Weird.

"The Yankees will start Jordan Montgomery in Monday’s series opener in Baltimore. Jaime Garcia will skip a turn in the rotation and possibly be used out of the bullpen, according to Girardi, who favored Montgomery as a matchup against the Orioles."

Nobody asked why?

Other professional baseball teams also play professional baseball.

"Three hours before first pitch in the Bronx on Sunday night, the Orioles were celebrating a 12-inning walk-off win in a game against the Blue Jays they had tied in the bottom of the ninth with a home run by Wellington Castillo.

Yes, just in case you're thinking only about trying to catch the Red Sox, it should be noted: the Orioles are smoking hot, 9-2 in their last 11 games and swinging home run bats up and down the lineup.

Simply put, they're chasing hard in the wild-card race, not to mention getting a good night's sleep at home Sunday night, waiting for the Yankees to roll into town in in the wee hours, not long before Monday's 2 p.m. start at Camden Yards.

All of which is a way of saying:

While the Yankees were focused on an important swing game with the Red Sox Sunday night that would go a long way toward determining whether they had a realistic shot at winning the AL East, they were facing another reality as well:

That is, they are heading on a nine-game road trip that looms as the toughest part of their remaining schedule and figures to be equally pivotal in their chase of a division title -- more so in at least solidifying a wild-card spot.

...

 
So as big as Sunday night's win over the Red Sox was for the Yankees, one way or the other, they have to know they can't sleep-walk into Baltimore, no matter how little shut-eye the schedule afforded them, to start this crucial road trip.

Because no matter where they stand with the Red Sox, the wild-card race is far from settled."

I think the best strategy for the Yankees is to win as many games as possible by outscoring their opponents.

Sabathia had the last laugh in the sense that he won the game.

Sabathia is also having a good season, rather unexpectedly.

Is it OK for him to use the word "faggot" when it's not OK for others? Nunez is the player who's apologizing? For helping his team win a baseball game?

Thirteen years ago, close to 100% of Yankee fans wanted the Yankee batters to bunt on Schilling. Congratulations to the 2004 Yankees, who lost the game, but upheld their manliness.

A nice kid from Tom's River.

This "aw shucks" profile borders on journalistic negligence:

"In some ways, Todd Frazier is still that 12-year-old kid who seemed to get every big hit in leading his team from Toms River, N.J. to the Little League World Series championship. He has a Derek Jeter-like confidence, in fact, that oozes out of him even when he’s hitting .209 for the season.

...
  
Frazier indeed delivered a line single to left against Kluber to put the Yankees ahead at the time, yet he’s only hitting .188 with runners in scoring position this season, and his overall numbers have major-league scouts scratching their heads, wondering what happened to the guy who as recently as 2015 looked like he was going to be an All-Star for years to come."

...

The thinking among at least some baseball people, including the aforementioned scout, was that Frazier would be better after escaping the losing environment around the White Sox, and raise his game on the big stage in the Bronx, essentially a homecoming for him.
Yet he’s hitting only .214 since coming over in the trade six weeks ago, with five home runs (21 for the season, a double and a triple).

On the other hand, Frazier has played brilliant defensively at third base, and he has taken enough walks to have a .345 on-base percentage. He just hasn’t hit the way the Yankees hoped, and with Greg Bird back at first base, there will be days Joe Giardi will have to choose between him and Chase Headley, who has swung the bat well lately."

The writers pick players they like and warp reality rather than say a bad word.

Brilliant defense? Confidence he'll play better?

Just say he stinks.

Sanchez can't field, Romine can't hit.

Romine has an OPS+ of 52.Pitcher-esque slash line of .221/.278/.300.Two HRs in 190 at-bats.

Sanchez's defense is bad and it isn't getting better. No chance that Sanchez will be behind the plate in the late innings of a close game in the playoffs. Which means Romine is going to get a big at-bat in the ninth inning of a playoff game. He will not get a hit.

Next season, the Yankees need an upgrade at catcher and Sanchez is going to have to DH.

This guy stinks at baseball.

.217/.301/.337 with 121 strikeouts in 406 at-bats ... in the minor leagues.

All the players better than Chris Carter.

2017 Carter: 184 AB, .201/.284/.370, 8 HR, 26 RBIs, 20 R, 35 BB, 99 Ks.

2017 NYY Todd Frazier: 114 AB, .211/.345/.368, 5 HR, 15 RBIs, 19 R, 18 BB, 35 Ks.

Is Frazier better?

A little better.

Frazier is also paid 4x the salary.

So this is basically an annual occurrence now.

Shot.

"Chapman surrendered a solo home run to slugger Yonder Alonso in the 11th inning and the Yankees couldn't recover. When he walked off the mound, he did it slowly, and he was showered with boos.

Alonso hit out a 100.1-mph fastball. Alonso became just the third lefty to ever hit a home run off the southpaw Chapman. The last was Red Sox rookie Rafael Devers on Aug. 14. Before that? It was 2011."

Interesting information about HR record.

So Dave Kingman is the real single season HR record holder?

Everyone who's better than Ellsbury isn't any better than Ellsbury.

Hicks had a nice game in the second game after he came off the DL. It was exciting. It was a spark.

Made a memorable throw when Nunez tried to tag up to third base on a fly ball to left field.

Guess what?

Since coming off the DL, Hicks is 7-for-49 (.143).

... and I didn't get past the first sentence.

"They're the St. Louis Cardinals, as big a name as we have in sports" 

They are?

Curt Schilling says he still supports Donald Trump.

Because, baseball.

Try again next year.

Maybe Chapman is just having a bad year, maybe he's just tired from overuse in last year's playoffs, maybe he hasn't fully recovered from his injury.

Girardi is being foolish and contradicting his own willingness to bench prominent players.

For example, let's use one example to slag on Ellsbury again:

"The Yankees are in the midst of a fight to stay in the American League East race. They also want to hold on to the Wild Card. The Yankees couldn’t afford to keep playing Jacoby Ellsbury when Clint Frazier came up. They can’t continue to be unsure what they’re going to get from their closer every night."

Ellsbury has won a couple of games recently with big hits. Not that he's making a run for the AL MVP or anything. But the narrative is bogus ... the Yankees "couldn't afford" to play Ellsbury instead of a rookie with a .274 on-base%.

One way to fix the Subway Series.

Better teams.

I thought Sunday night would be his final game.

Funny thing is, Romine's defense hasn't been too good either ...

It's good that the Yankees are trying to nip this in the bud.

"Girardi said that Sanchez was told point blank that his defense must improve after he permitted his Major League-leading 12th passed ball in Friday's 7-2 loss to Cleveland. The manager said that Sanchez is 'physically fine,' but his issues blocking balls prompted backup Austin Romine to catch Sunday's day game following a night game.
 ...

 Part of the issue may be that Sanchez has gained some weight, with general manager Brian Cashman telling the New York Post that Sanchez had put on eight-to-12 pounds of muscle over the offseason while keeping his body-fat percentage the same. That may be limiting his flexibility, with Cashman saying it was a matter of 'good intentions and bad results.' "

The Yankees sure are streaky this year.

"You know who nobody wants to play in the first round of the playoffs? The Yankees, with or without Sonny Gray."

The White Sox would sign up right now for that matchup.


"This year’s Yankees now have as much bullpen as the Indians did when they made it all the way to Game 7 of the World Series last year, and you may have noticed they have more stick."

All the way to Game 7!


"It seems these Yankees are hardly ever out of a game. By now it’s clear there is some magic to them, especially when they’re down, even when they go more than a month of baseball without winning a single series."

A lot of clutchiness for a team that is 11-19 in one-run games.
 

"The Yankees come from behind. A lot. The Yankees tie games in the ninth inning or later or win them. They get down 9-1 to the Orioles in April and come back and ring up 14 runs of their own and win the game. They are down to the Cubs at Wrigley in the 9th and Brett Gardner hits a home run and they come back again and beat the Cubs this time. They are down to the Red Sox at Fenway after Chris Sale has pitched like as much of an ace as there is in baseball, but then Matt Holliday hits one off Craig Kimbrel in the 9th and the Yankees finally win in 16.

Clint Frazier hits a walk-off home run to win a game against the Brewers three weeks ago. The Yankees are down 5-3 to the Rays on Thursday night at Yankee Stadium and get it to 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th and then Gary Sanchez sneaks a ball through a shift and they tie it with two outs in the bottom of the 9th and then Gardner goes deep again and they win again."

Great wins. They've also lost a lot of games they "shoulda won."


"We talk all the time about starting pitching. Guess what?"

I give up. What?


"After Sale, you tell me which starting pitcher scares you for the Boston Red Sox? Rick Porcello? Take a look at his record. He’s 4-14 and has pitched like a scrub this season."

Oh. I thought you were going to say, "Chicken Butt."


"Do the Yankees need another starter? You bet."

You bet!


"After 21-9 they went 27-36, you bet."

You better, you better, you bet.


"The rest of the division had six weeks to put them away. Didn’t. Or couldn’t. Look out for the Yankees the rest of the way."

Sounds like a jinx, but I can't slag on a team that's in first place and on a winning streak.

Also, the Yankees are currently one half game up on Boston. After reading this article, you'd think they were 15 games up and playing .700 ball for the season.


After praising the Yankees on their roller coaster trip through the 2017 season, I'd just like to highlight a gratuitous, out-of-nowhere slag of Lucas Duda:
 
"Two things on Lucas Duda:

One, he was a terrific pickup for Tampa Bay.

Two?

So far, anyway, I’m not missing him nearly as much as I thought I would."

 Maybe I'm missing an anti-Duda subtext ... or a joke?

"So far" is, like, three whole games.

But what's up with the unnecessary rip on Lucas Duda, of all people?

Sold!

I will be the first in line for tickets to Clint Frazier Bobblehead Day.

Clint Frazier growing pains.

The author lists 4 options -- DFA, trade, release, and demote -- and assigns a probability of 0% to all 4.

That leads us to option #5:

"5. KEEP

As one baseball insider put it Monday, 'Ellsbury is not a bad backup option to come off the bench or if the Yankees suffer another injury to an outfielder.' Hicks (oblique) will reportedly come off the DL in two to three weeks, but if that schedule changes, Ellsbury is still an above-average player to have on the bench.

The Yankees’ best option appears to be the status quo one — as long as they are paying Ellsbury the big bucks, they are best served having him available to play when the need arises."

It really requires a baseball insider to acknowledge that Jacoby Ellsbury is a worthwhile baseball player? Even as a backup?

Clint Frazier has been pretty good. A red-headed flash who has a lot of extra base hits. He also has one whole walk and an on-base% slightly better than Chris Carter's. Along with 18 strikeouts, but, whatever.

I am genuinely willing to turn over the team to the youngsters. But I also know what's going to happen in the next 70 games. Frazier is going to slump, he's going to make a couple of bad throws at inopportune times, and he's going to get thrown out at third base with two outs in the ninth inning of a tie game.

His current .295 batting average may be a 2017 peak and, like I mentioned, a .300 on-base% sounds like a #9 hitter and not the next "Mike Trout" (remember that?).

So give the kid a chance. He may learn something that pays off down the road. Or maybe he's, like, the second coming of Fred Lynn, ready to dominate out of the gate and lead his team to the World Series.

I just think that Yankee fans (and players and coaches) are star struck once again. They don't like Ellsbury and Ellsbury has not lived up to his contract. I still think the piling on is kinda dumb ... he isn't that bad.

Another partial defense of Ellsbury.

"Ellsbury used to be younger, more athletic, more dynamic. That’s how he got paid $153 million over seven years in the first place. Plus, there was that whole Robinson Cano ordeal …

But the 33-year-old veteran is no longer that player — now the fifth-best outfielder in the organization behind Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner and Frazier. He just happens to make way more money than the other four players combined.

And that’s a problem for the Yankees, who would be best-served cutting Ellsbury loose when Hicks returns from his oblique injury in 2-to-3 weeks. Only it doesn’t work that way. Brian Cashman has said that when Hicks comes back, Frazier will likely be sent down because he has minor-league options."

Contract aside, I wouldn't state definitively that Ellsbury is worse than Hicks, Frazier, or even Gardner.

Gardner is a clubhouse leader and has more power (only in 2017). Their overall games are almost identical. Gardner hits a slump and Ellsbury gets hot for a couple of weeks and, next thing you know, the fans will be clamoring for Ellsbury to bat leadoff.

Frazier and Hicks? To move them ahead of Ellsbury on the depth chart requires a couple of leaps of faith. One player who has 60 major league at-bats and another player whose career batting average is .233.


Frazier is young and Hicks is sorta young. Since the Yankees know what Ellsbury is worth ... an average player ... it's probably worthwhile to use the 2017 season to gather more information on Frazier and Hicks. So that's a good reason to move them past Ellsbury (and maybe Gardner, while we're at it) on the depth chart.

But, with 56 games to go, I wouldn't be shocked if Frazier slumps badly and Hicks reverts to his pre-2017 form. Average Ellsbury might be an upgrade.

It was stern.

I'm pleased this has been noticed by somebody and publicly acknowledged:

"Overall, Sanchez is slashing a respectable .270/.350/.480 with 14 homers, but in his last 20 games he’s slashed just .213/.281/.313 with one homer.

The 24-year-old catcher has also had some issues defensively. Girardi was seen speaking sternly to Sanchez in Chicago over his inability to block balls in the dirt. Sanchez has nine errors and has thrown out 36 percent of potential basestealers."

Both Sanchez and Romine have done a crummy job blocking pitches.

That's mostly a lack of willingness to get dinged up. Hey, man, it's a tough job.

They don't make blockbusters like they used to.

"The Evil Empire is back, and, oh, don’t the Boston Red Sox know it."

Meh.

"The New York Yankees pulled off a blockbuster seven-player trade Tuesday evening, seizing three players from the Chicago White Sox who the Red Sox also desired.

The Yankees acquired former All-Star closer David Robertson, former All-Star third baseman Todd Frazier and reliever Tommy Kahnle from the White Sox for prized outfield prospect Blake Rutherford, veteran reliever Tyler Clippard, minor-league pitcher Ian Clarkin, and minor-league outfielder Tito Polo."

"Former" all-stars. 

Tyler Clippard made a couple of all-star games, too.

Who hasn't? 

"The Yankees, who had lost 17 of their last 24 games, slipping to 3 ½ games behind the Red Sox in the American League East, now have a three-headed monster in late innings with closer Aroldis Chapman, Robertson and Dellin Betances.

And, considering the Yankees’ ineptitude at first and third base this season, Frazier, who is earning $12 million in the final year of his contract, is a welcome addition. He’s hitting just .207 but has 16 homers, and is a solid infielder."

Lost 17 out of 24.

In third place, 3.5 games out of first place.

Added a player hitting .207.

Evil Empire. 

"Yet, while the Yankees firmly established themselves as contenders, the biggest winners of the trade deadline have been the White Sox."

I just think Bob Nightengale is a nice guy. 

Everybody wins and everything is terrific.

"As for the Red Sox?

It's back to the phones, knowing they badly need a third baseman, while hoping to acquire another reliever.

And, oh yeah, just in case anyone wondered, that war between the Yankees and Red Sox has been rekindled, loud and clear for everyone to see."

We'll see. 

I'm not feeling it before or after the trade.

The Dodgers are on a roll. Which reminds me of the time the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

Lupica's anti-Yankee obsession is downright disturbing, but if you want to read a moment-by-moment replay of Mariano's fateful blown save in Game Four, 13 years after the fact, this article, supposedly about the LA Dodgers in 2017, is your chance.


I will limit my retort to one sentence:

"The Red Sox were loaded that year, not just with talent, but with grinders."

... not just with talent, but with steroids.

Where would Yankee fans be without Mike Lupica's analysis?

A month ago, Mike Lupica declared the Yankees to be the most complete team in Major League Baseball. The only question mark was Masahiro Tanaka.

It doesn't qualify as baseball analysis.

It's just a writer looking for a narrative and performing minimal research (looking at the standings?) to provide some backup.


So a month goes by (a bad month or the Yankees), and there is actually still some hope. Who knows? 

The Yankees are still +100 in run differential (ranked 4th), but there is no chance they are the most complete team in MLB, and they never were.

The long term plan is still in its initial stages. The realistic best-case scenario is a Championship in two or three years (wishful thinking aside).


So how does Lupica reassess the Yankees after a bad month?:

"The Mets don’t have Noah Syndergaard, don’t have Matt Harvey, don’t have Jeurys Familia. The Mets haven’t had David Wright for a while, have only had Yoenis Cespedes for half a season, during which he has occasionally looked like half the hitter he used to be at Citi Field. With the Mets, you talk about all those things before you start talking about the bullpen issues they’ve had and are still having.Then you looked at the standings Saturday night and saw that they had six more losses this season and six fewer wins than the Yankees have had."

So the Mets stink and the Yankees are six games up on the Mets.

The Yankees are in the AL East and the Mets are in the NL East, but, whatever.


"It means the Yankees now have played a lot more bad baseball this season than good."

Well, that isn't right, is it?

The Yankees are +100 in run differential and 5 games over .500.

The Giants, for example, have played a lot more bad baseball this season than good.


" ... the Yankees are 24-31 since that real fast start of theirs. It is a third of a baseball season, and thus an even bigger sampling than the first quarter of it for them. Even with the way they came back against the Brewers on Saturday afternoon, they have lost 17 of their last 24 games."

Oh.

That's not how it works.

A 24-31 stretch trends bad, but it doesn't eliminate a 20-5 stretch, even if 55 games is more games than 25 games.


"After 85 games in 2016, the Yankees were 42-43. With one game to go before the All-Star Break, then, they are a grand total of three games better than they were one year ago, for all the noise they made in April and May."

So now we know the 2017 Yankees are better than the 2017 Mets and the 2016 Yankees. 

What does all this really mean?


"What all of this really means is that Aaron Judge so far, who hit No. 30 on Friday night, breaking Joe DiMaggio’s rookie home run record, looks more like the MVP in major league baseball than ever. Because right now the big kid is the biggest reason the Yankees aren’t the Orioles or the Blue Jays. The big kid doesn’t just provide cover for some of the guys hitting around him in Joe Girardi’s batting order. These days he is providing cover for just about everybody."

Seriously?

I could have taken all of this and replaced it with one sentence: "Aaron Judge leads the majors in WAR."


Which everybody already knows.


"None of this is terminal, of course. We’ve seen the possibilities from the Yankees. We can see how much young talent there is not only in the chute, but currently on the field. It’s not as if the Red Sox have run away from them. But if they start the second half of the season the way they have finished the traditional first half of the season, then they might find themselves getting passed by the Tampa Bay Rays.

...

The Yankees have struggled lately. The Yankees still have enough talent in the room to come out of the way they’ve played over the last 50-plus games. The Yankees ought to be fine. They’re sending all those guys to the All-Star Game. Sending a couple of strong young guys to the Home Run Derby. Still seeing the Red Sox right there in front of them."

They might be good and they might be bad.

How should I know?

I'll check back in next month and tell you more things about baseball that you already know.

Net Positive

Gary Cohen dutifully and minimally acknowledges Daniel Murphy's destruction of the Mets.

Murphy has the highest OPS vs. a former team in MLB history.

A time bomb.

I am not saying Aaron Judge isn't the Rookie of the Year and MVP. Last season, he struck out a ridiculous 42 times in 84 at-bats.

This year, his strikeouts are way down. He has still struck out 100 times in 283 at-bats.

I did a double-take when I looked it up.

It reminds me of Betances and all his walks, fielding problems, inability to hold runners on. The flaws are covered up until they aren't.

Yankee bullpen: choke and choker.

Betances has now walked 21 batters in 26 innings.

Carter/Austin

2017 Chris Carter: 167 AB, .204/8/23, 70 Ks.

2017 Tyler Austin projected to 167 AB: .154/13/26, 77 Ks.


I'm not really judging Austin based on 13 ABs.

I'm just amused.

The Power of Marketing

Increased exit velocity ...

"Though Tebow was batting just .222 with a .651 OPS in 63 games for Columbia, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said the team has been impressed by his increased exit velocity, among other advanced metrics."

Tyler Austin saves the day.

I just find it amusing that Chris Carter's replacement went 0-for-3 with 2 strikeouts and a GIDP.

Austin will probably be better than Carter, but not much better.

Carter was low-risk/low-reward the whole time. He wasn't supposed to start at first base. He probably can contribute some power to a major league team as a pinch hitter vs. left-handed pitchers, play a little backup first base.

So I'm certainly not crying about his departure ... I am baffled by the negative attention he received in the first place.

Gary Sanchez's fieldings stats.

Six errors and six passed balls in 38 games as catcher.

The Yankees have to prove themselves?

Five games out of last place.

One title in past 17 years.

Worst losing streak in 10 years.

Reliance on players with 100 major league games under their belts.


I disagree that they have to prove themselves. I'm already cutting up ticker tape for the parade.

Girardi must be smarter than I am.

I remember prior to the home stand vs. Boston and Baltimore. A very successful home stand.

At that time, Girardi said he was more worried about the let down on the road trip that followed. Which was not very successful.

Net negative

Daniel Murphy has a 28-game hitting streak vs. the Mets. I did not verify this info, but I hope it is true.

Of course Hicks will continue starting.

Be a little wary, however, of a player who is batting 100 points higher than his career average.

The question is not whether or not Hicks takes Ellbury's spot in the starting roster. The question is whether Frazier will take Ellsbury's roster spot ... and whether Torres will take Headley's roster spot.

The YES Network propaganda machine surely seems to be setting the stage with its startling focus on minor league players.

The thing that will surprise most Yankee fans is that Ellsbury really has not played all that poorly.

Seattle vs. NYY

The odd thing about the Cano signing is that the Yankees have had a better record than Seattle in the 3 1/3 seasons since. Quick math says the Yankees have been 10 games better. Not a huge difference over 3 1/3 seasons.

But the really odd thing is that, so far in 2017, the Yankees have a better second baseman.

Gaping Hole

"Former Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira returned to New York Wednesday, but unfortunately not to fill the gaping hole at first base in the Bronx."

Chris Carter is batting .200 with 7 HRs. Teixeira couldn't do any better. Carter is late-career Mark Teixeira at a fraction of the cost.


The rest of the article details Teixeira's contributions to his new career as baseball analyst:

• Aaron Judge is big and powerful
• Luis Severino is playing well
• Greg Bird will come off the DL and play first base for the Yankees

New York is a Mets Town

He shouldn't be allowed to write about the Yankees anymore after promoting the Mets for decades.

 Were you expecting a recap of Shane Spencer's career? Well, you got one:
 
"There was a time in the 1990s ... "
 AKA 1998.

" ... when Shane Spencer showed up at the old Stadium in September '98, joining one of the greatest Yankees teams of them all, and proceeded to hit eight homers in 14 games, including three grand slams. A shooting September star if there ever was one, with an OPS of his own over 1.000. Spencer hit a home run his first time up in the playoffs against the Texas Rangers before fading ..."
Well, he hit another HR in the very next game against Texas, so ...

" ... and eventually playing out his career in places that were not New York City."
  I guess the Mets are not New York City.

Drastic Measures

"With that in mind, I’d try putting Tanaka on the 10-day disabled list simply as a timeout of sorts, to see if some rest and time to clear his head would make a difference.


It could be tricky, because Tanaka might not like the idea of being sat down, but he didn’t protest when asked afterward if it might help him to at least skip a start."

I wouldn't consider a bogus trip to the DL to be a drastic measure.

I thought he was going to suggest:

• Benching Tanaka
• Moving Tanaka to the bullpen
• Trading Tanaka

Betcha didn't see this coming.

Taking him out after a mere 62 pitches might set him up better for his next start. Not sure how you can ignore his track record and remove him from the rotation.

It seems a lot longer than five years ago.

Maybe because Johan Santana's career quickly went downhill afterwards.

Only time will tell if they stand the test of time.

It's amazing how much time baseball fans spend talking about the past and the future.

The Yankees need to add Gerrit Cole in July so they can make the World Series. The 2017 World Series, in case you were wondering.

It's Mike Trout's trip to Flushing.

"When Magic Johnson was still playing for the Lakers, and the Lakers would make their one trip to New York City and to Madison Square Garden to play the Knicks, he always described it the same way.

'My one night a year on Broadway,' Magic said.

...

But now, because of Interleague Play, Trout gets another trip to New York this weekend, when the Angels play the Mets. It is a very big deal, because of Trout's big talent for baseball. The city receives a most honored baseball guest."

If I can make it at Laguardia Airpot / I can make it anywhere / It's up to you / Flushing, Queens / Flushing, Queens


"It is an occasion because of a Jersey kid named Mike Trout, who comes to the East Coast and gets to show everybody that he does things on a baseball field that Mickey Mantle did when he was the age that Trout is now, which means 25."

"... he does things on a baseball field that Mickey Mantle did when he was the age that Trout is now, which means 25."

This man is paid to construct sentences such as the sentence you just read.

"Certainly there is so much baseball to be played. So much can happen across the last three-quarters of the season, with the Astros and everybody else. For now, manager Mike Scioscia continues to have a front-row seat to the kid's genius or magic, none of which are ever lost on him. He never takes the kid for granted. You worry sometimes that everybody else does.

'It looks like he's doing things easier,,' Scioscia said the other day.

Then Trout hit another one against the White Sox before heading for the airport and heading East. At least the kid gets to play close to home this weekend. At least the new Mantle gets an extra weekend in New York this season."

I am sure at least 15,000 fans will bring the buzz at CitiField tonight.

Starlin Castro is not going to win the batting title.

I'd gladly sign up right now for top 20 or anything above .295.

But may as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Houston has the right stuff.

Lupica at the top of his national game with a reference to a 34-year-old movie.

Alex Rodriguez is neither articulate nor intelligent.

There is no reason to think he'll be a useful guest judge on Shark Tank or a worthwhile color commentator.

He is well-known, so maybe his presence will increase viewership. That's not my gripe.

My gripe is that he's still on the Yankee payroll. So consult or something. When you're not consulting, maybe you can do something useful for your $21 million, like alphabetize the helmets in the locker room. For the players on the field who get paid to play baseball.

I noticed the players on the other team would swing at the pitches and then the ball would travel very far.

Yeah, it's early, but here's the problem ...

... The Four Horseman of Queens when the Mets have the worst starting ERA in all of MLB. Now they just look like four bloated idiots who need to put down the forks and pick up an electric razor:

"The Mets currently are without their best hitter, their best starting pitcher, and now their closer, and I’m just wondering what other team in baseball has encountered anything like that this season."

I don't want to use injuries as an excuse.


"So the Mets came into Saturday two games under .500."

And left Sunday four games under .500 ... ha cha cha.


"The Cubs, champions of the world, destiny’s darlings, with pretty much all of their main guys?

They were one game over .500."

Yes, the Cubs are disappointing as, errr ... "destiny's darlings" ... so the Mets are therefore playing well? Because the Cubs are also playing poorly?

Also, the Cubs are the World Champs. The current World Champs. Mission: Accomplished.

So I don't see the point.

Most disappointing teams so far are the Giants, Blue Jays, Cubs, Mets ... maybe the Mariners and Pirates, too?

The season isn't over. Is that the point?

Or are the Mets supposed to keep their chins up by comparing themselves to the under-performing Cubs?

Or are you just a sad cheerleader for the Mets?
 



"Matt Harvey is now a lifetime .500 pitcher, 31-31, at the age of 28.

Ron Darling never had Harvey’s talent, at least the talent Harvey once showed at Citi Field.

He certainly didn’t have Harvey’s fastball.

But by the time Darling was 28, his record in the big leagues was 73-41.


And Darling won 14 more games, more than Harvey’s ever won in a single season, the year he turned 29."

Yes, Matt Harvey is mostly hype, though still kind of young, so maybe he'll turn it around.

Can you think of any NY Daily News columnist who has largely fed the Harvey hype?

Not to mention Josh Satin hype.

In fact, I beg Mike Lupica to never say anything positive about the 2017 Yankees. Don't jinx it.

1-for-4 with an RBI (on catcher's interference).

With two outs in the ninth, as the tying run, a single and a stolen base:

"The much-maligned 33-year-old Ellsbury needs a mulligan after his blunder-filled performance against the AL West-leading Houston Astros on Thursday evening.

It all began in the bottom of the first inning, as the Bleacher Creatures were still going through roll call. ‘Stros No. 2 hitter, Josh Reddick hit a dying quail headed for shallow center — Didi Gregorius did what all good shortstops do, and started for the ball.

Turning his back to the infield, Gregorius sprinted onto the outfield grass, hoping that the center fielder would take charge and call him off. Problem is, Ellsbury never did.

Perhaps the $153 million man didn’t get a good read on the ball off the bat, or maybe he thought Gregorius had a better angle to the popup than he — whatever the reason, Ellsbury never went full speed, and the ball fell in for a single.

Two batters later, Carlos Correa slammed a game-changing two-run homer."

One blunder.

Ellsbury didn't give up the freaking HR.


"Offensively, Ellsbury wasn’t much better, as he struck out in his first at-bat, and then weakly grounded into a double play in the third inning."

Dallas Keuchel has an ERA of about 0.00.


"However, in the fifth inning, he did drive in the Yankees’ first run, by doing something he’s done 28 times before — draw catcher’s interference.

With two outs and the bases loaded, Ellsbury’s backswing made contact with former teammate Brian McCann‘s glove to erase starter Dallas Kuechel’s shutout.

Unfortunately, the rally soon came to a halt when Gary Sanchez bounced out to third."

Gary Sanchez blunder.

For a blunder-filled evening, I only count one Ellsbury blunder.


"Fast forward to the final frame. With runners on second and third and two outs, Sanchez slapped a single to left field. Running on contact, Ellsbury was wheeling around third base, but Jake Marisnick, who came into the game as a defensive replacement in the seventh inning, gunned down the fleet-footed Ellsbury at home to put the game to rest."

 Not a blunder.

Almost tied the game in the ninth.

Clutch.

Matt Harvey at career crossroads.

Seems like a long time ago that a subpar NY sportswriter was inexplicably hyping a mediocre early season start.

It was a whole month ago.

Garbage

Matt Harvey

5.14 ERA this season.

31-30 career record.

Attendance.

"What surely is bothersome and concerning to Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner is Monday's small crowd wasn't a one-time thing.

On April 17, also a Monday, the Yankees had their second sub-30,000 crowd of the season and fourth overall at new Yankee Stadium, which opened in 2009. That night, 28,181 turned out for a 7-4 win over the Chicago White Sox that was the club's eighth victory in a row.

And the crowds the following two nights were just 30,075 and 30,014 for Yankees-White Sox games."

Felz Stat of the Day

Brett Gardner has 0 RBIs.

Competition.

"I'm not pitching against so and so. I'm pitching against the opposing team."

Phooey on that:

"Masahiro Tanaka got the best of an exquisite pitchers' duel against Chris Sale in a Thursday night thriller at Fenway Park, leading the Yankees to a 3-0 victory over the Red Sox. Neither team had an extra-base hit.

Tanaka was machine-like with his efficiency, firing a three-hit shutout that required just 97 pitches, aka a 'Maddux.' The sinkerballer walked none and struck out three for his second career shutout, giving the Yankees two straight wins at Fenway in a series that was abbreviated by a postponement on Tuesday.


'I enjoy the competition,' Tanaka said through an interpreter. 'I think a lot of people thought with how well he was pitching up to this point, that probably Chris Sale had the upper hand. But I wanted to go in there and beat the odds.' "

Chris Carter is already a bargain

Finally?

It's April.

He finally hit a late-inning, pinch-hit, go-ahead HR:

"Maybe the Yankees should hold onto that Chris Carter guy after all.

Carter, regularly lambasted by the fan base -- many of whom had regularly called for his release on social media -- due to his early struggles at the plate, delivered a pinch-hit, three-run homer in the eighth inning that broke a 5-all tie and allowed the Yankees to secure another unlikely come-from-behind victory on the road.

Talk about a big first bomb in pinstripes. Carter had been signed to a one-year, $3.5 million contract in the offseason. He came into Saturday's game hitting .148."

I had no idea Carter has been regularly lambasted by the fan base. The fans have been regularly lambasting a bench warmer with 27 at-bats?

If so, the fans need to figure out a consistent criteria for their derision. A one-year, $3.5 million contract is the same as free. It's a good signing no matter what happens.

He's not that bad.

"With an infield single in the fifth inning, Jacoby Ellsbury reached base for the 23rd consecutive game dating back to Sept. 26, 2016, the longest active streak in the majors."

Batting .323 with 6 stolen bases and 10 runs.

High on-base%, low slugging%, a mere 3 RBIs.

Writers love Josh Hamilton

Fraud, cheater, criminal, one of the worst contracts in the history of things:

"Josh Hamilton was out of work on Friday after a new knee injury, and there’s your further evidence that Hamilton, like all ballplayers, like all people, are made up of icky, gooey, gross stuff that no one wants to see and eventually doesn’t work anyway. We just saw a little more of Hamilton’s, is all."

No.

I am a better person than Josh Hamilton by standard societal standards such as integrity, honesty, and general avoidance of illegal behavior.


"For a few years there, Josh Hamilton was just about the best in the sport. He was that in spite of all he’d experienced, all he’d inflicted upon himself, all the sickness he’d incurred. It won’t ever be what it could have been, whatever that is, and it is not heroic. It just is, or was, whatever he decides. It can’t ever be what was expected of him, a past he had no choice but to ignore. It was, however, every bit of what he had in that moment. So, if the baseball is over, then there will be just Josh and his girls and the life he chooses. There’ll be some memories of a young man hounded by – and chasing – darkness, of course. But there’ll also be that man who for a short time had tamed it all, and who can again, a day at a time."

So let's say you totally forgive alcoholism, like it's the flu. That's fine.

You don't care about the PEDs? When he was "just about the best in the sport," it's because he was juiced.

I am not a particularly judgmental person, but the general consensus hypocrisy is staggering.

You know, maybe alcoholism doesn't make one a bad person ... but it also doesn't make one a saint.

Felz Stat of the Day

Greg Bird has one more hit this season than Mark Teixeira.

Whose insight into who?

Let's ignore what happened in the game and just blame the bullpen.

"Masahiro Tanaka scuffles in two straight starts and you know the reaction, the sky is already falling on the Yankees’ sketchy starting rotation, even before the bullpen blows two straight leads in Baltimore."

The sky is not falling on the Yankees' sketchy starting rotation because it has already fallen ... just got your verb tense wrong. The AL hitters are waiting in anticipation as decision day approaches: Will the Yankees name Chad Green or that AAA Lefty Guy as the #5 pitcher in their rotation?

The Yankee bullpen is not going to have a 0.00 ERA. The bullpen gave up 3 earned runs in Baltimore over the course of 8 innings. I think it's the only runs the bullpen has allowed this season.

The starting pitching, the typical 19 runners left on base, the garbage fielding: those are your problems.


"The other night I watched Chris Sale make his first start for the Red Sox at Fenway, a start even more anticipated than Harvey’s would be for the Mets on Thursday. Sale threw his first pitch of the night at 97 and then spent most of the game against the Pirates in the low and middle 90s. Sale was still brilliant. He is smart, he works both sides of the plate, he mixes sliders with his fastball, he so clearly has an ace’s makeup and mentality. You don’t have to have the biggest fastball in the world to be that kind of ace. You just have to have attitude, and big stuff."

Lupica watched a baseball game, everybody.

What is Lupica doing? Explaining how pitching works?



"There was the Saturday afternoon in a Subway Series game against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, two years ago, when Harvey seemed almost happy that the Mets had lost on Friday night, so the next day’s game put even more pressure on him, and was all about him. He threw fastballs past Alex Rodriguez that day that made Rodriguez look as if he were ready for the assisted hitting home."

Oh, yeah, doesn't everybody remember the time ARod struck out two years ago? I still think about it often.

Harvey struck out 80-year-old ARod, a man who only struck out only 2,287 times in his career.


Yeah, we get it. You lose velocity and you have to change your pitching strategy. Suzyn Waldman has been trying to explain this to CC Sabathia for 5 years.



"Wait a second, I thought the game was supposed to be over when the Yankees took a lead into the late innings."

Nope, the game isn't over just because the Yankees take a lead ... and the fifth inning doesn't qualify as "late." Blaming the bullpen is very lazy.

Wait a second, I thought Aaron Judge was supposed to hit over .200 and have a higher career OPS than Ronald Torreyes.

Wait a second, I thought the Baby Bombers were supposed to stay healthy just because they're young.

Wait a second, I thought Michael Pineda had plus-plus stuff.

Wait a second, I thought starting pitchers were supposed to occasionally pitch more than 4 2/3 innings and keep their ERAs under 9.00.
 

"Bullpen falters."

Bullpen allows 1 earned run in 4 innings.

Starting pitcher allows 4 earned runs in 5 innings.

Which faltered?

Walking Jones in the 5th inning with a 5-1 lead, setting up Machado's 3-run HR, should have been enough for Girardi to walk out to the mound and hand Severino a bus ticket to Scranton.

Redemption is easier to find than I thought.

Beating the Braves in front of a half-empty stadium in April.

ARod will be at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day!

ARod foresees 45 HRs per season for Judge. ARod also foresees multiple batting titles and a Yankee captaincy for Bird.

We love our cuddly, fun-loving, pudgy steroid-using cheater.

Yup, he's a lot like Jimmy Breslin alright.

"And so you know?"

Please let us know what you think, Mr. Lupica.

It's a nice way to ruin the optimism that surrounds Opening Day.


"I believe Commissioner Rob Manfred got it right with Jeurys Familia, giving him 15 games instead of the 30 he gave Aroldis Chapman a year ago because of an incident involving the mother of Chapman’s child. There was a gun involved with Chapman, even if all he did was, according to police reports, fire off shots in his garage. Doesn’t matter. He could have taken aim at the moon. A gun being anywhere near a domestic argument presents both the opportunity and the danger of a far greater tragedy."

Plus, I don't like the Yankees.


"And the Mets’ starting third baseman, Jose Reyes, was also suspended at the beginning of last season, when he was still with the Rockies, because he had been arrested by police in Maui the previous October – the same weekend, as it turns out, that Chapman’s girlfriend ended up hiding in fear outside his house – over an incident involving his wife."

And the NY Daily News sports investigative team was busy that weekend ... doing what?


"This isn’t steroids, or performance enhancing drugs, where if you test positive, you’re automatically gone; or when there was so much evidence against you, as there was with the world’s most expensive mentor and man-about-town, Alex Rodriguez, that you end up losing three times what Reyes got from Manfred, which means a whole season. With the exception of Ray Rice or Joe Mixon, where there was video, most of these cases involve two people, sometimes two versions of things, one bad moment. Sometimes a terrible moment that changes lives forever."

No.

It isn't "steroids or performance enhancing drugs." (Which reminds me: You can just use "steroids" or "PEDs" as shorthand for both. Nobody who reads this column is a chemist.)

It's a helluva lot worse than "steroids or performance enhancing drugs," wouldn't you say?


"Sometimes in a guys’ world, it’s not how you acted against a woman, it’s how much the guys in charge of hiring think you still have left in the tank. Whether they think you can still pack a punch or not. So to speak."

"Pack a punch."

Nice.

When are you going to retire?

Imagine if Gary Sanchez had started his career 2-for-35, then followed that with a monster month.

The fans and writers would have made up their minds about him based on a small sample size; McCann might still be on the Yankees; Sanchez's post-pennant race September surge would have been dismissed; the general consensus for the 2017 Yankees would probably be 70 wins instead of 85 wins.

Or maybe there would have been no chance for a rebound 20-HR surge in September because he would have ridden the bench ... in Scranton.


Gosh, I hope Sanchez is the next Jorge Posada. A lot of observers believe he will be even better.

I'm just stuck with the nagging feeling he's the next Joba Chamberlain.

I am not denying Gary Sanchez's popularity and the fans' thirst for a new pinstriped hero ...

It's just way too early to fast track his enshrinement at Cooperstown.

This is Sanchez's career in a nutshell:

• Batted .389 in August 2016
• Batted .225 in September/October 2016

The next Jeter has a whole 1/3rd of a season under his belt. 

Gardner isn't any better.

I think it's only against lefty starters, but:

• Sanchez batting second?
• Gardner leading off instead of Ellsbury?
• Ellsbury batting fifth instead of Gardner? 

Statistics don't support any of this.

Greg Bird wins first base battle against no one.

While Mark Teixeira (fingers crossed!) revives Foul Territory.

Likely story.

I don't think Pineda can blame the language barrier on his cheating.

Also, this is a three-year-old forgotten story.

Chase Headley had one good year.

Stop with the mechanics and confidence nonsense.

Headley had 31 HRs and 115 RBIs one year for San Diego. His career 162-game average? Try 15 HRs and 68 RBIs ... and that includes the 31/115 anomaly.

Cashman was hoping for another Brosius/Swisher bargain basement find and Cashman got burned:

"The Yankees gave the switch-hitting 32-year-old third baseman a four-year, $52 million two seasons ago after acquiring him in a trade with the Padres in July of 2014.

In 2015, Headley committed 23 errors and posted a .693 OPS. In 2016, he got off to a miserable start at the plate, contributing to his team's miserable start in the standings."

25 HRs and 113 RBIs isn't so bad for a third baseman playing at Yankee Stadium and making $13 million.

Oh, wait.

Those stats are for two seasons combined?


"On May 3, Headley's batting average was .147 and the Yankees were 8-16.

'Mechanically, I had a little too much forward movement in my swing and I was a little too pull conscious,' Headley said. 'And when things are going that bad and you have some poor luck, your confidence gets a bit shaken. Because of my past track record, it never got to the point where I was like I'm not going to hit again, it was when am I going to hit again.'

Eventually, he rebounded to hit .268 the rest of the way."

Wow. A whole .268 "the rest of the way."

If Ellsbury hits .268 "the rest of the way," the writers want to run him out of town.

Spring Training doesn't mean anything.

I don't buy it:

"While Spring Training is about preparing for something larger, there occasionally are moments like this one. Afterwards, all the best quotes came from the Detroit clubhouse.

'There's pride involved,' Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. 'You don't want to get no-hit whether it's Spring Training, regular season or Wiffle ball in the backyard.'

Yankees manager Joe Girardi laughed when someone asked if he'd saved the lineup card. For him, a spring no-hitter simply was another brick in a very impressive wall.

At 16-5, the Yankees hold the Majors' best record this spring. They've seen what they had hoped to see from most of their primetime players and the waves of young talent on the way."

Who is going to start in RF for the Yankees?

"Forget five pitchers fighting for two rotation jobs."

No problem. I have forgotten the names of the five pitchers fighting for two rotation jobs. That was easy.


"The right-field competition between Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks has turned into the hottest battle in Yankees camp that may not be decided much before the April 2 opener."

 Exciting.


"Should Hicks, 27, win the job, Judge, 25 next month, isn’t going to stick around as a bench player. That would open a fourth outfielder spot. Even as good as Dustin Fowler has looked in spring training, it’s highly unlikely the 22-year-old who never has played above Double-A would be the choice. Ditto Clint Frazier, who played 30 games at Triple-A last year. Mason Williams, who hasn’t appeared in a spring game because of a strained left patella, could fill the role if he gets healthy enough. He was limited to 43 minor league games and 12 major league tilts last year because of shoulder surgery."

Judge will get his chance soon enough.

I don't quite see the point, maybe he's selling a lot of Spring Training merchandise.

On the other hand, I'm also guessing that Harper never noticed an on-deck circle snafu before simply because Harper wasn't paying attention:

"Maybe it wasn't quite the same as a rookie quarterback nervously lining up under the guard rather than the center to take the snap, but Tim Tebow's lack of baseball experience proved embarrassing before he ever got in the batter's box on Wednesday.

It's not often you see a hitter walk across to the other team's on-deck circle to get ready to hit. Actually, you never see that, not even in high school, where Tebow last played before signing on for this sideshow with the Mets.

It was so unusual that Red Sox pitcher Rick Porcello, warming up at the time, said he assumed it was a bat boy when he noticed someone in a Mets' uniform walking behind the plate to the Red Sox side of the field.

When home plate umpire Ryan Addition noticed, he had to tell the former Heisman Trophy winner to get back to his side of the field.

Afterward Tebow said he thought because he's a lefthanded hitter, he should go to that side. He said Jacob deGrom kidded him, 'I won't tell anybody but I saw it.' "

Alex Rodriguez would be pleased to hear this ...

... after a decade of slagging.


"The New York Yankees are seriously contemplating dropping the $153 Million Man, Jacoby Ellsbury, to the bottom of the batting order this season. Since Ellsbury has been a Yankee, he has nearly always hit in the first three spots of the lineup, despite being barely an average player. It seems as if his seven-year deal could go down as the worst free-agent signing in franchise history."

I believe you answered your own question. If Ellsbury has been average, then he's a lot better than many Yankee free agent signings.

Has Headley been average? Was McCann average? These are players on the 2016 Yankees. Not a huge research project. Just look around the locker room.

In 2016, Ellsbury was the fifth-best player on the whole team according to WAR.


"This season, the Yankees are paying Alex Rodriguez $21 million not to play, per the terms of his final 10-year, $275 million contract. Owner Hal Steinbrenner has shown the team will eat money if there is no better option."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Obviously, owner Hal Steinbrenner has not shown the team will eat money if there is no better option.

If so, the Yankees would have cut ARod years ago.

I can't recall any other example of Steinbrenner eating a major contract ... and he has had plenty of chances.

For example, what was Teixeira even doing on the team last year?



"Ellsbury's time with the Yankees has been downright boring, with few memorable highlights and benchings in pivotal games. He has built no equity with the team."

No doubt.

But I don't recall too many Yankee fans naming their kids after Steve Kemp or Dave Collins.


"Ellsbury’s seven-year, $153 million contract is vying for the worst in Yankees history. Its shear enormousness, an overreaction to the impending loss of Robinson Cano in the winter of 2013, will likely give it the edge over Ed Whitson's, Carl Pavano's and Kei Igawa's in Yankees free-agent infamy. (Not that anyone should feel bad for Ellsbury; who wouldn’t want to be overpaid?)"

No way.

Just account for inflation. That is all you have to do. It isn't a difficult concept.

The aforementioned Steve Kemp was the 4th-highest player in baseball in 1985. His WAR was 0.1 and he was sent to the minors before quickly being traded. Kemp's salary of $1.4 million doesn't sound like a lot 32 years later, but it's the 2017 equivalent of Miguel Cabrera's salary. Cabrera ain't exactly playing in the minors.

Similarly, Ellsbury is the 30th-highest paid player in baseball in 2017. Too much money, without question. Yet Ellsbury is still better than some of the people ahead of him on the list, believe it or not, even if he's merely average.

ARod is 31st for, you know, lots and lots of consulting.


"In his three seasons in the Bronx, he has hit .264 with a .326 on-base percentage -- far below his career totals of .297 and .439 coming into the contract. He has stolen just 80 bases -- 10 more than he stole in a single season, 2009, with the Boston Red Sox. He has hit 32 homers in three seasons as a Yankee, which is the same amount he swatted in 2011 in Boston, the one year that seemed to justify his big-bucks signing. Ellsbury chases balls down in center field, but he throws worse than a New York Jets quarterback.

On top of this, Ellsbury brings no buzz to the team. He is as invisible in the clubhouse as he is on the field. He is not a leader, typically the role of higher-paid players. When things went wrong, Derek Jeter was almost always there to answer the tough questions. It is part of the job for the top crop of Yankees to communicate to the fans. Ellsbury is rarely in the clubhouse, especially when the big-time players are being held accountable."

This is not a strong case at all.

1. "His Yankee totals are below his own career totals."

2. "He has speed on the basepaths and the outfield."

3. "No buzz in the clubhouse." Well, gee.

None of these observations explain how Ellsbury was a worse signing than, say, Pascual Perez, Jose Contreras, that weird pro-rated Roger Clemens nonsense which excited Suzyn Waldman quite a bit, or Mike Witt ... some obvious disasters who Marchand didn't even mention.

If you're worried about sheer size of the contract, then it is still nowhere near the worst when youl take inflation into account and look at ROI.


What Marchand is really doing is trying to figure out who to obsess about since ARod has retired.

We can all look forward to thousands upon thousands of anti-Ellsbury tweets while Marchand ignores similar observations about Brett Gardner and CC Sabathia.

Clint Frazier's Hair

"The matter of Frazier’s hair speaks to a deeper issue for the Yankees and baseball in general.

Frazier, who could be a starter this season, is viewed as being central to the Yankees’ youth movement, and with his hair and provocative personality, he might offer a jolt of enthusiasm largely absent from Yankee Stadium these days.

Attendance, television ratings and the fan following for the Yankees have been in steady decline in recent years, as the team has played only one playoff game since 2012. Magnetic performers like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez have retired.

Across town, the Mets stand in sharp relief: an ascendant World Series contender and increasingly popular on television, the team is built around a dynamic young pitching rotation. The Mets’ two headliners, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom, sport shoulder-length hair that is decidedly un-Yankee-like and both celebrated and mimicked by fans.

The two teams — and their hirsute styling — may stand as proxies for the push and pull that baseball is going through, trying to speed up the game to lure young, attention-starved fans without alienating older, tradition-bound ones.

How to embrace tradition without being a slave to it?"

The only thing that matters is Ws and Ls.

Shoulder-length hair is not why Mets fans celebrate Syndergaard and deGrom.

Josh Hamilton is back in training camp.

The Angels got 31 HRs for their $125 million investment.

Though the Rangers paid $4 million of that.

So the Angels got 31 HRs for their $121 million investment.

This is why set up men leave to become closers.

Betances has been basically unhittable for three straight seasons as a setup man.

bumps in the road last season because, I guess, he's human.

Then the Yankees use his lack of saves against him in arbitration and go out of their way to trash his accomplishments.

So Betances gets $3 million because the Yankees couldn't scrape up another $2 million. Which is probably what they spend on Dellin Betances bobble head dolls.

Last place.

It sounds kind of bad when you say "nine postseason innings in the past four seasons."

Not even being snarky, when I first read the headline, "Yankees Plan a Trip to Canyon of Heroes," I thought they meant for a different event. Like a team-building trip to celebrate a parade for a World Cup soccer team, or something like that.

If you want to start with a runner on second base, then hit a double.

Has anyone even pondered the fact that you're giving both teams the same advantage? Sure, you're increasing the chances that the visiting team scores a run in the top of the inning ... and then increasing the chances that the home team scores a run in the bottom of the inning:

"I know there's a romantic notion about extra innings, which speaks to the timeless element of a sport that isn't governed by a clock. But the reality of it is the romance goes out of your run-of-the-mill extra-inning game fairly quickly, and after the 10th or 11th it feels as if everyone in the ballpark is begging for some action."

I harbor no romantic notions about extra innings or even the timeless elements of a sport that isn't governed by a clock.

Baseball has lots of run-of-the-mill games, extra innings or not.

Baseball fans enjoy them either way. 

If you're really hoping to keep the youngsters off their iPhones, you've lost them by the bottom of the second inning anyway. You're trying to make that game more exciting for a catatonic 9-year-old in the cheap seats ... and you think they'll awake from their slumber because you start the inning with a runner on second base?


"Is it gimmicky — an artificial way to get to a speedier result? Sure, but it wouldn't change the authenticity of the competition.

Instead it would create instant drama, put immediate pressure on the pitcher and the defense, and set up a strategy decision — to bunt or not to bunt? — that all but ensures some level of second-guessing of the manager.

Is any of that bad for the game?"

Yes, I believe it's bad for the game. The reasoning is so obvious that I don't even feel like taking the time to explain. After nine innings, line up 5 players from each team and spin plates on the knob of the bat. Whoever keeps their plates spinning the longest wins the game.

You're also wildly overrating the excitement of (a) sac bunting and (b) second-guessing the manager.
 

"But perhaps a better comparison is the radical change another sport adopted nearly 50 years ago to bring a conclusion to the endless hours sometimes needed to determine a winner.

At the time, players and fans alike screamed in protest that installing a tiebreaker in tennis was too gimmicky to be accepted. Now, all these years later, it's hard to imagine tennis played without tiebreaker. Otherwise some of those classic Federer-Nadal matches over the years might have never ended."

It's not a good example.

Because one is tennis and the other is baseball.

So ... other than that ...  it's a good example.

You know what would be a great idea? Starting extra innings with a runner on second base.

One of the most pressing problems with baseball is the high volume of 18-inning games where utility infielders are forced to pitch:

"Let's see what it looks like," Torre told Yahoo! Sports. "It's not fun to watch when you go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing a utility infielder in to pitch. As much as it's nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time."

I'm gonna show those arrogant New Yorkers.

"But for now, the Patriots really do feel like the old Yankees. Not Torre’s Yankees, who took Yankee hating out of style. No, the Yankees who began with Babe Ruth and went all the way into the middle 1960s. The Yankees who were once compared to U.S. Steel. Those Yankees."

Take a thing from Boston. Red Sox, Patriots, David Ortiz, Theo Epstein.

Compare it favorably to a thing from New York. Torre-era Yankees, Babe Ruth-era Yankees, Alex Rodriguez, Brian Cashman.

You did it.

You're Mike Lupica.

LOL

2017 Hall of Fame / Steroids, steroids, and cocaine

Can we drop the ethical pretense now?

Ten years if you can believe it.

I sometimes still accidentally refer to him as Joe Torre.

Cano has seven more years on his contract.

"Ex-Yankee Robinson Cano returned to dominance in 2016, belting a career-high 39 home runs, triple-slashing .298/.350/.533 and ranking sixth in all of baseball with an ESPN Wins Above Replacement of 7.3.

Cano is now three seasons into his 10-year, $240 million contract with the Mariners. And so far — with the exception of the first three months of 2015, when he battled a reported stomach illness and struggled as a result — it's worked out very well for Seattle."

No, it hasn't worked out very well for Seattle. They haven't even made the playoffs.


"An eight-year, $200 million offer supposedly would've done the trick. But the Yankees went in a different direction, giving Jacoby Ellsbury a seven-year, $153 million deal, and deciding to move on from Cano."

I don't buy "supposedly" when it's off by $40 million, so the Yankees chose Ellsbury + $90 million. Which really means the Yankees chose Ellsbury + Tanaka. Yet, none of these analyses ever include Tanaka.

But even if Tanaka is excluded from the equation, $90 million isn't chump change, even for the Yankees.


"In a perfect world, the Yankees would be able to trade Ellsbury, who has had a history of injuries, and find a short-term solution in center before Clint Frazier's eventual arrival. But it seems like they're stuck.

Long-term, it's possible that Castro, who used to play shortstop, projects as a utility infielder and Ellsbury projects as a corner/fourth outfielder. In the meantime, the Yankees can only hope to get more consistency out of each player.

Cano's decline will eventually come too. But unless he gets hurt, it doesn't appear that's happening anytime soon."

Ellsbury has been a bust, Tanaka has not been a bust. Csatro will not be able to replace Cano at second base by any means.

It's simply too early to evaluate this signing by Seattle.

If Cano can produce in years 8 through 10, I'll be surprised ... shocked, actually ... and the Mariners didn't commit a quarter of a billion dollars to win 80-something games and miss the playoffs every year.

Seattle may get the last laugh, but that's only if Cano is flashing a ring in a Puget Sound parade.

Me me me me me.

It's one thing to overstate the importance of a player's popularity among his teammates. It's a stretch to keep that player out of the HOF for that reason.

But this guy is simply voting against Schilling because of a personal grudge.

Matt Holiday: Professional hitter and clubhouse leader.

"Aside from providing veteran leadership for his younger teammates, it's probable that manager Joe Girardi pencils the nearly 37-year-old DH in the cleanup spot — sandwiched between phenom Gary Sanchez and, perhaps, Greg Bird.

Holliday is an accomplished righthanded hitter, a seven-time All-Star who was one of the most productive bats in baseball during his prime — regularly reaching 5.0 wins above replacement or greater."

"Veteran leader" and "accomplished hitter" ... judges?

Bzzz.

Damn. So close.

For what it's worth, I believe Schilling is a HOFer.

And it ain't worth much:

"Curt Schilling has lost more votes from writers who previously picked him than any other candidate on the ballot. According to Thibodaux’s calculations, 18 writers switched their votes away from Schilling. The next-most votes lost: the seven lost by both Trevor Hoffman and Fred McGriff.

Jerry Crasnick wrote about the Schilling phenomenon earlier this month, addressing the question: Is it possible to tweet your way out of Cooperstown?

In my opinion, this is a really bad look for the baseball writers, because it’s a loose affirmation of a stereotype that is almost always wrong: Writers pick candidates based on whether they like them. Since last year’s balloting, Schilling hasn’t thrown a single pitch; nothing he has written or said changes anything about what he did as a major league player over 20 years."

"A loose affirmation of a stereotype that is almost always wrong: Writers pick candidates based on whether they like them."

In response, let me just say one thing: LOL.

Just abolish the entire practice.

"I love voting for the Hall of Fame. I relish the rigor of it, along with the inevitable criticism that follows. If anything, the ethical dilemmas make the experience more worthwhile. As judgments become more nuanced and complex, I'm honored to be part of an organization that wields profound influence on the way baseball history is remembered in Cooperstown."

I suppose I can't blame you for sounding so consumed with your self-absorbed importance ... the baseball Hall of Fame has a way of doing that to people.


"First, I'll state my position on performance-enhancing drugs: I draw a sharp line at the 2005 season, when Major League Baseball began suspending players for PED use. To me, Rafael Palmeiro (no longer on the ballot), Manny Ramirez (eligible for the first time), Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun have disqualified themselves from consideration.

There is substantial evidence that Bonds and Clemens used PEDs. Steroid suspicion has followed Bagwell and Rodriguez. But rather than surmise who used -- because an educated guess is all we have in some cases -- it's most reasonable to vote for the players who truly excelled in a flawed era. Bonds, Clemens, Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez did that."

I must say, that's auite nuanced, just like you said.


"Sammy Sosa, by contrast, ranked ninth among position players on this year's ballot with an OPS+ of 128, just ahead of J.D. Drew and Magglio Ordoñez. Yes, Sosa hit 609 home runs. But he did so during a PED-tainted era, in which the skill of hitting home runs became less historically significant.

Rodriguez won 13 Gold Glove Awards at catcher. Bagwell won one. Sosa? Zero. And Bagwell's OPS+ (149) was much higher than Sosa's."

I actually can't wait for Ivan Rodriguez to get in.

This is the first of an avalanche of ridiculous justifications.

"I draw a sharp line at the 2005 season" because that makes no sense whatsoever, but that way I can justify voting for Ivan Rodriguez, who won 13 gold gloves as a catcher and stuff.


By the way, reviewing the people you voted for?:

• Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling

I'll bet they all took steroids. Not sure about Mussina, Schilling, or Hoffman ... it's not as easy to tell with pitchers, is it? Quite sure about all the others ... and if Raines is not guilty of taking steroids, he's guilty of worse.

I don't really think it's a bad list at all. You'd probably be better off leaving your nuanced reasoning out of it and just letting the list speak for itself.

Because the 2005 criteria doesn't make much sense.

Lupica Defends Bud Selig

"So this is the way it's apparently supposed to work: If Bud Selig gets into the Hall of Fame then Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are supposed to get in right behind him, as if it's some sort of referendum on equivalency. Only it's not."

Oh boy, this oughtta be good.


"If Selig is responsible for the use of performance-enhancing drugs by some of the most prominent names in baseball history, then so are a lot of us in the media, and not just the baseball media."

Yes. You are totally guilty. This obvious verdict is not even up for discussion.


"If you want to throw the book, and that means the record book, at Selig for not acting sooner, then ask yourself something: Why didn't the same people still prosecuting Selig for baseball's drug past tell us what was going on in the 1990s? What was stopping them?"

Not sure.

Maybe what was stopping them was a lack of complete awareness, hampered by incompetent and holier-than-thou baseball journalists who don't care about researching and disseminating useful information, but instead focus on personal grudges and empty gossip.

Maybe they never pondered Selig's HOF candidacy because it seems so absurd and perverse. Even now, after it's happened. It seems surreal, actually. 2016 has been a very strange year, hasn't it?

It's difficult, however, to answer your rhetorical question because you haven't specifically identified "the people" in question.


"Could Selig have stated his concerns about PEDs earlier than he did? He could have, could have applied common sense before he had actual evidence or proof, taken the high ground from the intractable union leadership of Donald Fehr and Gene Orza. He could have said that if it were up to him -- and this is in the mid-'90s -- he would unilaterally impose drug testing on the spot, even though he knew that was impossible under the sport's Collective Bargaining Agreement. Selig could have said he was doing it in the name of the record book, and clean players."

If the writers truly cared about steroid use (they don't), then they would not even consider Selig.

See, we're complaining about you. We're not really complaining about Selig. You're the hypocrites for voting this guy in. Do you not understand this?

Your defenses of Selig are completely missing the point.


"He could have done better. We all could have done better. I wrote a book about 1998, and the magic of it for my sons. Bob Costas, who started hitting the subject hard around 2000, on his various platforms, says now, 'I wish I'd addressed the issue sooner.'"

"We all could have done better." Speak for yourself.


"Of course, Bud Selig doesn't get a hall pass on the steroids era just because he's in the Hall of Fame now, where he absolutely belongs. No one is suggesting that he should. But Bonds and Clemens don't get to follow him through the doors like Selig's running interference for them, either. It doesn't work that way."

You are suggesting Selig gets a hall pass. In the column which I'm reading right now.

I think I know how it works, by the way. Check it out:

Incompetent and lazy sportswriters refuse to research and disseminate useful baseball information. Instead, they use their columns for empty gossip and personal grudges. So if Selig had refused to return phone calls or if he had worn bespoke suits instead of all of his ridiculous Regular Guy affectations, then the writers would not have liked him and they would not have let him into the HOF.


"Now this is supposed to be all Selig's fault. Only it's not all anybody's fault. There is plenty enough blame to go around. Selig looked the other way, we are now told, because home runs were so good for business ..."

Stop right there. That's exactly what happened. If you deny that, then you haven't learned anything.

Of course Selig profited, and so did you.

It's not all Selig's fault, but he was the Commissioner.

If you want to put the Steroid Commissioner in the HOF, then put in the Steroid Third Basemen and Steroid Left Fielders.

Please get off your high horse once and for all. It will feel good and feel just.

I thought it was a rare moment of insight.

And what's the love affair with Joe Maddon?:

"I’m happy that Aroldis Chapman is happy to be back with the Yankees, but he needs to shut it on Joe Maddon now, whether Maddon should have gotten him out of Game 6 earlier or not."

No.

He doesn't.


"Cubs won and so did Chapman, at the end of a season that began with him suspended because of something that happened between him and his girlfriend on Halloween weekend in 2015.

He won, and now he gets paid.

Move on."

"Move on." It only happened, like, 2 months ago. It's the first press conference since the World Series.

It's interesting to me that Girardi's superior bullpen management may have been a factor in Chapman's decision.

Is anybody left to cover sports at the NY Daily News?

Andrew Marchand is going to be a contrarian.

"The largest reliever contract in baseball history is one the New York Yankees will regret. It is too long, for too much money, for the wrong guy and, in the long run, a mistake."


Shaddup.


"Signing Chapman for five years and $86 million is an 'all-in' move. The Yankees, however, are an in-between team."

Is it?

Is that your idea of an "all-in" move?

Wait until you see what the Yankees offer to Bryce Harper.

Well, good.

I didn't expect the Yankees to get Chapman back.

Easy solution.

"The David Ortiz farewell tour was filled with many memorable moments. Most of those happened during games, as the retiring superstar nearly slugged his way into the MVP award.

His final season was also filled with just as many awkward moments. Most of those actually came before games when teams presented him with going-away gifts.

Perhaps the most awkward ceremony took place in Baltimore. Prior to his final game at Camden Yards, on Sept. 21, the Orioles rolled out the red carpet, showed highlights of Ortiz mashing home runs against the mutual rival New York Yankees, and then presented him with the actual visitor’s dugout phone he once destroyed during an in-game meltdown."

Yeah, if you're going to celebrate a player, then at least do it properly.

But, of course, there's an even easier solution that would nip this awkwardness in the bud.

All Star Game Changes

"Now the World Series team with the better record will host Games 1, 2, 6 and 7, a common-sense solution that ends the charade of tying the outcome of an exhibition to the sport’s signature event. If the teams have identical records, the first tiebreaker would be head-to-head record; the second, divisional record."

That's a good change.

Not much else going on. Tim Tebow hit .194 and did not commit to returning to the Mets. So there's that.