A baseball writer who still thinks a five-man rotation is a thing.

"There is a possibility that four-fifths of the Yankees starting rotation this year might be Corey Kluber, Luis Severino, Jameson Taillon and Domingo German.

Those four guys combined to pitch a grand total of one inning last season."

We presume Cole is the #1 starter.

Kluber, Severino, Taillon, and German are competing with Montgomery and Garcia for the other four spots ... maybe even Schmidt ... or maybe the Yankees go with a six-man rotation ... or maybe they prefer to start Green and Cessa like they've done in the past ... or maybe injuries and the coronavirus wreak havoc and they don't even have a starting rotation.

But, yeah.

If the Yankees could settle on a five-man rotation of Cole, Kluber, Severino, Taillon, and German ... it means talented players are healthy and they are pitching well.

If these players weren't pitching well, then they wouldn't be in the starting rotation.

Thanks, Mike Lupica! You've made me very optimistic with your assessment of the Yankees' pitching depth.

You're not helping, Bob.

Self-indulgent, quasi-poetic nonsense.

Hawkins is known in NY for briefly "stealing" Paul O'Neill's uniform number.

Except not even that, because that's mostly forgotten:

"My line of demarcation is clear:

If you were suspended for steroid use after 2005, once MLB actually implemented a rule it was going to enforce, you don’t get my vote. You got suspended and you damaged your team’s chances of winning."

Hey, everybody!

Bob Nightengale has a line of demarcation with regards to HOF voting!

LaTroy Hawkins has somehow ended up on the right side of that line, but it's hard to pay attention to any of it.

Schilling is a borderline candidate.

I think this is an accurate take. I think Schilling's personality and outrageous tweets are keeping him out of the HOF.

But Schlling is hardly a shoo-in.

He's Kevin Brown with memorable playoff performances. 

On the other hand, why isn't Orel Hershiser in if we care so much about memorable playoff performances?

 

I'll put this another way.

I tend to agree that Schilling had a better career than Brown and crossed a HOF threshold that Brown didn't cross. This is mostly based on Schilling's superior performance in playoff games. Small but important sample size.

So it's not that Schilling will make the HOF and Brown won't.

It's that Schilling gets to be outraged at receiving only 74% of the vote ... while Brown received 2% of the vote.

The sock game was worth 72 HOF percentage points?

Heck, clear the way for Hideki Matsui and David Freese.

 

Ultimately, it's hard to fit any HOF voting patterns into a narrative, because the votes are all over the place.

This is what happens when you let Jack Morris in; when you let Harold Baines in.

David Cone, Ron Guidry, Dale Murphy, Fred McGriff, Al Oliver, Jeff Kent, Lou Whitaker, and dozens of others are pounding on the windows and screaming that they have never even used twitter.

 

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a nice place to visit.

“Never have I been more uncomfortable voting for the Hall of Fame,” Rosenthal tweeted on Jan. 5, adding: “Right now I’m considering everything, including whether I still want to continue voting for the Hall of Fame.”

I think a lot of people feel the same way.

Just about the way the voters act, the inconsistencies, etc.

It's probably still the best HOF, but it has lost its luster.

Hank Aaron seemed literally immortal.

 Widely acknowledged as one of the best players ever, and may still be somehow underrated.

Skeletons in the closet.

Gary Sanchez seems depressed.

Sanchez is 28 as he enters 2021. By the time Rodriguez was 28 he had won eight Gold Gloves and an American League MVP Award. Rodriguez likes Sanchez and believes in his ability to bounce back.

“He’s a good kid,” Rodriguez said. “He’s a really good kid. He listens, he likes to be better. He wanted to be better. He wanted to come back and be the Gary Sanchez that a lot of people know, the player that he can be. But the first thing that he needs is to take that pressure part of the game away…and then let his ability take over.”

Optimistic, but I hope so.

"Ever."

Why would a national audience be interested in this recycled story about the Battle for New York?:

"It has been awhile since Cohen’s team has felt as if it were in the same league with the Yankees, even if the Mets have been to a World Series more recently than the Yanks have."

Facts don't matter.

Feelings matter.

 "Suddenly it feels as if Mets vs. Yankees is a fair fight again, as they get set to battle for the mythical city championship."

Ha ha ha. 

That really cracked me up.

It's mythical, alright. Indeed, it is.

If it's so "sudden," why do I read the same column every April?

"Mets fans feel the same way. There have been few times since the Yankees became the Yankees again under Joe Torre, in the mid-1990s, when the Mets have felt like anything other than the 'Other Team' in New York. They did make the 2015 Series, and they were a pitch away from the Series in ’06, when Carlos Beltrán took a called third strike to end Game 7 of the NLCS against the Cardinals, after the Yankees had lost an AL Division Series to the Tigers."

So ... it's not "never" that the Mets were in the same league as the Yankees. I didn't think so.

"But the last time the Mets owned New York in baseball, truly, was all the way back in 1986, when they were as big for that one season as any Yankee team had ever been."

Waaaaay back.

Imagine bringing it up in practically every column.

 

The acquisition of Lindor is great for the Mets. I see no down side.

But when Mike Lupica is talking about the Mets, you can expect him to be ... optimistic.

 

Is Lindor as good as Mookie Betts? No.

Is Lindor instantly the best player in New York? Well, no.

Better than deGrom? 

Better than Cole? 

Better than LeMahieu (free agency asterisk attached)? 

Better than a resurgent Gleyber (crossing fingers on that one)?

Better than Judge (if Judge stays healthy, of course)?

Lindor might be the best player on the Mets; the best player in New York; the best player in the National League.

His WAR last year was 1.1. Half an Urshela.

He hit 8 home runs in 236 at-bats. 29.5 AB/HR. A real Tyler Wade.

He had 6 stolen bases. As many as Mike Tauchman.

 

Lots of good players had bad years in 2020. It was a weird year. I totally expect Lindor to get back to relative greatness.

But if I was to use last year as a guide, Lindor was merely mediocre.

 

As for Lupica's prognosis ... best all-around Met ever? ... I'll bet the Fanboy "Frankie" stuff was similarly applied to Jason Bay and Jeromy Burnitz.

I also guess Lupica's just ignoring pitchers for some reason?

Can he do that?