Perspectives: Across the Yankees Scene

By Paul Semendinger

August 28, 2024

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Boy, oh boy, this has been a roller coaster ride for the Yankees. Up, down, up down. Sideways.

The other day I heard that the Yankees, statistically, have the best chance to win the World Series compared to every other team in the MLB this year. I hope they do. If they do, I'll celebrate and be so happy. It's been far too long. Far too long.

But, let's be fair. It isn't as if the Yankees have been so great, it's simply that in 2024, the rest of baseball also hasn't been great. This happens from time to time. In 2000, the World Champion New York Yankees won only 87 games. They were not great. We celebrate them as World Champions, but that was not a great team. In the end, a team must simply be the last one standing. That's what we'll remember.

I don't discount the Dodgers' 2020 World Championship because the season was shortened. They were the champions. Period.

If the Yankees do pull this off and win it all, I also won't discount their accomplishment. They'll be World Champs!

I've been waiting for this for a long time.

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Jazz Chisholm has played 18 games at third base for the Yankees. He's made six errors. That is not good. It's terrible. It's unacceptable. It's as bad as bad can be.

From the start I have criticized the Yankees' infatuation with playing players out of position. I think it's a bad practice. For Chisholm at third, I'm proving correct.

Many fans said otherwise. "He's great." "He can do it." "He's so athletic!" "He can play shortstop, so he can play third." On and on. Wrong and wrong and wrong.

This is what so many do not understand. Playing any Major League position is very very very difficult. A team seeking to win doesn't need a guy to just be able to play third base. They need a guy to be equal to or better than the average Major League player at that position. Each MLB third baseman, even the most average of average players, has spent a lifetime honing his skills there. And each position has it's own unique skills. Playing second base is different from shortstop. Playing first base is not simple. Left field and right field are different positions. Third base is unique. A player with no experience cannot just be put there. Each position is a speciality. It is. Period. You wouldn't want an ear, nose, and throat doctor doing a heart procedure. Sure, he or she could probably do it, I'm sure, but it wouldn't be that person's speciality. It wouldn't be where that person's skills and expertise lie. A heart doctor has spent a lifetime honing that specific skill. It's actually no different than a Major League third baseman. Too many fans think, "I played third in my company softball game and made the plays, why can't a big leaguer do it? The guy is a professional ball player." Yes, the MLB player is skilled beyond our understanding at the game, but he's not skilled at that position the way someone who has spent years, decades really, building that specific skill set and understanding of the nuances of the position actually is. Sure, Chisholm can play there better than the average person. Of course he can. But right now he's not good enough as a Major Leaguer at third. That's what the standard has to be.

Some rare players have the ability to play well at multiple positions, but they are the extreme exceptions, never the rule. When the supporting argument for a move like this is fans saying things like, "Ripken, A-Rod, and Machado did it." You already know the argument is weak. Citing three of the most talented baseball players of all time doesn't prove anything. In fact it pretty much says the opposite. It says, "Only the most elite of elite players in history have been able to accomplish this challenge." (And, Ripken and Machado actually had experience playing the hot corner in their earlier professional days. It wasn't a brand new change for them.)

The Yankees, so often, make decisions that defy common sense. It is not a surprise that they haven't won a World Series since 2009 (and only one since 2000). If one keeps making decisions on hunches and hopes, and dreams, and not reality, the results will most often be negative.

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You know, I'm surprised Alex Verdugo isn't leading the league in any offensive categories. Ted Williams and Carl Yaztrzemski, who also played left field for the Red Sox, both won Triple Crowns. Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame. Tris Speaker played centerfield, but so did Verdugo, and Speaker was one of the greatest hitters ever.

You get the point. Citing the greats of the game, the exceptions, the vast exceptions, does not disprove the rule. Not just anyone can play third base, especially on the fly. "Here kid, you never did this before, now do it, but not poorly, we need you to be at least as good as the typical Major League third baseman."

It just doesn't work that way.

***

So many writers, broadcasters... and fans too, never admit when they're wrong. They'll argue and argue a point, but when they're wrong, they'll never admit it. They just move on to the next point to argue.

45-76, 5.08 in six seasons.

In the winner of my most discontent, the year the Yankees didn't get Bryce Harper, I wanted them to also sign Patrick Corbin. As I recall, he also wanted to be a Yankee.

I was wrong about Corbin. He has not been good.

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Here is an interesting question, though...

In 2019, Patrick Corbin did go 14-7, 3.25 and he helped pitch the Nationals to a World Championship (which would have been wonderful).

Would that have been worth it?

In a sense, I'd say one could make a good argument there. You get the guy, you win. All is good.

But, overall, Patrick Corbin has been a bad pitcher. His ERA+ in Washington is 82. Yikes.

***

Jose Trevino is batting .071 since he's returned from the Injured List. He has one hit. One. In the last week, he is batting zero. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

I don't care about platoon splits and whatever. If a guy ain't hitting, there are no platoon splits.

When he played regularly, if only for a short time (but that's all we have), Austin Wells became an offensive force, the clean-up hitter the Yankees needed (and need). He was proving himself.

Since he has returned, Jose Trevino has started 6 of the 11 games the Yankees have played. That is wrong, it's bad decision-making. Wells is the better player now. Wells is also the future, Trevino isn't.

Some have said that the Yankees are resting Wells. That's absurd. Wells does not need rest. Resting a guy for a game, or two (and the Yankees have also had a few off-days) in any event, isn't the same as making him the lesser-half of a platoon. Platooning Jose Trevino with Austin Wells makes no sense.

Play the kid. The Yankees are a better team when Austin Wells is in the lineup. (Wells, by the way, is also batting .273 against left-handed starters across the entire season.)

***

I think we can all agree that the D.J. LeMahieu signing was a bad one. The ONLY justification anyone can give to support it at this point is that "he took more years and less money annually to lower the luxury tax hit." In other words, he was worth more money that he was paid at the start of the contract.

If that's the case, then the Yankees already got their money's worth, right? When it comes time to DFA a player when so many injured players return, shouldn't LeMahieu, by this logic be one of the players DFA'd? He is still owed $30 million over 2025 and 2026, but it was such a great contract at the start that that shouldn't matter.

Right?

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Let's Go Yankees!

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