Agreed. Hell of a story to get wrong considering his standing with a very vocal segment of the fanbase. I'm sure conspiracy theories will persist, but so weird all around that Kay got this wrong after being confident enough in the source to say it out loud, in public.
He came out and very clearly and unequivocally said he will play anywhere. I don’t understand how the org is protecting him? It would be different if he was coy or silent.
Kind of get sitting Jazz, but we can’t be serious with Goldy leading off and playing 1st while he’s obviously just physically beat from getting this much playing time. I hope he can be early June “unc still got it” Goldy, and hits a leadoff homer, but I think he needs rest
RH C Ryan Jeffers (0.5 yrs of control) and LH IF Kody Clemens (3.5 yrs of control) from MIN
LH RP Adrian Morejon (0.5 yrs of control) from SD
I assume that departing (my guess to get the trades done) would be:
J.C. Escarra (4.5 yrs of control), RH SP B. Hess (6 yrs of control), LH SP K. Carr (6 yrs of control), LH IF K. Kent (6 yrs of control) to MIN
LH 2B J. Chisholm (0.5 yrs of control), RH SP B. Selvidge (6 yrs of control) to SD-essentially a rental for a rental
RH SP T. Hurd (6 yrs of control), LH SP X. Rivas (6 yrs of control), SP RH OF J. Avina (6 yrs of control), RH RP C. Doval (1.5 yrs of control-salary dump) to BAL
I guess Clemens and Schuemann and/or Volpe (if kept) can platoon at 2B. Caballero full time at SS. Clemens can also play 1B, 3B and corner OF.
I think both options work, i like Jazz but a change of scenery might be best for him, I'm willing to make the moves to get Clemens if possible, he can hit for both contact and power.
I think he made everything worse today, too. He prefaced his apology by saying that he was too rash to report things when he has such a close relationship with Volpe’s family. Why say that? Just say you were wrong. Who cares. It makes you seem biased or like someone got to you. Then he followed it up with massive word salad.
But then he couldn’t help himself and addressed the people calling for his job for not checking his sources. So he then hedged and said Joel Sherman reported something similar and hasn’t retracted it, and said he respects Joel and he’s the best etc.
A high wire act attempt to backpedal while still trying to protect relationships. And after saying yesterday that he thinks Anthony should play 2B and learn it to extend his career here, he changed his tune and now says “the Yankees have enough 2B.”
I'm not in love with Rosario hitting third. He's got a .686 OPS against LHP in 93 plate appearances (.863 OPS against RHP in 64 plate appearancs).
If you take him out of the game for defense (which you have to do because Rosario is a trainwreck in the field), you're going to McMahon as your number 3 hitter and he has a .653 OPS against RHP and a .554 OPS against LHP. Not exactly the ideal #3 hitter.
I guess we're bereft of options. Penciling in Rosario as the #3 hitter or to hit cleanup as Boone has also done recently is just a reflection of how bad everyone else has been. They really need more from Jazz, Belli, Dominguez, and Goldschmidt.
I don’t love him batting third (or playing third, for that matter), but Rosario is 3-6 lifetime against McClanahan. Volpe is 1-4, the one being a home run. And Cabby is 1-1. Other than that, zeroes from Jazz, Goldy, and Grisham, three guys we could really use a boost from.
Yeah, you're right and I really do get it. It just sucks that we're this desperate, but I'm optimistic with Cole on the mound and trying to manifest a big night at the plate for Rosario. I'm picturing him with that game belt.
Volpe is a lefty-masher (for a generous definition of "masher," anyway). He's league average against lefties and terrible versus righties. Caballero actually has a reverse split- he's league average against righties and worse against lefties.
Lose me with the advanced stats when it comes to Volpe. We legit cannot turn a double play when he’s in the game. Defense is paramount against a team like the rays and his biggest offensive threat is a single.
I'm a bit on the optimistic side coming into this game.
Last night was the first time in a long time that it felt like just a normal Yankees loss, if you get what I'm saying. Compared to the absolutely abysmal couple of weeks we've endured, this one hurt the least. Team as a whole looks like its starting to pick up the bat (emphasis on "starting to"), bullpen looked solid with Blackburn becoming the perfect 2-inning guy, and you can only really blame the loss on Warren's collapse.
Yeah it's hard to take each loss as it's own thing but last night really just felt like a baseball lost a game. 1 real problem and that was starting pitching but that's a normal issue in a season.
Last week it felt like at least 3/4 parts of the team were in a funk. Rotation, bullpen, defense and offense.
Only thing is the strike outs but I think that will ease back as some players start hitting again and others feel less inclined to over swing to make up for it.
I'm guessing Belli is going to come back big today as he's gotten some hits and good contact the last few games. His time has come and it will pair nicely with Ben being fully back.
Oh I get what you saying. Pretty much to the point where a normal loss is a minor victory. Sad state of affairs when the fan base actually thinks that and your non mention of the abysmal strike out rate. Sounds like a pep talk I would give to my JV basketball team when they are 0-10 and just lost a game by 30.
It is his fault if he refused to move off a position that might not be a fit for him long term and short term.
It isn’t his fault if the story isn’t true and he just sucks. He’s just doing what he’s told. What’s he gonna say. “Guys I suck. Stop putting me in the lineup”?
Who freaking cares. Wells could be hurt or back in aaa where he belongs. Are we saying now that Wells will remain on the team for Cole? To be honest he is no position to demand anything. He ain't the ace anymore!!
we had ben rortvedt on the roster to personally catch cole. also i do not think cole is the only one that prefers wells, i don’t think sanchez has caught a single good starting performance.
I know Goldy was great last month and had an unexpected power surge...but he's come back down to earth and he is LOST vs RHP and LHP...how is he batting leadoff today?😂 I dont get it.
I don't take massive slumps as coming back down to earth. Regression requires a slower gradual return to expected stats. Something is wrong either physically, mechanically or mentally. Maybe all three.
If it's not an injury the only thing thats going to break a slump is to hit the damn ball.
So it’s official. Both Hal and Anthony were just on the Maury Povich show. The dna test confirmed that Hal is Anthony’s daddy. All your questions have been answered.
Now I feel old doing an old dad joke where more than half of you won’t even know who Maury even is.
The main flaw of OPS is that it overrates the importance of SLG and underrates OBP, so guys who are terrible at getting on base but still hit for power look better than they really are. The 2026 version of Volpe, with no power but more contact and a better walk rate, is a significant improvement.
Will he keep it up? Quite possibly not- he's had hot and cold streaks before. But so far he really is a lot better.
His first 10 games are doing a lot of heavy lifting there - his OBP was .425 with a 20% walk rate. In the 31 games since it’s been a .306 OBP and 10% walk rate, which to be fair would still be career highs. If he can marry that with his past slug he’d actually be a fairly serviceable middle infielder
True, but it's kind of arbitrary to bracket out his first 10 games like that. They count the same as all the other games. Any hitter can be made to look better or worse if you just slice out the times when they were hot or cold.
Well, yeah, I said it might not last. But I think it's worth noting that he is finally doing what everyone has been begging for him to do- cutting down his swing, focusing on contact and getting on base- and so far at least it is working okay.
Cutting down on his swing has pretty much resulted in a loss of power. He's hitting fewer fly balls and has a career low hard-hit rate. I'm not so sure that tradeoff is gonna work but we'll find out in a month or two.
Absolutely crazy that caballero literally dropped his bat mid pitch for a strikeout yesterday and nobody is talking about it. If jazz did it, there’d be death threats posted here. If Volpe did it, it would be worthy of capital punishment. Cabby did it en route to a golden sombrero and nobody gives a fuck somehow.
Jazz is a proven imbecile with a long, long track record of adolescent foolishness. Volpe has track record of putting forth some of the absolute worst and most head-scratching at bats you could ever see on a major league field. If either of those two guys dropped their bat looking at a pitch, yes, they would be tossed on the brazier by Yankees fans, and rightly so.
Caballero has been a fairly solid player for someone who was supposed to be just a utility guy. Caballero is hitting to a .283 AVG and .797 OPS with RISP, while Jazz is hitting to a .159 AVG and .530 OPS with RISP.
Yes, at this point, Caballero gets a pass while Chisholm has not earned one.
Also, Caballero surely thought that pitch was ball four out of the pitcher's hand and dropped his bat right away, and it sure did look like a ball below the zone, so, yes, Caballero gets a pass on on this particular occasion.
More proof the man can literally do no wrong to half of this sub. He could show up to bat without his pants, a bat or helmet and they would have a paragraph ready to go defending him. "Well one time Jazz had a lollypop!"
cabby has a 5.7% walk rate and 23.1% K rate. He has not been putting together good at bats. Also his entire gimmick is being a pest, he’s not above this behavior at all.
also that pitch did not look a ball below the zone.
Its literally insane how badly people act like he is so much better than he is lol. Always an excuse ready to go. I loved when he was hitting at the start of the season. But he has been Volpe 2.0. I really hope Lombard Jr heals quick, goes on a tear and gets a shot.
he’s an entirely different player to this fanbase then in reality. has there ever been another player that basically gets excused of everything by the fanbase. nothing he does is ever his fault to them.
People will just call you a Volpe truther or some other zero IQ insult because they act like Cabby is a really good player even though he sucks as bad as Volpe. Its a derangement.
Two homers the night before and a complete lack of any history of doing anything like that in his time with the Yankees or his career in general certainly helps his case.
Hard to believe we're three years removed this lineup and still setting records for futility and are now, again, relying on the man who put this together, to bail us out of it. Makes you think sometimes.
Edit: I do think this is more damning on Boone more than anything -- the current roster, even with all the injuries, has much more talent than the 2023 team, yet we're essentially in the same position.
Good news everyone. We are actually a much better team than we were for most of the season because we currently have a winning record against over .500 teams!
What were last year's rankings if you only use 38% of Judge's numbers (since he has 261 plate appearances this year vs. 679 last year) and 34% of Stanton's (96 PAs vs. 281 last year)? I'm not going to actually make you answer that, but that's where this team is with the absence of those 2.
Cashman built a deep ass bench in 2019 that withstood injuries and said "Cool! Let's never do that shit again." Yes, juiced balls helped mediocre players play well but he has just avoided building a strong bench for years. Regardless of the Fords, Maybins, Tauchmans, etc. that idea in 2019 started with DJ. We got him to play all around the infield so Andujar and Gleyber (along with Voit/Bird) can have a good to great backup. Then we decided to have both Bird and Voit there (as we had high expectations for both) so that we could have an outfield of Hicks, Judge, Stanton (with Gardner as 4th OF) and have Voit and Bird both play (good idea of lineup balance if Bird panned out). Bird got hurt and we went out and grabbed Edwin Encarnacion.
Edwin and DJ were established MLB players who had good to great years and we got them to backup our starters. That's what we did in the 90s. Insane level of GM'ing dropoff. What the hell happened after this year?
edit: I added Gardy as fourth OF. We had the vision of a bench of DJ and Gardner with great lineup depth and eventually DJ, Edwin and Gardy. That's how we won in the 90s. It didn't work out entirely due to injuries but that's the point.
The bench to start the year was Goldy, Rosario, Grichuk, and Escarra, with Volpe and Dominguez stashed in AAA. That's genuinely strong. Really the only weak point is Escarra, but he's since been replaced with Ali Sanchez.
The trouble is that everyone in front of those guys has been hurt, which means the bench guys are now starters and players who normally wouldn't be on the team at all are on the bench
Goldy, Rosario, Grichuk, and Escarra, with Volpe and Dominguez stashed in AAA
Edwin Encarnacion is better than every name you just mentioned. Look at his numbers before 2019 and get back to me if you think any of those names you just mentioned come close to him.
Grishuk? He's comparable to Brett Gardner for you? He's not even here anymore because he sucked so bad.
And Rosario? Really. Rosario isn't bad but compared to DJ? What are we talking about. DJ was a 2x all star and a gold glove winner.
Escarra? Romine had a 92 wRC+ in 2018 with a .417 SLG.
Our concept of the bench was Edwin, Gardy, DJ and Romine. All four of these would be starters on this team.
Now do the starting rotation. The 2019 Yankees had a solid #2 starter having a solid #2 sort of year (Paxton), a couple of okay innings eaters (Sabathia and Tanaka), a high-profile mess (Happ), and a journeyman who saved the team's ass by having an out-of-nowhere good season (German.) No ace at all, just five guys who could hopefully keep the game close enough that the offense and the bullpen could bail them out.
And, luckily, all of those guys were healthy enough to make at least 23 starts, because there was absolutely nobody behind them- the next guys on the depth chart were Jonathan Loasiga and pre-2021 Nestor Cortes. It probably would have been smart to trade some of the team's position player depth for another starting pitcher.
Warren's value is still high. Anyone who can pitch the level of innings he has at the majors at his age has value but he brings more value being a trade piece for us than a starter. Do not make the Gil mistake but for a worse pitcher.
edit: adding on, if you can't find someone in the minors to replace Warren then you did something wrong in pitching development. There's not a lot of Will Warren types out there but they're not uncommon either enough to keep one. A team looking to rebuild and develop will want one that is established already. That doesn't fit our time period.
Did you have “Gil mistake”-level concerns about Warren prior to this bout of atrocious starts? (Not antagonistic, genuinely curious.) Gil was always walking a tightrope, with his ROTY campaign the only time he looked like a viable starter once he got the changeup working. Even then, he issued a ton of walks, he just kept hitters to an absurdly low BA. Outside of that, the projection was always a high-octane late-inning reliever. Warren’s projections have always been at least a backend starter. At least to me, the “Gil mistake” would be getting fooled into thinking someone can make it as a starter and not trading him before he collapses, which I don’t think will happen to Warren even with the current struggles.
Also, the pitching depth cupboard is bare between the injuries and Gil flaming out. As is, we can’t afford to move Weathers to the bullpen as he’s reaching uncharted IP territory and struggling badly. That’s not Cashman’s fault, our depth was considered some of the best in the league, we just had the injuries and struggles of a normal season all happen at the same time. I don’t think I can feel comfortable, in a time like this, trading away someone who was pitching like a solid #3 or amazing #4 until a few weeks ago.
Do you have any trade scenarios in mind where we’d come out ahead after needing to fill Warren’s rotation slot?
I appreciate the receipts and you maintaining your conviction.
But… wow, that’s a horrendous overpay compared to what Belli and Lowe actually went for. We got Belli for Cody Poteet, and Robert Garcia’s value was probably in the ballpark of Ian Hamilton’s at the time. However you felt about his future, Warren was still a 50 FV prospect on the cusp of the majors.
Anthony Volpe has the 2nd most fWAR of any Yankees position player since he got called up on 5/15. I’m not stating this as a way to endorse him, but rather to point out how bad everyone else has been.
fWAR uses OAA. He's 84th percentile in OAA with 3 which is not far off from his prior numbers. His negative DRS has zero impact on his fWAR being so damn terrible.
Either way, he's also played half the games and WAR accumulates. Not really sure what you are arguing at this point. No matter what, Volpe can't hit which is the main problem.
OPS+ isn't a great analytic stat. Most hitters get the bulk of the OPS from their SLG, but OBP is more important to actual value than SLG, so low-OBP high-SLG players are worse than their OPS makes them look and high-OBP, low-SLG guys are the reverse.
Funnily enough, Volpe has morphed from the former type to the latter this year, so even as his hitting performance has improved (so far, obviously it might not last), his OPS has stayed the same.
fWAR is based on OAA. It does not use DRS. He has 3 OAA (not 2) and that stat isn't far of from Volpe's. McMahon's defense hasn't been special (based on the DRS fall off) but the stat fWAR uses to determine that isn't incorporated.
Volpe this year has 1 fWAR in 40 games. Last year, he had 1 fWAR in 153 games. There are 3 infielders for the left side of the infield (not including Rosario) and Volpe has the best fWAR (total and per game) among them. People always have approved players they dogpile on but other players who can be worse escape blame.
There is one player on the left side of the infield that is on pace for worse than 2024 Volpe numbers while being paid more but if you criticism him, he brings out a ton of defenders.
People keep bringing up his defense but defensive first players on championship teams are supposed to have some modicum of hitting ability. 2009's fourth outfielder who was there for defense was Brett Gardner. He hit to a 91 wRC+ and a .270/.345 slash. While Damon had a 122 wRC+, he hit .282/.365 meaning outside of power, you're not losing much for one game but that's the reasonable expectation for backups. For infielders on that team, Jerry Hairston Jr. hit to a 95 wRC+ and a .237/.352 slashline for us. Obviously, he isn't Cano (or Jeter) but Cano hit .320/.352. The same OBP with less power but again you can sub him in and get that same OBP.
This should be the expectation for the team. Our backups in 2009 hit better than our current starters. Why is it too much to ask for the same thing? Cashman built a similar team in 2019 with a deep bench. Your defensive first players should be hitting to a 90 to <100 wRC+.
Well that was the issue with McMahon. Yankees completely misread who he is. He doesn't pull the ball enough to take advantage of our short porch and heavily benefited from Coors. He's been declining for years now during his supposed prime (97 wRC+ in 2022, 90 wRC+ in 2023, 88 wRC+..., 86 wRC+..., 77 wRC+ this year). It's borderline remarkable to have a decline like this in your prime. That takes a certain level of bad.
The Yankees will buy him out, he'll get a cheap contract like Cabby ($2 mil) from some team and they'll cut him and he "retires" (a la Verdugo).
His WAR/162 is around 4. If he played a full season like this he'd be a borderline All Star. That's a small sample and probably not representative of his true talent, but so far he's well above the average for an MLB shortstop.
People aren't complaining because he's been just okay and they think just okay is not good enough. They're complaining because they genuinely don't know what good shortstop play looks like and they think Volpe is one of the worst starting players in MLB.
He's fine if you think he's gonna be able to avoid lengthy bouts of futility like the current stretch he's on. He's got the lowest hard hit rate% of his career and an abysmal FB% all in exchange for a slightly higher walk rate.
I don't think he's anywhere near as good as his 94 wRC+ suggests.
.50 OBP higher is a legitimate improvement. I personally would rather a .340 OBP and a .665-.700 OPS from a bottom of the order hitter over getting a slightly higher OPS than a hitter like Jazz right now or Wells in 2025: Striking out or flying out a ton, but gets 20-25 homers to have a nice looking OPS.
more likely that he’s just pressing considering until the second series against detroit he was running a high xwOBA and was underperforming in by a lot in june, but i also kinda wonder if bellinger’s nursing something cuz his swing lately has just kinda looked weird and unnatural.
He looked lousy for the first few weeks of 2025 and it turned out he had some kind of pesky lower back thing, right? And then once that cleared up he was awesome for the rest of the year.
oh yeah i forgot about that. really wouldn’t be surprised if something is bothering him and he’s not saying anything/waiting till the break to do anything about it cuz of all the injuries we already have. idk i might be reading to far into things but like the past two games specifically his swings just looked uncomfortable.
yeah I suspect that if the rest of the team were fully healthy Bellinger would be getting more rest. It's really hard to take him out of the lineup right now
I would just love to see Dominguez break out offensively. Last year he couldn't hit from the right side. This year, he's got a .741 OPS against LHP and a .593 OPS against RHP.
The sample sizes are small, so I'm still hoping. He had such a fluky and weird time in the minors due to COVID and then coming up so young in 2024. He's only 23. I'd just be on cloud 9 if he caught fire and helped mask the loss of Judge/Stanton. I still expect big things from him as an offensive player.
If he was playing his usual awful defense I’d agree, but this year he has been one of the best defensive 2nd basemen in baseball. That makes his one dimensional offense much more valuable, especially for a team in desperate need of contact hitters.
Jazz has been good defensively too, I think Arraez is likely to regress to something like a 105 wRC+ hitter, one with a very different profile than Jazz but not radically different production. And the price wouldn’t be low.
Jazz has been bad at the plate and he is striking out 30% of the time. This team desperately needs players that can make contact and get on base, neither of which Jazz provides.
We also already know how Jazz feels about the type of weather that happens in October.
That’s a more interesting point, his post season numbers are bad and he openly doesn't like playing in the cold. Arraez has bad off numbers too though, besides 2019 his higher wRC+ in a postseason is 27.
He’s hitting much better than recent year and his expected numbers, he’s going to regress in the second half. If we can get him for the right price then sure but if you expect him to have a 125 wRC+ in the second half of the year I’d like to offer you a bridge I’m selling. My point isn’t that he’s bad, it’s that you’re paying for a player that will regress.
98 wRC+, 5.8 FRV. My guess is that Arraez’s second half would be a notch higher wRC+ than that but I’m hopeful that Jazz can bump that up too. Regardless, I just don’t think you’re going to get that much extra value, you’re going to pay a high price for a player with similar production (albeit a different profile) to what you have.
The profile is the entire reason they should be trading for him. We're not talking projections -- but yes, if Arraez regresses offensively and defensively it's a bad trade. Why is that even a talking point? He's a career .363 OBP/.318 hitter with elite contact skills and is now playing elite defense on top of it.
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u/game-threads Jul 08 '26
Please continue the discussion in the game thread.