jacksonianmarch

Paxton is hurt, and again, water is wet

Chatter that Schmidt is the leader right now for the 5th spot in the rotation

That newly 20 yr old has some pop, eh?

Our pen is absolutely loaded. Our issue in the pen is two fold. 1. We have one lefty in Peralta, and while he was awesome vs lefties last year, he is usually better vs righties 2. We have Boone managing it. Boone manages the regular season like we are in the World Series, especially early on. He rides the hot hand until they break. He needs to be a little less win at all costs early on to preserve Holmes, king et al. I do agree our offense can be suspect. We will demolish bad or average pitching. We struggle against high powered arms and that has to change

I do love Jones and this he will be the pick to pop in 23. Kid is enormous, has stupid exit velocities, made good contact, steals bases, and has a cannon. He should demolish High A and reach AA mid year. I would not be surprised if he ends up a top 30 prospect at season's end. I also like Wells. He is tough to pinpoint. He does everything well, but nothing exceptional. Good eye, ok contact, good enough power, steals bases but not a ton, good arm but not great, improved blocking but not elite. He is not the high ceiling guy most people wish and pray on for minor leaguers, but he could be the most likely player to be a good regular with a few seasons of all star caliber play. I know the Yanks keep propping him up as a catcher, but I think he is a 1B/COF long term and will be a .280/.350/.430 guy with 20-25 bombs on the regular Dominguez also gets a lot of flack, although he is only 20 years old. He literally turned 20 this month. He will spend the entire 2023 season under the legal drinking age. When he was promoted to AA, he was a good 5 years younger than the average player. What I love about this kid is he steadily improved against older competition. He showed elite base stealing skills. Started to show big power from both sides. Started to make more contact. Played a great CF. And he is only scratching the surface. I love Jones and think he's a dangerous jump kind of prospect. Dominguez is the kind of kid who could end up the #1 prospect in baseball for 2024

I find it interesting that Bleis is top 20 in fangraphs and on not top 100 on bleacher report or MLB.

Yanks are bringing back a better team for 2023. Rodon is a definite upgrade to this rotation. He slots into Montgomery's slot from last year. People seem to forget Montgomery was a solid back end guy with NY. He did to go StL and light it up, but in NY he was a serviceable 4 or 5. Rodon has been CY candidate the last two years, so pairing him with Cole at the top is a big upgrade. Outside of Montas, they enter 2023 pretty healthy. We got a good year out of Sevy and he is unscathed right now making the rotation 4 top notch starters deep. Cortes strained a hammy but he's already pitching again. On defense, we add a true blue GG CFer in Bader who pushed Judge back to his GG position in RF. Cabrera in LF and his defensive prowess turns a stretch OF into a lockdown defensive outfield. Lemahieu starts out healthy. He and Donaldson will cover the defensive game at 3b well as they both are GG caliber infielders. IKF and Peraza at SS should turn that position into a defensive plus. Rizzo and Trevino are defensive pluses. Torres is the only defensive minus on the field. On the offensive side is where we have some concerns. Adding Bader and subbing out Hicks should help. Adding Cabrera and subbing out our rotating door of s*** in LF could help or he could be the next kid to pop and then fade and we need to replace him. Peraza should push IKF out of the position at some point and upgrade the O from that position. The removal of the shift should help the bigger bashers in 2023. Rizzo should see a jump in his BA. Stanton should see a bump as well. The biggest question I have is, will the removal of the shift have these guys aiming to make more contact? Once the shift was prevalent, the bigger bombers altered launch angle and saw enormous jumps in K's. If we move back to a more contact driven approach, we could see some positive offensive results. Then again, this lineup has proven to go dormant against good pitching. I know most lineups can go dormant against good pitching, but the Yanks can go from league leading run totals to frustratingly impotent for prolonged stretches. I still question if they have the personnel to win the big games against the big pitchers. But I have little doubt that this team, if reasonably healthy, should run away with this division

Donaldson is likely to be the LHP platoon mate at 3b, so not the biggest role And 32-33 is now old? You are reaching again

The Sox will be a 4th or 5th place team and you know it

Turner might do very well in Boston. Or he might succumb to father time. Either way, his performance is moot on a team that is gonna s*** the bed

Yanks starting pitching will be dynamite if they can stay healthy. Their upside outstrips nearly every rotation in baseball. They have some depth with Schmidt already on the big league roster and Brito, Vasquez, Warren and Gomez in the high minors. I am not really worried about the pitching. They've got the arms in the pen and rotation and then in the minors to be a dominant staff. But they need to hit good pitching and they've almost been entirely incapable of doing so the past 3-4 years

Read them and weep? The sox are predicted to be 9 games worse than the yanks and you're happy?

With the players reporting, it is time to renew the year's old tradition of the Yankees in season thread. This year promises to be one of intrigue and hope while also having a strong possibility of rage and disappointment. The Yanks came off a strong start to 2022 with a dud of a second half. They rallied to move onto the ALCS but got stomped by the Astros, who still have their number. They saw their offense wilt as the year went on and instead of add to the offense, they stood pat and added to the pitching staff. They do have some very solid young players right on the brink of being ready and a young UTIL guy in Oswaldo Cabrera who is likely to be starting in LF on opening day. If the kids come through, we should be hanging banner 28. If the offense stumbles again, we will not be close to that lofty goal. In terms of offense... C: Trevino, backup Higgy. We got a gold glove performance and an unexpected offensive renaissance from Trevino. Asking him to hit like this again is likely a fools errand, but the kid can catch. Higgy is a quality backup with some pop. Yanks do not need to add here. They do have Austin Wells coming down the pipe, but he might be moved off position. Beyond these two, depth is low 1B: Rizzo- Rizzo had a banner year in 22. He is a lefty power hitter in YS and should be helped by the banning of the shift. If he can stay healthy and avoid back woes, he could post stupid numbers in 23 2B: Torres- long rumored to be dealt, the Yanks held onto him and decided to upgrade the rotation via straight cash. Torres had a very solid 22 season and is heading into his prime. His issue is too many deep valleys. If he can get some level of consistency as he enters his prime, he could be a deadly bat in this order. Should the Yankees get the push from Volpe they are expecting, Torres could be an interesting trade piece at the deadline if he continues to be frustratingly hot and cold SS: IKF will start, but this will be Peraza's job by June. IKF is a solid defender with a good bat to ball skill and baserunning skill who otherwise brings nothing offensively to the table. Peraza has the glove to stick and the bat to hit for average and probably 20ish bombs a year. 3B: Lemahieu- If DJ is healthy, he is the starting 3b on this team. Donaldson will see time, likely vs lefties, which will drop Lemahieu's stat line a bit. It will be important to get Donaldson some ABs as Lemahieu has proven to be a bit fragile LF: Cabrera- kid put up some video game level defensive numbers in his 44 games and got hot at the end of the season. He could be a very sneaky level player for the Yanks who could have high OBP and power numbers mixed with stellar defensive numbers to produce a surprising WAR. Or he could come into the year and not make the adjustments teams will invariably do and end up back in Scranton. Hicks will be backing him up. Hicks is essentially a corpse at this point CF: Bader- love this guy. GG level defense with some pop mixed in. Offense might be average, but should shine with the baserunning and might see a lot of good pitches to hit in this lineup. He's also going into FA after 23, so he's a pick to pop RF: Judge- all rise. Guy is a future HOFer. Team far too reliant on his performance. Expecting another 22 is stupid. But with no shift, his numbers might inflate DH: Stanton- guy is a world beater when healthy, but he rarely is. Last year he started off on fire, cooled off a bit and then got hurt. Came back looking like his legs were gone. They need to look at him and DJ and essentially treat them like fragile china dolls to nurse them to health by PO time. A healthy Stanton in the POs can yield some dividends Overall- I see the Yanks offense crushing bad teams and still being handled by good pitching. They don't have the guys who work counts like they used to have beyond Judge and they lack a lot of contact skill to counteract the high octane K pitchers. The only counter here is the shift. Bashers took the biggest hit when the shift started. Their screaming liners into the pull side went from hits to outs and their averages plummeted. If the shift allows these bombers to see higher averages, then we could enter territory we have not seen since 2009 SPI: Cole- ace level guy who gets a bad rap. He's been nails for the Yanks, unless he faces Devers SP2: Rodon- Likely to be a 5+ IP pitcher but can be dominant. Yankee stadium has been good to lefties and this guy is a good one SP3: Sevy- in his walk year and after a year where the Yanks mothballed him for 2 months against his will, he will be looking for a big springboard year before FA. I expect him to have a monster year SP4: Cortes- I love this guy. Reminds me of old school pitchers and has the stuff and location to match. Should have a solid season as long as he is healthy SP5: German- I think German wins this role. He's got a deep arsenal and has proven capable of being a back end starter. I know Schmidt is the higher end pick, but Schmidt is also the better reliever due to his high GB rate and wipeout slider. CL: Holmes- if healhy, he will dominate SU: Trivino- was nails after coming over to NY SU: Kahnle- coming off two injured seasons but showed top notch stuff at end of 22. Could be a steal MR: Peralta- coming off a dominant year, should be in the mix for saves when Holmes is out MR: Loaisiga- was dominant in 21, stunk to start 22 and ended being dominant MR: King- outside chance he makes it onto the OD roster. I am leery about elbow fractures, but if he shows the same stuff as before, he will jump the pecking list MR: Marinaccio- dominant start to his career. Firmly affixed in the Yanks plans Overall, this team should be even better with the more balanced schedule. The AL East was a buzzsaw and they won 99 games. They should eclipse 100 with the other divisions having very little depth and the Yanks not seeing their own division as much. The biggest question will come in the POs. Can the team arrive there with their stars not banged up. Can they have some jobs be taken by hot shot kids. Can they hit now that the shift is dead? Can they make enough contact against dominant pitchers? Lots of questions, but still should be a good year for the boys in the Bronx. Go Yanks

I hear you thunder. I started a side business that's rapidly turning into my primary business. Less free time to post!

I am still surprised Henry let the summer be dictated by the Bruins and Celtics. This iteration of the sox is embarrassing

Hamstring strains in February are not news Forearm strains in February for pitchers are news

Bello was just shut down with "forearm soreness"

But the narrative above should tell the Yankees one thing. Stop going into seasons with holes and then overpaying to fill them at the deadline!

We got two good years out of Taillon, so the Contreras trade isn’t awful Bader is a damn good CFer and one year of him be one year for Montgomery for this team leans towards Bader for what we need The Beni trade was a good one at the time as we gave up no near prospects. Nobody could predict he’d be hurt The Wesneski for Effross deal made little sense. I liked Effross, don’t get me wrong, but Wesneski was MLB ready and had the stuff to be better than Effross maybe even at the deadline itself Montas deal is a nuclear disaster Here’s the problem the yanks run into. They had a ton of good prospects who were coming up on Rule V eligibility AND a WS contending active roster. I don’t dislike dealing the guys we did, I do dislike dealing for Effross and Montas who were either one hit wonders or actively injured

Montas was going to be a luxury this year. We needed Montas last year and he crapped out. This is why you don’t trade for pitchers who just came off the IL for a shoulder issue

Montas down for the year. What a s***** trade

I’m still a bit peeved at the roster construction. Yes, we’ve got kids coming up that are impressive. Yes, we’ve got an internal candidate who “could” win the LF job. But here’s the rub for the Yanks. They were unwilling to go past the next cap level right now. Once the season starts, Yanks will do very well but they’ll have a need, probably in the OF. They’ll spend prospect capital AND have to surpass that last cap level to fix the problem. Should have just spent the cash now and save the prospect capital.

Maybe the schedule helps, but it’ll also help the better teams. Also, the AL east got better this off-season yet the Sox got worse.

I’d bet the under on Devers. Only because he’s gonna play the Yankees less this year

I’m still rather perplexed at this team’s makeup. You lose JD and replace him with the OF from Japan. You lose Eovaldi, who’s been your ace and replace him with Kluber, who’s a major step down. You lose Xander and don’t replace him. Story gets hurt and you replace him with another hurt player. You add in Duvall to shift Kike to the infield. It’s a lot of shifting, short term flexibility type roster spots full of guys coming in either unknown or off injured or down years. It seems to be the Sox latest quest to confuse the masses into thinking they aren’t in a rebuild