israelite slaves who had painted their doorposts with lamb's blood. They got passed over.
It's a little gruesome, but hey, it worked. I wonder what the underlying metrics were?
JM - Thanks go out to a guitar smashing Peter from across the pond.
I still believe Judge will start hitting again when his toe is reunited with it’s bestie in the clubhouse - DJL’s toe.
@ AA, Loved to watch that Townshend video back when I was a kid. He invites a good looking punk chick to come up and sing with him. How cool is that?
All kidding aside, Judge looks seriously lost. I think I predicted 28 homers for him this year, with injuries. That's looking mighty optimistic. At this pace, I don't know if he hits 15. He keeps saying he's just missing his pitches and nothing about injuries, but I think there is a lot more to it than he's letting on. Toe? Abs? Something else? All of them? Probably trying to play at 80% and not getting it done. Judge doesn't hit well when he's hurt.
He doesn't seem to be seeing the ball well. Not recognizing the breaking ball. Too far in front of the slow stuff. Not squaring up the fastball. Is it just a slump? Already the worst he's looked through this length of time over his entire career, aside from his strike-out prone first year in MLB, when he hit, coincidentally, .179. Certainly the worst that he's looked during the last few years. Even coming back from the toe injury, he didn't look this bad. Doesn't bode well for this year.
Luis Gil looks like their best starter. So far, so good.
Duque, as soon as the pitching comes back down to earth, they'll start losing. When does the pitching collapse? Probably sometime in mid to late June. That's been the franchise modus operandi for a while.
We knew that the problems with the offense are very deep. The middle of the order is straight out of "Night of the Living Dead". Adding a couple of lefty hitters helps, but it doesn't cure the underlying problem of Rizzo, Stanton. Every day that Judge strikes out four times or hits into two double plays, he looks like part of the problem too. Long year and all that, true. But already it's one-eighth of the season gone.
April is the cruelest month, breeding
high expectations and low predictions
mixing memory with desire
dire warning with spring rain
winter kept us screaming for more
and that kept us warm
covering the bronx in forgetful snow jobs
You cannot say, or guess, though you predict,
for you know only a heap of broken bats, where the sun seldom shines,
And the dead batting averages gives no comfort, the Soto no relief,
And Judge no sound of home runs...
Passover is only happy when you get to the end. 40 years in the desert, not so much.
This wayward catholic goyim has been to a few Seders. I'd recommend passing on all of the first courses and heading straight to the finale. Of course, if bitter herbs are your thing, fire a fat one up and maybe you can choke down the gifelte fish with enough horseradish. Otherwise, skip to the ending.
Love me some Eliot! (Horrible person though he was.)
Always hard to tell with what's keeping Judge down, since the Yankees always lie about injuries. Remember how he hurt himself in the 2017 All-Star home run derby, and they wouldn't admit it?
One of you guys was telling me last year how serious and lasting the toe injury would be. I tried hard not to believe...but I think we're seeing that you were right (as usual). Either the toe or some adjustment to it has put him out of whack...again.
Trouble is, Judge is about to be 32 years old. This is when things naturally go south for ballplayers, and he may be no exception. Look at all those DPs, for instance, as the legs slow.
I'll root for him to the bitter end. But like all our would-be Mantles, he may just be another Maris.
And yes, Happy Pesach!
Almost everybody's origin stories consist of some bloody victory over a hated foe. What Passover has become is a delightful holiday of celebrating rescue and escape from persecution—much as the great triumph of Judaism was going from one more tribal religion to a great faith and the progenitor of two major, world religions.
Jewish people found the universality in all those early, bloody tales, and brought it to the fore. It's what all major faiths do when they're not being hijacked by lunatics. Which, I admit, happens a lot. But then, it does with all great things human beings are in charge of. Just look at the Yankees!
I also have to say that, while I didn't have any expectations for the season Gelyber Torres would have, even in his walk year, so far 2024 is a gobsmacking reversion to his two-year meltdown.
In the 2020-2021 seasons, Torres managed to hit a total of 12 HRs—against 17 DPs, and 27 errors.
This was attributed largely to his problems playing the position he was brought in to play, shortstop, and maybe Covid.
Now he's back to 0 HRs and 2 (count 'em 2!) ribbies in the first 22 games of the season, along with 3 errors and 1 DP. The Yanks would be crazy to re-sign him, and as such they should start looking to unload him now.
Dear friends - if you think this pitching will last, have some peach cobbler and then sit down and wait. It's a nice few weeks, but it's going to end soon.
Hoss - I kept on going on last year about Judge's toe - and how surgery would only make it worse for him as a player and how custom orthotics was the best way to go initially - but that the "say it ain't so, Toe" would remain an issue for a l-o-n-g time.
Where is Richard Schenck when you need him.
Roofus - Yes on that Horseradish, please.
I always go the baseball game to see the umpires...
said not a fucking person ever.
AA, I see what you did there.
Today is the type of game this team routinely loses.
Ah, what pessimistic old men we are! And I'm probably the worst. Remember though, most of the seasons since '76 an unexpected star came blazing out of nowhere to save the season. But we ARE deeply flawed, the rotation needs to somehow develop stamina (do they even make pitchers run anymore?), find more bullpen arms (and hope that the bullpen arms on the DL make it back), and hope that one of farm boy outfielders makes the next jump. As great as Soto is we run the risk of becoming the East Coast version of the Angels. We are fast becoming a top-heavy team with no money (?) to go out and get guys who really win ball games.
BTR is the Nostradamus
Hardly, Ruf…
Perhaps then mAYbe a decedent of Rasputin ?
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