There’s no easy way for these words to come out of my head,
so I’ll just throw it out there and see if it sticks, you know, like the plate
of linguini against the kitchen wall.
Right now, the New York Yankees are clearly the best
baseball team in New York.
There, I said it. It was painful to admit, like a two-second
trip to the dentist without Novocain. The Yankees are better than the Mets.
The two teams will meet soon for four straight games, Monday
Aug. 14 and Tuesday Aug. 15 at Yankee Stadium, then Wednesday Aug. 16 and
Thursday Aug. 17 at CitiField.
Those four games might become like an extended stay in the
dentist’s chair, like a root canal or even a full-fledged extraction. This year’s
Subway Series might become an all-out coronation of which team is better,
complete with red carpet, blaring horns and unveiling of the crown.
When the 2017 season began with spring training in late
February into March, there isn’t a soul on this planet who would have believed
that the Yankees were indeed better than the Mets. It was inconceivable.
The Mets were the team with the young, brash, bodacious
pitching rotation. Some went as far as to say it could possibly be the best
five-man rotation in the history of the game. An esteemed sportswriter who
works for ESPN, Buster Olney, was
one who proclaimed such words. Sports Illustrated posted a picture of the five,
namely Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard,
Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Zack
Wheeler, boasting and bragging that this was the best rotation in the game.
Of course, this clown drank every ounce of that Kool-Aid and
believed every single word of it. Dominant, I said. With that pitching staff
alone, the Mets could win the pennant, much like they did in 2015. This is the
year to win it all, if they stay healthy. There was no comparison between the
Mets’ rotation and the Yankees’ five-man unit. It was believed that the Mets’
contingency was the best in the entire game, so it was obviously better than
the Bronx.
When the season began, what did the Yankees have as a
rotation? They had one sure-fire starter in Masahiro Tanaka, who was coming off a solid 14-4 season with a 3.04
ERA. They had a mixed-up second-year youngster in Luis Severino, a rehabbing Michael
Pineda, an unsure 36-year-old C.C.
Sabathia _ and nothing else. In spring training, the Yankees didn’t even
have five reliable starting pitchers and the Mets had the best rotation in the
game, perhaps ever.
The Yankees threw out a startling 36 different pitchers to
the mound in 2016 with some names living on in immortality. Try these names on
for size. Johnny Barbato? Sounds
like my barber. Richard Bleier? No,
not the Steelers’ RB. Ben Heller? I
prefer Ben Stiller. Tyler Goody? Oh, Goody, I’d rather Sam
Goody to get some CDs. Tyler Olson?
He’s the long lost brother of the frog-like looking twins from Full House. Conor
Mullee? I only know him because he once pitched for St. Peter’s University,
yes, that one, Harvard on the Boulevard. Those are some immortal names right
there.
Shall we go on? The Mets thought they had the best position
player in New York in Yoenis Cespedes,
who practically walked on water for his first two seasons, leading the team to
the postseason twice. His 2015 season with the orange and blue was something to
behold, belting 17 homers in 52 games coming after the big trade deadline deal,
leading the Mets to the World Series. Last year, in 132 games, he hit .280 with
31 homers and 86 RBI, as the Mets went to the playoffs for the second straight
year for only the second time in club history.
The Mets had a host of proven veteran players who did well
in 2016, like Neil Walker, Asdrubal
Cabrera, Curtis Granderson and Lucas Duda. It didn’t even matter than the
former face of the franchise, David
Wright, wasn’t even able to pick up a baseball and throw it five feet in
spring training. It wasn’t like Met fans were holding on to every last bit of
hope that Wright would return. It didn’t matter. The team was still dominant
without him, especially if the five starters could make their turn in the
rotation.
The Yankees did have a huge glimmer of hope, a bright ray of
sunshine in catcher Gary Sanchez,
who was incredible last year after his midseason call-up to the Bronx, belting 20 homers
in 52 games and hitting .299. Sanchez was so amazing that he finished second in
the Rookie of the Year balloting _ and he didn’t make his debut until late
July. There’s no question that the Yankees had their catcher for the next
decade. Sanchez was the “Sanchise” indeed, not like the former Jets quarterback
who ran into the rear end of his own player and fumbled. Gary Sanchez was not
going to fumble a thing.
And in spring training, it looked as if the Yankees had a
first baseman to be excited about for the next 10 years in Greg Bird, who hit an astounding seven homers and batted better
than .400 in the Grapefruit League. Bird was smooth around the bag and looked
like he was going to just step right in to replace long-time fixture Mark Teixeira, who retired at the end
of the season. Another aging great named Alex
Rodriguez (remember him?) also hung them up. Both were shells of their real
selves in 2016, with Tex batting .204 and A-Rod hitting the unthinkable .200.
The Yankees did have some promising young players. One of which
was outfielder Aaron Judge, but he
batted .179 in 27 games as a rookie and struck out 42 times in 95 at-bats,
almost exactly half of his plate appearances.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman knew that 2016 was
going to be a washout, so he traded his two-thirds of his famed All-Star
bullpen, namely Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, in order to get younger
prospects. For Chapman, Cashman got heralded shortstop Gleyber Torres from the Cubs. For Miller, he received outfielder Clint Frazier from the Indians. Both
were big pieces for the future.
That was the key word when it came to the Yankees. The
future. The Mets? The future was now, especially with those young arms.
That’s the way the season began. The Mets filled with
promise of a great 2017, one that could even become magical. The Yankees seemed
to be playing for the future.
But then, the tides started to turn _ and in a hurry. The
Mets had a revolving door into the trainer’s office. It was believed that the
Mets had a glut of starting pitchers coming into spring training. They all
spent more time with medical staff than on the mound.
Matz and last year’s revelation Seth Lugo couldn’t pitch in spring training at all. Then as the
season began, they all started to go down. Syndergaard, who was being hyped as
the second coming of the Lord, never mind the Thor references and 102 mile-per-hour
fastballs, tore a lat muscle and was done. Harvey, who already had Tommy John
surgery and thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, where a rib was removed to allow
the nerves in his right arm to function, somehow suffered a stress fracture of
the shoulder. The Dark Knight references were quickly forgotten. Wheeler, who missed the last two years after Tommy John surgery,
came back, showed some signs of brilliance, but then got bombed and went down
with a tired arm.
The only pitcher to stay healthy and strong throughout was
deGrom, who has been brilliant. The rest? It’s a collective pile of doo-doo.
What was supposed to be the strength of the entire league has now evolved into
a mess weaker than the skinny kid in third grade who got pummeled in the schoolyard
every day. It has to be the biggest disappointment in all of baseball this spring.
The Mets on the field were abysmal to watch. Cabrera and Jose Reyes got old before our eyes.
Following a trend, Cespedes and Walker got hurt. So did Juan Lagares. So did Lucas Duda, but he gets hurt every summer. People
say that injuries are a part of baseball. Well, the Mets have that part mastered.
No team gets hurt like the Mets. None. They’ve cornered the market on trips to
the Hospital for Special Surgery. They should just keep an ambulance right
outside the operating room door.
The only true positive on the team was Jay Bruce’s surprising return to glory. Bruce, who was dreadful
after coming to the Mets last summer, was sensational from the start. With 29
homers right now, he’s on pace to break the team’s all-time single season home
run record. So was the rejuvenated Michael
Conforto, who shrugged off a horrendous sophomore slump to come back this
season and play like an All-Star.
But the rest of the bunch? Downright disgusting. So you take
an underachieving, broken down disgrace of a starting rotation, add a bad
offensive mix throughout and sprinkle in some really bad defense and you have
the reasons why the Mets are dead in the water. They’re six games under .500,
going nowhere fast.
As for the Yankees, there has never been more life in the
Bronx, a rebirth and rejuvenation perhaps never before seen in pinstripe
history. The aforementioned Judge has blossomed into a five-tool superstar, a
6-foot-7 behemoth who leads all of baseball in home runs after winning the Home
Run Derby at the All-Star Game in eye-popping fashion. This lovable humble kid
keeps tattooing the baseball with mammoth blasts that come close to 500 feet.
The 25-year-old, a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year who has to
be considered as one of the favorites for the American League Most Valuable
Player, has 34 homers, 75 RBI, a .299 batting average and a .425 on-base
percentage, considering he leads the league in walks. Last year, Judge would
swing at breaking pitches that were thrown low and away, but this year, he has
laid off those pitches and taking walks. Judge personally symbolizes the
rebirth of the Yankees, going from a .179 hitting question mark to a superstar
overnight.
The Yankees have a dynamite second base-shortstop combination
in Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorius. Brett Gardner, the 10-year veteran, is the leader of the team and
the resident old-timer at 33 years old. Gardner already has a career-high in
homers with 19.
Rookie Frazier has been solid in 24 games since his recall
from the minors, batting .255 with four homers and 17 RBI. The red-headed
wonder looks like a permanent piece to the Yankees’ outfield, especially after he hit that bomb against the Orioles last week that flew over the bullpens and deep into those left field bleachers.
And the Yankees
made a trade with the White Sox to get another Frazier, namely former Home Run
Derby champ and New Jersey hero Todd
Frazier, to take over third base. The Yankees clearly lead all of MLB in
guys named Frazier. Take that, Niles.
And trades? Cashman has been nothing short of brilliant.
First, going back to last year, he traded Chapman to the Cubs for their pennant
run, got a stud in Gleyber Torres in return, then re-signed Chapman as a free
agent. Brilliant! Then, there was the trade with the White Sox to get Todd Frazier,
former Yankee reliever and fan favorite David
Robertson and flame throwing reliever Tommy
Kahnle. Brilliant!
But the best of all gets unveiled tonight. Sonny Gray was somehow dislodged from
the Oakland A’s for three prospects. The All-Star right-handed hurler will make
every Yankee fan’s heard skip and go pitter-patter, because this kid is the
real deal _ and then some. He might not look like an overpowering pitcher with
his slight and small frame, but Gray throws gas and throws five different
pitches for strikes. He can be the dominant pitcher that they hoped Tanaka
would be this season.
Mark my words, Sonny Gray will become the best right-handed
pitching acquisition the franchise has made since Catfish Hunter. That’s saying a lot, but I truly believe it. Gray
has it all and the best part about it for Yankee fans is that he’s only 27
years old and under contract for the next two seasons. In 2015, Gray’s last
full healthy season, he went 14-7 with a 2.73 ERA and allowed just 166 hits in
208 innings. People on the East Coast might not have gotten the chance to
appreciate what Gray can do, but Gray will quickly become a fan favorite in
Yankee Stadium, much in the fashion that Ron
Guidry’s “Louisiana Lightning” lit up the Bronx during the “Bronx Zoo” era.
Now, that Yankee rotation looks extremely solid, with
Severino (8-4, 2.98 ERA) pitching like he’s the ace, Gray, the reborn and
remade Sabathia (9-4, 3.81 ERA), the surprising rookie Jordan Montgomery (7-6, 4.15 ERA), Tanaka (8-9, 5.09 ERA, but two
solid starts back-to-back) and the recently acquired Jaime Garcia (67-52 over his career, 10-6 with a 2.43 ERA in 2015)
to round things off. Suddently, even after losing Michael Pineda to Tommy John surgery, this rotation looks pretty
darn good.
And the Yankees find themselves at 57-49, a game behind
Boston in the AL East standings, but tied in the loss column. We’ve hit August
and the team that everyone thought was rebuilding is right there in the hunt.
The sure-fire contenders in preseason from Queens are 49-56,
some 13 and a half games out of first place and unable to see out of the wild
card hole they are sitting in. It’s a lost season for sure for the Mets. It’s a
glorious return for the Bronx Bombers.
And who’s better? Not even a debate. Holy cow, it’s the
Yankees who somehow sneaked past the Mets. And things get better for the
Yankees tonight with Sonny Gray ready to shine against the Indians in
Cleveland.
This was painful to write, but it’s all factual. Come back
to me next March, when people are saying that the Mets have the best rotation
in the history of the game. Yeah, sure, that’s the ticket.
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You can read more of my work at www.hudsonreporter.com or www.theobserver.com