For the record, I’m not certain about the outcome in October. Not at all. You can never be certain about predicting the future. What I can be certain about is what has already happened to date and whether there are logical connections or correlations between the inputs and the observed outputs. In other words, is there reason to believe one of the inputs (fastball rate) is increasing the chance of a negative output (outcome of a game)? To date, I have not seen evidence of that. In fact, we’ve seen the opposite. Predictive modeling is a big part of what I do every day. A rigorous methodology and a large sample can provide powerful insights even in complicated data sets.
Fair enough. Now let's just hope Tanaka isn't bound for the DL. He looked like me tagging up on that sac fly, and I'm 65.
I'm sorry, but pitchers hitting should become a thing of the past. First it was Wang in Houston, now Tanaka at Citi. I hope nothing happens to Sevy if he has to run the bases tonight.
What's even worse is seeing an AL pitcher square around to lay down a sacrifice bunt against a 90+ fastball. You know what the book tells a pitcher to do in that situation. Come up and in with heat. Some of these AL pitchers haven't batted regularly since high school. That's a disaster just waiting to happen.
Not a great outing for Sonny, but it could've been worse. The offense is in a bit of a funk, not scoring more than 4 runs since last Tuesday. Doesn't get any easier with Snell going for Tampa tonight.
His guaranteed contract runs through 2019 and 2020 at $21 million per year. Would the Yankees eat that and release him? Ellsbury stands as a testament to the Yankees' old, discredited way of doing business: signing a declining veteran to a long-term deal. They lost Cano to free agency, so they rushed out and signed this guy. I don't think his injuries are any surprise to those who followed his career in Boston. Didn't Red Sox fans call him DLsbury? Ellsbury makes Yeonis Cespdes look like Lou Gehrig or Cal Ripken.
I hope that they will play the best players regardless of contract status especially when it comes to Ellsbury. I'd feel differently if this was a player in his prime and suffered from bad luck. Releasing A-Rod with a year and 1.5 months left on his contract gives me hope that they'll do something similar with Ellsbury.
Releasing A-Rod was a different story because it didn't involve Cashman's ego. Don't forget that when A-Rod opted out in 2007, Cashman strongly recommended that the team not re-sign him, but George (or his lackeys) overruled him. Thus, A-Rod's release had an element of "I told you so" to it. Ellsbury's contract, on the other hand, is all on Cashman. Frankly, Scott Boras really suckered him because I can't believe any other team would have given Ellsbury anywhere near the amount of money or length of contract that Cashman offered.
But the fact that they played Hicks in CF and Gardy in LF during the playoffs last year is evidence that he's not putting a guy who's the lesser player out there because he's getting paid a ton. Next year, they have Stanton, Hicks, Judge, and Frazier for outfield depth. I'm assuming that Gardy isn't brought back. Plus Ells is 35 come opening day next year. Odds are he's gonna be in decline even if he's healthy. I have to believe that the FO realizes this and will try to convince Hal to bite the bullet and cut Ells at the end of this season, if not sooner.
I think they'll keep Ellsbury on the DL as long as possible (i.e., until Boras claims Ellsbury's healthy and threatens a grievance). At that point, they may have to fish or cut bait and release him. Just remember that the moment they release him, there will be all kinds of stories dredging up the details or his contract and arguing that this is the worst Yankee contract of all time. Someone will run a story on the Top 5 worst contracts of the Cashman era. I'm sure Cashman is not looking forward to that. The only scenario that makes sense for keeping him as long as they can is this: let's assume that an outfielder (probably Frazier) becomes part of a big trade for a starting pitcher this year. There goes some of the outfield depth. Let's assume further that one or more outfielders gets hurt. Then, and only then, would a healthy Ellsbury (is that an oxymoron or what?) be useful to have. Maybe that's why Cashman hasn't bitten the bullet yet.
We'll have to wait and see what happens. Something tells me that the Yankees don't miss Ellsbury one bit now. I don't think Frazier is untouchable, but he should be dealt only for a pitcher who is good and controlled beyond this year.
