Dusty's Musings...

by Dusty Writes

October 2, 2026

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• I agree that the Yankees' lack of focus, lack of fundamentals and poor managerial moves are factors that may thwart the Yankees winning a World Series. The series against Tampa should tell a lot about this team.

• While the Yankees had great pitching this season, their career postseason stats don't exactly inspire confidence.

• But, throughout baseball history, there have been many players who continually failed many times in their postseason careers and seemed to almost always come up empty in big situations. However, sometimes later in a player's career, they have that one great game, or one great postseason to finally come through in the clutch and finally win that elusive world championship. Here are some of many examples:

David Price was one of the worst postseason pitchers in history until he finally came up big in one postseason and won a World Series.

Justin Verlander was a terrible World Series pitcher for almost his entire career, and towards the end of his career, finally won a World Series game.

Clayton Kershaw came up empty continually in postseason games until he finally won a World Series.

Dusty Baker failed every time in the postseason, as he made several big time managerial blunders, but towards the very end of his career, he finally won a World Series as a manager.

John Elway played poorly in all his Super Bowls early in his career, but towards the end of his career won 2 Super Bowls.

• Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon still have time to rewrite their postseason career script.  It only takes one big time postseason and a world championship to get rid of the "Can't win the big game" label. Hopefully, Rodon and especially Cole can finally have that dominate postseason and win a world championship.

• Paul Semendinger mentioned about having Giancarlo Stanton on the postseason roster.  He is not confident that Stanton can produce. I agree, but there is something interesting about Stanton and the playoffs. In 2016, Kyle Schwarber played only 2 regular season games, both games were in April. Then, he only came back to play again for the Cubs that season in the World Series. According to Baseball Reference, Schwarber had only 4 at bats in the 2016 regular season with zero hits. Then in the World Series vs the Indians, Schwarber had 7 hits in 17 at bats for a .412 batting average and started the winning rally with a single in the 10th inning of Game 7 as the Cubs won their first World Series since 1908! It was like a Hollywood ending for Schwarber who missed practically the entire season, made no contribution to the Cubs regular season success, yet was a dominant World Series player.

• Doesn't it seem like Stanton has the possibility of having a Schwarber-like postseason in which he basically contributes nothing all season but gets a big hit or a few big hits to win a World Series for the Yankees? Maybe that is being too optimistic, but it certainly would be a great story.

• What is your opinion about a pitcher winning the MVP? I agree with Aaron Judge that pitchers have their own award (the Cy Young Award) in which a batter is not eligible to win. If a pitcher wins the MVP, then there is no major award for an everyday player to win to recognize a great season by an everyday player.

• Also, what is your opinion on having a new award, such as (Player of the Year Award) in addition to MVP ?   

• At least 6 months ago, maybe more, I wrote an article and I said that I agreed with the voters who voted Mickey Cochrane of the Detroit Tigers as the AL 1934 MVP. Many, if not most fans would say Lou Gehrig not winning the MVP that season was ridiculous as Gehrig's numbers were so far superior to Cochrane that it was absurd Gehrig didn't win MVP. Gehrig had 49 homers, 166 rbis, and batted .363, winning the Triple Crown.

Cochrane had only 2 homers, 75 rbi, and batted .320. 

Gehrig was by far the superior player to Cochrane that season. Cochrane, however, was more valuable to his team than Gehrig was to the Yankees. 

    Cochrane was the manager of that team while also the catcher, as he was a player/ manager, which was very common back in the day. Cochrane not only played the most difficult position on the field, he also was the manager. In addition, according to many articles and books, Cochrane was the batting coach, took on the role of pitching coach, was his own bench coach, and taught defensive skills to his team.

Managers back in the day, also were basically the GM to some extent, as they made trades, and acquired players. Cochrane's contributions to his team cannot be quantified, as his contributions go far beyond statistics.

If MLB had a Player of the Year Award and MVP, Gehrig gets credit and recognition for being by far the best player in the league that season. Cochrane also gets credit for his tremendous contributions beyond statistics by winning the MVP.

     The writers, however, did a very poor job in voting Lou Gehrig only 5th in the MVP voting that season. They voted 2 pitchers ahead of Gehrig in that season's voting.

• The playoff format needs to be changed as the Yankees have to play the best team in the league now. Cleveland, who didn't have as good a record as the Yankees got a bye because they play in a weak division and came in first place. It would have been much better, if the Rays and Yankees, the two best teams in the league were playing for the ALCS.