Well, it seems like both forever and no time at all since 2018 ended, but here we are again...
As NY has returned to powerhouse status in the last couple of years, the number of casual yahoos who think they are personnel experts has exploded. People who couldn't pick Patrick Corbin out of a police lineup ranting and raving about how stupid Cashman was to not top the 6/140 WAS gave him (6/140! That's going to be an ugly deal in the end.). And no amount of calm explanations about why Bryce Harper wasn't a good fit for NY with Judge and Stanton already on board seemed to slow the waves of "Catastrophic mistake passing on Bryce, if only George was alive to see this."
Thanks, I needed to get that out of my system.
Meanwhile, Cashman has methodically and carefully built a team that is up there with the other powerhouses (BOS, HOU, LAD, maybe a couple of others) and by the Fangraphs Depth Chart metric, they are the best positioned team in MLB currently:
https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=9
He's done this with a few big moves (Chapman in FA a few years ago, the Stanton deal last year, the Paxton deal this winter) but mostly he continues to improve where he can, and he's been doing it year-round, to the point where NY's six infielders this Opening Day are entirely different from the six they had last Opening Day:
2018: Austin, Drury, Gregorius, Torreyes, Wade, Walker
2019: Voit, Andujar, Gleyber, Tulowitzki, Bird, LeMahieu
A bit of that is due to injuries (Bird last year, Didi this year) plus Andujar and Gleyber were both up early in 2018, but still.
Ignoring short-term injuries, the outfield is the same four guys as last year, the two catchers are the same too. The rotation has replaced Gray and Montgomery (back from TJS in August?) with Paxton and Happ, the bullpen has five returnees (Chapman, Betances, Green, Holder, Kahnle) and Robertson/Shreve/Warren have been replaced by Britton/Ottavino/Cessa or Tarpley.
So the team continues to improve, with the only obvious hole being Andujar's 3B defense, but there is an in-house midseason fix there if needed, LeMahieu to 3B, Andujar to DH, Stanton to LF, Gardner to 4th OF. The other major question is the no-longer-a-rookie manager Aaron Boone, who looked pretty overmatched all last season. Much like Andujar and his defense, he seems to have been working hard to improve all winter and build off his rookie year, so we'll see, but if NY struggles, I would not be too surprised to see him fired midseason.
So that's a lot of rambling, sorry. 1 PM today is the home opener, Tanaka vs. Cashner. NY plays BAL six out of their first nine games, they need to do better this year than the 12-7 head to head last year, 14 or 15 wins at least.
But none of that matters now, just today. As Mariano Duncan used to say in 1996, "we play today, we win today... das it!". Let's get this party started.
As NY has returned to powerhouse status in the last couple of years, the number of casual yahoos who think they are personnel experts has exploded. People who couldn't pick Patrick Corbin out of a police lineup ranting and raving about how stupid Cashman was to not top the 6/140 WAS gave him (6/140! That's going to be an ugly deal in the end.). And no amount of calm explanations about why Bryce Harper wasn't a good fit for NY with Judge and Stanton already on board seemed to slow the waves of "Catastrophic mistake passing on Bryce, if only George was alive to see this."
Thanks, I needed to get that out of my system.
Meanwhile, Cashman has methodically and carefully built a team that is up there with the other powerhouses (BOS, HOU, LAD, maybe a couple of others) and by the Fangraphs Depth Chart metric, they are the best positioned team in MLB currently:
https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=9
He's done this with a few big moves (Chapman in FA a few years ago, the Stanton deal last year, the Paxton deal this winter) but mostly he continues to improve where he can, and he's been doing it year-round, to the point where NY's six infielders this Opening Day are entirely different from the six they had last Opening Day:
2018: Austin, Drury, Gregorius, Torreyes, Wade, Walker
2019: Voit, Andujar, Gleyber, Tulowitzki, Bird, LeMahieu
A bit of that is due to injuries (Bird last year, Didi this year) plus Andujar and Gleyber were both up early in 2018, but still.
Ignoring short-term injuries, the outfield is the same four guys as last year, the two catchers are the same too. The rotation has replaced Gray and Montgomery (back from TJS in August?) with Paxton and Happ, the bullpen has five returnees (Chapman, Betances, Green, Holder, Kahnle) and Robertson/Shreve/Warren have been replaced by Britton/Ottavino/Cessa or Tarpley.
So the team continues to improve, with the only obvious hole being Andujar's 3B defense, but there is an in-house midseason fix there if needed, LeMahieu to 3B, Andujar to DH, Stanton to LF, Gardner to 4th OF. The other major question is the no-longer-a-rookie manager Aaron Boone, who looked pretty overmatched all last season. Much like Andujar and his defense, he seems to have been working hard to improve all winter and build off his rookie year, so we'll see, but if NY struggles, I would not be too surprised to see him fired midseason.
So that's a lot of rambling, sorry. 1 PM today is the home opener, Tanaka vs. Cashner. NY plays BAL six out of their first nine games, they need to do better this year than the 12-7 head to head last year, 14 or 15 wins at least.
But none of that matters now, just today. As Mariano Duncan used to say in 1996, "we play today, we win today... das it!". Let's get this party started.
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