August 19, 2025

45 thoughts on “Yankees.com: Goldy’s 3-hit day sparks Yanks to crucial sweep in St. Louis”

  1. The upgrade from Peraza to Caballero is STRIKING. And all for Pereira, who I wouldn’t think had ANY trade value.

    Peraza had a 26 OPS+ as a Yankee! But get this – his Angels OPS+ so far? 2. Yes, that’s right, where 100 is average, Peraza’s OPS+ is a TWO!

    2. Oh yeah, I like Rosario, as well. But he’s here more to platoon with McMahon, pinch hit for McMahon/Dominguez late in the game. And Rosario is only signed for the rest of the season, Caballero is here for FOUR more years after this one.

    3. Fair point, but OPS+ and other plus-minus stats break at the extremes. Like you can have a negative OPS plus, I don’t even know what that means. And Judge’s OPS+ is 210 but he more that twice as good as an average hitter.

      I mistakenly typed POS+ but that’s a stat for Chad Curtis

  2. Pereira is also at 2. They’re both tiny samples. What’s more interesting to me is how Doval got to a -0.5 WAR in 8 games. Stroman who’s pitched almost 5 times as many innings as Doval is only -0.4.

    1. Doval has had some hard luck as a Yankee with some poor defense behind him (including his own poor defense), but yeah, I think we’re at the point where you gotta see if he can’t get himself going in Yerry’s lane for a bit.

      Basically, give Williams the 7th. I think he’s earned another shot at middle-to-high leverage situations. Just not the 8th or 9th (or 10th).

      Have the setup be:

      Starter gives you five, hopefully six (but let’s face it, it’ll be five).
      Leiter as the fireman who comes in for the starter with runners on (Yerry as the backup here).
      Hill for innings with two scheduled lefties (or for bases loaded, one out situations in hopes he gets the GIDP).
      Doval for the 6th inning (NEVER as the fireman. NEVER let that guy enter a game with runners on base).
      Williams for the 7th inning
      Weaver for teh eighth.
      Bednar to close

      Leiter/Hill/Yerry/Williams/Headrick/Doval for the 10th in that order if they haven’t been used earlier.

    1. Absolutely. Warren didn’t pitch POORLY, but as we’ve seen with Gerrit Cole for years, there are two ways to handle fuckups behind you. 1. Pick up your fielders and get the job done or 2. Collapse.

      Warren mostly did #2 in this one. Yes, he should get a lot of grace because of the awful defense, but he still threw a gazillion pitches when put into these bad situations. 94 pitches and you don’t even finish FIVE? That’s NOT good.

    2. He rebounded at first from the error than got the next hitter 0-2 but threw a couple of waste pitches that nobody would offer at and then issued a walk. If he just is more aggressive at 0-2 we wouldn’t be discussing this.

  6. Manfred doing irritating Manfred shit again. Now wants “geographic realignment” and a couple more expansion teams. Sure, because there’s so much ML talent to go around now.

    2. Just when you thought it was kind of safe to go in the water…
      Manfred is a dick.

    3. I think there is plenty of talent out there, honestly.

      Not ML talent. Especially pitching.

    4. Not ML talent. Especially pitching.

      RIGHT away, it would be bad, just like it always is when you expand, but there is pitching out there. The Yankees had Michael King pitching middle relief, and he’s a stud starter. Look at the Yankees starters in the minors. If they’re all good, some of them WILL be converted to relievers, when they might be good enough to start. Erick Fedde came from overseas and was good. Eric Lauer, Adrian Houser, both came out of nowhere this year to be good. There is talent out there.

    5. Expansion has been on the horizon for a long time.

      For expansion to work, some sort of re-alignment is probably necessary, why not do it geographically? Especially since there’s no difference between the leagues with the universal DH.

    6. I don’t have a problem with booting the Rays out of the ALE or swinging Cleveland back in. I do have a problem with cramming the Yanks and Mets into the same division.

      The divisions themselves have been fuzzy since they started divisional play but changing leagues has historically been, and should continue to be, a big deal. Even if there’s a shitty universal DH now.

  9. Erick Fedde came from overseas and was good. Eric Lauer, Adrian Houser, both came out of nowhere this year to be good. There is talent out there.

    Fedde hass a career 85 ERA+, Lauer career 100 ERA+, Houser career 105 ERA+. What I said, there isn’t the pitching to go around as it is already thin in MLB.

    1. Right, but those were dudes who were just sitting there for any team to pick up for NOTHING. They weren’t developed, they were just out there, ready to slot in there and be average starters.

      Most teams end up turning promising starters into relievers because they don’t need to use them all. So I imagine, if you add two more teams, you’d just see more of those guys developed into starters. Your Michael Kings and Clay Holmes of the world would become starters instead of relievers.

  10. By the way, nice night for scoreboard watching, right? Only the Guardians won of the teams that we would want to lose! Very cool.

    Man, that Red Sox sweep of the Yankees later this week is going to be so brutal.

  11. Add teams, and that many more players will be in MLB who wouldn’t have been. Make those relievers starters, and the reliever pool as a whole is undeniably worse. And so on.
    The issue is – would you notice? You notice how good a player is only relative to others. After an adjustment period, that just IS the new talent level of the league. And since on average each player faces a pool of players just a shade worse than previously, the base level for of player who can handle that competition is a bit lower. You might expect the spread between the best and worst players to expand slightly, but other than that, would you notice? You’d just get used to it. ANY consistent spread of talent makes for a compelling game – on the level of an individual game. Because baseball is cool to watch. That is NOT the problem; the talent level is not the problem.
    Which is why (if you’re comparably invested) a minor league game or a little league game is eminently watchable. That’s not the problem. The problem is… in the league in 1925, you know ever team, and every player, and they all mean something (different) to you. To test what the issue is, just take it to an extreme – in this case, where you have an infinite number of teams. Or fine, let’s say: 150 teams in each league. Would you know them all, follow all their stats, read the stories on that many players, etc? Certainly the number of fans who WILL do this shrinks with every expansion. With each step you approach a point where every game is against an unknown, one-time opponent we neither know nor care about. That’s why more and more teams is a bad thing.

  12. I’m certain with any expansion, there will be a drop in competitive quality for a few years until the water finds it level again so to speak. That said, if teams aren’t competitive NOW and only putt along with bare minimum payrolls to be warm bodies, I really wouldn’t care to see four new teams that don’t intend to field competitive rosters and only take away more resources from teams who do.

    Consider that 30 years ago when they expanded to 30 teams, the US population was about 75 million fewer people AND players have started coming from all over the world. There are far more Japanese, Korean, even Australian players today than the 90s. Go back further and in the 50s there were fewer than half the people in the US than today AND minorities were largely excluded from the game.

    1. If the quality level of the entire league suddenly shifted, I doubt we’d see it. If hitters hit worse, why wouldn’t we think the pitching had improved? And vice versa. It would be, quite literally, almost impossible to tell. Statistically speaking, I think the only clear indication might be an increased number of outliers.

    2. I think Pete is right. If you Thanos-snapped everyone on the 26 man rosters, and they were replaced from below, we’d grumble (if we were aware of it) but we’d just watch the game and enjoy the new players.

      I’m not opposed to expansion at all for the reasons Chris gives. And as someone who prefers more offense, having worse starters going more innings because bullpens are also thinner seems good. Remember the days when if you chased a starter after 5 you got the last guy in the pen, a sinker/slider righty who threw 82? That’s what I’m talkin’ about

    3. If expansion keeps pace with population growth and youth baseball growth the level of talent should stabilize.

  13. MLB does not know who their base is. So they keep trying to do things to be more hip or whatever and for every fan they might bring in two others tune out or certainly pay less attention. Sure put the Mets, yanks and Red Sox in one division and met then play each other 100 times a year. Cool? What could go wrong with that idea?!

    1. I just don’t get it.

      Encouragingly, Judge’s bat speed before sustaining his arm injury and since returning from the IL remains consistent at 76.9 mph. However, there has been a significant drop in Judge’s contact quality metrics since his return. His wOBA has fallen from .498 pre-injury to .363 post-injury. His average exit velocity has decreased from 95.7 mph to 92.5 mph. His barrel percentage has dropped from 27.3 percent to 11.5 percent.

      So, is he playing hurt or what?

  17. So, AAA is full of MLB ready pitchers? I think not. And pointing to some guys who came from obscurity to have a decent season or season-and-a-half is no answer, they quickly fall back, case in point, Erick Fedde.

    1. Yes, basically. Certainly to the point where, if you give teams enough time to develop them, it’ll all even out in the end. Heck, just look at international free agents. They’re total crapshoots. So there’s pretty clearly talented guys who AREN’T being picked up and developed because there are only a certain amount of spots. Add more of them, and more will be found.

      MLB has added something like eight teams in SIXTY YEARS. It’s not like they’re going willy nilly. They haven’t added anyone in nearly 30 years. And note that when they DID add those teams, it was only five or so years after the PREVIOUS expansion teams, and we all got along well enough, talent-wise.

      Especially with the reduced minor league rosters, there are lots of talented guys that just aren’t getting a chance to prove themselves.

    2. … there are lots of talented guys that just aren’t getting a chance to prove themselves.

      I’m not buying that at all.

  19. Are there more minor league hitters who can play in the majors or more minor league pitchers?
    I think the former. So maybe expansion will increase the number of runs scored.

    1. Except against this Yankees lineup. 😎 Honestly, I think that is the game Manfred and some owners are playing if they expand, more offense. To be followed no doubt by more gimmicks, like an HR contest after 11 innings to decide games that are still tied.

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