Jimmy Sez

In our first look at former Yankees on the 2026 BBWAA ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame, we focused on players who spent only a brief portion of their career with the Yankees. This time around, we'll dig into two players who are primarily known as Yankees and would likely be in the Hall of Fame already had steroids not been an issue during their careers. Before we get to those juicy stories, there's one more former Yankee on the ballot who has the best shot at election this year. Albeit with his own bit controversy that likely held him back from enshrinement in Cooperstown last year. Get your popcorn ready, it's high drama Hall of Fame time here at Jimmy Sez! For each player, their JAWS (Jaffe Average WAR Score, developed by Jay Jaffe) value is given along with the average Hall of Famer's JAWS at the player's position. JAWS is a Hall of Fame rating system based on WAR that incorporates both career and peak value. If you're interested in learning more about t...

Al l of the BBWAA votes are in for this year's Hall of Fame ballot but the results won't be announced until January 20th. Until then, there will be a whole lot of speculation as to who will make the cut to be enshrined in Cooperstown this summer. Let's add to the chaos! Of the 27 former players up for election, six of them spent at least a portion of their career as a Yankee. As we do every year, we'll take a close look at the career of each of them and give an honest assessment as to their chances of earning a bronze plaque in the most exclusive room in baseball. First up, we'll take a look at three players who spent a lot of time changing uniforms, especially late in their careers. Each of them was a multiple-time All-Star in their playing days and one might even get the nod from the BBWAA this year thanks to his reputation as one of the greatest fielders who ever lived. For each player, their JAWS (Jaffe Average WAR Score, developed by Jay Jaffe) value is given...

In Cooperstown, there was a recent announcement of the eight former players on the 2026 ballot for the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee to vote on. The ballot is comprised of eight former players who primarily played in the 1980's or later. Of the eight candidates, three of them spent at least a portion of their career with the Yankees. The committee determining the fate of these former stars is made up of 16 prominent baseball figures ranging from current Hall of Famers to major league executives and even a few media members. In order to earn baseball's highest honor, the candidates must get votes from 75% of the committee. Since all former Yankees being voted on spent the maximum allowed time on the standard BBWAA ballot for the Hall of Fame and failed to earn 75% that way, this will be harder than it seems. Still, most of these recent veterans committee elections have resulted in at least one new plaque in Cooperstown. The results of the vote will be announced this Sunda...

We saw more of the same from the Yankees in 2025. They're a sometimes great, sometimes awful, highly flawed, but overall pretty good baseball team. That earned them a spot in the MLB playoffs - as they've done in eight of the last nine seasons - but they also fell short of their stated goal in every one of those seasons. You can guarantee that the Yankees' brain trust won't do enough this offseason to get them out of "pretty good" purgatory in 2026. Lather, rinse, repeat. As a New York Giants fan I know it could be a lot worse, so I won't complain much more about this. Instead, let's focus on what the 2025 Yankees accomplished in the context of franchise history. There were some pleasant surprises, a near miss, and another transcendent season from an all-time great. Despite a disappointing result, there was plenty of fun to be had in 2025. Some Yankees earned a seat in franchise history in 2025, and they didn't even have to buy it from Steiner Spo...

It's been a year since I   wrote a tribute   the best dog I'll ever know. As these things tend to go, sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. The Casa de Sez still feels a bit empty without Buddy, and we all still miss him terribly. With a year gone by now, he's been on my mind more than usual, so it feels like a good time to share a quick story about friendship, loss, and the overwhelming power of Ray Charles in front of a piano. Soon after we said goodbye to Buddy boy, Mrs. Sez and I drowned our sorrows by binge-watching Boardwalk Empire , because we're only about 20 years behind on good TV shows. In the middle of season three, there's an episode focused on Al Capone where he does many things you might expect from Al Capone. However, there's a subplot about his deaf son being bullied at school. After initially trying to teach his son to physically fight back - which doesn't go well - the episode ends with a brief momen...

Since he took baseball by storm in 2017 Aaron Judge has been superhuman on the baseball field. There are hundreds of ways that I could prove this by using both fancy and non-fancy statistics, but I would just be stating the obvious. In a world where just about any topic can be divisive, I think we can all agree that there are at most a handful of humans in the history of baseball that could hit a baseball better than Aaron Judge currently does. Judge is only rendered ineffective when he's literally not on the field due to injury. [This is where some people will scream out loud, "But he sucks in the playoffs!" There's some validity to that eloquence, but we're gonna keep the scope of this to the regular season only, for reasons you'll see shortly]. Unfortunately, we've seen a few extended stays on the injured list for Judge over the years and his most recent stint got me thinking: What impact does Judge's absence really have on the Yankees? Do they miss...