Yankees – No Deal? No Problem.

Posted on by Charlie Ricker

As Monday afternoon’s 4:00 PM trade deadline quickly approached, I rapidly refreshed Twitter to see if the New York Yankees made a deal to bolster themselves for the stretch run.

Four o’clock came and went, and word finally came in from a few beat writers. Yankees GM Brian Cashman didn’t pull the trigger on anything.

It’s a fair point. The Yankees have a number of big names on the injured list, most of them are expected back this season. Giancarlo Stanton (left hamstring), Gleyber Torres (left hamstring/quad) and Aaron Judge (right calf) will return before season’s end. Reliever Zack Britton (hamstring) and Kyle Higashioka (oblique) made their returns last night against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Although it would have been nice to add a starting pitcher like Kevin Gausman, as I wrote about last week, I think the Yankees have enough to get by as long as their current starters pitch close to their capabilities. J.A. Happ and Deivi García were stellar in their last outings (García’s MLB debut).

With sixteen teams making the playoffs in this crazy year that is 2020, the Yankees just have to play well enough to get in. Once the playoffs start, anything can happen. The hottest team at the time makes the longest playoff run. It’s happened before. The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series with a regular season record of 83-78. Historically, many 90 win teams have missed the postseason! Cashman was right to not mortgage the future. There is no reason to trade the team’s very best prospects in a year when more than half the teams in Major League Baseball will reach the postseason.

So let’s see what happens when the big guys come back. Let Judge, Stanton and Gleyber heal up for the playoffs. There is enough on hand to get them there.

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Gausman Makes Sense for Yankees

Posted on by Charlie Ricker

With only five days left until Major League Baseball‘s trade deadline, aspiring playoff teams are looking to add players to enhance their chances of winning a World Series title.

The New York Yankees are one of those teams. One area the Yankees would like to shore up is pitching. James Paxton is on the IL for an undefined time with a forearm strain, his team could use another starting pitcher. All Yankees starters *not* named Gerrit Cole have an ERA of 4.60 or higher. The Bronx Bombers need rotation help.

Kevin Gausman of the San Francisco Giants is reportedly available in trade, according to Yankees beat writer Brendan Kuty of NJ.com.

Gausman is on a one-year contract for a rebuilding team, and be had for a modest price. The eight-year veteran has always been up and down, but had some dominating performances this year. His spin-rates are higher on all pitches, and has struck-out a career-best 12.2 per nine innings, while touching 99 mph. Finally, Gausman is familiar with pitching in the heat of the AL East, spending six years with the Baltimore Orioles.

Teams have a few days left to make deals, so it will be interesting to see who does what. The Yankees will be in that mix.

National League Trade Deadline Winners/Losers

Posted on by Charlie Ricker

This past Tuesday, the MLB non-waiver trade deadline passed at 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Some teams added and some teams subtracted, and some teams didn’t do a thing! In our last entry, we took a look at the trade deadline winners and losers in the AL. This time around, we will assess the teams in the National League that loaded up and those who missed the boat. Let’s get started!

 

Winners

 

Los Angeles Dodgers – The Dodgers front office team of Pres. Andrew Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi landed Manny Machado from the Orioles, pried Brian Dozier from the Twins, and still managed to keep three of MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects in their system, including #29 prospect Alex Verdugo. LA had a slew of young talent in their system, using them in trades to stack their team for a deep playoff run. In a lesser deal, reliever John Axford was brought in from Toronto for pitcher Corey Copping. The Dodger lineup is loaded, their pitching is more than solid and they dropped 21 runs on the Brewers last night. I think they will be okay.

 

Atlanta Braves – The Braves weren’t expected to be this good, this quick, but here they are a half-game behind the 1st place Philadelphia Phillies. General Manager Alex Anthopoulos was a busy man, bring in starter Kevin Gausman and relievers Darren O’Day and Brad Brach from the Baltimore Orioles for a handful of prospects and future considerations. On deadline day, the Braves landed LF Adam Duvall from Cincinnati in exchange for LF Preston Tucker, RHP Matt Wisler and RHP prospect Lucas Sims. And on July 27, Anthopoulous brought back lefty reliever Jonny Venters back to the Braves organization where he began his career eight years ago. Venters has very much been a feel good story in 2018, having returned to the major leagues for the first time since 2012, after many years of elbow problems. The Braves made these trades and still have a deep farm system. They addressed most of their needs, and should be a tough team to beat this season and for many seasons to come.

 

Losers

 

Washington Nationals – The Nationals did absolutely nothing to add to their team as the trade deadline came and went. The only deals made prior to the 4:00 EST deadline on July 31, was shipping righty reliever Brandon Kintzler to the Chicago Cubs for RHP Jhon Romero. Kintzler was reported to be a clubhouse snitch in an article published by Yahoo’s Jeff Passan, saying the Nationals’ clubhouse was “a mess”. On July 22, OF Brian Goodwin was shipped to Kansas City for a lower level RHP prospect. Back on June 18, Rizzo made a deal with the Royals, adding future free agent Kelvin Herrera in return for three low-level minor league prospects, but he’s been unreliable, pitching to the tune of a 4.30 ERA and a FIP of 6.58. There were rumblings on Twitter about GM Mike Rizzo making RF and soon-to-be free agent Bryce Harper available via trade, but Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post sent out a tweet that the Nats were holding on to Harper, saying “I believe in this team”.

 

Colorado Rockies – Owners Dick and Charlie Monfort invested heavily this past offseason, adding closer Wade Davis, reliever Bryan Shaw and signing OF Charlie Blackmon to a long-term contract extension. As of this writing, the Rockies are 58-51, two games out of first place in the NL West. They are winning games, but it’s only because the Rockies are hitting the dog-snot out of the ball. Davis and Shaw have ERA’s that better resemble long distance area codes, as does lefty reliever Jake McGee. GM Jeff Bridich would have done well to add another reliable reliever for the pen and another starter to help out the rotation, but all he came up with was 35 year old Seunghwan Oh from the Toronto Blue Jays. Even that move came at a cost, with the Jays getting 1B Chad Spanberger and 2B/OF Forrest Wall (2014 1st round pick) in return. With the aforementioned Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks making moves to improve their teams, it’s easy to see them distancing themselves from the Rockies in the next two months.

Not a Good Night for MLB Umpires

Posted on by Charlie Ricker

Last night was not a banner night for MLB umpires. The ongoing abomination that is the Baltimore Orioles vs. Boston Red Sox series continued to provide more drama last night. In the bottom of the 2nd inning, Kevin Gausman hit Xander Bogaerts in the fanny with a 77 mph curveball and was quickly ejected by home-plate umpire Sam Holbrook.

I am not sure what Sam Holbrook was thinking, because he’s been an umpire for many years and he wasn’t made a crew-chief by accident. There’s no question him and his crew needed to be on “high alert” (as Holbrook claims) given the recent animosity between the two clubs, but ejecting Gausman without so much as a warning is absurd at best.

Unfortunately, there was more to come for umpire Holbrook. In the top of the 5th inning, Adam Jones was tossed out of the game for voicing his displeasure with a called strike on a high curveball from Boston starter Drew Pomeranz.

Given everything Jones endured during this series, I think Holbrook should have just let him have his say, and he was already walking back to the dugout when he ejected him. Holbrook should have just let it go, given the circumstances.

Meanwhile, shoddy umpiring wasn’t confined to Fenway Park last night. In the Bronx, home-plate umpire Bill Welke didn’t have his finest night. It wasn’t as rough a night as Sam Holbrook, but it’s enough to warrant mentioning.

Throughout the game, Welke’s strike-zone was inconsistent and roughly the size of a postage stamp. He heard from both New York Yankees players as well as the Toronto Blue Jays.

The normally very mild-mannered Brett Gardner took exception to a called strike by Welke and destroyed a dugout recycling bin after his 6th inning at-bat.

 

Yankees manager Joe Girardi got the boot for voicing his displeasure over Welke’s inconsistency. All in all, the evening of May 3rd, 2017 wasn’t the finest day in baseball history for MLB.