Jimmy Sez

The New York Yankees have fallen well short of expectations in 2021 and there's plenty of blame to go around. Sloppy play in the field and even sloppier play on the base paths have been commonplace. But those things have historically not been a team strength for the Yankees. The starting pitching behind Gerrit Cole has been inconsistent and lacking in depth. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone paying attention to their lackluster offseason though. Even the bullpen - a supposed team strength - has imploded recently, costing the team two games against the Red Sox they desperately needed last weekend. When most of the relievers heavily relied upon are on the wrong side of 30, that's bound to happen. The biggest surprise contributing to Yankee failure this year is the futility of the lineup. Two big bats in particular have simply not pulled their weight thus far. We covered the struggles of DJ LeMahieu in some detail here , which leaves us with Gleyber Torres. In 2019, a 22-...

The calendar has turned to July, which means we're at an unofficial midpoint of the Major League Baseball season. At this point, we still have no idea what to make of this 2021 Yankee team. Every time they seem to turn a corner, they immediately fall on their face. While the Bombers continue their roller coaster season, all this humble bystander can do is observe and report on how things may fare during the back half of the year. When doing that, one thing becomes abundantly clear. The Yankees will sorely miss an old friend that they let go too soon. Masahiro Tanaka's reaction when the Yankees made him an "offer" to stick around this year. YES Network/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPYtSK0Vp1Q/Wikimedia Commons The offense will probably get better Many have pointed to the Yankee offense as the main culprit for their struggles to date, and they'd be right. As recently as June 23rd, they ranked dead last in the American League in runs scored. The last time they fin...

For many years now, baseball fans who love digging through the game's numbers have made FanGraphs and Baseball Reference their homes away from home. While those sites are still abundantly useful for getting lost in rabbit holes, there's a new kid in town. Baseball Savant harnesses the power of Statcast by providing a central database for things that seemed unfathomable to measure just a few decades ago like exit velocity, launch angle, and spin rate. Miserable baseball fans with stale minds tend to hate these things and will shout to the heavens about them. Those of us who agree that knowledge is power tend to embrace them as new tools that inform us on the state of baseball at this very moment, which will no doubt change significantly in due time, just as baseball always has. But who am I to judge? Before we dig into some numbers here, I want to address this lazy , growing narrative that " analytics are ruining the game" being pushed by folks who probably don...

Since the Yankees have stumbled out of the gate here in 2021, I've decided to take a trip down memory lane. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry was hot as ever in 2003 as the titans of the American League clashed in the ALCS. The hype for Game Three was palpable. Roger Clemens faced off against Pedro Martinez on a Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park. I remember watching the game live nearly 18 years ago and thinking in the moment that it was one of the greatest games I had ever seen. Through the power of YouTube, I re-watched it for the first time since then to see if that remains true and documented my thoughts along the way. Without further ado, here's a "live-blog" of a game from 2003, because that's what make sense in 2021. Intro It's a beautiful day for baseball in Boston and we've got Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in the booth for the game. I'm not alone is disliking broadcasts that involve these guys, but they were pretty much the voice of the Yankees on T...