October 8, 2024

25 thoughts on “Yankees.com: Wells builds on AL ROY case as Yanks power past KC

  1. If the yanks play 500 the rest of the way they’ll finish 92-70.
    The need to finish first so they get a bye and avoid Houston until the ALCS where they can lose to them again.

  2. Love Austin Wells. He’s by far the best defensive rookie per FanGraphs and his fWAR is slightly better than Cowser. He just lags a bit in the counting stats, but his exceptional defense at a difficult position might push him over the top. It’s not 1:1, but Adley Rustchman’s defense in his rookie year grades out only slightly better than Wells.

    Also, since the first week or so of June when Wells’s bat came around, he’s hitting an approx. 900 OPS at a 30 HR/120 RBI full season pace.

    1. It really looks like he turned himself from an OKish prospect to a potential elite MLB player, pretty much entirely by improving his defense from iffy to very good.

    2. Anti Yankees sentiment is involved, though. If Wells wins ROY, the Yankees get a bonus pick at the end of round1 in 2025. So anti Yankees sentiment should never be discounted in a close race.

  3. The big problem for them is that left field in Yankee Stadium is basically like a second center field.

    So you have Judge being tired out in center, but you also have Soto having, like, zero range in right field. So you can only hide one in right. Judge in left might be even worse, since he doesn’t know the position, so sadly, keeping him in center is probably the most logical alignment.

    If Soto resigns, then they probably should get him to move to first base long term, especially with Jones able to play center in the future.

    1. That’s only a problem in home games.
      Well, and in a few other significantly asymmetrical parks.
      So for about, I imagine, 40%+ of games during the season you have more room for maneuvers.

  4. Yeah, Judge is a RFer. I didn’t think about Soto at 1B but that could be an answer IF they re-sign him. There might not be a lane for Soto at 13/$520. It’ll be a cheaper team with Jasson/Grisham/Judge in the OF and maybe Pete Alonso at 1B (high priced option) or Josh Bell (lower price)

    1. I think he has problems with all of his range. He’s simply not very fluid period. I was hoping he could play some left field this season, but watching him out there, that’s not really possible at all. He’d be terrible. But fuck, with his talent at the plate, he can MORE than hit his weight at first base, ya know? So if he signs here long term, I think they should pull a Harper with him.

  5. Gary Phillips Aaron Boone said Aaron Judge will be in CF when he’s in the OF. Jasson Domínguez will man LF when Judge is out there.

    Boone also said he talked to Alex Verdugo about having a “fluid” role moving forward, but the manager didn’t want to share more about that convo. #Yankees

  6. If course vertugo isn’t playing. He hit a HR last night. That’s been the rule under Boone for quite some time. Maybe that’s why judge stopped hitting HRs. His next one puts him on the bench!

Leave a Reply