Forget global warming - the maps, the green screens, the cleavage: It's gonna be a hard, cold, brutal winter, and it launched Saturday, hours after Michael Myers Night on cable TV. Here's where everything stands, frozen in time... for now.
Anthony Rizzo. The Yanks declined his $17 million option for 2025. No shock pop-up, there. Certainly, clubhouse chemistry is nice. So buy a puppy. The Death Barge could bring Rizzo back, much more cheaply, but yeesh - guy's had two rotten seasons, back to back, and he just partnered with Gerrit Cole on the second most embarrassing defensive play in modern Yankee history. Donno who will play 1B. DJ LeMahieu? Oswaldo? Ben Rice? Your mom? There's a 24-year-old beanstalk in Scranton named TJ Rumfield: 6'5," lefty bat, great glove, hit .294 with 15 HRs last season. For unknown reasons, the Yankees don't seem interested. Hard to believe this guy couldn't beat Rizzo's output. But if they keep Rizzo, he'll suck up all the oxygen until he reaches the end of the line. The guy's 35 for Kricesake.
Gerrit Cole. He's played the op-out card, becoming a free agent, momentarily. The Death Barge can override it by adding an extra year to his contract- making it five more seasons, at $180 million. I suspect they will, even if it means pissing away $40 million, give or take, through 2029. This is a reputation-saving move. The Yankees are coming off a postseason embarrassment. They'll soon lose Juan Soto. They must keep Cole, even if it's a questionable deal.
Luke Weaver. They played their one-year option on The Weave - best thing that happened to us in 2024. Not only was he heroic - answering Boone's call, night after night, when heavily overworked - but he could be a key to 2025. Question: Should the Yankees make him a starter? It's not crazy. It's what he's been most of his career. He could be their No 2, maybe burn 170 innings and save their bullpen. Wouldn't it be neat to have a bullpen?
Juan Soto. The big footwear has yet to drop. He will soon declare free agency, maybe today, and the Yankees will hem and haw, shout and bluster, whinny and whine - and then finish first-runner up in the pageant. Simply stated, several owners want to win more than Food Stamps Hal. The Dodgers. The Mets. The Blue Jays. The Phillies. Some "Mystery Team." (There's always one.) Add Soto to those lineups, and those teams will explode. But if the Yankees somehow keep him, they could still be worse in 2025. Hate to say it, but I think he's gone.
Brrr. You can feel the chill already.
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16 comments:
1. Say good-bye to Rizzo. Literally any other option we have (besides DJLM) would be better.
2. Let Cole go. The needs to rebuild, not harbor a group of overpaid 35 + players. Never mind the PR angle, let him become another team’s mistake.
3. Keep Weaver in the pen. He’s better suited for it. Make him closer and build a better pen around him.
4. Would love to have Soto back, with the caveat that he is a DH in the making,
Right now it’s much more likely that he leaves.
The old Yankee scouts used to classify good prospects as "Major League" or "Yankee." I'd be happy if there were "Yankees" in this lineup up and down the order. Such a team competes. It may not win but it makes you proud. My favorite team was the 1970 Yankees. They did not win shit, but they had White, Munson, Stottlemyre, Peterson, and Ralph Fucking Houk. Just play good baseball, the winning will follow from that, but isn't even necessary.
I would let Cole go. He was a good Yankee but you'll be paying for past performance and those resources are spent better elsewhere. Sign Soto, of course. Keep Weaver if you can. Let Gleyber go or sign him short term. Build excellence at every position.
Let's face it - we have a surplus of talent. We're too good. We need to shed some dross. Our hitting is second to none. Our pitching - TOO MANY good arms. We need to make room for some of the untested, but stellar guys who are clogging up the farm system. Our farm system - second to none. We're going to be fine. Better than fine. The only reason we lost this year - and every year before this year - is that the other guys cheated. We are the greatest of all time and it's Big Brian Cashman who's the reason why. He's the steady hand on the tiller, the tiller being Big Bad Boone, greatest Yankee manager of all time, who leads a staff of dozens who train, coddle, advise and lead our boys to victory, year after year after year. My god, I'm tired of all the winning. I almost feel sorry for all the assholes we have pulverized and left in the dust. WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS....OF THE WORLD....
PS: Ceeja - I hear you on "Ralph Fucking Houk." Glory days.
Good post.
Rizzo - Has to be done. Make him a coach if they still need him to "Judge Whisper."
"There's a 24-year-old beanstalk in Scranton named TJ Rumfield: 6'5," lefty bat, great glove, hit .294 with 15 HRs last season."
I think he won the minor league equivelent of the Gold Glove. I really hope they bring him up.
Cole - I actually don't want him back but what you wrote makes too much sense. They have to do it.
Soto - If a team wants to pay him $700 million dollars they are welcome to do it. He's great. That's undeniable. But he's also a marginal outfielder and perhaps the money can be better spent. That said, I loved his ABs and he is a winner.
The Rest -
Goodbye Dugie (please)
Goodbye Gleyber (pretty please. I had to write pretty please because I can't shake the feeling this guy, who represents EVERYTHING wrong with the team - bad fielding bad baserunning etc. is going to get re-signed.
Goodbye Holmes.
That team had a great pen (for the day): Lindy McDaniel, Jack Aker, Steve Hamilton. But they were never going to beat out that Orioles team.
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
(The Monkees PORPOISE SONG - from the moovie HEAD)
I don't care.
✅
You don’t care about . . . the Monkees?
The 1970 Yankees. A fine team, solid baseball even if they didn't win. I do miss those days.
The Orioles had a great team, but we had the Folly Floater. I was happy with that.
Soto goes back to San Diego. That would screw with a lot of heads.
Rizzo: he never should've started ANY games this year, let alone in the postseason. They kept him around way too long.
Cole: he opted out? Dear Lord, there is a God in heaven above! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Prima Donna! Now please take the limo to the airport with all your stuff. And please never show up here in Yankee pinstripes again.
Soto: as much as I loved his at-bats (this guy is a A+++ professional hitter), he was a big liability defensively. That was exposed big time in this World Series. They can make an offer for him, but 670 mill? That's ludicrous. I say it's okay if HAL comes in 3rd or 4th or 5th or 6th place for Soto in the auction. What did Judge get, 360 mill over 9 years? With inflation, Soto is worth 400 mill over 9 years. It's impossible to justify paying Soto much more than Judge. Judge is the better player. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to let Soto leave for greener pastures. Then Judge goes back to RF, where he belongs, which strengthens the defense.
Weaver: leave him alone in the 'pen. Chances are, he will have a terrible down year anyway. Came out of nowhere to pitch great. And was thus over-used. If I was a betting man, I'd say he'll struggle next year.
Crazy as it might seem, I'd try to re-sign Clay Holmes. He was the one Yankee pitcher to throw at an Oriole batter when the O's were trying to play nasty against Judge. Holmes, if I recall correctly, despite walking the razor's edge of disaster, even got out of a jam in the last game, did he not? I'd try to keep him. They're going to need a lot of arms for the 'pen next year.
Kahnle: For God's sake, let Tommy "Tightpants" Kahnle go. He threw nothing but changeups against the Dodgers (and everyone else too). It finally caught up to him against the Dodgers, which turned out to be that professional hitting team that you dread running into in the playoffs. That kind of team is always hard to beat. That kind of team will beat Kahnle. And the more they see him, the better they'll get against him, as with any other pitcher. It wasn't a coincidence that they got to him in that last game. For a Yankee team that was completely devoid of fundamentals, conquering the Dodgers turned out to be an impossible task.
But let's look at what Cashman probably will do. Based on what they've done since 2010, they probably won't do much of anything. They might try to keep Cole. And, unfortunately, they might succeed in keeping him. They'll keep Rizzo, Torres, and Vertigo. They'll make an offer for Soto, but he'll leave for greener pastures somewhere, probably California. Cashman will bring in a couple of rejects to play the outfield, which will keep The Martian in the minors for the entire year.
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