Some of his Home Runs are "home runs."

"Alonso hit it just right -- with a compact swing and without much follow-through -- with two strikes on him, and with as much power as anyone right now in Major League Baseball.

'People can’t hit that pitch out,' Braun said.

He paused, then said, 'I know I coached him. But to me, this kid is the most remarkable thing happening in baseball.' "

It's the baseball. In 2019, everybody can hit that pitch out. It happens every day.


It's not just the baseball.

Alonso has more home runs than anybody else, right?

But the SHOCK and AWE of this opposite field line drive check swing slop sailing 440 feet into the back of the bullpen is silly.


Do you know how many players have 30 home runs? 54. If I counted correctly. It's a very large number; I may have made a mistake.

Have you ever heard of Jorge Soler? He has 45 home runs. Call his high school coach! ... Jorge Soler is the most amazing thing happening in baseball right now ... also, he has been more important for his team than Alonso because Alonso is surrounded by more talent, know what I'm saying?

Brett Gardner has a career high 27 home runs. It's a career high for Gardner. Do you know who else has career highs in home runs? Everyone.

Yordan Alvarez also has 27 home runs. It's a career high for him, too, on account of it's the first season of his career. He has 27 home runs in a mere 294 at-bats.


"Another thing Braun told me when we spoke early in August was that he honestly thought Alonso could hit 55 homers this season and break Aaron Judge’s all-time rookie record of 52. The Plant High School coach wasn’t backing off that prediction on Saturday morning."

I don't doubt it.

The rookie home run record which lasted 2 years will be broken again in another year or two.

Unless the commissioner fixes the ball.


"Bellinger is the likely MVP in t"Bellinger is the likely MVP in the National League. He came out of Friday night’s games hitting nearly 40 points higher than Alonso, and has an OPS of 1.038 to Alonso’s .959. His slugging percentage is .630 to Alonso’s .593. But Alonso has five more home runs, five more RBIs, plus less talent surrounding him in New York than Bellinger does on the other coast.he National League. He came out of Friday night’s games hitting nearly 40 points higher than Alonso, and has an OPS of 1.038 to Alonso’s .959. His slugging percentage is .630 to Alonso’s .593. But Alonso has five more home runs, five more RBIs, plus less talent surrounding him in New York than Bellinger does on the other coast."

Yeah, let's not mention his team's 20 fewer wins.


"But no player in baseball, not one, has been more valuable than Alonso has been to the New York Mets."

That's probably easily disprovable B.S., but this whole time, I thought it was Gio Urshela.

Everyone remembers where they were when Gary Sheffield hit his 500th career home run.

I didn't even remember that he played for the Mets.

It could mean the "world" ... as in "World Series" ... get it?

"But they need homefield throughout the playoffs to give themselves their best chance. They just do. They need to close that deal. It only might mean everything in the end, in an ALCS, then in a World Series."

If you didn't know who "they" was, would you be able to tell Lupica was talking about the Yankees?

Can you think of a baseball team ... or a team in any sport ... who wouldn't want homefield advantage?

In baseball, the home team bats second, which has lots of advantages in and of itself.

I could go on, but I wouldn't insult your intelligence like that.


"Start in their own league: As good as they are at home, the Astros are better. And please remember what happened the last time the two teams played in October: The Yankees won the middle three games of the American League Championship Series at the Stadium. The Astros won Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 at Minute Maid Park."

The Astros lost the middle three games of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium?

That's a .000 winning percentage.

Golly, it sounds like the Astros should fight for homefield advantage throughout the playoffs ... it gives them the best chance.


"You know how many of those games Justin Verlander pitched? Two. You know who will get two starts if the thing goes the distance again? Him. The best starting pitcher in the sport and one of the best of his generation."


What if Verlander is back home watching Cleveland vs. Oakland in the ALCS?


"What this really means is that the playoffs have started already for the Yankees. They need to treat the rest of the regular season like a pennant race out of the past, them against the Astros for best record, all the way down the stretch."



They're not going to go full throttle the next two weeks, that's for sure.

They will try to win every game, I suppose.

But they will also play September callups and rest the starting players ... even give Jordan Montgomery a start.


"Because the best record in the league really might mean everything this time. The Yankees need to grind the rest of the way the way the Mets have been grinding since the All-Star Break."

The Mets?

What do the Mets have to do with the ALCS? Why would the Yankees try to emulate the Mets?


Am I missing something? Were the Mets resting their A-Team in the first half of the season because they were resting  up for the playoffs?


"Incidentally: Winning the East guarantees the Yankees nothing in the first round. If they do end up with the best record, they have to play either the Rays or the Indians or the A’s, who swept the Yankees in Oakland the last time the two teams played. And please know that the Yankees were 3-4 against the A’s this season, 3-4 against the Astros, 3-4 against the Indians, 4-2 against the Twins. The best they have done against any possible playoff team is the Rays, against whom they are 12-5."

What the hell?

You mean to say the Yankees played various teams throughout the 2019 baseball season and won some of those games while also losing some of those games?

Well, I've never seen such profound baseball analysis in my entire life.

It must have come from Elias.


"Starting Tuesday, the schedule smiles on the Yankees: Three against the Angels, three against the Blue Jays, two against the Rays, finally three against the Texas Rangers. If they are going to win the 11 games in October that Reggie Jackson always talks about, they have to kill it in those 11 games."

Yeah.

I sure hope the Yankees "kill it" in October.

That would be awesome.


Now land the dismount, sport:

"Might make all the difference in the world as in, World Series."

Swish!


What we learned is that homefield advantage might make all the difference and winning the AL East guarantees nothing in the first round.

Just grind it out like the Mets and hope for the best.

Jacoby Ellsbury, Jimmy Connors, and Buck Showalter to us all.

There's another word for "almost wins."

I like to call them "losses."

"You think the Mets would like that 11-10 game with the Nationals back?

I sure would."

Yeah, it was a tough loss at a time when people were actually paying close attention to the Mets.

Who are the Mets chasing for the second wild card? As of this morning, they are chasing the Cubs, Brewers, and Phillies.

So let's give the Mets back The Game they Shoulda Won.

What, Pedro Strop never blew a save this season? The Cubs never left bases loaded in the late innings of a close game? If the Mets get a couple of their Shoulda Wons back, they're still three games behind the Cubs, because the Cubs got their Shoulda Wons back, too. These are the rules I just made up in Imaginary League Baseball.

I'll bet the Phillies would have 115 wins this season if they could get credit for all the games they shoulda won.

Great teams don't always win close games. The Astros lost an impossible walkoff to the Orioles in a game where Verlander started. The difference between the Astros and the Mets is the other 161 games.

I think that the way the Yankees have dominated the Red Sox -- and the division -- this season and the way Cashman has the Yanks set up for the immediate future didn’t factor into what just happened to Dombrowski, less than a year from when the Sox won their fourth World Series since 2004.

"And please don’t think that the way the Yankees have dominated the Red Sox -- and the division -- this season and the way Cashman has the Yanks set up for the immediate future didn’t factor into what just happened to Dombrowski, less than a year from when the Sox won their fourth World Series since 2004."

Okay!

Okay!

You changed my mind.

Mike Trout's foot has been bothering him for a month.

Maybe he can get that fixed up soon so he can be a productive player.

The longest nine-inning game in Mets history.

Sometimes, it feels like good hitting.

This felt like a lot of bad pitching.

Let's bring up Jimmy Connors and Jacoby Ellsbury.

No, really.

I'm surprised there isn't a Buck Showalter quote in there somewhere:

"In so many ways, not any of them good ones, there has never been a more amazing free agent in the history of New York City baseball than Jacoby Ellsbury."

The history of New York City baseball covers a lot of bad free agent signings.

Would you pay $138 million for 38 HRs? That's what the Mets did with David Wright. Does that technically not count as a free agent signing because it was a contract extension? OK fine.

Or does David Wright evade ridicule because he was a good guy who gave good clubhouse interviews?

Jason Bay, Mike Witt, Steve Kemp ... ummm ... this is actually not fun, so I will stop. It isn't hard to challenge the notion that Ellsbury was the worst free agent signing in NY baseball history.

He ended up being a bust, largely due to injuries that many people correctly predicted, but he was productive for a few years and contributed to winning teams. Not irreplaceable by any means, but a good player.

"Everybody around seems to have bullpen issues this season, except for the Yankees.

But Mets fans have a right to look at the various calamities produced by Diaz and Familia and then imagine what the standings would look like if both of them hadn’t pitched like tomato cans."

Arguably worse free agent signings than Jacoby Ellsbury right in front of your face.


"And wonder how this season might have played out if they’d signed Zack Britton in the last baseball winter instead of the Yankees."

If.


Yes, the Mets bullpen is bad, but the stats are always misleading.

Using last night's game as an example, Edwin Diaz got the win after he blew the save.

It happens all the time. Teams win games with a blown save or multiple blown saves.


Britton has been pretty good ... but just how many games do you imagine the Mets winning because of the addition of Zack Britton?

90 wins? 95 wins? 100 wins?


The Mets are 4 games over .500 and their victory over Philly last night moved them into a tie for third place in their own division.

The Phillies who didn't give up a walkoff home run; they just walked everybody or hit them with pitches.

"Pete Alonso came into the weekend with 45 homers and 105 RBI.

Bryce Harper came into the weekend with 30 homers and 100 RBI."

This merely proves that Harper isn't as bad as you thought.

People grade on a curve.

When Alonso signs his $350 million contract, then 45/120 won't be good enough anymore.

People think too much.

“Bellinger is a great player, MVP-caliber for sure, but half their team is,” says New York Mets reliever Seth Lugo. “Same thing with the Braves – they have so many really good guys. Not to say the Nationals don’t, but in my opinion, Rendon just stands out more among those guys than other players among their teammates. To me, that’s what a real MVP is.

“If the Dodgers lose Bellinger, they got plenty of guys that can cover. If they lose Rendon, they’re in trouble.”

Trout detractors point out his team isn’t good enough.

Bellinger detractors point out his team is too good.

So the MVP should be on a good-enough team, on the playoff cusp, pushed into the playoffs by their star player. Uh huh.

If Rendon is the best player in 2019, then he’s the MVP. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.

If you think he can’t be replaced in this imaginary argument, then I challenge the notion by replacing him with Bellinger. If I do that, then the Nationals might be in first place in their division. Which would make them too good for an MVP.

Something of an immortal?

"If that conversation seems awfully far away for a pitcher who has yet to win his 64th career game, that’s because it is. deGrom, who debuted a month before his 26th birthday, may have started his Major League career a bit too late to make the Hall of Fame realistic.

A second Cy Young Award would make him something of a baseball immortal, regardless."

I think we all know instantly that this isn't true.


"If deGrom can accomplish the feat, it would have implications on things as distant as his Hall of Fame resume, should he pitch well enough into his mid-30s to make that a consideration. Of the 19 pitchers to win multiple Cy Young Awards, 11 of them are in Cooperstown. A 12th, Roger Clemens, would be if not for PED concerns, while two others, Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw, are likely headed to the Hall after they retire."

Which leaves 5 near-immortals who aren't near-immortals.

I phoned the folks at Elias Sports Bureau - they know everything! - and this is the list:

Corey Kluber
Johan Santana
Tim Lincecum (oh, yeah)
Denny McLain (trivia question answer)
Bret Saberhagen

It just sounds funny

Not to make fun of a flabbergasted Nimmo ... it just came out funny:

"When I came in here, I didn't really know what happened, it just seemed like a bad dream,” Nimmo said after the Nationals’ largest ninth-inning rally in their history. “That's hard to do even in a Little League game. To come back from (six) runs down against guys throwing 99 mph, I don’t really have words for that.”

It just sounds funny to me.

The difficulty of Little Leaguers coming back in the ninth inning … against a guy throwing 99 MPH.

What is the distance from the mound to home plate in Little League?

Forty-five feet?

So you're saying the Yankees won't win the World Series.

Let's talk about things that everybody knows:

"Everybody knows this is a home run time in baseball. Everybody can see it’s another home run season, one in which teams will again hit more home runs in a season that at any other time in history."

Unless we're talking about Pete Alonso.


"The Yankees set the team record last season with 267, and they are likely going to fly past that number in September -- even in a season when Giancarlo Stanton, who once hit 59 in a season for the Marlins, has hit just one because of injuries and Aaron Judge, who has gotten hot lately, had just 18 coming into the weekend because of his own injury issues earlier in the year."

No mention of Encarnacion.


"The Yankees have hit more home runs in August alone (70) than any team has hit in a calendar month. They had 250 for the season heading into their weekend series against the A’s, and guess what? That number wasn't even the most in baseball this season, because the Twins had 261."

Twins hoping to ride home run surge to World Series win.


"I called the Elias Sports Bureau on Thursday -- they know everything! -- because I was curious about the correlation between homers and winning a World Series. This is the list I was given:"

You called the Elias Sports Bureau?

That's 5 minutes of research on the Internet.


"Not only are the 2009 Yankees the last to do it, the Astros in '17 were the last team to finish in the Top 5 in homers and win it all."

2009 was only ten years ago.

2017 was only two years ago.


"Nobody would suggest that the number of homers hit by the Twins and Yankees -- who are going to finish first and second in homers in 2019, unless the Dodgers or Astros have the kind of power surge in September that the Yanks just had in August -- are some kind of disqualifier for actually winning the World Series in a home run world."


Nobody except you.

This entire exercise is suggesting that the number of homers hit by the Twins and Yankees are some kind of disqualifier for actually winning the World Series.

If you're not suggesting that, then why did you call Elias Sports Bureau and provide us with a table correlating regular season home run totals to World Series victories?

If it's just rows and columns of random numbers signifying nothing, then you can call the folks at Purina and ask how much dog food was purchased in the cities of ALCS Champions over the past 20 years. You can even run trending analyses and figure out the standard deviation.


"And they're probably going to hit 300 home runs this season.

It’s a pretty amazing number. So are the numbers in our list of World Series winners."

The numbers that don't suggest anything. They're simultaneously amazing and suggestive of nothing.


Say what you mean, coward.

You're saying the Yankees won't win the World Series because they rely too much on the home run and strike out too much.

You're saying you're unimpressed.

You can't wait for Madison Bumgarner to shut 'em down in October.

Well, if that's what you really think, then don't hedge your bet.

If that's not what you really think, then there is no point to any of this.


It's not even a risky proposition.

Only one team is going to win the World Series. It probably won't be the Yankees or the Twins.

It probably won't be the team that hits the most home runs. It also probably won't be the team who wins the most games in the regular season. It probably won't be the team with the best team ERA.

Boston was 8th in team ERA in 2018 ... Houston was 11th in 2017 ... the Cubs were first in 2016, but that was three years ago! ... KC was 10th in 2015 ... San Francisco was 10th in 2014 ...

Not because any of these are bad things for baseball teams to do, but because ten teams make the playoffs and winning the World Series is hard.

You have to play well at the right time and get lucky.


You'll always be able to explain why the championship team won the championship. The winning team probably out-pitched the competition and, in retrospect, the bullpen had hearts of champions and overcame adversity. The vets came through by providing leadership and two or three unheralded heroes "stepped up."

But you won't find regular season team stats that provide much predictive guidance, nor will you easily be able to predict the winner before the playoffs start.

I figured that out all by myself without calling Elias.

Aaron Judge is the best player on the Yankees and one of the best players in MLB.

Lupica just capriciously picks players that he's going to debase every chance he gets, regardless of on-field performance:

"Sometimes you wonder if Aaron Judge, who finally started to pull the ball for home runs during the Yankees’ last road trip, might have crossed himself up, and more than somewhat, by falling in love with that Williamsport-like rightfield wall at the new Stadium."

Of all the criticisms of a player I've ever heard ... the ability to hit opposite-field HRs ... the ability to effectively adjust to the home ball park ... sound the most like compliments.

Put it this way: If Judge wants to hit 73 opposite field HRs in 2020, I'm all for it.


How crossed up is Aaron Judge, anyway?

.280/.387/.514.

55 runs, 42 RBIs, 18 HRs, 15 doubles, 50 walks in approximately half a season.

Some slump.

Throw in his baserunning and fielding and guess what? He's the best player on the Yankees.


He strikes out too much and probably always will

If that really qualifies as "crossed up," then he has been crossed up his whole Rookie of the Year near-MVP All Star career.


By the way?

The advantages "Willamsport-like rightfield wall" at Yankee Stadium goes for Gio Urshela, Luke Voit, Brett Gardner ... and, really, every Yankee HR hitter since Babe Ruth

Difference is, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Yogi, Gamble, Nettles, Winfield, Jeter, Ibanez, Dan Pasqua, and all the others didn't get to play with Steroid Ball.

I am pleased I underestimated Gio Urshela.

Is he the biggest surprise on the Yankees? I guess so.

German is 17-3 and I didn't even knew who he was before the season started.

Tauchman has an .886 OPS and 45 RBIs in half a season ... and ... who is Mike Tauchman?


Some of offensive numbers I don't know what to make of anymore.

Alonso and Bell and Urshela and Alvarez ... they're all doing well against their peers.

I just don't know if we can process the power numbers of 2019 in any kind of historical context.

No matter.

Urshela proved doubters wrong and I was a doubter.

In fact, I still think Andujar has a higher ceiling.


My gripe is not with the content of the article.

My gripe is the Jinx Factor.

Though it didn't work with Urshela the first time ... let's not forget how Lupica wrote off Aaron Judge two weeks ago.

After which Judge basically hit a HR-per-game.

Game-tying run taken off the scoreboard in the ninth inning.

When Tauchman struck out, Boone should have pointed out that the Dodgers never called Time In.

Or at least ask the umps for a Do Over.

Quick, before our parents call us in for dinner … olley olley in come free.

Of course it's not a big deal anymore.

Ask Chris Carter.

The numbers back up the grouchy old men in this case.

I'm not sure why Bob Nightengale feels a need to disparage the activity which indirectly employs him ... (have you ever thought about the actual job of being the baseball columnist for USA Today? ... it must be like being the crossword puzzle editor for Reader's Digest) ... but it's hard to argue with the facts:

"For the 12th consecutive season, hitters are on pace to break the strikeout record with 42,607 – 1,400 more than last year.

This year, 36% of all plate appearances have resulted in a strikeout, homer, walk or hit-by-pitch.

'We’re seeing all kind of guys who can hit home runs,' Rose said, but they can’t hit.'

Of course, that dovetails with the record home run rate this season. Entering Sunday, the league was on pace for 6,823 homers, more than 700 above the record set in 2017."

I also think the modern-day pitcher needs to be cut some slack.

I don't know how Seaver and Carlton would perform these days.

They'd surely be better than, say, Ivan Nova and his six innings per start.

But I'm almost 100% sure they couldn't sail through these lineups in these ballparks with these juiced up baseballs.

Judge has hit .212 over the past 30 games. I love the fans and writers who already think Judge is old news.

If I wanted to, I could do this analysis for any Championship team ever.

I could also do this analysis for every current MLB team.

"Sure, [team] has won [xyz] games, but their team has a flaw that has not been adequately addressed. They recently lost badly to [team] because [player] played poorly. They are relying on [star player] who is in a slump. What will happen in October? Fans of [team] should be worried."

"This was going to be about the Yankees and their starting pitching, and whether they could get their starters through the other team’s batting order at least twice in the postseason before turning the game over to their bullpen."

Twice through the lineup?

Probably.

Not three times through the lineup.


The Yankees want a tie game after five innings, with the presumption that they can win a battle of the bullpens.


"Then the Yankees went with one of those relievers, Chad Green, as an opener in Thursday night’s game against the Indians. Green didn’t make it through the Indians’ order once before giving up a grand slam to Jose Ramirez. The game ended up a 19-5 win for the Indians."

Everything changed because the Yankees lost a game by 14 runs.


"If the Yankees face the Indians in October, whether the Indians are the American League Central champs or an AL Wild Card, they won’t be throwing Green at them in Game 1."

Well, okay.

I can easily think of a scenario where Chad Green starts Game One of a playoff series.

But, whatever.

"Won't" means "probably won't" and I can move on.

I don't know what this is leading to.

I just think Lupica wanted to point out that the Yankees lost a game by 14 runs.


"Now, no one is still quite sure who the Game 1 starter for the Yankees, whether it will be Domingo Germán, this year’s young ace, or the rehabbing Luis Severino, last year’s young ace. Or Masahiro Tanaka. Or James Paxton."

If you're talking about the playoff rotation pecking order, it's Tanaka in Game One and German in Game Two.

Barring injuries and other unforeseen circumstances.


"But what we do know is that starting pitching is going to be an issue for the Yankees come October, even though they are likely going to be coming off a regular season in which they win even more than the 100 games they won last year, and still might end up with the best record in their league, maybe even in the whole sport."

Completely backwards.

It's as if Lupica doesn't actually know that English words have specific meanings.


What we know with reasonable certainty is the starters the Yankees will use in the playoffs.

What we don't know with reasonable certainty is how effective they will be. Or what team(s) they will play.

About the only thing I'd bank on is Paxton giving up runs in the first inning. What a tool that guy is.


"The Yankees didn’t make a deal for a starter at the July 31 Trade Deadline. Rather than make what he considered a bad deal, general manager Brian Cashman made no deal at all. Here is something Cashman said after the Trade Deadline:

'This is a damn good roster and it can compete, we feel, with anybody in the game.’' "

Eh, forget it.

Too much wasted energy discussing the pitchers the Yankees were going to acquire at the trading deadline.


It's as if nobody has noticed that every AL playoff game is going to have double-digit scores and lots of home runs and no starting pitcher can stop it.

Certainly no starting pitcher that was available at the trading deadline.


"The questions about the Yankees’ starting pitching -- especially if they end up against the Astros in the AL Championship Series the way they did two years ago -- will stick to them like a tick until one of their starters throws a gem in October."



The Yankees are going to rely on their bullpen, their fielding, hitting with runner in scoring position.

The same way they got to 100 wins.
 
Of course it will be harder in the playoffs. It's the playoffs.

It's going to be harder for their opponent, too.

Get used to it.

Every rookie is the best rookie ever?

It's getting hard to understand the numbers.

Is 30 HRs and 100 RBIs just mediocre?

Ruth and Gehrig alright.

An extreme example.

John and Suzyn lose their minds when a batter fouls off a lot of pitches:

"We all wish he could have hit one out of the park or something like that, but there are so many positives in that at-bat," McGuire said. "All three of those at-bats were, I guarantee, a lot tougher than Chapman was probably expecting.”

He fouled off a bunch of pitches and then grounded into a double play.

... and he won't be the last.

Q:	Aristides Aquino became the second player in MLB history to record a three-homer game in his first 10 career games. Who was the other player to achieve this feat?
A:	The Phillies' Bobby Estalella (1997)

A record that will probably last until Thursday.

A convoluted partial defense of J.A. Happ.

“Right now it seems like if it can go wrong, it will,” Happ said. “It's frustrating. I'm certainly not feeling sorry for myself, I've got to find a way out of it. I felt like I made a pitch to get out of that fourth, and it didn't happen. Then I didn't make a pitch, and we got hurt there. Every out is huge, and I just wasn't able to close it down.”

No need to highlight your teammate's error, but have any pitchers pointed out what is going on with the ball?

Happ has allowed 29 HRs this season, 3 more last night.

Has any pitcher, in a postgame interview, finally snapped and called BS on this?

Gregorius hit one onto Eutaw Street.

Romine hit one out of Fenway Park.

I heard someone say Alonso is a "low ball hitter" after he golfed a ball 450 feet on an off-balance swing.

Frazier's game-tying HR was legit ... but the upper deck at Citi Field?

It wasn't long ago that distance like that was reserved for Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.

The ball is juiced. 

They took the game away from pitchers like Happ.

Bo Bichette is the next Ted Williams.

"If that sounds impressive for a rookie, it’s because it is.  Bichette is the first freshman to pick up 12 or more extra-base hits in his first 11 games and the first rookie since Ted Williams in 1939 to collect an extra-base hit in nine straight. He’s also the first player in MLB history—not just rookies, but everyone—with a doubles streak of nine or more games."

Home runs are cheap.

Nothing against Alonso, but something about the WOW coverage of HRs is bugging me.

As every HR record falls, can we please stop being faux-impressed with HR totals? 

Put them in context.

Chop 30% off the inflated number.

Alonso's 36 HRs in 2019 are really 25 HRs. Still a lot for early August, but he's not Darryl Strawberry.

While the profile of Alonso’s high school coach is one of the most edge-of-your-seat fascinating profiles of a high school baseball coach I’ve ever read in my entire life, and Alonso is doing quite well compared with his peers ... Alonso is going to strike out 180 times and is batting .208 with RISP.

He is not in the NL MVP conversation.

At first, it sure seems odd that the Yankees don't call up Frazier.

But Tauchman and Maybin aren't exactly playing like chopped liver, Suzyn.

NOW can Frazier get promoted? For a couple of weeks?

The Eye Test

Something is up.

It's not just the volume of HRs, it's when the backup catcher hits an opposite field 450-foot fly ball.

Bright side; It really frees up October. Maybe I'll learn a new language or something.

You know what the Yankees should have done?

They should have traded Frazier and Bird to the Dodgers for Kershaw, the skinny guy Ferris Buehler or whatever his name is, and the fat Asian guy with the good ERA.

The Dodgers probably need a young outfielder, am I right?

Good career record.

I had been dismissive of Strasburg, maybe because  of all the early hype.

This joke is already tired.

NFL scores occur in MLB every day.

But I thought the other 29 teams were farm teams for the Yankees.

As long as the playoff games aren't in London, you go with what you've got and hope to turn it over to the bullpen in the sixth inning with a lead.

Maybe the fifth inning.

Heck, maybe the fourth inning.

That's the direction baseball is heading, anyway.


Bumgarner is the best SP who the Yankees could conceivably acquire.

Game Three of the ALCS? He won't last 5 innings at Target Field.

The strategy for beating the Twins is simple: Score 15 runs.

44-49 career record.

Kind of makes you appreciate the boring player who's slightly above average for a long time.

Red Sox fan writes about the Red Sox

Lupica writes to the non-existent audience of baseball fans who are counting out the Red Sox:

"The Yankees are playing this season the way the Red Sox played last season. Maybe better, considering what they’ve had to overcome with injuries. They might not win as many games as the Red Sox did last season. But they might come close. Injuries haven’t stopped them, because nothing has."

What?

What are we talking about?

The Yankees have to win 108 games in 2019 because the Red Sox won 108 games in 2018?


"The Red Sox aren’t going to catch the Yankees this season. But they do have a chance to catch the teams ahead of them in the AL Wild Card race -- the Indians, A’s, Rays -- and get another shot at their top rival the way the Yankees got their shot at the Red Sox last October. The team that won everything in 2018 now just looks to win that."

The Red Sox can still win the AL East.

As for "having a chance" to get the second Wild Card ... they're two games out.

With 65 games to go.

So, yeah. It's in the realm of possibility.


" 'You only get only so many chances to win in this game,' Frank Cashen said about his Mets back in 1987, when they were trying to repeat as World Series champs and then didn’t even make the playoffs that year."

The '87 Mets, huh?

Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Mookie Wilson, Buck Showalter, Bobby Grich, and Wee Willie Keeler.

"The key to winning baseball games is having a team with good baseball players," Lee Elia once told me in a postgame steam bath on Chicago's south side in 1982.


"There was no Wild Card for the Mets back then, no one-game playoff lifeline. But there is for the Red Sox. Now their fans and everybody else must ask themselves -- after what has so often been a mediocre and disappointing regular season despite the life they’ve shown lately -- if the Sox can get good enough, starting now, to secure the AL Wild Card Game at Fenway."


I believe.

Ya gotta believe.

You convinced me.

Also, if I didn't believe, it would be at my own risk.

Not sure what I'd be risking, but I'd rather not take any chances.


"Can this year’s Red Sox look like last year’s Red Sox two months from now? We’re going to find out. They are four behind the Indians in the loss column, two behind the A’s, one behind the Rays. What feels like a 65-game pennant race for the defending champs starts now. You only get so many chances, Frank Cashen said. The Red Sox still have this chance: Proving that they got counted out too soon."

Nobody counted them out.

Maybe a few drunks dialing WEEI.

Yeah, why is Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame?

"Under the Baines standard, Larry Walker, Fred McGriff, and others would stroll into Cooperstown. There are even more unlikely names that have to be looked at in a new light now. Forget even about never-Hallers like Bobby Abreu (60 rWAR to Baines’ 38), Brett Gardner (40), or Placido Polanco (41.5). And forget about clearly better steroid-era candidates swept up in writers’ desire to pretend performance-enhancing drugs don’t exist — even if players from that era were never tied to PEDs. Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Scott Rolen, Lance Berkman, and dozens of others are more deserving."

First guy I thought of was Willie Wilson ... just in terms of the worst player who conceivably had a better career than Baines.

Wilson got 2% of the HOF vote and then instantly fell off the ballot.

Baines never got more than 6.1% of the vote.

Hard to imagine Frazier doing worse ...

Legendary

I think Torres deserved it, but no surprises for the New York teams.

DeGrom's record isn't too good, but, whatever. He's an All Star.

There are, like, 64 All Stars between the 2 leagues ... sas there really any doubt McNeil was going to be an All Star?

Let's check in with Tim Tebow. Is he batting is weight at AAA?

No, he is not.

.147/.230/.203.

That's a .203 slugging percentage.

One home run and 73 strikeouts in 177 at-bats.

Accomplishments matter compared to your contemporaries, of course ...

... but as every home run record falls, bear in mind that the ball is juiced.

The playoffs are a crapshoot.

"We hear a lot now about what a crapshoot the playoffs are in baseball. And there is something to that. Except that the Red Sox have been playing at the same craps table in this century, and won four Series in the last 15 years. The Giants won three Series in this decade."

The Giants leaned quite a bit on one superstar pitcher.

But, besides the uniform, what does the 2004 Red Sox team have in common with the 2018 Red Sox team?

Nothing.

They have nothing in common.

There is no reason to link the different Championship Red Sox teams in terms of strategy, roster, coaching, managing.

Other than the simple observation that, like, it often pays off to spend a lot of money on payroll. The Red Sox have enough money to survive some of the worst free agent signings in baseball history. Small payroll teams can't do that.

Believe it or not, there is really no reason to think the Red Sox have been smarter than the Yankees the past 15 years. They just came through more often in the playoffs.


"Since the Red Sox started their own winning in ’04, they’ve won the Series with three general managers, three managers, two team presidents."

Exactly.

In other words, it's a crapshoot.

Lots of Jose Devers fans out there in Yankee Universe?

Lupica's back at the Daily News just in time to put pressure on the Yankees to win the World Series.

Because if they don't win the World Series this year, then they'll endure even more ridicule from Mike Lupica next year.


He's back at the Daily News and just as out of touch as ever.

I'm not making this up: A Buck Showalter reference, a Phil Jackson reference, a shot at long-forgotten ARod, and ... get this ... even a gratuitous shot at Jacoby Ellsbury.

Get some new material, for cryin' out loud.


As for a brief mention of current players on current New York teams that are currently playing, he is predictably off the mark:

"How do you think the polling would go among Yankee fans if they got a do-over on the Stanton trade?"

Well, the Yankees traded Starlin Castro, Jose Devers, and Jorge Guzman for Stanton.

I'm not sure how the poll would go.

Smart fans would endorse the trade. Yankee fans, however, are not smart. Baseball columnists who write about the Yankees also are not smart.

So maybe a better question is, "How many professional sports columnists can name the players who the Yankees traded for Stanton?"

Or "How many professional sports columnists can name the Yankee starting rotation?"

Or "How many professional sports columnists are so ignorant of baseball, that they think Encarnacion strikes out a lot?"

Encarnacion does not strke out a lot.

This take is ignorant to the point of being irresponsible.

I mean, yeah, it's an annual ritual: The Yankees add players and Lupica rips them for doing so.

But even for Lupica, this is stretching it.


Encarnacion is cheap, he's effective, he's not that old, the Yankees gave up bupkus to get him, and they didn't even send down Maybin (yet).

Sure, the marginal value of a right-handed power bat is not particularly high for this team ... but the cost was very small ... and the Yankees kept Encarnacion off a rival playoff team.


"Strikeout percentage" is not an advanced stat.

It took me 30 seconds to look it up and dismiss the entire premise of Lupica's dumb article.

Name                    2019 K%     Career K%

Encarnacion            18.2               17.1

 

Frazier                     28.2               29.3

Maybin                     25.8               21.3

Gardner                   14.4               18.2

Judge                        29.2               31.5

Stanton                    33.3               28.0

MLB                         25.5                 ?

This date in Yankees history

"June 19, 2015: Alex Rodriguez became the 29th player in Major League history to collect 3,000 hits, hitting a solo home run off the Tigers' Justin Verlander. A-Rod joined Derek Jeter and Wade Boggs as the only players to homer for their 3,000th hit."

I have no recollection of this moment.

I remember when Jeter and Boggs did it.

Mike Lupica on Twitter

Lupica is suddenly a big Frazier guy ... and, I guess, anti-Encarnacion:

"The Yankees were going to home-run their way to the World Series last year, no matter how many times their big guys struck out. Now they're going to try it again."

 1. Oh, last year was the year the Yankees were going to home-run their way to the World Series.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I had a bet with a buddy of mine, and I kept saying it was 1927 or 1961, but he insisted it was 2018.

Yes: The Bronx Bombers, the team that moved the right field fence in 100 feet and basically invented HRs as a strategy ... the team that has home-runned their way to more championships than any other team ... yes, you are on to something. Just like last year and the previous 90 or so before last year, the Yankees are trying to get batters who hit a lot of HRs.

2. Frazier strikes out more often than Encarnacion.

Very nice comeback.

"Gagnon shot back, telling Desmond that the pitch was accidental, as players from both sides closed around the pair. No one threw a punch. No one did anything more than yell.

'I can see where they’re coming from, but I wasn’t throwing strikes all day,' said Gagnon, who threw only 13 of his 23 pitches across the plate. 'The ball slipped, a two-seamer. It was a complete accident.' "

Unwritten Rules

Getting this riled up about a multi-pitcher no-hitter in double-A.

Clint Frazier is not a leader. He's a individual contributor.

I suppose it puts an unfair burden on your teammates to "force" them to answer questions about your fielding mishaps

I also think Frazier is quite immature.

But it doesn't bother me too much and I actually agree with just about everything he said about Sunday night's debacle:

• His mishaps in the field speak for themselves.
• He probably didn't want to talk to reporters because he was ticked off and embarrassed. Maybe it's a good idea to avoid reporters when you're ticked off.
• People don't like his attitude and they want to tear him down.

Jacoby Ellsbury is the 10th-best CFer of the decade.

What? You don't believe me?

One takeaway.

Stop walking Billy Hamilton.

Billy Hamilton has walked 16 times this season. It is unwise to walk Billy Hamilton. The Yankees have walked Billy Hamilton 6 times this season.

The modern-day ballplayer.

Cano runs hard every game and has always run hard his entire career.

Robinson Cano didn't run hard to first base.

"Cano was immediately anguished at first base after he realized his mistake. The All-Star second baseman thought there were two outs instead of one when he hit the grounder. He took his helmet off and grimaced at his mental lapse. 

Callaway later told reporters the scoreboard at Marlins Park incorrectly read two outs when Cano was at the plate. Cano, a 15-year big-league veteran, trusted the scoreboard and ran, or rather crawled, with it.

'I have been running hard the whole year,' Cano told reporters on Saturday. 'In that situation like anybody I made a mistake, but it’s not my mistake. There were two outs on the board. That’s why I didn’t run it out.

'If I know it was two outs, it’s a different story for me. I would’ve run my ass off. I will be the first one to motivate this team and the last guy not to run it out.' "

In related news, Greg Bird was moved to the Forever IL.

Can't say he's having a good year, that's for sure.

It's just odd that Bryce Harper is leading the league in strikeouts and walks.

"Right now" can mean just about anything.

Hey, look! It's Mike Lupica on Yankees.com:

"For now, it looks like a tweet that should have been heard ‘round the world -- or at least the world of Yankees fans, considering that it involves the best player they’ve got right now."

The best player the Yankees have right now is Aaron Judge. Some would argue Didi Gregorius.

So I'm assuming Mike Lupica is not writing an article about either of them because there isn't much to say about them while they're on the IL.

So it's active players ... best players so far this season. Best Yankee players for the first 40 games of the 2019 season.

Who could it be?

Off the top of my head, Top Five, in order: German, LeMahieu, Sanchez, Chapman, and Kahnle.


"The Yankees were on their way to 100 wins and they were still chasing the Red Sox hard last August, so hardly anybody noted or long remember the news we got that day on Twitter from @BlueJaysPR:

'Minor league trade: Gio Urshela has been sent to the Yankees for cash considerations.'"


I'm sure you were on top of it at the time, Mr. Twitter.

Whenever Lupica is wrong, it's "we."

But this is incorrect..

While Urshela has obviously far exceeded expectations and might be the Value MVP of the whole league ... no, I have not researched the rest of the league ... he is not the best player on the Yankees right now.


"So nobody paid much attention to Urshela -- now 27, out of Cartagena, Colombia -- who, in a season when the Yankees tried to line up guys on the injured list the way they line up Old Timers on Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium, has turned out to be more important and indispensable than anybody they have."


I simply don't consider him the most indispensable player on the Yankees.

His replacement wouldn't field as well and obviously wouldn't be hitting .341 ... but a lot of people not name Tyler Wade could have been almost as productive.


"Even the guy who knows everything on 'Jeopardy' couldn’t have seen this coming."

Jesus.

If I may, let me put a [sic] on Jeopardy ... I think it's customary to include the exclamation point.

Good pop culture reference, though. I'll check out the Sports Reporters podcast to hear it 20 more times this summer.


"There have been other unlikely heroes in the American League so far. Michael Chavis, who had five RBIs for the Red Sox on Sunday as they were sweeping the Mariners and has injected life and pop into Boston’s batting order when it badly needed it, comes right to mind."

Does he?

Does Michael Chavis come right to mind?

You had to look that up on the Internet. You're not fooling anyone.


So you've got two unlikely heroes in the AL so far.

Name a few more and then you can pretend you pay attention to the entire AL and not just the Red Sox and the Yankees.


"But there has been no more unlikely hero in baseball so far than Urshela for the Yankees."

Domingo German.

Urshela has 15 RBIs and 2 HRs. 11-for-27 with RISP is AMAZING ... and it's also only 27 at-bats.

German is a #6 starter who leads MLB in wins. I'd say that's unlikely for a player whose under/over for 2019 wins was probably 1.5.


"And understand: It’s not as if he just fell into Cashman’s lap. The GM had first tried to get him away from the Indians when the Indians had him. Could not. Liked his defense."

Content notwithstanding, that is some outstanding writing right there, chopping up one simple thought into 4 choppy sentences and one unnecessary colon. Well done.


"The Yankees shouldn’t be as close to first place as they are after all the injuries they’ve had, to Stanton and Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks and Luis Severino and Dellin Betances and everybody else. "

Agreed.


"There have been other guys who have hit. But their best hitter and their biggest star has been Urshela, who grew up worshipping a soccer star, Cristiano Ronaldo, as a kid in Colombia, and dreaming of being one himself. Now he’s a baseball star in the spring of 2019 at Yankee Stadium. Obviously his manager recognizes an unlikely star like this when he sees one. Takes one to know one."

I have no freaking idea what Cristiano Ronaldo has to do with any of this ... and I guess describing Boone as an "unlikely star" is referencing a HR he hit 16 years ago? ... but Lupica just jinxed Gio Urshela.

It was nice knowing you, Gio.

Say hi to Tony Womack, Sonny Gray, Josh Satin, and every Mets team since 1986.

The game has really changed.

Listen to this guy and this guy.

These pitches were practically strikes, for cryin' out loud.

The Mets really shouldn't waste the roster spot.

At this point, I think it's conceivable that Tebow is taking the roster spot away from a player who could help the big league club.

I wouldn't say that about the single-A team.

On the single-A team, just let him play so you can attract a crowd and sell a few more hot dogs.

But at triple-A, it's no good.

I had no idea this was happening.

It's just hard to keep track of a middle reliever's individual performance nowadays. They all kind of blend together.

Attendance is down ...

... maybe MLB should lighten up and do more stuff like this. It couldn't hurt.

Career WAR of 2.0.

... and, at the time of the Dickey trade, he was considered a better prospect than Syndergaard.

Picking an MVP in April.

I'm still pretty sure it's Greg Bird.

A most happy fella, Gio Urshela.

NorthJersey.com with the near-instantaneous breaking story.

Checking in on Tim Tebow in AAA.

BA of .167, OPS of .460.

He's back behind the plate.

Bottom 4: "Goodwin safe at first on a sacrifice plus fielding error by catcher G.Sánchez, Pujols to second."

Chad Green's ERA is 16.43.

It sounds like the answer to a question on a History quiz.

"In what year did the House of Plantagenet end its reign in England?"

Voit wins

I actually thought Bird/Voit would be a plausible platoon.

Voit leads the Yankees in RBIs and he leads the league in consecutive games on base.

Catching up with the Dark Knight.

2019: 0-1, 10.05 ERA.

Career: 41 W, 45 L.

What if I told you ...

Brett Gardner has a higher OPS than Robinson Cano?

I can't prove it, but I think Chris Davis is a steroid cheat.

"No amount of money shortens the distance from the batter’s box to the dugout. No amount of money covers the hard right at first base to the far dugout stairs, not after a while. No house is big enough to soften the looping and hopeless left turn to the dugout on the other side of the field. No fancy car is so smart it would refuse to deliver him to the ballpark, or quite dumb enough to leave him there."

I'm not quite sure I'm in total agreement, but, OK.


"He is oh-fer-ever, has gotten rich for it, and this is the oh-fer-ever part of the story, that he stinks, and extra stinks because he’s paid to be great and isn’t, isn’t close, refuses to be, has no pride, and I don’t believe it. This is what it looks like to fall, to have it all go wrong, to endure it publicly and personally. Who knows why."

I have my suspicions.


"Not him, clearly. The money is not the soft landing, however. It is – or can be – the burden, which almost no one would view as the burden, which doesn’t make it not so."

I don't think Chris Davis is having fun. I don't think he stopped caring. I think he stopped taking steroids.

I also don't feel particularly sorry for the chumps who have to pay him.

"So then it wouldn’t much matter anymore, right? Then it would go back to being a slump, a horrible, unthinkable slump, and a guy caught between swings, between pitches, between routines. Then maybe he can start again, restart the career that brought all that attention, all that responsibility and, sure, all that money.

So, be disappointed he isn’t the player you thought or hoped he would continue to be. It’d also be OK to feel for the person – Chris Davis – who isn’t the player he thought he would continue to be.

Because then he came to the plate in the seventh inning and struck out."

All things considered, I think a disinterested fan base in Baltimore is mostly letting him off the hook.

Same goes for the press, who have ignored one of the worst contracts ever until he set a hitless record. 

I mean, sure: Money does not buy happiness. Neither does being poor.

We all look and this guy and think we'd be fired if we were this bad at our jobs.

In other Yankee news, Greg Bird still stinks.

.192 with 1 HR and 13 Ks in 26 at-bats.

Also a bad fielder and a bad baserunner.

The Mets have one great starting pitcher.

One great starting pitcher and a lot of hype.

The Dark Knight

Matt Harvey is 0-1 with an ERA of 9.00.

Sure, it's only two starts.

I still recall a lot of praise after one mediocre start.

I'll say it again ... he's 26 years old and has played 273 major league games.

"And this blunder occurred in Sanchez’s first game since he was picked off second base during Thursday’s series opener at Oriole Park, an 8-4 Yankees win.

How is this happening?

When Boone was asked if Sanchez’s focus still is an issue, the skipper said 'no' and then did what he always does when his catcher is criticized. He went on the defense.

'I think they’re teachable moments is what I think,' Boone said. 'I think he’s been really hooked up as far as his prep, as far as his game-calling, as far as his focus offensively. I think it’s a case (on Saturday) of getting himself in a little bit of an un-athletic position where he got himself in trouble, and that’s where we’ve got to teach and clean it up. And we will.' "

An empty non-answer from Boone which requires no scrutiny because it's not intended to provide information.

He tripped over third base like a first-grader playing kickball for the first time. I'll say he got himself in a "little bit of an un-athletic position."

Of course, people can trip on the basepaths on occasion, even the best players.

Clearly, Sanchez's problems are more than an occasional physical slip up.

Sanchez is 26 years old.

"These kinds of things shouldn’t happen in high school ball let along the big leagues, but as talented as Sanchez and Torres are, both have made way more than their share of mental mistakes over the last two seasons."

An article that didn't age well.

Fatigue.

Stop talking about this guy! Please!

Let's talk about the 2019 Mets: Buck Showalter, Joe Torre, Chili Davis, and Robinson Cano.

"Robinson Cano is 36 years old now and coming off a suspension that took half of a season away from him, damaged his reputation and effectively finished his career with the Seattle Mariners, who had once given him a 10-year contract worth $240 million. Now, he is back in New York, where it all began for him with the Yankees, playing second base for the Mets. Just by showing up, even at his age and even with what happened to him last year, it is worth noting that he is as good of a pure hitter as the Mets have ever had."

He's "pure," alright.

As the driven snow.


" 'Situational hitting,' is what Chili Davis calls it, and what Cano has always done with smart hitting his whole career, until he did so much dumb and lasting damage to his reputation last year."

What was that, Mr. Lupica?

What dumb thing did he do?

You still haven't mentioned what he was suspended for.

0-for-11 start for Gardner.

So much for the "prove his critics wrong out of the gate" narrative.

If a little league catcher said this, you would laugh.

" 'On that play, we were actually set to throw to third base," Sanchez said via the team’s Spanish translator. 'But the runner got a really big jump there and I noticed that the opportunity to make an out there, it was to go to second base. I’ve made that throw many times before. I felt that if I make an accurate throw we have a chance to get that guy out.

Unfortunately, I felt that I pulled on the ball a little bit and I bounced that throw.'
 

He took the blame.

'That’s my fault,' said Sanchez, who went 1-for-4 and nearly hit two home runs — one ball went foul, the other was a long fly out to center field."

Congrats on the warning track fly ball, though.

Ten Things

If all of these "key" things have to occur for the Yankees to win the World Series, then we can all delay ordering the ticker tape.

I am not a big fan of Boone.

"Look around the American League and tell me which projected playoff manager you’d take Boone over in an October series.

Boston’s Alex Cora? No way. Been there, done that.

Cleveland’s Terry Francona? The future Hall of Famer was out-managed by Boone’s predecessor, Joe Girardi, in 2017. It’ll be surprising if we can say the same about the current Yankees skipper this year.

Houston’s A.J. Hinch? No one would seriously take Boone over one of the best in the game right now.

Tampa Bay’s (my pick to get there as the second AL Wild Card) Kevin Cash? Watch the two teams play, and try to make a sound case for Boone."

I'm surprised Tampa is listed as a projected playoff team, but I suppose they are. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the AL has a lot of bad teams.

As for Boone, I guess I'm still a fan of Girardi. He may not cost the team a playoff series, but there's no reason to think he offers a competitive advantage.

I thought for sure it was the strikeout record. Or the GIDP record.

You know why nobody cares about this record?

The Yankees offense wasn't historically great by any means.

It was good, of course ... second in runs behind the Red Sox ... but we've seen 850 runs plenty of times before.

I love HRs. They're great. They're the best thing a batter can do. But they're not the only thing.

The Yankees were 7th in on-base%, 27th in stolen bases, twice as many strikeouts as walks.

So if they hit 300 HRs, 250 of them are Mark Teixeira solo jobs, and they can't hit with RISP, and every batter strikes out 150 times ... who cares?

Tyler Wade is fast and he's a good fielder.

His lifetime batting average in the major leagues is .161 in 124 at-bats.

He also doesn't hit very well in the minors.

So he had a good Spring Training and expected to make the squad.

But he didn't.

Why are we talking about Tyler Wade again?"

"He wasn’t the only one. Because there is no timeline for Hicks’ return at this point, Tauchman will make the Opening Day roster, which led to Tyler Wade being optioned to Triple-A. Wade was vocally upset Sunday. When asked if he was pissed off, Wade replied, 'very.' "

Boone said Monday he was not upset about Wade’s comments to the media Sunday.

'Guys are allowed to be upset, guys are allowed to be frustrated. If ever there is a point where it’s unhealthy or a distraction then conversations happen,' Boone said. 'But Tyler Wade came in here and I think continued to make strides in his game every which way and was probably set to make our roster. I get the disappointment, I get the frustration and that’s OK. I expect that. We’re playing for a lot. These guys put a lot into their craft. I am OK with that. Now channeling the frustration in the right way becomes very important.' "

In the micro-world of Yankee Opening Day Roster, this is what I predicted the whole time.

"First base (2): Greg Bird, Luke Voit
What changed? General manager Brian Cashman said earlier this month that he did not envision carrying both first basemen, but that was before Aaron Hicks' lingering lower back injury. Bird and Voit both had impactful springs at the plate, and both should see playing time in the early going, though Boone believes Bird has the defensive edge."

I think Voit might be a better defender.

I don't know why anyone thinks Bird is a better defender than Voit.

Bird may still mature into a good MLB player. He isn't yet. It just seems that he gets the benefit of the doubt because he looks like a good MLB player.

Frazier has not earned the benefit of the doubt.

"Frazier had a terrible spring, hitting just .130 with no homers and five RBI in 14 games. His 46 at-bats were tied for the most on the team with third baseman Miguel Andujar. He struck out 15 times and drew four walks."

His major league stats are no good.

His minor league stats are quite good.

No reason to give up on him, but also no reason to give him a roster spot.

His advisory role with the Yankees is no longer in effect? Huh.

Slow death during the metaphorical rebirth symbolized by Spring Training.

We all feel so past our prime. Thanks for reminding me, Mike Lupica:

"For this one season, even with a won-loss record of 10-9, deGrom was to Mets fans what Tom Seaver once was. In what became a lost season after the team's 11-1 start, deGrom felt like The Franchise. Because when deGrom had the ball last season, the Mets' season still mattered. He became one of 11 qualified starters in the last 100 years to have an ERA of 1.70 or lower. Since the mound was lowered by Major League Baseball in 1969, deGrom became one of just three pitchers -- Dwight Gooden and Zack Greinke were the others -- to have at least 30 starts and 210 innings pitched and have an ERA of 1.70 or lower.

In the end, deGrom would finish his dazzling season with 29 straight starts of giving up three earned runs or fewer. He finished the season with 24 straight quality starts. These are all numbers that give off a beam of light, and always will. Seaver and Gooden pitched like this for the Mets once."

We know. He won the Cy Young Award and everything.


“ 'Watching him last year was like watching Doc [Gooden] in ’85,' John Franco said at Roger Dean Stadium on Tuesday, watching deGrom begin to stretch himself out for his Opening Day start with five innings against the Marlins.

In 1985, of course, Gooden was 24-4 for the Mets, with an ERA of 1.53, and looked like a right-handed Sandy Koufax. But that Mets team, a year away from a World Series championship, chased the Cardinals in the National League East all the way to a rousing three-game series at old Busch Stadium in September. They had Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter and other young starters. The Mets had other young starters in 2018. Mostly all they had was deGrom."

Dwight Gooden?

Keith Hernandez?

Gary Carter?

Is this your annual Spring Training "NY is really a Mets town" article?


"Matt Harvey was supposed to be the next Seaver once. He was the Dark Knight of Gotham City. Then Noah Syndergaard, known as Thor, became the new comic book pitching hero. Syndergaard won more games than deGrom did last year, but deGrom was still the one. Every five days, he made you watch Mets games, and care, and showed you how much he cared even when his team couldn’t buy or steal him enough runs. deGrom beat out Max Scherzer for the NL Cy Young Award. He beat them all. He was that good."

Other than some typical examples dubious "supposed tos," there is nothing here that everyone doesn't already know.


"Franco is a Brooklyn kid. He was 9 years old when Seaver was 25-7 in 1969 and the Mets became the Miracle Mets. Franco grew up to become a closer for the Reds, and then with the Mets after that. Franco has always loved talking about pitching. Now here he was in a seat on the first-base side of Roger Dean Stadium watching deGrom work, on a day when he didn’t nearly have his best stuff but who was, when he was at his best, still something to see.

'He has it all and does it all,' Franco said. 'He comes at you with the same motion, and the same arm angle. He works both sides of the plate. He changes your eye angle when he wants to. And when he wants to dial it up in the high 90s, he dials it up. Watching him pitch like this is a beautiful thing.' "

Maybe Buck Showalter wasn't available to really get things cooking, but this is what we've gotten so far:

- Mike Lupica sat next to John Franco at a Spring Training game.

- John Franco is from Brooklyn.

- John Franco, along with every other person who follows baseball, thinks Jacob deGrom is a great pitcher.


Then the rest is a recap of a Spring Training game that no one cares about and in which deGrom didn't even pitch well.

So maybe this is worthy of a tweet? A 100 character limit post on Instagram?

Tebow is a brand.

He is not a professional athlete of any renown:

" 'Just so much more experience and opportunity to work every day,' Tebow said. 'And try to perform as well, but I think the learning aspect of it and being able to learn from all the players, from coaches and really take it as a huge opportunity to grow and get better.'
Tebow said he leaned on eight-time All-Star Robinson Cano and hitting coach Chili Davis throughout this year’s Mets camp. He enjoyed picking Cano’s brain and attempting to adapt the second baseman’s mindset."

Cano explained that, if you want success in MLB, you should take lots of PEDs.

I'm coming around to some of these ideas.

"The umpire will be assisted by a radar system that tracks where balls land in the strike zone. Baseball did not elaborate on how the system — called TrackMan — would be used, whether umpires could consult it if they chose, or whether it would overrule calls made by the umpires."

I like it. I'm tired of umps using balls and strikes to mete out justice; every 0-2 pitch is a ball; every 3-0 pitch is a strike.  

"No players or coaches will be allowed to visit the mound unless a pitching change is being made. This move would seem designed to speed games, which can be slowed by frequent conferences at the mound."

Candle sticks are always a good wedding gift, or you can check the registry.

"Pitchers will be required to face a minimum of three batters. This move, which has also been proposed for the major leagues, is designed to speed the game by reducing pitching changes, which have proliferated in the modern game."

I don't know about this one. Is this really designed to speed up the game? Or just to help the offense?

"Defensive shifts will be limited, as teams will be required to have two players on each side of second base. Many fans dislike the elaborate shifting that has come into play in recent years, feeling that infielders’ positioning has become too different from the traditional placements they are used to."

I'm starting to think this is a good idea, though the batters can still solve this problem themselves.

"Time between innings will be reduced to 1 minute 45 seconds from 2:05, another timesaving move."

Easy call. 

"The distance from the pitcher’s rubber to home plate will be increased to 62 feet 6 inches, a two-foot increase. Such a move would be an aid to batters, and would presumably cut down on strikeouts, which have drastically increased in recent years."

This seems nuts and quite possibly a cause of injuries and other unintended consequences.

 

"All the infield bases — first, second and third — will be increased in size, to 18 inches from 15 inches. A larger base would provide more room for both a fielder and a runner to have a part of the bag."

Very good idea.

Not even sure why runners need to touch first base at all. Just cross a line or something.

Another split squad Spring Training ace. For three whole innings.

I give him credit for being ... delusional in his optimistic evaluations of himself:

" 'They love sliders,' Gray sounded off to The Athletic about his Yankees tenure. 'Sliders are a great pitch. The numbers say slider is a good pitch, but you might not realize how many s----- counts you’re getting in while throwing all those sliders. They wanted me to be (Masahiro) Tanaka and I’m way different from him.

In my very last outing against the Red Sox, second-to-last game of the season in New York, I threw two innings out of the pen, all I did was throw cutters,' Gray added. 'I said, "F--- ’em, all I’m going to do is throw cutters today." I just threw 94-mph cutters. … [Pitched well, and] I thought maybe I’ll make the postseason roster here … but I didn’t.' "

It seems a platoon at first base is out.

The game has changed and this is a consequence of carrying 70 bullpen pitchers.

I'm buying it.

"Curry: I’m going to throw Greg Bird at you. … Watching Bird on a daily basis (at spring training), talking to Bird, I think there’s a little bit of a fire in his belly. I think he understands that there’s a competition now, and first base is not his. He’s going to have to win it, and then if he does win it, he’s going to have to continue to produce. … If Greg Bird could kind of be that X-factor, with their right-handed-dominant lineup, having another lefty hitter would be so important for them."

Look at Bird's 162-game average.

.214, 29 HRs, 89 RBIs.

He’s still young and inexpensive.

His injuries may have been holding him back.

So would you take .214, 29, 89? Strikes out too much, yes. Walks too little. Not a good fielder or runner. 

But he can’t platoon with Luke Voit? He can’t put a mistake by any pitcher into the RF porch?

Would you sign up for a prorated .214/29/89 from a platoon first baseman? So he’s not Keith Hernanez after all. He’s Oscar Gamble.

Spring Training. Great Stuff.

Didn't Greg Bird hit, like, .500 in Spring Training before the 2018 season?:

"Steven Matz looked like a pro in his second start of spring Monday, but his final pitching line wouldn’t show it. Matz allowed four earned runs on five hits (one home run) with two walks and two strikeouts over 2.2 innings during the Mets’ 9-3 loss to Boston."

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this could possibly mean.


"Matz said he wasn’t focusing on the box score and instead just wanted to perfect his curveball, which lost command on Monday. Several of Boston’s hits came on Matz’s 0-2 curveballs because he kept going back to the pitch throughout his outing."

Sounds like he perfected his curveball indeed. A regular Bert Blyleven over here.

"Callaway was impressed with Matz’s ability to make a mid-game change and slow it down on the mound.

'That's unbelievable,' Callaway said. 'He's growing up. He probably wouldn't of done that last year. He would've been worried about the result. Now he’s worried about getting better. Even though he gave up the 0-2 hits, so what. At least he was working on his craft and trying to get better.' "

"Wouldn't of." 

It's a subpar sportswriter dictating the words of a subpar manager describing a subpar pitcher.

Then the Matz portion of the article ends.

The big "unbelievable" to-do is that, even though Steven Matz pitched very poorly, but he did so in a nonchalant manner.

 

By the way, I was wrong about Bird.

It was 2017, not 2018.

The Phillies are going to be good, no?

I think they're going to be good:

"Now that the deed is done and Bryce Harper is officially a $330 million Phillie, it’s worth examining just what happened here, how it happened, and why it may not have near the impact it’s cracked up to be."

Depends on what you mean by "impact."

A great player moved from one NL East team to another.


"Given the fact Harper was coming off a comparatively 'down' season for him (in which he hit just .249 with more strikeouts than hits) and most of the big spending teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers (at first) signaled early on they would not be in the bidding, it was problematic Harper was going to get the kind of barrier-breaking ($400 million?) deal his agent, Scott Boras, had been touting almost since the day he arrived in the big leagues with the Nationals in 2012. So for that, you have to give Boras credit for once again finding the One Dumb Owner who would essentially bid against himself to get the contract over the 10-year/$300 million plateau."

I always do a double-take when I see Bryce Harper's age. He's only 25. He has already hit 184 HRs.

2018 was a relatively down season with a lot of strikeouts. Also, an OPS of .889.


I'll take .250 BA, 34 doubles, 34 HRs, 130 walks ... I mean, jeez, will ya? ... yeah, I agree ... too many strikeouts.

He's not Mike Trout, but he's also on the fast track for Cooperstown, no doubt about it.


"In this case, that would be Phillies owner John Middleton, a nobody on the big league stage up until a couple of years ago when he decided to exercise his majority share-holding clout with the team and push out the longstanding senior management decision makers in Philly, Bill Giles and Dave Montgomery.

Like so many owners before him, going all the way back to George Steinbrenner, Middleton wanted to make a statement by signing one of the biggest free agents of the winter, no matter what the cost."

Gimme a break.


"Harper will thrive in the Phillies’ bandbox Citizens Bank Park, but there is nothing to suggest he is the savior who will lead them to the World Series Promised Land. In his seven years in Washington, the Nationals went to the postseason four times and were bounced in the first round in all of them. Harper’s best postseason was 2014 when he .294 with three homers and four RBI in four games against the Giants. In the other three, he hit .186 with two homers and six RBI in 15 games."

I think the Phillies will win a World Series with Bryce Harper.

But, again ... why are we even talking about winning the World Series as a barometer for success?

Ticket sales, merch, franchise value.

Also, why are you seriously examining his previous playoff appearances?

Who cares?



This is just boilerplate hack garbage: So and so is paid too much and isn't clutch based on a small playoff sample size.


"Finally, this notion the Yankees and Mets should have been in on Harper – the Mets just to keep him away from the Phillies and the Yankees because they’re, well, the Yankees – is utterly ridiculous. Neither team needed him – certainly not at 13 years/$330M. The Yankees are realizing how much they’re going to regret down the road taking on Stanton’s contract, while the Mets need to be spending what it takes to get Jacob deGrom signed longterm."

The Yankees are expecting future mammoth contracts for Judge (and others) and probably can't afford to spend $1 billion in the outfield. $750 million maybe, but not $1 billion.

Stanton had a disappointing 2018, no doubt about it, and he needs to cut down on his strikeouts. Figure something out where he doesn't swing at everything.

But he still hit 38 HRs, scored 100 runs, and drove in 100 runs. I see no reason to think he won't be a premier hitter for a long time. Do it in the playoffs and the Yankees will have no regrets.

As for Jacob deGrom, there is no longterm. He's a 30-year-old pitcher.

Maybe it's Spring Training optimism ...

But I'm expecting .325, 25 HRs, 50 stolen bases.