by Cary Greene
July 31, 2021
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I’m known as a fishing expert. Check me out on StripersOnLine and you will perhaps agree. But as a baseball writer, I’m nobody. I read the work of the writers here on SSTN and I’m often left in awe.
In my writing, I make typos. I fail to proofread well enough and I’m also wrong some of the time. I have learned that writing about baseball is a craft. It’s hard work. I never understood that like I do now until I started writing baseball articles.
Baseball bloggers have to understand the game, what’s happening, stats, players and so much more. The also have to their audiences and being rude or condescending to them is a recipe for failure. In all of this, they have to be honest. And write well. And fast. (It never stops,.)
I found that what’s actually most important here is all of you. Without your comments I’m just a writer giving an opinion about a sport. The real goal on my part, what I believe I can do for “us” is to create conversation. I love all of your replies. I learn as I consider and read. That’s the fun in this endeavor, for me. I wouldn’t want to be here without you. I love the interactions and discussions, even when we don’t agree. It’s great to just talk baseball, respectfully and honestly.
I want to give a shout out to “fuster” and a number of other frequent flyers, for always being there. You’re making me a better thinker and writer. Thank you!
Many here are all-in on the Yankees this year. We follow the team closely, we know baseball, and we watch the games, or even if we don’t do that often enough (me), we care. We care.
We’re blessed to have each other here at SSTN.
Paul has been a phenomenal tutor to me as a writer but more more importantly, he runs a great ship and Ethan is amazing. They help so much behind the scenes in addition to what everyone reads. We also have a cast of writers second to none, let by Mr. Andy Singer who is such a great baseball writer!
Like any rookie, I’m glad to be on the MLB squad. I’ll take my lumps and show flashes of sustainability. The plan is to have it lead somewhere.
I detest “heat-map” type article that dive into analytics to the point where they become unreadable. That said, analytics certainly have a place and kudos to any writer who can cut to the point rather than listing them all. My goal is readability. The task is to use less words to say more. I’ll be working on that as we go along.
The dust has settled on this year’s trade deadline. The last two or three days were quite frankly more entertaining than the entire Yankee season to date. Brian Cashman by and large exceeded what I thought he would accomplish. Some here will be unimpressed. Some will dig the analytics behind some of the moves (mostly on the pitching side of things). The Yankees are a better team now. He did his job.
This year’s deadline was full of vicious games, with different names. Rival GM’s were truly looking to win trades. Not a team in baseball really likes the Yankees, other than the Pirates. Every bridge Cashman needed to cross was blocked by too high of a price. It was really tough going. Yet he managed to do pretty darn well, considering he had “Hal Steinbrenner Handcuffs” which make little to no sense for an uber-large market team like the Yankees (see Dodgers for comp).
I am really glad Cashman finally admitted his lineup needed to be balanced. This was the most painful decade I can remember and most of the lineups, on a daily basis, were gar-BAGE or however you say it. Finally, the heart of the order was addressed.
Acknowledging Greg Allen, the Yankees have at least three left-handed bats they can roll out on any given night now. They also have Gardy, if he’s still around come Monday morning.
Holding Cashman to task, I’m very disappointed with his pitching moves, but given the ridiculously high cost of pitching, I do understand that his hands were very much tied — which makes trading away J.P. Feyereisen, Zack Littell, James Kaperlian, Sony Gray and the “giving away” of Garrett Whitlock all the more difficult a pill to swallow.
Bria Cashman did what he could, but offsetting all his previous mistakes was just too impossible to correct. The Yankees will now try to become more consistent. Can they? Yes, that’s my short answer. It’s not going to be easy, but Severino and or Kluber could impact that statement quite a bit and if the Yankees can hang around long enough to get untracked, we could be looking at a pretty scary wild card team this year.
What do you think?
My comments made with respect to our wonderful audience. Comments are both encouraged and insisted upon (said with a smile).
