September 7, 2024

43 thoughts on “Yankees.com: Yanks insist ‘nobody is panicking’ after 3rd straight series loss”

  1. We are all scarred by 2022. And with the same idiot manager, the same GM making the same tired low risk low reward moves, the same always injured DH, the same old (and now older) DJLM, .,, We all can see the same thing coming.

  2. Booner’s plan is to platoon JD Davis and Rice, this despite Rice getting 2 hits yesterday off Fried. Let’s see what Rice can do. DJ has an OPS+ of 36! He needs to sit a lot.

    1. As I said an idiot manager and a GM who’s big move is getting an Oakland As cast off who was a really good hitter 3 years ago.

    1. Excluding Taylor Trammell, Ben Rice is 8th on the Yankees in OPS+.

      Sure, platoon the guy who has ripped the cover off the ball in every minor league he’s been in and has shown he’s not overmatched at the MLB level after a few games.

    2. his hands are hot enough for me to keep him in the lineup. on base is worth more than slugging and he’s good for 3rd (min 6 games played 🙂 )

      i feel the same way about him that i do with Wells – it’s coming. He just missed a home run the other day before drawing the walk, one dong and the OPS will be much improved.

  4. JD Davis has 320 games at 3b. Is he really that bad? How about platooning him depending on who the Yankees are pitching not the other team. When a fly ball pitcher like Cortes or Cole is starting, put Davis at 3b which is now an offensive abyss, DJ OPS+32, Waldo 75.

    Let Rice play until he shows he shouldn’t be playing.

    1. The A’s don’t have a third baseman currently and they DFA’d Davis and are eating salary rather than play him at third. So I think he really is just that bad now.

      But then just DH him!

    2. Nestor has the lowest ground ball rate in the MLB and Rodon the 6th lowest. I’d gamble to keep DJ and Waldo out of the lineup

  6. “despite Ben Rice just having good games against two of the best lefties in baseball in Sale and Fried”

    Now it’s like you’re not even watching.

    “because Ben Rice just had good games against two of the best lefties in baseball in Sale and Fried”

    FTFY, you’re welcome.

    2. Hard to deny.

      And punishing success is one of their most mysterious preferences.

  7. I was thinking about this last night, along the lines of Big Fan’s first post here.

    This is a team that can be great. It’s held back not by medium-to-good performance spread around, but a few black holes around some great players. That makes it much easier to fix.
    Judge is not getting younger. Cole – the same. They should want to win with Judge. This is a team that can win.

    This may be the time to actually take a risk. To get someone great to take over at a position where they have nothing. Third base seems like the obvious spot. And be willing to give something up for that.

    This is a team to double down on. This is a win-now year.

    1. problem is that there are like zero offensively capable 3Bs that teams would part with … except possibly one … Alex Bregman.

      I’ll take my response off the air.

    2. Chris, what about… the Indians, for example, have two great-looking triple-A 3rd basemen, it seems. Would they take an equally-high rated minor-league at a position where they have no prospects for one of them? And that can’t be the only possible trade option out there.

    3. Well, they did trade for Soto. The problem is the DJ contract, plus Gleyber and Rizzo being awful, plus Jasson’s inability to remain healthy. If either Gleyber or Rizzo was having a really solid year and the ability to plug Jasson in, they really were okay. IDK what they can do other than get a better bench.

    4. I don’t get that. The whole point of this team is that there are a pile of really obvious things that would make it better.
      They’ve done something at first – well, until this ludicrous idea of a platoon.
      Why couldn’t they make a MiL for MiL trade for a promising third-baseman? DJLM’s contract isn’t going to improve his hitting. Catcher, if you took the same route.
      The bench and the pen for sure, although I wouldn’t be dealing important MiL talent for those things. But I don’t think you’d have to.

    2. DJ doesn’t have enough ABs to qualify but if he did his OPS would be 100 points lower than the lowest qualifier.

    1. That was great, as they had been winning all of their games in hand when they got to them until now.

      Stupid Blue Jays blew a late lead to the suddenly red-hot Red Sox. Annoying. Especially as you KNOW Toronto will play the Yankees tough.

  11. Hal on the hook for $25mil to DJ and Hixie in 2025 which will give Hal justification to build a wild carte a next year. Oh DJ gets another 25 in 2026. Cash is the best.

    1. Worse than the Hicks contract, and both were bad (I remember trashing the Hicks deal on RLYW). Whereas DJ turned 33 in the middle of his first season on his deal (and the DJ deal was based on 50 games played in 2020 as well). So the DJ contract was another level of stupid beyond Hicks.

    2. DJ was coming off back-to-back Top 4 MVP finishes when he became a free agent, and had offers from at least the Blue Jays (likely other teams would have been in on him, as well, but they thought he was definitely returning to the Yankees. Only the Blue Jays were ready to go big on him). He was a much better signing than Hicks. They just changed the balls, so obviously DJ’s power went away, but how could anyone have guessed that at the time? Comparing him and Hicks is just silly (and I didn’t have a problem with the Hicks extension, either, but come on, again, dude was coming off of BACK-TO-BACK TOP FOUR MVP FINISHES).

      He’s also an excellent defender who just won a Gold Glove in 2022. He just has since become extremely injury prone. I’m sure he’ll eventually hit, but it’ll be just in time for him to get hurt again.

    3. Hicks also has a $1 million buyout for a club option in 2026. Cashman needed to be gone years ago.

    4. His best year was 50 games in 2020. And he was heading into age 33 halfway through the 2021 season, the first year of the contract. You don’t give a 6-year deal to a guy like that. His OPS the past three seasons: 711, 734, 718. So he has forgot how to hit.

    5. DJ had one great year 2020, the short season, and two really good years 2016,2019. The rest of his career he was basically league average. He was 32 coming off a career year.

    6. Lots of bad deals can be justified at the time. That doesn’t make them into good deals. DJLM had some stinkers/less than stellar seasons with the Rockies during what should have been his prime seasons. Prior to 2020, DJLM had a career OPS .776 and a 98 OPS+ while playing half of his games at Colorado. Basing a deal on 50 games in 2020 would be dumb. Since then, he has a, drumroll, … OPS of .742. He was an average hitter with an occasional stellar seasons and heading into his 30s. The aging curve isn’t some kind of new idea. Cashman routinely ignores it or thinks it won’t happen with his players.

      You gamble with expensive long term contracts on guys who meet a lot of metrics, not a handful occasionally.

    7. At least Elsbury, another Cash long timer, had the good sense to lose the last 3 years of his contract to injuries. For his 7 year contract Cash got 4 years of 95 OPS+ production.

  13. A Volpe (R) SS If Volpe makes out they could walk Soto and Judge.
    J Soto (L) RF
    A Judge (R) CF
    G Torres (R) 2B Slim pickings I suppose
    A Verdugo (L) LF Trending way down
    J Davis (R) 1B Not DH?
    D LeMahieu (R) 3B OPS+ 36. Maybe think about calling it a career
    J Jones (R) DH SERIOUSLY dude! Aaron what’s with your man crush? Career OPS+ 48
    J Trevino (R) C 0/13, hitting 170 last 28 days

    Rice should be playing every day until he shows he shouldn’t. BTW Rice in AA hit lefties as well as righties.

    1. Ugh, that line-up. The Yankees doing what they normally do the last 10 years or so with a young player, sit them (which makes last year’s everyday-Volpe so odd).

    1. It’s the shiny new toy syndrome for Boone with Davis. Rice should absolutely be starting every day. Davis is a known quantity, Rice could be better. It’s so hard to root for a team with Boone as manager.

    3. “It’s so hard to root for a team with Boone as manager.”

      So hard.

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