2020 Yankee Off-Season Thread

[moonslav59]

We have plenty of potential. I don’t disagree there. But nothing blunts potential like expectations. If Sevy is to grow into an ace role, if German can be a decent human and keep his HR’s down, if Montgomery can be healthy and find a touch better command, if Tanaka can do what he does in the postseason all the time, if Paxton can stay healthy then this rotation takes the next step. But in order to do all of that or even some of it, we need a face of the rotation. That’s what getting CC in 09 was. Our rotation was led by CC. Didn’t matter that we had Pettitte and Burnett behind him, CC was THE guy. He was our stopped, our ace, our everything. With the current core of starters, we don’t have that. There is no stopped. It’s very “Next Man Up” style, but it doesn’t help in the playoffs against a juggernaut. I’m taking nothing away from the Astros. They were world champion level and added a future HOFer still pitching great. So they stacked their deck and kudos for going after it. But they’re gonna start to fall this offseason and with their fall will be our chance to rise. We need someone to lead that rotation in order to take that next step

 

Sevy was supposed to be "the face." The injury was unfortunate, and you guys had way more injuries beyond just him. I wouldn't get too down, considering all the missed time.

 

That being said, you are right. You need an ace. If Sevy is also one next year, then that's the true model for building a ring-worthy team. You've been telling us to follow your model of rebuilding. I'm telling you to follow ours for ring winning. Two aces = rings.

 

Pedro-Schilling

 

Beckett- Schilling

 

Lester- Lackey

 

Sale- Price

 

We never won with just one ace.

[jacksonianmarch]

That’s a plus minus, though. Sale wasn’t an ace when you won the WS. He was the first half of the season, but Eovaldi took the reins at the beginning of the POs. Price also wasn’t an ace last year. They peaked at the right time. We need an ace. A guy who plays well all the time, but especially when the chips are down

[moonslav59]

That’s a plus minus, though. Sale wasn’t an ace when you won the WS. He was the first half of the season, but Eovaldi took the reins at the beginning of the POs. Price also wasn’t an ace last year. They peaked at the right time. We need an ace. A guy who plays well all the time, but especially when the chips are down

 

We don't win without Sale and Price. It's not about them having to be aces every game of the year. Yes, you need other pieces, but the Sox history of ring winning involves picking up a second ace.

 

Pedro could not win by himself. We had to get Schilling.

 

Schilling could not win by himself. We had to get Beckett.

 

Lester could not win by himself. We had to get Lackey.

 

Price could not win by himself. We had to get Sale.

 

[TylerD]

We don't win without Sale and Price. It's not about them having to be aces every game of the year. Yes, you need other pieces, but the Sox history of ring winning involves picking up a second ace.

 

Pedro could not win by himself. We had to get Schilling.

 

Schilling could not win by himself. We had to get Beckett.

 

Lester could not win by himself. We had to get Lackey.

 

Price could not win by himself. We had to get Sale.

 

 

Well said!

 

I miss the days of eating KFC in the dugout. Lol

[jacksonianmarch]

We don't win without Sale and Price. It's not about them having to be aces every game of the year. Yes, you need other pieces, but the Sox history of ring winning involves picking up a second ace.

 

Pedro could not win by himself. We had to get Schilling.

 

Schilling could not win by himself. We had to get Beckett.

 

Lester could not win by himself. We had to get Lackey.

 

Price could not win by himself. We had to get Sale.

 

 

You probably don’t win the division without Sale that year, so I do agree there. But you also need to have guys taking up the mantle of postseason ace, which Sale clearly wasn’t. Sale took a nosedive and everyone picked him up. Porcello, Price and Eovaldi all just pitched to the best of their abilities for a month.

 

The Yanks need an ace. Not an ace from April to July like Severino. Not just an ace only in the POs like Tanaka. We need one of the rare birds that takes the ball on opening day, a guy you line up vs your rivals, a guy you line up for the first game of every series and a guy you try and maximize usage in crunch time of playoff series. That is all we are missing.

[moonslav59]

You probably don’t win the division without Sale that year, so I do agree there. But you also need to have guys taking up the mantle of postseason ace, which Sale clearly wasn’t. Sale took a nosedive and everyone picked him up. Porcello, Price and Eovaldi all just pitched to the best of their abilities for a month.

 

The Yanks need an ace. Not an ace from April to July like Severino. Not just an ace only in the POs like Tanaka. We need one of the rare birds that takes the ball on opening day, a guy you line up vs your rivals, a guy you line up for the first game of every series and a guy you try and maximize usage in crunch time of playoff series. That is all we are missing.

 

Winning the division was huge. Sale was a major reason we cruised into the playoffs without needing to play-in or have our best pitchers tired or on short rest to start the playoffs.

 

Having two aces allows you to win, if one falters in the playoffs.

 

Besides, Sale did pretty well vs the Yanks in the first round. Yes, Price and Eovaldi picked him up in the next rounds.

 

I do not think it was a fluke that the Sox have only won when we acquired a second ace to go with the one we already had, despite the two maybe not pitching like aces every game and through the playoffs.

[jacksonianmarch]

Hey, I'll take two aces. I'd love 3 or more. Heck, watch us get Cole, see Paxton have that second year acquisition surge in a Yankee uni and Sevy take the leap and have a 3 headed monster with our 4 being Tanaka. A man can dream can't he? Either way, I forgot about a guy who absolutely obliterated the baseball while he was in pinstripes in Mike Ford.

 

Mike Ford is another exit velo monster, but he didn't start that way. Ford is not your typical rookie. He is 27 yrs old. He was an undrafted 1b out of Princeton that I identify with. Not from a great pro baseball school, a 1b with above average but not standard positional height (6 foot even), who was a hitter but not a masher through college. The Yanks sign him, see he has great control of the strike zone and see his body type and assume power will come. He puts up high .300s OBP's while hitting 6-13 HRs through his first couple seasons then improves in an injury shortened 2016. He comes out in 2017 with an OBP over .400 and hits 20 bombs. He looked good enough for the Mariners to select him in the Rule V, but decide to keep Vogelbach instead of Ford. He comes back to NY and struggles in AAA in 2017 and contemplates retiring. He signs on as a MiLB FA again and finds his 2017 form yet adds major league power. His first taste of big league baseball saw him OPS .909 with 12 bombs in 50 games.

 

The reason why I am giving his story here is that he is going to spend a lot of time with the Yanks on the active roster in 2020. With Gardner and Didi likely heading off into the wilderness, we will need left handed mashers. As of right now, the only player capable of hitting left handed in our starting lineup is a switch hitter in Hicks. Tauchman may be our starting LFer as well, so he adds some left handedness that is badly needed for a team playing in Yankee Stadium. And while it does help us vs the Red Sox, we have become entirely vulnerable to right handed strikeout pitchers.

[jacksonianmarch]

So with Ford in the mix, if the Yanks allow their FA's to walk and Chap opts out, this is what we start with

 

C- Sanchez, Higashioka

1B- Voit, Ford

2B- Lemahieu, Estrada

SS- Torres, Wade

3B- Andujar, Urshela

LF- Stanton, Tauchman

CF- Hicks

RF- Judge

 

SP1- Severino

SP2- Paxton

SP3- Tanaka

SP4- German

SP5- Montgomery

LR- Happ

LR- Loaisiga

CL- Britton

SU- Ottavino

SU- Green

SU- Kahnle

MR- Heller

MR- Cessa

 

Not a bad starting point

[TylerD]

So with Ford in the mix, if the Yanks allow their FA's to walk and Chap opts out, this is what we start with

 

C- Sanchez, Higashioka

1B- Voit, Ford

2B- Lemahieu, Estrada

SS- Torres, Wade

3B- Andujar, Urshela

LF- Stanton, Tauchman

CF- Hicks

RF- Judge

 

SP1- Severino

SP2- Paxton

SP3- Tanaka

SP4- German

SP5- Montgomery

LR- Happ

LR- Loaisiga

CL- Britton

SU- Ottavino

SU- Green

SU- Kahnle

MR- Heller

MR- Cessa

 

Not a bad starting point

 

Pretty sure most teams would like that stuff! Yankees will compete next year for sure whether they made small changes or big changes.

[notin]

So with Ford in the mix, if the Yanks allow their FA's to walk and Chap opts out, this is what we start with

 

C- Sanchez, Higashioka

1B- Voit, Ford

2B- Lemahieu, Estrada

SS- Torres, Wade

3B- Andujar, Urshela

LF- Stanton, Tauchman

CF- Hicks

RF- Judge

 

SP1- Severino

SP2- Paxton

SP3- Tanaka

SP4- German

SP5- Montgomery

LR- Happ

LR- Loaisiga

CL- Britton

SU- Ottavino

SU- Green

SU- Kahnle

MR- Heller

MR- Cessa

 

Not a bad starting point

 

The names are obviously right, but I do not agree with the roles. No way is Montgomery in the rotation while Happ is in the bullpen. I know you were impressed with Montgomery's 2.6 fWAR in his last year, but he gained that value as an innings-eater. But once an innings-eater has TJ surgery, you cannot count on that same value going forward. It's not like he was that great of a pitcher.

 

I think at some point Deivi Garcia will work his way into the bullpen, probably in a role created by moving Cessa, Heller, or (my choice) Loasigia...

[notin]

Hey, I'll take two aces. I'd love 3 or more. Heck, watch us get Cole, see Paxton have that second year acquisition surge in a Yankee uni and Sevy take the leap and have a 3 headed monster with our 4 being Tanaka. A man can dream can't he? Either way, I forgot about a guy who absolutely obliterated the baseball while he was in pinstripes in Mike Ford.

 

Mike Ford is another exit velo monster, but he didn't start that way. Ford is not your typical rookie. He is 27 yrs old. He was an undrafted 1b out of Princeton that I identify with. Not from a great pro baseball school, a 1b with above average but not standard positional height (6 foot even), who was a hitter but not a masher through college. The Yanks sign him, see he has great control of the strike zone and see his body type and assume power will come. He puts up high .300s OBP's while hitting 6-13 HRs through his first couple seasons then improves in an injury shortened 2016. He comes out in 2017 with an OBP over .400 and hits 20 bombs. He looked good enough for the Mariners to select him in the Rule V, but decide to keep Vogelbach instead of Ford. He comes back to NY and struggles in AAA in 2017 and contemplates retiring. He signs on as a MiLB FA again and finds his 2017 form yet adds major league power. His first taste of big league baseball saw him OPS .909 with 12 bombs in 50 games.

 

The reason why I am giving his story here is that he is going to spend a lot of time with the Yanks on the active roster in 2020. With Gardner and Didi likely heading off into the wilderness, we will need left handed mashers. As of right now, the only player capable of hitting left handed in our starting lineup is a switch hitter in Hicks. Tauchman may be our starting LFer as well, so he adds some left handedness that is badly needed for a team playing in Yankee Stadium. And while it does help us vs the Red Sox, we have become entirely vulnerable to right handed strikeout pitchers.

 

I remember when Yanees' fans said that about Kevin Maas.

[Slasher9]

guessing they all have tee times tonight.....

[jacksonianmarch]

guessing they all have tee times tonight.....

 

The golf course was closed. The Sox haven’t been replacing their divots the last three weeks so they needed to replace the sod

[jacksonianmarch]

The names are obviously right, but I do not agree with the roles. No way is Montgomery in the rotation while Happ is in the bullpen. I know you were impressed with Montgomery's 2.6 fWAR in his last year, but he gained that value as an innings-eater. But once an innings-eater has TJ surgery, you cannot count on that same value going forward. It's not like he was that great of a pitcher.

 

I think at some point Deivi Garcia will work his way into the bullpen, probably in a role created by moving Cessa, Heller, or (my choice) Loasigia...

 

That’s not really true at all. TJS, for the majority of the guys who get it, is a setback but changes little. Montgomery is going to get every chance to win the 5th starter role. Now shoulder surgery is a crap shoot and I’m entirely on your side with that. But TJS, especially with him being almost 20 months beyond it by ST could actually make him stronger

[notin]

That’s not really true at all. TJS, for the majority of the guys who get it, is a setback but changes little. Montgomery is going to get every chance to win the 5th starter role. Now shoulder surgery is a crap shoot and I’m entirely on your side with that. But TJS, especially with him being almost 20 months beyond it by ST could actually make him stronger

 

Or it could make him Jarrod Parker or Nathn Eovaldi.Historically, a TJ surgery has a shelf life of about 600 innings, and that's when nothing goes wrong. The Yankees might get 3 years out of Montgomery, but his value is in eating innings, not in being an outstanding pitcher. He's mediocre at best, and not likely to replace Happ in the rotation...

[jacksonianmarch]

That’s entirely stupid and you know it. Happ didn’t exactly give us quality or quantity

[bkzwhitestrican]

Happ could be good again if they revert to the pre-juiced ball. He actually looked pretty good in the postseason.

[jacksonianmarch]

Here is the deal with Happ, he sucked for the majority of 2019. He did improve come September and maybe he ends up being good next year. But there is no way we are giving him that chance. He has a $17 mil option for 2021 that vests with 27 starts or 165IP in 2020. We have a viable option who replicated a recent Happ season in 2017 before going down. He is young and we have 3 more years of control of him. We are gonna exhaust his options before we turn to Happ

[Fan_since_Boggs]

we have become entirely vulnerable to right handed strikeout pitchers.

 

This is the reason the Yankees got their asses kicked against the Astros and would have been destroyed by the Nats pitching staff. The bigger question is why didn't Cashman get something simple like this figured out before he put the 2019 team together?

 

The Yankees are not only desperate for an ace, a Cole or Strasburg, but they also must do something to change/improve the lineup in order to play winning baseball in October.

 

And they will need to resign Chapman; otherwise, the bullpen will take a huge step backwards.

[Slasher9]

Yankees window is closed. cliff looming.

they just dont have good enough players. poor FA signings. poor drafting. kids in the Farm just arent going to get them over the top. they have zero pitching and will continue to ignore this glaring weakness. 2 pump chumps...

[jacksonianmarch]

Nice sarcasm.

[notin]

Happ could be good again if they revert to the pre-juiced ball. He actually looked pretty good in the postseason.

 

In less than 4 innings...

[jacksonianmarch]

In less than 4 innings...

 

Happ was a reliever in the postseason.

 

Listen, Happ is gonna be 37 yrs old and has a contract that behooves us to not play him. Montgomery is younger, cheaper and under control for longer. He gets every chance to take the 5 spot. Happ would have to be more than better than JMont to take that spot, and that is assuming Happ is even on the team. There is a chance Happ is dealt this offseason with money going with him. We don't need a below average old man long reliever at $17 mil

[Carpin]

Or it could make him Jarrod Parker or Nathn Eovaldi.Historically, a TJ surgery has a shelf life of about 600 innings, and that's when nothing goes wrong. The Yankees might get 3 years out of Montgomery, but his value is in eating innings, not in being an outstanding pitcher. He's mediocre at best, and not likely to replace Happ in the rotation...

 

I read somewhere that he gained a couple miles in his FB, let's see how he looks in ST

 

BTW, in his rookie year he looked more like a back of the rotation kind of guy, mediocre is a little harsh, leave that for the guys who can't hold a rotation spot at least like a #5,

[Meh]

Yankees window is closed. cliff looming.

they just dont have good enough players. poor FA signings. poor drafting. kids in the Farm just arent going to get them over the top. they have zero pitching and will continue to ignore this glaring weakness. 2 pump chumps...

 

Can't tell if you're being seriosu lol

[jacksonianmarch]

I read somewhere that he gained a couple miles in his FB, let's see how he looks in ST

 

BTW, in his rookie year he looked more like a back of the rotation kind of guy, mediocre is a little harsh, leave that for the guys who can't hold a rotation spot at least like a #5,

 

That happens a lot in pitchers who have TJS. Montgomery might be more 93-94 next year, who knows

[jacksonianmarch]

I have our next target. Yoshi Tsutsugo, lefty power hitting OFer being posted this November. 27 yr old power hitter with great patience, might cost around what Gardy costs but should be a good for awhile as opposed to Gardner who is fighting Father Time.

[Carpin]

I have our next target. Yoshi Tsutsugo, lefty power hitting OFer being posted this November. 27 yr old power hitter with great patience, might cost around what Gardy costs but should be a good for awhile as opposed to Gardner who is fighting Father Time.

 

I heard he's a Schwarber type of player, a good bat with a bellow average glove, don't know about this could be interesting but the good thing is that Gardner shows up every day with an above average glove around the OF

[jacksonianmarch]

Gardner was a plus defender in 2019. Any chance it’s the same in 2020? I don’t want to depend on Gardner only to have Father Time strip him of his abilities. He’s fine as a backup, but he’s probably looking at a multi year deal after 2019 and I don’t want to pay that.

[notin]

I have our next target. Yoshi Tsutsugo, lefty power hitting OFer being posted this November. 27 yr old power hitter with great patience, might cost around what Gardy costs but should be a good for awhile as opposed to Gardner who is fighting Father Time.

 

Does the posting cost count towards the luxury tax?

 

If it doesn't, Tsutsugo is more likely to be on Boston's radar than the Yankees, who already have a glut of outfielders and have more pressing needs in the rotation.

 

Whoever does sign this guy needs to have it in his contract that the walk up song for Tsutsugo (pronounced "Sue-sue-go") is Phil Collins' "Sussudio"....