Game 63: Twins (Paddack) at Yankees (Rodon)

I've suffered just about every injury one could possibly get on a baseball field...torn hamstrings, pulled quads, spiked shins, sprained ankles, concussion, etc. Never once did I stopped to consider the ramifications before sacrificing my body to make a play.

1998 Yankees were 47-16 through 63 games. We are 44-19 through 63 games. 3 games off the 1998 pace. 

Totally agree. I'm just praying to the baseball gods to avoid the injury bug.

I wonder if his plan was just to wing it.

No, because in the original movie, King Kong beats Godzilla.

OK, so I'll take these points one at a time. About Verdugo's play last night:

I've watched the play four times now, and he was most definitely NOT running all out just before he hit the wall, in fact he was changing direction slightly at the very end and slowing down slightly to diminish the impact. He did, in fact, break stride, if only a little. In fact, if you watch closely, he's able to turn his throwing arm slightly in front of him to take some of the brunt of the impact on the arm as well as his knee on the padding down lower. 

Second, and I pointed this out more than once last year. I don't have to prove that some games in a season are more crucial down the stretch when a team is fighting for a playoff spots than games in June that "could be the difference between being in a tight playoff race and crusising the the division title with an insurmountable lead, making the games played at the end of the season less important" because

a) There is no such thing as an insurmountable lead making the games less important in the first week of June, you build an insurmountable lead over 120-140 games, and the Yanks are still 60-80 games away from being there (if, in fact, they ever get there with the O's still close), and therefore, if you lose a crucial player to a serious injury crashing into the wall, your chances of getting that insurmountable lead are considerably smaller.

b) I don't have to prove that, because ALL MLB teams in tight races play it that way, doing things down the stretch they NEVER do in June, no matter what the state of the race is. They make their starters go deeper. Some make their aces pitch on 3 days rest instead of 4, especially in the last series or two. Some use their closers 3, even 4 days in a row if they have to. They stop giving their everyday players games off. The idea that games down the stretch in a tight playoff race aren't clearly more important is silly. The whole season leads up to that. You can't play games 60-65 the same way you'd play games 155-162 in a tight race. The risk is too great for the gain.

It's simply not true that players give their best effort on every play, and as I pointed out, smart managers will ignore it or handle it behind closed doors if they see a player not running all out down to 1st on a grounder in a 10-2 game in the 8th inning. Players DON'T run all-out on popups and easy fly balls, until they see a chance they might not be caught. The Yankees DON'T demand Stanton bust it all out every time he runs because if they do, they KNOW he'll wind up on the IL for long stretches, and they lose his bat for those games.

Judge's play last year effectively ended their season. The offense crumpled last year without him. The Yanks were 10 games over, 6 games behind the Rays. He was desperate to keep them from falling losing that lead, that game, I get that. But they went 19-23 without him, and after the time came back and got his stroke back, they had lost 16 of their next 22. They were out of the race. They averaged 4.7 runs per game in the first 60 games of the season. In the next 61 games, which includes the 42 games without him and his first 17 starts back, it was 3.7 runs per game. Was the catch worth it? It probably won that game in LA, but was it worth it? 

The argument is: that's how he always plays, it's one of the things that makes him a great player. But that's how Pete Reiser played, and Bobby Valentine too, and both ran into a wall, and both of their careers were crippled by it. Reiser played 5 more years after fracturing his skull running into a wall in 1947, but was never a regular again, and never hit effectively again. Do you think the Dodgers could have used him healthy in he 1947 World Series,  when they lost to the Yanks in seven games?  From SABR's biography of Reiser: "The ill effects of the head injury—plus a sore leg—were evident in the World Series against the Yankees. Reiser misplayed a couple of balls in the first two games—both losses at Yankee Stadium. He started Game Three, but injured his ankle on a steal attempt. Manager Burt Shotton replaced him with Carl Furillo in the second inning, and Pete spent the remainder of the series as a bench player." Yes, the leg injury wiped him out of the Series, but the head injury cost the Dodgers in the first two games, both of which the Dodgers lost.

Valentine's ankle was permanently crippled and he was never the same, even though he lasted 6 more seasons in the majors. As I mentioned last year, when Jeter made that amazing catch diving into the stands against the Sox in 2004, he was LUCKY to come away with just a big bruise, he could've fractured his skull like Reiser did. 

With Judge's injury history, even without considering him going all out and crashing into walls, with his size, weight and enormous momentum at top speed, he has to cut it out; it's not worth the risk, certainly not in games in June. When he made a terrific diving catch coming in a week or two ago, I wasn't the only one in the game thread to comment that they were holding their breath. When Soto dove across the bullpen mound in foul ground to make a play in Tampa, I was screaming only one thing: DON'T GET HURT! 

Again, I'll quote from Bill James about this: from the 1982 Baseball Abstract: "Two years ago, I saw a game in Kansas City, in which the fans lustily booed Amos Otis, who had only given them about ten good years, because in one inning he pulled away from two balls he might have caught. First, he shied away from the wall on a drive that hit the wall about seven feet high. Then, he pulled up and played a ball on a he when he might have have caught it if he dived. Might have caught it, I say. The Kansas City fans will never forgive Amos for being a percentage player...Otis would drive in two runs before the night was over and the Royals had won. And some people will always admire Butch Hobson because, come hell or high water, he always tried for everything. But I'm not among them. My favorite player is Amos Otis."

James is just another guy, but he did go on to become a key analyst on the Sox teams that won its first title in 86 years, that won 3 more titles in the next 14 years. (Athough when he retired in 2019, he said he hadn't really done much for them the previous few years, so maybe he wasn't involved in the 2018 title.)

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From NBC Sports News today: "Alex Verdugo is not in the Yankees lineup on Thursday following a tremendous catch to secure Wednesday night’s win over the Twins. 

There is some speculation that Verdugo is a bit banged up after his run-saving catch in left field. There are no indications as of yet that there is any kind of serious injury, but the Yankees are likely just giving him a day to rest up. Trent Grisham will play center field and bat ninth and Aaron Judge will shift to left field."

And this is with him not going all out all the way through the play. How many games do he have to miss; how many games do they have to start Grisham (assuming Grisham doesn't get his bat going with regular play) before the catch isn't worth the risk, even though the risk was far less because Verdugo had a split second to prepare and brace himself as he caught the ball. Unlike Judge last year.