Jimmy Sez

This spring if you were asked to name a guy that would nearly single-handedly carry the Yankee offense for an extended stretch this season, you might have listed 100 names before you came up with Matt Carpenter. But here we are nearing the end of July and a man whose career was dead in the water two months ago has become indispensable for the Bombers. After getting picked up off the scrap heap in late May, Carpenter ingratiated himself to the Bronx faithful with an impressive barrage of home runs, hitting six in his first 10 games as a Yankee. He found a higher gear in July. Bouncing around in Aaron Boone's lineup - whether it be at the corner outfield spots, first base or designated hitter - he posted a .442/.529/.727 slash line with seven home runs and 21 RBI's for the month leading up to the All-Star break. He ended that with a 6-for-15 crescendo in the week before the break, which included three home runs and 12 RBIs. For his efforts, Carpenter took home the AL Player of th...

It's been a while, but the Yankees are once again the dominant force in baseball. By any objective measure, they're the best team in the league and the clear favorites to represent the American League the World Series as we approach the midpoint of the season. This despite some dope spending the offseason pointing out the flaws in the organization . The last time the Yankees played with the calm confidence that they would win almost every night was probably about 20 years ago. So, let's take a look at what's different this year and see if their winning ways are sustainable. The lineup is realizing its full potential Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are doing some serious damage this year. It's true that the Yankees need those two guys raking for the offense to be running on all cylinders. However, those two alone can't do it all by themselves. In 2021, the twin towers were nearly as productive as they are this year, combining for 74 home runs and driving in al...

Fresh off his fourth career Final Four appearance, Jay Wright dropped a bombshell on NCAA men's basketball. He was one of the few coaches capable of taking the torch from Coach K as the reigning king of college hoops, but instead decided to join the former Duke coach in retirement. Nobody saw it coming, and that's exactly the way the former Villanova coach wanted it. A farewell tour filled with accolades and admiration would have stood in stark contrast to the program he worked diligently to re-build over the last 20 years on the Main Line. At a university where football is an afterthought, Wright never had the luxuries that most other top-tier basketball programs enjoy by riding the coattails of gridiron success. In order to compete with schools like Duke, North Carolina, Michigan, and Kansas, he was going to need to get creative. Simply poaching a few five-star recruits each year was not an option. It didn't happen overnight, but since 2009 Villanova basketball has been ...

It's impossible to overstate how much Don Mattingly meant to me when I was growing up. In second grade I had a homework assignment to write about my heroes and present it to my class. The two heroes I chose were my dad and Don Mattingly. A few years later the Yankees made the playoffs for the first time since I was born and the team was clearly rallying around Mattingly in what was likely his final season as a player. When things got tight late in the decisive Game 5 in Seattle, I ran to the bathroom during a commercial break and prayed like I never prayed before. Pleading to let a few bounces go the Yankees way so that Donnie could finally play in the World Series. Spoiler alert: he didn't. In my late teens I spent many hours applying to colleges, most of them requiring essays. The topic of the majority of my essays was Don Mattingly. What he taught me about leadership, work ethic, and the two-way street called respect, even though we had never spoken a word to each other. I w...

About a month ago, Yankee legend - and good friend of Jimmy Sez - Derek Jeter dropped an unexpected bombshell on Major League Baseball. He was stepping down as CEO of the Miami Marlins and selling is 4% stake in the team. The timing was curious. When Jeter took over the Marlins in 2017 he immediately began clearing house in Miami. Most notably, Giancarlo Stanton was sent to New York for pennies on the dollar. It was all part of a concerted effort to rebuild the organization from the ground up. Now that it seemed he could enter the fun part of a rebuild where you actually field a quality team and win games, he decided to cash out. So what gives? Jeter will always be a player at heart. So the ugly war waged between MLB ownership and the players' union this offseason may have had something to do with him wanting out of the ownership game. But the ultra-competitive Jeter's parting words as well as the comments of those close to him afterwards reveal the true nature of his departu...