There a slew of sharp Yankees fans here with great insight into the minors who I hope will fill in some blanks.
Right now it hurts, but we were kidding ourselves if we thought they would win last night with that anemic offense that played through September.
Beyond the obvious that Drew and Ryan must not be in pinstripes next April, where do they go? I think Headley must be replaced. His bat died and he became a liability at third - every throw was an adventure. Beltran must go. He's simple incompetent in RF and his bat is not good enough to overcome that hole. It comes down to DHing vs Arod. Beltran may be the better choice because he switch hits, but they really need McCann to do some DHing next year, so they cannot afford to carry two part time DHs.
Pitching?
Tanaka, Pineda, Eovaldi and Severino are a lock. Nova is an enigma. Warren, they need to make up their minds SP or RP.
I'd cut loose CC.
Maybe get Mitchell going, he showed some decent talent.
If Nova was more consistent, I think they would be in very good shape with what they have already on the roster at SP.
Miller, Betances, Wilson are a lock. Did Shreve burn out or did the league figure him out? I think it was burnout.
Good Arms in AAA Lindgren, Pazos, Goody, Rumbelow, Pinder and even Bailey.
I think the pen will be a strength with what is already on the roster.
Miller and Betances just need to have the load reduced by about 10%. Miller with the sore arm midseason looked sharp up til the end and Betances fought through it despite too much use.
Catching is in excellent shape. Murphy is much better than I thought and I have no clue about Sanchez.
So have at it. What FA are there young enough to be around 5 to 8 years? Do they need to package Gardner to get a power bat in the corner outfield (hope not as I'm a big Gardner fan)?
What 3rd baseman are around, starting quality, to replace Headley? I don't see any at SWB or Trenton.
IMHO, the problem is offense, not pitching or defense.
Chill brah.
Where did I say anything about releasing him? Players with bad deals get traded a heck of a lot more often than you seem to think. Prince Fielder? Vernon Wells? A-Rod?
And the "too many home runs" meme. People have been saying that for years, on this forum and others as well as all over talk radio. Both Kay and Francesca have talked about it ad nauseum going back to about 2010 or so.
Everyone needs to chill about bunting and all this other dead ball ERA stuff. The game isn't played that way any more and hasn't been in a long time. Front offices and analytics don't support giving outs away. Welcome to the 21st century. I'd recommend the book Moneyball. It came out 12 years ago but it may help you. Just an example of at least how far you can trace back the fact I'm telling you that nobody plays that kind of game any more. Do you watch any games besides the Yankees? No one does it. That isn't how the game is played in 2015. Sorry Honus Wagner and The Cobb ain't coming back.
I wonder if there's some kind of power struggle going on. This is the second time Cashman has said there's no place for Bird. Maybe he's just trying to convince Hal to let him deal Bird. Refsynder is another case. Its clear that Girardi doesn't like him. Hal does and maybe Cashman does. Maybe the order to play Ref came from the top. When Ref did play he finally produced.
There are some other things: The Sabathia announcement coming on the eve of the playoffs. Last year Cashman publicly critisized Girardi after the Pineda pine tar incident. Someone should have known Pineda was not legal. Shouldn't somebody have known Sabathia had a problem ? It doesn't make a difference now but it would have been a lot better if Sabathia has gone through rehab earlier in the year and be ready for the playoffs.
One more thing: The totally inexplicable move of bringing in Capuano into the last regular season game. Maybe I'm reading to much into it but about a decade ago George publicly criticised Joe Torre for something. The next day in another inexplicable move he batted Todd Ziele cleanup. That was the equivelent in that time of batting Stephan Drew cleanup. He was telling George "fuck you" . I remember thinking at the time that Torre might be gone in 24 hours.
The David Price deal that I brought up last night was Acevedo, Mateo and Judge for Price...word is Cashman said no
87 wins and WC-play in Loss in 2015
That's more than we expected at the start of the year, but we looked like a 92-95 win contender in the middle of the year.
We knew that we were going to deal with a down period. These past 3 seasons have been just that.
85 wins in '13
84 wins in '14
87 wins in '15
We've somehow avoided a 75 or less win year, and I think Girardi deserves more credit than he's getting for not letting this team completely tank a season (although we certainly tanked the end of this year).
I unfortunately see another 75-85 win mediocre-good but not good enough season in 2016. But I think once we get out of some of these awful contracts the team will look more legitimate by 2018 and maybe 2017 if things go right. Cashman must handle these next 2 off-seasons wisely, no $130M+ contracts to 30+ year olds and injury prone guys.
Just deal with it for another year or two, hopefully a couple of the young guys develop during this time and then in Year 3 we can build a contender.
Ellsbury... ugh. More than any other player, he's the guy that needs to step up. What a joke of a season from him.
The David Price deal that I brought up last night was Acevedo, Mateo and Judge for Price...word is Cashman said no
I think declining was the right call. What difference would Price have made if they couldn't hit worth a damn?
I'm all for throwing money at him this winter though.
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Spring Training 2016 þ@Draft2Dynasty 1h1 hour ago Fort Lauderdale, FL
The David Price deal that I brought up last night was Acevedo, Mateo and Judge for Price...word is Cashman said no
I think declining was the right call. What difference would Price have made if they couldn't hit worth a damn?
I'm all for throwing money at him this winter though.
Very good pitcher but he's going to be 30 and cost a shit-ton. Pass.
I know that's too much money to throw around but there is definitely such a thing as a quick fix in baseball.
CC gave us 4 very good season after we signed him from the ages of 28-32.
That's the Max amount of very good seasons I can see Price giving us. He's 30. Does it really make sense for this team to go all-in for 3-4 years of Price when we're probably going to be a pretender next year regardless of his presence?
I just don't want to repeat the same mistakes.
The David Price deal that I brought up last night was Acevedo, Mateo and Judge for Price...word is Cashman said no
True, Price is clearly in better shape which should help him. But they've always struck me as similar.
Quote:
Spring Training 2016 þ@Draft2Dynasty 1h1 hour ago Fort Lauderdale, FL
I think declining was the right call. What difference would Price have made if they couldn't hit worth a damn?
I'm all for throwing money at him this winter though.
Totally agree. It's doubtful Price alone would be been enough to win us the division....and let's say he pitches the WC game.....goes 7 IP, gives up 1 run and we lose 2-0.
Now we've given up Judge, Mateo and Acevdo for what?
Agreed that I'd love to sign him this winter....there's very little room for change in our lineup but there is always room to add another starting pitcher
And the Yanks can certainly fucking afford it.
What this team needs to figure out is whether or not they really want to be fiscally responsible or not. I know people get tired of me harping on Ellsbury, but nothing about that deal made any sense whatsoever. Either spend big or don't spend big. There are ways to make either approach work, but trying to rein in spending while also blowing a ton of money on an injury-prone slap hitting OF when you already have your own slap-hitting OF who makes much less money? What was the point?
I also don't really understand the whole "wait until 2017/2018 when the bad contracts are gone and then they can sign new guys and fix it" idea. What if there aren't many good players available that year? It might be like this offseason where there aren't that many star players available. And if there are, maybe other teams go apeshit with the contracts like Seattle did with Cano. It's not a guarantee they can rebuild whenever they feel like spending again. You make moves when you're able to and when it can help your team. And we know they're always able to. It's just a matter of how much they're trying to save right now. But they're the Yankees. I don't really want to hear about how tight money is from them. It's hard to feel sorry for them with all the money they rake in.
I think the Yanks will make a big trade this off-season but it won't involve many of the kids if any at all. Maybe Ref...
I don't know, maybe the Orioles if they can't sign Chris Davis or the Pirates if they want an upgrade on Pedro Alvarez - assuming the Pirates are willing to take on a salary like that, which they probably aren't.
Quote:
Spring Training 2016 þ@Draft2Dynasty 1h1 hour ago Fort Lauderdale, FL
The David Price deal that I brought up last night was Acevedo, Mateo and Judge for Price...word is Cashman said no
was that the initial ask or was that Detroit's final position after negotiating?
IDK, if I had it on better authority I would have linked it.
I don't know, maybe the Orioles if they can't sign Chris Davis or the Pirates if they want an upgrade on Pedro Alvarez - assuming the Pirates are willing to take on a salary like that, which they probably aren't.
The Nats had a hole and made sense but it looks like that'll be Zimm's permanent position.
I don't know, maybe the Orioles if they can't sign Chris Davis or the Pirates if they want an upgrade on Pedro Alvarez - assuming the Pirates are willing to take on a salary like that, which they probably aren't.
The only 'return' will be not having Tex on the books anymore.
I'm with you re: the halfway approach. Either blow it up or wait it out, don't try to go halfway. The Ellsbury contract was remarkably stupid, and they now are in the unenviable position where they have some youth they need to develop and some older guys who are just going to waste away. IMO, they have to bite the bullet, eat a lot of salary, and get rid of some of those guys, whether they like it or not.
That would make perfect sense, he is basically Chris Carter on steroids.
Headley: .259/.324/.369, 11 homers, trainwreck defense, 23 errors, 1.1 WAR. 31 years old, makes $13 mill.
Guh.....I've never liked Headley much, but I didn't think Solarte would keep playing well so I was fairly ambivalent about the deal. Looks awful in retrospect.
''Gabe came to Chicago and we discussed a lot of different combinations, a lot of different players,'' Peters said. ''Guidry was in the deal and out of the deal. Grich was mentioned, Nettles was discussed. We took a future approach; they took the immediate approach, and it paid off for them.''
Guidry was removed from the the package, Peters explained, because the Yankees already had agreed to give the Orioles three left-handed pitchers. ''It wasn't that they were that high on Guidry,'' Peters said. ''He was left-handed and they didn't want to give up any more left-handed pitching.''
When Peters and Paul were done with their shuffling and mixing and trading on the evening of June 15, the Orioles received McGregor, Martinez and Rudy May, all left-handed pitchers; Dempsey, the Yankees' backup catcher to Thurman Munson, and Dave Pagan, a right-handed pitcher. The Yankees got Holtzman and Doyle Alexander, two disgruntled starting pitchers; Elrod Hendricks, an aging catcher; Grant Jackson, a journeyman relief pitcher, and Jim Freeman, a minor league pitcher.
At $213 million, the Yankees already are well over the $189 million luxury tax threshold before completing the roster and paying the roughly $12 million that each team is charged for benefits. That leaves their tax at 50 percent, which means paying Price $30 million a year (at least what he will get) would be $45 million annually for the Yankees.
I hope is GMing his wrong but it's probably not far off from what they'll try and do.
How to fix the Yankees, with trades and free agents - ( New Window )
For example, Carlos Beltran's deal expires after next season (2016). His replacement will likely be Aaron Judge. However, as Judge demonstrated in his time at AAA, his development is not complete. He still needs to work on off-speed pitches and locating "his" pitch to hit and not the pitch the pitcher wants him to swing at. However, he will likely be ready later in 2016.
One of Refsynder or Pirela will be ready and able to take over 2B. Sure, people throw out Ackley's name, but I think they use his elsewhere- to be discussed below. Drew is going to be gone, and I hope Ryan goes too.
Didi will be the SS for the next couple years and really is part of the solution.
Headley was HORRIBLE at 3B- but is signed for the next 3 years. The Yanks have little choice but to play him in 2016 and hope that his defense recovers and that the second half of 2014 was the real player and not a major contract drive. If, and that is an almost impossible if, Headley were to be traded, a small possibility might be Ackley here- the M's talked about it a while back, but then went with Seager, which was the right choice.
Bird will go to the minors to start 2016 unless they trade Tex. Tex has a no-trade, but might be able to be convinced to go closer to "home" (he was born and raised near Annapolis, MD)- but that is really not very likely. What IS likely however, is that Tex will spend part of the year injured, which will give more time to Bird.
I think the biggest change possibility is LF. Gardner is a complementary player- meaning he's a nice starter in CF or LF on a team with established stars- but he is not a star. However, given the number of big money clubs who expect to be competitive in 2016 who have OF issues (the Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Nats just as a few) could make him a nice trade piece this winter if the return was a couple of good prospects (not likely to be top 50 prospects, but one top 100 plus a good upside guy might be reasonable). Why talk about trading him? Because THIS could be where Ackley ends up, perhaps in a platoon with a righty bat. Add in that with the Yanks having Williams, Heathcott and maybe Gamel as ML ready OF- and all similar to Gardner and Ellsbury, someone has to go. May as well sell while he still has value.
Ellsbury's contract is just not tradeable, unless the Cubs fall a game short of the WS or the Dodgers don't make the WS and the blame falls on the lack of a leadoff CF type and the GM feels heat on their job- but since those are unlikely scenarios, I think the Yanks fans need to get used to seeing Ellsbury for 4 more years.
At C, McCann had a good first half, bad second half. However, Murphy showed signs he could be a good C in his won right. Immediately behind him is Gary Sanchez who could be an offensive force himself.in AAA. McCann isn't going anywhere in 2016- but when Beltran and Tex's deals expire- and if the Yanks can trade ARod after 2016, he could move to DH while the Yanks move Sanchez behind the plate.
Coming up fast as some good middle INF guys- Mateo is probably 2 years away- and could be a SS or 2B, depending what they need when he gets there.
In the SP category, the Yanks had some guys who really moved through the system in 2015 and could either be good trade pieces or options in later 2016- Rookie Davis is a big guy with power, Hebert is a lefty who is more finesse- but gets the job done, Chase Whitley will return from TJ sometime in mid-late 2016, Brady Lail moved from low-A in early 2014 to AAA by the end of 2015. He struggled in AAA, but could be a replacement to Nova in the back of the rotation in 2016 if he can make the adjustments.
There IS talent coming. Personally, I think the Yanks intended to have 2015 be a year where they played out the string much like 2014. The result was surprising. I doubt they repeat in 2016- I suspect a year closer to 2014 than 2015. Still, that will make the changeover to Bird and Judge, as well as some of the younger P more palatable to fans- in Yankee-land, change is good when you lose.
I am willing to wait for the contracts to come off the books before making bigger moves for the team to contend.