Yankees (and other MLB) off season (edited title)

The Game Room
1

Continuing the discussion from MLB 2021 Playoffs:

I agree it is time for a new Manager and new coaches. Boone is close to useless and Nevin has been terrible long before last night.

On Gallo, the Yanks control him next season via arbitration. But boy did he have a poor audition this year.

Gardner should finally be gone. Just pay him off and say nice things, but move on already.

You forgot about Hicks, easy to do. But if movable, move him.

I agree, get a deal done with Judge. He wants to be a Yankee for life, help make it happen.

Do we try to move Stanton coming off an excellent season, especially the final 2 months?

I like Rizzo and what he brings. Trying to sign him is a good plan.

Why move Urshela? Still 2 more years in Arb and a solid player.

Not sure what we would get for Sanchez or Frazier. Frazier still has 3 years of Arb coming up.

Chapman only has one more year. He gets 16m for it. Maybe you can move him.

Obviously Gleyber Torres should stay at 2nd. 3 yrs of arb starting next season.

Luke Voit is another one that they should try to move. 3 yrs of arb starting next season.

(final year of control)
So the Rotation: Gerrit Cole (2028), Severino (2023), Jameson Taillon (2022), Jordan Montgomery (2024), Domingo German (2024), Nestor Cortes Jr.* (2025) Michael King (2025)
Free Agents: Corey Kluber, I say let him walk.

2

That one game should have absolutely no bearing on off season decision making. The fact that the fate of a 162 game season actually rests on the results of a single game is more than absurd! You can look at the top 4 teams in each league and find games they lost to absolute dogs. Heck, the White Sox were actually swept in a 3 game series by Detroit … yes, DETROIT! :nauseated_face: That’s the nature of baseball.

What they need to do is cut that ridiculously long 162 games down to the original 154 and expand the playoffs so that they are ALL seven game series.

3

When Urshela first came to the Yankees, he was solid. Great defense and a decent bat. But his offensive production has dropped off in my opinion. Plenty of heart, great glove, but I’d like more offensive punch.

If I had my druthers, I’d have LeMehieu at 3B (not his best position but he’s adequate), Velasquez at SS, Torres at 2B, and Rizzo at 1B.

The OF is a question for me. Gardner is close to his expiration date. Judge and Stanton (now that they’ve actually been healthy and productive for a whole season) are solid. I don’t see Hicks coming back. If Florial pans out, that would be great. I think they need to pursue an elite CF. Gallo was lackluster this year, but we know he’s got talent. I think one more year for him, then sign or trade.

Then there’s catching. Gotta enter the market. Sanchez is a passed ball sieve back there, and he has only two offensive modes: hotter than hell or positively worthless. Higashioka is a solid backstop but not enough bat.

I think there’s more than enough pitching, if we could get a manager who doesn’t insist on bringing in a fresh arm in the 9th despite someone being lights out in the 8th.

More than anything- time for a new manager.

4

If you’re going to do this, then either get rid of the wild cards or get rid of the concept of divisions altogether. Going to 7 game series gives wild cards a relative advantage and diminish the value of the regular season.

5

Velasquez is a fully formed player. He’s 27 and on his 4th team. He’s a career .180 hitter with no power. Fans got romantic over him because he had a good two weeks. There is absolutely no way he should be their starting SS next year. If they can’t make a move at that position then it’s Gio’s until the youngsters are ready. They are very strong on the farm at SS. They may wait on that position and work on other positions because of the prospects.

6

Gallo. They own him. He’s not going anywhere.

Gardner has a players option next year. He’s supposed to be a part time player now. He’s still fine in that role. The rest just have to stay healthy.

Frazier: not movable. Who would want him? He would have to prove he can play. Hicks has no worth if he can’t stay healthy or show he can perform.

Stanton’s contract makes him unmovable. He’s not going anywhere.

Rizzo should be resigned. I don’t know if he wants to stay.

If they go after a big name SS Torres will be moved. With the prospects working their way up

If they can upgrade at catcher great. Who is really available? There are plenty of good field no hit catchers. Do they really need that?

Voit should go but they don’t know if they can keep Rizzo. Someone has to play first

Cashman will stay. Boone will stay. There will be some coaching shake ups.

7

I think it is the other way around. A single game gives the Wild Cards the big advantage because anyone can win one game. Baltimore could conceivably knock out the Giants in just one game. The best of seven format requires pitching depth and cuts way down on the luck factor.

8

I was going through my Facebook memories this week, and I was dogging on the Wild Card game (this was a couple of years before the 2014 ALWC game made me a convert…)

A friend of mine had an awesome suggestion:

Make the Wild Card game a 3 game series, with the first 2 games being a doubleheader. All 3 games hosted by Wid Card team #1.

I’d prefer a 7 or even 5 game series, but this would be a decent compromise.

9

I don’t like that the WC team is automatically the road team if it makes the LCS. Suppose LA makes the NLCS against either Atlanta or Milwaukee. It will not have the home field advantage, despite having a far superior record compared to either of them. This because they happened to be in the same division as the Giants. I get having the WC play the best team in the DS and not having the home field edge, but the home field in the LCS should either be random or be based on record and ignore WC status.

What I’d really like: each league has 4 divisions of four teams. No wild cards. Home field and first round opponents on rotating basis like it used to be. No interleague play.

10

Boone got 92 wins out of a team that wasn’t anywhere near that good. The offense was dreadful and it’s not Boone’s fault that guys didn’t hit. The Yankees basically had three good hitters, and one of them is a catcher who sucks at catching.

The Yankees’ weakness was offense. If you want to improve them you need to replace the guys who didn’t hit with guys that can, or just hope some guys who didn’t hit just had off years.

11

As long as we’re dreaming, expand the majors to 36 teams and have 16 teams make the playoffs. Reduce the schedule to 154 games or thereabouts so you’re not forced to play into November. Then have a 5-game series in the first round.

12

A big advantage over who? They’re both wild card teams, and by not winning their division they get thrown into a crap shoot game. At first I hated the idea of a second wild card team, but it actually makes winning your division more important. It puts the team winning the wild card game in a hole going into the divisional series, as it should be.

13

The qualifier is it depends on if your team loses the wild card game. Then, it’s a massive injustice and a longer series would have been more fair, division winner or not.

14

I’m absolutely in for that. It would be a boon for the league, from MLB to the minors that lost so many teams to the contractions this year.

15

If your team doesn’t want to be put in the crap shoot of a wild card game then they should win the division. The three teams that win their divisions should have an advantage - which is that they don’t have to play a 1 game elimination. The team that has the best record in the league should have an advantage - which is they get to play a team that just spent their best pitcher in a wild card game.

If the wild card game just affected the seeding, teams wouldn’t try so hard to win their division. But now there’s a significant disadvantage to being a wild card team, making the endless regular season games more important and therefore interesting.

It’s not perfect, but I also don’t want to be playing baseball into Thanksgiving.

16

Oh, I’m agreeing with you.

Just saying that some Yankee fans may be feeling a bit grumpy today.

17

I’m a Red Sox fan, not grumpy just tired. And I don’t think we’ll beat Tampa, partly because of the WC game and partly because I think Tampa is just a better team.

18

Yankee fan and I didn’t complain about the Wild Card game.

This thread was originally to pull a side conversation out of the Postseason thread and was meant to be about the Yankees. But it seems to have expanded to a general off-season thread which is fine.

I just wanted to talk about Yankees roster moves.

19

In what universe could this happen?

20

Why is that so hard to believe? Baseball is surprisingly fluky - Baltimore swept Houston in a series this year. If they got a one-game playoff against the Giants, I’d give 'em a good 15-20% chance of winning it.