Jimmy Sez

A few weeks ago we covered the former Yankees on the 2021 Hall of Fame ballot who earned a championship ring in pinstripes. Here we'll take a look at four players who joined the Yankees when they were well into their 30's and past their prime. 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 they 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 this, click here . Gary Sheffield - Right Field, JAWS: 49.3, HoF JAWS: 57.2 A Gary Sheffield at bat was a sight to behold. Most of the great swings throughout baseball history could be described as beautiful, elegant or graceful, but a Sheffield swing would best be described as an act of violence. Before each pitch he would tilt his bat from an upright position back and forth towards the pitcher, like a pendulum getting increas...

After cancelling the usual induction festivities this past summer due to the pandemic, the National Baseball Hall of Fame is looking to add to a class headlined by Derek Jeter with the newly released ballot for 2021 . On a ballot with 25 players, there are no slam dunks this year, but eight of them spent at least one season with the Yankees during their career. The results of this year's election will be released on January 26, 2021 but we'll take a look at each former Yankee's case well before then. As always, a player needs at least 75% of the close to 400-member electorate to vote for them in order to gain election. The first group we'll take a look at here all won at least one World Series as a member of the Yankees. Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte each have a body of work that matches up favorably to other Hall of Fame pitchers, if not for the major controversy that surrounded their careers. A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher were certainly useful players that made si...

What will go down as one of the strangest regular seasons in baseball history is in the books. Now an equally wacky post-season begins and despite their Jekyll  and Hyde  routine to close out the season, the Yankees are a part of it. The last time Major League Baseball was forced to go off-script with both the regular season and playoff schedule was in 1981 due to a mid-season strike . That year, a similarly streaky Yankee team reached the playoffs - and ultimately the World Series where they lost to the Dodgers - by finishing the "first half" of the season with the best record in the AL East. Never mind that they were below .500 in the second half and actually finished with only the fourth best overall record in the division. The slapdash playoff system was far from perfect. The similarities between the 1981 and 2020 Yankees go well beyond team streakiness, though. As they embark on another playoff journey, let's dig into a comparison between the current Yankees and thei...