It Was Fun While It Lasted: The Official 2024 New York Yankees Off-Season Thread

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

I've totally lost faith in Volpe when I initially thought he could be baby Jeter. And Verdugo I want gone for a while now. I hope Dominguez gets his spot when he's healthy or I really don't know wtf Cashman is doing.

He’s trying to be Billy Beane in the “he gets on base” scene from moneyball when in reality he’s Brandon Jennings passing up an uncontested layup to shoot a contested 10 foot fadeaway instead. Montas and then Rodon over Castillo. Hicks, Happ, Britton, CC, & Ottavino over Harper & Machado. Donaldson, Volpe, & IKF over Seager, Correa, & Trea Turner. Rizzo over Olson or Freeman. Being content to ride with Higgy and Trevino at catcher. Letting gallo and hicks play left field. The Monty for Bader deal. IKF, Bauers, & Calhoun in the outfield last year. Refusing to part with Adams, Frazier, & Andujar in a 2018 trade for Cole. I’m not one to do the whole armchair GM but there’s genuinely 0 doubt in my mind that any of us or any random guy plucked off the street while walking around the stadium could do a better job with his budget.

One disturbing trend is he always lets the other team walk it off against him, he can never minimize the damage to at least have the team to go into extras. Now you can argue if that's a good thing with their record in extra innings but when he loses it, he's a lock to give up multiple runs.

He’s definitely not a closer . Still you can’t have your defense and especially not guys who’ve been two of the 5-6 worst hitters in baseball the last two months make back to back game losing plays. Nelson Cruz didn’t misplay the fly ball to right in the 9th inning of game 6 of the 2011 World Series that badly

He's legit with the glove. He saved two runs earlier. He's saved about 10 errors from the catchers

But the bat is non-existent, and he plays everyday. Problem is his offensive woes are magnified because the rest of the lineup is not good

Woes doesn’t do it justice. He’s legit worthless with the bat in his hands to the extent that no level of defense justifies his presence in the lineup. He’s got a .221 on base percentage since June 1st. In a lineup full of bad hitters, he’s the worst one of all. He’s DJ Lemahieu with a bit more speed. Sure his defense is mostly great, but no glove makes up for being a worse hitter for half his season than a guy who presently has a .164 average.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

 

[Walt]

 

[tremonthustler1]

Two things can be true:

Holmes might not cut it as closer much longer (and he's a free agent after this season, so 2.5 more months)

also,

Yankee fans will never embrace whoever is the closer for obvious reasons.

 

[Derek Lee]

Volpe grabbing some dirt after he booted the ball

 

[tremonthustler1]

Yankees drafted Ben Hess

Just off his name alone I hate this pick

 

[Grifter]

yahoo ranking

Ben Hess is a big, ole farm boy from rural Illinois who developed into a pro prospect during his three years at the University of Alabama. His junior year numbers — a 5.80 ERA with a 11.5% walk rate — are concerning, but there’s a lot to like with Hess. He’s deceptively athletic and flexible for a guy listed at 6-foot-5, 255 pounds, and he should improve his control/command once he enters a professional development system.

 

[NYChase718]

x.com

x.com

 

[holidayinn21]

Yankee fans will never embrace whoever is the closer for obvious reasons.

Like clockwork, Tremont with another "It's the fans fault" post whenever a player is trash

Asking your closer to not be a highwire act every outing is apparently asking for too much

 

[tremonthustler1]

Like clockwork, Tremont with another "It's the fans fault" post whenever a player is trash

Asking your closer to not be a highwire act every outing is apparently asking for too much

If I told you we could get Emmanuel Clase tomorrow, we'd all jump for it.

Who led baseball in blown saves last year? Clase.

Hader's been mediocre this year and many fans wanted to pivot and give him 100 million dollars. Teams out her drooling over Mason Miller because he throws 102 down the middle all the time. Yeah he killed our lineup, as if that's impressive. I remember when we had a closer like that. His name was Aroldis Chapman, and every time Cashman thinks he hit a lick with an A's pitcher, what happens?

The best team in baseball doesn't even have a true closer. We're scared to death of the Orioles and they have Craig Kimbrel closing games. The overall point is for whatever reason the fans think there's this fix to the closer spot, and there isn't one that's attainable and if there is one, every other team wants that guy too. If you wanna demote Holmes and make Weaver the closer, great. The day he blows one everyone's gonna flip out on him too. Show me the closer that's gonna put you at ease. It's gonna be a minute, that's short AND long term with this team. I'm not even advocating to keep Holmes.

 

[NYC Rebel]

Clay Holmes is a poor man’s John Wettland

 

[Remote]

yahoo ranking

Ben Hess is a big, ole farm boy from rural Illinois who developed into a pro prospect during his three years at the University of Alabama. His junior year numbers — a 5.80 ERA with a 11.5% walk rate — are concerning, but there’s a lot to like with Hess. He’s deceptively athletic and flexible for a guy listed at 6-foot-5, 255 pounds, and he should improve his control/command once he enters a professional development system.

This is like taking a D3 running back in the first round.

When @Mantis Toboggan M.D. writes about how Brian Cashman tries to be the smartest guy in the room, this is what that looks like.

On MLB's prospect rankings they had Ben Hess 44th on their list.

The Yankees took him 26th.

You know what gets lost in that whole Moneyball thing? Billy Beane drafted Jeremy Brown in the first round in 2002 because he vastly overrated his ability to identify raw talent.

Brian Cashman has been drafting Jeremy Browns for 20 years.

I hope this Ben Hess kid becomes something. But historically, pitchers either have control or they don't.

It's not something they learn to harness as a pro. If you're in college and you're wild and throw hard, you're almost certainly destined to be a reliever. So congrats Cashman. The most likely outcome here is you saddled the Yankees with yet another 7th inning guy. And you took him 18 picks too early.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Like clockwork, Tremont with another "It's the fans fault" post whenever a player is trash

Asking your closer to not be a highwire act every outing is apparently asking for too much

If I told you we could get Emmanuel Clase tomorrow, we'd all jump for it.

Who led baseball in blown saves last year? Clase.

Hader's been mediocre this year and many fans wanted to pivot and give him 100 million dollars. Teams out her drooling over Mason Miller because he throws 102 down the middle all the time. Yeah he killed our lineup, as if that's impressive. I remember when we had a closer like that. His name was Aroldis Chapman, and every time Cashman thinks he hit a lick with an A's pitcher, what happens?

The best team in baseball doesn't even have a true closer. We're scared to death of the Orioles and they have Craig Kimbrel closing games. The overall point is for whatever reason the fans think there's this fix to the closer spot, and there isn't one that's attainable and if there is one, every other team wants that guy too. If you wanna demote Holmes and make Weaver the closer, great. The day he blows one everyone's gonna flip out on him too. Show me the closer that's gonna put you at ease. It's gonna be a minute, that's short AND long term with this team. I'm not even advocating to keep Holmes.

Clay Holmes is a poor man’s John Wettland

We can dump on Holmes all we want, but he’s been killed by bad defense behind him all year. He’s got 6 blown saves on the year and in 3 of them he gave up 0 earned runs. Mariano would struggle to put games away too if his defense behind him consistently botched routine plays like this infield has all year. Another blown save was vs Kansas City where the umpire blew the call on the game winning strikeout. That leaves 2 blown saves we can reasonably put on him. As wild as he’s been, there’s far more pressing issues on the team.

This is like taking a D3 running back in the first round.

When @Mantis Toboggan M.D. writes about how Brian Cashman tries to be the smartest guy in the room, this is what that looks like.

On MLB's prospect rankings they had Ben Hess 44th on their list.

The Yankees took him 26th.

You know what gets lost in that whole Moneyball thing? Billy Beane drafted Jeremy Brown in the first round in 2002 because he vastly overrated his ability to identify raw talent.

Brian Cashman has been drafting Jeremy Browns for 20 years.

I hope this Ben Hess kid becomes something. But historically, pitchers either have control or they don't.

It's not something they learn to harness as a pro. If you're in college and you're wild and throw hard, you're almost certainly destined to be a reliever. So congrats Cashman. The most likely outcome here is you saddled the Yankees with yet another 7th inning guy. And you took him 18 picks too early.

Like clockwork too. Then he’ll refuse to play the guy or trade him, ensuring the pick was wasted.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Something has to change, mostly the GM who brought these guys in when better options were right there to sign.

 

[Remote]

Something has to change, mostly the GM who brought these guys in when better options were right there to sign.

I'm most surprised by Verdugo.
I thought he'd make enough contact where even if he didn't hit 20 HR, he'd still bat around .270.

You didn't expect him to be an X factor but certainly a stable player. He hasn't even been that.

In a given year you could blame bad luck. But Cashman has had too many decisions blow up in his face for it to be dismissed as bad luck.

Anyone remember how last summer the Yankees said they would bring an outside stats analysis company to audit their processes? Then they backed away from that?

Yeah, about that....