Well, the Giants remain a catastrophe, and the Yankees would need a miracle to advance to the next round. Somehow, all my sporting hopes and dreams lie with [checks notes] the New York Knickerbockers.
Help me, Mike Brown. You’re my only hope.
…But at least the Mariners won….
Am I on the wrong site?
Am I on the wrong site?
CaryGrantPointsToTheDoorAndSaysGetOutDotGif
Bronny James showing alot of improvement, so far in preseason he’s shooting 3 for 18 including 2 for 11 from 3pt range.
1
Relying on home runs is a lot like relying on making tough 3s. It works great in the regular season against mediocre defense/pitchers under less pressure over the course of a long season, but it also creates volatility that can get you beat under high pressure against better defense/pitchers. Obviously, being able to hit home runs is a good thing, but imo also being able to scrap for a few runs has become underrated. No excuse for the bad pitching. It’s easier to pitch under high pressure than hit.
In the postseason teams who hit more HRs I believe win an even larger % of games than in the regular season. The biggest bullshit you hear every year is that HRs don’t win in the playoffs because of the better pitching when its the exact opposite. Skubal lost last night because he allowed 2 HRs to the same hitter in a lineup for the first time all season.
Hasn’t been a great stretch for Jets and Mets fans either…
I know it’s the Mariners (and nice gif, Alan), but the announcers made an interesting point regarding how hard it is to string hits together against an ace like Skubal, so banging something out of the park is the best way to try and score runs. It wasn’t until he was out that they got two straight doubles off a reliever. I could see that being a playoff problem across the board against teams’ best aces.
You’d have to do it for every team in the league, as every team in the league faces more difficult pitching in the postseason.
Yes, you would. My hypothesis based on observation over a long period (2018-present) is that the Yankees’ delta is considerably worse than the average postseason team based on their approach to lineup building, which has been top heavy and full of easy outs for good pitchers.
And to strat’s point, there’s nothing wrong with relying on home runs or the three outcome approach. It’s the way Brian Cashman does it that’s the problem. He spends big on stars to build top heavy lineups and then gives away easy outs by pinching pennies down the lineup. There’s been anywhere between 2 & 5 automatic outs for good pitchers in the Yankees lineup for the entire Boone era.
There’s a reason for this. Cashman’s not dumb. It’s brilliant, actually, if your goal is just to make the playoffs all the time. And under Hal, that is the only goal. Guys like Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rizzo, and all the other postseason bums we’ve had in our lineup forever can work a walk or hit a home run against the general population of pitchers. But when you eliminate 80% of the teams and suddenly you’re only facing the good pitching staffs, the rise of their K rates isn’t random. It’s predictable.
That’s why despite always being in the playoffs, randomness never happens here. They’re not built for it.
The Athletic: Inside the meeting where Giancarlo Stanton gave Yankees ‘kick in the ass’
Giancarlo Stanton stood in the middle of the visitors’ clubhouse in Texas after another wrenching loss in early August. With every player sitting in front of his locker, and with the coaches and staffers on hand, the respected veteran went off for about five minutes.
“A wakeup call,” Yankees captain Aaron Judge said of the private meeting, which has not been previously reported.
Relying on home runs is a lot like relying on making tough 3s.
It’s kind of the opposite of all this, actually. The reason teams that hit a lot of home runs, even if you measure this by reliance on home runs as opposed to the raw number, tend to do better in the postseason is pretty intuitive–what’s more likely if you’re facing someone like Tarik Skubal, stringing together 3-4 hits in a row, or nailing a single mistake?
I’m not up on the stats boom in MLB, nor am I finely attuned to individual teams or players and their performance, or managerial aptitude from team to team.
From reading the recent chatter on this site re: the Yankees, not sure what to make of it. One small example: on one hand, folks were claiming that Cora was managing rings around Boone. On the other hand, I’m assuming that Cora made one of the dumbest “by the analytics” moves of the entire postseason by having Rafaela bunt with runners on first and second and no one out in the top of the 7th of a tie game…and the hitter proceeded to pop out to the pitcher.
The “free swinger” argument is interesting…I don’t really think it applies to the current Yankees. However, I do think that their all-time great hitter has one of the biggest strike zones in the history of the game, which gives good pitchers a lot to work with, and while the numbers look great in a vacuum, he’s not really meaningfully producing nor is the team having his back. On the surface, he’s having an amazing series…batting over .500, OPS of 1.381. But he’s not filling the role he needs to in this lineup…an elite HR-RBI guy who anchors big innings. That’s fine if other guys step up to drive Judge in, but that doesn’t seem to be happening except when it’s too late.
If you throw out the garbage time after the Jays took a 12-0 lead, it seems like the Judge ABs are not producing runs, because a) he’s been reduced to a singles/walks guy, b) the guys around him are not either setting him up or driving him in, or c) pitchers are pitching him out of good late opportunities.
Take yesterday:
1st inning: Judge walks with 1 out, then Bellinger and Rice both strike out.
4th inning: Judge leads off and strikes out
6th inning: Judge reaches on infield single but score is 12-0 so whatever. He scores on a Bellinger HR.
7th inning: Judge singles to CF and gets an RBI, then scores as Belinger, Rice, and Stanton all have productive ABs. Alas, too little too late.
And game 1:
1st inning: Judge singles, left stranded by Bellinger and Rice
4th inning: Judge leads off, grounds out.
6th inning: Judge strikes out with bases loaded, 0 outs.
8th inning: Judge doubles and left stranded by Bellinger and Rice, but score is 6-1 at that point.
Against the Red Sox, Judge was not really a positive factor at all, especially in the deciding game. His one RBI was on a ball that should have been caught, and he had 4 singles and a HBP. However, he got a bit more timely support and most importantly, the pitching held up in games 2 and 3. So they won the series, even with him not really contributing.
So if the Yankees want to get back into this series, to me it seems that the pitching has to hold up enough for them to get Judge’s elite regular season production going…or by at least scoring when he gets on base…or by filling the power void independent of his at-bats.
I think the best baseball teams that win world series are able to win in multiple ways. Most have a couple of hitters that grind out productive ABs against elite pitchers. These are guys who don’t need for pitchers to make mistakes to deliver clutch ABs. They can lay off or foul off tough pitches to drive up pitch counts and pounce on pitches, even non-strikes, that would get “free swingers” out. Many of those guys hit lots of HRs as well.
In other words, I don’t think it’s an either-or argument. You need both HRs and productive situational hitting.
Bronny James showing alot of improvement, so far in preseason he’s shooting 3 for 18 including 2 for 11 from 3pt range.
The way I just laughed way too hard at this lol
Isn’t giving up double digit runs in back to back games a pretty serious problem? Sure, the Yankees didn’t hit much against Gausman or Yesavage, but their 5 WAR pitcher wasn’t fooling anybody in a high leverage playoff game yesterday.
This is why the playoffs have so much randomness baked in. One guy having a bad game or a great game can confound the odds if that guy happens to be a starting pitcher. Usually you look at Fried vs a talented but green rookie and assume you have the advantage, but yesterday Fried couldn’t locate and Yesavage was getting ahead in counts by throwing strikes in the zone then putting guys away with a bottom-falling-out splitter on two strike counts when hitters had to protect the plate.
This is the randomness of which I so often speak. If they were to face off in five days you’d still probably like Fried’s chances.
You know what’s crazy? If our Knicks stay healthy and play the way they played last season, we could really have 5 all stars. 6 if Bridges gets a bump in production
Brunson & Towns are a lock. Mitch is a dominant defensive big. Hart should have been an all star last season but got pushed out because of all the healthy and good guards and wings at the time. OG is fearsome on defense and should be on voter’s radars with his offensive improvement.
Most have a couple of hitters that grind out productive ABs against elite pitchers. These are guys who don’t need for pitchers to make mistakes to deliver clutch ABs. They can lay off or foul off tough pitches to drive up pitch counts and pounce on pitches, even non-strikes, that would get “free swingers” out.
This is a good point, and it again speaks to Yesavage’s stuff yesterday. With two strike counts you want to be able to spit on some pitches and make the opposing starter work harder, but that splitter had so much sink on it and was so toxic that it was very difficult to even spit on. I’m not sure that a single hitter fouled off a two strike pitch against him.
In hindsight it might have made more sense to try to start hacking earlier in the count. Yesavage was getting ahead by throwing fastballs in the zone early in the count. Very many of the strikeout victims took 2, 3, or even 4 pitches and fell behind, at which point they were helpless against that great splitter.
zion starting off well in preseason with 27/13/9 and 2.3 blocks with 5.9 steals per 36 (61.5 percent shooting) how many years are we going to wonder if this is finally the year
Seems like a great splitter is about the hardest pitch to handle, and that hasn’t changed since it was popularized by Bruce Sutter. I remember the anxiety Mets fans felt in 1986 re: game 6 vs. the Astros because Mike Scott was lurking and they had not had any success against his elite splitter. But it seems hard to consistently control and throw for strikes, so I don’t know if Toronto can count on another elite outing by Yesavage.
And even so, when he’s going against your supposed ace, he’s not supposed to be leaving the game after 5.1 innings with a 12-0 lead. That game was on more on Fried than anyone else imho.
Poindexter, my guess is that Hart won’t get the minutes to be considered for an all-star position. Maybe 6MOY. We’ll see.
I don’t know how it’s pronounced as I don’t watch Yankees games, but if it’s pronounced the way I hope it is, Yesavage might be the best name in baseball right now.
Much like the Yankees’ young pitcher Cam Schlittler, Yesavage is a talented kid who has not yet shown elite command, but who had great command in a crucial game. He’s a very interesting prospect, a top 10 SP in the game and similar to the Mets’ Jonah Tong in that he has the unorthodox release point that gives him a fastball that appears to rise. Lethal combo with that splitter.
Yesavage might be a slightly better prospect than Tong because of that pitch combo. Tong’s fastball has more velo and really rises in the zone, but the splitter Yesavage throws is such a great complementary pitch to that rising fastball.
The Yankees were swinging at everything Yesavage threw. The late 90s Yankees were so good at making a pitcher throw more pitches. Between Jeter and Boggs leaning over staring at pitches just slightly out of the zone, to Paul O’Neill and Bernie fouling off pitches. They just wore the pitcher down and/or made the pitcher throw more pitches which of course increase the chance that they’ll throw a more hittable pitch.
Yesterday the Yankees were swinging like kids in a batting cage – literally at everything he threw. Which is disastrous against a splitter. If you ever played the old game RBI baseball, the splitter in that game felt pretty accurate to what we saw yesterday. You just have to lay off of it, because you’ll never hit it, and it’s most likely a ball anyway.
It might have seemed like they were swinging at everything he threw because they were hapless with two strikes, but most of those K’s came on at bats where the Yankees took several pitches at the start of the AB.
First inning- Grisham takes first two pitches, gets to 1-1, swings at two splitters and whiffs.
Judge takes four straight balls.
Bellinger takes four pitches, count is 2-2, fouls off a two strike pitch, whiffs on a splitter.
Rice takes two pitches, count is 1-1, whiffs on two splitters.
Second inning, Stanton takes a strike, swings and misses, takes three balls, fouls off a pitch, whiffs on a slider.
Third inning, Volpe takes three pitches, gets ahead 2-1, fouls off a fastball, whiffs on a fastball in the zone.
Wells takes two splitters, falls behind 0-2, whiffs on a splitter out of the zone.
Grisham swings at 2 of the first 3 pitches, falls behind 1-2, battles back to a full count, whiffs on a splitter.
Fourth inning, Judge takes three pitches, gets ahead 2-1, swings and misses at a slider then takes ball 3, whiffs on a high fastball.
Bellinger takes four pitches, gets ahead 3-1, fouls off a fastball in the zone, whiffs on a splitter.
Rice takes four pitches, count is 2-2, whiffs on a splitter.
They constantly fell behind in the count by taking pitches, then had to try to protect the plate against that disgusting splitter.
Yeah, JK, I went through the play-by-play and saw the same thing.
They had the exact opposite approach vs Gausman in Game 1.
The best shape talk around Zion really is at a fever pitch. I’d love it if he finally turned into the player we all hoped he would be coming out of college.
Blaming Judge, yeah, I don’t get it.
It’s playoff baseball. Make any narrative you like but it’s always going to be a crapshoot.
Just saying, but in RBI baseball you pretty much only use the splitter with two strikes, because if they swing it’s a strike out. At least when the pitcher is fresh, when they aren’t the pitch “hangs” for a very hittable strike.
Just curious – out of those 11 strike outs, how many were swinging vs looking?
Found where I could look it up, 10 of 11 struck out swinging. MLB average is 75% swinging. Maybe I hit the schnapps too hard during the game, but I was saying to myself they were swinging at too much.
10 of the 11 strikeouts were swinging strikes. Only Grisham struck out looking. Splitter in the zone. Seven of the 10 swinging strikeouts were on the splitter.
Four of the 11 strikeouts were on pitches that were in the strike zone.
The Yankees never really did adjust to it well, and kept fishing for it on two strike counts, but for obvious reasons it’s a tough pitch to lay off with two strikes.
Given that the Yankees lost anyway, and were almost certain to lose at that point in the game, it’s kind of annoying to see Yesavage get pulled after 5.1 innings. That could’ve been a historic outing and he was only at 78 pitches.
In the postseason teams who hit more HRs I believe win an even larger % of games than in the regular season. The biggest bullshit you hear every year is that HRs don’t win in the playoffs because of the better pitching when its the exact opposite.
I’m sure that’s the case. The same is probably true of teams that hit the most 3s.
The issue is not whether there is a postive correlation between doing the obvioiusly most productive thing and winning (3s or homeruns). Of course there is.
The issue is one of volatility.
You can have clearly the best team over a season of 82 or 162 games based on 3s or homeruns and come up dry and get eliminated in a shorter series against someone inferior.
It’s when you are the inferior team you want to try to hit homeruns and shoot more 3s and hope to get lucky and beat the better team.
There is value in consistency and imo it’s generally underrated across many sports.
If I was building a MLB team I would not try to maximize home run production at a cost of scoring in other ways (or 3p shooting in basketball at the cost of a more diverse offense). I’d be trying to build a team that maximizes defense and a balanced offense to raise consistency and reduce volatility even if I had to sacrifice some small LONG TERM advantage that would generate a better record over a season.
It’s a balancing act between long term advantage and shorter term consistency than IMO is currently weighted too heavily towards homeruns and tough 3s.
(I wasn’t talking about last night. I was talking about the Yankees failure in post seasons.)
After the trade deadline in the last 2 months of the season Yankees lead MLB in stolen bases.
Steve Popper
@StevePopper
And one more – he said that he did drop weight this summer to prepare for time at power forward, something he’d done in Minnesota when Rudy came on board.
Exactly what I’ve been calling for.
I’m so happy to hear this. I thought he was a bit overweight all of last year even at C. He’ll be quicker on both sides of the ball and we especially need that on defense. Plus, given his knee issues, being lighter should help take some of the strain off his knees. Great news.
“Blaming Judge, yeah, I don’t get it.”
No one is “blaming” Judge, just pointing out that in my opinion his lack of RBI production is part of the problem, considering how vital his power production is to their regular season success. Are Yankees fans happy about Judge’s production so far in these 5 playoff games? (0 HRs, 2 RBIs…with one of those on a very generous, and I believe incorrect, call.) I wouldn’t be, but understand why one might think otherwise. To each their own!
I used to think the playoffs are a crap shoot was a bullshit excuse but at this point I’m buying it. Obviously I was spoiled by the 1996-2000 Yankees but just look at this decade.
Braves win it all in 2021 with an average team missing some of their best players. Next 2 seasons they are stacked with 100+ win teams and get upset in the DS. Phillies make a surprise run to the 2022 WS, next 2 seasons they have much better teams and are upset in the playoffs. Even Houston for as great a run they had they lost 2 WS as heavy favorites and lost Game 7 of the 2023 ALCS at home. Aside from the 2020 short season Dodgers hadn’t won a WS since 1988 until last year. Heck the Bobby Cox Braves made the playoffs like 15 years in a row and only won 1 WS.
we had 3 starters on the knicks last season playing out of position…
maybe the yanks win the next 2 and there’s some hope again for the season to continue…maybe…
If I was building a MLB team I would not try to maximize home run production at a cost of scoring in other ways
No one does this, nor has anyone of repute suggested it would be a good idea. Obviously, you should not literally make your offense worse in pursuit of maximizing your home run total. Derek Jeter was better for an offense than, say, Dave Kingman. Home runs correlate strongly with overall offensive quality, but it’s not 1:1 and I’m pretty sure everyone’s aware that Goodhart’s law would kick in if any team treat it as such.
The more hotly debated question is whether all other things being equal, it’s better or worse to derive a large share of your runs via home runs. The empirics say there’s not a big difference, but to the extent there is one it’s in favor of home runs.
yeah maybe but not looking overly likely atm
Thing about baseball is that both hitting and pitching are so volatile that timely hot/cold streaks are often the difference between the top 5 teams.
I guess some teams have so much talent that the odds of a critical mass of players underperforming (and by extension, their opponents overperforming) are lowered. Only the Dodgers seem like that kind of team right now, and even they are not infallible.
Whereas in basketball, the best team on paper is way more likely to win a playoff series because the volatility of their stars seems much lower….not to mention that the star can be a factor on the vast majority of possessions in every game, while hot hitters and pitchers have to wait their turn.
I used to think the playoffs are a crap shoot was a bullshit excuse but at this point I’m buying it. Obviously I was spoiled by the 1996-2000 Yankees but just look at this decade.
Because of this, it’s very hard for me to muster any strong reaction to the Yankees likely being eliminated besides “shucks, well, run it back with Cole and some bullpen additions.”
It wouldn’t make a good WFAN call, but that’s baseball Suzyn.
Some of the best teams in baseball history lost in the playoffs/World Series. 1906 Cubs, 1954 Indians, 2001 Mariners, 1931 A’s.
“Crapshoot” has been a thing forever.
We have two 7 footers in the starting lineup with both of our wings long. I’m curious to see how much the height factor alone will move the needle defensively.
OG @ the SF spot could be problem for most teams. Althought the top three teams with De’Andre Hunter (Cle), Jalen Johnson (Atl) and Franz Wagner (ORL) are all huge.
but for obvious reasons it’s a tough pitch to lay off with two strikes.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree bc I don’t think it’s hard to lay off a ball when everyone knows it’s going to be a ball. And the Yankees should have known it was going to be a ball because it was a ball every time. If he had been mixing in called 3rd strikes like Mike Scott in his prime, ok, I’d see your point. But he wasn’t. It was out of the zone 10 of 11 times, and at some point you update the scouting report in real time.
And btw they also had 13 Ks in game 1 vs Boston and 11 in game 3. The Crochet game was understandable but Early and Yesavage are not Garret Crochet. It’s kinda been a theme this October.
what the hell is even up with mark sanchez
We’ll just have to agree to disagree bc I don’t think it’s hard to lay off a ball when everyone knows it’s going to be a ball.
Four of the strikeouts were on 3-2 counts, so that’s definitely not a count where “everybody knows it’s going to be a ball.”
Another four of the strikeouts– not the 3-2 count strikeouts– were on pitches in the zone. Take those and you strike out anyway.
So that leaves 3 out of the 11 where the Yankees swung at a ball out of the zone on a count that was not 3-2.
Butt Punch Drunk.
I’m presuming social media has already run with this…
fitting that master of the butt fumble was butt punch drunk
I DON’T WANNA TALK BASEBALL! I AM A BITTER METS FAN DAMMIT!!
LOL
Seriously though, I got no clue who should win the chip this season. Every team left in the playoffs don’t seem to be playing to their typical level. Except for maybe the Dodgers and Seattle if you want to count how they ended the season. Yankees too, but I don’t think anyone fears their pitching right now
Just read an article about the Yankees struggling offense and yup they lead baseball in walk percentage and had the 2nd lowest chase rate during the regular season.
And where does BY FAR the best offense in baseball rank in both walk percentage and chase rate during the playoffs?
Some hard-to-argue-against statistics supporting the fact that the Yanks were free swinging yesterday:
through three innings [Yesavage] had seven strikeouts despite having thrown only 15 of 45 pitches in the strike zone. His 38 percent zone rate on Sunday would tie him for dead last among all qualified starters this season. But his 45 percent CSW rate (called plus swinging strike percentage) would rank first by nearly 13 percentage points.
OG @ the SF spot could be problem for most teams. Althought the top three teams with De’Andre Hunter (Cle), Jalen Johnson (Atl) and Franz Wagner (ORL) are all huge.
The 6’5″ Strus started over Hunter last season, including the playoffs. Jalen plays PF, but Rissacher is also very tall.
There were plenty of times during the regular season where the Yankees had awful 5 game stretches on offense. As much as you want to mock me yes the 2025 Yankees have BY FUCKING FAR the best offense in MLB and 5 bad games doesn’t change that.
no its just that the five bad games always occur in the playoffs theyre the baltimore ravens of mlb
Here’s one for the Aaron Boone haterz:
Splitters from RHP are tough on left handed hitters, and Ben Rice had maybe the ugliest ABs of the day. Might have been a day to give Goldschmidt a start, although given Fried’s bad day it probably wouldn’t have mattered. NYY did have six lefties in the lineup though.
Goldy has great numbers vs Gausman surprised he didn’t start Game 1 but there was so much “controversy” about Rice not starting vs Crochet I can’t imagine the criticism if he was benched vs a RHP.
just booted up Ghost of Yotei, been waiting on this one for a while…
crazy where gaming has gone…this is probably the most amazing environment I’ve ever seen, flawless control of the character…
this is gonna be fun…
the hype for GTA 6 is real…watched a video talking about how the NPC’s are getting a major upgrade…
the background toons in the game will have their own “lives” and interactions with other NPC’s plus – they’ll now retain a memory of any previous player encounters…
game toons doing their own thing and remembering stuff, that is so sick…
#nothingelsematters
oh yeah poindexter, been thinking about that first person resident evil stuff, and just thinking about it gives me the willies…
the noise effects alone would keep me either runn8ng or hiding g all game long 🙂
There were plenty of times during the regular season where the Yankees had awful 5 game stretches on offense. As much as you want to mock me yes the 2025 Yankees have BY FUCKING FAR the best offense in MLB and 5 bad games doesn’t change that.
No one disputes the Yankees score a lot of runs. They have a very high variance offense.
Their line up bashes a lot of homers… it also contains a third baseman hitting .208, a shortstop hitting .212, a catcher batting .219 and a center fielder hitting .235 The team hit 251 for the year. Their two top hitters hit .331 and .272 This is why they can be said to be a terrific offense and prone to slumps, especially against better pitching.
Judge knows there is only one .270 hitter behind him in the entire line up, so in a big spot like the 6th inning on Saturday, he’s prone to expanding his strke zone.
Contrast this “terrific” lineup to the classic line ups of 95- 2001. The 98 team hit 70 less homers, but batted .288 as a team with Jeter, Bernie, O’neill and Brosius all batting > .300 with the only ‘easy’ out in left with Curtis/Spencer. A very effective, low varience offense that was virtually slump proof.
I will never compare anybody to those Yankees teams, they will always be my favorite sports teams ever til the day I die. But you can not seriously compare batting averages from 1998 to 2025.
The game is completely different than it was in 1998, which was the middle of the steroid/juiced ball era. League batting average this year was .244. In 1998 the batting average in the American League was .271. Also, why are we talking about batting average? I mean, it’s 2025 and the nerds won. We have better offensive statistics to use now. I’m not going to bother explaining why a guy with a .250 batting average and a .400 OBP is more “slump proof” than a guy who hits .280 with a .320 OBP. It would fall on deaf ears.
There were SEVEN .300 hitters in the entirety of major league baseball this year. Aaron Judge hit .331 then the guy in second place hit .311. There were FORTY NINE .300 hitters in 1998.
This is hurting my brain so I must stop now.
I see two excellent hitters (Judge & Bellinger), two good sluggers (Stanton & Jazz), and a 1B platoon that seems good if used effectively (but rarely is).
Grisham has good numbers but seems very suspect in a postseason lineup. And the troika of Volpe, McMahon, and Wells is just pathetic. You could carry any one of them as your #9 hitter but carrying all three makes you not serious.
When you carry that much dead weight in your lineup, you let the other team’s starters go deeper into games and you give the opposing manager whole innings to use his lesser relievers without consequence. Not to mention it means if any one of your top guys struggles, the whole offense craters.
It’s the Brian Cashman method. And it’s been yielding the same sorry result for almost a decade.
If you want to talk about the perfect offense for the regular season and playoffs it’s the 2009 Yankees.
Big reason for that, though: Hank Steinbrenner was still alive, and when Brian Cashman tried to run Alex Rodriguez out of town, Scott Boras went over the GM’s head and negotiated ARod’s extension directly with Hank.
ARod was like Babe Ruth that October. And if Brian Cashman had his way, he wouldn’t have been on the team.
i’m not going back to look at the stats of that one world series…but my memory is still somewhat decent and I would think hideki matsui is really responsible for winning that series…
oh…i think you amended you’re narrative by the time i wrote this…
Like most teams, even contending teams, the Yankees have holes in their post-season lineup and pitching staff. Some of those holes are injury-related, some are due to good players having off years, some are due to randon-variance i.e. slumps, and some are structural due to poor management/executive decision-making. As to this year’s Yankees, once Cole went down, the whole enterprise lost a lot of juice. Credit to them for getting this far, and even more credit if they make it past this series. Honestly, the Red Sox sort of gifted them Game 2, and a rookie had the gsme of his young life in Game 3 while the Sox butchered things in the field. The karma has evened out a bit vs. Toronto, where your ace got waxed and their kid pitched lights out. I don’t see much change in approach, nor any more managerial blunders than other managers are making. At least, that’s how I see it from the outside looking in.
Boone has gone on the record publicly saying this is the best team he’s had going into the playoffs since he’s been the manager. If they go out in the ALDS he has some explaining to do…
Matsui won the WS MVP but I wouldn’t call him “responsible for winning the World Series.” There were a lot of heroes in that Series. ARod literally carried us through both rounds of the AL playoffs and was huge in the 3 WS games in Philadelphia.
The comment I edited out was that we won that WS in spite of Brian Cashman, which is true bc we never would have won that year if he’d gotten his way with ARod. But it was harsh.
It’s crazy that the same guy who gave lifetime contracts to Aaron Hicks & DJ LeMahieu in their 30s thought Alex fucking Rodriguez (after posting a 9.4 WAR season) was the one guy the Yankees should not have on the books for his decline years.
(Well, not the only guy… he ran Pettitte and Clemens out of town after ‘03, ushering in the greatest calamity in franchise history a year later… and he famously declined to pick Justin Verlander off waivers in 2017… but wanting to run ARod out of town was about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen a baseball GM try to do.)
ARod’s contract that he signed after 2007 might be the worst contract in Yankees history.
Austin Wells is a perfectly fine player, league average or so hitting catcher with defense (particularly pitch framing) as his carrying tool. He was a 3 WAR player and probably a top 10 catcher in the league. Catcher defense DOES help you win games.
The Yankees punting on 3B didn’t make a lot of sense to me, and Volpe had a disastrous year, so those are two genuine holes. It’s not a flawless team– they were a wild card team in the regular season despite the high run differential.
oh yeah…he should have had the crystal ball about the guy Torre had to be 8th or 9th in the lineup in the prior post seasons cuz he forgot to juice up …was going to have an awesome for the ages postseason that he would never had again in his friggin career and we had to watch his decline phase (as Al suggested)…..come’on…cashman has plenty of warts but to single that out as emblematic is a bit of a stretch…
I think cash and boone (absent a title this year) should be ushered out and someone else given the keys to this car and see if they can get a bit more out of the engine than these two perpetual bridesmaids..
Wells is a good catcher and would be fine at the bottom of the order if Cashman had a 3B and a SS who could hit. It just hard to carry him when you have those two easy outs behind him, too.
At least it’s better than last year, when Wells was batting cleanup bc Cashman also didn’t get a 1B or LF who could hit in addition to punting in 3B & SS.
Arod’s extension isn’t even one of the 25 worst contracts Brian Cashman has given out this century.
He posted WAR of 6.8, 4.2, 4.2, 4.0 in the first 4 years of the contract.
And it won them the World Series.
Any contract that wins you a WS is by definition not that bad.
Wells, Volpe and McMahon were all below league average offensively but they combined to hit 60 HRs (McMahon only hit 4 as a Yankee). McMahon and Wells are also plus defenders and Volpe used to be but dunno WTF happened to him this year.
Yes the from 2008-2010 he was great as usual. But he was injury prone in 2011-2012 and went back to being awful in the playoffs. He even got pinch hit for in the 2012 ALDS which turned out to be a brilliant move cause Raul Ibanez became a cult hero that night.
The rest of ARod’s Yankees career doesn’t need to be spoken about although I did enjoy his mini renaissance in 2015.
BTW Alex Rodriguez posted more WAR in the first year of that extension than DJ LeMahieu will have posted in all six years of the extension Cashman gave him after the 2020 season (which is still on the books next year!).
Cashman also got about 2.0 WAR over seven years of Aaron Hicks’ deal. We still had to pay him $10M this year and he’s even on the books next year for a million.
And who can forget the great value we got from Jacoby Ellsbury. Because Robinson Cano was too risky that winter. All he did was rake for 5 more years.
Worst contract in Yankee history. Pfft. There’s three worse contracts on the team right now! (Stanton’s deal is way worse than ARod’s, too.)
ARod was also still a good SS, but moved to 3B because of Jeter, and that certainly cost ARod a few WAR in those first few seasons.
At this point it doesn’t matter cause the Dodgers buying everybody is gonna lead to them being the first team to repeat since the 1998-2000 Yankees.
Austin Wells is a perfectly fine player, league average or so hitting catcher
Not exactly. He ranked 24 in MLB among catchers BA with 300 ABs or more. Only 9 catchers were “qualified” with 502 plate appearances
oh yeah poindexter, been thinking about that first person resident evil stuff, and just thinking about it gives me the willies…
the noise effects alone would keep me either runn8ng or hiding g all game long
EXACTLY! lol
Those sounds are what I upgraded the sound in the bedroom for- when I play Resident Evil 4 remake. But playing creepily wild games like RE, Silent Hill, or Dead Space in 1st person. Nah. Fuck. That! Well…maybe for 5 minutes in broad daylight with all the lights on LOL
I played and beat the original RE4 on PS2, easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. Also have played and loved all the God of Wars including even the PSP versions.
1
The Yankees punting on 3B didn’t make a lot of sense to me, and Volpe had a disastrous year
In all fairness to Volpe, he sustained a partial tear in his right labrum May 3rd and played through it all season and got progressively worse til he took a cortisone shot in September and hit .289 his last 12 games after the shot.
Yankees forcing Jazz to play 3B for a month to see if DJ had anything left at 2B cost them the division and 1st seed.
He even got pinch hit for in the 2012 ALDS which turned out to be a brilliant move cause Raul Ibanez became a cult hero that night.
That was a miserable team, probably the first one that made me start losing joy watching baseball. But man that Hiroki Kuroda was good. He could have been a legend if they had a better team.
The 2012 Yankees were a miserable team? With the exact same infield as 2009 plus Granderson and Ichiro in the OF along with Swisher still there? Damon, Matsui and Posada were gone or retired by then and unfortunately Mo was out for the year but that pitching staff was still better than the 2009 staff.
What fucked them that postseason was losing Game 4 in extra innings to Baltimore which forced a Game 5 and using CC making him unavailable until Game 4 of the ALCS. Then Jeter breaking his ankle in extra innings of Game 1 was icing on the cake.
I played and beat the original RE4 on PS2, easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. Also have played and loved all the God of Wars including even the PSP versions.
God of War is a fantastic franchise that needs a movie. Maybe 2 because Kratos’ jaunt over to Norse mythology is top tier storytelling
On a Knicks note, a lot of focus has been on Kolek and Dadiet, but I really liked what I saw out of the other kids in Saturday’s games. Tosan, Jemison, and McCullar might be the best trio of two-way guys we’ve ever had, and Diawara did some nice things out there.
I think all of those guys can provide some emergency minutes without it being a complete disaster. Since a Dadiet trade seems inevitable, it’s nice to know that we will still have 3 young wings in the fold. None of them have Dadiet’s offensive upside (and the “monster” defender comments by Brown seem like hyperbole) but in this ultimate “win-now” year he seems like sort of a sacrificial lamb.
I wish you guys were Dodgers fans instead of Yankees fans. My inner-Hubert went berserk when Treinen came in to pitch the 9th, but my inner-Donnie was like who cares it’s just a dumb game anyways. Would love to have seen that inning played out over a KB game thread…
88 replies on “2025-10-06 Thread”
Well, the Giants remain a catastrophe, and the Yankees would need a miracle to advance to the next round. Somehow, all my sporting hopes and dreams lie with [checks notes] the New York Knickerbockers.
Help me, Mike Brown. You’re my only hope.
…But at least the Mariners won….
Am I on the wrong site?
CaryGrantPointsToTheDoorAndSaysGetOutDotGif
Bronny James showing alot of improvement, so far in preseason he’s shooting 3 for 18 including 2 for 11 from 3pt range.
Relying on home runs is a lot like relying on making tough 3s. It works great in the regular season against mediocre defense/pitchers under less pressure over the course of a long season, but it also creates volatility that can get you beat under high pressure against better defense/pitchers. Obviously, being able to hit home runs is a good thing, but imo also being able to scrap for a few runs has become underrated. No excuse for the bad pitching. It’s easier to pitch under high pressure than hit.
In the postseason teams who hit more HRs I believe win an even larger % of games than in the regular season. The biggest bullshit you hear every year is that HRs don’t win in the playoffs because of the better pitching when its the exact opposite. Skubal lost last night because he allowed 2 HRs to the same hitter in a lineup for the first time all season.
Hasn’t been a great stretch for Jets and Mets fans either…
I know it’s the Mariners (and nice gif, Alan), but the announcers made an interesting point regarding how hard it is to string hits together against an ace like Skubal, so banging something out of the park is the best way to try and score runs. It wasn’t until he was out that they got two straight doubles off a reliever. I could see that being a playoff problem across the board against teams’ best aces.
Yes, you would. My hypothesis based on observation over a long period (2018-present) is that the Yankees’ delta is considerably worse than the average postseason team based on their approach to lineup building, which has been top heavy and full of easy outs for good pitchers.
And to strat’s point, there’s nothing wrong with relying on home runs or the three outcome approach. It’s the way Brian Cashman does it that’s the problem. He spends big on stars to build top heavy lineups and then gives away easy outs by pinching pennies down the lineup. There’s been anywhere between 2 & 5 automatic outs for good pitchers in the Yankees lineup for the entire Boone era.
There’s a reason for this. Cashman’s not dumb. It’s brilliant, actually, if your goal is just to make the playoffs all the time. And under Hal, that is the only goal. Guys like Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rizzo, and all the other postseason bums we’ve had in our lineup forever can work a walk or hit a home run against the general population of pitchers. But when you eliminate 80% of the teams and suddenly you’re only facing the good pitching staffs, the rise of their K rates isn’t random. It’s predictable.
That’s why despite always being in the playoffs, randomness never happens here. They’re not built for it.
The Athletic: Inside the meeting where Giancarlo Stanton gave Yankees ‘kick in the ass’
Giancarlo Stanton stood in the middle of the visitors’ clubhouse in Texas after another wrenching loss in early August. With every player sitting in front of his locker, and with the coaches and staffers on hand, the respected veteran went off for about five minutes.
“A wakeup call,” Yankees captain Aaron Judge said of the private meeting, which has not been previously reported.
It’s kind of the opposite of all this, actually. The reason teams that hit a lot of home runs, even if you measure this by reliance on home runs as opposed to the raw number, tend to do better in the postseason is pretty intuitive–what’s more likely if you’re facing someone like Tarik Skubal, stringing together 3-4 hits in a row, or nailing a single mistake?
I’m not up on the stats boom in MLB, nor am I finely attuned to individual teams or players and their performance, or managerial aptitude from team to team.
From reading the recent chatter on this site re: the Yankees, not sure what to make of it. One small example: on one hand, folks were claiming that Cora was managing rings around Boone. On the other hand, I’m assuming that Cora made one of the dumbest “by the analytics” moves of the entire postseason by having Rafaela bunt with runners on first and second and no one out in the top of the 7th of a tie game…and the hitter proceeded to pop out to the pitcher.
The “free swinger” argument is interesting…I don’t really think it applies to the current Yankees. However, I do think that their all-time great hitter has one of the biggest strike zones in the history of the game, which gives good pitchers a lot to work with, and while the numbers look great in a vacuum, he’s not really meaningfully producing nor is the team having his back. On the surface, he’s having an amazing series…batting over .500, OPS of 1.381. But he’s not filling the role he needs to in this lineup…an elite HR-RBI guy who anchors big innings. That’s fine if other guys step up to drive Judge in, but that doesn’t seem to be happening except when it’s too late.
If you throw out the garbage time after the Jays took a 12-0 lead, it seems like the Judge ABs are not producing runs, because a) he’s been reduced to a singles/walks guy, b) the guys around him are not either setting him up or driving him in, or c) pitchers are pitching him out of good late opportunities.
Take yesterday:
1st inning: Judge walks with 1 out, then Bellinger and Rice both strike out.
4th inning: Judge leads off and strikes out
6th inning: Judge reaches on infield single but score is 12-0 so whatever. He scores on a Bellinger HR.
7th inning: Judge singles to CF and gets an RBI, then scores as Belinger, Rice, and Stanton all have productive ABs. Alas, too little too late.
And game 1:
1st inning: Judge singles, left stranded by Bellinger and Rice
4th inning: Judge leads off, grounds out.
6th inning: Judge strikes out with bases loaded, 0 outs.
8th inning: Judge doubles and left stranded by Bellinger and Rice, but score is 6-1 at that point.
Against the Red Sox, Judge was not really a positive factor at all, especially in the deciding game. His one RBI was on a ball that should have been caught, and he had 4 singles and a HBP. However, he got a bit more timely support and most importantly, the pitching held up in games 2 and 3. So they won the series, even with him not really contributing.
So if the Yankees want to get back into this series, to me it seems that the pitching has to hold up enough for them to get Judge’s elite regular season production going…or by at least scoring when he gets on base…or by filling the power void independent of his at-bats.
I think the best baseball teams that win world series are able to win in multiple ways. Most have a couple of hitters that grind out productive ABs against elite pitchers. These are guys who don’t need for pitchers to make mistakes to deliver clutch ABs. They can lay off or foul off tough pitches to drive up pitch counts and pounce on pitches, even non-strikes, that would get “free swingers” out. Many of those guys hit lots of HRs as well.
In other words, I don’t think it’s an either-or argument. You need both HRs and productive situational hitting.
The way I just laughed way too hard at this lol
Isn’t giving up double digit runs in back to back games a pretty serious problem? Sure, the Yankees didn’t hit much against Gausman or Yesavage, but their 5 WAR pitcher wasn’t fooling anybody in a high leverage playoff game yesterday.
This is why the playoffs have so much randomness baked in. One guy having a bad game or a great game can confound the odds if that guy happens to be a starting pitcher. Usually you look at Fried vs a talented but green rookie and assume you have the advantage, but yesterday Fried couldn’t locate and Yesavage was getting ahead in counts by throwing strikes in the zone then putting guys away with a bottom-falling-out splitter on two strike counts when hitters had to protect the plate.
This is the randomness of which I so often speak. If they were to face off in five days you’d still probably like Fried’s chances.
You know what’s crazy? If our Knicks stay healthy and play the way they played last season, we could really have 5 all stars. 6 if Bridges gets a bump in production
Brunson & Towns are a lock. Mitch is a dominant defensive big. Hart should have been an all star last season but got pushed out because of all the healthy and good guards and wings at the time. OG is fearsome on defense and should be on voter’s radars with his offensive improvement.
This is a good point, and it again speaks to Yesavage’s stuff yesterday. With two strike counts you want to be able to spit on some pitches and make the opposing starter work harder, but that splitter had so much sink on it and was so toxic that it was very difficult to even spit on. I’m not sure that a single hitter fouled off a two strike pitch against him.
In hindsight it might have made more sense to try to start hacking earlier in the count. Yesavage was getting ahead by throwing fastballs in the zone early in the count. Very many of the strikeout victims took 2, 3, or even 4 pitches and fell behind, at which point they were helpless against that great splitter.
zion starting off well in preseason with 27/13/9 and 2.3 blocks with 5.9 steals per 36 (61.5 percent shooting) how many years are we going to wonder if this is finally the year
Seems like a great splitter is about the hardest pitch to handle, and that hasn’t changed since it was popularized by Bruce Sutter. I remember the anxiety Mets fans felt in 1986 re: game 6 vs. the Astros because Mike Scott was lurking and they had not had any success against his elite splitter. But it seems hard to consistently control and throw for strikes, so I don’t know if Toronto can count on another elite outing by Yesavage.
And even so, when he’s going against your supposed ace, he’s not supposed to be leaving the game after 5.1 innings with a 12-0 lead. That game was on more on Fried than anyone else imho.
Poindexter, my guess is that Hart won’t get the minutes to be considered for an all-star position. Maybe 6MOY. We’ll see.
I don’t know how it’s pronounced as I don’t watch Yankees games, but if it’s pronounced the way I hope it is, Yesavage might be the best name in baseball right now.
Much like the Yankees’ young pitcher Cam Schlittler, Yesavage is a talented kid who has not yet shown elite command, but who had great command in a crucial game. He’s a very interesting prospect, a top 10 SP in the game and similar to the Mets’ Jonah Tong in that he has the unorthodox release point that gives him a fastball that appears to rise. Lethal combo with that splitter.
Yesavage might be a slightly better prospect than Tong because of that pitch combo. Tong’s fastball has more velo and really rises in the zone, but the splitter Yesavage throws is such a great complementary pitch to that rising fastball.
The Yankees were swinging at everything Yesavage threw. The late 90s Yankees were so good at making a pitcher throw more pitches. Between Jeter and Boggs leaning over staring at pitches just slightly out of the zone, to Paul O’Neill and Bernie fouling off pitches. They just wore the pitcher down and/or made the pitcher throw more pitches which of course increase the chance that they’ll throw a more hittable pitch.
Yesterday the Yankees were swinging like kids in a batting cage – literally at everything he threw. Which is disastrous against a splitter. If you ever played the old game RBI baseball, the splitter in that game felt pretty accurate to what we saw yesterday. You just have to lay off of it, because you’ll never hit it, and it’s most likely a ball anyway.
It might have seemed like they were swinging at everything he threw because they were hapless with two strikes, but most of those K’s came on at bats where the Yankees took several pitches at the start of the AB.
First inning- Grisham takes first two pitches, gets to 1-1, swings at two splitters and whiffs.
Judge takes four straight balls.
Bellinger takes four pitches, count is 2-2, fouls off a two strike pitch, whiffs on a splitter.
Rice takes two pitches, count is 1-1, whiffs on two splitters.
Second inning, Stanton takes a strike, swings and misses, takes three balls, fouls off a pitch, whiffs on a slider.
Third inning, Volpe takes three pitches, gets ahead 2-1, fouls off a fastball, whiffs on a fastball in the zone.
Wells takes two splitters, falls behind 0-2, whiffs on a splitter out of the zone.
Grisham swings at 2 of the first 3 pitches, falls behind 1-2, battles back to a full count, whiffs on a splitter.
Fourth inning, Judge takes three pitches, gets ahead 2-1, swings and misses at a slider then takes ball 3, whiffs on a high fastball.
Bellinger takes four pitches, gets ahead 3-1, fouls off a fastball in the zone, whiffs on a splitter.
Rice takes four pitches, count is 2-2, whiffs on a splitter.
They constantly fell behind in the count by taking pitches, then had to try to protect the plate against that disgusting splitter.
Yeah, JK, I went through the play-by-play and saw the same thing.
They had the exact opposite approach vs Gausman in Game 1.
The best shape talk around Zion really is at a fever pitch. I’d love it if he finally turned into the player we all hoped he would be coming out of college.
Blaming Judge, yeah, I don’t get it.
It’s playoff baseball. Make any narrative you like but it’s always going to be a crapshoot.
Just saying, but in RBI baseball you pretty much only use the splitter with two strikes, because if they swing it’s a strike out. At least when the pitcher is fresh, when they aren’t the pitch “hangs” for a very hittable strike.
Just curious – out of those 11 strike outs, how many were swinging vs looking?
Found where I could look it up, 10 of 11 struck out swinging. MLB average is 75% swinging. Maybe I hit the schnapps too hard during the game, but I was saying to myself they were swinging at too much.
10 of the 11 strikeouts were swinging strikes. Only Grisham struck out looking. Splitter in the zone. Seven of the 10 swinging strikeouts were on the splitter.
Four of the 11 strikeouts were on pitches that were in the strike zone.
The Yankees never really did adjust to it well, and kept fishing for it on two strike counts, but for obvious reasons it’s a tough pitch to lay off with two strikes.
Given that the Yankees lost anyway, and were almost certain to lose at that point in the game, it’s kind of annoying to see Yesavage get pulled after 5.1 innings. That could’ve been a historic outing and he was only at 78 pitches.
I’m sure that’s the case. The same is probably true of teams that hit the most 3s.
The issue is not whether there is a postive correlation between doing the obvioiusly most productive thing and winning (3s or homeruns). Of course there is.
The issue is one of volatility.
You can have clearly the best team over a season of 82 or 162 games based on 3s or homeruns and come up dry and get eliminated in a shorter series against someone inferior.
It’s when you are the inferior team you want to try to hit homeruns and shoot more 3s and hope to get lucky and beat the better team.
There is value in consistency and imo it’s generally underrated across many sports.
If I was building a MLB team I would not try to maximize home run production at a cost of scoring in other ways (or 3p shooting in basketball at the cost of a more diverse offense). I’d be trying to build a team that maximizes defense and a balanced offense to raise consistency and reduce volatility even if I had to sacrifice some small LONG TERM advantage that would generate a better record over a season.
It’s a balancing act between long term advantage and shorter term consistency than IMO is currently weighted too heavily towards homeruns and tough 3s.
(I wasn’t talking about last night. I was talking about the Yankees failure in post seasons.)
After the trade deadline in the last 2 months of the season Yankees lead MLB in stolen bases.
Exactly what I’ve been calling for.
I’m so happy to hear this. I thought he was a bit overweight all of last year even at C. He’ll be quicker on both sides of the ball and we especially need that on defense. Plus, given his knee issues, being lighter should help take some of the strain off his knees. Great news.
“Blaming Judge, yeah, I don’t get it.”
No one is “blaming” Judge, just pointing out that in my opinion his lack of RBI production is part of the problem, considering how vital his power production is to their regular season success. Are Yankees fans happy about Judge’s production so far in these 5 playoff games? (0 HRs, 2 RBIs…with one of those on a very generous, and I believe incorrect, call.) I wouldn’t be, but understand why one might think otherwise. To each their own!
I used to think the playoffs are a crap shoot was a bullshit excuse but at this point I’m buying it. Obviously I was spoiled by the 1996-2000 Yankees but just look at this decade.
Braves win it all in 2021 with an average team missing some of their best players. Next 2 seasons they are stacked with 100+ win teams and get upset in the DS. Phillies make a surprise run to the 2022 WS, next 2 seasons they have much better teams and are upset in the playoffs. Even Houston for as great a run they had they lost 2 WS as heavy favorites and lost Game 7 of the 2023 ALCS at home. Aside from the 2020 short season Dodgers hadn’t won a WS since 1988 until last year. Heck the Bobby Cox Braves made the playoffs like 15 years in a row and only won 1 WS.
we had 3 starters on the knicks last season playing out of position…
maybe the yanks win the next 2 and there’s some hope again for the season to continue…maybe…
No one does this, nor has anyone of repute suggested it would be a good idea. Obviously, you should not literally make your offense worse in pursuit of maximizing your home run total. Derek Jeter was better for an offense than, say, Dave Kingman. Home runs correlate strongly with overall offensive quality, but it’s not 1:1 and I’m pretty sure everyone’s aware that Goodhart’s law would kick in if any team treat it as such.
The more hotly debated question is whether all other things being equal, it’s better or worse to derive a large share of your runs via home runs. The empirics say there’s not a big difference, but to the extent there is one it’s in favor of home runs.
yeah maybe but not looking overly likely atm
Thing about baseball is that both hitting and pitching are so volatile that timely hot/cold streaks are often the difference between the top 5 teams.
I guess some teams have so much talent that the odds of a critical mass of players underperforming (and by extension, their opponents overperforming) are lowered. Only the Dodgers seem like that kind of team right now, and even they are not infallible.
Whereas in basketball, the best team on paper is way more likely to win a playoff series because the volatility of their stars seems much lower….not to mention that the star can be a factor on the vast majority of possessions in every game, while hot hitters and pitchers have to wait their turn.
Because of this, it’s very hard for me to muster any strong reaction to the Yankees likely being eliminated besides “shucks, well, run it back with Cole and some bullpen additions.”
It wouldn’t make a good WFAN call, but that’s baseball Suzyn.
Some of the best teams in baseball history lost in the playoffs/World Series. 1906 Cubs, 1954 Indians, 2001 Mariners, 1931 A’s.
“Crapshoot” has been a thing forever.
We have two 7 footers in the starting lineup with both of our wings long. I’m curious to see how much the height factor alone will move the needle defensively.
OG @ the SF spot could be problem for most teams. Althought the top three teams with De’Andre Hunter (Cle), Jalen Johnson (Atl) and Franz Wagner (ORL) are all huge.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree bc I don’t think it’s hard to lay off a ball when everyone knows it’s going to be a ball. And the Yankees should have known it was going to be a ball because it was a ball every time. If he had been mixing in called 3rd strikes like Mike Scott in his prime, ok, I’d see your point. But he wasn’t. It was out of the zone 10 of 11 times, and at some point you update the scouting report in real time.
And btw they also had 13 Ks in game 1 vs Boston and 11 in game 3. The Crochet game was understandable but Early and Yesavage are not Garret Crochet. It’s kinda been a theme this October.
what the hell is even up with mark sanchez
Four of the strikeouts were on 3-2 counts, so that’s definitely not a count where “everybody knows it’s going to be a ball.”
Another four of the strikeouts– not the 3-2 count strikeouts– were on pitches in the zone. Take those and you strike out anyway.
So that leaves 3 out of the 11 where the Yankees swung at a ball out of the zone on a count that was not 3-2.
Butt Punch Drunk.
I’m presuming social media has already run with this…
fitting that master of the butt fumble was butt punch drunk
I DON’T WANNA TALK BASEBALL! I AM A BITTER METS FAN DAMMIT!!
LOL
Seriously though, I got no clue who should win the chip this season. Every team left in the playoffs don’t seem to be playing to their typical level. Except for maybe the Dodgers and Seattle if you want to count how they ended the season. Yankees too, but I don’t think anyone fears their pitching right now
Just read an article about the Yankees struggling offense and yup they lead baseball in walk percentage and had the 2nd lowest chase rate during the regular season.
And where does BY FAR the best offense in baseball rank in both walk percentage and chase rate during the playoffs?
Some hard-to-argue-against statistics supporting the fact that the Yanks were free swinging yesterday:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6692598/2025/10/06/yankees-embarrassed-bluejays-alds/?source=user_shared_article
The 6’5″ Strus started over Hunter last season, including the playoffs. Jalen plays PF, but Rissacher is also very tall.
There were plenty of times during the regular season where the Yankees had awful 5 game stretches on offense. As much as you want to mock me yes the 2025 Yankees have BY FUCKING FAR the best offense in MLB and 5 bad games doesn’t change that.
no its just that the five bad games always occur in the playoffs theyre the baltimore ravens of mlb
Here’s one for the Aaron Boone haterz:
Splitters from RHP are tough on left handed hitters, and Ben Rice had maybe the ugliest ABs of the day. Might have been a day to give Goldschmidt a start, although given Fried’s bad day it probably wouldn’t have mattered. NYY did have six lefties in the lineup though.
Goldy has great numbers vs Gausman surprised he didn’t start Game 1 but there was so much “controversy” about Rice not starting vs Crochet I can’t imagine the criticism if he was benched vs a RHP.
just booted up Ghost of Yotei, been waiting on this one for a while…
crazy where gaming has gone…this is probably the most amazing environment I’ve ever seen, flawless control of the character…
this is gonna be fun…
the hype for GTA 6 is real…watched a video talking about how the NPC’s are getting a major upgrade…
the background toons in the game will have their own “lives” and interactions with other NPC’s plus – they’ll now retain a memory of any previous player encounters…
game toons doing their own thing and remembering stuff, that is so sick…
#nothingelsematters
oh yeah poindexter, been thinking about that first person resident evil stuff, and just thinking about it gives me the willies…
the noise effects alone would keep me either runn8ng or hiding g all game long 🙂
No one disputes the Yankees score a lot of runs. They have a very high variance offense.
Their line up bashes a lot of homers… it also contains a third baseman hitting .208, a shortstop hitting .212, a catcher batting .219 and a center fielder hitting .235 The team hit 251 for the year. Their two top hitters hit .331 and .272 This is why they can be said to be a terrific offense and prone to slumps, especially against better pitching.
Judge knows there is only one .270 hitter behind him in the entire line up, so in a big spot like the 6th inning on Saturday, he’s prone to expanding his strke zone.
Contrast this “terrific” lineup to the classic line ups of 95- 2001. The 98 team hit 70 less homers, but batted .288 as a team with Jeter, Bernie, O’neill and Brosius all batting > .300 with the only ‘easy’ out in left with Curtis/Spencer. A very effective, low varience offense that was virtually slump proof.
I will never compare anybody to those Yankees teams, they will always be my favorite sports teams ever til the day I die. But you can not seriously compare batting averages from 1998 to 2025.
The game is completely different than it was in 1998, which was the middle of the steroid/juiced ball era. League batting average this year was .244. In 1998 the batting average in the American League was .271. Also, why are we talking about batting average? I mean, it’s 2025 and the nerds won. We have better offensive statistics to use now. I’m not going to bother explaining why a guy with a .250 batting average and a .400 OBP is more “slump proof” than a guy who hits .280 with a .320 OBP. It would fall on deaf ears.
There were SEVEN .300 hitters in the entirety of major league baseball this year. Aaron Judge hit .331 then the guy in second place hit .311. There were FORTY NINE .300 hitters in 1998.
This is hurting my brain so I must stop now.
I see two excellent hitters (Judge & Bellinger), two good sluggers (Stanton & Jazz), and a 1B platoon that seems good if used effectively (but rarely is).
Grisham has good numbers but seems very suspect in a postseason lineup. And the troika of Volpe, McMahon, and Wells is just pathetic. You could carry any one of them as your #9 hitter but carrying all three makes you not serious.
When you carry that much dead weight in your lineup, you let the other team’s starters go deeper into games and you give the opposing manager whole innings to use his lesser relievers without consequence. Not to mention it means if any one of your top guys struggles, the whole offense craters.
It’s the Brian Cashman method. And it’s been yielding the same sorry result for almost a decade.
If you want to talk about the perfect offense for the regular season and playoffs it’s the 2009 Yankees.
Big reason for that, though: Hank Steinbrenner was still alive, and when Brian Cashman tried to run Alex Rodriguez out of town, Scott Boras went over the GM’s head and negotiated ARod’s extension directly with Hank.
ARod was like Babe Ruth that October. And if Brian Cashman had his way, he wouldn’t have been on the team.
i’m not going back to look at the stats of that one world series…but my memory is still somewhat decent and I would think hideki matsui is really responsible for winning that series…
oh…i think you amended you’re narrative by the time i wrote this…
Like most teams, even contending teams, the Yankees have holes in their post-season lineup and pitching staff. Some of those holes are injury-related, some are due to good players having off years, some are due to randon-variance i.e. slumps, and some are structural due to poor management/executive decision-making. As to this year’s Yankees, once Cole went down, the whole enterprise lost a lot of juice. Credit to them for getting this far, and even more credit if they make it past this series. Honestly, the Red Sox sort of gifted them Game 2, and a rookie had the gsme of his young life in Game 3 while the Sox butchered things in the field. The karma has evened out a bit vs. Toronto, where your ace got waxed and their kid pitched lights out. I don’t see much change in approach, nor any more managerial blunders than other managers are making. At least, that’s how I see it from the outside looking in.
Boone has gone on the record publicly saying this is the best team he’s had going into the playoffs since he’s been the manager. If they go out in the ALDS he has some explaining to do…
Matsui won the WS MVP but I wouldn’t call him “responsible for winning the World Series.” There were a lot of heroes in that Series. ARod literally carried us through both rounds of the AL playoffs and was huge in the 3 WS games in Philadelphia.
The comment I edited out was that we won that WS in spite of Brian Cashman, which is true bc we never would have won that year if he’d gotten his way with ARod. But it was harsh.
It’s crazy that the same guy who gave lifetime contracts to Aaron Hicks & DJ LeMahieu in their 30s thought Alex fucking Rodriguez (after posting a 9.4 WAR season) was the one guy the Yankees should not have on the books for his decline years.
(Well, not the only guy… he ran Pettitte and Clemens out of town after ‘03, ushering in the greatest calamity in franchise history a year later… and he famously declined to pick Justin Verlander off waivers in 2017… but wanting to run ARod out of town was about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen a baseball GM try to do.)
ARod’s contract that he signed after 2007 might be the worst contract in Yankees history.
Austin Wells is a perfectly fine player, league average or so hitting catcher with defense (particularly pitch framing) as his carrying tool. He was a 3 WAR player and probably a top 10 catcher in the league. Catcher defense DOES help you win games.
The Yankees punting on 3B didn’t make a lot of sense to me, and Volpe had a disastrous year, so those are two genuine holes. It’s not a flawless team– they were a wild card team in the regular season despite the high run differential.
oh yeah…he should have had the crystal ball about the guy Torre had to be 8th or 9th in the lineup in the prior post seasons cuz he forgot to juice up …was going to have an awesome for the ages postseason that he would never had again in his friggin career and we had to watch his decline phase (as Al suggested)…..come’on…cashman has plenty of warts but to single that out as emblematic is a bit of a stretch…
I think cash and boone (absent a title this year) should be ushered out and someone else given the keys to this car and see if they can get a bit more out of the engine than these two perpetual bridesmaids..
Wells is a good catcher and would be fine at the bottom of the order if Cashman had a 3B and a SS who could hit. It just hard to carry him when you have those two easy outs behind him, too.
At least it’s better than last year, when Wells was batting cleanup bc Cashman also didn’t get a 1B or LF who could hit in addition to punting in 3B & SS.
Arod’s extension isn’t even one of the 25 worst contracts Brian Cashman has given out this century.
He posted WAR of 6.8, 4.2, 4.2, 4.0 in the first 4 years of the contract.
And it won them the World Series.
Any contract that wins you a WS is by definition not that bad.
Wells, Volpe and McMahon were all below league average offensively but they combined to hit 60 HRs (McMahon only hit 4 as a Yankee). McMahon and Wells are also plus defenders and Volpe used to be but dunno WTF happened to him this year.
Yes the from 2008-2010 he was great as usual. But he was injury prone in 2011-2012 and went back to being awful in the playoffs. He even got pinch hit for in the 2012 ALDS which turned out to be a brilliant move cause Raul Ibanez became a cult hero that night.
The rest of ARod’s Yankees career doesn’t need to be spoken about although I did enjoy his mini renaissance in 2015.
BTW Alex Rodriguez posted more WAR in the first year of that extension than DJ LeMahieu will have posted in all six years of the extension Cashman gave him after the 2020 season (which is still on the books next year!).
Cashman also got about 2.0 WAR over seven years of Aaron Hicks’ deal. We still had to pay him $10M this year and he’s even on the books next year for a million.
And who can forget the great value we got from Jacoby Ellsbury. Because Robinson Cano was too risky that winter. All he did was rake for 5 more years.
Worst contract in Yankee history. Pfft. There’s three worse contracts on the team right now! (Stanton’s deal is way worse than ARod’s, too.)
ARod was also still a good SS, but moved to 3B because of Jeter, and that certainly cost ARod a few WAR in those first few seasons.
At this point it doesn’t matter cause the Dodgers buying everybody is gonna lead to them being the first team to repeat since the 1998-2000 Yankees.
Not exactly. He ranked 24 in MLB among catchers BA with 300 ABs or more. Only 9 catchers were “qualified” with 502 plate appearances
EXACTLY! lol
Those sounds are what I upgraded the sound in the bedroom for- when I play Resident Evil 4 remake. But playing creepily wild games like RE, Silent Hill, or Dead Space in 1st person. Nah. Fuck. That! Well…maybe for 5 minutes in broad daylight with all the lights on LOL
I played and beat the original RE4 on PS2, easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. Also have played and loved all the God of Wars including even the PSP versions.
In all fairness to Volpe, he sustained a partial tear in his right labrum May 3rd and played through it all season and got progressively worse til he took a cortisone shot in September and hit .289 his last 12 games after the shot.
Yankees forcing Jazz to play 3B for a month to see if DJ had anything left at 2B cost them the division and 1st seed.
That was a miserable team, probably the first one that made me start losing joy watching baseball. But man that Hiroki Kuroda was good. He could have been a legend if they had a better team.
The 2012 Yankees were a miserable team? With the exact same infield as 2009 plus Granderson and Ichiro in the OF along with Swisher still there? Damon, Matsui and Posada were gone or retired by then and unfortunately Mo was out for the year but that pitching staff was still better than the 2009 staff.
What fucked them that postseason was losing Game 4 in extra innings to Baltimore which forced a Game 5 and using CC making him unavailable until Game 4 of the ALCS. Then Jeter breaking his ankle in extra innings of Game 1 was icing on the cake.
God of War is a fantastic franchise that needs a movie. Maybe 2 because Kratos’ jaunt over to Norse mythology is top tier storytelling
On a Knicks note, a lot of focus has been on Kolek and Dadiet, but I really liked what I saw out of the other kids in Saturday’s games. Tosan, Jemison, and McCullar might be the best trio of two-way guys we’ve ever had, and Diawara did some nice things out there.
I think all of those guys can provide some emergency minutes without it being a complete disaster. Since a Dadiet trade seems inevitable, it’s nice to know that we will still have 3 young wings in the fold. None of them have Dadiet’s offensive upside (and the “monster” defender comments by Brown seem like hyperbole) but in this ultimate “win-now” year he seems like sort of a sacrificial lamb.
I wish you guys were Dodgers fans instead of Yankees fans. My inner-Hubert went berserk when Treinen came in to pitch the 9th, but my inner-Donnie was like who cares it’s just a dumb game anyways. Would love to have seen that inning played out over a KB game thread…