From Bryan Hoch:
It has been a while since Giancarlo Stanton looked this locked in at the plate. As he completed a lap around the Majors with a home run against his 30th team, the Yankees’ slugger feels like a dangerous threat once more against all challengers.
Stanton belted a sixth-inning home run in the Yankees’ 5-2 loss to the Marlins on Wednesday evening at Yankee Stadium, representing his first career home run against his former club. Stanton is the 15th active player to homer against all 30 teams, joining Mookie Betts, Nick Castellanos, Randal Grichuk, Manny Machado, Martín Maldonado, J.D. Martinez, Andrew McCutchen, Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna, Hunter Renfroe, Eddie Rosario, Carlos Santana, Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler.
Any time you’re on a home run list with Martin Maldonado, you know you’re in great company.
Holy crap, how in the world is THAT the headline for an awful Yankees loss to one of the worst teams in the league?
The Yankees are 10-3, so things are overall quite nice for the Yankees, but wow, that was a bad loss. Stroman was wild, and then he gave up the big hit, a Jake Burger three-run home run, but then the Yankees constantly threatened, but couldn’t do anything, with Aaron Jude, in particular, standing out as a major disappointment.
I assume he’s still getting healthy from all that time he missed in Spring Training, but, well, it’s been 13 games now, dude, that should be enough training time. It’s time to start being a clutch hitter again.
Otherwise, the game wasn’t awful. The bullpen was fine (but it was Miami) and it was cool how much they battled at the end (bringing the go-ahead run at the plate in both the eighth inning and the ninth inning, with Rizzo making the final out in the 8th with two men on, and Judge making the final out of the game with three men on, and all against the Marlin’s best reliever, Tanner Scott, who is a free agent after this season, so he WILL be traded this season. The Yankees might want to be in on that), but that one pitch from Stroman and a lot of WOE-ful performances in the clutch resulted in a bad loss. The Yankees now head off on a tough road trip, against a Cleveland team that has been playing strong baseball to start the season, and the always difficult Toronto Blue Jays (well, by “always,” I mean the last nine years or so).
The header image is Stroman watching the Burger shot go for three runs.
Baseball is all about probabilities – you can guess wrong and be lucky.
For example, you can utterly fail to understand what a “sunk cost” is, and then out of the blue Stanton starts hitting as if he weren’t already half-way processed by the glue factory. Luck like that is why lessons are learned so slowly in baseball, I think.
Will it continue? That would be awesome. But no one rationally should have expected even the past week.
Judge has looked pretty bad so far. Very frustrating. Gleyber has actually looked pretty good at the plate, but hasn’t had much to show for it. Also very frustrating.
He really looks like a guy working through things, which might be to expected due to him missing most of Spring Training, but he’s really got to get his shit together.
I liked the move of Gleyber out of the leadoff spot, as I think he really was pressing a bit there. DJ’s return will be huge, as it will allow Gleyber and Volpe’s bats to both get into the middle of the lineup and offer some production after Judge/Stanton.
while lemahieu presents value in extending the lineup by pushing volpe and gleyber down in the order he presents the problem of being a shitty hitter.
I like Volpe long term to be a great leadoff guy, I’m a bit worried about him there right now.
eh, I’m cool with it. for whatever speculative reason, I think Soto concentrates more so as to pick up volpe
I don’t like cronin-bot summaries…
I don’t know what this means
me finks me smells an imposter I does!
Monty shitcans Sotty Bo. We’ve got cracks in the dam, here.
What a weird move by Monty. As if it was Boras’ fault that Monty wasn’t considered a star pitcher.
this doesn’t seem abnormal, in fact id imagine it happens to boras often. he’s the lead negotiator, gets his geld, then transitions out of the picture for the hand holdy part of the agents job.
This is different, since Monty is likely to hit the market again next winter.
eh, either way Montgomery found the boras process to be burdensome enough such that he didn’t get full value on his boras commission
Astros now 4-10 after getting smoked by the Royals today who scored 9 runs in the first inning off one pitcher. I hope that continues. I hate the Astros. Also the Mets. And Chapman.
The Royals are set up to be sneaky good in a very weak AL Central.
I didn’t think Garcia was anything special last season, and now he looks really good.
We never had a discussion here about trading for the marlins pitcher luzardo. Rumors were they were asking for Spencer Jones plus others. I’m against that for obvious reasons, but actually against trading any high value minor leaguer because I don’t think he’s that big a deal to begin with. But many of you here now more than I do. .
He was great in 2022m but in only 100 innings. He was good last year in 180. He’s 26, so he could still be getting better. But I believe he was a super 2, so he’s already gone through 2 years of arbitration and isn’t particularly cheap. On the other hand, he is controlled through 2026.
I’d have to be VERY confident his floor is 2023 before trading Jones. But I think there’s enough past performance and potential there to give up non-Jones/Dominguez pieces. Since he’s a pitcher, it does make it easier to part with some of the Yankees minimal pitching depth. The Yankees aren’t really set to lose any of their rotation this winter, with Cole, Rodon and Stroman under contract, Cortes in Arb3, Schmidt in Arb2 and Gil still under full control. So, trading from their upper MiL pitching is actually an option, especially to bolster the ML pitching.
Looking forward, without any changes, the Yankees have upcoming holes at LF, CF and 2B and/or 3B, also possible 1B, depending on Rizzo’s club option and DJLM.
Let’s assume the Yankees have Jones and Dominguez penciled in for significant OF time in 2025, so those OF holes aren’t a big concern (ignoring how incredible Soto is).
Peraza and Vivas are intriguing, but unproven, and the Yankees don’t really have any other high likelihood high MiL infield prospects.
Could the Yankees make a trade around a package of Warren/Hampton and one of their high end, but low MiL pieces like Arias, Lalane, Lombard or Mayea?
I feel like the Yankees would have to throw in at least another solid prospect, Peraza/Vivas/Pereira or maybe a bat first questionable glove guy like Rice or Hardman.
None of those guys is vital to the Yankees, but would offer a combination of soon/immediate value and long term potential to the Marlins.
A Luzardo for Hampton, Peraza, Arias, Rice trade is approaching reasonable levels on https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator
At 65.4 surplus value to 58.6.
TL;DR I’d strongly consider a trade for Luzardo, keeping Dominguez and Jones off-limits.
Yeah, that’s exactly where I am, but it seemed like the Marlins earlier were insisting on the Martian or Jones, like every other freakin’ team, it feels like. It’s almost like it has become a thing, “You can’t trade your best asset to the Yankees if you don’t get Jones.”
I like vivas a lot, swings like bellinger but better contact less power. plays in yankee stadium
I really don’t see the appeal w luzardo. he’s pretty injury prone and yankee prospects are historically undervalued except to the a’s
Brian, I don’t think the Yankees have the same cache they once did on the market. not with the whole not winning much in a while. the Yankees, absent of this very awesome season and org composition, imo have the reputation of being outdated
Not sure where you are getting that feeling from. To my knowledge, the Yankees are still considered to be an above average, if not one of the better, development system.
well I’m basing it on the general over performance of yankee prospects (in the minors) the last few seasons which would suggest yankee farm rankings are depressed.
I mean no team wants to get hosed, but there are more predator fish in the pond who continue to swing a lot of deals – dodgers, braves, rays, Red Sox. The yankees have also been pretty damn active w trades as well. I guess I’m just countering Brian’s chicken little shit. (Lights incense at Cronin alter in plea for forgiveness)
The Spencer Jones mystery ailment lingers.
The only mystery is exactly how bad is it?
he’s dead
I was expecting worse.
Rained out tonight, split double header tomorrow 12:10 and 6:10
i’m still bitter about trading with the marlins since they blew up the gleyber trade two years ago.
What was that story?
The Yankees were willing to deal Gleyber for Pablo Lopez, but then the Marlins insisted on Gleyber AND Peraza.
Schmidt to start game one, Cody Poteet game 2 tomorrow.
what happened to gil?
The Martian out until the Summer, Spencer just missed his 7th straight game with no explanation, and Hampton is opening the year on the injured list with Double-A Somerset. He was expected to split the season between Double-A and Triple-A, but this shoulder issue will put those plans on hold indefinitely.
Yankee minor league top prospects chips off the old block.
Will Warren 5ip, 3r, 4H, 8K, 2BB, 3 home runs allowed
It really is dumb them saying nothing about Spencer Jones.
Numbers from The Athletic
They rank 15th in slugging percentage heading into this weekend’s series with the Cleveland Guardians and tied for 16th in average exit velocity.
Anthony Rizzo’s woes have gone a bit under the radar. He’s yet to barrel a baseball. He currently ranks in the 20th percentile in average exit velocity,
I wouldn’t worry about that stuff just yet.
gil day, yay
Game 1 A Volpe (R) SS
J Soto (L) RF
A Judge (R) DH
A Rizzo (L) 1B
G Torres (R) 2B
A Verdugo (L) LF
O Cabrera (S) 3B
J Trevino (R) C
T Grisham (L) CF
Schmidt day.
I wouldn’t blame Cabrera if he were a bit rusty after his mini off-season.
I woulda bunted.
Go back to writing airport fiction Trent.
Flash and Nelson broadcasting a house money team.
One thing the Yankees are GREAT at is challenges.
Why was Soto so far off first?
And were the announcers right about the new rule? Not sure I like the rule, but if the announcers were right, they certainly went out of their way not to enforce it.
The announcers said it was due to the difficulty of playing the outfield in this sun, but I’m still not sure I get it – it’s not like there’s no chance they catch it, and you still have to kind of be a little ready for that eventuality, no?
It always looked like the CF had a bead on the ball.
I like that Clarke Schmidt.
If Clarke keeps pitching like this they should name a candy bar after him.
Just fucking bunt Trent. 2022 he had 3 GIDP in 524 PAs.
GD has the Yankees ahead 1-0.
It shows no scoring plays, and the list of plays shows no scoring plays.
How did they get the 1 run?
Grisham gidpd with 0 outs and the bases loaded
Ah, thanks.
TYM right there
New thread up, all. FYI.