Happ had his good stuff, but he did a very poor job of pitching when he had 2 strikes on the batter. He doesn't have a great put away pitch so he has to hit good spots with 2 strikes and simply didn't do that. He was a little unlucky on some of the hits finding holes, but he also allowed TB to square up some balls with 1-2 counts. There was a 1-2 pitch that the batter drilled up the middle and Torres was playing right there but on the pitch he moved toward first base yet still could have made the play but stayed away from it and waved at it as it went by him. It was not a good play by Gleyber but the ball was rocketed. It cost us a run.
The Yankees were able to string together 5 singles to score three runs and take a 4-2 lead. After Kahnle gave one back by walking the first guy (drives me nuts) and allowing a double, Maybin hit his 4th HR in 4 games and not only gave us a 2 run lead again but kept our HR streak alive.
Britton was a little shaky in the 8th but got through it and Chapman was sharp in the 9th reaching 102 and also had a well-controlled slider to save the game - BIG WIN!
Maybin is swinging the bat great right now, but if another team wants him I would trade him. He has been a regular player in the league for 10 years (200 plate appearances or more) and only 2 of those years his OPS was over .700. In 2011 he had an OPS of .711 and in 2016 he had his best year with a .801 OPS. Right now his OPS is a shockingly excellent .892, sell high! Also, there is talk about what happens when Judge comes back. I would keep 5 OF'rs especially with all 3 starters just coming back from injury, we should rest them often. Go with 12 pitchers and 13 players.
In Minnesota they had a 5 hour 45-minute game, Minnesota beat Boston in 17 innings. Minny tied the game in 8th and then both teams scored in the 13th before Minnesota won in the 17th.
I have heard from some of you saying that we need some arms...
While having a better pitching staff would be good (just as better defense or better hitting would help), is it worth an investment of dollars and/or prospects?
The answer to how much we invest or hurt our future depends on a few factors (you can come up with more) such as how powerful is the competition, do we have any glaring holes where a body would be a huge upgrade, and the risk-reward we have to incur for the player combined with what we have to give up for that player.
Some players you may take a chance that they are good and others are more of a sure thing. Some are incredibly expensive for both dollars and prospects. All of this needs to be evaluated.
My issue with just getting some more arms is who do we knock out of the rotation if we get someone? This comes back to how much of an upgrade is it? If we had Tauchman as our starting OF'r or we had Cessa as our 5th starter, I would say it is a no brainer to upgrade.
We are doing well right now and we do have arms we will add to the equation so I am not so sure I want to give away a lot unless we get a sure fire stud.
Remember, we have Severino (our #1) coming back along with Betances (our #2 or 3 arm in the pen) and Loaisiga and Montgomery are both supposed to be back as well.
So who do you remove from the rotation? Who loses a roster spot? We will have these 8 starters at some point:
Severino
Paxton
Tanaka
Happ
German
CC
Loaisiga
Montgomery
Even if you cross out Loaisiga because he is young and hasn't thrown much, you still have Montgomery and his 3.84 ERA over his roughly 200 IP and at only 26. But maybe you remove him as nobody knows if he will be at full strength this year (even though he will be back). That still leaves 6 starters. Let's say you believe CC is not someone you would pitch in the postseason and you remove him as well (not sure what we would do with him except be a lefty specialist (LOOGY)). CC hasn't been good over his last 4 games but was excellent before that.
That still gives you 5 starters that I am not sure we want to remove from the rotation. Maybe German tires out, but this slight IL stint is probably great for him and us to keep him fresh.
Obviously, if you get a Scherzer, you can plug him in and not worry about others, but do you really have more faith in Wheeler (no), Stroman (inconsistent), Bumgarner (great postseason career, but has a 3.87 ERA this year and has allowed 14 HR's in 93 IP. To be fair, he has a 3.08 lifetime ERA which is great, but roughly a 3.50 ERA over the last 3 years where he missed some time each of the last 2 years). Mathew Boyd and Aaron Sanchez don't interest me and that leaves Bauer. He has never pitched 200 innings, but that may be a good thing long term. He was never below a 4 ERA until his great last year (2.21) and has been very good this year at 3.41. But what do we give up?
So maybe Bumgarner or Bauer. I get the feeling that Cashman is looking at players off the radar. I did a little stats checking and the one guy I came up with was Luis Castillo from Cincinnati (who is still inexpensive and under control for 4 years). Someone like Luis, where you give up a lot of prospects for a great young arm would make sense to me. My criteria was someone on a team who wasn't going anywhere and had a great arm and numbers that reflected that arm. I also wanted to get someone who wasn't making 20+ mil a year (and why Scherzer isn't on the list. I am sure there are a few other guys, but Castillo seemed the best to me with an OPS against of .565 and a 2.26 ERA this year. I looked up that he throws 97/98 in his last game against Houston.
BUT, we still have to decide who would be knocked from the rotation. Because of this, I would not be surprised if we held off and made sure that our future is solid and we are always competing for a WS (that is the goal as you will win some). Winning has so many factors in it that you want to make sure you can compete with a good chance of going all the way and avoiding giving up the farm allows this to happen. Don't we all feel that when healthy we can take this team against anyone? I do.
I have faith in Cashman, but if the feeling is that Severino will come back strong, I would not add someone other than an upgrade on a 2 for 1 trade. Obviously, if we could get good value for Andujar, I would move him along with Frazier for someone, but I could also see us moving Urshela and selling high on him and playing Torres or DJ at 3rd base.
Should be interesting but I don't feel any need to make a move unless we know that Severino won't be healthy/good.
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