From Bryan Hoch:
It was the sixth inning on Sunday and Carlos Rodón stood on the mound, baseball resting in his glove, as the Yankees discussed their plan against hot-hitting Jung Hoo Lee. All day long, an electric slider had been the left-hander’s favorite weapon, but the last one he threw to this particular batter had landed in the seats.
Lee would be looking for that pitch again, they reasoned, so it would be best to keep it holstered. Rodón first attacked with four fastballs, then hung a curveball that Lee parked for a go-ahead three-run homer, representing the difference in the Yankees’ 5-4 loss to the Giants at Yankee Stadium.
I mean, we all kind of get it, the bullpen had been used a lot the day before, so it wasn’t like Boone could have brought Luke Weaver in there at that point in the game. So it was Mark Leiter with the go-ahead batter at the plate (a lefthanded hitter at that) or Rodon, and Rodon had been pitching so well, that I get it.
HOWEVER, I think that this game will work as a new rule that Boone should use going forward. After the fifth inning, DO NOT USE RODON WITH TWO MEN ON BASE IF THE LEAD IS LESS THAN FOUR RUNS. Just bring in Leiter.
Bebop noted that the fascinating comparison to Rodon would be AJ Burnett, another guy with a million dollar arm and a ten cent head, but man, Burnett never hit the heights of Rodon. Rodon was legit probably the second or third best pitcher in ALL OF BASEBALL in 2021 and 2022, and then came here, got hurt and was terrible in 2023, was mediocre last season, and has been bad this season. And yet, the stuff is still there. The ability to dominate is still there. He just is so fucking stupid. You see him talking after the game, each fucking game, it’s “Yeah, I made a point of saying not to do X, but I did X today.” Or, for instance, “Yeah, the curve ball made sense there, I just threw a terrible curveball.” It’s, like, dude, you GET YOUR PROBLEMS, so WHY KEEP DOING IT?!?!
That said, as I noted in the last game, Rodon going through all of this shit as the #4 starter is a lot better than him doing it as the #2 starter, so if Clarke Schmidt can be good, and Will Warren can grow as a starter, then I can live with Rodon as the #4 starter. He clearly still has SO MUCH FUCKING TALENT. And yet he’s still so, so fucking stupid at 32 years old. It’s maddening. In 2021 and 2022, he was DOMINANT in terms of NOT allowing home runs, and now he’s the Home Run Fairy. It’s so embarrassing for him.
And yet the Yankees are tied in the loss column for first place in the AL East, so they’ve weathered this storm pretty well. The entire American League kind of sucks right now, so they’re hanging in there. Bellinger is hitting like shit, which is annoying, but there is life in other places, like The Martian coming into his own a little bit. The offense was bizarre, though, in that Escarra was swinging 3-0 in the 8th inning. Fuck the heck?!
The featured image is Rodon’s dumb face watching the three-run home run blow his lead (they scored THREE RUNS off of Logan Webb, and drove him out of the game after five innings! That is A MAJOR SUCCESS, and they blew it with their dumb fucking starting pitcher).
Signing Rodon was a gamble by Cashman and it has not paid off like he hoped. Rodon’s calling card, since college, has always been electric stuff and a constant struggle with command and mechanics. The inconsistent mechanics lead to injuries and the poor command leads to HRs and walks.
Those two incredible seasons represent about 27% of his career output. Sometimes the ceiling is reached, but can’t be maintained. He’s only thrown more than 150 innings three times in his 10 year career.
WALKS were definitely always a problem for Rodon, but homers WEREN’T. He wasn’t as good as those amazing 2021/2022 seasons, where he was under 1 per nine innings, but he was still very good at preventing home runs even in his injured seasons when he sucked overall. That was until he became a Yankee, of course. Then he became a home run fairy. It’s madness.
Eh, he doesn’t give up a lot of hits, but he misses his spots, they get hit hard. And when he has two guys on from walks, they hurt more.
He’s not a great pitcher. He’s an elite arm like 90% of the time but he misses spots enough that it drags him down to an average/below-average pitcher.
The only question to me was whether he’d finish up as another Burnett or Pavano.
also, he walked adames before the home run. the one pitch nonsense doesn’t really fly when you keep giving up free bases. he’s currently at 4.7/9, which is a career high. and speaking of flying, they’re leaving the yard at 2/9. not a very good combo.
another shitty deal from cashman that we will have to wait out.
Jazz 10 hits/5 home runs, 50%. . Judge 20/6 30%..:Goldy 20/1 5%. For his career Jazz is at 20%. Is this all small sample nonsense or is he trying to hit a home run every AB?
Martian 27 PAs hitting left 385/1023; hitting right 25 PAs 050/340. A very small sample but for his career it’s 930/366. How does he have as many PAs RH as LH when the majority of pitchers are RH? NY Post “The Yankees thus far have shown a willingness to allow Domínguez to work through his struggles, which could be a boon to the young outfielder’s development, though it could come at the cost of some rough at-bats.
At this stage, with this little ML experience, I’m completely on board with that approach.
What were his splits throughout his MiL career?
Big
I’m now on board with the annex-Canada plan. For their own good. To stop them from doing shit like this: https://x.com/mlb/status/1911837484285128975?s=42
this is a crime against humanity
Why doesn’t anyone ever ask me about my frustration with Carlos Rodon
If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you want to be to string Carlos Rodon up on?
Belli sits vs RHP. Lugo vs Cookie, nice matchup
B Rice (L) DH
A Judge (R) RF
A Wells (L) C
P Goldschmidt (R) 1B
J Chisholm Jr. (L) 2B
A Volpe (R) SS
J Domínguez (S) LF
T Grisham (L) CF
O Cabrera (S) 3B