October 23, 2025

40 thoughts on “Yankees.com: Yanks force winner-take-all Game 3 thanks to Jazz’s epic race home”

  2. They could have lost or won either of these games – you have to win some of those, so great to see them win this one!
    Thinking about how utterly statistically meaningless such a short series is between teams this closely matched. It becomes a matter sheerly of accident and heroics.

    3. I can’t remember the specific game, but there was a Yankees playoff game started by a hot Yankee pitcher and he preceded to get dog walked in the first and never made it out of there. Fortunately, the Yankees came back to win it.

      Schlittler feels like that, but he could also be perfect through 8.

      ETA: I think it was this one with Severino against the Twins: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA201710030.shtml

    1. I’ve never understood what this means.
      You bet $160 on the Yankees to win $100 if they win?
      You bet $100 on the Red Sox to win $140 in they win?

  5. Kyle Tucker, in an injury-plagued season where he was playing with a fucking broken hand for a month, ended up with a .377 OBP.

    Belli was .334, Grisham was .348.

    I love Belli, but Tucker would be transformational on this team.

    I’d probably just lead Tucker off.

    Tucker LF
    Judge RF
    Rice 1B/C
    Stanton DH
    Chisholm 2B
    Dominguez CF
    Volpe SS
    Wells C
    McMahon 3B

    You can even MAYBE afford to re-sign Grisham, too, and sign Tucker (but probably not). You could go out and sign a RHH 1B to platoon with Rice and Wells (with Rice catching on days he doesn’t play first).

    2. Oh sure, but I don’t think you can sign Tucker AND re-sign Belli. With Grisham, there would be at least a theoretical possibility of resigning him.

    3. The fear is that the Sox will run wild on Rice, but honestly, his bat is so much better than anyone else not named Judge right now and Schlittler is pretty good at limiting baserunners (a sub 1 WHiP over his last 4 games and that INCLUDES a 5 BB walk game against Minny).

    1. Goldschmidt is a better defender at 1B (probably marginally) and deadly against LHP.

      Wells is not much of a hitter this season and although he is better defensively than Rice, it’s not THAT awful depending on the defensive metric.
      Total Zone (BBRef) has Wells at +7 runs and Rice at -2, per year, Wells is +8 and Rice is -11.
      DRS has Wells at -7 and Rice at -3 and Wells at -8 and Rice at -16 per year and -16 runs over 135 games is 0.1 runs per game.
      So the question is, is Rice’s bat worth more than 0.1 runs per game? Rice is +19.5 wRAA and Wells is -3.9
      Also, too, Rice is probably equivalent to a top-20 hitter in the game right now over the last 2 months. (Per fangraphs’ WRC+, Rice is 17th in baseball since 1 August and Wells is 129th).

    1. Exactly. And yet, I have zero confidence in Boone NOT trying to play matchups early on, only to handicap himself later in the game.

  11. “You could go out and sign a RHH 1B to platoon with Rice”
    I presume you mean not turning Rice into a platoon player, but having a guy to play 1b when Rice is catching?
    He’s your best young hitter, have him work on the side he’s batting worse against.

  12. Also, MAN Jazz is fast. You read about it being one of the fastest 1st-to-3rd times this year, but look at the replay – he doesn’t look like he’s particularly running hard. He’s looking around, like he’s jogging.

  13. I saw someone have a good line about how Boone manages reactively. He got burned for pulling Fried too early, so he kept Rodon in too long. He sat Jazz, and now he won’t sit Jazz. It’s pretty pathetic, really.

  14. By the way, with the way that this Boston bullpen is FULL of lefties, you really probably DO have to go righty/lefty to keep Cora form having that advantage.

    So I guess I’d do
    Grisham
    Judge
    Bellinger
    Stanton
    Rice
    Rosario
    Chisholm
    Volpe
    Wells

    2. Well, I can’t really critique Boone’s lineup today, I guess. I’m sure he’ll provide plenty of fodder during the game, though.

  16. Which former Yankee (that played a goodly chunk of their career in New York, so no answers of, like, Kenny Lofton, or Andruw Jones) not in the Hall of Fame is the most deserving of BEING in the Hall of Fame?

    1. My gut, first instinct, is Willie. I checked his BBref page and ~65 WAR is a great total for a middle infielder. He was never MVP or a league leader in offensive categories. There a few guys around him that probably should be in there as well (Whitaker for sure).

      I think Posada, Bernie, and Pettitte all had better arguments than some people in the HOF.

    2. Craig Nettles.
      Just one illustrative year: 1976. Nettles was 16th in the MVP voting that year, which basically meant he was given no credit. What was his year like? Well, his OPS+ was 135, which led… all of baseball. Of course, no one knew what OPS was yet.

      That’s without counting his defense. Defensive statistics were largely unknown, but they can be reconstructed for that period – in short, he was always among the greatest defenders in the sport. At least, Brooks Robinson thought so. He said this: “When I think of Graig Nettles, I think of one of the best who ever played third base. Maybe the best. If you watched him play day in and day out you could make a case for him as the greatest fielding third baseman ever.” He won only 2 Gold Gloves, but all that says is they got that dead wrong, because they gave it to who they were used to giving it to – in the early part of his career, that was Brooks Robinson – and they did that kind of thing all the time.

      That dominant performance on both sides of the ball and yet finishing 16th says a ton about why Nettles could be the best answer to your question while not even being on anyone’s radar.

      Per Baseball Reference, Nettles’ career WAR is 68.0. Among third basemen, that’s the 10th best in baseball history. Every third baseman with more is in the Hall.

      Finally, anyone who watched knew what he meant to the team in terms of intangibles.

    3. My first thought was also Nettles, and I agree he and Randolph should both be in. But thinking about the question a bit more – are we automatically disqualifying documented PED users? Because if we’re not, then Alex Rodriguez is the top choice, and Robinson Cano is also a good answer. And if 6 years out of 24 counts as “a goodly chunk”, then Roger Clemens would be a great choice too.

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