Here are today's 10 signs...
1. Joey Gallo is attempting a comeback... as a pitcher. Makes sense. He sure hit like one.
2. The Gammonites are predicting improvements for Aaron Judge, due to the new automated strike zone challenge rule. Their claim: All his career, Judge has been screwed by human umps, lumbering neanderthals who expanded his 6'7" strike zone. Dunno. But I do know this: Last year, Judge was the best hitter in baseball. Are they really going to hang more expectations on the guy?
3. Could the automated zone help rookie Spencer Jones, also 6'7"? Dunno. But if Jones doesn't pan out, maybe they should cut to the chase and have him pitch? (Fun Fact: He was a great pitching prospect in high school, until he broke his arm.)
4. Gerrit Cole has a beard. Who knew he was one of them? (I think the Yankee clubhouse's demand for mustache wax is gonna rival that of condoms in Milan.)
5. Yesterday, in front of the Yankee brain trust, Cole thew two simulated innings and supposedly topped out at 96 mph. This is great news, unless it compels Cole to return too quickly. Then, it would be really, really bad news. Really, really, really. Which, I think, sums up the Yankees in many places.
6. Along with chin gardening, Cole showed off a new delivery. I hope he knows what he's doing.
7. After signing 35-year-old bullpen lug nut Rafael Montero, the Yankees quickly slotted him into Boonie's Circle of Trust. It's amazing how quickly a scrapheap acquisition can suddenly fill a massive hole, which the Yankees were refusing to acknowledge.
8. Montero signed a minor league contract, full of incentives. Fine. Cashman's great love is romping barefoot through the scrapyard. But Montero's ERA last year tanked at 4.48, and I suspect the Tigers experience PTSD from the sight of him. He was Mark Leiter (4.62), Ian Hamilton (4.28) though he still beat Camilo Doval (4.82) who inexplicably seems to be viewed as our 8th Inning man. Go figure.
9. They say Jasson Dominguez might need a year in Scranton. If so, what does it say about the Yankee front office's ability to assess and nurture talent? They will have effectively - perhaps permanently - screwed up The Martian. If he needed a season in Scranton, it should have been last year. They saw in spring training that he couldn't play LF. They wasted a year of his life, of his development. In another city, somebody would lose his job for this. WTF?
10. Is it me, or does the recent spate of insanely microscopic transactions - signing and waiving players at the end of the 40-man roster - suggest the Yankees are being run by an A.I. chatbot? If so, can such a team have a soul? Are you there, Yankee god?
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36 comments:
I’m breathing in and out slowly…
Boy, are they fucking up the Martian. Meanwhile, Volpe.
Meanie Meanwhile - what’z about all of us.
Maybe the fan base needs to spend time in Scranton.
Just saying
On a few other Yankees blogs I glance at some people ( a surprising amount actually) call him Cash Ninja and we have to put our trust in him apparently as he knows what he is doing and is at a different level to all the other GM's
Reminds me of the old Groucho Marx line
' Who are you going to believe me or your own eyes? '
The Martian doesn't belong in AAA, and certainly not for a year. He is major league from the left side of the plate. Any other team would get him the right coach for the right side of the plate and get his right side going. (There are some obvious fixes for his right handed swing. Richard Schenkel, Aaron Judge's swing doctor, would fix these easily.) Any other team would try him out in CF, and if he was never going to be good enough defensively, would make him a DH.
The right move is to trade Stanton and make Dominguez a DH. Or sit Grisham and make Dominguez the CF. We all know Yankee management would rather do hara-kiri than either one of these. It's going to be another year of piss poor management.
I'm not surprised; many people, especially so called "experts", still think Cashman is doing a great, great, great job. No championships in 16 years; only one championship in 25 years. Yet, they still think Cashman is a demi-god. What gives?
I have some misgivings about Aaron Judge in the World Baseball Classic. Seems to me that the elbow problem he had last year was a sign that he should rest up this winter. And take it easy this spring training too. Instead, he's going to ramp it up and try to play at the top of his game for the WBC. I feel Judge might end up having an injury riddled 2026. Yankee management, of course, will use the Judge injuries as the excuse for why they finished in last place.
I heard Mookie Betts took insane amounts of batting practice every day in an effort to be the best hitter in baseball. And he was either there at the top or really close to it for a couple of years. I heard about how hard he worked and I thought, "this ain't going to end well for him". He ended up wearing a sleeve on his right arm, didn't he? And he really hasn't been the same since. His production has really fallen off the cliff. As the ancient Greeks always said, "moderation".
Aaron Judge was wearing a compressive sleeve on his right arm for a while even before they reported the elbow injury last year, right? When I saw the sleeve, I knew it wasn't good....
Hammer, your scenarios are all too likely.
First off, only a cartel as fundamentally stupid as MLB would keep the "World Baseball Classic" going. The morons who run the sport really think that they can make this the equivalent of the World Cup in soccer.
Baseball is not soccer, and never will be. There is no possible way in which a baseball, international tournament will compare to a soccer tournament. There is no possible way that baseball will ever be the global powerhouse that soccer is.
These are not bad things. To believe they are is like insisting that...I dunno...your favorite rock band should be trying to put on a great opera.
Sending down The Martian is an insane idea—and one that will, yet again, wreck a Yankee prospect because Brian Cashman is too scared to give his top prospect a true test run.
Cashman is a hysteric, who either throws each prospect out there too soon—as with Volpe—or holds him back too long, as with Rumfield and now Dominguez...
...I've heard all the praise lavished on him as well. It all seems to come down to: "Well, the Yankees have a winning season every year!" and/or "Well, the Yankees make the playoffs nearly every year!"
Neither "feat" is that difficult in this day and age. The Yankees play in the biggest market in the richest country in the world (at least, until another couple years of Fat Hitler ends that).
The extraordinary thing about New York sports is not that the Yankees usually contend; it's that all of our other teams do not.
And with the playoffs now extended to 40 percent of the major leagues, making the cut means less and less. Do we have political protests in which we rave about how much more "the top 40 percent" have? No, we do not.
So...utilizing what is always one of the very highest payrolls in any sport, and playing in the wealthiest market anywhere...Brian Cashman manages to usually contend.
Hurrah.
' Who are you going to believe me or your own eyes? '
Ahem! It's in my avatar.
To be fair, "Tommy" is a pretty good 'opera' by an obscure rock band from England. Even if it's not really an opera.
Yankee management is well on its way to ruining Jasson Dominguez. I wouldn't have thought it was possible when he first came up, but here we are (again). They mean to send him down to AAA (to work on things). It could seem like a reasonable course of action to many people. (Check out Jeana Belleza-Ochoa on the Bleeding Yankee Blue blog.) I think JBO is a good commentator overall, but she's dead wrong about Dominguez.
AAA is full of major league rejects, career minor leaguers, AAAA players and such. In other words, it's almost like an old folks home for minor leaguers who are never going to make it to the majors. It's not where you want a top prospect to go and develop. AA is where the top prospects are. And those top prospects come up to the majors without ever stepping into AAA.
Take away his struggles from the right side last year, Dominguez showed he's a major league hitter from the left side. Yes, there's certain things that he's doing from the left side that have to be ironed out, but that's probably on the Yankee coaching. From the right side, what he really needs is a swing doctor. He also needs to face top major league pitching to force his development to another level. And based on what I saw last year, he's not that far away from reaching that level. Stashing him in AAA will do nothing to get him to that other level.
I get opinions like JBO. She thinks a year or two in AAA will make Dominguez a better player, iron out his weak spots. She's thinking too much like Cashman on this one. AAA won't turn Dominguez into a major leaguer. It'll just turn him into a failed major league prospect. The things that he needs to work on can be worked on at the major league level. And some things, like his outfield defense, might be best discarded. Let's fact it, not every player is cut out to play defense at the major league level. If that's the case with Dominguez, it's no use trying to force a square peg into a round hole. If he's nothing more than a hitter, then DH it is. They have to find that out. It's much better to continue to improve his hitting at the major league level and find out whether he is a center fielder or a DH. The answer is not to stash him in the minors; that would be a mistake.
Fans and the chic will attend Yankees games and The Yes Network will get good ratings. The Yankees have their excuses ready. They don't care about championships anymore.
Bottom line, I think Yankee management and coaching is just not up to developing kids like Dominguez. In fact, I seriously question whether they even want to develop any position players. (There are some financial reasons why they would not.)
That's why I said the best thing for Dominguez would be to get traded to a club that will give him a chance to develop. But again, Cashman has public relations and risk management in mind. Cashman probably doesn't want the risk of Dominguez turning into a big time player on another team. So he probably stashes Dominguez in the minors and just waits five or six years. After ruining Dominguez's career, Cashman can safely discard him without risk of public embarrassment.
and for good reason, Rufus
AA, that wasn't me. Just someone who looks like me.
🥸
When they brought Aaron Judge (tail end of 2016 was it?), he hit some homers, but he wasn't a very good hitter. He struck out a whopping 50% in 84 at-bats. 50% strikeout rate? Enough to make a man (or a woman) blanch, right?
Well, he most likely would have continued on that trajectory the following year with the same Yankee coaching he was getting. Only thing was Judge was smart enough to seek out a "swing doctor" in winter of 2016. Under Richard Schenkel's tutelage, Judge became "The Judge" who had a very good year in 2017 and is now the best hitter in baseball. Doesn't that speak volumes about Yankee coaching? Schenkel was never a professional ballplayer, I think. He's just a guy who studied hitting, on his own, for the most part.
Think Aaron Judge would've become the player he is now if he'd spent another three years in AAA trying to get better, trying to cut down on strikeouts? I think not. In fact, if he'd been in AAA in 2017, he'd have missed out on that MVP caliber year.
And yeah, the same thing goes for Spencer Jones. He's probably getting wasted in the minors. He's likely not ever going to get any better down there. If they want him to develop, it's got to be forced up here, in the majors. But the Yankees don't have the coaching or the management guts to do it.
Another guy they brought up too late was Gary Sanchez. When he first came up, for about a year and a half, he looked like Johnny Bench, didn't he? Then it all came crashing down. It's hindsight now, but I think they brought him up too late. He spent the best years of his baseball life in the minors. He turned out to be one of those guys who crash and burn at age 25 or 26. They should have brought him up when he was 20 years old. Of course, with Cashman, I guess we were lucky we saw a year and a half of All Star caliber Sanchez. Cashman usually stashes guys in the minors until they're 28 or 29 years old. Because he wants his players "finished" by the time they come up. And yeah, they're finished all right! Their careers are usually finished by the time they come up.
If it was Tampa Bay, they would've brought up Gary Sanchez when he was 20. Then developed him into a big time player. Four or five years All Star appearances later, right before he crashed and burned, they would've traded him for a humongous haul. And everybody would say "you shouldn't trade with Tampa Bay/they know when to get rid of their players" or some such. They've been doing that for a long while now.
Cashman is probably kicking himself in the nuts for bringing up Aaron Judge too quickly. "Because of what I did, I cost my boss HAL a humongous fortune in Judge salary. Should've waited until he was 28 or 29 before I brought him up." HAL probably said, "let this be a lesson to you".
Rufus, I'ze thinkin' the same thing. Great minds think alike!
Quadrophenia not too bad either. Certainly some incredible songs on there like 5:15, The Real Me, Love Reign O'er Me. Worthy of opera, definitely.
If Shohei Ohtani had signed with the Yankees at the beginning of his major league career, Yankee management would've sent him down to the minors to learn how to play left field, in addition to being a DH and pitching. Maybe even learn 1B. He'd still be there right now, learning how to play LF, 1B.
Quadrophenia was the soundtrack of my teen years..”Sea and Sand” is a blistering track.
A big thumbs down 👎 from me on the WBC. MBL is always trying to go what other sports do instead of embracing the uniqueness that makes it so appealing.
Quadrophenia movie not too bad either! That British chick was hot!
+1
No way is anyone worth his salt going to come to the Yankees, unless all the stars align and no other team will make a good free agent offer. It's miraculous that we got Max Fried. All those Japanese position players, nobody wants to come here and spend five years in the minors under Yankee coaching, trying to teach them maximum bat speed, exit velo, launch angle.
Cash Ninja needs to go back to the mountains of Japan and practice his ninjitsu skills, for another fifty years. Because it seriously ain't working. His development ain't "finished" yet. HAL brought him up way too soon.
Yankee coaching trying to turn outfielders into infielders, infielders into outfielders, home run hitters into singles hitters, singles hitters into home run hitters. And everyone has to learn every position, a different position every day. Shohei Ohtani would've been a catcher in the Yankee organization.
Of all my bad investments, a quadraphonic record player was the worst. My laser disc player was better (still have it somewhere in the dungeon).
pinstripealley's Cashman report card is in: for approval rating, he gets "17%". For this offseason, the majority of Yankee fans (almost 90 %) gave him somewhere between a "C" (33%) and an "F" (19%). The polltaker generously said this means he gets a "D" (37%). Guess where I voted for the offseason: FFF effing fortissimo forte.
Here's one really interesting comment from that pinstripealley poll:
"Hi everyone!,I have been a Yankees fan since I was 12 years old here in Nicaragua, but from 2009 to the present it has mostly been frustration due to the team’s overall performance, aside from bright highlights such as Judge in particular. The front office seems more focused on marketing and advertising revenue than on the happiness of their loyal fans, both in New York and around the world. It is disappointing to feel that money appears to be the primary concern (which is certainly important), rather than rewarding the faithful fan base whose stadium payments fill the organization’s coffers. I remain hopeful that before I die in my country, I will witness Championship Number 28. Go Yankees! Down with Boston, Toronto, and the Dodgers (not necessarily in that order).
Respectful regards to all.
Orlando Conto
Managua, Nicaragua"
God Bless you, Sir, but I fear none of us will live long enough to see Yankee Championship #28. Money is not the primary concern for management. It is the ONLY concern. Has been since winter 2009.
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