As little as possible. Yeah 3 grand slams in three days doesn’t speak well for little ball. But it seems the Rays and Astros play little ball pretty well as do the Braves and Dodgers.
But I understand what you’re saying. In the playoffs you’re going to run into better pitching, and your team is going to need to be able to manufacture runs when you need them.
The Astros (#3 in the league) are only behind the Red Sox (#2) in OPS among playoff teams. And both are in the same position by slugging %.
And the Dodgers (#7), Braves (#9), and Rays (#10) are all in the top 10 in OPS. By slugging % alone, they’re all in the top 8.
And SF and the White Sox were also in the top 10 in both categories. Of all the playoff teams, only the Brewers weren’t in the top half of the league in OPS.
Sure, several of these teams can play small ball but they all go pretty big these days as a general rule. Those are the teams that make the division and league championship series in the first place.
The Yankees were #13 in OPS and #17 in slugging %. If anything, they need to go bigger to catch up to the top teams.
I heard it on sports talk radio that if they got rid of Boone, they’d replace him with someone just like Boone.
I don’t really follow the day to day happenings of the Yankees, but it didn’t seem like Boone was the reason that lineup under performed most of the year.
You can’t steal first base. If you have guys with low on base percentages in your lineup it hurts your offense, no matter what else you do. It’s not Aaron Boone’s fault that Joey Gallo sucks or that Gary Sanchez is getting worse.
The Yankees fired Marcus Thames (as well as the assistant hitting coach) which was wholly justified.
I saw a stat like a week ago that record of the teams in the playoffs since 2019 that hit more home-runs in the game is 73-11. Now that isn’t fully up to date, but don’t think the recent series have been any different. You win playoff games by hitting the ball far. You win playoff games by striking people out. You don’t win playoff games by adcancing the runner on groundouts.
Looks I don’t love the modern baseball aestetic, but it is a game design problem. The pitchers are too good. The defense is too good. Small ball strategies are simply not viable in the current rule set. Hiring a manager with that focus is malpractice. You want to change how the game is played, you need to change the rules. These teams are employing incredibly smart people and have sophiticated data systems. They aren’t all completely wrong about how to win baseball games.
Small ball strategies were NEVER viable against hitting home runs. Getting on base has always been the most important skill there is, and stolen bases and bunting have never really been as effective as people thought. You are right though in that they’re even less viable than ever, and that if you want a more balanced offensive approach, you’d have to change the fundamental conditions of the game.
Adopting a strategy of bunting a lot is just losing games on purpose. Good teams don’t bunt. The winningest team in the majors, the Giants, asked non pitchers to bunt seven times all year. The secoind winningest, the Dodgers, had three. The highest scoring team, the Astros, bunted nine times. Bunting is for suckers. The AL team with the most bunts and stolen bases, the Royals, went 74-88 and had the third lowest scoring offense in the AL.
But we need more balls in play, because strikeouts are getting so goddamn boring. Could use more basestealing too. I’d be totally okay with that. I liked it when there was more variety.
What about bunting for base hits? When I watch a guy like Tyler Wade bat, it seems to me it should be a natural part of the arsenal for speedy players.
Old school died because new school was kicking its ass.
If you can get a replacement for Sanchez great. Where? The league isn’t hemorrhaging good catchers. They are either mediocre, not available or past their prime.
Gardner isn’t supposed to be the option. He’s the 4th outfielder. I hope they can improve there because no one is confident in Hicks. Florial showed he isn’t ready and may never be.
Rizzo is better but he may not stay. If they can kept Rizzo then get rid of Voit.
I agree with the rest. I think the free agents will want contracts that are too long and too fat.
You may not believe in analytics but it’s just math. It shows what works. You can’t shift against a home run. You can’t make a great play against a home run. Home runs don’t leave me on base. You don’t win by getting more bases you win by getting more runs.
As a novelty. It works sometimes and only if done perfectly. Who cares if you can do it if your OBP and OPS suck.
I think you are underestimating the difficulty of bunting a 95+ mile an hour fastball with movement.
Wade had a .354 OBP this season. His problem is lack of power. Bunting is a skill and has obviously been learned by some players. I’d still like him to work on it and make 10 or 20 attempts next season.
But just an idle thought. Fixing the team goes way deeper, and probably isn’t going to happen under a Steinbrenner/Cashman regime.
100% the Blue Jays would make a deal. They’re awash in catching. The problem is I don’t see an obvious match in terms of an immediate need the Jays have where the Yankees have a surplus.
The team that wins the series is the one that gets men on base. In every DS, the team with more men on base won, and stolen bases and bunts had almost no impact. It’s true so far in the LCS. It will almost always be true.
The team had 92 wins this year. They need a combination of player moves, luck with injuries and players playing up to their potential to win between 5 to 10 more games next year. A better position in the playoffs and there is no telling what can happen. That is in no way impossible under the current regime. 7 more wins gets them the division.
Yeah, I don’t get the panic either. The Yankees had an incredibly bad year with a lot of their hitters and still had a good season. The team isn’t all that old.
Many, many teams have been in this position and torn the team apart because they didn’t win a World Series. That approach does not work.
I don’t get the panic, either, mostly because I’m not seeing any. I’m just completely unimpressed with the front office, Brian Cashman in particular. He’s been GM for over 20 years, but where are the results? NY consistently has one of the highest payrolls in the game. 2009, that’s it. He wasn’t the architect of the 90s dynasty, that was Gene Michael, Bob Watson and others. And now this lifeless, listless team is led by the barely awake Aaron Boone. They give away at-bats, they make bonehead plays on defense and on the bases, and nobody seems concerned. Just another day at the office. Yawn.
If we were low-payroll underdogs, it would an entirely different kind of fandom. I would mind that at all. The Yanks were underdog-ish in 2017 and it was a lot of fun. But we’re not. We’re the Fuck You New York Yankees. The team that everyone loves to hate. Except nobody bothers much anymore because we’re mostly irrelevant. Meh.
Cashman should not get all of the credit but his contribution to the dynasty should not be ignored. He did not spring up new to baseball and inherit a great team. He was assistant GM and responsible for a lot of the acquisitions and player development.
I doubt that, unless you have a cite. What acquisitions? What was his role player development?
I dunno, I’m leery of things like “lifeless.” Lifeless teams go 73-89, not 92-70. Try being an Angels fan.
Cashman played central roles in scouting, player development and was eventually made assistant GM from… what, 1990? He was part of the team that drafted Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and signed Mo Rivera. I don’t know how much of decisions like that were him and how much were other guys but he was part of that.
So given that he became GM as of 1998, at what point do we say that’s his team? 2001? They lost the World Series that year in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7. They made the World Series in 2003, and won it in 2009. Yeah, there was a dip briefly in the mid 2010s but Cashman has been putting really, really good teams out there. In a 20 year span how often should they win the World Series in a 30-team league with three/four playoff rounds?
I’m trying to understand the Gardner move. He did not take his player option. He was making noises that he wanted to come back. Why didn’t he take his player option? He can’t really think another team will pay more for him than his option would have paid. After the team declined the team option he gets a buyout. Maybe he was assured a place in the organization if he freed up a roster spot?
Three other roster moves were made. Allen, Locastro and Velasquez were waived and picked up by other teams. Those 40 man roster moves were needed to save some prospects from the rule 5 draft. If you read some of the Yankee fan pages you would think they waived Ruth, Mantle and Jeter.
I actually think it entirely possible someone will give Gardner more than $2.3 million. Lots of teams will figure “meh, he’s a decent fourth outfielder” and could be convinced to give him a little more than that.