Perspectives: July 3, 2022

by Paul Semendinger

July 3, 2022

***

It's fun right now to be a Yankees fan. I don't recall ever rooting for a team, maybe not even in 1998, when I just felt, every game, that they would win or come very close trying. That's the thing about this team, I can't even remember a game they lost that they felt out of. Even in the no-hitter last week, there was the sense that they just might pull it off. Of the Yankees 21 losses, 18 have been decided by three runs or fewer. That says a lot!

It's fun right now to be a Yankees fan.

Some other perspectives:

• It is time for all the Aaron Boone detractors to state, enthusiastically, "The Yankees Manager, Aaron Boone, Is Doing A Great Job." He is. Period. If we discredited him when the Yankees underperformed, he also deserves that same credit when the Yankees perform. This is his team through and through. And they're playing great. Amazing. And they are fun.

• Aaron Boone deserves a lot of credit.

• Was Boone the right hire in 2018? I don't think so. Might he be the perfect manager for this team in 2022? He just might be. He just might be. It's time to say that out loud.

• The Yankees Manager, Aaron Boone, Is Doing A Great Job.

• The baseball season, like life itself, goes too fast. I was just going some quick math... There are only 83 games left in the regular season. Where does the time go? Really.

• I don't want this to happen, but if the Yankees play just .500 ball the rest of the season, they'll end with 99 wins. Amazing.

• The Yankees Manager, Aaron Boone, Is Doing A Great Job.

• The Yankees have 58 wins. Only one other A.L. team has 50 (the Astros).

• The Yankees have a .734 winning percentage. The next best winning percentage in all of baseball is .649, the Astros.

• The Yankees and Astros seem to be on a collision course.

• The question was asked of me the other day... who would it hurt more to lose to in the ALCS, the Astros or the Red Sox? They would both hurt, of course, but this year, the Astros, I think, would hurt more. It's time for payback in 2022, just as the 1998 Yankees paid back Cleveland from beating them the year before.

• Brendan Burke did a GREAT job announcing the games yesterday. A great job.

• Time for a very unpopular point... (I really don't like pointing stuff like this out, but I have to.) Aaron Judge is having a MONSTER season. His best ever. He is greater than he's ever been. We all love Aaron Judge. I want Judge to be a Yankee forever. But... I don't want the Yankees to overpay in dollars or years for him. Here's the unpopular thought... in what is his greatest season, Aaron Judge is hitting .282. A bad day today and his batting average will be in the .270's. Yes, he's in a slump right now, but just some caution here - This is Judge at his best. His very best. He's not hitting .330 or .315 or even .300. He's batting, in a super great season, in the low .280's. My worry is that I just don't see the 32-year-old Aaron Judge looking much differently than the 32-year-old Giancarlo Stanton. And Stanton is good. Very good. But he's hitting just .248.

• The 2022 Judge feels like a better player than his .282 batting average. But the 2022 Giancarlo Stanton feels like a .248 hitter. He gets big hits, he hits the ball hard and far, but he's just not great. He'll get his hits, but he'll also look terrible, more than enough times. This is what I fear with Aaron Judge. I see the Yankees paying him $35M+ for a gazillion years and then, in an instant, the Yankees will have a guy hitting .248.

• I know batting average isn't everything and it's just a stat, but it does mean something.

• I offered this same caution regarding D.J. LeMahieu and everyone thought I was crazy. After he hit .327 and then .364, I said that going forward he will look more like the guy who hit .276 for Colorado in 2018. Most people thought I was crazy. "DJ is a machine," they said. "He's a .300 hitter, always." In 220 games since he got the new six-year contract, DJ LeMahieu is batting .266. That's not a knock on DJ LeMahieu, it's just something that was easy to see coming. Just like it is easy to see that the 32-year-old Aaron Judge will look a lot like the 32-year-old Giancarlo Stanton. He'll be good, very good, but not great. He won't be a $40M ballplayer. He just won't.

• And when that happens, the fans will boo. They will. Memories are short. Love is hard to get and even more difficult to sustain. It just doesn't make sense to give a gazillion dollars over a gazillion years to a slugger about to enter his age-31 season. I wish it weren't true. If Judge were 27-years-old, sure, give him a long long contract. At 31, nope, no way. Sorry.

• That's the problem the Yankees will face. How much do you overpay to make a guy a lifetime Yankees legend?

• That's also the problem for Judge to consider. How much money is worth giving up one's Yankees legacy? He has a chance to be in the inner circle of Yankees legends. Is that worth $100M? Is it $50M? How much is "forever" worth?

• On to better things...

• A quick list of Inner Circle Yankee Greats/Icons: Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra, Ford, Munson Mattingly, Jeter, Rivera. Are there others?

• The Yankees Manager, Aaron Boone, Is Doing A Great Job.

• On this day in 1923, Babe Ruth hit a walk-off homer against the Senators. It was the first game-ending homer in the brand new Yankee Stadium.

• I never saw Yankee Stadium before the 1976 remodel, but boy did I love that old ballpark. I wish it were still around...

• Giancarlo Stanton just became the 44th Yankee to hit 100 homers in pinstripes.

• The next Yankees for Stanton to catch each have 105 Yankee homers: Nick Swisher and Mike Pagliarulo.

• Help me out here... there is a lot of talk about the Yankees re-reacquiring David Robertson. He would then be a three-time Yankee. Which other players were three-time Yankees (not counting guys who went up and down to the minors or went into military service and such)? On Twitter, Daniel Epstein helped with: Bob Cerv, Rick Cerone, and Luis Polonia. Are there others?

• The Yankees get a needed day off tomorrow, but no Yankees game on July 4?

• Who makes the schedule?

• The Yankees Manager, Aaron Boone, Is Doing A Great Job.

• Let's Go Yankees!