Thursday, November 30, 2023

Baseball salaries.

$13 million for one of the worst players in baseball. 

I can't say Passan is wrong, exactly: "... the free agent market has set the price of veteran starting pitchers at $10 million-plus a year -- and Severino's past success bought him slightly more ..." 

... but I'd take a 30% raise, and I wouldn't consider it "slightly more"; and

... where is the demand for Luis Severino that would command a premium, however slight?

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Funny way to put it.

“When I was with the Orioles, you were intimidated to play them,” Britton told Ghroli. “They had so much talent. The way they carried themselves, you didn’t want to go to New York because they were so imposing, and I feel like we lost a little of that when I was there."

The Yankees were less imposing once they signed me.

Britton isn't incorrect. It's an obvious observation. He also isn't the proper messenger.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Volpe gets one third-place ROTY vote.

Also got a gold glove. The defensive metrics seem to back it up. I didn't really notice anything extraordinary defensively. I also don't keep track of the shortstops throughout the AL, so what do I know?

Friday, November 03, 2023

Not all Perfect Games acquire Baseball Immortality.

An unlikable player, late night when no one was watching, in a forgettable season vs. Oakland.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Monday, October 16, 2023

A lot of the big salary teams missed the playoffs this year.

"The failure to install a salary cap system, though, has assured football at all levels continues to rule over the sport that once called itself the national pastime."

The NFL passed MLB a long time ago.

I don't even understand the purpose of making the comparison.

A salary cap will not allow MLB to catch the NFL. Nothing will.

 

"As MLB displays its version of the final four – the National League Championship Series and American League Championship Series – the teams still alive again represent exclusively plus-sized markets."

I thought the Final Four were Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Phoenix.

 

"Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia and Phoenix are the cities still alive in the baseball postseason, and it should surprise no one they all represent top-10 metropolitan areas. Because that is how it has been in baseball under the current regime, where small-market clubs content themselves with making money while hoping to get lucky and big-market teams embrace how it all tilts in their favor."

Six teams in the top three markets were shut out.

 

"The fan base of every team in the NFL perceives itself to have an opportunity because the results show they do, so long as their team’s management takes appropriate advantage. And the success of the smaller-market teams has not merely been the product of failing and then drafting an elite quarterback with the first or second pick in the draft. Kansas City got Patrick Mahomes by trading up from the 27th overall pick to select him at No. 10. Green Bay was sharp enough to select Aaron Rodgers after 23 other players were chosen in 2005. The Bills got Josh Allen with the seventh pick in 2018."

The Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 2015.

The Oakland A's had a movie made about them.

The Detroit Lions may perceive they have a chance to win the Super Bowl every year, but that perception has always been wrong.

 

I mean, if you don't like baseball, then you don't like baseball.

Most people in American prefer football.

The deciding factor is not really the percentage of Final Four participants outside the top 20 markets.

I also can't believe this is still being discussed. I suppose some things never change.

 

 


Thursday, October 05, 2023

Mr. 4 2/3 Innings had a better playoff game than I expected ... and a better year than I expected.

This whole exercise is always stupid and always used as a way to ridicule the Yankees.

Players move around all the time.

Sonny Gray, Aaron Hicks, Joey Gallo, Josh Donaldson, and many other ex-Yankees are in the playoffs.

Oh, and Nathan Eovaldi.

Who has also previously played for the Red Sox, the Rays, the Marlins, and the Dodgers.

Who cares?

Tell me that Jordan Montgomery would have somehow saved the Yankees vs. the Astros in last year's ALCS, then I would concede it was a horrible trade.

Bader had a 1.271 OPS in that series. The Yankees were still swept, so it was good for nothing.

The Cardinals missed the playoffs in 2023, traded Bader for Montgomery in 2022, and then dumped Montgomery for nothing.

No one in St. Louis is giving it a second thought.

Sunday, October 01, 2023

That went south quick.

I don't subscribe to the Daily News and I don't have a twitter account, but it would be interesting to see if Lupica ate some humble pie on this one.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Very nice.

"After handing the ball over to Boone, Rodón brushed shoulders with the skipper, trudging off the mound. He was bombarded with boos from Yankees fans in the crowd at Kauffman Stadium as he walked slowly back to the dugout with his head down."

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Volpe has a 3.2 WAR and his batting average is .207.

Last year, IKF had a 3.0 WAR and Yankee fans wanted him off the team.


Happy for Cole and an appropriate way to finish his Cy Young season.

My personal observation is that the pitch clock helped Cole because he didn't have a chance for his typical mental meltdowns.

He also seemed to pitch even better after the pressure was off.

But this is nitpicking for a well-deserved Cy Young season.

Sunday, September 10, 2023

At least Dominguez can say he's a real Yankee now.

At this point, I think Aaron Boone just might speak a different language than the standard English we are used to hearing.

"Burnes was excellent," New York manager Aaron Boone said. "He maybe made a couple of mistakes where I thought we got some pitches to do some things with, but for the most part he was living on the edges."

If you read this quote without any knowledge of what happened, you'd think Burnes allowed four or five runs in six innings.

He threw a no-hitter for eight innings.

Boone is just lost in some sort of press conference corporate lingo.


Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Damn.

Where's the lie?:

"Count Rays' second baseman Brandon Lowe among those not buying the Yankee pitchers' explanations.

'Looking at it, it’s a last-place team against a team that’s in contention,' Lowe said. 'They’re just trying to ignite something over there. Whatever. Not worth our time at this moment. We’re focused on bigger things right now than worrying about a little on-field scuffle.

We need each game. They're not really in each game.'

He added: 'We need to focus up on what we need to do down the stretch. But if they lose a guy, it's not going to be quite as big of a deal as when we lose one of our guys.' "

The Rays have been embarrassing the Yankees for a while.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

NYY hope for 2024.

The path to success is basically staying healthy, of course. I just think the starting rotation could be quite good if Cortes, Montas, and Rodon get healthy and perform up to expectations.

I was ready to give up on LeMahieu, but he may still have something left in the tank.

I don't know what's up with all the strikeouts this year, but he has been productive in the second half of the season, commensurate with less strikeouts.

This optimism also could be small-sample-size wishful thinking.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Nostalgia is a distortion.

Agreeing completely with C-Mac.

Jeter was a bad owner/GM for the Marlins.

Mattingly has never won a World Series as a player, manager, or coach. I don't think he has. But he was the answer for one of my cells in today's Immaculate Grid.


This has been a bad and disappointing season for the Yankees. Not the "worst" season of your lifetime, really, unless you're seven years old. 

It's accurate and appropriate, albeit tedious, to rhapsodize about the Jeter era.

It's also easy to forget about the Jayson Nix era and the Mike Gallego era. "Those teams never gave up and they had character!"

Sure. 

Mel Hall and Lenn Sakata were both highly regarded for their leadership skills and never-say-die attitude that permeated the clubhouse and inspired Joel Skinner to hit a home run every couple of months.


The fans want to start over. The fans want acknowledgement that something is very wrong. But I see no reason to think that the Old Timer's Day crew and a bunch of prospects is the best way out.

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Play the kids!

Easy enough to dig up this gem from the past; ARod comparing Greg Bird to Don Mattingly; etc.


Yankee pitchers should practice fielding. I still haven't gotten over Mariano's throw into center field in 2001.

A google of "Clay Holmes fielding error" shouldn't have multiple entries for 2023.

Also, please drop this goofy idea that it's "instinct" to not get out of the way of a ground ball and let your second baseman field the ball for an easy double play. It's a matter of training. It's a matter of practice.


Tuesday, August 08, 2023

28 LOB in two games?

The buzz is that the "hit strikes hard" approach wasn't working and the Yankees are now getting back to the "work the count" approach. Wear out the pitchers, get more walks, stop swinging for the fences, stop worrying about launch angles.

Small sample sizes don't reveal too much, but the Astros beat the Yankees with nine runs on six hits. Launch angles worked for them.

Sure, the Yankees walked 20 times in two games, but then they can't hit with RISP ... and they can't hit sac flies with RISP, either.

Judge can't save this team and neither can Sean Casey.

The part that bugs me, frankly, is that every player should be 100% responsible for each of his at-bats. These entire team seems to be engaged in an alarming amount of blame-shifting.

Don't blame the umpire or the hitting coach or "analytics." 

If you don't know how to play baseball in the majors ... if you can't make adjustments after the league has adjusted to you ... then you're simply not an effective professional baseball player.