From Bryan Hoch:
Aaron Judge shook his head ever so slightly after fouling a ball back into the seats during the third inning on Sunday, clearly upset that he had missed a hittable pitch. He wasn’t going to miss another.
On the next offering, Judge launched his Major League-leading 53rd home run, carrying his bat more than halfway to first base after a mammoth 445-foot Statcast-projected blast — the biggest blow in the Bombers’ 5-2 victory over the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
“I thought I did that every time, no?” Judge said. “It was a big homer. We’re playing the Red Sox — big games, big moments. So just having some fun with it there.”
With Judge’s two-run homer and a solo Gleyber Torres blast supporting left-hander Carlos Rodón’s team-leading 15th win, the Yankees wrapped their homestand by taking three of four games from the Red Sox.
Sorry for the delay on this one, I was traveling today, but I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow night’s game to get a post up.
The featured image is, of course, Judge’s homer.
Great win, especially after that stupid Cole game. We are going to be hearing about that Cole nonsense for YEARS to come.
The yanks are now 24 games over 500. So if they play 500 the rest of the way they’ll win 93. The last time I could have said that was in the first half of the season.
At the 81 game mark they were 52-29, or 23 games over. So they are now better than 500 in the second half. Yay?
Because someone, and he knows who he is, had to say a certain something in the previous thread, someone else needs to counter that something said by someone on the previous thread. Okay, I volunteer.
It was nice to take 3 of 4 from the Bosox, but it won’t matter when the O’s win the division.
How many wins in the playoffs for this team? -1?
You’re being generous.
“Off the center field restaurant glass” is both the prototypical and the archetypal Judgian blast.
were zombie sterling on his game he’d suggest some sort of “judges rib sticking ribs of a blast!”
yay baseball tonight
Boone should give phenom a few days off against RHP and then see what’s happening with him and Waldo. Phenom is hitting 564/309/221 in the last 28/14/7 days. Waldo in the same period is 611/1127/1000 mostly against RHPs.
Rizzo in the same period is 600/433/539.
i had to look at those numbers with that date format a few times.
are you saying that volpe can’t hit?
Talkin Yanks:Aaron Boone tells us that Oswaldo Cabrera will start at shortstop tonight, with Anthony Volpe getting the night off”
Now give him the whole series off and see if that helps.
Kirschner There have been 153 Yankees who’ve amassed >1,200 plate appearances in franchise history.
Here’s where Anthony Volpe ranks:
151st in batting average (.229)
149th in on-base percentage (.289)
135th in OPS (.665)
Seems kinda bad
still a well above average player at 23
They are just now seeing what we saw in May 2023? When he [Volpe] should have been stamped, sealed, delivered to SWB with no return postage accepted. This team cannot afford a no hit, all glove SS, their line-up is that bad.
Volpes hitting hasn’t improved; and his fielding is worse. Another development success by Yankee coaching!
He’s gotten better at both.
Clay, this time I’m mystified.
How can that be?
Explain.
His raw offense numbers are down, but compared to the league they are up – but we’re still not talking about a good hitter.
His defense, driven by his range, is WAY up – of course SSS concerns, but that applies to 2023 as well.
Even Volpe’s baserunning, again SSS, has improved.
I still think Volpe has had a disappointing year, but he has improved.
So wait – shortstop offensive numbers have DROPPED in the second half… more than Volpe’s have? That seems hard to believe. Although really, he had a good start to each half, and then crashed (not to it, but right through the Earth).
And as for fielding – I guess you can’t trust the eyeball test, but then again I’m not so sure how much I trust the stats, either. He certainly look like he’s not fielding quite as well. He could be fumbling balls he wouldn’t have gotten to before, I know…
How bad would the other shortstops have to be for Volpe to be improving relative to that group? Especially with the mass of great shortstops in the league… Clay, I believe you, but it is hard to process.
Fangraphs
2023: -9.5 runs on offense (82 wRC+ and +3.4 baserunning), +7.3 runs on defense, good for 1.8 WAR
2024: -4.2 runs on offense (87 wRC+ and +5.7 baserunning), +15.6 runs on defense, good for 3.4 WAR
statcast
2023: -15 batting run value (7th percentile), +2 baserunning run value (82nd percentile), +1 fielding run value (58th percentile)
2024: -10 batting run value (17th percentile), +4 baserunning run value (98th percentile), +11 fielding run value (94th percentile)
baseball reference – the dissenter on Volpe’s defense
2023: 81 OPS+, +1 baserunning run for 1.7 oWAR and 2.5 dWAR
2024: 86 OPS+, +6 baserunning runs for 2.7 oWAR and 1.4 dWAR
Ah, you’re saying better this year than last. I can see that. The hot start to this year can outweigh all of last year, I imagine. And his fielding in the first 40% or so of this year looked phenomenal – much better than last year.
But that’s not the time frame that worries us. What worries us is not this year vs last year, it’s after and before, say, about a week before the ASB.
He looks clearly worse on defense (again, the eye can be wrong, I know), and he’s crazy worse on offense. That’s the comparison being made, I think.
Yeah, and it’s important that I’m not arguing that this season hasn’t been disappointing, only that he’s been better compared to every else than he was last year. Which is how we generally determine the value of a player.
He has looked worse as a hitter, but it’s been a more difficult year to hit.
His range has massively improved though, which is often hard to see by eye.
I get that.
But it’s still based on a different point of comparison.
That was all incredibly evident in the first almost 1/2 of the season.
I wonder whether it’s true if you take the last 60% of the season (or whatever it’s been) and compare it to last year. Even on defense.
Quick look at fangraphs…
1st half of 2023: 86 wRC+
2nd half of 2023: 77 wRC+
1st half of 2024: 89 wRC+
2nd half of 2024: 83 wRC+
His 2nd half has been less bad this year? But if you look at monthly splits, there’s not consistency between the years. This year he was very good in April and May before cratering in June. And he’s been an absolute disaster in September. But last year he didn’t hit well until June and August. He did have his worst month in September again though.
I don’t know if defensive splits are particularly useful given the sample size issues already present in a full season of chances.
My time following the Yankees has taught me one thing:
…
Even when the results may be good, trust that the process remains garbage.
I concur. all hail our mariner overlords.
Jay Jaffe responded to my question in his FanGraphs chat. I didn’t write out my question clearly. Whoops. Anyway, I tried to ask if he could rank some names as the mostly likely NYY firstbaseman in 2025. Alonso, Rizzo, Rice, Josh Bell, some rando. He responded to who was the best – which is Alonso, natch. He didn’t think Rice has enough of a MLB bat.
They aren’t signing both Alonso and Soto. Alonso has had a pretty rough season a for a guy in his walk year (OPS 795), sure, better than Gleyber, but I’d call it mostly disappointing. As far as Rice and not enough of a MLB bat, maybe, but he will get a full shot somewhere to prove or disprove that.
I bet I’d love the West Coast games if I lived in Guam.
.
For full disclosure, I do not live in Guam.
The Jones Boy
115MPH, 453 ft
https://x.com/sompatriots/status/1836185360730034382?s=61&t=fhOaqwtc8q2TMSXUDRjPeg
Blake Snell dominated Baltimore.
go yankees
I like dominguez’s load pre-swing. it produces alot of torque