Official Yankee fan thread

[Ritchie]

12 hours ago, Yankee4Life said:

 

Cole pitched very well again and if he was on any other team he would've had at least fifteen wins by now.

 

Of course they intentionally walked Aaron Judge. The other eight in the lineup are automatic outs. They have not hit all year and they have not hit last year or the year before that or the year before that. Other teams go into hitting slumps but the Yankees when they get in hitting slumps it lasts a long time. This current one has been going on since June of last year.

 

You don't have to say slip sliding away anymore. We got it loud and clear. I don't blame you one bit for not having faith in this team. I certainly do not. I am not happy about this at all and I wish that they would play better but I know I can't do anything about it. This is the first summer in a very long time that I have not been angry and frustrated and lot and it feels great. I'm not saying I don't care because I do. All I want them to do is win but if they don't they don't.

 

So, big deal if Boston won again. It's not going to affect you. Just enjoy the summer because pretty soon July will be in the books.

 

Oh, I'm enjoying my summer this year.  I'm also not being frustrated about these jerks. Since I don't watch them, I don't get pissed.  I check the scores and standings the next day and smile when they lose. Nothing is going to light a fire under their multi- million $$ asses. 

[Yankee4Life]

7 hours ago, Ritchie said:

Oh, I'm enjoying my summer this year.  I'm also not being frustrated about these jerks. Since I don't watch them, I don't get pissed.  I check the scores and standings the next day and smile when they lose. Nothing is going to light a fire under their multi- million $$ asses. 

 

I don't watch them either because this is the most unwatchable team I've seen and I can recall the 1990 Yankees very easily. But in my case I don't smile when they lose because there is nothing to smile about. I have not been sold on this team at all and it goes back to spring training. I do noit understand why they did not keep Andrew Benintendi. They give seven-year contracts to Hicks and Ellsbury and they gave an eight-year one to Mark Teixiera but they couldn't give one more year to Benintendi?

[Ritchie]

I was home last night and why I turned on ESPN Sunday night baseball is beyond me as I saw Sevy get hammered  in the first, then smiled and turned off the game to watch recorded series 1883. Watching this was more satisfying. As to why Yankees did not sign Benitendi, I don't know. Traded away players for nothing. 

[Yankee4Life]

Read this article. Mike Lupica explains the difference between the Mets, who actually did something at there trade deadline and the Yankees, who for some reason did not and stood pat. I don’t praise the Mets a lot but they did a great job and they embarrassed the Yankees big time.

 

 

Mike Lupica: Cohen’s Mets decide to dig themselves out of the hole, while Yanks just keep digging

 

Steve Cohen has stopped kidding himself about the Mets, which means a very smart guy stopped acting like a sucker about baseball. It’s why Cohen’s baseball people have now traded just about everybody except Mr. Met over the past few days. At least the Mets did something. The Yankees did nothing. Maybe the only suckers left at the table are Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman.

 

All the Yankees did on Tuesday was add a pair of marginal pitchers, Keynan Middleton of the White Sox and Spencer Howard of the Rangers. They must think they can relief-pitch their way into the tournament in the American League. Or maybe the people in charge just continue to tell themselves their team is better than it really is.

 

Across town, what Cohen is doing, to borrow an expression from the world of money, is a baseball version of selling off a losing position. His Mets made a big bet this season – that Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer could anchor a contender – and ended up with the short end of it once the cards ran out. Instead of clutching to the fool’s hope, he’s selling off what assets he has left before they all go to zero.

 

Cohen took a good, hard look at what his team has done this season despite the biggest payroll in all of recorded history, and realized that the Mets were going nowhere, a little more than 100 games from when they won 101 last season. There were too many under-producing and overpaid veterans, in a sport that keeps getting younger, one in which the successful teams combine kids from their own farm system with smart veteran acquisitions. Cohen didn’t have a farm system when he took over. He’s trying to buy one now after finding out that even a payroll of $364 million couldn’t buy him a World Series.

 

So with Max Scherzer already gone to one Texas team, the Mets on Tuesday traded Justin Verlander to the Houston Astros for a Double-A kid, Drew Gilbert, who is supposed to be the Astros’ best minor leaguer. And you know why the Astros weren’t afraid to deal him for the 40-year-old Verlander, with whom they won a World Series nine months ago? Because the Astros always know there are more where Gilbert came from, that’s why.

 

In the end, Cohen paid $86 million for Verlander and Max Scherzer for the 2023 season and got a combined 35 starts out of them and now they’ve both moved to Texas. So for now, and maybe for a long time, Cohen decides not to throw more good money after bad.

 

Cohen’s general manager, Billy Eppler, can talk all he wants about “repositioning.” Eppler is a nice guy, he is, but that is just baseball double talk. What has happened to the Mets over the past few days, with 39-year-old Scherzer gone and now Verlander gone and all the rest of them following two future Hall of Famers out the door is that they decided to start all over again. Citi Field is still expensive baseball property. But this is a teardown, whatever they want to call it.

 

At least the Mets acknowledged at this Trade Deadline that they really have been kidding themselves for the past few months. You cannot say the same for the Yankees, who refused to sell off any of the handful of actually marketable guys that they have, which means players coming up on the end of their contract. In the end they essentially did nothing except add a bit of depth to the one strength the team has not named Judge. Maybe they didn’t sell because they didn’t have enough that anybody wanted.

 

So maybe it is the Yankees who continue to kid themselves that they are somehow getting closer to the World Series with their own overpaid, over-the-hill gang; continue to kid themselves that they have all these future star kids in the chute. Well, where are the kids when the Yankees need them? For now all we see is a team without a leftfielder, with aging corner infielders, and with no lefthanded bat in a ballpark with a rightfield wall close enough for hitters to spit on.

 

They somehow thought they were right there with the Astros last October even after getting swept in the American League Championship Series. They weren’t. Still aren’t. Now the Astros get Verlander back. The Rays? They traded for Aaron Civale of the Guardians, one of the hottest pitchers in the sport right now. The Blue Jays get a big arm like Jordan Hicks for their bullpen and get Paul DeJong to play shortstop after Bo Bichette goes down with a knee. The Orioles? They keep winning as they seem to keep getting younger and now add another starter, Jack Flaherty.

 

Ask yourself a question about the 2023 Yankees: Other than Judge, who else do they have who would start for the Atlanta Braves?

 

Yankee fans keep hearing about “Yankee DNA.” What in the world does that mean at this point? The Mets have lost more games than the Yankees have this season. But it is the Yankees who look like just as big a flop. Obviously Judge getting hurt on the first Saturday night in June changed plenty for this team. But once he went away for two months, you saw what kind of cover he was providing for all of the other guys Aaron Boone keeps running out there.

 

“I want to win,” Judge said Monday night. “Whatever gets us closer to being a better team and winning, that’s why I’m here……”

 

Maybe if he wanted to win sometime soon, he should have gone to San Francisco.

[Ritchie]

Way to go, Rodon. Pitched 2 good years and then sucker the Yanks for a  $162m contract, for 6 years no doubt.   Stay out for the rest of the year. You're terrible!!!!   Booooooo!!!! 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Ritchie

[Ritchie]

Yankees place struggling Carlos Rodon on IL.  another Carl Pavano.  stay there where you belong and enjoy your paycheck.

[Yankee4Life]

Rodon didn't bother me last year and he's not going to this year.

[Yankee4Life]

I have been keeping a close watch on the Yankees this season and even though I have not done a Mount Saint Helens impression on occasion that does not mean that I do not care about what goes on. I absolutely want them to win but at the same time I am smart enough not to believe what Yankee management has been telling us. Because if you believe them we still have a very good team that is going to make a playoff run. As the days go on and the season dwindles down game by game you can see how ridiculous that statement is.

 

Some of us have lived through the last time the Yankees were a losing team and for four years in a row from 1989 to 1992 that is exactly what happened. They were terrible and it showed. It's been so long now that I almost and I said almost put it out of my mind and for those of you in here that were not born yet or were just small children back then and do not remember consider yourself very lucky. But for those of us who lived through it we have the experience and if they do end up in last place this year is not like we haven't seen it before.

 

I survived those years very well although when they ended up in last place in 1990 I could not help thinking that they won the entire thing a dozen years before. That was the great 1978 come back. Naturally I was upset but I made it through those four years without one bout of laryngitis and not one broken bone.

 

So here we are in 2023 and we are looking at another last-place New York Yankees team. I watched them a little bit until I cannot take it anymore but from what I have been observing they all have quit on the season and cannot wait to go home to their families. There is a difference between the losing Yankees of that era and the ones today and the main reason for that is I think it would be best for the team overall if this team ended up in last place this year. It goes against what I believe in after all these years but is there is one team that needs a wake-up call it is the Yankees.

 

What did they do over the trade deadline except pick up two pitchers that nobody else in baseball wanted? No other moves were made. It's like they were telling everyone that the team that they have right now is good enough to win. Well you see how that's been working out haven't you? It is my hope that if they end up in last place that maybe they can get rid of Aaron Boone. Who knows? All I do know is this guy and Brian Cashman are doing a terrible job and is sooner than they are gone the better.

 

No one could blame what has happened this year on the Astros and I am tired of having them lean on the excuse that they cheated. They did but it was also six years ago and it is a crutch that the Yankees are holding onto each and every time that they lose in the playoffs. This is a bad club and it starts right from the top. They need to find a way to get rid of it a lot of the players that they have right now. I don't know if they could move Stanton but if I were them I would move mountains giving it a shot. What does he make, 30 million a year? And yet the guy cannot hustle and they have a manager who does nothing but make excuses for everything that this team does. I will never forget what Boone said after that night that the Orioles struck out the Yankees eighteen times. Boone actually said that not counting those eighteen strikeouts the Yankees had pretty good at-bats. That old saying that you could have knocked me over with a feather could not have been more accurate.

 

On YouTube there are many channels that cover the Yankees and there is this one guy who sits there for every game announcing to the people that stream along with him what happens with every pitch for every batter for all nine innings. I've heard of people purposely hurting themselves but this guy takes it to a whole new level. There is also this one guy who goes by the name of Frankie Baseball and frankly I and worried about this kid. You all thought that I got mad and yelled at them but on my worst days I have never been able to approach with this guy does when he goes off on the Yankees. He's not wrong and what he says a lot of people tend to agree with him but the poor kid is torturing himself over team that cannot wait for the season to end. Here is an example from his latest video last night. Just click right here.

 

As you can see for yourself this kid is very excitable. He's got a reason to but if he and everybody stop supporting this organization that cares nothing about you and only about your wallet then maybe they will get the message. Tickets are already sold for the remainder of the year but starting next year down in Florida if they don't have sellouts for their spring games and opening day next year is not a sellout and people refuse to buy a subscription to Amazon prime and Apple TV and Peacock and stop buying hats and shirts and jerseys then maybe the team will realize how upset their loyal fan base really is because a lot of us have already started doing it, myself included.

[Yankee4Life]

The Yankees have scored 13 runs combined in their past seven games. Now that is unbelievable.

 

 

[Ritchie]

Well, so much for the 1 game winning streak 

 

 

[Steveorama83]

Why are the Yankees, who don't allow players' names on the back, allowing a company name/logo on the sleeve?  Plus, my understanding is that Starr Insurance is not a North American company, let alone U.S. based.  So odd.

 

 

[Yankee4Life]

16 minutes ago, Steveorama83 said:

Why are the Yankees, who don't allow players' names on the back, allowing a company name/logo on the sleeve?  Plus, my understanding is that Starr Insurance is not a North American company, let alone U.S. based.  So odd.

 

 

 

There is nothing odd about it because it's all about money. This insurance place is paying them about twenty million dollars a year (maybe more) for the patch and the Yankees took it. There is no respect for the uniform anymore. Anyway, that's why.

[Yankee4Life]

Usually I post this in the middle of October or right near the end of it but the Yankees were so kind this season to go home early and save us from watching them lose in another playoff round to someone. This is my annual list of who stays and who goes on their roster as if I had a say in doing so. Fortunately for a lot of these players I don’t.

Pitchers

 

Of course we keep them: Gerrit Cole, Michael King, Clarke Schmidt

 

Please come back healthy and ready to play: Nestor Cortes, Scott Efross, Luis Gil. Lou Trivino and Ryan Weber

 

Trade him: Albert Abreu, Clay Holmes, Carlos Rodon, Tommy Kahnle

 

Get lost and never come back: Luis Severino, Domingo German, Jonathan Loaisaga, Frankie Montas

 

Re-sign him: Wandy Peralta

Hitters (Wait, we have some?)

 

Players to build a team around: Aaron Judge, Everson Periera, Oswaldo Cabrera, Jasson Domínguez, Oswald Peraza. Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells

 

Deserving of a chance to stay: Estevan Florial, Isiah Kiner-Falefa

 

Time to go, your time is up: Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres

 

No way you will be in pinstripes next year: Jake Bauers, Kyle Higashioka, Billy McKinney

 

Someone please put him out of his misery: Giancarlo Stanton.

[Yankee4Life]

Ok, here's where we can discuss who we'd like to have on the team next year.

 

First I would inquire on getting J.P. Sears back from Oakland. Forget his stats from this season. Don't even look at them. He was better than some of the slugs (Severino) we had.

 

Secondly, no huge free agent signings like Rodon. We all saw how well that went.

[Yankee4Life]

I am very curious about something. Why do players who leave the Yankees always seem to do good as soon as they are on a new team? That really has me confused. Here is what I am trying to say.

 

Jordan Montgomery: He’s traded to St. Louis last year and the first time he faces the Yankees he shuts them out. He pitched well there and now in Texas. He looks like he can be a big winner. Why didn’t he do it here?

 

Sonny Gray: He was having a decent career with Oakland so naturally the Yankees had to have him and they overpaid for him. Then he comes here and struggles and the Yankees don’t like people who do that. Slowly his confidence was gone and instead of working with him he is traded.

 

Aaron Hicks: He gets designated for assignment and gets picked up by the best team in the American League. He hit .188 for New York in twenty-eight games but then hit .275 in sixty-five games. He also had seven home runs and thirty-one RBI. That .275 average would have lead the Yankees by the way.

 

It’s tough watching these three playing when you stop and think that if things were different around here they’d be playing winning ball here.

[laroquece]

26 minutes ago, Yankee4Life said:

I am very curious about something. Why do players who leave the Yankees always seem to do good as soon as they are on a new team? That really has me confused. Here is what I am trying to say.

Historically, the Yankees team has been a championship-winning team, with great players throughout the ages. In addition, the pressure from the media is very hard and some players, when they put on that shirt, cannot stand the spotlight. That is why some good players when they arrive do not respond well on the field and when they go to other teams the pressure goes down and they return to playing normally.

[Yankee4Life]

That makes a lot of sense laroquece. Thank you.

[BallFour]

4 hours ago, Yankee4Life said:

I am very curious about something. Why do players who leave the Yankees always seem to do good as soon as they are on a new team? That really has me confused. Here is what I am trying to say.

 

So according to multiple current players, the Yankees analytics team has been overwhelming with new players, bombarding them with all sorts of information that they don't necessarily know how to decipher. When you don't have a manager that can communicate what all these numbers mean, it's going to lead to dips in performance. And the Yankees have gone all in on analytics to the point it's paralyzing. It's like freaking pumpkin spice. So when you get away from that, you're gonna do better. 

[Ritchie]

Which is why I think they should stop this analytics crap and go back to 'old style'  baseball. Bunt, move runners over hitting the other way, etc.  Outfielders, stop checking the card inside your hat - does that help? Have someone on bench let them know what the batter did last AB.  

 

[Ritchie]

Take game 2 Blue Jays/Twins WC game yesterday.  Berrios pulled in 4th inning  because of 2 lefty batters and failed due to analytics.  Manager should have played game the old school way and stuck with his gut. 

[Yankee4Life]

2 hours ago, BallFour said:

 

So according to multiple current players, the Yankees analytics team has been overwhelming with new players, bombarding them with all sorts of information that they don't necessarily know how to decipher. When you don't have a manager that can communicate what all these numbers mean, it's going to lead to dips in performance. And the Yankees have gone all in on analytics to the point it's paralyzing. It's like freaking pumpkin spice. So when you get away from that, you're gonna do better. 

 

Do you know what this tells me? That if idiot Boone comes back 2024 will be a continuation of 2023.

 

Good analogy with the pumpkin spice. When you see it in cereal, cookies, coffee, etc, etc it has gone too far. I want to see a pumpkin pie and that's probably about it.

 

2 hours ago, Ritchie said:

Which is why I think they should stop this analytics crap and go back to 'old style'  baseball. Bunt, move runners over hitting the other way, etc.  Outfielders, stop checking the card inside your hat - does that help? Have someone on bench let them know what the batter did last AB.  

 

 

That makes perfect sense. Hit and run, bunt, steal. That is how games were won since baseball has been played!

 

55 minutes ago, Ritchie said:

Take game 2 Blue Jays/Twins WC game yesterday.  Berrios pulled in 4th inning  because of 2 lefty batters and failed due to analytics.  Manager should have played game the old school way and stuck with his gut. 

 

Analytics LOST that game for Toronto yesterday. Because the computer says take him out they did it even though Berrios was doing well. Well, thanks to analytics Toronto is done.

[Yankee4Life]

 

This picture tells me a few things.

 

1. Here is where he is actually touching the base -after the play is over and the Twins are off the field.

 

2. Take a look at Fat Vlad’s face. He knows he’s out but he’s trying to save face by calling for a replay.

 

3. When you are overrated and don’t play the game right it bites you back when you least expect it.

 

4. Toronto loses because of him. They don’t win because of him.

 

5. Watch and listen in the coming days what his excuse is going to be for this stupid boneheaded play.

[sabugo]

This analytics crap annoys me like hell. I'm all for having more data and information and all that, but in the end this is still a game played by humans. So please, ease back on the computer stuff and look at what's actually happening on  the field. 

Baseball has showed us so many times it's impredictability. It's one of the beauties of the game! A game that has been played for almost 150 years and we still see situations that have never happened before. It's amazing in that way. A manager has to have some balls to decide when to go with the data and when to follow his gut. We're animals after all, use your instincts. How many times have we seen in this past decade, games that were lost due to the 'follow the data' line? Have more games been won than lost? That would be an interesting study.

While the game has changed, it's still basically the same in many regards. So, just don't try to reinvent the wheel.

Your catcher and shortstop need to be good defensively before anything else. Case in point, when Jeter and Posada's defense deteriorated, the Yankees stopped winning WS. That's not an opinion, it's a statement of facts. 

Your best hitters do not need to have an absurd number of HR for your team to do well. They just need to not be streaky and go from scorching hot to ice cold in two games. Again, look at the '98 Yankees. 
Then, you don't need 5 Aces on the mound. You need 2-3 very good guys and the rest of the rotation just not suck and eat as many innings as they can so that the bullpen isn't constantly overworked or trying to fix the starter's screwups.
And in the end you need a couple of lucky breaks here and there. For example, you need a guy who hits .200 to come up with a key hit in the postseason that nobody saw coming.  And you need a couple of reliable bullpen arms (Let's face it, they only made one Mariano Rivera). 

There, I fixed it.

 

[Yankee4Life]

Yes you fixed it Sabugo and I can’t dispute one word you wrote. People that ran baseball years ago had that approach but God knows why it changed.

 

There’s an old saying that goes like this. There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let’s say a hitter is a career 1 for 10 off of a pitcher he is going up against in the next game. Well that’s a .100 average and it shows that the pitcher has got him out nine out of ten times. You with me so far? That is what the computer is going to tell you.

 

But how did that hitter get out those nine times? Let’s say five of those times he hit the ball on the nose and flew out to one of the outfielders. Two times he hit hard ground balls that the infielders turned into great defensive plays and the batter was out at first base by a step and the guy was robbed of two hits. For the final two at-bats he struck out. One time he struck out swinging at a pitch out of the strike zone and the next time he was called out on strikes on a pitch that the umpire missed. There you go, his ten at-bats. It’s true he go out nine times as analytics will show you but just a little bit of luck on his part he’d of had at least five hits off of that pitcher.

 

And this my friends is why I have no respect for analytics. Get back to what the game is about and things will improve.

[sabugo]

Having data and knowing how to read it are two very different things.
Perception plays a part as well. People like to feel all modern and smart by using all these new words and 'analytics'.