MLB 2021: it’s baseball season!

[Dan Gould]

With the Yankees losing Judge, Urshela, and a decent bullpen piece for 10 days to Covid, could the next two weeks turn them into sellers at the trade deadline? Their next two weeks: Red Sox, Phils, Red Sox, Rays.

For a team in need of consistent offense and wins, losing two starters including their best hitter is a gut punch. Now, time for a gut check. 

[ghost of miles]

Sellers? Sellers?! Surely you jest, sir—why, the 2021 Yankees are a record-setting team! 
 

 
 

Yet another colossal bullpen meltdown in what should have concluded a road sweep of Houston + the Covid debacle has left me thinking they’re all but dead in the water for even a WC spot. Not sure who they’d move in a seller scenario, though—a lot of potential chips are either injured or have decreased in market value. And I haven’t jumped aboard the small crazywagon of NY fans calling for Judge to be traded (though one could make a logical argument for it, given his age and approaching free-agent status in a year and a half... he’s never going to be as valuable as he is right now. But he’s pretty much the face of the post-Jeter Yankees—they’ve got a freakin’ special section for Judge fans in the RF stands, so I really don’t see that happening.)

Edited July 17, 2021 by ghost of miles

[JSngry]

The Jury Box?

[ghost of miles]

26 minutes ago, JSngry said:

The Jury Box?

 Close—it’s called “the Judge’s Chambers.” Verdict for the 2021 season looks like a mistrial so far...

In other MLB matters, it’s been fun to see some of the new young stars like Tatis Jr and Guerrero Jr really busting out this year, not to mention Ohtani. Bummer about Acuna going down for the remainder of 2021, though.

[ghost of miles]

I’ve never seen this happen before:

Pirates score three on infield dribbler while Mets argue fair/foul call

[Dan Gould]

56 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

I’ve never seen this happen before:

Pirates score three on infield dribbler while Mets argue fair/foul call

Yeah that's pretty insane. Be interesting to see what penalty Rojas gets. Shades of the Amazins, not the team that's supposed to win the division.

I think maybe it was touching the edge of the chalk when he shoveled it away. Stupid pitcher, by every possible definition. Even if you let it roll and concede the base hit, better than shoveling it away then standing there with your hands on your hip. Freaking little league play.

[Brad]

Well, they won the game, that’s all that counts. Luis will probably get a few games fir bumping the umpire. Glad he showed some fire although he’s done a pretty good job this year, with all the injuries they’ve had. 

[Dan Gould]

6 hours ago, Brad said:

Well, they won the game, that’s all that counts. Luis will probably get a few games fir bumping the umpire. Glad he showed some fire although he’s done a pretty good job this year, with all the injuries they’ve had. 

A few? I'd be shocked if he gets fewer than 5. And yes, you won, but did anyone say anything to anyone about reacting in real time to what the hell is going on in the game? It's one of the most embarrassing failures I've ever seen, a t-ball player would have run to the damn ball but nobody reacted.  

[Brad]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

A few? I'd be shocked if he gets fewer than 5. And yes, you won, but did anyone say anything to anyone about reacting in real time to what the hell is going on in the game? It's one of the most embarrassing failures I've ever seen, a t-ball player would have run to the damn ball but nobody reacted.  

A few is five in my book but probably on that magnitude.  I’m sure the coaches and the players talked about it. At the end of the day they scored an important win after a bullpen failure the night before. Hopefully, this will get Conforto going. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Brad

[Brad]

Turns out that Rojas was suspended for less than a few; only a couple as in two, which he will serve today and tomorrow. 

[Dan Gould]

If any of his claims are accurate, Ben Zobrist married a real piece of work:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/cubs/ct-chicago-cubs-ben-zobrist-julianna-divorce-documents-20210719-vo2ardtjevgwxfrf5t52ksg5vy-story.html

(I think its obvious she's an appalling person regardless, it takes balls the size of grapefruit to have an affair ... with your Pastor ... leading to Zobrist taking a leave of absence from the Cubs in 2019 due to the mental anguish/stress her actions caused, and now she makes legal claims in their divorce action that he failed to preserve marital assets by foregoing his baseball salary. Because she was banging their Pastor and never stopped doing it. It's obvious she engineered his return at the end of 2019 by starting marital counseling in bad faith, still banging the pastor boyfriend, so that Zobrist would resume his career and cash those big checks one more time.)

[JSngry]

Guardians?

[sonnymax]

30 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Guardians?

I like it. A Guardian's face will look good on the uniform sleeve, much better that Chief Wahoo.

[JSngry]

Face?

A change has long been overdue, but....Guardians? Is that really a "sports" type name?

They could have gone back to "Spiders". That could have been all kinds of fun.

Ok, Guardians Of Traffic, a local angle. Interesting.

 

[Aggie87]

I think it's a great name.  

Hopefully the WFT is as creative when (if?) they come up with a new name as well.

[Dave Garrett]

On 7/23/2021 at 10:06 AM, JSngry said:

They could have gone back to "Spiders". That could have been all kinds of fun.

 

Spiders would have been cool. Or Naps.

Someone on Reddit said they'd been hoping for "Cleveland Washington Football Team".

[JSngry]

The Cleveland Eatons!

[Larry Kart]

[Dan Gould]

Supposedly the A's are getting Starling Marte. Were the Yankees connected to any other outfield help?  Two more months of the nothing-left-in-the-tank Brett Gardiner is not going to help the Yanks very much (even if he did help them steal a win from the Sox last weekend).

[Dan Gould]

18 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Supposedly the A's are getting Starling Marte. Were the Yankees connected to any other outfield help?  Two more months of the nothing-left-in-the-tank Brett Gardiner is not going to help the Yanks very much (even if he did help them steal a win from the Sox last weekend).

Well to answer my question, I'd forgotten that Joey Gallo was available.  That really changes & lengthens the top of that order. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a Yankee gallop to the Wild Card, where presumably they'd have Cole start a play-in game and that would be a best-case scenario for any Wild Card winner.  Ugh.

(and BTW fewer than 70 posts in the season's MLB thread and its the end of July???)

[Brad]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Well to answer my question, I'd forgotten that Joey Gallo was available.  That really changes & lengthens the top of that order. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a Yankee gallop to the Wild Card, where presumably they'd have Cole start a play-in game and that would be a best-case scenario for any Wild Card winner.  Ugh.

(and BTW fewer than 70 posts in the season's MLB thread and its the end of July???)

At least it’s not Crazy Joe Gallo!

[Dan Gould]

Now the Sox trade for Schwarber? Literally no place to put the man (sit Renfroe, the rookie, or Verdugo instead for a shitty defender?) except 1B where I don't think he's ever played. He Ks too often, gets hurt too often, and is all or nothing as a hitter. Who if I am not mistaken is a dead-red pull hitter, ill-suited to Fenway.  UGH.

Meanwhile the Yankees get Rizzo, a professional hitter and plus defender, to fill another serious need.

I swear if I see a graphic of Scherzer with NY cap I'll break the fucking PC monitor.

About the only positive thing I can say is that I have prepared my elderly mother that her boyfriend, Mr. Rizzo, was likely to be traded by the end of the month. She assured me she will not become a Yankee fan if that's where he ends up.  I hope she remembers that promise.

[ghost of miles]

4 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Now the Sox trade for Schwarber? Literally no place to put the man (sit Renfroe, the rookie, or Verdugo instead for a shitty defender?) except 1B where I don't think he's ever played. He Ks too often, gets hurt too often, and is all or nothing as a hitter. Who if I am not mistaken is a dead-red pull hitter, ill-suited to Fenway.  UGH.

Meanwhile the Yankees get Rizzo, a professional hitter and plus defender, to fill another serious need.

I swear if I see a graphic of Scherzer with NY cap I'll break the fucking PC monitor.

About the only positive thing I can say is that I have prepared my elderly mother that her boyfriend, Mr. Rizzo, was likely to be traded by the end of the month. She assured me she will not become a Yankee fan if that's where he ends up.  I hope she remembers that promise.

Isn’t Scherzer still on the way to the Dodgers, along with Turner? And this will make you feel better, surely: earlier in the week there were reports Scherzer would veto any potential trade to the Yankees because he wanted to go to a “contender.” Ouch!  How my mighty Bombers have fallen from the glory days of the Core Four. I’m happy about the Gallo and Rizzo acquisitions, but still 50/50 on whether or not they can secure a WC spot, and highly dubious if they do that they’ll be able to make any kind of deep postseason run.  Although Taillon has improved and Montgomery seems to be giving us a higher ratio of quality starts, Cole is clearly still struggling in MLB’s post-sticky stuff era, and the bullpen is great one night, an absolute disaster the next. I think there are systemic team/organization kinks that are resistant to any kind of straightening this deep into the season, but I’d love to be proven wrong in my pessimism, of course.

I was perusing Over The Monster last night, and I think one of the writers there said Schwarber had played 1B at some point in the minors? But I can understand why he’s not the ideal solution to Boston’s 1B issue—an issue the Yankees have shared, given Voit’s recurring injuries and the mediocre parade of Jay Bruces and Mike Fords and Chris Gittens who have taken his place so far, though DJ has been slotted in there from time to time. 
 

I’ll be curious to see what else goes down around the league before 4 p.m. today.

Edited July 30, 2021 by ghost of miles

[Dan Gould]

I didn't even look until now but Schwarber has all of 1 game, with zero put outs, at 1B in the majors. Must have been a 1-2 inning stint?  Its just idiotic because he hurts the team if he plays LF, he hurts the team if he DHs (because that means JD is either not in the lineup or playing the outfield himself) and god only knows what the hell he may be at 1B. He sure as hell has virtually zero experience at the position and could screw the team over several times, for all of his all-or-nothing power. And if he becomes a platoon partner of some sort, what was the point?  That's your big move at the deadline? A left-handed pull hitter with no place in the lineup. And they'd be idiots, IMHO, to sit the kid and waste his development time as speed off the bench. Not to mention, kill the defense by playing Schwarber out there.

David, the Yankee lineup is no longer any sort of breeze with the two additions. At minimum they can clinch a WC birth just by being "savages" again or whatever Boone used to say.  Both of them will love that cheap short porch.

[Dan Gould]

As predicted, Rizzo is lengthening the lineup and tearing it up. The Yankees can hardly be counted out of, at minimum, 1st Wild Card.

OTOH the Sox looked like shit over the weekend and it occurred to me that they are about to collapse, possibly like the Cubs did in June. And I thought that looking at the calendar and seeing Tigers, Jays, Rays just at the same time when they can't hit and can't pitch.  And the much-improved Tigers take 2 of 3. What happens in Toronto now? 

In other sad news, JR Richard is dead:

https://www.mlb.com/news/j-r-richard-dies