From Bryan Hoch:
It hasn’t been anything like the type of season Jazz Chisholm Jr. envisioned for himself. He’d love for this to be the swing that turns it around.
Chisholm cracked a tiebreaking home run off Evan Phillips in the eighth inning that powered the Yankees to a 2-1 victory over the Dodgers, salvaging the finale of a split-admission doubleheader on Sunday evening at Yankee Stadium.
“It’s definitely a long way out to left field,” Chisholm said. “I just forget about all the stuff that happened early in the game and lock in on that one at-bat. I’m just trying to help my team win any way I can.”
After the Yankees were largely silenced by Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s complete-game effort in Sunday’s first game, an 8-2 loss, manager Aaron Boone said that his team’s scuffling lineup “has got to do more.”
The Bombers’ bats were limited to Cody Bellinger’s first-inning RBI single through the first seven innings of the nightcap. Chisholm answered the call late, taking a Phillips fastball to the opposite field for his 14th home run of the season.
“That was a huge, huge swing there,” Bellinger said. “To go oppo, that’s a lot of power. It was just a really good win.”
“That gave us the spark we needed,” said Brent Headrick, who retired all six batters he faced in relief.
Obviously, the Dodgers are a better team than this Yankees team. OBVIOUSLY. However, just as obviously, this Yankees team is not going to be the team that will be playing in the playoffs (if they even make the playoffs, that is. The odds are still very high, but with the Red Sox and Orioles deciding to each never lose again, it’s getting dicier than ever expected). So the fact that this particular Yankee team still drew even with the Dodgers in two games, and in the one game they got blown out in was via pitchers who will NEVER see the mound in the playoffs, I think it’s generally still a lot of silver linings in this series.
First off, Cam choked again, which sucks, but at the same time, come on, the dude was BABIP-ed to death in this one. Did you know that Cam actually got MORE fWAR out of his game than Yamamoto did out of his? Yamamoto had good luck, Cam had terrible luck. C’est la vie. So while I am irked at him not coming through against a big time opponent, he really wasn’t THAT bad (one thing he is really going to need to do, though, is develop that curveball. There are certain teams that have star hitters that you can’t just blow away with fastballs. And when they start fouling the fastball off, the pitch count gets high REAL quick).
Secondly, the offense is still dogshit. I continue to be aghast at the idea that they think it makes sense to carry three shortstops when Spencer Jones at least has a PULSE in the minors. You’re batting Max Schuemann fucking FIFTH and in right field! Schuemann has been one of the better Yankees. I’m not saying send him to the minors. Let him platoon at short with Cabby. But you can’t keep running this dude out there in the middle of the lineup and playing an outfield position.
Thirdly, Fernando Cruz has come up big for the Yankees night after night, but man, when that dude is bad, he is fucking BAD. Thank goodness David Bednar is a fucking BEAST. Plus, of course, Paul Blackburn and Brent Headrick continue to excel, leading Boone to be able to legitimately patch together bullpen games while they wait on Max Fried.
Fourthly, thank god Jake Bird is back to the minors. I think Matt Blake is an excellent pitching couch, but I will freely admit that there are some dudes who just can’t be coached, and Blake is not a fucking wizard. And Jake Bird appear to be one of those dudes who just is too stupid to put it all together. The stuff is there, the intelligence just isn’t. And the less said about Doval, the better. Why is this dude on the roster still?!?
Fifthly, Jazz really hasn’t been THAT bad. Despite some mind-numbingly bad errors, the guy is legitimately a strong defender at second, and he is at 96 OPS+. That’s a good player, overall. The issue is more the lack of strong offensive talent ELSEWHERE.
Rice 166 OPS+
Goldy 123 (but I think we all know this will drop if you play him everyday, especially against all righties)
Bellinger 113
Grisham 109
Those are the only dudes better than average, OPS-wise. That’s not good.
You then have
Jazz 96
Cabby 90
Volpe 88
McMahon 84
Dominguez 83
Sanchez 54
Wells 42 (yes, this motherfucker is seriously rocking an OPS+ of fucking 42!)
Jazz, Cabby/Volpe and McMahon are all dudes who you can live with due to their defense, but you HAVE to be getting offense from SOMEWHERE else, and Dominguez being at 83 is so depressing. Schuemann is actually 125, but the sample size is small, and he had a 59 OPS+ just last year (and 82 the year before), so I don’t think you can trust that. He’s also much more of an infielder than an outfielder (he obviously has the speed to cover some ground out there, though).
Cashman obviously needs to pick someone up, but the problem is that there are only two weeks left until the Trade Deadline, and EVERYONE IS IN THE FUCKING PLAYOFF HUNT!! Teams aren’t selling because EVERYONE CAN MAKE THE PLAYOFFS NOWADAYS.
Due to the Red Sox’s winning streak, the Yankees actually picked up a game and a half on the Rays despite losing two out of three to the Dodgers. So the AL East lead is there for the Yankees. They have six tough games coming up, though, against the pesky Pirates, and the perennially potent Phillies. Luckily, the Yankee avoid Paul Skenes AND Jared Jones, so that’s something. They DO have to face Christopher Sanchez in Philadelphia, but they avoid Wheeler and Nola, and get the terrible Phillies’ #5 starter. So that’s SOMEthing.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox take on the Orioles, so SOMEone’s winning streak is about to be busted. That’s something, as well.
An interesting story about the trade deadline is that Cashman is apparently offering up BOTH Jones and Dominguez to other teams. I think the logic is this. The biggest reason, of course, is that he’s done with them. The OTHER reason, though, is with Belli and Judge locked in, and George Lombard there to cover the infield, I think Cashman is looking to the outfield for his next acquisition, someone like Tyler Larnach, who is under team control through next season. Or getting short term left or center fielders the next couple of seasons until they come up with the next best outfield prospect.
Featured image is an interesting angle on Chisholm’s home run. How dumb is that headline? Every time Jazz does something good, “Maybe this will be the start of something!” It’s July 20th, it’s probably not the start of shit for him.
Why would you be “done” with Jones? He’s barely had a cup of coffee, he’s got huge potential and is still developing.
Dominguez I get, although it’s almost as hard to believe that this is IT as it is that THIS is happening to Wells. Dominguez has been given the playing times.
But “done with Jones?”
He’s 25 and he strikes out 40% of the time (41.5% in the Majors, to be precise).
He also had a BABIP of over FOUR HUNDRED for him to only get to a 92 OPS+.
Those are not numbers (especially combined with his age) that make you say, “This guy has a future.”
Keep in mind that these numbers are in a small sample size in the Majors, but it’s pretty darn bleak…
I would still prefer having him up here than having three shortstops, but there isn’t a whole lot there to be excited about, and if you doubt his future here, it might be best to trade him now before his value completely falls off of the cliff.
I agree with all that, and I’m hardly saying he should be untouchable.
But he’s a player with one thing really to resolve and he could be a monster.
And he’s got a rep, a name, which give him value (for trading him, sure).
I’ve been saying here that the strikeout rate means he’s – at best – not ready.
But I’m nowhere near giving up on him, he’s got potential worth trying to figure out.
And of course I’d trade players I haven’t given up on, I’d trade anyone if I thought I was getting back more than I was giving up.
It seems weird to be broadcasting that you’ve given up these guys, though. I’d think that, at this stage, other teams would still be bringing them up on their own in negotiations. It’s like a strategy to decrease their trade value.
Just to be clear, that is my take on why Cashman is trading him. I am certain he is not telling other teams, “I am done with Spencer Jones.” 😉 I’m sure he’s saying, “This guy is amazing, but we have a full outfield, so I’m willing to trade this future All Star for, I dunno, let’s say, Ryan Jeffers?”
One can only hope.
I really DO have hope for Jones, for all that I think that solving his problem is still ahead of him. I’m NOT “done” with him.
Sure, I’d trade him, depending.
But Cash telling the press he’s ready to trade these guys seems… unnecessary.
Well, whatever.
With their best prospect being OFF the table in Lombard, I think Cashman feels like he has to make a splash to get other teams’ attention, and he thinks that this is the way to do it. We shall see how it turns out! I certainly don’t want Spencer Jones traded for, like, a middle reliever or a backup catcher!
Yeah, fair enough!
i’m not against dealing jones, i would just prefer he was in center than grisham.
since june 8 he had a .736 ops, right in the zone of grisham’s .751.
but he can run and play defense and costs a lot less.
anyway, as long as volpe isn’t playing ill watch right through the first round exit as usual.
And I still don’t get how you’re asking for them to bench their fourth best hitter, when Dominguez is shitting up the joint. There is room for Jones to play on this team that doesn’t involve benching a much better player than him to do so.
Grisham’s Savant page looks like Sweeney Todd’s barbershop, there’s so much red.
Does anyone think Cashman is going to make a good trade? Is he still
Sharp enough to pull that off?
Remember when he traded for David Justice? That was awesome.
He got Belli as a salary dump just last season. He got Cabby for Everson Pereira. Heck, for as much as Jazz sucks, that was also an awesome trade.
I think his trades are generally still good in and of themselves, he just misses sometimes on who he targets, because he doesn’t want to give up top prospects. He dealt basically one actually TOP prospect last season, and it was for the one clear cut TOP guy that he acquired, which was Bednar. Everything else was quantity over quality (and that player he traded for Bednar has sucked this season in the minors, but he got called up the other day again due to injuries, so we’ll see him in this series).
He also traded Gio (and Sanchez) for Donaldson (and IKF and Rortvert)
And traded for many other players who while giving up nothing added to payroll and yielded negative WAR ( Stephen Drew, Vernon Wells, Bird/Doval) and has made many other poor decisions (signing Travis Hafner instead of Ibanez; keeping Kriske instead of Whitlock)…I can go on (Kevin Youkilis anyone?)
He never admits to a mistake keeping players long past their usefulness if he signed them or talked them up (Aaron Hicks, DJLM, Volpe), is too scared to make a “big move” trade and ends up holding on to his minor leaguers too long…his only championship (the 1998-2000 teams weren’t his as he inherited almost all of them) was after he signed the 3 biggest free agents on the market, one of whom was a bust.
So no, I don’t think he is worth much of anything.
It’s been so long we don’t even use the “the curse of” anymore, and nobody even noticed.
I couldn’t figure out how to add a counter to the site when I launched it. 🙂
The Martian is younger than Jones and Jones went to Vanderbilt which has a top flight baseball program so he’s probably less likely to bloom.
But Jones has one specific problem. He’s good in the field, he’s good at almost everything, he just strikes out too much.
The power was always a plus – it’s got him this much attention.
I think he has a better chance of fixing it for that reason.
And he doesn’t seem to be an idiot – I think there’s like a 90% chance (POOMA) of him making a major effort to fix it. Maybe a more compact swing and maybe sacrificing some power – he has enough of that to spare, after all.
And maybe a 20% chance that it works – because it’s such a specific target.
WTF is going on with Dominguez I have no idea, and I suspect he has no idea either.
Jones’ defensive numbers, by the way, aren’t actually much better than Grisham’s. They’re fairly similar, actually (which surprised me, too).
i am happy to admit that i was wrong about blackburn, he has looked awesome.
And glad to see Boone using his 2 long guys to get 5 innings yesterday and not 2-3.
We were all wrong about Blackburn
I liked the Blackburn signing!
https://rlyw.net/yankees-com-paul-blackburn-goes-back-to-yankees-blackburn-deal-2m-guaranteed-plus-100k-for-each-of-80-90-100-110-120-ip-2-5m-possible/
Still didn’t make sense to carry two long men all season. Blackburn should have been getting higher leverage opportunities early on to see if he was for real.
Talkin’ Yanks
David Bednar has not allowed a run in 17 outings over the last two months, walking just four batters while striking out 22 in 20.2 innings pitched
Fangraphs OOPSY has Spence back in the top 100 at 55, MLB doesn’t have him in the top 100. Lombard is 23, the Invisible Dax at 75 and neither of our best pitching prospects in all of baseball in the top 100.
I thought OOPSY was the name of the Yankees’ baseruining simulator.
👍🏻
I had to read this twice. Who woulda thunk it? From Katie S —
I guess their last four wins fit in that category but I still find it hard to believe.
I think what we’re seeing is that the bullpen is good enough this year that they hold ties until the offense can squeak across a run.
Another who woulda thunk it.
https://x.com/RyanGarciaESM/status/2079023732362805483
KahWAYzee
Cam was on Mookie Betts’s podcast. They recorded on the day of the rainout, the day before his start. He didn’t really say anything, like a true pro. I didn’t learn anything new.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2xl6wPJ0zY
Autoplay then fed me Mookie’s recent interview with (original) Max Muncy, and I’m furious because the Dodgers really sound like the late-’90s Yankees.