My ranking of reporters by trustworthiness on Yankees offseason transaction news.
(This represents my opinion, and nothing more).
The list is not comprehensive, but covers the main names who have attempted to break NYY offseason transaction news over the last 3 years. Other beats (Hoch, Kirschner, Sherman) do not usually *break* transaction news, but can be considered somewhat trustworthy if they do.
This also *only* relates to offseason player transaction news. Andy Martino, for example, can be considered somewhat untrustworthy when reporting on other things.
It’s also not a ranking of quality of writing or reporting overall, which would be very different.
Honorable mentions to Jomboy, Jake Storiale, and Joez Mcfly, who rarely report on transaction news but are always correct when they do.
Dishonorable mention (unfortunately) to Michael Kay, who is occasionally (unknowingly) used as a vessel for NYY to negotiate thru the media.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Here are the senior members of the Yankees' and Astros' baseball operations staffs, along with the year they were hired by the organization.
If you're wondering why the Yankees seem "behind the curve"...
Not only is the Houston staff significantly younger and recently staffed, many among them were imported from other cutting edge orgs (James Click and Andrew Ball from TBR, Scott Powers from LAD, Sara Goodrum from MIL).
The Yankees keep a very short public list of their front office staff, while Houston's is much more extensive. I included the NYY side and their HOU counterparts, but you can see HOU's full staff, including R&D specialists and all scouts: mlb.com/astros/team/fr…
So far, it seems like the home plate umpire has a fairly small zone (especially up), and to the extent that Javier is struggling with anything, he’s missing a bit with the fastball up.
My mid-game adjustment would be to try laying off that pitch more. Work count, create traffic
This is obviously easier said than done, and should apply more early in the count. But it does seem like NYY came in with a plan to try and jump the heater, and they’ve helped him out a bit
EG- Judge leads off the 4th inning. Takes ball 1 on the low slider. Second pitch was a running fastball up and in, in the box, but ump may have called it a ball. Judge fouls it off. I would auto take a strike there
Luis Severino had a strong outing last night, but both he and Kyle Higashioka were insistent that the 1-2 pitch to Alex Bregman in the 3rd inning was a "good pitch", and that Bregman's home run was heavily influenced by luck. Let's explore if that's true.
Thread:
Entering Bregman's 3rd-inning at bat, Severino had a 72% 4S fastball percentage for the game, significantly higher than his season 48.1% 4S percentage. A well-executed pitch is hard to hit regardless, but it still helps (a lot) to know what's coming.
The sequence to Bregman was: fastball, fastball, change up, fastball. Easy for Bregman to sit fastball in that count, especially right off of a change up. Knowing this, the prerogative should probably be to entice him out of the zone, rather than in the zone. Here's where it was:
What happened to the Yankees' offense in 2021? A thread.
In 2019 and 2020 combined, the Yankees ranked 1st in runs scored across baseball. In 2021, they ranked 19th.
What accounts for the sudden drastic drop in NYY's offensive production? Will explore in this thread:
Theory #1: Different players?
This is an easy theory to quickly dismiss. In spite of some role-players and imports (Rizzo, Gallo), the great majority of PAs went to the same players in 2021 as in 2019/2020 (DJL, Torres, Voit, Gardner, Urshela, Judge Stanton, Sanchez).
Theory #2: Did the Yankees take a different offensive approach in 2021 than in 2019/2020?
Many point to sticky stuff, covid, and/or a hamstring injury as the culprit of Cole's struggles down the stretch.
Which of these was the main factor? Was it any of them? Non of them?
Will dig into it in this thread:
When the crackdown on sticky stuff occurred in June, the spin rate on Cole's entire arsenal dropped, obviously. He was able to retain spin rate on everything as the season progressed, but his main 2 pitches (FB, slider), never got back to their original spin rate.
With the high-spin 4S fastball, Cole was able to generate success by locating the pitch at the top of the zone, even if it caught a lot of plate. Here's his location chart on the 4S in April and May (wOBA against the 4S in that time was .275)