Tag: three up

How New York’s deadline trades with the Cubs are looking now

I have noticed that even most baseball folks have become a bit ashamed of the clichés circulating at this time of year.

The three big ones:

1. Players claiming they “were in the best shape of their lives” (as if that should be award-worthy in an industry in which being in your best shape is mandatory and not being in top shape verges on disrespect to your teammates and your profession).

2. Those returning from injury defining how far ahead of schedule they were in their rehabs. (It was generally easy to be “ahead of schedule.” Teams were like airlines fluffing in an extra hour to the estimated time of arrival, so they could be late and still claim to be on time. Organizations don’t want to oversell or to get players to try to beat the quickest possible healing periods. So they say 18 months when maybe they mean 12 or 14 or 16.)

3. “We are really emphasizing fundamentals,” which leads to the obvious question: What were you accentuating before? Plus why, inevitably, are you still going to screw up your first rundown of the season?

Anyway, I have heard a lot less of this talk in spring training. The old tried-and-true clichés have been modernized.

For those claiming to be in improved shape, there are new workouts and/or trainers and/or diets that lead to “feeling more dynamic” or “feeling more explosive.” The pitchers all went to a pitching lab or guru, and have developed better mechanics or spin. And some days it has felt as if every pitcher this offseason went to the Cutter Genie and added that pitch to his repertoire.


There’s no better time than spring training to work on the fundamentals that often seem to elude teams once Opening Day arrives.
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Injured players have pretty much bought into the organizational groupthink. Few, if any, try to John Wayne it any longer and insist they will beat timeline projections — because so few teams even give firm projections. They are all looking at the big picture now. Which is smart, yet less fun.

You know what I also have heard more than ever, as if every team is operating under the same self-help manual? Team officials bragging about having the “best vibes” ever in their camps. This usually begins with a disclaimer such as “I know you hear this a lot” or “I know I have said this before” or some other such thing. Then I am told about how the organization really emphasized makeup and this is the best group of guys they have ever had. The environment is loose and fraternal, yet serious and down to business.

The leadership has never been better, and the dysfunction has never been more absent. It is one Disneyland after another — a 30-way tie for the Happiest Place on Earth. Side note: Which teams at this time of year ever have copped to having substandard leadership and a poor atmosphere and a phalanx of indifferent bad actors populating the clubhouse?

But the champion platitude more than ever is each team claiming their prospects are: 1) more advanced, and/or 2) greater in number and/or 3) going to make a difference this year. This usually comes with the disclaimer “despite what the ranking systems say.” If you have never heard a curse word used in front of “Baseball America,” then go talk to an executive whose organization ranks in the bottom two-thirds of that publication’s club-by-club prospect rankings. Within the game, that magazine is known as BA, but the executives who claim to have the most underappreciated or misunderstood group of prospects in the game fit nicely into our current national mindset of AA — Aggrieved America.

And for every executive in survival mode — which means every executive — there is nothing they want to push harder than their prospects. It means selling tomorrow when they all want to be employed tomorrow. Not only that, but it is a direct pitch of a less expensive tomorrow to their bosses. Plus, they have figured out that fan bases love homegrown players like they love the backup quarterback — the guy we haven’t seen yet who just has to be better than the guy who is playing now.


Diego Castillo #64 of the Arizona Diamondbacks bats during the Spring Training game against the Colorado Rockies at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on March 12, 2023 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
After hitting six homers last spring with the Pirates, former Yankees minor leaguer Diego Castillo hit only 11 more the rest of the season before Pittsburgh traded him in December to the Diamondbacks.
Getty Images

Annually, we forget how deceiving spring statistics can be and that most prospects don’t actually hit at the highest level, if they even hit at all.

Spring stats? Remember that Kyle Higashioka delivered seven homers in a shortened spring last year, and Diego Castillo (the infielder traded from the Yankees for Clay Holmes) and Mickey Moniak each hit six. In the most recent six-week spring training, in 2021, Red Sox prospects Bobby Dalbec and Jarren Duran excelled, yet neither has fully established himself as even an average regular.

So I get the excitement around the Yankees for Jasson Dominguez and Anthony Volpe, and around the Mets with Brett Baty and Ronny Mauricio. It is that time of year, and prospects are what excites folks most at this time of year — not just with the New York teams.

When I stopped in Cubs camp, it was hard to miss that there is a New York tinge to the club. Marcus Stroman and Jameson Taillon are two-fifths of the rotation. Michael Fulmer is in the bullpen. Mike Tauchman has a chance to make the roster as a backup outfielder.

Plus, the Cubs, as they have been rebuilding, made three high-profile trades with the New York clubs: dealing 2016 champions Javier Baez (to the Mets) and Anthony Rizzo (to the Yankees) at the 2021 deadline and sending Scott Effross to the Yankees at last year’s deadline.

Why don’t we use 3UP to take a look at where the prospects the New York teams traded to the Cubs stand?


Hayden Wesneski pitched well for the Cubs after the Yankees dealt him at the trade deadline and appears to be rounding into a solid option at the back end of Chicago’s rotation.
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1. Hayden Wesneski: He was acquired by the Cubs last year straight up for Effross, who after Tommy John surgery possibly is going to miss this entire Yankees season. Also, Wesneski plus J.P. Sears and Ken Waldichuk (who were used in the ill-fated Frankie Montas/Lou Trivino trade) would have represented Yankees rotation depth with Montas and Carlos Rodon already down to begin the season.

All three are projected to be back-of-the-rotation types. One scout who saw Wesneski both in the Yankees organization and this spring with the Cubs said, “He can excite you,” but said the righty can have inconsistent mechanics leading to command issues.

Cubs manager David Ross called Wesneski “the front-runner” over Javier Assad and Adrian Sampson to nab the No. 5 starter spot. Wesneski had a strong post-trade cameo with the Cubs in 2022: He appeared in six games (four starts), and pitched to a 2.18 ERA in 33 innings in which he allowed 24 hits, walked seven and struck out 33.

“We saw what he could do last year,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “He’s worked hard this offseason to put himself in the best position to come in here and show us what he can do and that he’s ready for that step. He’s got all the stuff you want for a starter: The workload. The mental approach. How he goes about his business. … You see how good his slider is. It’s one of the better sliders in the game. I think not only how it moves, but how he commands it and throws wherever he wants. He can throw it to both sides [of the plate], so he can use it to both-handed hitters.” 

2. Pete Crow-Armstrong: The Mets have a lot of internal regret about obtaining Baez on July 30, 2021, for Crow-Armstrong barely a year after using the 19th overall pick in the 2020 draft on the center fielder. The Mets didn’t make the playoffs, and Baez left in free agency. And as Crow-Armstrong emerged last year after missing all action in 2020 due to COVID and most of 2021 following shoulder surgery, the Mets were left more circumspect about trading their better prospects at last year’s deadline. The Mets have seller’s remorse that they traded Crow-Armstrong without fully understanding what they had.


Pete Crow-Armstrong has already impressed the Cubs with his speed and defense, but the former Mets first-round draft pick feels he will eventually prove himself a reliable source of power, too.
Diamond Images/Getty Images

Between Low-A and High-A last year — his first full season playing in the minors — Crow-Armstrong hit .312 with 46 extra-base hits, including 16 homers. Plus, he stole 32 bases. But he did strike out 102 times versus 36 walks.

“He’s a free swinger,” Ross said. “He’s got to calm down as he ages, but man, does he have some special talents.”

There are no doubts about Crow-Armstrong’s speed and defense. Ryan Dempster, a Cubs broadcaster and special assistant to president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, said he watched Crow-Armstrong replace Gold Glove-caliber center fielder Cody Bellinger in an early spring training game and asked, “How many times do you take Cody out of center and you get no worse?”

The low-end projections for Crow-Armstrong, who turns 21 next week, are a Kevin Kiermaier type — a lefty batter who really can defend center field, but with a league-average-type bat. That is valuable. Ross wondered whether there was some Kenny Lofton in Crow-Armstrong, especially because of the speed on the bases. But will the bat come?

“I don’t think I was trying to make any sort of statement [in spring],” Crow-Armstrong said. “People know that I could play defense and they know that the bat is behind the glove. I see what they see. I see a little bit more just because of what goes on in my own mind and what goals I have set for myself. … I’ve told people for years that I’m being patient with myself in terms of the power, and I showed a lot of that last year. I think I’m really damn close to being a more complete hitter than people give me credit for.”

In successive days while in Arizona, I was in Mariners camp, Giants camp and Cubs camp, which meant each day I saw a former Mets first-round draft pick lefty-hitting outfielder with lots to prove: Jarred Kelenic, Michael Conforto and Crow-Armstrong. Kelenic played just 56 minor league games for the Mets before being traded; Crow-Armstrong played just six. 


Jarred Kelenic has struggled at the plate since arriving in Seattle from the Mets in exchange for Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano, but at only 23 years of age, the promise that once made him the No. 6 overall pick in 2018 still exists.
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In Mets world, this is how that worked: Kelenic was drafted by the Sandy Alderson regime and traded by Brodie Van Wagenen. Crow-Armstrong was drafted by Van Wagenen and traded by Zack Scott, who was working under the returned Alderson. Kelenic was drafted and traded under Wilpon ownership. Crow-Armstrong was drafted under the Wilpons and traded during Steve Cohen ownership.  

“There is a whole new regime that owns the Mets from when I was there,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Brodie and his squad started my career. I am grateful they drafted me, but, yeah, I definitely hold a little, I wouldn’t call it a grudge, but I carry the chip with me, you know? But again, it’s all personally motivated. It’s not anything external. I couldn’t care less about who traded me or why they traded me. I’m here now. And I love it here.”

3. Kevin Alcantara: MLB.com ranks Crow-Armstrong as the Cubs’ top prospect and Alcantara second (Wesneski is fifth). Crow-Armstrong is ranked 28th among all prospects and Alcantara is 87th. Crow-Armstrong likely will begin this year at Double-A and Alcantara at High-A. In the Cubs’ dream scenario, they are two-thirds of a super-athletic, long-term outfield that’s in the majors by midway through 2024.

Alcantara, who turns 21 in July, is a toolshed. One scout said, “He has everything you want. There are a lot of guys in the minors who have a lot of tools. It is always who can translate it to the majors.”

When the Yankees traded Alcantara as the key piece for Rizzo at the 2021 trade deadline, they knew they were dealing a high-ceiling lottery ticket who — if he reached that ceiling — could be a terrific player.  


Only 21, Kevin Alcantara has already impressed Cubs president Jed Hoyer as the most talented player in camp this spring.
Getty Images

Hoyer called Alcantara “the most talented guy” in camp.

“He hasn’t had a single BP session where he hasn’t gone over 115 mph [off the bat],” Hoyer said. “He’s crushed balls. He can fly. He’s got a great personality. Can he translate that back to be successful in the majors? But in terms of his ability, he’s really, really fun to watch. Great kid. Cash [Yankees GM Brian Cashman] told me at the time of the trade that he’s a really great kid. Teammates gravitate toward him. Everyone down [in his minor league system] there comments on this intelligence.

“He wants to be really good. He has every ingredient to be a really good player. It is going to take time. He’s 6-foot-6. He’s filled out this year a little bit more. He has longer levers. That takes longer to develop. I do think he had a sneaky good season last year. Myrtle Beach is a graveyard for hitters. It’s really hard to hit there. You look at his home/road splits. He had good numbers overall and we wanted to keep him there for the full year.”

With Low-A Myrtle Beach last year, Alcantara played 59 games at home with a slash line of .242/.352/.393 for a .745 OPS. In 55 road games, he hit .306/.368/.518 for an .886 OPS.

“He hits the ball extremely hard,” Ross said. “He’s a freak athlete who goes and gets it with a great arm. It [his swing] doesn’t look long and slow. He can keep it compact, which is impressive with how big he is.”

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Why Mets’ Justin Verlander could be last pitcher with 300 wins

Imagine a manned spacecraft is five years from Pluto and it is iffy whether it has enough fuel to complete the mission (really, stick with me). 

If the ship doesn’t reach the destination, it is possible that the person who will invent the technology that will make completing such a journey feasible is not even born yet.

This is how I feel about Justin Verlander and 300 wins. He is nearing an achievement that more and more feels as distant as Pluto. And if he does not have the gas to get there, it is possible the next person who will has yet to be born.

And that is assuming a next person ever will get there.

Twenty-four pitchers have reached 300 wins. Randy Johnson was the last to do so — on June 4, 2009. The following week, Stephen Strasburg was hailed as the best pitcher ever taken No. 1 in the draft. A series of arm injuries have left it questionable whether he will pitch again. He has 113 career wins.

That same season, Tim Lincecum won his second straight NL Cy Young award. He was 25. He was done as an elite starting pitcher by 27. Done for good at 32. He finished with 110 wins.

Zack Greinke won the AL Cy Young that year. He was 25. He is still around, back for a second stint with the Royals. He has the second-most wins among active pitchers with 223. He is 39 and eight months younger than the active leader in wins.


Randy Johnson kisses his wife Lisa in 2009 after winning his 300th game, a feat no one has matched since.
REUTERS

That is Verlander, who turned 40 a week into his first spring training after signing a two-year, $86.7 million pact to join the Mets. Verlander has 244 wins. He is 56 away from 300. But the difference between who Greinke and Verlander are today is stark.

Greinke, with his intellect and athleticism, can endure as a fine mid-to-bottom-of-the-rotation starter with a lesser version of his prime stuff. He made 26 starts last year: He finished with four wins and pitched at least seven innings just one time. He is a finesse pitcher now, with a fastball average of 89.2 mph — the fifth-softest for those with at least 130 innings in 2022.

Verlander has remade himself in the second chapter of his career — different arm slot, different areas he attacks in the zone, different use of his arsenal — but he remains a power pitcher. His 95.1 mph average fastball was MLB’s 17th-best. He made 27 starts, finished with 18 wins and pitched at least seven innings 12 times — tied for the second-most in the AL.

Oh yeah, and he won his third AL Cy Young award.

Greinke is not going to get the 77 wins he needs for 300. And Max Scherzer, 39 in July, probably is not going to get the 99 wins he needs for 300. That concludes the list of active pitchers with even 200 wins. Clayton Kershaw is at 197 and turns 35 in two weeks, but he physically breaks down annually and contemplates retirement regularly.

Gerrit Cole has 130 wins through his age-31 season, 22 fewer than Verlander had at the same point. Jacob deGrom has 82 wins through his age-34 season. Aaron Nola has 78 through age 29. Shane Bieber has 54 through age 27.


At age 39, Zack Greinke has returned to where his career started, in Kansas City, where he’ll start the season needing 77 wins to reach 300.
AP

Really, if it isn’t Verlander, who would it be who is active? Verlander just might be the last person to climb this Everest.

“I take a lot of pride in that [potentially being the last of a breed],” Verlander said. “It’s a difficult question, because like a lot of things I’ve accomplished in my career, you aspire to do certain things, but that’s not why you play, so it’s hard for me to sit here and say that’s a shiny goal that I want to reach. Of course, I want to get there, but I want to get there because I continued to pitch well while I worked my ass off. Everything that’s led me to this point gets me to that point.

“Obviously, you know, it would be something cool for legacy sake. But again, it’s not why I pitch, and it seems cliche to say that, but it’s true.”

Yet, Verlander has talked about being the baseball Tom Brady and going to age 45. That would be six years, and if he can do that, it would mean averaging nine wins a season for those six years to join a list that began on Sept. 4, 1888, when Pud Galvin was the first to reach 300.

What was perhaps most interesting about delving into this subject was how incredulous Cole and Lance McCullers Jr. — both former Astros teammates of Verlander — were when I asked whether Verlander could get to 300. They treated it as if I asked whether Tuesday follows Monday. As in: Of course he will get there. Though both said what Verlander didn’t — that he yearns to get there.

“I think he’s probably going to be able to pitch until he wants to stop, and he’d like to get 300 wins,” Cole said, chuckling at the thought, as if that simple combination all but guaranteed it. “I don’t think he will take minor league deals and grind to try to get the last however many he would need [for 300]. But he’s got 56 to go and he nearly won 20 last year, so realistically, he is probably two and a half great seasons away. And he is still great. So, to me, he looks good right now [to do it].”


Gerrit Cole, who reunited with his former Astros teammate during the MLB All-Star weekend in July 2022, believes Verlander will successfully pursue 300 wins.
MLB Photos via Getty Images

McCullers said: “I think he gets there because a lot of times you’re around guys and when they say stuff, they mean it. And I know that’s a goal of his, and I’ve never known Justin, since we traded for him in 2017, not to accomplish or achieve his goals.

“The odds are stacked against him. But the odds were stacked against him when he was getting older and people were wondering how much time he had left. That was back in 2014 [when Verlander had a 4.54 ERA at age 31]. He has made so many changes [to his pitching style/repertoire] and found greatness again.

“After he had Tommy John surgery [and missed all but one start in 2020-21], people asked the same question. But he finished second for the Cy Young in 2016 and he finished second in 2018 and he won in 2019. …Then he didn’t pitch in 2020 and 2021, and last year when he pitched he won the Cy Young again. You are talking about a guy on a run. When he has pitched, he has been Justin Verlander. So there is nothing I think he can’t do if he puts his mind to it, and I know he wants 300, so I think he will get there.”

We have come this far and we have not even really talked about the concept of the “win” itself, so why don’t we begin 3Up by discussing it:

1. If Verlander does reach 300 wins, he will be the first to do so in an era when the pitcher “win” has lost its allure. It had begun to do so as Roger Clemens (2003), Greg Maddux (2004), Tom Glavine (2007) and Johnson became the only pitchers in this century to reach 300.


Since struggling with a 4.54 ERA in 2014, Verlander has won two Cy Young Awards, including last year, which he celebrated with his wife, model Kate Upton, after the season.
Getty Images

There are  a variety of reasons why. In part, it is about the game being played differently. The four-man rotation vanished in the early 1970s. Over the past 50 years — the past 30, in particular — the size and importance of bullpens have grown. So has the analytics-based understanding that it is generally more advantageous for a team to unleash one hard-throwing reliever after another at offenses than to let a tiring starter be seen for a third and certainly a fourth time by an opponent.

All of this (and a greater willingness to use the injured list) has led to fewer starts in a season and fewer innings within starts — a combination that will choke the ability to build big win totals. If you think of reaching 300 wins as 20 seasons averaging 15 wins, well, there were 28 15-game winners in 2002 and half that many 20 years later in 2022.

Plus, a greater appreciation has developed for what a pitcher is responsible for and what he is not, and how so much of a win is beyond a pitcher’s control and the win itself is reflective of a team.

In a way, Greinke’s second half last year — in which he made 11 starts and pitched to a 2.48 ERA yet earned just one win — exemplifies why it is so difficult to accumulate wins, particularly now.

Despite pitching well, Greinke completed six innings in just five of the 11 starts and seven innings once. He played for a bad Royals team, and unearned runs twice cost him chances at wins. His bullpen blew two leads, including once after he had thrown seven shutout innings. The offense did not score while he was on the mound in four of those games.

Because of all of these factors working against a starter gaining a win, if he gets there, Verlander’s 300 might be the most impressive of all.

Look, a win will never mean what it meant when I was becoming a baseball fan. Rightfully. But I wonder if this has swung too far the other way. I get it, there are 10, 15, 20 stats I might look at before “wins” to gauge the value of a starter. And the “win” certainly was overvalued as a defining stat for the first century-plus of the game.


Verlander, beginning the season with 244 wins, will need to keep pitching beyond the two-year contract he signed with the Mets.
Corey Sipkin for the NY POST

But I think it is underappreciated now. Because a win does tell a little story. First, in an age of openers and quick hooks, a starter has to pitch five innings to qualify for a win. In 2002, a starter worked fewer than five innings 865 times. It was 1,470 last year. That comes out to 20 games per team in which a starter could not by rule earn a win compared to two decades earlier.

Plus, going five innings probably is not enough to gain the win. Of the 1,443 games won by a starter in 2022, 296 (or 20.5 percent) were exactly five innings, 68.1 percent were of six innings or more and 28.6 percent were seven innings or more. The average start for a winning pitcher last year was 6 1/3 innings.

The days of bulldog starters such as Jack Morris and Dave Stewart being allowed to keep plugging along if they gave up four or five runs are not as common. A starter won just 79 times last year giving up at least four runs, compared to 295 times in 2000. A starter won 22 times giving up five or more runs. It was 101 wins in 2000. The combined ERA of starters in games they won in 2022 was 1.75 (thanks to Lee Sinins in MLB Network’s research department for this stat).

Thus, a win at this time pretty much indicates a starter who pitched well and deep and helped save the bullpen for others in an age when that is more valuable than ever. It does one other thing: It means your team won, which is the whole idea of this endeavor.

“If you look at what constitutes a win on a granular level, yeah, you can get wins in bad starts,” said Verlander, who has averaged seven innings and a 1.86 ERA in his 244 wins. “But if you look at it on a macro level, like, if you look at the bulk of my career, and probably take my numbers from my wins, they are probably pretty [bleeping] good. Over the course of a season, if you win 15, 16, 17, 20, 21 games, you pitched damn well most of the time. Are there a few outlier games? Of course. But when you start looking at bulk numbers — 200-plus wins or 300 wins — you probably pitched well most of the time.


Wins have been harder to come by for pitchers since the era of allowing starters such as Jack Morris to remain in games after giving up a few runs has all but ended.
AP

“So I understand the value of the win being diminished on an analytical level on a game-by-game basis, but overall, you start looking at all the value it provides in eating innings and the importance that it has on the bullpen the day before and the day after [a winning start]. It’s a trickle-down impact or a butterfly effect that analytics hasn’t valued. They don’t know how to value it. This is what analytics does, right? If you don’t know how to value it, you don’t [value it]. So, of course, they’ve devalued the win. It’s not something that numbers can really quantify — the repercussions of pitching seven good innings routinely and outlasting the other starter.”

2. To even approach 300 wins, you better be able to adjust to the reality of age and your body throughout your career.

As McCullers said, “[Verlander] has the ability to adapt to being a new pitcher. Early in his career, if you watched his highlights of how he pitched, it is so much different than how he pitches now. I don’t think a lot of guys have that ability. I think a lot of guys make it to the big leagues and are good and they have their own way of being good. Whereas Justin was able to be great early in his career, and then he had those kinds of years in ’13. ’14 and ’15 that he had some injuries and it was touch and go and maybe not his best seasons (33-32, 104 ERA-plus) [before] he started to redevelop himself. He finished second for the Cy Young in ’16 and then came over to [the Astros] in ’17. That process was still happening, but if you see Justin Verlander now, he is just a different pitcher.

“It’s a different type of greatness than he had early in his career. He got traded to us, and he is so talented and so good that he was totally able to reshape his game and how he throws the baseball mechanically and have another bout of greatness. It was a total adjustment. A total change.

“Go watch him pitch for Detroit in 2006, ’07, ’08, ‘09 and ‘10. His arm slot was lower. There was a little more run to his fastball, a big curveball. Now we are talking about a guy straight over the top who has one of the best, if not the best, four-seams in the game. Big curveball that is more of a for-a-strike pitch. And that devastating wipeout slider. He’s just recreated himself and had the talent level to do that. A lot of guys don’t have that. That is why he’s been great and stayed great.”


Teammates who have watched Verlander throughout his career noticed how he has changed his mechanics since his first few seasons in Detroit and remained one of baseball’s elite starters.
Getty Images

Verlander said he “was stuck in my ways” and thought “I had it all figured out” early in his career. But beginning with his need for core surgery after the 2013 season and then enduring a subpar (for him) season in 2014, “I’ve taken an active role in seeking out information in any possible aspect — body, mind, pitching, analytics, anything whatsoever, I am open to it. Probably the best thing I’ve had going for me is my feel for my body. I can take in a lot of information. I can try things and I can either be like, ‘OK, I like that, that works’ or ‘No, it doesn’t’ and spit it out.”

3. For Verlander, there also has been another change. He admits that early in his career, he was introverted. He does not think he was a bad teammate, more perhaps an absent one as he fixated on what he needed to do for greatness.

But he feels there have been changes over time that have influenced him to be a more available, giving person and teammate. He noted marrying model Kate Upton in 2017: “My connection with my wife is amazing, and she’s an amazing woman and has helped change me to be a better man.” The birth of his daughter, Genevieve, in November 2017. And not pitching for most of the 2020-21 seasons gave him time at home that made him happy, but also made him realize how much he loves to be part of a team.

This all should help his assault on 300 wins because it makes him want to play as long as possible.

“I’ve changed as a person,” Verlander said. “I’m actively trying to grow as a human being. And this is part of that. Communicating and connecting with others is important.


Verlander credits his marriage to model Kate Upton and the birth of his daughter, Genevieve, with helping to motivate him to keep pitching and appreciate the connections he has with his family and his teammates.
Getty Images

“If I was going to boil it down to a specific event, it’s the birth of my daughter. … I was doing my Tommy John rehab and had a ton of time at home and just, like, appreciating these connections that I have in life. These are my people, right? It just made me feel so full and happy, and I really wanted to extend that happiness to the rest of my life and not be so stuck in just baseball mode.

“When I’m at the field, I have time now to open up, and previously I didn’t. I don’t regret it [his attitude early in his career] at all. I needed that to be the kind of pitcher that I am. Everything in life happens for a reason, and I didn’t have room for anybody else or anytime; it was really hard for me to connect with people. I was super locked in, focused all the time, and not everybody can always connect with that. It’s hard to get in. I wasn’t very open. I’m probably still not. I’m still actively trying to grow and become better.

“I’m still just 40 years old, and the big scheme of things in the game of life, man, I was just 20-something years old and a not-fully-evolved human at that age. You’re still figuring yourself out. I was, more importantly, figuring my baseball life out, so I thought that was what took precedence for me — my entire life was built around baseball. That was it. And more recently, things have changed.”

McCullers, who was Verlander’s teammate from 2017-22, says there was a distinct delineation for Verlander — before and after Tommy John surgery. McCullers mentioned the “willingness and enthusiasm” Verlander brought to being a more connected teammate after the surgery.

“Justin was always great for us on the field and he was always fine off of it, but when he came back, he grew into a leadership role where he was willing, every day, to go above and beyond so the other guys felt his presence around the team,” McCullers said.

“Money is the easy part. We have money, and you can give gifts and do dinners. It’s about the time that you give. The difference was just the time and the daily amount of time you put in with just individual people on the team and being present is what makes you a leader. And when he came back, he had that.”

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Worrying history behind Aaron Boone’s 2023 Yankees pressure

Aaron Boone is the most unsuccessful successful manager in the majors.

He has been the Yankees skipper for five years. He has two first-place finishes — the only AL East titles for the organization in the past decade. Boone’s Yankees have never finished worse than second place and never missed the playoffs. Of the 211 men who have managed at least 700 games, Boone’s .603 winning percentage is fifth-best all-time.

But this hero of the 2003 Yankees-Red Sox ALCS shares similarities with a hero of the 2004 Yankees-Red Sox ALCS. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts’ .632 winning percentage is second-best. And unlike Boone, his Dodgers did win a World Series, albeit in the shortened 2020 COVID season.

In seven seasons, Roberts’ Dodgers have finished first six times. But they have won at least 104 regular-season games four times — setting or tying the franchise record for wins in each of the past three full years (2019, 2021, 2022), including 111 last season — and failed to win the World Series in any of those years. 

Roberts’ tenure is best known for failing to capitalize in the postseason and — correctly or incorrectly — for the public and media sense that he is merely a functionary orchestrating the desires of an analytically manic front office.


Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has led teams that have racked up wins but failed to win the World Series in a full season.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post

If that sounds familiar, you must have a favorite team in The Bronx.

I think this all renders capable people to caricature. The idea that Boone, for example, is just a cardboard cutout agreeing to whatever his bosses want is extreme.

However, I do wonder whether he is putting up enough of a roadblock when he perceives something is wrong or perhaps he is part of a groupthink that wasted time (and perhaps more) by insisting Gary Sanchez was a championship catcher and Gleyber Torres and Isiah Kiner-Falefa were championship shortstops. Because this is really about championships. 

Every decision cannot just be about the analytic card-counting that allows the Yankees to accumulate enough victories over the Royals and A’s in May and June to get to the playoffs — as valuable as that is. They also have to assemble the kind of team that can do more than beat the crap out of an overmatched AL Central opponent come the postseason.

Boone is in Year 6, and should have enough heft now to speak up if he doesn’t think Kiner-Falefa should be the shortstop or Josh Donaldson the third baseman or Aaron Hicks the left fielder or whatever he believes is stopping the Yankees from fulfilling the toughest mandate: excelling during the long season and having the fewest holes possible to survive the October gauntlet.

Because it is also Year 2 on a three-year contract extension for Boone. And though the Yankees have reversed the unsteady managerial legacy forged by George Steinbrenner by having just four managers in the past three decades, Boone begins this season as the member of the Yankees most in the crosshairs. Hal Steinbrenner will not be firing himself. Brian Cashman received a four-year extension this offseason. The players might get booed at home, but the contracts are guaranteed.


GM Brian Cashman has a new four-year Yankees contract while Aaron Boone has two years remaining on his deal.
Robert Sabo for the NY Post

Perhaps Hal Steinbrenner and Cashman like and respect Boone so much that they will tolerate another postseason of beating the Guardians, losing to the Astros in five games and everyone talking afterward about how close they were to the promised land. But at some point the leadership is going to block out the noise by playing the “a new voice was needed” card.

Look, championships are incredibly difficult to win. Just look at Roberts’ Dodgers, whose run of success even predates him as manager. They are 10 for the past 10 in making the playoffs, first under Don Mattingly, then with Roberts. They have five of the 10 best single-season winning percentages in MLB in that decade-long span. They have won 73 more regular-season games than any other club — 931 to the runner-up Yankees’ 858. They have been the sport’s model franchise.

But there is just the one title from after the 60-game regular season.

The Yankees are at 13 years and counting without a championship. And what makes the upcoming season so treacherous is the postseason cannot be considered a layup even with six teams in each league gaining entrance and the Yankees sporting a franchise-record payroll near $290 million for luxury-tax purposes. Top to bottom, the AL East is the majors’ best division.

The Yankees, Blue Jays and Rays all have deep rosters. The Orioles have lots of volatility because their talent is young, but the talent is real. You can convince me the Orioles will win 75 games or that they will win 90 – their farm talent is rich enough that they could be a trade deadline force if they are in contention.


Adley Rutschman leads a young Orioles team that could sneak up on the AL East in 2023.
Corey Sipkin for the NY Post

And though the Red Sox have the most questionable talent base, they do have talent. Mostly, though, the Red Sox never make sense. They have finished last five times in the past 11 seasons, yet also won two titles. After the 2002 campaign, their offseason was perceived as underwhelming, filled with lots of accumulation without impact. Except there was a lot of impact. The Red Sox went to ALCS Game 7 in 2003 (the Boone game) and won it all in 2004.

After the 2012 campaign, their offseason was perceived as underwhelming, filled with lots of accumulation without impact. Except there was a lot of impact, and the Red Sox won it all in 2013.

It has been another 10 years. And after the 2022 campaign, their offseason has been perceived as underwhelming, filled with lots of accumulation without impact.

So, who knows?

Boone’s group has to navigate toward the top — if not the top — of this division, then finally assemble four weeks of postseason excellence. It is a perilous road. It is why in this ranking of the Yankees under the most pressure heading into spring training, the leadoff hitter in this nine-man lineup is the manager. The rest of the order:

2. Cashman. This is more his team than Boone’s. And one thing to remember is that in a quarter of a century as GM, Cashman never has assembled a clunker. There are no last-place finishes here like with the Red Sox — and the high draft picks that come with that.

But Cashman needs a championship like the Warriors had last year — the cherry on top 

that validates a great run. Cashman’s first three Yankees squads from 1998-2000 won it all, as did the 2009 club. To quiet the noise around him, Cashman surely could use another title, which would probably stamp a Cooperstown ticket as well.

Cashman has a lot of self-inflicted problems on this roster. Hicks’ seven-year, $70 million extension is the booby prize that keeps on giving. To date, uninspiring trades for Donaldson/Kiner-Falefa and Frankie Montas are creating 2023 headaches and headwinds. The position-player group remains overly right-handed. A bunch of trades have left a lot fewer rotation insurance policies. And it feels as if the time is now for Oswald Peraza and/or Anthony Volpe to exonerate the Yankees for staying out of the past two, starry free-agent shortstop classes.


Gerrit Cole has been trending in the wrong direction during the early stages of his $324 million Yankees contract.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post

3. Gerrit Cole. As with Boone, there is a sense of someone being unsuccessfully successful. Cole has received Cy Young Award votes in all three of his Yankees seasons. He has been durable and missed bats at the highest level and been an above-average performer.

Yet there also has been something missing. Can Cole be explained by this 2022 reality: He led the majors in both strikeouts and homers allowed? His performance has declined in each Yankees season, and he has become more long-ball prone. And, while employed by the Yankees, he has become the face of pitcher usage of illegal sticky stuff, and his postseason performances have vacillated from high to low.

He still has six years left on a $324 million contract — which remains the most ever given to a pitcher. Is there a Cy Young in him? Is there a postseason run similar to what CC Sabathia had in 2009, the last time the Yankees won a championship? At his introductory press conference, he professed having the Yankees in his blood. But at this moment, the fans’ feelings toward the ace plays like a business relationship more than an emotional investment. 

4. Aaron Judge. Perhaps the 62-homer season after turning down a $213.5 million extension indicates Judge might be impervious to pressure. Still, there is naturally going to be a presiding sense of “what can he do for an encore,” especially after Judge signed a nine-year, $360 million deal.


Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner is now in the unfamiliar position of having the second-biggest payroll in town.
Jason Szenes for the NY Post

Judge has played in 305 of a possible 324 regular-season games the past two years. Since the Yankees offense goes as Judge goes until proven otherwise, his health is a key to the 2023 season.

5. Hal Steinbrenner. If it wasn’t bad enough for son of George that he has never been able to fully escape his father’s shadow, he now is going to be compared to Steve Cohen. The Yankees’ record payroll, for example, projects to more than $80 million less than that of Cohen’s Mets for luxury-tax purposes.

Being booed last September when Derek Jeter mentioned his name during a ceremony for Jeter’s Hall of Fame induction unnerved Steinbrenner. It perhaps gave Judge the best ammunition in his negotiation with the Yankees — knowing Steinbrenner recognized how much more unpopular he would become if he did not re-up the most popular Yankee since Jeter.

Steinbrenner sure could use a championship, too. Though it should be noted John Henry is the owner who helped end the Red Sox “Curse” in 2004 of not having won a title since 1918 and has been in charge for three more championships, yet Henry has been booed publicly this offseason by Red Sox fans who feel he has not invested enough emotionally and financially in the franchise in recent years.


Josh Donaldson has a lot to prove coming off a career-worst season and toting a big contract at the age of 36.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

6. Donaldson. Cashman has proclaimed Donaldson the starting third baseman, though Donaldson is coming off his worst season. The Yankees GM has insisted it is not because the club still owes Donaldson $27 million, but rather because he fielded superbly last year and Cashman insists the bat will recover in 2023. But the combination of money and a personality that worries lots of organizations means, at 36, Donaldson does not have a ton of potential landing spots if the Yankees grow tired of his performance on or off the field. Donaldson, to some degree, is fighting for his career.

7. Volpe. Kiner-Falefa is the incumbent shortstop. Peraza — because he reached the majors and performed well in a cameo last year — might just be the favorite to start at short going into the season. But Volpe carries so many of the hopes and dreams of this organization.

The Yankees haven’t felt so good about the overall package of a prospect — skill and makeup — since perhaps Jeter. That is a lot of weight for someone who will not turn 22 until April 28. Many eyeballs will be on him in spring training to see what all the hype (and decision not to sign established stars) has been about.

8. Carlos Rodon. From 2017-20, Rodon was injury-prone and underperforming the talent that made him the third overall draft pick in 2014. In that time, he appeared in just 43 games (41 starts), going 11-17 with a 4.45 ERA, averaging 4.1 walks and 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

The past two seasons, Rodon has been as good as any pitcher. He is 27-13 with a 2.67 ERA in 55 starts, averaging 2.5 walks and 12.2 strikeouts per nine innings.


Carlos Rodon is set to don the pinstripes as he tries to maintain his two-year run of good health and dominant pitching.
Corey Sipkin for the NY Post

The Yankees invested $162 million over six years believing Rodon has unlocked the ability to stay healthy and thrive. In the 2008-09 offseason, the Yankees signed Sabathia for seven years at $161 million and A.J. Burnett for five years at $82.5 million.

Where on the Sabathia-Burnett spectrum will Rodon land? Will he be an ace lefty like Sabathia? Or, like Burnett, a talented guy who put together success and health to get the big free-agent deal, but could never fully harness the stuff in New York?

9. Hicks. There were other places to go for ninth in this order, including Harrison Bader and Luis Severino entering their walk years before free agency or DJ LeMahieu trying to come back from a foot injury or Oswaldo Cabrera attempting to prove his strong two-month debut last year was no fluke.

But Hicks and Donaldson are such hot-button issues, and both will feel intense scrutiny over whether they can be useful players. Hicks seemed to lose his nerve playing games in The Bronx last year. He was one of the worst home performers in the sport (.523 OPS, compared to .732 on the road).

The Yankees did not satisfactorily solve left field this offseason nor find enough lefty bats. In the ideal scenario, Hicks would be even league average in left field, allowing Cabrera to be used in a myriad of spots and giving Boone two switch-hitters to deploy regularly along with lefty Anthony Rizzo.


Aaron Hicks’ numbers were noticeably worse in 2022 at Yankee Stadium, where he heard the complaints of Yankees fans.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post

I stumbled upon a stat that probably means nothing, but here it is: As a lefty hitter on the road, Hicks’ slashline was .279/.395/.416 in 186 plate appearances. There was not much power, but among players with at least 175 road at-bats as lefty batters, Hicks’ 16.1 percent walk rate trailed only Juan Soto (20.6), Max Muncy (19.9) and Lars Nootbaar (18.2), and Hicks struck out just 18.8 percent of the time.

And what did Hicks’ 143 plate appearances as a lefty hitter look like in the Yankee Stadium haven for lefty hitters? He had a .116/.252/.149 slash line with a 14 percent walk rate and 28 percent whiff rate. Hicks hit just one lefty homer at home — amazingly, it was a three-run shot off Astros closer Ryan Pressly in the bottom of the ninth on June 23 that tied the score 6-6 before Judge won it with an RBI single.

It feels as if the crux of getting performance out of Hicks begins with him finding a way to block the negativity that surrounds him in The Bronx. Is that even possible, or has the relationship deteriorated to such an extent as to make Hicks unsalvageable? Can the Yankees receive any signs in spring that Hicks will not crumble in The Bronx?

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Yankees offseason scenarios if Aaron Judge stays or leaves

Here in this little sliver of the world we are not a hostage to format. This might be 3Up, but I think there are four big-picture ways this offseason can play out for the Yankees:

1. They re-sign Aaron Judge, and then keep spending big to join the Dodgers and Mets with near-$300 million payrolls.

2. They re-sign Judge, and are relatively more frugal afterward, settling in with a payroll more in the $260 million-$270 million range.

3. They don’t re-sign Judge, and they compensate by making lavish additions elsewhere.

4. They don’t re-sign Judge, and they attempt to reset their tax situation by going under the first threshold of $233 million.

Before we do a dive into each scenario, first let’s cover items that will be universal for each:

The Yankees will work hard to get rid of the $29 million ($21 million next season and $8 million due on the buyout of a 2024 option) owed Josh Donaldson and the three years at $30.5 million (plus another $1 million in an assignment bonus if there is a trade) owed Aaron Hicks.

This will not be easy. The duo (with the assignment bonus) is due a combined $60.5 million. I floated the idea at the GM meetings to a Nationals official of taking those two plus a prospect (more on this in a bit) for Patrick Corbin, who is owed $59 million over the next two years. The rebuilding Nats would get a prospect for the trouble of basically washing money while the Yankees would occupy just one 40-man roster spot with Corbin rather than two with Donaldson/Hicks. They then can hope with their pitching lab work to revive Corbin, who has been one of the majors’ worst pitchers the past three seasons, into a back-end starter or useful reliever. The Nats official essentially told me he wouldn’t put Donaldson on his roster.

Josh Donaldson’s lackluster year at the plate, big contract and big personality make him difficult to trade.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

The problem with moving Donaldson — beyond that he turns 37 next month and his offense went considerably south — is his prickly reputation precedes him. Most clubs are not going to want anything to do with him, even if the Yankees take back bad money and/or sprinkle a prospect into the trade to make absorbing Donaldson’s deal easier. Remember, the Yankees wanted access to Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt last year, and the price for doing that was to take on the two onerous years left on Donaldson’s contract plus his baggage.

The Yankees could talk themselves into the idea that Donaldson’s defense at third and occasional power is enough to bring him back next year. I would love to see what a secret ballot of his teammates and coaches would say about that.

No player is untradeable, but some are close. So Hal Steinbrenner might have to decide whether he sees Donaldson as a sunk cost and simply move on. You might notice the Cubs just released Jason Heyward with $22 million left — and he has a reputation as a great guy.

The Mets, in early May last year, released Robinson Cano with most of two years left on his contract. It has been generally reported the Mariners were paying $3.75 million in each of the five seasons that were left on Cano’s deal when he was traded to the Mets. But Seattle actually doubled up on those payouts in Cano’s first Mets season, so as not to owe anything in 2023. Thus, besides paying most of the $20.25 million they owed Cano last year, the Mets are on the hook for $24 million for him this year — unless it is offset by the probably minimum salary if he hooks on elsewhere. Cano’s cost toward the luxury-tax payroll remains the same, though, at $20.25 million for the Mets in 2023.

The White Sox, with pitchers Lance Lynn (above), Lucas Giolito and Aaron Bummer, might match up as trade partners for the Yankees.
Getty Images

That is an involved way of saying the Mets are going to pay about $11 million more in all to rid Cano from their roster than the Yankees would have to pay to do the same with Donaldson. It is not impossible the Yankees find a trade for Donaldson in which they offset his money in some way. But if they don’t …

The need to move Hicks is not as desperate. If he were the fourth outfielder, it would just be an expensive luxury. His presence is more about bad mojo that the Yankees don’t need. It became clear that Hicks’ performance got even worse when the fans turned on him completely in 2022.

Arizona’s Madison Bumgarner has two years at $37 million left. But he has a five-team no-trade provision, and everything from his history would suggest he has no desire to play in New York. Plus, word from inside the Diamondbacks is that even as Bumgarner’s effectiveness has waned from his elite heyday, he has been resistant to modern/analytic advancements — which would also make him a bad New York fit.

Would a team such as the White Sox take on Hicks for, say, Lance Lynn (owed $19.5 million) if they also could get their hands on a young pitcher such as Clarke Schmidt? Would a team such as the A’s, who have no major league contracts signed yet for 2023, much less 2024, take on at least part of the Hicks deal if they also could get their hands on some prospects?

The Yankees at this point will be very open to seeing if there is any lingering interest in Albert Abreu, Deivi Garcia and/or Luis Gil as part of an enticement.

Luis Gil, who likely will miss all of next season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, is part of a crop of pitching prospects who have limited futures with the Yankees.
Bill Kostroun

Those three pitchers have basically no future with the Yankees. All three are out of options. Gil, who had Tommy John surgery and will likely miss all of next season, can be put on the 60-day injured list, where he would not count toward the 40-man roster. But in 2024, he would have to be all the way back to stick with the Yankees all year or be potentially lost on waivers. That is true for Abreu and Garcia in 2023. Does anyone believe either will make it through the whole season with the Yankees’ major league team next year?

Keep in mind that roster spots are precious. With both Gil and Scott Effross expected to take up 40-man spots all offseason even though neither is likely to pitch next year, the Yankees are essentially operating with a 38-man roster this winter. So some cleansing is going to have to be done. Garcia has probably lost all of his prospect shine. Abreu has shown the kind of erratic talent and lack of control that is true about many arms in pro ball. And Gil, who probably is the most attractive of the group, is recovering from major surgery. Would a rebuilding team see the value of rehabbing him in 2023 to see whether they can have a talented 25-year-old with years of control beginning in 2024?

There’s another item that I think will be true no matter which way the Yankees go: the possibility of trading Gleyber Torres and/or Kiner-Falefa. I think it would be more surprising if both were back next year than if both were gone — and I would be shocked if at least one was not moved. The Yankees let executives at the GM meetings know they were open for business with their middle infielders.

At last year’s trade deadline, the Yanks turned down the Marlins’ ask of Torres and Oswald Peraza for Pablo Lopez and Miguel Rojas. Some form of that proposed deal can be rebuilt. The Mariners have interest in Torres and have bullpen arms that should interest the Yankees even after using Erik Swanson to land another mid-order righty bat from Toronto in Teoscar Hernandez.

Here is my totally made up trade: Torres and Schmidt to the White Sox for Lucas Giolito and Aaron Bummer. Torres and Giolito are roughly a 2023 salary wash, but Chicago gets two years of control with Torres versus having Giolito in his walk year. Schmidt would replace Giolito in the White Sox rotation with five years of club control. Giolito had a down 2022, but did so for a dysfunctional team with a poor defense. He had an ugly confrontation with Donaldson in the past — uglier than the one that Gerrit Cole and Donaldson patched up — so that would have to be considered if the Yankees don’t move Donaldson. Bummer is owed at least $10.5 million over the next two seasons, and, at his healthiest best, is a bit of Zack Britton 2.0 — a lefty with a menacing sinker.

The Yankees made it known at the recent GM meetings that they’re willing to listen to offers for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Gleyber Torres.
Getty Images

As for Kiner-Falefa, MLB Trade Rumors has him pegged to make $6.5 million in 2023 via the arbitration process. I can’t imagine the Yankees would want to pay that much to a backup infielder — and if Kiner-Falefa is anything more than a reserve, that would be accentuating a 2022 mistake. Teams have to add 2023 contracts to their 40-man personnel by Friday. That is the first hurdle: Will Kiner-Falefa be tendered a contract? I would think so.

One last move I think is true in all offseason scenarios: The Yankees try to secure a lefty-hitting left fielder with retaining Andrew Benintendi perhaps the first priority and Japanese star Masataka Yoshida a possibility if the Yankees think he can handle the defensive assignment in their spacious home left field.

OK, let’s get to the Judge scenarios:   

1. Judge stays and the Yankees keep spending. I think if this plays out, it does so in one of two ways: They also make a big play for a starter such as Justin Verlander, or they make a big play for a shortstop such as Carlos Correa or Trea Turner and then use Peraza as a trade chip to upgrade elsewhere, likely in pitching. Anthony Volpe would move to second base and DJ LeMahieu would become the regular third baseman, which is what he should be next year in all scenarios.

When I envision Verlander and the Yankees, I think about Randy Johnson and the Yankees. Johnson and the Yankees kept circling each other, and by the time he joined, it was the lefty’s age-42 season and the Yankees got a pale version of Johnson (and one who clearly hated playing here). Verlander and the Yankees have circled each other a few times. He pitches at the age of 40 next year, though he just won the AL Cy Young at 39.

If not Verlander, Carlos Rodon and Jacob deGrom are also atop the free-agent starting pitching market. Does deGrom even want to play in New York, especially if it is not for the Mets? Is Rodon just too much of a health risk?

The Yankees and Justin Verlander have been linked as potential partners in the past, but would it make sense for the Yankees to invest heavily in the soon-to-be 40-year-old star?
Getty Images

The Yanks can play big in the shortstop market, but this will only worsen how bad their decision-making from last offseason looks. They decided not to pursue anyone in an elite free-agent shortstop class because their intention was to use the money to re-sign Judge and they believed Peraza and Volpe were close to the majors.

Now Peraza and Volpe are probably ready, and in this scenario, Judge is signed. If the Yankees invested $300 million-ish in a shortstop now, would it scream that they should have done it a year ago and greatly improved their chances of winning the 2022 title?

2. The Yankees re-sign Judge and are more deliberate elsewhere. They already have retained Anthony Rizzo for two years at $40 million. I think ideally they would like their 2023 infield to be Rizzo at first, Volpe at second, Peraza at short, LeMahieu at third and Oswaldo Cabrera moving all about. The minimum-salary-range deals for Volpe, Peraza and Cabrera would be somewhat of a balance for re-signing Judge, as would moving as much as possible of the money owed to Donaldson and/or Hicks, plus Torres and/or Kiner-Falefa.

Two rookies in the middle infield, plus Cabrera as the rover, is a lot of risk with inexperience for a team trying to win next year. Perhaps the Yankees retain Torres to begin the season at second, start Volpe at Triple-A, and if he earns his way up, they try to revive Torres trade talks during the season.

But keep in mind that new rules might favor the young infield. There is a ban on extreme shifts next year, so middle infielders will need to be rangier. Peraza and Volpe almost certainly have that over Kiner-Falefa and Torres. Also, bigger bases and restrictions on pickoff throws are expected to promote base stealing, as those rules did in the minors last year. Peraza and Volpe were 77 out of 90 in stolen-base tries in 2022 at various levels. Could they provide energy, defense and a different scoring avenue for the 2023 Yankees?

Oswald Peraza’s solid defense and speed on the bases will take on greater import in 2023 as new rules banning the shift and making bases larger go into effect.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

3. The Yankees lose Judge and splurge to replace him. This would have a lot of overtones of the 2013-14 offseason. Cano was their best player and their best homegrown player since Derek Jeter. But the Yankees thought it was too risky to invest so heavily in one player well into his 30s. They had thoughts about trying to go under the luxury-tax threshold, especially with Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera retiring and Alex Rodriguez being suspended for the season.

When Cano signed with the Mariners, however, there was a huge blowback against Hal Steinbrenner that he was not willing to invest like his father. He responded by guaranteeing $458 million to Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Masahiro Tanaka.

Judge is the Yankees’ best player and their best homegrown player since Jeter. Their concern about investing in Judge into his late 30s tempered their extension offer last spring. They could counter and go under the tax in 2023. But if Steinbrenner thought the noise was loud about Cano, just wait for what he hears if Judge gets away.

At that point, they could try to redirect dollars and anger by signing, say, Verlander and Turner plus importing Yoshida. How badly do the Angels want to get out of the eight years at $283.6 million left on Mike Trout? Is he an asset to the sale of the Angels or is that contract deep into his baseball senior citizenry a detriment? Would he accept a trade out of Anaheim? Would Giancarlo Stanton (owed $130 million the next five years by the Yankees) accept a trade to his native Southern California? That is $150 million in savings for the Angels plus perhaps a prospect or two. OK, it is all a pipe dream.

The question the Yankees will have to ask: Is the cost to replace Judge worse than simply paying Judge what he wants, especially considering that Judge has demonstrated he can flourish in New York and the Yankees always have to worry when they dabble outside their walls if they are signing the next Ellsbury?

Aaron Judge’s ability to perform in front of intense Yankee Stadium crowds is not a skill every star possesses.
Getty Images

4. Judge leaves and the Yankees go frugal. Let’s create a pretend number here to sign Judge. Let’s say it’s in the range of eight years at $304 million to nine years at $342 million — $38 million per season. Are the Yankees better for the extent of those years signing Judge or not signing Judge?

In the short term, they are probably better with Judge. He is a great, New York-tested player. But 62 homers has created an amnesia about his age and past health issues that helps him in this market. Let’s try these questions: Do you think Judge is likely to play as well in any future season as he did in his walk year? Do you think he is more likely to play better for the next six years than the six years he just played — and now add on two or three more future years in a contract?

Steinbrenner is committed to keeping Judge. But if he didn’t, there would be logical reasons to let him go beyond Steinbrenner being cheap. If the best strategy is to do what your smartest opponents hope you don’t do, then I would ask this question, too: Do you think the Rays want the Yankees to retain Judge or not? I bet they hope the Yankees pay him a ton. A club such as Tampa Bay needs scenarios in which the Yankees spend poorly to open an avenue to beat them. And watching Judge and Stanton age into a battle for DH at-bats would be ideal for the Rays.

So if the Yankees let Judge go, would it then be wise to counter by not spending a ton of money, especially long-term money? What would that look like? They still would have Rizzo and Stanton. They could keep Torres. They would not suddenly be a team without power, especially if youngsters such as Cabrera, Peraza and Volpe deliver 15-20 homers each. They can use the year to find out about those three youngsters, and perhaps put Schmidt into the rotation to learn whether he can be a full-repertoire starter if they stop forcing him to be just a slider-monster reliever. They will see whether outfielders Jasson Dominguez and Everson Pereira and lefty-hitting catcher Austin Wells can make it to the majors — or if they improve or worsen their prospect standing.

Should Judge decide to leave in free agency, Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton still would bring power bats to a less experienced lineup.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

In the best case, that is still an 85-plus win team that can augment at the July trade deadline. And the Phillies just showed it is about getting into the tournament healthy and getting hot at the right time.

Either way, if it succeeds or fails, the Yankees will have learned a lot about themselves, and can then try for Shohei Ohtani in free agency next offseason and/or Juan Soto in the one after that.

This is the scenario I believe is the least likely to occur because I do think Steinbrenner will do everything to sign Judge and will not just go mild if he fails there. But if the Yankees do not retain Judge, this scenario should not be simply dismissed. It arguably could leave the Yankees in a better place for the long-term future.

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Inside the Yankees’ decisions for ALDS roster, lineup

You know who is about to have a miserable month?

Aaron Boone.

Unless he acquired ESP from his days working at ESPN, Boone simply cannot be right on every personnel choice he faces for the playoffs. And the Yankees manager faces a remarkable number of questions about who plays where and when considering he is in charge of a 99-win division champ.

He will stick with his mantra that these are good problems to have because the choices involve talented players. Let’s see if he is still saying that in a week when every 20/20 hindsight champion with anger and a social media account is calling him a puppet of Brian Cashman’s analytics group or demanding his dismissal.

Short of the Yankees going 11-0 en route to their first championship since 2009, Boone should expect a hellish ride full of first- and second-guessing and perhaps players grumbling because they are not playing when they thought they would. Anthony Rizzo will play first base, and Aaron Judge will start, of course. But beyond that, there are going to be debates about how the Yankees roster is deployed. So let’s expand 3Up to take a look at Boone’s puzzle:

1. Who is closing?

Being able to pencil Aaron Judge’s name into the lineup every day is a good place for the Yankees to start in the playoffs.
JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK PO

This also easily can be expressed as: Who is setting up? Or even: Who are the Yankees including in their bullpen?

Using the “wrong” reliever on May 10 tends to send Yankees fans into the kind of fury that should be reserved for surgical mistakes. So if Boone, say, brings in Lou Trivino in the sixth inning of a playoff game and the righty gives up the lead, he should expect questions about why he didn’t use Jonathan Loaisiga, Scott Effross or Goose Gossage — as well as questions about why he hasn’t yet handed in his resignation.

The problem is the Yankees don’t have someone like Gossage or Mariano Rivera to anchor the ninth and make this about the baton pass from starter to closer. Aroldis Chapman lost control, confidence and his job. Clay Holmes went from an All-Star to the Pitts (if you get it, tell a friend). Holmes and Wandy Peralta finished the season on the injured list, but the Yankees believe both will be active for Game 1 of the Division Series on Tuesday.

But play it out. If the Yankees are leading the Rays 4-3 in Game 1 and the starter (we will get to that subject in a few paragraphs) is finished after six innings, what is the path to the finish line? Is Boone really going to strategize how to get the ball in the ninth inning to Holmes, who hasn’t pitched since Sept. 26 and hasn’t been trustworthy since the first week in July?

The relievers throwing the best down the stretch were Effross, Loaisiga and Trivino. The Yankees believe in Peralta’s fortitude, but he hasn’t pitched in a game since Sept. 18. Will Domingo German and/or Clarke Schmidt be given responsibility?

And what of Chapman?

Can Aroldis Chapman, who recorded a 4.48 ERA and walked 6.9 batter per nine innings, be relied upon in the postseason?
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Po

Two weeks ago, the Yankees were contemplating whether his roster spot would be better used in another way. But injuries to Zack Britton and Ron Marinaccio took them off the chessboard, at least for the first round. That assured Chapman would keep his roster spot through the regular season, and it might also now get him on the postseason roster.

And now a historical aside: In 1996, Graeme Lloyd had a 17.47 ERA for the Yankees during the regular season. Damaso Marte had a 9.45 mark in 2009. Neither was a certainty to make the postseason roster. But both did because they were lefties with stuff. And the Yankees might not win the championship either year without them; they were brilliant in the playoffs.

On the basis of his pure stuff, do the Yanks throw a dart and hope that Chapman has a Lloyd/Marte moment or three in the playoffs? It is hard to forget he has given up two of the most devastating homers in Yankees postseason history and just how erratic he was this year. He is going to be a tough choice either way.

My suspicion is Boone will use the Yankees bullpen much like Kevin Cash deployed the Rays relief group in getting to the World Series in 2020. Nick Anderson, Diego Castillo and Pete Fairbanks each appeared in postseason games as early as the fifth inning and also had saves. They were used interchangeably as the main high-leverage guys — with Aaron Loup and Ryan Thomson as the other relievers in Cash’s circle of trust.

I think Boone uses Holmes, Effross, Loaisiga, Peralta and Trivino interchangeably as his circle-of-trust relievers; German, Schmidt and Lucas Luetge are around for length and emergencies; and Chapman is a break-glass-if-needed wild card.

2. Who starts Game 1?

A few weeks back on “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman” podcast, Boone said it would be Gerrit Cole. But he hedged late in the season. The question really should be: Who do you want starting a win-or-go-home Game 4 or Game 5 if it gets there? Because whoever starts Game 1 would have full rest for Game 4 and one extra day rest for Game 5.

Nestor Cortes may not get the traditional honor of starting Game 1 in the ALDS, but he may be given the responsibility of getting the Yankees out of a winner-take-all Game 5.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Po

So if the season were on the line, do the Yankees want Cole or Nestor Cortes starting? Or do they want Luis Severino, who looked so great with seven no-hit innings in his last start in Texas?

Jameson Taillon would be lined up to start a Game 4, if necessary, if the Yankees lead the series, 2-1. If the Yankees trail 2-1, I would suspect the Game 1 starter would go in Game 4. That would leave Taillon to start Game 5 with the Game 2 starter perhaps available for a few innings of relief.

I think the Yankees should start Cortes in the opener. I believe Boone will go with Cole.

3. Who plays second base?

DJ LeMahieu came back from his toe injury to produce four singles in 16 at-bats over five games with two walks, one strikeout, lots of groundballs and no signs of his best results. Meanwhile, in his final 17 games, Gleyber Torres hit .391 with 11 extra-base hits, including five homers. His defense at this moment also is better than LeMahieu’s.

Case closed, right?

Well, I do think Torres will start Game 1, but what I cannot shake is how much Boone admires LeMahieu. He knows that LeMahieu, when right, can hit top-end playoff pitching and will never be intimidated by a big spot. But is LeMahieu even close to right?

If he is, well, stick with me.

4. Who plays third base?

Josh Donaldson’s 27.1 percent strikeout rate this season doesn’t bode well for the postseason.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

That will probably be Josh Donaldson, right? His defense has been strong all season, and maybe he will run into a pitch or two in the postseason. But Donaldson ended his season 0-for-15 with some shaky defense. In his last 14 games, he had two doubles, no homers, a .222 average and stuck out in 20 of 61 plate appearances.

Do the Yankees believe Donaldson will hit good postseason pitching? He spent a lot of 2022 guessing and overmatched.

Is LeMahieu an option to start at third? When fully healthy this year, LeMahieu played better defense at the position than was anticipated.

Again, which version of LeMahieu is available to the Yankees?

5. What’s the outfield?

This question might be made simple. If Andrew Benintendi (hamate) cannot make it back in time for the playoffs, the Yankees will line up with Oswaldo Cabrera in left field, Harrison Bader in center and Aaron Judge in right. But what if Benintendi is deemed ready? I’m still not sure he starts.

The Yankees have loved the extra defensive boost Bader has provided in center and the overall boost Cabrera has supplied. The Yankees won a championship in 1998 with rookies Ricky Ledee and Shane Spencer sharing left field. It has only been 44 games for Cabrera, but based on those 44 games, I would ask: Is Benintendi even an upgrade? Maybe. The rookie has not flinched yet and has shown a high baseball IQ. Will that continue into the playoffs?

In 14 games with the Yankees, Harrison Bader has provided the type of elite defense the team hopes will make a difference this month.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

Here is one to think about: If Benintendi does come back, can the Yankees line up Benintendi in left, Judge in center and Cabrera in right with Bader available to come in late for defense? If he does come in late for defense, he goes to center, Judge to right and who would you play in left: Benintendi or Cabrera?

6. Who plays shortstop?

Isiah Kiner-Falefa, right? Yes. Definitely.

But if an important ground ball is hit to short late in a close playoff game, would you rather have Kiner-Falefa stationed there or Oswald Peraza? You might ask the same thing even about which of those two you would want taking a big late at-bat.

The major league sample size for Peraza is far smaller even than for Cabrera. But have you seen enough to at least ask whether he Peraza a better option than Kiner-Falefa?

7. Who is the catcher?

This has been so much easier the past few years when Gary Sanchez was just losing his job about this time of the season.

The Yankees have gotten so much all season in performance, especially on defense, and spiritually from Jose Trevino. But Kyle Higashioka hit .339 with three homers in September, and also is a strong defender.

Jose Trevino’s excellent defense makes him the likely first-choice catcher for the Yankees in the playoffs.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

My guess is Trevino starts Game 1, but there could be starts for Higashioka as well. More importantly, the trust in Higashioka will lead to more aggressive pinch-hitting for Trevino.

8. Who is the DH?

Giancarlo Stanton. That’s who it is going to be. His postseason history alone (nine homers in 18 games) is going to give him the nod. And his homers in each of his last three regular-season starts suggest maybe he is just about to get hot.

But there sure were a lot of long stretches of bad at-bats this year. Is Matt Carpenter really going to be back? He hasn’t played since Aug. 8. Who knows if he can recapture what he had before fracturing his left foot, when for 154 impressive plate appearances, he was the Yankees’ toughest at-bat not named Judge. He hit lefties and righties. He hit good pitching. He hit in the clutch. He hit with two strikes.

If he is back and capable, he becomes the No. 1 pinch-hitting option for someone such as Trevino — and maybe even for Donaldson and Bader in certain spots.

9. Who is on the roster?

The roster goes back to 26 for the postseason. There can be no more than 13 pitchers.

My guess is 12 pitchers: Cole, Cortes, Severino, Taillon, Holmes, Effross, Loaisiga, Peralta, Trivino, German, Schmidt and Chapman.

With two off days, I think there is no need for more, though remember in the playoffs there is no automatic runner to second base in extra innings. A game will have a chance of going much longer.

Though only 23, Oswaldo Cabrera has displayed a veteran savvy no matter where the Yankees play him in the field.
JASON SZENES

Chapman is the only lefty reliever. Could they also take Lucas Luetge rather than a long guy such as German or Schmidt? Would they take Luetge instead of Chapman? Is Miguel Castro in play?

They could always take 13. But that would hinder some offensive maneuverability.

The worry on Chapman is this: If he goes in Game 1 and can’t find the strike zone and has to be yanked quickly, effectively removing him as an option the rest of the way, the Yankees would be down to 11 pitchers. For that reason, do they take Castro? My gut is still Chapman.

That leaves 14 slots for position players. I think there are 11 locks: Trevino, Higashioka, Rizzo, Torres, Kiner-Falefa, LeMahieu, Donaldson, Stanton, Judge, Bader and Cabrera.

If Carpenter is healthy, he is on. I don’t think Benintendi has the time to make it.

That would leave two spots from among Peraza, Marwin Gonzalez, Aaron Hicks and Tim Locastro. Though he surprisingly lasted the whole season, Gonzalez becomes an easy removal here. Cabrera offers Gonzalez’s switch-hitting and defensive versatility. Carpenter and LeMahieu can be the lefty and righty bats off the bench. Cabrera can be the backup shortstop. But maybe Peraza is the backup shortstop. If the Yankees believe Peraza offers a comparable base-stealing threat to Locastro, this would be an easy choice. I think that is hard to definitively believe so early in Peraza’s career.

Because of that, I think Peraza doesn’t make it, and they end up going with Hicks and Locastro.. But it will be a close call.

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What we still don’t know about the Mets’ trade deadline

I want to revisit the deal that brought Edwin Diaz to the Mets as a vehicle to discuss the club’s first trade deadline with Billy Eppler as general manager.

There are three items to drill down upon:

1. I am not sure if we were always this impatient as a society in general and in sports in specific or if social media/confrontational sports-talk shows conditioned us to race to the quickest hot takes, but trades do need time to fully gestate to see how they turn out.

I direct this at myself, too, because I criticized the Mets multiple times for under-selling Jarred Kelenic and taking on the contract of Robinson Cano — an easier case when Diaz was struggling.

2. Having said that, I still think the trade is not some slam-dunk winner for the Mets (oh, how recency bias causes such shifts). What were the opportunity costs of taking on Cano’s money and trading Kelenic before he fully had established his minor league value?

Recently, on our podcast, “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman,” Steve Cohen, in speaking about his 2023 budget, noted Cano is still on the Mets’ books for roughly $20 million next season. So the downside of the trade still will be felt because Cohen insinuated not even he will have a payroll that erases all sins with unlimited spending.

In addition, don’t think of Kelenic’s value today, which is way down after major league cameos the past two years covering 500 plate appearances in which he hit .167 with a .575 OPS and struck out 30.6 percent of the time. Kelenic did not even have his first full season in the minors until 2019 with the Mariners after being drafted No. 6 overall in June 2018 by the Mets, and by the end of that terrific 2019 farm season he was generally viewed as among the 10 best prospects in the game. He is the kind of player who easily, for example, could have fronted a trade for Mookie Betts after that season.

Steve Cohen admitted that the $20 million the Mets still owe Robinson Cano next year will factor into some of their decisions this winter.
AP

3. Which brings us to the most important first element for a team when it comes to entering the trade market: honest self-examination. Delusion is the enemy. Are you a contender? If so, where in your contention cycle are you? What does your prospect base look like going forward, etc.?

The Mets were 77-85 in 2018. They might have been underachievers because they had talent. But not enough — even with dubious free-agent injections (Jeurys Familia, Jed Lowrie, Wilson Ramos, Justin Wilson) — to justify trading away their most recent first-round pick plus taking on five years and around $100 million on Cano’s contract in the immediate aftermath of his suspension for failing a PED test. Not for a closer. You trade big for a closer when you have certainty of being good, as the Cubs (Aroldis Chapman) and Cleveland (Andrew Miller) did at the 2016 trade deadline.

This is where I connect to the most recent trade deadline. Because by this July — as with the Cubs and Cleveland in 2016 — these Mets would not have been delusional to see themselves as the kind of team that should have been willing to go all-in. That was about them being a first-place team, yes, but it was more than that. Max Scherzer is still pitching at an elite level, but he is 37. You can’t bet on that to continue. Diaz, Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker, Brandon Nimmo, Seth Lugo and Adam Ottavino can be free agents after this season, as could Carlos Carrasco if his option is not picked up. Who knows how quickly and how successfully you can re-sign or replace all of that talent?

But the Mets did not have a go-for-it trade deadline. They obtained complementary pieces in Mychal Givens, Tyler Naquin, Darin Ruf and Daniel Vogelbach. Givens began poorly as a Met before compiling seven straight scoreless appearances going into Thursday. The hitters, though, have been central to an offensive malaise that has overcome the Mets this month, endangering the club’s chances of outdueling the Braves for the NL East title.

It has left a growing sense that Eppler and the Mets did not do enough to fortify a title contender. So I called Eppler to go down that path. But first, this proviso harking back to the points about the Diaz trade:

After posting an inconsistent first month with the Mets, Mychal Givens has yet to give up a run in the month of September.
Michelle Farsi

1. If Vogelbach hits the winning homer in a game closed out by Diaz to secure the Mets’ first championship since 1986, then no fan of the team is going to care much about how Diaz performed in 2019 or how Vogelbach hit in September 2022 nor the hot takes associated with either.

2. There always is a bit of blindness in evaluating a trade deadline because as kind as Eppler was with his time and insight, he was not going to publicly reveal all the trade permutations and possibilities the Mets had in front of them before the 6 p.m. deadline on Aug. 2. So this piece includes an alchemy of reporting, common sense and — yes — supposition. For example, it would have been terrrific for the Mets to push to the front of the line to get Juan Soto, but every person I talked to said there was no way the Nationals were trading him within the NL East, especially once the Padres showed how far they would go in piling top prospect after top prospect to get him.

3. We do not have a full picture, and we won’t for a while. The Mets traded seven prospects plus J.D. Davis for Givens, Naquin, Ruf and Vogelbach. None of the prospects were well-regarded. But, for example, when the Yankees acquired James Paxton after the 2018 season, Justus Sheffield was the prospect there was a lot of concern about giving up. In 2022, Erik Swanson — another Yankees prospect packaged with Sheffield — has emerged as one of the AL’s best relievers for Seattle.

So now that I offered those three points, let’s delve into Eppler/the Mets’ deadline behavior through 3Up:

1. More than anything else, Eppler stressed several times: “We’re trying to build something year in and year out that stands the test of time.”

Beyond a trade for Bassitt, the Mets mainly used Cohen’s money to upgrade in the offseason, thus protecting their farm system. At this deadline, Eppler said, according to their internal list, the Mets did not trade any of their top 19 prospects.

J.D. Davis has hit five homers in his first 33 games with the Giants after he was dealt by the Mets as part of a package for four solid, if unspectacular, veterans at the trade deadline.
Getty Images

But, he insisted, that is not because they didn’t try. They had offers out that included prospects from their internal top 10 and top five. But Eppler said the club was not going to trade a top-seven prospect for a rental player who would be a free agent after this season.

“This wasn’t an exercise in hoarding [prospects],” Eppler said. “This was about putting it on paper and being willing to go above our comfort level. But let’s not get reckless because we are trying to build a culture of sustainability and everything that comes with that.”

Eppler did not make this point, but it is worth pointing out that the Mets were not the only team seeking a difference-making bat or lefty reliever. But the industry (not just the Mets) probably saw the prices as too high. Walk-year hitters such as the Red Sox’s J.D. Martinez and the Cubs’ Willson Contreras were not traded, nor were potential walk-year southpaw relievers with the ability to get out righty hitters (a Mets priority) such as the Tigers’ Andrew Chafin and Rangers’ Matt Moore.

Eppler said of his dialogues: “It was like, ‘Hey, we would do this and this [with his prospects],’ but it didn’t match or they didn’t like the player and they felt they were getting a better [prospect elsewhere]. Great, [the other team would counter], ‘For you to match this deal, you have to give this one [prospect].’ I wouldn’t do that one. Are they bluffing? Maybe, maybe not. But discipline [in sticking to long-term goals of sustainability]…you know, it’s gonna be the pain of this discipline or the pain of disappointment, and the disappointment lasts longer.”

2. Eppler also said deadline trades “don’t move it [percentage chances of a championship] that much.” If you look at the projection system or casino odds immediately after the deadline, the percentages do not rise significantly even with big deals. So, Eppler asked, how much are you willing to sacrifice in prospect collateral to, say, gain a percentage point or two of a greater chance to win?

Billy Eppler said whatever transactions the Mets make at this time are done with an eye toward building a sustainable winner.
Corey Sipkin

“There’s no certainty in these things,” Eppler said.

To that end, I dug into the Padres, who were widely seen as the biggest trade deadline winners after obtaining Soto, Josh Bell, Brandon Drury and Josh Hader. Hader pitched so badly, he briefly lost his closing job. He was one of four lefty relievers dealt in a market in which the Mets were shopping. Taylor Rogers, who was dealt to the Brewers for Hader, also has pitched poorly, as has Jake Diekman. Will Smith has been fine for the Astros, but that was one iffy contract (Jake Odorizzi) for another — and Smith was coming from the Braves, not a likely trade partner for the Mets.

Going into Thursday night’s games, Soto, Bell and Drury had combined for 414 plate appearances since joining the Padres in which they had a .211 average and .673 OPS with 11 homers and 38 RBIs. Naquin, Ruf and Vogelbach, in 287 Mets plate appearances, had a combined .211 average, .687 OPS, eight homers and 34 RBIs — and that was before Vogelbach had a single, a double and three RBIs in the Mets’ win over the Pirates.

“I think when you look at results in smaller samples that can become dangerous,” Eppler said.

Since Aug. 3 — the day after the deadline — the player traded prior to the deadline who had the best OPS (minimum 50 plate appearances, going into Thursday) was Rangers catcher Mark Mathias (obtained from the Brewers), whose 1.214 OPS actually led the majors over Aaron Judge’s 1.212. Had you even heard of Mark Mathias before reading that sentence? The next best were Phillies infielder Edmundo Sosa (.961) and Red Sox catcher Reese McGuire (.903).

Naquin’s .777 OPS as a Met was almost exactly his career mark (.776), as was Vogelbach’s .750 (career: .745). They are, in bulk, performing to their career norms. But they have slumped concurrently with the Mets’ downturn in play, which has led to greater criticism of the Mets’ trade deadline moves. Their worst look right now is Ruf, especially because the fourth-best OPS since Aug. 3 among traded players belongs to the Giants’ Davis (.840), whom Ruf was traded for and replaced. Meanwhile, of the 343 players who have batted at least 50 times since Aug. 3, the only player with a worse OPS than Ruf’s .397 was Aaron Hicks at .394.

Darin Ruf has struggled at the plate since his arrival from the Giants, though some of the other options the Mets may have pursued are not hitting much better.
Noah K. Murray

So the Mets’ inability to revive Davis or to find a strong supplementary righty bat is haunting them — at least in the small sample size. As noted earlier, neither Contreras nor Martinez was traded. The player the Mets were most strongly associated with, Trey Mancini, was hitting .200 with a .718 OPS for the Astros after being obtained from the Orioles. He does have the luxury in Astros home games of the tantalizing Crawford Boxes in left field, which he would not have had at Citi Field, and in Mancini’s first 64 road plate appearances for Houston, he was hitting just .158 with a .585 OPS.

3. The team that Cohen wants his Mets to emulate most is the Andrew Friedman Dodgers. When Friedman took over after the 2014 season, his top three prospects were Corey Seager, Joc Pederson and Julio Urias. He never traded Seager or Pederson before they left via free agency, and Urias is still a vital Dodgers starter.

Even when acquiring star walk-year players at the trade deadline in Yu Darvish (2017) and Manny Machado (2018), Friedman never gave up his better prospects. It was not until the 2021 deadline — to obtain Scherzer and Trea Turner from the Nationals — that Friedman went to the top of his prospect list in dispatching catcher Keibert Ruiz and starter Josiah Gray. And neither Ruiz nor Gray has yet made that a painful decision (again, it takes a long time to assess a trade).

In Friedman’s time running the Dodgers, they have been superb at keeping homegrown difference-makers, such as Cody Bellinger, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Gavin Lux, Dustin May and catcher Will Smith, and at dealing off prospects touted in the industry who have yet to justify the hype, such as Jose DeLeon and Grant Holmes. It has not been perfect. Frankie Montas was included in a trade for Rich Hill and Josh Reddick, and notably Yordan Alvarez was flipped for Josh Fields.

But the decision-making around prospects by the Friedman Dodgers has been exemplary. This is the standard the Eppler Mets hope to emulate. And, at least initially, they are (like those initial Friedman Dodgers teams) trying to let the system mature before using perceived better prospects in trades. Longtime MLB executive Dan O’Dowd, my colleague at the MLB Network, has an insight he voices often that I particularly like: “Patience is the only asset routinely rewarded in our sport and the one that is yet in shortest supply.”

The Dodgers’ ability to build a consistent contender while keeping prized talents, such as catcher Will Smith, has made them a model for the Mets to emulate.
AP

It is not often that reporters or fans cheer patience in real time.

With time, we will see whether protecting the top of the system, such as Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty and Alex Ramirez, was smartly played, though it is all with the caveat of what was actually available to the Mets in potential trades and also trying to come to peace (as with Kelenic) with what the future value of the prospects is.

“You have to look at the process by which you acquire players,” Eppler said. “We can go all the way back to when I first started and we go through free agents and what happened after the lockout and then go through the deadline and think about what were the opportunities. What was real and what was fantasy? What was the process driving that? So, we try to evaluate that. I get the sense of urgency [in the moment]. I’m aware of that and aware that you have to start asking questions with players. …

“Those are the decisions you make. This could affect three or four years of this goal of this organization — to crush any urge to make short-term investments that only give marginal gains but give up large portions of future gains.”

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