Surprise!

Straight talk with Aaron Boone:

"Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the early hook for Garcia wasn't a preplanned bait-and-switch tactic against the Rays. Rather, Boone said it was his intention to have a short leash for Garcia and use Happ afterward.

'Their roster is built to take the platoon advantage. Felt like I was going to go to J.A. pretty early and aggressively if they went with a lefty-heavy lineup, and that was the reason,' Boone said. 'It was a little lineup-based, but [Garcia] kind of labored a bit in that first inning. But that was the plan all along. We were going to go short with him all along, knowing we would have Deivi available [later on] in the series if need be.'"

It wasn't a preplanned tactic ... but it was also the plan all along.

It isn't worth the effort. 

The bottom line is that your strategy is always going to be suspect when it relies on J.A. Happ.

We all get a mulligan in 2020.

 

"The upcoming revenge matchup with Tampa Bay in the ALDS will give the Yankees a chance to recapture the kind of buzz that has escaped this storied franchise.

The Bombers are in need of a sizzle vaccine.

Going into the pandemic postseason, evidence of their Big Fizzle is provided by looking at the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network’s final viewership numbers for the abbreviated regular season. Compared to the 2019 season, the average total viewership was down an un-Yankee-like 4%.

YES averaged 261,000 total viewers over 54 games this season compared to the 271,000 total viewers over 131 games during the 2019 season."

What happened to the YES Network viewership?

I have a possible answer.

Ten thousand potential YES Network viewers died.

Of COVID-19.

The global pandemic you may have heard about.

I'm more interested in MLB than any other sport, and it's difficult for me to get excited about this season, including the 16-team playoffs.

The NBA I keep an eye on, but it's October. It doesn't feel right. 

From a wider perspective, 2020 is tough. For everyone. It's really hard to care about baseball or TV.

I think baseball is in trouble in the long-term. I don't know if it can come back from this dip. 

 Modern-day baseball is a boring War of Attrition. 

Instead of using an array of offensive talents to defeat the opponent's pitcher, the strategy is to get the pitch count up and get him out of the game. Then hit home runs against the bullpen.

A 4% dip in ratings sounds like a victory to me. It's all relative. 

I surely wouldn't expect Rays/Yankees to move to grab the attention of a lot of people. Read the headlines.

 

Giancarlo just hit a sacrifice fly.

In a playoff game.

The world doesn't make sense anymore.

Sanchez is playing and he is batting ninth.

It's a compromise.

As long as he plays adequate defense, I don't see the problem.

Roy Campanella isn't sitting on the bench.

Even Giancarlo hit a home run.

 So happy to be wildly wrong about the outcome of a baseball game. Pretty close with my Cole box score prediction.

I think it's fair to judge Cole by today's performance. I just want people to put numbers around it.

I'll make a silly, pointless prediction: 7 IP, 1 or 2 earned runs, several unearned runs due to a deficient defensive baseball team, 5 hits, 2 walks, 9 strikeouts, loss.

Ottavino adds fuel to the fire as Boone chooses to save his reliable bullpen pitchers (Green? Britton?) for the next game.

Yankees get shut out since half their team has sub-.200 batting averages. Then they collectively cross their fingers that Tanaka has another big playoff performance in him.

If you want to blame this loss on Cole ... if you really expect a shutout every time he takes the mound ... then you're just dumb.

Cole is heralded as the final piece of the puzzle, this is true. He isn't the whole puzzle.

Just stop already.

Gary Sanchez is going to talk about working hard to improve his defense until the final day of his career.

He has been a starter in the big leagues since 2016.

He has been the catcher for almost 3,000 innings in the big leagues.

You know how some people devote so much physical and intellectual effort to a chosen field that it seems like they have magical intuition?

Gary Sanchez and catching is the opposite of that.

For the record, the 2020 MLB season exceeded my expectations ... but my expectations were quite pessimistic, based on anticipated pandemic complications and excessive player opt-outs.

The Mets were probably the most disappointing team in the 2020 season.  

Of course, the Nationals went from World Series Champs to last place ... but ... but ... what am I even talking about?

But the Mets are not embarrassed about the 2020 season.

No one gives the 2020 season any validity.

So no one should be embarrassed.

It's just 60 games.

Sorry, it wasn't the exciting turbo race to the finish that optimists envisioned ... it was just a distraction for diehards, more entertaining than another round of pandemic-fueled Law & Order marathons.

I don't know what to make of the Marlins. I'm not surprised that the Orioles and Marlins rebounded from disastrous 2019 seasons.

The Marlins are a whoop-de-doo 2 games over .500 and -39 in run differential.

Do it again next year; you might get dragged into the 162-game deep end of the pool.

Or what?

I don't think the Yankees are going to win the World Series. There, I said it:

"There are no excuses for the Yankees the rest of the way."

No team as any excuses. Only one team will win the World Series. Smart money is clearly on the Dodgers, but who knows?

 

"After all the talk about injuries the past couple of years, about all the stars on the injured list and the Brian Cashman irregulars who have stepped up to replace them, the Yankees will be as healthy as anybody competing for the World Series once the preliminaries are over and we are into the wild card round of the playoffs." 

 

"All the talk."

"This is their team. It means this is the team they all thought they could win with. If they don’t, there might just be a reckoning after the season with the owner, after Year 4 of Cashman’s reimagining of the Yankees after the 2016 season."

A couple of obvious observations:

1. The reckoning should have already happened. This is an overrated all-or-nothing offense which can't beat good pitchers. I denied this for a long time, but now it has completely taken over this team and most of the league.

2. If the Yankees somehow win the World Series ... I guess relying on Cole and a suddenly-effective bullpen? ... there still should be a reckoning:

• Why can't anyone on this team get a sac fly when they need one (other than LeMahieu, Urshela, and maybe Voit)?
• Why hasn't the farm system taught any of the young players how to field or run the bases?
• Why can't they stay healthy?
  

If this fraudulent team somehow wins the World Series, the move is to trade a bunch of players while their value is artificially high, don't you think?

Pull 'em right off the virtual floats on the virtual parade and sent them to Cleveland for some prospects.

 

"The Yankees go into the playoffs without James Paxton."

You forgot Severino. Why would you forget Severino?

  

"But look at all the pitchers who went down for the Rays this season, the first-place Rays, the ones who just waxed the Yankees in the season series between the two teams. There is no point, at this point, in discussing the payroll discrepancy, even in a short season, between the Rays and the Yankees, not after the way Kevin Cash’s team rolled Aaron Boone’s."

There is no point in discussing any of this.

The Rays are smarter and more athletic than the Yankees. The Rays try harder. The Rays play baseball better. The Rays seem to have more depth, but I don't really know because I don't care about the injury report of the Tampa Rays. The standings speak for themselves. The Yankees should be embarrassed and shouldn't be allowed near the bogus playoffs.

 

"Just putting Judge and Stanton and Torres with DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit ought to give them enough stick to make it from here, and the desultory way they ended their regular season after winning 10 games in a row, to the last week of October, and their first Series in 11 years. Now we’ll see how much game they really have."

I mean, for whatever reasons ... injuries, lack of Spring Training, general over-ratedness ... Judge, Stanton, and Torres are not currently playing like MVP candidates they're presumed to be.

Can they turn it around starting Tuesday?

I doubt it very much.

"The Yankees are all in now, eleven months after Altuve turned them into the heartbreak kids again. They have the ace in Cole who was supposed to make all the difference. They still have some bullpen. They’ve got two guys — Judge, Stanton — finally back on the field three years after they both hit 50-plus home runs in a season. They’ve got a breakout star in Voit."

They have a breakout star in Voit, this is true.

The rest in not true. Lupica knows this team isn't very good. He can't be that dumb.

We know what it is. It's a setup is what it is.

It will provide Lupica with plenty of anti-Yankee material in between anti-ARod musings and joyous memories of the 2004 ALCS.

 

The only hope is to ... how do I phrase this? ... hope that your own disadvantages are less disadvantageous than your opponent's disadvantages. (Nailed it.)

It's like the value of the $US. It's all relative.

Just like the Yankees can't rely solely on Cole, and there isn't much reliable pitching once they get past Cole ... their opponents are in the same situation. 

No days off, no depth in the rotation, an overused bullpen, a juiced up ball, small ballparks ... the precise conditions where the Yankees can hit a lot of home runs and overwhelm their opponent. 

If things work out, the home runs will occur with runners on base.

 

Giancarlo getting ready for the playoffs.

Zero hits in his last ten at-bats, with seven strikeouts.

I wish I could agree with Mike Lupica in this case.

"If Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are healthy when the first round of the playoffs begin for them next week, it means both of them get a do-over on the short season with an even shorter one. No one will care that through Tuesday's 12-1 win vs. the Blue Jays, the two of them combined had played just 44 of the Yankees’ 55 games. Nobody will care how much time they spent on the injured list last season, when Stanton missed 144 games and Judge missed 60 after missing 50 the year before."

I just think no one cares.

I don't expect much from the Yankees, Judge, Stanton, or MLB.

We'll hopefully get a complete do-over next year.

Lupica is talking about Reggie and Mickey, but 2020 is the year in which legends will not be made. I'm going to watch the playoffs just because it's more interesting than Outer Limits reruns. But no one is giving the champion any legitimacy.

Everybody gets a statue.

I can only say that I'm not really current on the KC Royals zeitgeist:

"When the statue is made of Royals legend Alex Gordon -- and it will be made and placed outside Kauffman Stadium some day -- it no doubt will depict him raising his right arm toward the sky as he rounds first base after hitting a game-tying home run in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series."

He would join George Brett and Frank White as the other KC Royals players with statues.

As the article points out, though Gordon isn't Top Three in most KC offensive categories, he is first in career Hit By Pitch.

I wasn't expecting Happ to suddenly become an ace.

Sixteen years ago.

"Over the last three games of their series against the Nuggets, the Los Angeles Clippers looked like the Yankees did at the end of the Red Sox series in ’04."

Why?

What happened in the Yankees/Red Sox series in 2004?

Do you mean the ALCS?

For those of us not versed in baseball history, can you remind us what happened in 2004 between the Yankee and the Red Sox?

Another Mets pitcher who is a complete bust.

For some reason, it always takes a while for reality to sink in.

Not sure about the Islanders ... you'll have to run it by Mike Lupica.

 Though Lupica has been quixotically giving the Mets the crown for the past 15 years or so.

A lot changes in one week.

The Legend of Bob Kammeyer resurfaces.

My father always told me about the guy who had an ERA of infinity for one season.

Didn't get anybody out, made a ruckus when angrily leaving the mound (if I recall correctly), and never pitched again in the big leagues.

Note to Adam Ottavino: It's not good when you're compared to Bob Kammeyer.

 

I also think it's funny how the oddsmakers and pundits don't seem to get the message. 

I sometimes pay attention to the odds, and this is the first game I can recall the Yankees being labeled as underdogs just about the entire season (correctly, as it turns out). I could have cleaned up picking the Yankee opponents all season.

The Yankees have a .500 record and a .500 "expected" record.

Yet they're still given, like, a 94% chance of making the playoffs.

Nice to see Yankee bullpen rise to the challenge of a high-pressure game.

                 IP   H  R  ER BB  K     

Green      0.1   1   4    3    2    0

Ottavino  0.0   4   6   6    2     0

Ottavino was garbage in the playoffs last year ... and that was before the three-batter minimum rule.

His ERA balloons to 7.82 for the 2020 season.

The Yankees might miss the playoffs.

I'm a numbers guy ultimately, and it's no surprise that the Yankees' wOBA is ranked low, but this is the first time Boone has faced adversity. 

 

he closest he has come to a rah rah speech is this?:

" 'We've got to be in the mindset that tomorrow's an important day. We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. I do think that's crystal clear, not only with myself but our entire team,' Boone said. 'The opportunity still that lies in front of us, that's very much attainable and very much in our grasp. But we gotta go play well. And if we play well, with our group, I'm confident that we'll get to where we need to be.

'But it starts with playing well [Monday],' Boone said."

I truly wonder, what was the game of the 60-game season that wasn't important?

As a fan, it seems like you're just verifying what I've been accusing you of.

 

I'm a Yankee fan. I root for the Yankees. Everyone else in baseball is rooting against the Yankees.

These young, hungry teams in the AL East are taking it to them, simple as that.

The Blue Jays I haven't really paid attention to, but the Rays are athletic and play smart. They said they were going to be the Yankees head to head and that's what they did.

The Yankee identity in 2020 is fat and lazy.

Miguel Andujar's fielding at third base.

In 2018, Andujar's fielding percentage was .948, with 15 errors in 286 chances.

In 2019, Andujar's fielding percentage was .700, with 3 errors in 10 chances.

In 2020, Andujar's fielding percentage is .750, with 3 errors in 12 chances.

Tim Anderson seems like a player from a different era.

 When people cared about batting average.

Firing Aaron Boone is not a crazy idea.

If the Yankees were in first place with 20 games to play, holding a slim 3-game lead on the second-place Rays, I think it would be a surprisingly uncomfortable position for the supposed juggernaut.

Instead, the Yankees are holding a slim 3-game lead on the fourth-place Orioles.

If the Yankees choose to dismiss 2020 as a pandemic mulligan, that's their prerogative. I'm astonished by the lack of flexibility and urgency. Also, the lack of roster depth.

Also, one of the reasons Girardi supposedly lost his job following the 2017 season is because of his inability to communicate with the young superstars, namely Judge and Sanchez.

 Uh huh.

Is Gary Sanchez trying?

Is he angry at the Yankees?

Going through the motions?

Subconsciously sabotaging his at-bats?

Intentionally sabotaging his at-bats?

Is he just not enjoying himself and ready to quit baseball altogether?

I know strikeouts are more prevalent each year, but Sanchez has 48 strikeouts in 100 at-bats, and he only has 13 hits.

He has struck out 7 times in a row.

By my count, he has started 29 games this season, and he has struck out at least once in 27 of them.

I know he hits a HR every now and again. He has a couple of big HRs, too. The grand slam against the Mets.

But it's not happening this season, and he may never get it back.

Since I'm assuming he's out of options, it's time for a benching. You lost your starting job. It is appropriate when you play this poorly for a long time.

A lot changes in two weeks.

Lupica is right when he says no excuses. Their attitude is downright embarrassing. The Yankees knew it was a sixty-game season. They knew they were susceptible to injuries. Two weeks ago, they were MLB's elite, along with the Dodgers. Now they're relying on an NHL-style playoff format just to make the playoffs:

"The great homegrown nucleus of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres that was supposed to sustain them with championships for years to come? Flawed, all of them. Judge will seemingly always be felled by assorted muscle pull injuries and seldom be on the field. Sanchez, for whom the Yankee brass has stubbornly held such high hope, is in the opinion of many scouts now one of the worst players in baseball — a strikeout-prone, defensively-challenged catcher who has also been continuously plagued by groin injuries. And Torres, who is down with a hamstring injury, has proven to be barely adequate at shortstop at the same time he’s mysteriously having problems finding his way with the bat this year."

Torres is probably going to rebound. May be headed for MVP candidacies in the future.

But the fielding problems for Torres, Andujar, and Sanchez are inexcusable. It's just a matter of practicing.

Sanchez doesn't look like he's going to rebound. He's one of the worst players in MLB at a time in his career when he should be peaking. This year, he has 44 strikeouts and 13 hits in 96 at-bats.

Judge is always injured.

Flawed, all of them.

This should be an interesting explanation.

Nobody is saying that Garcia should have kept pitching. But this is a failure no matter how you look at it:

"The Yankees couldn’t go to Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman or Chad Green. Each of them had pitched in the earlier game. For Britton and Chapman, it was their second straight day of work. For Green, it was his third. If Boone turned to Adam Ottavino, it would have been his third straight day. The Yankees rarely use a reliever three days in a row during the regular season."

Yes, I expected Ottavino to pitch three days in a row. If he was successful, he would have only had to pitch to one batter to close out the inning.

Two innings to go.

Green for the second time in one day, then Chapman for the second time in one day.

I'd skip Britton because he has walked 7 batters in 12 innings and this annoys me.

Put on your big boy pants and play major league baseball.

It might not have worked out. Nobody in the bullpen has been reliable lately.

But maybe the Yankees should start trying. Get a professional roster and try to win the games. You've only got 22 games left. Stop whining about the schedule and the circumstances.

 

 

Most Yankee fans don't see it ...

Depends a little on which website you look at, but the Yankees are still given about a 98% chance of making the playoffs.

Even John and Suzyn were noticeably disgusted.

Look at this box score and ponder what the heck has happened to baseball. 

Walks, strikeouts, errors, baserunning blunders.

It's just three hours of waiting to see who hits the most homers with a juiced up ball.

The Rays are better than the Yankees.

 Can't say I saw this coming, 60-game season or 162-game season.

Michael King and Brooks Kriske?

In a seven-inning game?

In a sixty-game season?

I know the fecund IL creates some difficulties in filling out a roster ... but you're still the New York Yankees.

I also know that quite a few of the regulars not named Judge, LeMahieu, or Voit are under-performing ... some are under-performing at a level that makes them a candidate for the Worst Starting Player in MLB.

But if you're going to ask for your fan base to pay attention while experiencing the trauma of a pandemic, unemployment, and social unrest ... you should return the favor and give us something worth watching.

Pretend you're trying to win.

Act like you are embarrassed and distraught when you're 5 games out of first place and in danger of missing the expanded playoffs.

The nonchalance really shows.

Probably the biggest compliments a fan can pay a player is to describe the player as "tough" and "clutch."

It isn't just "finishing games off" and it isn't just injuries.

• If Chapman isn't ready to pitch in the major leagues, then find someone who can.
• Mike Tauchman is a cute underdog story until he grounds into a double play with the bases loaded against a rookie pitcher.
• The season is now halfway over and it's time to bench or demote Sanchez. Boone batted Sanchez fourth. Sanchez left six runners on base by my last count. He did manage a walk with the bases loaded ... so there's that.
  

The Yankees are soft and stupid and bad fielders. They are 1-5 in one-run games. The Yankees struck out 13 against the Mets ... in a 7-inning game ... and deGrom wasn't pitching. The Mets' first run scored on the Yankee Patented Unearned Run: HBP, error, wild pitch.

So, yeah, the injuries are part of the sad story.

But Boone didn't prepare his team for a sprint, and he still hasn't.

Each games counts like 2.6 games. A 7-game losing streak is really an 18-game losing streak.

This is going to keep happening, isn't it?

• 2.5 games behind Tampa.
• Can't beat Tampa.
• Can't beat good teams.
• Can't win close games.
• Can't stay healthy.
• Keep getting injured performing common baseball maneuvers, such as jogging to a base or sliding into a base or standing in a batter's box.
• Bad fielding.
• Bad situational hitting.
• Boring.
  

The Rays back up their big words.

I'm sure it's not just the Yankees, but ever since the 2001 World Series, I've been traumatized by the inability of the Yankee pitchers to field their position.

The playoffs are a long way off, but the Rays have guts and can win close games.

The Yankees? A lot to prove.

ESPN's Marly Rivera in 280-character hell.

"ESPN Stats & Info: Gary Sánchez has 92 HR in games in which he appeared as a catcher, tying Hall of Famer Mike Piazza for most such HR in MLB history by a player in his first 400 career games, at any position."

Huh?

"Such HR" is in games you appear as a catcher ... at any position?

 

"Sánchez, through 1 HR Tuesday, has 110 total HR in 391 career games."

As a catcher?

I read it multiple times and I can't figure out what Gary Sanchez tied Mike Piazza for.

My best guess is this:

First 400 games of a career (who cares?). 

You divvy up the games by position played, and both Sanchez and Piazza hit 92 HRs in their first 400 career games in which they played catcher, which is also the most anyone every hit in their first 400 career games at any position.

Which I'm pretty sure isn't accurate (Mark McGwire?), but maybe it is.

Bottom line: Gary Sanchez hits a lot of HRs ... and so did Mike Piazza.

You already knew that, didn't you?

 

God Bless Fernando Tatis Jr.

Because he's fat.

Put Alex Rodriguez in front of a mic, and you get what you ask for.

34-for-68.

Maybe I've seen a higher batting average over an extended period of time ... check with Elias ... but I sure don't recall anything like this.

So much for the idea that each game counts more in a 60-game season.

After a victory in the first game of a double header, with a fresh bullpen and a close score in game #2, so far the Yankees have pitched the following nobodies through the first five innings:

• Michael King
• Luis Avilan
• Albert Abreu

Again, I feel the need to bring up Chien-Ming Wang.

I mean, what is there to say anymore?

We're talking about "starting pitching" as if it's 20 years ago. 

Then we start talking about all the pitchers from 20 years ago:

"The Yankees haven’t had enough starting pitching for years and years. You can go all the way back to 2004, and remember that when it was all on the line for them against the Red Sox in Game 7, they had to start Kevin Brown, who had become a bust-out case by then, and then follow him with Javy Vazquez (whom they even brought back to the team in 2010)."

You could go all the way back to 2004 ... or you could stop living in the past. 

I mean, a Javy Vazquez career retrospective sheds little light on the first 13 games of 2020, wouldn't you say?

 

"You know how that worked out."

The 2004 ALCS?

Not sure how that worked out.

Can you please explain it for the 10,000th time? Since it was the highlight of your life?

Even David Ortiz is over it by now.

"When Randy Johnson became a Yankee, he absolutely did win 17 games twice. The second time he did, his earned run average was a smooth 5.00. It is always worth remembering that the last great starting pitcher the Yankees signed and developed was Andy Pettitte."

Pettitte was a PED cheat and you always forget the greatness of Chien-Ming Wang. I understand why you forgot ... why everyone forgets ... but it was only a stupid injury which derailed his career after 2 1/2 years of 46-15 flat-out greatness.

It's too early to crown Severino, but same thing. They might have a flash in the pan, but they might have a champ.

 

 As for 2020, I totally trust Cole, Tanaka, Paxton, and Montgomery.

Montgomery had one bad game, Paxton has to get his velocity back up. If Paxton can't get his velocity back up, then it's a problem.

Happ is garbage, the Yankees should banish him and start Green or Loaisiga instead.

 

More importantly, the 2020 Yankees don't have to outpitch the 1998 Yankees or the 1970 Orioles or the 2004 Yankees. They just have to beat the other 2020 teams.

With the steroid ball and no DH, good luck finding a team with a reliable starting staff.

If the Yankees play sharp defense and their stellar bullpen holds, they are going to cruise, and Lupica knows it.

 

"Starting pitching."

Chapman goes on the DL and Britton steps right in with 5 saves in 5 save opportunities.

Half the relief staff has an ERA of 0.00, the other half under 2.00.

Sorry, that's the way baseball is played in 2020.

If Happ can get through a mere 4 innings, I'll take it, and the Yankees are going to win a lot of games.

Walk, walk, wild pitch, sac fly.

Ottavino gave the game away. 

Not sure if Ottavino can survive the new world of 3-batter minimums.

Tauchman made a bad baserunning play and Lemahieu had an ineffective at-bat.

Does anyone think Judge would have avoided the strike out and gotten Tauchman home?

Sanchez with bases loaded and two outs strikes out on three pitches.

When you lose 1-0, every play was pivotal.

 

"Almost."

 A YES Network highlight of a warning track fly ball. The last out of the game in a Yankee loss. Very nice highlight.

I relent.

Baseball games take too long and move too slowly and the season is too long. I wouldn't expect this rule to continue into the playoffs, but I will no longer complain if MLB tries desperately to get young people to pay attention.

Just like that, out of nowhere, Ron Davis is out of the MLB record books.

Suzyn Waldman is a shockingly good singer.

"Waldman, a former Broadway actress renowned for her singing voice, has sung the national anthem many times before, including many times before Yankees home games. But this one was special. Not only was it keeping a long-held promise to the Yankees’ new ace, but it turns out that Waldman had never sung the national anthem in the new Yankee Stadium"

Cool story, too.

What virus?

I'm enjoying the return of MLB, but it's very noticeable how often the players violate social distancing protocols, despite the fact that the virus has hit very close to home.

In the non-existent Battle for New York between Judge and Alonso ... Judge takes an early lead.

It's time the U.S. started celebrating Christmas on December 25.

"There was a time with the Mets, briefly, when we talked about 'Harvey Day' when it was Matt Harvey’s turn to pitch."

Matt Harvey.

You're talking about Matt Harvey again.

"But now we have "Jake Day" with the Mets because of Jacob deGrom, who has been the best starting pitcher in baseball the past two years, with back-to-back National League Cy Young Awards to prove it."

Is that right?

Strange.

I'm a baseball fan who lives in the NY metropolitan area, and I have never heard of this ... who was it again? ... Jacob deGrom?

Huh.

"In Gooden’s two magic years when he was a kid, 1984 and ’85, he was 41-13 with that 2.00 ERA and struck out 544 batters in 494 2/3 innings. He was the NL Rookie of the Year in ’84 and the NL Cy Young Award winner in ’85. Seaver in '72 and ’73 had a record of 40-22 to go with a 2.48 ERA and struck out 500 men in 522 innings. He was fifth in the Cy Young voting in ’72, won it in ’73. And deGrom? In addition to the win-loss record, he has struck out 524 batters in 421 innings."

Harvey, Seaver, Gooden, deGrom.

Great stuff.

You should give Evan and Joe a call in the afternoon.

I mean, look, there's not much here to argue with.

Everyone knows deGrom is great and, because he's a Met ... I guess there are parallels between deGrom and other great Met pitchers.

So what?

DeGrom has been great for a lot longer than two years, but if Lupica has never gotten psyched about "Jake Day" until now, that's because of his own ignorance.

DeGrom was Rookie of the Year way back in 2014, and has been various degrees of great ever since.

On the field, deGrom has never been overshadowed by Harvey, Syndergaard, Wheeler ... Jon Niese, Dice-K Matsusaka, Bartolo Colon.

In Lupica's columns, on the other hand, deGrom has been given short shrift.

Not suddenly.

Still hoping for the best, but this season has always had the Sword of Damocles hanging over its head.

The headline reminded me of a talking head who briefly infiltrated my attention span, screaming that the pandemic is unprecedented and unforeseeable.

The details change, but the pandemic is neither of those things.

Seventh of the depth chart? He's better than that.

At some point, the Yankees just need to trade him and get something valuable in return.

Maybe I'm just mellowing in my old age.

"Now, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the Astros won't be booed, either. This year's rescheduled Opening Days will be played in front of nobody -- nobody cheering and nobody booing, the only possible way to have baseball in a pandemic. We all have a good sense of what the game misses when there is nobody cheering. But what does the game miss when there's nobody booing? Quite a lot."

LOL.

Core Five

Healthy and empowered, huh?

Britt and Chappy

I had forgotten how much I missed baseball's childish nicknames.

For a long time, I just assumed Whitaker was in the HOF.

Giancarlo Stanton is the DL Midas

Lojack

Everyone Loses

It really does seem MLB owners and players don't pay any attention to the fans. Few are excited to see the return of baseball for 60 games.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"The 30 Major League Baseball owners want to play 60 games this year. The players want to play 70. Here’s a better idea: How about 0?

On Monday afternoon, the players voted against the owners’ most recent proposal, leaving it to commissioner Rob Manfred to mandate a season. He will likely try to set a schedule of 50 or so games. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t safe anymore. It probably never was.

Many of us have been distracted in recent days by calculating teams’ EBITDA when we should have been calculating states’ coronavirus case rates. I wrote last week that the owners are being intransigent. They are. But the news on Friday of COVID-19 outbreaks in Phillies camp, in Clearwater, Fla.; and in Blue Jays camp, in Dunedin, Fla.; and in Giants camp, in Scottsdale, Ariz., have made it clear: The labor issue is not the problem. The virus is."

Crisis Management

Manfred gets a failing grade.

Even though some factors are beyond his control, he is ultimately responsible for this disaster.

He doesn't even seem like an interested party. He doesn't even seem excited for the return of baseball.

The Commissioner of MLB is doing a great job.

He doesn't even seem to care if MLB has a 2020 season.

A great article by Mike Lupica about Hank Aaron.

“I see kids out there,” he said. “I see black and white. But I see those kids. You know where the social change everybody’s talking about is going to come from? It’s going to come from them. Black or white. They’re the ones who are going to make the change that we need in our country.”

Finally the great Hank Aaron said this:

“I’m not able to move around much anymore. But if I could, I’d be out there marching. I’d be right there at the front of the line.”

Yes, I hope they play baseball this season. This is encouraging.

The commissioner of baseball announces the return of his sport with the enthusiasm one might expect when reviewing the findings of an internal audit.

Living in the past.

Matt Harvey's best season was probably 2013. A long time ago in MLB years.

He did not get a lot of wins in 2013 (9), but he was fourth in the Cy Young Award voting and made his only All Star appearance.

For a few years, Harvey struck out a lot of batters and had an excellent SO/W ratio.

Those days are long gone.

He has not been a good major league pitcher since 2015.

I have never heard anyone refer to Gary Sanchez as "El Gary."

Gary Sanchez's 162-game average is .246, 46 home runs, and 114 RBIs ... and this writer is questioning whether the Yankees should sign him.

If that production was cut in half, even with his defensive troubles and seemingly lazy attitude, Sanchez would be one of the top catchers in baseball.

I think MLB will have a season.

"If that doesn't happen -- if they can't agree on a deal to play in 2020 -- baseball will become a loathed presence on North America's sporting landscape, scorned by many fans. The labor fight will merely be deferred, with escalation in some form all but assured because of the unresolved issues.

Next spring, with only months remaining in the current collective bargaining agreement, the players are more apt to use the threat of a strike. Owners, already damaged by the money losses this year, could be more inclined to dig in and wait out the players, aiming for a lasting reconstruction of baseball's financial model. The labor fight could go on and on, and by the time it all plays out, it's impossible to know how many fans, feeling alienated or disgusted, will leave baseball behind once and for all.

The only sure thing is that the owners and players will lose, unless they settle this standoff that risks mutually assured destruction.

So they have to make a deal. Right?"

We'll see.

I think fans are angry when forced to confront the truth about pro athletes.

Pro athletes are not your friend. Neither is Matt Damon. Neither is Flo from those commercials.

I enjoy baseball as much as anybody, but baseball isn't going to save you and baseball isn't going to save this country:

"Over 100,000 deaths in the United States from the coronavirus. More than forty million unemployed workers. Brutal discrimination flooding news feeds. Protests in Minneapolis. Presidential tweets being censored for glorifying violence. Beloved sports bars and restaurants shutting their doors for good."

Right.

Puts some perspective on a silly diversion like baseball, no?

Also, the President's tweet was not censored. Twitter is a private company and ... oh, forget it ... my goodness, I have tried to explain this on the Internet for over twenty years.

"Baseball can be the first sport to provide a sense of normalcy; a dosage of healing and vital change during these uncertain and tragic times. Instead, players and owners, millionaires and billionaires, are squabbling about pay cuts and how to make up for lost profit — ensuring that baseball fans, their community of consumers, feel like they’re the last thing on their minds."

Fans are not the last thing on the minds of baseball players and owners.

The last thing on their mind, technically, is the Star Games episode with the stars from Gimme a Break. Remember those shows?

"Fans, having accepted they will likely not be attending games at ballparks this year, want baseball, at the very least, to return to their daily lives through their television screens. Fans have seen, read and heard enough about the public back-and-forth between Major League Baseball and the Players Association to understand how this will play out

Money could end up being the reason baseball doesn’t return in 2020."

Oh no! Not money! Players are greedy? Owners are greedy? In 21st Century America? I'm shocked.

Listen up, poor people ... "middle class" people ... sub-millionaire front line  losers. Rich people don't care about you other than your value as a consumer.

"The feud between MLB and the players may go on for another week, maybe even another month. It will go on as long as it takes for both sides to reach an agreement on salary and, to a smaller degree, health protocols. Major league players are the best at what they do, and they perform in a system that greatly rewards them for those talents. But the longer the groups squabble, the more they have to lose. For now, fans are following along closely. But the clock is ticking on the longevity of their enthusiasm for the sport."

I think they're going to play baseball this year.

The feud will be quickly forgotten; a short-term unnecessary PR hit. Forgotten until the next contract negotiations.

They'll play, alright. Half a season, goofy scheduling, empty ballparks, bad TV ratings after an Opening Day surge, and general difficulty trying to attract young fans, speed up the game, compete with other entertainment, and legitimize the results of an 80-game season.

Ultimately, it doesn't even come down to money. The virus will make the final decision.

At this point, it looks optimistic that the health concerns of the players can be mitigated. But we still don't know much about the virus and it could have a second surge throughout the planet, throughout the country, and surely throughout a baseball locker room.

Tim Tebow.

This probably overstates the case in both directions.

The next three months can't elevate MLB to the top and the pandemic alone can't kill it.

On the other hand, MLB shouldn't act like nothing's wrong.

Casual fans aren't missing it too much.

Consider the source.

Alex Rodriguez, a well-known paragon of effective and conciliatory MLB player/owner relationships, is now the voice of all the American frontline heroes. Such as himself.

The biggest star of the city is Mike Lupica.

Can Lupica go an entire article without bringing up the 2004 ALCS?

Also, there is no such thing as biggest star of the city:

"The nickname for Aaron Judge, of course, is All Rise. Except he keeps sitting down, even though there is no Yankees right now and no baseball."

I get it!

His nickname is "rise" (like a judge, which is his last name), but he "sits" because he is injured.

The turns of phrase are truly genius.


"Judge looked like one of the biggest and brightest stars in baseball. He hit 52 home runs in 2017 and finished second in the MVP voting in the American League."
Correct.

It wasn't long ago.


"So he might have been lucky to get on the field 100 times, after he missed 50 games in 2018 and 60 games in 2019. I’ve pointed this out before, but you know when Mike Trout has missed 50 games in a season?

Never, is when."
 

You know how many times David Wright missed 50 games?

 

I don't know.

 

It was a lot.

 

Didn't bother Lupica because Lupica was in love with the Mets.

 

 

"Jeter played shortstop, for 20 years. He played 19 full seasons. He missed 50 or more games in a season exactly one time, when a broken ankle suffered the previous October wouldn’t heal properly. Then came a quad strain and then came Jeter finally being shut down for good. In the end he played just 17 games in 2013. Other than that, the fewest games he’s ever played in a full Yankee season was 119."

 

What is the bar you're setting here?

 

Mike Trout and Derek Jeter?

 

 

"Maybe Judge does have a ton of Jeter in him. But he seems to have some Mickey Mantle in him, too. Mantle once looked like Superman, too. Until he wasn’t. He kept fighting through injuries, almost all of them to his legs, and finally limped away from the game for good when he was 36."

 

Now Lupica is comparing Judge to Mickey Mantle and acting like a Mantle career would be a disappointment.

 

Mantle is a baseball immortal.

If Judge manages half the career of Mantle, he would be not only the biggest star in New York, but a sure HOFer himself.

 

 

"If there is baseball by summer, imagine what it would be like in the place I started calling Baseball New York a long time ago if we had Alonso hitting homers on his side of the city and Judge hitting them on his side. Neither one of them chasing 50 this season, just each other."

 

"Baseball New York."

 

 

"Judge shouldn’t just be one of the stars of baseball. He should be the biggest star in New York sports right now, because of those 52 during the ’17 season, during which Judge carried the Yankees all the way to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the Houston Trash Cans. Mickey Mantle hit 52 in his Triple Crown season of 1956, and then in ’61, when he was chasing Roger Maris and they were both chasing Babe Ruth and Mantle ended up with 54."

 

So I think in a roundabout way you're saying that Alonso has passed Judge as the best player in  "Baseball New York"?

 

Yeah.

 

No one cares.

 

Yankee fans just want Judge to get healthy and, when he does, he'll probably be a great player. Maybe not as good as Alonso, who knows? I think, for any current ballplayer, the juiciness of the baseball will affect their numbers quite a bit.

 

Having said that, it's almost impossible to imagine Judge's career approaching Trout, Jeter, or Mantle.

 

 

Also, if you're going to create a place called Baseball New York, and you want to discuss the current biggest star, it's crazy to not even mention the Baseball New York player who has won back-to-back Cy Young Awards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure how often I agree with Bob Nightengale.

"Let’s see, we had Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker chastising the players for opposing MLB's revenue-sharing plan, saying they owe it to fans to take a pay cut and play ball during this horrific economic crisis caused by the pandemic. Never mind that the narrative is false.

Former All-Star first baseman Mark Teixeira urged players to bow down to MLB owners and accept their revenue-sharing proposal for the good of the country. Never mind that he earned $213 million in his career.

...

'After this agreement was reached,' Boras told USA TODAY Sports, 'you can’t come forward with a dynamic and say, "Hi, I want to privatize the gains and socialize the losses."'"

Fifty percent of $0 is $0.

We can only hope the contract negotiations are not a moot point.


Surely, there is little public appetite for typical collective bargaining.

But I also don't think it's up to MLB players to give the country hope or put their own welfare at risk.


We know MLB players aren't essential.

You know how we know?

Because they aren't risking their lives on the front line:


“The problem is you have people all over the world taking pay cuts, losing their jobs, losing their lives. Frontline workers putting their lives at risk. These are unprecedented times."

These are very different outcomes, "taking a pay cut" and "losing your life."


I don't expect the players will take the PR hit complaining (too much) about pay cuts.

But they will demand safe working conditions and refuse to put themselves and their families at unnecessary risk.

The opinions of Rob Manfred, Tony Clark, and Mark Teixeira don't matter.

The virus gets the last word.

The greatest play in baseball history?

This is the most fun the author has had a baseball park, ever.

An old, fat steroid cheat pitcher gets a lucky swing in a May game vs. the Padres.

I think (hope) Gary Cohen was being ironic when he excitedly called it the greatest moment in baseball history.

Signs of life

Plus, I saw toilet paper in the supermarket aisles this morning.

I hope there is a baseball season.

Sad to say, I agree.

MLB may face a near-existential crisis. Are a lot of fans realizing they don't miss it too much? No one knows, it's difficult to predict.

One optimistic scenario is fans FLOCKING back to stadiums and ballparks and theaters and releasing all the pent-up energy.

One pessimistic scenario is a re-organized stay-at-home/social distancing society.

MLB is a game of habit, as they say. The habit may have been broken for fans who aren't diehards.

Maybe they don't have to buy 100% of the team.

The timing for raising money isn't good?

Interest rates are 0.00% I think.

Very unrealistic.

Since when does a baseball game take less than two hours?

Reality sets in.

"But there are a million ways the Jenga stack could fall: What if the person delivering groceries to the biodome walks by someone who coughs on the lettuce and a week later, a player tests positive? Is there an option other than shutting down the whole operation for 14 days?

'No,' says Bergstrom.

And that’s really the end of the conversation. Even if we can start this, we almost certainly can’t finish it. Just look at South Korea and Japan, which both believed they had the outbreak under control and have since pushed back the start dates of their professional baseball seasons. In response to ESPN's reporting on the MLB biodome scenario this week, former Medicare and Medicaid head Andy Slavitt tweeted, 'I’m as big a sports fan as anybody, but this is reckless. Leagues need to follow the science & do the right thing.' "

Will MLB recover from a skipped season?

My first thought is Yelich.

Soto I would eliminate for obvious reasons ... we don't know how many strikeouts he avoided because of help from his teammates in the dugout banging on a trash can.

Torres I'm hoping is the real deal, and I think he is, but he fattened his stats bigtime against the Orioles.

Alonso I don't know what to say ... I don't think it's anti-Mets bias ... I just think it's way too early to project him as a decade-long superstar ... and I don't know what MLB is going to do about the super-balls. I just have a hunch that the ball gets deadened and he hits 27 HRs instead of 50.

I don't agree at all.

Again, what else are you going to write about?

The Yankees will benefit from the delay and so will the Mets.

Guess why?

You get one guess.

That's right.

Because they currently have players on the DL and this gives those players time to get healthy!


Well, guess what?

It also gives Verlander, Ohtani, and Sale time to get healthy.


The Yankees' biggest strength is their depth.

While lamenting their injuries last season, you can't ignore the fact that they won 103 games.

I'd put the under/over at 100 games played.

"Officially, Major League Baseball has not yet abandoned the hope of playing a 162-game schedule. Unofficially, that possibility all but evaporated when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended no gatherings of 50 or more people for the next eight weeks. That recommendation carries through May 10 (and could be extended based on the trajectory of the coronavirus spread)."

There is also a possibility the whole season will be cancelled.

I'd say it's a small possibility.

I also thought it was a small possibility that the Prime Rate would fall to 0.00 and my 401(k) would take a 35% "correction."


Now, I've got nothing against Tom Verducci ... and what is he supposed to write about when no baseball is being played?

His genius observations are that a shorter season would have an impact on the outcomes of the season ... in all the obvious ways you thought of right away.

When you put it that way ...

"You can argue, as President Roosevelt did during World War II, that an anxious nation is heartened by the continued normalcy of its games. But these games don’t even count. No one is heartened by the continued normalcy of watching a series of Double A relievers try to master their curveball."

Bad news for Aaron Judge, the Yankees, Yankee fans, and the Yankee trainers.

Good news for ... Pete Alonso?


No, I'm not reading another Lupica article about Alex Rodriguez.

I'm sure Lupica is right to some extent.

I don't understand ARod's resurgent popularity and ARod has no credibility when it comes to cheating. On the rare occasion I listen to what he's talking about, I  find him somewhat inarticulate and unimaginative in his baseball analyses.

Why are we still talking about Alex Rodriguez?

ARod retired from baseball in 2016.


As news of Judge's stress fracture makes the rounds, here's an awesome take:

"If Aaron Judge can’t stay on the field this season, after missing a total of 110 games the past two, then Pete Alonso has a chance to be the baseball star of the summer."

Good on Pete Alonso!

I suppose Lupica means New York Only baseball star of the summer?

Which, of course, Alonso could be even if Judge is healthy?

So Pete Alonso is good is your point?

Can there be more than one New York baseball star of the summer in 2020?

Is Healthy Judge just going to steal the spotlight from Alonso, ruining Alonso's bid for baseball star of the summer?

Or can they both co-exist, along with several other stars of the summer?

I never understood this rule and I don't like it.

Throw in Tebow and it's a deal.

Maybe the problem is you.

Designated Hitter is not murky.

Aubrey Huff's free speech rights are intact.

If they weren't, you wouldn't be hearing from him.

I actually tend to agree with Huff on this one. It sounds like an over-reaction by the Giants to satirical tweets.

Outside of SF, was anyone in the country clamoring for the 10-year anniversary of the 2010 Giants WS title?

Invite him to the reunion. He’ll stand in the corner and eat some pigs-in-a-blanket while wearing a JCPenney suit. This doesn’t need to be on the national radar.

But in terms of Freedom of Speech, the Giants can exclude you from their reunion simply because they don’t like you. It sounds as if that’s what they did and they were forthright about this.

In terms of the First Amendment itself, the Giants are not a Government agent … Huff has been embarrassed perhaps (it’s questionable), but he hasn’t been fined or jailed or intimidated by the State. 

In fact, the State probably loves him.

You Know Who will probably give Huff a medal.

Big names piling on the Astros.

This seems to indicate a fracture amongst the players which is quite different than the reaction to the PED scandal.

I'm also quite surprised.

The odds are stacked.

"Entering his fourth season with the Mets, the 32-year-old left fielder is coming off a 2019 season at Triple-A Syracuse in which he struggled, slashing .164/.299/.338 with four home runs and 19 runs batted in over 77 games.

So the odds are more than stacked up against Tebow, the former college football star at the University of Florida (2006-09) and three-year NFL quarterback (2010-12) who signed a minor-league contract with the Mets in September 2016. But he's back once again for his latest Spring Training with the Mets in Port St. Lucie, Florida, where Tebow embraces another opportunity."

What about his arm?

It's not you, it's me. I read his stuff, so I'm to blame.

Lupica with a predictable about face:

"And yet with all that drama, because there always seems to be drama around the Mets, in the best of times, they are still getting ready to play the season.

And guess what?

They have a chance to be good. Maybe really good."

This is Lupica seven whole days ago.

Keeping Score

"As one scout this week told me, 'They'll win 90-95 games easy if Diaz figures it out again. And they should have a championship bullpen.'

Hard to argue."

My first observation is that 90 wins is a good season. Third place in your division.

95 wins is a playoff spot.

In the 2020 NL East, 95 wins seems like a stretch.



This kind of prediction also assumes that nothing else changes between 2019 and 2020. Like, we start with a baseline of 86 wins. Then Diaz is better, Betances helps, and that's 90 - 95 wins.

It may work out exactly like that.

No one knows.

But since we keep score on everything, I will predict it doesn't work out that way.


"Because if Diaz again becomes a reliable closer, the Mets should be monsters in the late innings, with newcomer Dellin Betances likely sliding in as the primary set-up man and Seth Lugo then available as an Andrew Miller-like wild card, helping to lock down games with multiple-inning outings wherever needed."

You just changed the parameters of the discussion.

It's not just Diaz who's going to single-handedly get you an extra 4-to-9 wins by being the most dominant relief pitcher in baseball history.

He's going to triple-handedly join an already-dominant bullpen.

Yeah, I'll buy that. If everyone on the Mets is good, then they will surely win a lot of games.



"'Potentially, and I say potentially with great caution,' said another scout, 'they've got a better pen than just about everyone -- even the Yankees. But obviously there's a lot of uncertainty, starting with Diaz.'"

An unnamed scout said it, so I guess it doesn't mean much.

How can a professional athlete not realize he is 25 pounds overweight?

Get ready for endless stories about Spring Training Optimism.

Last year at this time, Troy Tulowitzki was going to hit 25 HRs and provide clubhouse leadership.

So weird how the Astros cheating scandal has brought Pete Rose into the spotlight again ...

... not so much because of the President's tweet, just listening to angry people on sports radio.


Gambling is worse than steroids or sign stealing.

Gambling is an existential threat to baseball. Sign stealing is not, and, as the 1990s proved beyond any doubt, steroid use surely is not.


No surprise that Trump's tweet is inaccurate ... Trump has no idea which teams Rose bet on ... and, obviously, this is not the point.

The point is that MLB does not need a manager who owes a bookie $250k and is looking for a way out.

Also, whatever you think of Giamatti's original punishment, Rose is his own worst enemy. Rose lied over and over and has never shown contrition to this day.


I kind of think Rose belongs in the HOF, unceremoniously, just so the world would shut up about him and move on. I don't think the HOF is for angels.

On the other hand, MLB is allowed to make its own rules. MLB is allowed to decide that gambling is the worst crime of all.

Somehow, this jerkoff overrated crook and statutory rapist has become a sympathetic, gritty, throwback hero to old, white men.

Maybe it helped more than I initially thought.

The pronounced decrease in "chase rates" would seem to indicate that the batters were cheating often and it helped a lot.

Maybe he's angry at the Mets for ignoring Buck Showalter?

I don't really believe in the Battle for New York anyway, but I can't recall Lupica disregarding the Mets. Maybe he'll change his tune by Opening Day?

Ahead of his time.

Imagine this guy with a juiced ball and acceptance of high strikeout rates?

He'd be ... he'd be ... Greg Bird.

"It's worth remembering ..."

Mike Lupica wants to talk about ARod some more:

"You can start here with sign stealing in baseball, and this week’s historical fallout because of it: The ones who got sanctioned got what they deserved. They were no better than all the drug cheats in the sport who thought they’d never get caught until they did. Those were the players who knew what they were doing was wrong and against the rules and kept doing it, going for the needle or however they got their happy juice. Know why? Because cheating worked for them."

I mean, sure.

One notable difference, of course, is that zero players were punished this time around.

I personally think the punishments were surprisingly harsh, but, whatever. I took it as a pre-emptive strike by the Commissioner who will be unable to push back against a tide of technological advancements.

"All of them can come back from this, by the way. You know why? Because Alex Rodriguez came back from twice being outed as a drug cheat; for lying about it after getting caught in Biogenesis; for being more than willing to take down anybody including the Yankees team doctor to save himself, and acting like then-Commissioner Bud Selig was the one engaged in a witch hunt against him, and hoax. And that’s the short list with Rodriguez.

Some people have short memories about the headbangers Rodriguez hired to save him. But not everybody does, starting with baseball executives who went as far as having their homes electronically swept when Rodriguez was in the barrel with Selig and Manfred, his top lieutenant at the time.

You know where Rodriguez is now, five years after serving his one-year Biogeneis suspension: He 's the mayor of baseball, with regular jobs on both ESPN and Fox. If he can come back, so can Luhnow, so can Hinch, so can Cora, so can Carlos Beltran, who never got to manage a game with the Mets because what he did with the Astros finally caught up with him.

The late George Steinbrenner was suspended twice from baseball, by two different commissioners -- still a world record for an owner that might never be broken. He got it for illegal campaign contributions to the Richard Nixon campaign, and got it again for paying a gambler named Howie Spira $50,000 to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield, one of Steinbrenner’s star players. You know what happened after that. Steinbrenner came back: The Yankees won four World Series in five years and nearly made it five in six years, and when Steinbrenner died, he was regarded as the patron saint of the modern New York Yankees."

I'm not disputing any of this ... I mean, I didn't read the whole thing, but I get the gist.

The gist being Mike Lupica really hates the Yankees in general and ARod in particular.


"Yankee fans are always going to believe they got robbed in the 2017 American League Championship Series. Fair enough. But if it was cameras and garbage cans and sign stealing that beat them in that series, somebody please explain to me how the Astros knowing the Yankees’ signs kept the Yankees to three runs in the four games of that series played in Minute Maid Park."

Well, that is probably because the Cheating Astros had good pitchers?

Maybe the Cheating Astros were a better team than the Yankees?

Their title is not being vacated. I personally don't think the sign stealing makes that much of a difference. But the Astros also have lost the benefit of the doubt.


(One minor point that seems to be overlooked quite often is that the Yankees would have had to beat the Dodgers to actually win a Championship, but again, this is all Imaginary Baseball League.)

If you don't need to cheat to win ... well, you can finish the thought, you cheating cheaters.


Sir Lupica is a True and Just Guardian of the Game when the dishonest person is wearing Pinstripes.

When a dishonest person is on a team that beat the Yankees, this his focus  shifts to the Yankees.


"Everybody gets the we-wuz-robbed mentality from the fans, and now from CC Sabathia. I get it, you get it, people in outer space get it. But before anybody around here gets too righteous about all of this, it’s worth remembering that when the Yankees won their last World Series, in 2009, their best hitter was Rodriguez. Who didn’t just have priors with performance-enhancing drugs, whether he ever tested positive or not, he had futures in the pipeline, with all his great and good friends at Biogenesis."

See?

I agree that lots of loudmouths are about to get thrown off of high horses.

But what do the 2017 Astros have to do with the 2009 Yankees?


As for the impact of ARod on the 2019 World Series, Hideki Matsui hit .615 in the 2009 World Series and won the MVP.

ARod hit .250.

But ARod was their "best hitter" ... and that tidbit is "worth remembering."

"Could baseball have hit the Astros harder? Sure. But take a step back and look at where we are right now in baseball, because of the sanctions just handed down: Three teams, Astros and Red Sox and Mets, are looking for managers a month from spring training. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the sport. The Astros are also looking for a new general manager, less than three months after leading the World Series three games to two.

Again: Do you think that anybody is going to go to an iPad or laptop to cheat the game ever again? Send up a flare if somebody does, and risks their baseball life in the process."

Second part first: Yes.

I'll send up 1,000 flares right now.

At this moment, the Astros are pondering ways to get away with stealing signs for the 2020 season. All 30 teams, actually. They're trying to figure out the line they're not allowed to cross and how to do everything right up to that line and then they'll occasionally cross it.


First part second: "The Astros are also looking for a new GM after leading the World Series 3 games to 2."

Yeah, but ... oh, never freaking mind.

It's the same reason Milli Vanilli never got another record contract.