A Blue Jays fan did an analysis on the Yankees before they started their series in Toronto.

Before Thursday, the Yankees still had a positive run differential over their slide.

They were still scoring as many runs, giving up a few more than previous but were losing more 1-run games.

They also don't have an obvious weakness. Their bullpen is battered, but most of the guys they are currently rolling out still have decent numbers.

It's been satisfying as a Jays fans watching the Yankees fall from on high (and fortuitous to have the Jays roll into NYC to take the first 3), but all the indicators say it can't last and the Yankees are still a juggernaut despite this historically bad stretch (apparently the 12-24 stretch is their first since 1995, Jeter's cup of coffee year).

Just a bad stretch - they'll be fine. I've watched them a few times during this streak and they look fine, just a bit snakebit

#2 It's a good team, but the early success was built in no small part by guys playing well above their established level of talent. And most of those guys were old enough that it would be rare for them to have moved to a new true talent level.

It was pretty reasonable to expect a fair amount of regression.

But then I doubt you disagree. The team's "true talent" level pretty much puts them as a top two team in the AL. They're going to make the playoffs and after that ... Well it's not precisely true to say that playoffs are random, but they're volatile enough that if the Yankees go out in the first round it won't be a total shock and if they win the World Series it'll be clear and convincing evidence of their pact with Satan.

... they look fine, just a bit snakebit

how do you ascertain that from looking at them?

how do you ascertain that from looking at them?

They've got a snake hanging off them? (It has only now occurred to me that "snakebit" is a pretty weird turn of phrase. Nah, they're fine, they just got bitten by a snake? I assume this is a cowboy/horse phrase?)

Anyway, the Yanks "feebly slid" then "reeled" ... are they in "freefall" yet?

The Yankees miss a productive Stanton in the lineup.

7 No way, man. It is the curse of the Carpenterino; no Mashin' Matt and wonderboy.

#7 Sure. But isn't it kind of wishful thinking to expect Stanton to be in the lineup on a regular basis?

The Yankees miss a productive Stanton in the lineup.

More specifically, Donaldson, Hicks, Kiner-Falefa, and Benintendi all suck. You can't have four gaping holes in a DH lineup and not scuffle.

The Minnesota trade is proving to be a disaster. Urshela is better than Donaldson, Kiner-Falefa is near useless, and they wasted all the money they could have signed a real SS with.

If the Yankees had simply signed Correa, and non-tendered Sanchez, they'd be a far better team.

It’s not just the hitters

3.08 ERA in the first half, 4.28 in the second half
.776 OPS in the first half, .692 in the second half

Most of the deterioration in the pitching has come from the starters, although the bullpen has performed worse, too.

#10 Correa makes $30M more than IKF does – even the Yankees presumably can't have one of the top few contracts at every position.

Though as you assert they might have wasted $30M, in any number of other ways, that they should have spent on Correa.

More specifically, Donaldson, Hicks, Kiner-Falefa, and Benintendi all suck. You can't have four gaping holes in a DH lineup and not scuffle.

Lumping these four players together obscures important dissimilarities. Donaldson and Hicks have been high priced disasters. OTOH Kiner-Falefa's a low-priced SS with 1.3 dWAR and 1.1 oWAR. And there's no reason to think that Benintendi can't bounce but. Over the past two weeks his OPS has been .830.

Baseball is a million years old so surely this sort of thing has happened before- what are the famous examples? I know lots of teams have played like all time greats for a short stretch, but the Yankees did it for basically half the season. And I know even great teams have bad 6 or 8 game stretches, but this is a fair amount longer than that, and worse than others I can think of. What a weird year.

The 2022 Yankees have been like the 1914 Boston Braves, only in reverse.

1914 Braves:

Through July 4th, 26-40, last place, 15 GB
After July 4th, 68-19, first place, 10.5 GA

2022 Yankees:

Through July 8th, 61-23, 15.5 GA in AL East, 5.5 GA of Houston for the best overall AL record
After July 8th, 13-25, 15th of 15 AL teams

More specifically, Donaldson, Hicks, Kiner-Falefa, and Benintendi all suck.

Donaldson and Hicks have been high priced disasters

Donaldson has been worth 2.4 WAR according to BRef, almost as much as Urshela and Sanchez combined. He may not be playing all that well, but he has in no way been a disaster.

The '87 Brewers began the season 20-3, ended the season 50-29, and went 21-39 in between.

The '88 Angels were the inverse - began 20-36, ended 4-18, and went 51-33 in between.

Can someone please direct me to where in the think factory I can find the current Judge HR pace tracker? I recall pretty regular updates, but nothing recently, for some reason. Thanks.

Donaldson and Hicks have been high priced disasters

Donaldson has been worth 2.4 WAR according to BRef, almost as much as Urshela and Sanchez combined. He may not be playing all that well, but he has in no way been a disaster.

Look, I'm glad they finally got rid of Sanchez, but Gio was making $4.65 M last year to Donaldson's $21.75M in 2022. He's been but the latest example of Cashman getting a one time star a year late. I've lost count of the number of rallies he's killed, although in fairness you could say the same thing about most of the rest of that lineup. It's either home run or nothing.

Baseball is a million years old so surely this sort of thing has happened before- what are the famous examples?

The 1970 Reds, already known as the Big Red Machine although they hadn't won anything, started 70-30 before finishing at 102-60, so 32-30 down the stretch. They moved from Crosley (tiny, grass) to Riverfront (huge, Turf) in the middle of that season, which may have had something to do with it. They swept the NLCS 3-0 then lost the WS in 5 to Baltimore. Next season they were terrible (79-83) before trading for Joe Morgan, Jack Billingham, Cesar Geronimo and a couple of others, and becoming the BRM of lore.

They need to hit for more power. Aaron Judge is the only Yankee with a SLG over .500.

Hmm, I wonder if the Dodgers would give up Joey Gallo? He's slugging .667 for them...

They need to hit for more power. Aaron Judge is the only Yankee with a SLG over .500.

Hmm, I wonder if the Dodgers would give up Joey Gallo? He's slugging .667 for them...

Ups and downs

The year: 1969
The place: Chicago, IL USA, plante Earth
The ... I think you've probably heard this story before. 37-17 at one point; 62-38 after 100; 30-32 the rest of the way.

The year ... 1977, Cubs start 47-22, already up 8.5 games. Cracks have appeared already by the AS break at just 54-35 now with a 2.5 game lead. Finish it off at 27-46 to reach 500.

1985 Cubs, defending NLE champs (whoda thunk it) start the season 35-19 ... OK, hardly historic. They then lose 13 in a row but hey, still just 4.5 back. They went 42-52 the rest of the way.

1984... Detroit Tigers ... 16-1 ... 35-5 ... the wheels didn't exactly come off but between then and the end of Sept 1, they went just 52-44. They closed out the season 17-9 though, still won over 100 and won 7 of 8 in the playoffs to cruise to the title.

2022 ... the Dodgers ... 60-30 at the break, they've managed to go just 24-6 since then with a +98 run differential. :-) The Dodgers got swept 3 by the Giants on june 10-12. Since then, they are 47-13. I'm sure the baseball gods will conspire to limit them to a 600 team the rest of the way.

Aaron Judge is the only Yankee with a SLG over .500.

There are only 17 qualified batters slugging over 500. Other than Buxton and Schwarber, all of them have a BA over 260 (most well over). It's hard to slug over 500 when league BA is in the 240s.

What you want to measure "power" is ISO, not SLG. Judge leads the way at 359 ... down at 5th you find Scwharber at 284 which is why he can barely cling to a 500 SLG. [EDIT: Still, just 37 batters with an ISO of 200+ so not like many teams have more than one such guy.]

Now Aaron Hicks has a lousy BA and a lousy ISO ... fortunately he does have a nice walk/HBP rate which at least gets his OBP above average. Benintendi in KC had a crappy ISO (even a bit worse than Hicks) but did hit 320; since coming to NY that's tailed off a tad to 211 but at least the ISO has doubled and the walk rate is up.

The Yanks are one of those teams with more than one qualified batter with ISO>200 -- Rizzo. They also have Stanton and Carpenter (a mere 420 ISO) as unqualified batters. But sure, IKF's 1 HR in 401 PA is not helping. (His glove I assume is helping.)

Andy, surely you've caught on over the years that you can't add dWAR and oWAR and that IKF's 1.1 oWAR is not impressive. Possibly all you meant was IKF's offensive performance is only a bit below average for a SS so it's hardly disastrous.

20. yes, Billingham was the final piece of the puzzle.

23. '84 tigers, regardless, went wire to wire, never out of 1st, to win pennant and WS

Donaldson has been worth 2.4 WAR according to BRef, almost as much as Urshela and Sanchez combined. He may not be playing all that well, but he has in no way been a disaster.

Can we please not accept WAR blindly? Fangraphs has him at 1.4 WAR. The dude has a 98 OPS+/101 wRC+ at 3B for $22M. That's a disaster. His contract is the reason the Yankees didn't sign a real SS.

OTOH Kiner-Falefa's a low-priced SS with 1.3 dWAR and 1.1 oWAR.

Falefa has a 82 wRC+ and 0.6 fWAR. Also a disaster.

snapper, you might note that you were replying to two different Primates with your last comment. You should separate them with a ------ in between.

As far as IKF is concerned, the Yankees have gotten out of him pretty much what they expected, and he's had plenty of signature moments for me not to consider him a "disaster". He's one of the reasons the Yankees' defense has moved from the near bottom in MLB to the near top.

Can we please not accept WAR blindly? Fangraphs has him at 1.4 WAR

the biggest discrepancy seems to be with his fielding. BRef has him at +11 whereas FG has him 5.3. Statcast which seems to be somewhat objective gives him +6 runs; he seems to have about 5 baserunner kills which is probably average for playing just over half a season. He's also had 6 throwing errors which those can be awful with men on, but you'd have to really go thru game logs to see how much.

I'd go with FG on this one.

What you want to measure "power" is ISO, not SLG. Judge leads the way at 359 ... down at 5th you find Scwharber at 284 which is why he can barely cling to a 500 SLG. [EDIT: Still, just 37 batters with an ISO of 200+ so not like many teams have more than one such guy.]

Did I mention that Joey Gallo has an ISO of 400 with the Dodgers?

[Donaldson's] contract is the reason the Yankees didn't sign a real SS.

This isn't fair for a couple reasons. Most importantly, the reports out of NY both pre- and post-lockout were that the team wasn't interested in signing any of the big-name free agent shortstops to a contract that could block either of their two well-regarded shortstop prospects. I don't remember who the other available shortstops were. On top of that, a better salary comparison is at the time of the deals:

Urshela (6.5) + Sanchez (9) = $15.5M

Donaldson (22.5) + IKF (4) = $26.2M

That's not to defend Donaldson's play or NY's approach, just to show more of the context around what was clearly a defense-minded strategy without a willingness to sign any lengthy, expensive contracts.

20. yes, Billingham was the final piece of the puzzle.

I get that you're joking, but Billingham had a 0.36 ERA across 7 WS games and 25 innings, which I believe was some sort of record and might still be. Mediocre pitcher overall, of course, but then with that offense and bullpen mediocre innings-eating was good enough.

The 1970 Reds, already known as the Big Red Machine although they hadn't won anything, started 70-30 before finishing at 102-60, so 32-30 down the stretch.

worth mentioning that Wayne Simpson was a phenom that year. He almost went 15-0 to start his career but someone dropped a pop up or something to spoil that. His arm almost fell off and he eventually needed thoracic outlet surgery. So they didnt have him for the WS and another pitcher was hurt too. Maybe Merrit or someone? so that WS was sort of anticlimactic

double post

More specifically, Donaldson, Hicks, Kiner-Falefa, and Benintendi all suck.

I'm surprised Benintendi has done so poorly in New York. In KC he looked like a very solid player.

I'm surprised the 2017 Dodgers haven't been referenced. They started 10-12, then went 81-24, and finished with a run of 13-22 (including a stretch at 1-16). At the close of play on August 25th, they sat at 91-36 and looked like they had an outside chance at winning more games than the 2001 Mariners or 1906 Cubs.

This isn't fair for a couple reasons. Most importantly, the reports out of NY both pre- and post-lockout were that the team wasn't interested in signing any of the big-name free agent shortstops to a contract that could block either of their two well-regarded shortstop prospects. I don't remember who the other available shortstops were. On top of that, a better salary comparison is at the time of the deals:

Urshela (6.5) + Sanchez (9) = $15.5M

Donaldson (22.5) + IKF (4) = $26.2M

That's not to defend Donaldson's play or NY's approach, just to show more of the context around what was clearly a defense-minded strategy without a willingness to sign any lengthy, expensive contracts.

Sanchez could have been non-tendered. He wasn't guaranteed anything.

I'm surprised Benintendi has done so poorly in New York. In KC he looked like a very solid player.

You must not have been watching Benintendi since the weekend. He's 7 for 14 with with one key clutch hit after another, along with a SA of .857 and with several fielding and baserunning gems. His 7th inning go-ahead RBI opposite field single off a tough LHP had Paul O'Neill smiling back in Cincinnati. Don't write him off so soon.

The Yankees are undefeated since Boone pounded the table. Look for more furniture abuse from other managers.

Can we please not accept WAR blindly? Fangraphs has him at 1.4 WAR. The dude has a 98 OPS+/101 wRC+ at 3B for $22M. That's a disaster. His contract is the reason the Yankees didn't sign a real SS.

Cry me a river. The Sox have paid Sale $90 million since extending him (with another $55 million over the next two years to go) and have gotten 48.1 innings over three years out of him. THAT is a disaster.

You must not have been watching Benintendi since the weekend.

I haven't watched him in NY at all, I was just going by the complaints in this thread.

The hot streak sounds more like the guy I saw earlier in the year.