|
|
Post by anthonyd46 on Jun 20, 2024 20:08:11 GMT -5
Well, here we are in the wake of back to back series losses to AL East rivals including some very ugly games. To quote one of my favorite "The Sopranos" characters, Little Carmine Lupertazzi, the king of malopropisms - "we're at the precipice of an enormous crossroads." Does it drop off significantly like 2022 or can they find a way to right the ship? I'm not throwing in any towel yet because there's a lot of runway left on the season and we have built a nice cushion. However, what exactly do we have with this team... - We have three superstars in Soto/Judge/Cole. Them staying healthy is crucial to any chance this team has at winning anything. Losing either of Judge or Soto would be catastrophic. Losing Cole would be very bad, too, but we did quite well without him for two months. Problem is, it seems incredibly unlikely Gil comes anywhere close to what he was until last week and I have real concern that he's falling off a cliff. The rest of them have had some rough outings lately, too. - After our 2 and 3 hitters, Volpe is progressing pretty well in year two and Verdugo is a nice complementary piece. Stanton is the ultimate feast or famine guy. He'll get hot for a couple of games, then he's a black hole for a few. Gleyber hasn't been himself and the longer that goes on, it looks like more than a "slump." Is he putting too much pressure on himself in his contract year? He ain't getting paid big if he doesn't snap out of it. - The corner IF spots are a problem. Even before his injury, Rizzo wasn't providing much. DJLM looks like a dried up husk since he came back and Oswaldo isn't good enough to play regularly. - Offensively, I think we've been fine behind the plate, but Trevino worries me when runners are on. He's been tap danced on lately. And if we're surrendering baserunner by the gallon that's really bad. - The bench is comically thin. Grisham can't keep his avg above .100, Jones doesn't belong in MLB and anybody else they could call on will be a AAAA player tops. Any injury to a key player turns his spot in the lineup to a wasteland. - This brings us to what I feel is our truly fatal flaw, the bullpen. Aside from Weaver, I trust no one out there. Tonkin was a revelation for a few weeks, but he seems to be coming back to reality the past couple of days. Holmes has been very shaky after a terrific start, and IMO has never been a really good closer. Everyone else out there are really guys that shouldn't be on a good MLB roster. Or at least not guys that you need to rely on to hold a lead regularly. It's really bleak. So here we are approaching the halfway point. Fortunately a lava hot start has given us a nice cushion, but several upgrades are needed if they're serious about competing this year for the crown, which they should be with Soto staring at FA and a crop of teams eager to aim their money cannon at him. Cashman's gonna have to loosen the strings on his prospect purse or this will end up just another "what coulda been" year in the Bronx. I think this is a really good post and the biggest difference I see in this team and 2022 is Soto. In 2022 they kept trying to hang on to Donaldson and others performing and it bit them. They made some trades at the deadline, but they believed too much in the "What if" players like Donaldson, Hicks, IKF, etc would trend on the good side of that and not the bad side. All of them had their moments, but there wasn't enough of them and they weren't consistent. Benintendi was a good pickup in theory as was Effros and Trivino, but multiple of them got hurt and didn't finish the season. The biggest blunders though was getting Montas instead of Castillo and then getting rid of Montgomery for Bader. Bader had a good post season, but getting rid of Montgomery just blew team chemistry in my opinion and Montas is just not Castillo and he got injured and once he got healthy didn't even resign here lol. I think the Yankees just tried playing with house money knowing that if they faced Houston in the ALCS they would likely lose and just I dunno it never felt like the front office cared about that team to the levels it should. This year just feels different because of Soto. They know he's an elite player and they know there is no guarantee he is back next year. I think bringing Ben Rice up and putting Rizzo on the 60 day IL so fast is a sign they aren't messing around this year. We haven't seen the AAAA players clog up spots too much and the regular have been playing. Last couple weeks we've seen more of Grisham and Jones than I would like, but I guess they wanted to be sure on Soto and Judge scares it was nothing terrible and Grisham I guess isn't terrible as a bench piece if you don't over use him. As I said in the injury thread I wouldn't "count" on The Martian. I think he could be a good playoff bench piece, but we can't count on him being healthy enough to help the team tis year and this latest injury takes him out till late August at best (if no setbacks). They need to make some tough decisions eventually which are: How long of a leash does DJ have? Is he cooked? Will Gleyber Torres turn back into himself and start hitting more consistently? Is it time to cut bait? Who needs to be brought into this bullpen? Do you try to try pry a better reliever from a bad team? (Maybe call Colorado and try to get McMahon and a bullpen piece?) I'm fine with Stanton he's better this year. Rizzo I think will prob be evaluated on if he seems all the way back or not before making a decision and also depends if Rice performs. I think the biggest questions are 2B, 3B, and bullpen. You can't spend this whole season with Gleyber, DJ, etc waiting for them to perform. Bottom line a lot teams in the AL are bad this year. The Yankees are still in good shape. They can still win. The orioles aren't the 2022 Astros or 2018 Red Sox. |
|
|
|
Post by kaybli on Jun 20, 2024 22:46:39 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by donniebaseball23 on Jun 20, 2024 23:47:55 GMT -5
Hmmmmm, who replaces him? They should option Tim Hill into the Mariana Trench. He's butt soup. |
|
|
|
Post by donniebaseball23 on Jun 20, 2024 23:55:31 GMT -5
Well, here we are in the wake of back to back series losses to AL East rivals including some very ugly games. To quote one of my favorite "The Sopranos" characters, Little Carmine Lupertazzi, the king of malopropisms - "we're at the precipice of an enormous crossroads." Does it drop off significantly like 2022 or can they find a way to right the ship? I'm not throwing in any towel yet because there's a lot of runway left on the season and we have built a nice cushion. However, what exactly do we have with this team... - We have three superstars in Soto/Judge/Cole. Them staying healthy is crucial to any chance this team has at winning anything. Losing either of Judge or Soto would be catastrophic. Losing Cole would be very bad, too, but we did quite well without him for two months. Problem is, it seems incredibly unlikely Gil comes anywhere close to what he was until last week and I have real concern that he's falling off a cliff. The rest of them have had some rough outings lately, too. - After our 2 and 3 hitters, Volpe is progressing pretty well in year two and Verdugo is a nice complementary piece. Stanton is the ultimate feast or famine guy. He'll get hot for a couple of games, then he's a black hole for a few. Gleyber hasn't been himself and the longer that goes on, it looks like more than a "slump." Is he putting too much pressure on himself in his contract year? He ain't getting paid big if he doesn't snap out of it. - The corner IF spots are a problem. Even before his injury, Rizzo wasn't providing much. DJLM looks like a dried up husk since he came back and Oswaldo isn't good enough to play regularly. - Offensively, I think we've been fine behind the plate, but Trevino worries me when runners are on. He's been tap danced on lately. And if we're surrendering baserunner by the gallon that's really bad. - The bench is comically thin. Grisham can't keep his avg above .100, Jones doesn't belong in MLB and anybody else they could call on will be a AAAA player tops. Any injury to a key player turns his spot in the lineup to a wasteland. - This brings us to what I feel is our truly fatal flaw, the bullpen. Aside from Weaver, I trust no one out there. Tonkin was a revelation for a few weeks, but he seems to be coming back to reality the past couple of days. Holmes has been very shaky after a terrific start, and IMO has never been a really good closer. Everyone else out there are really guys that shouldn't be on a good MLB roster. Or at least not guys that you need to rely on to hold a lead regularly. It's really bleak. So here we are approaching the halfway point. Fortunately a lava hot start has given us a nice cushion, but several upgrades are needed if they're serious about competing this year for the crown, which they should be with Soto staring at FA and a crop of teams eager to aim their money cannon at him. Cashman's gonna have to loosen the strings on his prospect purse or this will end up just another "what coulda been" year in the Bronx. I think this is a really good post and the biggest difference I see in this team and 2022 is Soto. In 2022 they kept trying to hang on to Donaldson and others performing and it bit them. They made some trades at the deadline, but they believed too much in the "What if" players like Donaldson, Hicks, IKF, etc would trend on the good side of that and not the bad side. All of them had their moments, but there wasn't enough of them and they weren't consistent. Benintendi was a good pickup in theory as was Effros and Trivino, but multiple of them got hurt and didn't finish the season. The biggest blunders though was getting Montas instead of Castillo and then getting rid of Montgomery for Bader. Bader had a good post season, but getting rid of Montgomery just blew team chemistry in my opinion and Montas is just not Castillo and he got injured and once he got healthy didn't even resign here lol. I think the Yankees just tried playing with house money knowing that if they faced Houston in the ALCS they would likely lose and just I dunno it never felt like the front office cared about that team to the levels it should. This year just feels different because of Soto. They know he's an elite player and they know there is no guarantee he is back next year. I think bringing Ben Rice up and putting Rizzo on the 60 day IL so fast is a sign they aren't messing around this year. We haven't seen the AAAA players clog up spots too much and the regular have been playing. Last couple weeks we've seen more of Grisham and Jones than I would like, but I guess they wanted to be sure on Soto and Judge scares it was nothing terrible and Grisham I guess isn't terrible as a bench piece if you don't over use him. As I said in the injury thread I wouldn't "count" on The Martian. I think he could be a good playoff bench piece, but we can't count on him being healthy enough to help the team tis year and this latest injury takes him out till late August at best (if no setbacks). They need to make some tough decisions eventually which are: How long of a leash does DJ have? Is he cooked? Will Gleyber Torres turn back into himself and start hitting more consistently? Is it time to cut bait? Who needs to be brought into this bullpen? Do you try to try pry a better reliever from a bad team? (Maybe call Colorado and try to get McMahon and a bullpen piece?) I'm fine with Stanton he's better this year. Rizzo I think will prob be evaluated on if he seems all the way back or not before making a decision and also depends if Rice performs. I think the biggest questions are 2B, 3B, and bullpen. You can't spend this whole season with Gleyber, DJ, etc waiting for them to perform. Bottom line a lot teams in the AL are bad this year. The Yankees are still in good shape. They can still win. The orioles aren't the 2022 Astros or 2018 Red Sox. Baseball's a funny game. No matter how many holes you have, just get to the post season. Who had Texas/Arizona in the WS last year? Texas got there with garbage pitching and WON the damn thing. Dbacks had two good starters and little other pitching and a "meh" lineup but got to the party. Make a few roster tweaks and roll the dice. Maybe a couple guys get hot and you do the damn thing. |
|
|
|
Post by anthonyd46 on Jun 20, 2024 23:58:17 GMT -5
I think this is a really good post and the biggest difference I see in this team and 2022 is Soto. In 2022 they kept trying to hang on to Donaldson and others performing and it bit them. They made some trades at the deadline, but they believed too much in the "What if" players like Donaldson, Hicks, IKF, etc would trend on the good side of that and not the bad side. All of them had their moments, but there wasn't enough of them and they weren't consistent. Benintendi was a good pickup in theory as was Effros and Trivino, but multiple of them got hurt and didn't finish the season. The biggest blunders though was getting Montas instead of Castillo and then getting rid of Montgomery for Bader. Bader had a good post season, but getting rid of Montgomery just blew team chemistry in my opinion and Montas is just not Castillo and he got injured and once he got healthy didn't even resign here lol. I think the Yankees just tried playing with house money knowing that if they faced Houston in the ALCS they would likely lose and just I dunno it never felt like the front office cared about that team to the levels it should. This year just feels different because of Soto. They know he's an elite player and they know there is no guarantee he is back next year. I think bringing Ben Rice up and putting Rizzo on the 60 day IL so fast is a sign they aren't messing around this year. We haven't seen the AAAA players clog up spots too much and the regular have been playing. Last couple weeks we've seen more of Grisham and Jones than I would like, but I guess they wanted to be sure on Soto and Judge scares it was nothing terrible and Grisham I guess isn't terrible as a bench piece if you don't over use him. As I said in the injury thread I wouldn't "count" on The Martian. I think he could be a good playoff bench piece, but we can't count on him being healthy enough to help the team tis year and this latest injury takes him out till late August at best (if no setbacks). They need to make some tough decisions eventually which are: How long of a leash does DJ have? Is he cooked? Will Gleyber Torres turn back into himself and start hitting more consistently? Is it time to cut bait? Who needs to be brought into this bullpen? Do you try to try pry a better reliever from a bad team? (Maybe call Colorado and try to get McMahon and a bullpen piece?) I'm fine with Stanton he's better this year. Rizzo I think will prob be evaluated on if he seems all the way back or not before making a decision and also depends if Rice performs. I think the biggest questions are 2B, 3B, and bullpen. You can't spend this whole season with Gleyber, DJ, etc waiting for them to perform. Bottom line a lot teams in the AL are bad this year. The Yankees are still in good shape. They can still win. The orioles aren't the 2022 Astros or 2018 Red Sox. Baseball's a funny game. No matter how many holes you have, just get to the post season. Who had Texas/Arizona in the WS last year? Texas got there with garbage pitching and WON the damn thing. Dbacks had two good starters and little other pitching and a "meh" lineup but got to the party. Make a few roster tweaks and roll the dice. Maybe a couple guys get hot and you do the damn thing. Yea I'm just saying some years (2018 Red Sox, 2022 Astros) it just seems like those teams were brick walls to the Yankees. I don't see that this year that any team is like that. |
|
|
|
Post by donniebaseball23 on Jun 21, 2024 10:21:20 GMT -5
Baseball's a funny game. No matter how many holes you have, just get to the post season. Who had Texas/Arizona in the WS last year? Texas got there with garbage pitching and WON the damn thing. Dbacks had two good starters and little other pitching and a "meh" lineup but got to the party. Make a few roster tweaks and roll the dice. Maybe a couple guys get hot and you do the damn thing. Yea I'm just saying some years (2018 Red Sox, 2022 Astros) it just seems like those teams were brick walls to the Yankees. I don't see that this year that any team is like that. Baltimore definitely looks like a roadblock right now, but if we can bring in some reinforcements, that could certainly change. |
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jun 21, 2024 10:52:02 GMT -5
Hmmmmm, who replaces him? They should option Tim Hill into the Mariana Trench. He's butt soup. 😂😂😂 |
|
|
|
Post by Max on Jun 21, 2024 12:08:51 GMT -5
Not sure what happened with Marinaccio, he was a pretty good pitcher when the Yankees first promoted him.
|
|
|
|
Post by rizzuto on Jun 21, 2024 12:19:15 GMT -5
Not sure what happened with Marinaccio, he was a pretty good pitcher when the Yankees first promoted him. Inconsistent fastball command and his change up is no longer electric. |
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jun 21, 2024 16:48:38 GMT -5
Not sure what happened with Marinaccio, he was a pretty good pitcher when the Yankees first promoted him. Inconsistent fastball command and his change up is no longer electric. I knew it was a mistake going to battery-operated change ups. The 120V had much more bite… |
|
|
|
Post by rizzuto on Jun 21, 2024 17:48:59 GMT -5
Inconsistent fastball command and his change up is no longer electric. I knew it was a mistake going to battery-operated change ups. The 120V had much more bite… Not even propane. It's butane - "My dad say butane's a bastard gas." - Bobby Hill |
|
|
|
Post by kaybli on Jul 18, 2024 11:25:06 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jul 18, 2024 13:34:41 GMT -5
And a significant amount of home games, too. It’s not a shoe-in, but it is better than the opposite would have been… |
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jul 19, 2024 13:48:12 GMT -5
I think it’s time to move Wells up in the line up. Either 4th or 5th. He’s been hitting much better than Verdugo or Torres…
|
|
|
|
Post by kaybli on Jul 21, 2024 0:09:35 GMT -5
|
|
