Knicks Morning News (2022.10.17)

My major criticism of Cashman is his 20+ years of putrid starting pitcher acquisitions.

The good: Mussina, CC, Cole, Kuroda, Tanaka.

The bad: Jeff Weaver, Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Jaret Wright, Jose Contreras, Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa, a washed 41 y/o Randy Johnson, AJ Burnett, Javier Vazquez again, Miguel Pineda, Sonny Gray, JA Happ, James Paxton, Corey Kluber, Frankie Montas.

That’s a very bad record.

Cashman has made countless moves for players making negligible salaries who turn into key contributors over the years (e.g. Didi, Gio, Voit, Hicks, Trevino, Holmes, Peralta, Nestor).

He is outstanding at this. I actually love Cashman and think he should be enshrined in monument park. But I also think management needs to be turned over every now and then.

It’s not unlike a TV series that would be better if it ended when it ran out of ideas, but it gets extended for 7 more because Showtime needs content. We’re in Dexter-is-committing-murder-with-his-sister territory now.

The work he did in 2016 & 2017 was unequivocally great. But our player development has stunk under Boone and he’s done a very poor job building out this solid core.

I happen to believe Judge is going to walk this winter, and when he does I think it’s best we start anew.

The Yankees have actually put together teams build pretty well for the playoffs for the most part.

If this were true, their record in the playoffs wouldn’t be so poor. They have a twenty-year sample now of significantly underperforming in the postseason.

There’s a stat out there, I can’t find it right now, but when they match up with the Minnesota Twins in round 1 (a team they typically have a $100MM+ payroll advantage over), their record in the ALDS is like 12-2. When they play any team that they don’t have such a dominant payroll advantage over, their record is like 17-25.

Sure, sometimes we lost to the champs. But usually we played some very ordinary teams that got trounced in the next round (think about all those losses to the Tigers, and that crappy Angels team in 05).

There’s an argument to be made that the playoffs are a crapshoot, so any GM that can get you there as consistently as Cashman is gold. And I get that. I realize there is a strong counterargument. I just think every time this team fails, it happens in a familiar way that you saw coming a mile away.

Here’s hoping tonight bucks the trend!

The 111 win Dodgers, 101 win Braves, and 101 win Mets are all at home while the 89 win Padres and 89 win Phillies are battling it out. The Braves in particular played something like .700 baseball over the last four months and hardly ever seemed to lose.

Those teams aren’t out because their rosters weren’t well constructed for the post season, and the Phillies and Padres aren’t still playing because they have rosters that are particularly well suited for the postseason.

Trent Grisham from San Diego was one of the worst hitters in MLB this year, and during the playoffs he has hit like Ted Williams. This happens in baseball. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. “The playoffs are a crapshoot” is an axiom that is completely true.

This is a good take.

But given their a crapshoot, and we’ve been in them for 19 out of the last 21 years, what does it say that Cashman’s never rolled a 7? I think it’s a fair question.

The Dodgers have been the best team in baseball for like a decade and have 1 championship to show for it

And everyone knows that one doesn’t even count.

The issue with aggregating the Yankees playoff numbers is the Minnesota Twins are a significant fly in the ointment.

The Yankees have played the Twins 5 times. They are 5-0 in those series, with a 15-2 record. In four of those series, the Twins entered with an average payroll of $55mm vs $187mm for the Yankees (and in the 5th it was $131MM vs $225MM).

This is an outlier, a fluke, an aberration, whatever you want to call it. It’s not indicative of a normal playoff series, and it’s fair to analyze the data without it.

And without it, the Yankees have a 37-52 mark in the postseason and are 5-12 in series. 3 of their series wins came in one year, the one after they spent literally a billion dollars in the offseason.

I get that it’s a crapshoot, but this is a very large sample. And we tend to see the same exact things every year:

1) Cashman’s prized pitching acquisition bombs

2) the yankees enter with a dominant bullpen but their starting pitchers can’t go more than 3 or 4 innings and it gets overworked and worn down, and by the end of the series the once-dominant relievers are no longer dominant.

3) the lineup is littered with easy outs and subpar defensive players. Sometimes, like in the case of IKF or Starlin Castro, an individual is both.

There’s just not that much difference between the very great teams and the very good teams in baseball. It’s a coin flip.

I get it. But if every series is a coin flip, and you’ve lost 71% of those series over 20 years, isn’t it fair to question why it’s not closer to 50%?

The disappointing Dodgers, for instance, have won 10 series and lost 9 since their run began in 2013. That’s a team losing via crapshoot.

The Red Sox have won 16 and lost 7. The Astros won 10 out of 15. Even the Mets have won 3 out of 5.

The Yankees have lost 12 out of 17 series that are not against the Minnesota Twins and their $55MM payroll. Even if you count the 5 sweeps of Minnesota, they’re still 10-12.

There’s something in these numbers beyond “crapshoot.” There’s a consistent design flaw.

Surely this Yankee team could win it all.

I actually think it’s inconceivable for this team to win it all.

This team has all the classic Cashman flaws:

1. It has easy outs up and down the lineup.

2. There’s no left-handed hitting.

3. None of the starting pitchers he’s acquired (other than the one he spent $325MM on) are good.

4. The bullpen has to carry an impossible load.

And the manager is Aaron Boone. That one’s new, but the others have been around for 15 years now.

I don’t know what the blueprint is to build a team ideally suited for October, but I know this ain’t it.