Hooray for Ben Rice!
Cheers to a day that shall never be forgotten across the Yankiverse.
The image of Rice being coaxed along the dugout, searching for the steps to his curtain call - it will be with us forever.
Now, what?
Will Rice be a great Yankee? Dunno. (Kevin Maas has entered the chat.) Doesn't matter. Yesterday, he provided an incredible, season-saving boost. Next week, it might seem a thousand miles away.
But today, I'd like to ponder something else Rice delivered:
The reminder that baseball is all about youth - a home-school lesson the Yankees seem incapable of grasping.
Year after year, we dick around with oldsters - this year, it's DJ, Giancarlo, Rizzo, Rodon, Grisham, practically the entire bullpen - in stages of degradation, while other teams make way for youth. On the start of a series, you laugh at the opposing lineup, full of names you've never heard. Then they beat us.
Meanwhile, the Yankees continually spackle over their deficiencies with high-priced players in decline, and come October, the owner throws up his tiny hands when, once again, youth prevails, and the Bombers fall.
It's been this way for 20 years, and the Yankees can't seem to get it.
Every August, we ship away youth for veterans who disappoint and then get shipped out themselves. IKF, Bader, Sevy - yikes. If a Yankee doesn't pan out, he's gone.
Today, Ben Rice is a Yankee icon.
A month from now, will the pressure cooker turn on him?
I'd hate to see that happen. Rice gave us a magnificent moment. If they can just win tonight - take the series against Boston - they can roar into Tampa and maybe salvage hope through the all-star break. And all because Anthony Rizzo got hurt, and instead of trading Rice, the Yankees gave him a chance. What were the odds?
Will they give anybody else a chance? Of course not. (Oswald Peraza has entered the chat.)
Posts
23 comments:
Brian will do what Brian does.
Maybe we are finally in transition.
I'm hoping next year is...
1B Rice 26
2B Oswaldo 25
SS Volpe 24
3B Munetaka Murakami, 26
Trust me, this is the guy. Triple Crown potential, good defense.
A more important signing than Soto because it's easier to find outfielders who can hit.
RF Soto 26
CF Judge / (Dominguez)
LF Dominguez 22
C Wells 26
DH Dominguez 22 /Soto 25/ Judge
That would be something!
Looks great, Doug! Would that'll happen for us!
So they finally won a goddamned game. So they avoided another broom cleaning at home. We supposed to ring alarum bells and hoorah? They'll probably lose today. Most probably.
Ben Rice - what I saw when he came up was a very good eye for the strike zone, good patience, and a very quick swing. He's got some serious bat speed. I thought he looked like a major leaguer. He appears to have significantly higher potential as a hitter than Anthony Volpe. Lefty hitter, advantage Rice.
Yeah, it's early, but still, three homers in one game ain't never been done before by any Yankee rookie. Not Judge, Mickey Mantle, Joe D. And no, not even Kevin Maas, the Yankee Meteor. No matter what happens, no one can take that away from Ben Rice.
Now watch that asshole Cashman trade Rice away. Because you have to give quality to get a 40 year old surefire Hall of Famer. How 'bout Rice, The Martian, Spencer Jones, and Austin Wells for Justin Verlander? Cashman's idea of a good trade.
Seriously, the fuckers in Yankee management & ownership must be shitting their pants.
Emergency meeting at the Board of Directors, 5 A.M. July 7, 2024:
Cashman: "What the fuck just happened?"
HAL: "What if this kid is for real?"
HAL's accounting crew chorus in unison: "Goddammit, he was supposed to hit .111 and only singles"
HAL: "What the fuck do we do now?"
Cashman: "How do we get rid of him before he lights up the fans and starts a winning streak?"
HAL: "Who's got any ideas? Brian, how about a trade for a washed up old guy who used to be great but kind of sucks right now but still has enough for us to spin the bull shit about how we always field a championship caliber team and how the playoffs are a crapshoot?"
When I was a little boy, I read a book in the library about a cottontail rabbit who suddenly decided to jump a big creek on a whim. "No rabbit had ever jumped Deadman's Creek." I remember that sentence vividly, though I cannot remember the title of the book, the name of the author, nor the name of the rabbit. He ran ... he jumped ... he made it!!! If I ever find the book, I'll send a copy to Brian Cashman.
Hammer - Not inconceivable with the caveat that Cashman is incompetent and Hal is clueless but...
Gleyber 14M Gone.
Rizzo 17M Gone (6M buyout)So really 11M
Verdugo 8.7 M gone
Donaldson 6M off the books
also last year for Hicks 8.7M
So the money is there for both Soto and Murakami. Soto is already at 31M just add Gleyber's 14 to that and he's covered.
Here's the skinny on Murakami. Plus his namesake is one of my favorite authors.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/japanese-home-run-champ-munetaka-murakami-signs-three-year-npb-deal-will-be-posted-for-mlb-teams-after-2025/
But if Murakami is posted "after 2025", then we'll have to wait until 2026 to see him here.
Another guy they could deal away to make salary room is Rodon. He's still got it, in my opinion. Our manager & pitching coaches are just not getting it out of him. If I was another team's GM, I'd take a chance on Rodon & hope my coaches would turn him around. I'd give up three prospects for him, if I thought I could win this year. If Cashman was smart, he'd move Rodon for prospects.
Youth will be served, Jack London wrote. All physical sports are a young man's game. Not that an old guy can never win a championship - boxer George Foreman won the heavyweight title for the second time, as an old guy. And the Carolina Hurricanes won the NHL Stanley Cup when they had a geriatric squad, with nursing home contracts and geriatric transport vans waiting outside the locker room for the final game. That year, the 'Canes even beat a team of fresh young colts, from Edmonton, if I remember correctly. Inspiration to oldsters everywhere! But obviously, those old guys who won knew what they were doing. Unlike what goes on here in Yankee Wonderland.
You'd think the formation of the late '90s Yankee dynasty, the last great baseball dynasty, would be posted over the doors of the front office.
Fuck Hal. Fuck CashBrain. Boone is not even worth thinking about.
More interesting dialogue overheard by a fly hiding in the curtains of the Yankee boardroom at the emergency meeting of the Board of Directors, 0515 hours, military time, July 7, 2024:
Cashman: Rice's performance did raise his monetary value for us. We might be able to get a large bag of money for him. Much bigger than the bag we got for Thairo Estrada.
HAL: You stupid turd, we're making too much money already. Haven't you looked at the receipts coming in? We need a small bag of money, not a large bag. We need just enough to cover our operational losses for his development. That'll save us a lot in taxes, a net gain over a large bag of money.
Jorbit was making some noise at SWB. But I'm not Brian...
“If Cashman was smart…”
Hammer, you’re kidding, right?
I'd like to add something to the discussion about Youth.
The older guys have, for the most part, made their money. They have contracts that, like Ellsbury's, lock in the money they are going to make whether they play or not.
This is a key: Whether they play or not.
Of course, this doesn't apply to the crapola in the bullpen. But even there, a 30-year-old crap reliever already knows he's not going to discover a new "out" pitch -- or gain 5MPH in fastball speed -- to propel him into the stratosphere, dollar-wise.
But the young guys haven't made the $$$ yet. They want to win, they want to be heroes, they want the adulation -- but most of all, they know if they play to their max ability, there is a bushelful of $$$ waiting for them.
This goes for players on the NYYs or not. If they can play hard and do well, there is likely to be a reward -- for them, and for their families.
This is a key: There's more to gain than wins and playoff spots for the Ben Rices of the world. There is that basic human thing, a reward that's tangible (and can be put into the bank).
I think it's possible we have forgotten this. And, YES, Judge has already made the money, banked an incredible contract, and yet plays hard.
But for every Judge there is a Gerrit Cole, a GStanton, and others.
And I know this does not explain Gleyber. And I would push aside Rizzo and DJLM, guys who are on the other side of their success and have suffered physical injuries and/or deterioration.
But I think my screed here should remind all of us: Yes, it's $$$ for Hal S.
But it's also $$$ for the younger major league ballplayers.
Hammer, I think you’re overvaluing Rodon’s appeal to other teams. It was another unbelievably bad contract by crashman, and I don’t think any other team would want to touch it. The only way to move it would be to eat at least half of it and /or sweeten the deal by adding one of OUR mid-level prospects. Rodon is a mediocre starter soon to turn 33 whose tenure here, on balance, has been a failure.
Remember what happened when we had injuries to our "stars" and brought up a bunch of kids some years back? The kids were fun, exciting to watch, and were getting us toward the playoffs with high hopes. Then the veteran "stars" came back off the IL, the kids were nudged out of the lineup, and we sucked. We limped into the playoffs and...sucked.
That told us everything we need to know about this organization. Whoever is making the money gets onto the field, no matter how bad they might be. Youth? Just pawns to be traded or fucked up by idiot coaches or groomed into mediocrity or worse.
Doug...You didn't mention the 32-million-dollar elephant in the locker room. Where is Stanton in your hypothetical Yankees roster? I don't think there's much of a chance that Giancarlo will:
1) Drop dead
2) Retire
3) Be traded
Gil once again attempts to win his 10th game of the season - on the nationally televised game.
Last start he began the game well - then gave up a triple and his confidence collapsed like a, uhm . . . (insert your own appropriate description here because I rejected the first two I drafted up because they were so heinous and disturbing that I feared a backlash tsunami) and was taken out of the game after a Blake trip to the mound that resulted in him giving up more runs and the Boone Hook and Bullpen Shit Show.
So...Gil hasn't been the same since Cole returned.
Rodon hasn't been the same since Cole returned..
The team hasn't been the same since Cole returned...
Cole has an OPT out at the end of the season . . . . *
And "Ricin" the lineup has electrified us with yesterday's three4 . . . . .
I can't wait for more Yankees baseball!
*let Cole leave because he's gunna want to and sign Soto instead
But.....the benefit of older players is that they get hurt, and when they get hurt they stay hurt, and when the inevitable flame-out occurs, whether it be a regular season flame-out or a playoffs flame-out those injuries to the old guys is the skirt Cashman can hide behind come November. It's his built-in protection from accountability for assembling yet another shitty and incomplete roster. And there's no quality depth because the old guys make too much money and Fiscal Hal can't afford to spend big on bench players. The end result is WalMart-level players subbing for the high-paid IL players, further sabotaging the team particularly over the long haul of the second half of the season when all the oldsters need rehab time out in the pasture, and further cementing the Brain's post-season autopsy injuries excuse. This is intentional and it's ass-covering at its diabolical best.
This will not change as long as the farm produces enough talent for the Brain to trade for shiny-but-past-prime older players who, to the casual fan are "names" and who those fans will pay to see. An example is Jackie Asshole - borderline HOF with a recognizable name to the $1500 seat crowd but a player real fans knew was shot.
I'm sure Cashbrain knows youth is the way but if he goes in that direction there's a chance not all his young players pan out - and they won't - shining a dim light on player drafting/development, and worse, those $1500 seats might stay empty. And million dollar asses in $1500 seats is the thing that floats Hal's yacht. I don't expect things will change during my lifetime as long as Cashfart is the GM.
But Rice does look good right now.
Yep. To build consistently good teams, you must focus first and foremost on finding, signing, and developing young players. The key to free agency is getting the right, somewhat older guys, who can put you over the top.
(A big exception to this being Juan Soto, who at 25 is a very rare free agent. There is a real possibility that you could get 10 decent to great years out of this guy.)
The craziness of Hal is that...Brian Cashman can do NEITHER of these things.
He has proven that he cannot build and maintain a farm, or develop young players, or sign the right free agents at the right price. Not to mention that he can't make good trades in general.
Why this person should remain your general manager—indefinitely—is beyond me. If Hal is so worried about payroll—which he always seems to be—why would you keep this guy on?
The book on Rice says he can’t hit LH pitching so far he’s 2-15 against lefties.
Is Rice in the lineup tonight?
I mean, doesn't bonehead try to rest players occasionally?
Seems like he would do that. Rice looked exhausted running around the bases so much yesterday.
Isn't there a .150 hitter that can give him a rest and also bat leadoff?
Post a Comment