Yanks 2021 Post-Season Thread

[bucky]

Per Pete Rose:


That was the worst (bleeping) lineup they could have put on the field. Their 6,7,8,9 hitters were all out-men. They had to have (Aaron) Judge and (Giancarlo) Stanton do something. If they didn’t, all of the pressure was on Joey Gallo. You saw how that worked out.’’

The Yankees struck out 11 times in the Wild-Card loss without drawing a walk. Gallo, batting cleanup, went 0-for-4 with one strikeout. But that’s nothing new for Gallo, who led the majors with 213 strikeouts this season.

And that didn’t sit well with Rose, who never struck out more than 76 times in any of his 24 big-league seasons.

“How does someone who didn’t play every day strike out 213 times?’’ Rose says. “Ray Charles wouldn’t strike out that much. I just can’t imagine striking out 213 times without killing myself.’’

Big fan of Pete's. thanks for the post. He is right. Pete tells it like it is and doesn't sugar coat it. Never has and never will. I loved watching him play. Pete would bunt to get on base which we don't see anymore. Winner and leader of Reds. It going to take me some time to get over that game. The biggest game of the year and the lowest point of the year.

[ymike673]

Per Pete Rose:


That was the worst (bleeping) lineup they could have put on the field. Their 6,7,8,9 hitters were all out-men. They had to have (Aaron) Judge and (Giancarlo) Stanton do something. If they didn’t, all of the pressure was on Joey Gallo. You saw how that worked out.’’

The Yankees struck out 11 times in the Wild-Card loss without drawing a walk. Gallo, batting cleanup, went 0-for-4 with one strikeout. But that’s nothing new for Gallo, who led the majors with 213 strikeouts this season.

And that didn’t sit well with Rose, who never struck out more than 76 times in any of his 24 big-league seasons.

“How does someone who didn’t play every day strike out 213 times?’’ Rose says. “Ray Charles wouldn’t strike out that much. I just can’t imagine striking out 213 times without killing myself.’’

Pete is so right. But then again other than Cashman and his crack analytics crew who else thought constantly batting Gallo 4th or 5th in the lineup was a good thing?

[Strategerie]

A smart structuring would have been no deal at all. Adding a second year to get AAV advantages was a moot point anyway, since they actually ended up with room under the CBT threshold since they only targeted "free" players at the deadline. There was nothing smart about this deal, least of all the addition of a second year.

I know you're a "value" guy and can probably look at Gardner for a few million and be content with what he offers at that cost. I include the opportunity cost. There are only 26 roster spots. I don't care if he makes $1 next year, his value to this club is negative overall due to the fact that a) he's soaking up a roster spot that could be put to far better use and b) his production does not warrant the inevitable volume of opportunity he is going to receive in 2022.

It is generally true that I am a "value guy". The way I see it, if we have a payroll of $X, we should aim to construct a roster with an annualized value of $(X+Y) where Y is as great as possible (both in the immediate term and over the long term, factoring in the inefficiency of positional redundancy, and factoring in the roles that play up the most in the postseason (such as pitching and perhaps clutch hitting, if clutch even exists)). I absolutely agree that the opportunity cost of taking up a spot is relevant to valuation.

My comment on the structuring was meant to say that the structuring of Gardner's contract was wiser done the way it was done versus just a straight 1 year, $4M contract. I think the poster I was responding to was wondering why Gardner's contract was so convoluted (but I could be misremembering).

I was not aiming to comment on whether Gardner was worth what was effectively a 1 year, $4M contract. The prevailing opinion on this site is he wasn't worth it. I personally am more on the fence. Fangraphs has Gardner's WAR for the full year at about 1.4 and his true value at about $11M for 2021 (if I remember right). I find an $11M valuation to be much too high (and think an $8M/WAR to be far too high, in general). I do think his value in 2021 was positive and higher than the opportunity cost of the roster spot he took up (which isn't true if, for example, he cost us Whitlock but I think its unfair to assume that Whitlock would have taken that spot).

I view the Gardner decision in 2021 to be relatively inconsequential (and yes, I know that decision has ripple effects, as does every roster decision, with some ripples positive and some negative).

[False1]

It is generally true that I am a "value guy". The way I see it, if we have a payroll of $X, we should aim to construct a roster with an annualized value of $(X+Y) where Y is as great as possible (both in the immediate term and over the long term, factoring in the inefficiency of positional redundancy, and factoring in the roles that play up the most in the postseason (such as pitching and perhaps clutch hitting, if clutch even exists)). I absolutely agree that the opportunity cost of taking up a spot is relevant to valuation.

My comment on the structuring was meant to say that the structuring of Gardner's contract was wiser done the way it was done versus just a straight 1 year, $4M contract. I think the poster I was responding to was wondering why Gardner's contract was so convoluted (but I could be misremembering).

I was not aiming to comment on whether Gardner was worth what was effectively a 1 year, $4M contract. The prevailing opinion on this site is he wasn't worth it. I personally am more on the fence. Fangraphs has Gardner's WAR for the full year at about 1.4 and his true value at about $11M for 2021 (if I remember right). I find an $11M valuation to be much too high (and think an $8M/WAR to be far too high, in general). I do think his value in 2021 was positive and higher than the opportunity cost of the roster spot he took up (which isn't true if, for example, he cost us Whitlock but I think its unfair to assume that Whitlock would have taken that spot).

I view the Gardner decision in 2021 to be relatively inconsequential (and yes, I know that decision has ripple effects, as does every roster decision, with some ripples positive and some negative).

Well I fundamentally disagree then. I'd have much, much, much preferred Gardner at 1/$4MM since they came in several million under CBT anyway. Regardless of the AAV, they still have to pay him and now they have to count a few million for him towards '22 CBT while he soaks up a roster spot.

[Obnoxio]

Gardner symbolizes the inability or unwillingness of the organization to give opportunity to and develop younger players.

[Strategerie]

Well I fundamentally disagree then. I'd have much, much, much preferred Gardner at 1/$4MM since they came in several million under CBT anyway. Regardless of the AAV, they still have to pay him and now they have to count a few million for him towards '22 CBT while he soaks up a roster spot.

Actually we don't really disagree - you seem to be focused on what we know now and I am focused on what we knew at the time of the signing. Given the information at the time ((a)an expectation that they would be right up against the threshhold and (b) a focus on 2021 being the year of the reset), I think the structuring was smart. Given what actually happened (they ended up with room under the threshhold), then I agree it would be nice if the small difference in structuring (a $1.4Mish gap) was applied to 2021 versus carried over into 2022.

Many things would be different based on what we know now. We should have traded virtually our entire offense who generally hurt their trade value by (a) underperforming in mass versus expectations and (b) burning up a cost controlled year in many cases. We should have added Semien, Robbie Ray, kept Whitlock, .... I'm more focused on the decision made at the time with the info we had then (because there is always a massive amount of optimal decisions not made when looked at in retrospect).

If they knew they would come in below the threshhold, I really wished they had still done the same Gardner contract but then paid less in prospects and required less salary paydowns at the deadline (or not dumped Cessa and Wilson for payroll relief). However, it seems apparent that they expected to add more to the payroll at the deadline but something didn't pan out in the final hours.

[effdamets]

Gardner symbolizes the inability or unwillingness of the organization to give opportunity to and develop younger players.

I think Gardner symbolizes a bit more than this. He is the longest tenured Yankee so maybe there's some sentimental value.
He's the connection to the old regime, the final remaining Yankee to the last Championship.
Of course, these are not reasons to keep him on the roster - however......

Gardner is a nice 4th outfielder. But only if you don't have a guy in your plan that you think is gonna be Mickey Mantle someday and it turns out he's really bad and can never stay on the field (Hicks)
If they can get their hands on a CFer that can play everyday and NOT get injured when he breathes, Gardner isn't a bad choice as the backup OFer.

[HelloNewman]

Gardner is a nice 4th outfielder. But only if you don't have a guy in your plan that you think is gonna be Mickey Mantle someday and it turns out he's really bad and can never stay on the field (Hicks)
If they can get their hands on a CFer that can play everyday and NOT get injured when he breathes, Gardner isn't a bad choice as the backup OFer.

Gardner is OK as 4th OF if you can commit yourself to a plan in which, if any of #1, #2 and/or #3 goes down, Gardner remains frozen in place at #4 and a (hopefully) young player from AAA leapfrogs him into the top 3 (a Florial type, for example). Brett's time share remains representative of a 4th outfielder regardless.

But that's not what they do. Injuries to others get him promoted, and that's the problem.

[JDPNYY]

First of all this thread needs to be closed because the Yankees were dumped from the post season and there is no post season as far as the Yankees are now concerned. There is an off season thread for continued discussion. This is just my opinion. Keep posting in a dead thread if you wish.

But since it isn't closed and this current discussion above is annoying to me, I'll chime in.

The money paid to Gardner is the smaller of the two problems.
The main problem with constantly re-upping Gardner is that he's easily replaced. Since that is the case, he is taking up (even as the 4th OFer) a roster spot that could be used to see how younger players can perform. You constantly don't find out what you have when he is on the team. We even have tremendous examples of this.
1) Frazier was given the regular OFer job in the spring. He had 3 or 4 good games, then went into a 3 game slump and Gardner took over. Regular OFer benched. They actually ruined Frazier.
2) A kind of journeyman ML/mL player - Greg Allen was given a shot due to some injuries/illnesses and played exceptionally well in the brief stint. So much so that Gardner was losing playing time to him. Now Allen may have been lightning in a bottle but the Yankees replaced him with perhaps the worst hitter, er, possible - Jonathan Davis. Gardner goes right back to playing time and is, you know, not so great. Allen, by the way, went down to Scranton and stayed hot. The lightning was sent to the minor league bottle.
3) Florial never got more than a cup of coffee chance either.

So we have this old fan favorite who just keeps coming back. It's all part of The Process.

[ojo]

First of all this thread needs to be closed because the Yankees were dumped from the post season and there is no post season as far as the Yankees are now concerned. There is an off season thread for continued discussion. This is just my opinion. Keep posting in a dead thread if you wish.

But since it isn't closed and this current discussion above is annoying to me, I'll chime in.

The money paid to Gardner is the smaller of the two problems.
The main problem with constantly re-upping Gardner is that he's easily replaced. Since that is the case, he is taking up (even as the 4th OFer) a roster spot that could be used to see how younger players can perform. You constantly don't find out what you have when he is on the team. We even have tremendous examples of this.
1) Frazier was given the regular OFer job in the spring. He had 3 or 4 good games, then went into a 3 game slump and Gardner took over. Regular OFer benched. They actually ruined Frazier.
2) A kind of journeyman ML/mL player - Greg Allen was given a shot due to some injuries/illnesses and played exceptionally well in the brief stint. So much so that Gardner was losing playing time to him. Now Allen may have been lightning in a bottle but the Yankees replaced him with perhaps the worst hitter, er, possible - Jonathan Davis. Gardner goes right back to playing time and is, you know, not so great. Allen, by the way, went down to Scranton and stayed hot. The lightning was sent to the minor league bottle.
3) Florial never got more than a cup of coffee chance either.

So we have this old fan favorite who just keeps coming back. It's all part of The Process.

I really don’t get the love for Brett Gardner. Man, remember the glory years of the past 12 years? Good grief. He’s a league average player with some speed. He can foul off pitches to lengthen ABs. He also goes on prolonged slumps and has a little league arm. Move. On.

[bucky]

my 2 pennies. Hicks should be our 4th OF and replaced Gardy several years ago. I think he did a good job as a 4th OF. Brian made him the DF and gave him that contract. Just move Judge to CF and play Stanton in RF. Those creative contracts with Gardy, O'Day, and Wilson are terrible. People post how smart Cashman is to keep it under the LT. Not only are they marginal lefty players, we are on the hook next year but more importantly they take up a roster spot for a better player. I think we gave Reds Wilson and Cessa (Sonny) away for cash to stay under. HUH. Odor is free but he takes up a roster spot and we had to play him in critical game (he swings that bat). Because he's free he will be on next year roster. I really watching Allen in July, wanted to see Addison Ross, Medina and Gil. These moves hurt our team and it's allocation. Not Balanced.

[Maynerd]

First of all this thread needs to be closed because the Yankees were dumped from the post season and there is no post season as far as the Yankees are now concerned. There is an off season thread for continued discussion.

[Moderator]

I agree with JDPNYY. Let's take the discussion of what the Yankees ought to do (and almost certainly WON'T do) to the off-season thread. The very, very brief time this thread was relevant has passed.

[/Moderator]