It's been a few hours and I had a good night's sleep, but I still can't figure out why the Yankees cued up Frank immediately after the last out. It had to be salt in the wounds of Yankees fans, what with playing your city's iconic song just as the season ends in embarrassing fashion for your team and front office. Don't get me wrong--I loved it.
I think it is mostly the catcher as it is generally balls that get called strikes and not the other way around. Maldy hasn't been great at stealing strikes, but the Astros batters have been getting hosed (except in the ALDS).
2 outs, no one on even with 2 strikes is not as important as full counts with no outs or no outs with runners on.
I'm actually not as mad about that... more mad about obvious strikes that aren't being called because the pitcher slightly misses his spot and the catcher has to move, thus influencing the ump. Or the ump is setting up on one side of the plate, making it almost impossible to see the opposite corner pitches with any accuracy. Our pitchers (and hitters) have such a firm grasp of the zone. Easy to forget they don't have the box there like we do. But unlike Josh Donaldson, rarely will you see our guys (both ways) argue when they were obviously wrong.
I think our batters don't complain much, but the home grown pitchers let their body language do the talking. One of my least favorite games to be at in person was a Luis Garcia start that he walked the 1st 2 batters of a game. Strom came out to chew Garcia a new one, Strom then looks at Castro once on mound, says something to the ump, and was ejected. Looking at my phone trying to see what got Strom ejected, it looked like 2 strikeouts. Garcia ended up giving up 4 or 5 runs in the 1st instead of looking dominant if the ump had called the game correctly. I gotta say my mood went from not happy to absolutely miserable once I saw the pitches on my phone. Having an objective (though not perfect) way to see that Astros were getting hosed and that this technology isn't given to umps made my day much worse than simple loss would do.
6 straight ALCS 4 Victories Bregman is at bat in the 8th inning of game 7 as the go-ahead run versus Tampa. We got our coming of age from 3 young pitchers in those playoffs, Valdez, Javier and Garcia. It has served us well moving forward. Benintendi makes arguably the best catch in postseason history that prevents the Astros from tying the series at 2 games all. That Boston team will go down as one of the greats of all time. I'm still smarting that Bradley Jr is the one that killed us out of all of those bats. And I haven't even mentioned the bullpen collapse that prevented us from going to yet another ALCS in 2015, beating the eventual WS Champ Royals. This is quite the run folks.
I remember that game... and I'm fine with them complaining when they're right. I was referring to how some pitchers/batters complain when they're obviously wrong (like Donaldson did throughout this series). You don't see that much from our guys. When they're upset, its usually the umps fault.
I think so, his gf was at the game and on the field per this article in the Chronicle today: I'm sure the CF sleuths can verify on the various social media platforms
What would happen if Judge just took less money to come to Houston? Would it be as bad as Durant's move to GSW? Altuve - Pena - Alvarez - Brantley - Bregman - Judge - Gurriel - Tucker - Maldy
The Yankees are truly between a rock and a hard place. On one hand they just got the greatest season Judge will ever have in his career and they were not anywhere close to the level of team that the Astros were. That's problematic in and of itself. So you pay the guy 40 plus million a year and you don't have any different team than you had this year and Judge will never be that great again in the regular season, and he's been largely a failure in the playoffs. But he's a fan favorite and the face of the franchise and you certainly can't let him go. Which means he holds all the cards and 40 million may probably not get it done. I personally love it. They are really screwed.
They can afford it. And with their payroll/talent, they can sleepwalk to a 90 win season and still likely make the playoffs (and we know that's its a crapshoot for these wild card teams after that). But Yankees fans need to recalibrate their expectations. There's a sense of entitlement that all great Yankees have to also be great in the playoffs to really be a great Yankee... and that hasn't been the case for them for the last decade plus. They can keep plug/playing their holes with high priced FA's or veteran players, but if they truly want to recapture the magic of the 90's (or what the Astros have done the last 7 years), it will only happen with dedicated player development... and letting guys figure it out at the big league level without having to share playing time with veterans. Of course, you have to have the right prospects for that to work out.
It is a tough place to be in. I don't think he'll get $40M/yr, but it will be a massive payday regardless. So reminiscent of when they gave ARod that 2nd 10 year deal.
I do think that the age of the team controlling superstar is fading. The 90s and 00s were run by superstars basically running organizations (Lebron, Durant, Brady, Manning, Messi, Ronaldo). Look at some of the decisions that have been made in the last few years. Giannis? Stayed with the Bucks in a good situation. Jokic? Stays put to stay in a good situation. Erling Haaland who could've gone anywhere and is basically the closest thing to Aaron Judge from a free agency standpoint. Took less money to go the Man City instead of going to toxic places like Barcelona/Madrid. Durant going to GSW before. I think the precedent is there for Judge to seek a better situation/environment instead of staying with a losing organization, no matter it's perceived history.
