Yankee Elimination Days
Yankee Elimination Day is the day the New York Yankees (a) are eliminated from making the postseason or (b) lose a postseason series. This often happens late at night, so YED is celebrated the following day. Bottoms up! (Red years above are seasons in which the Red Sox directly eliminated the Yankees.)YED 2001 - November 4 YED 2002 - October 5 YED 2003 - October 25 YED 2004 - October 20 YED 2005 - October 10 YED 2006 - October 7 YED 2007 - October 8 YED 2008 - September 23 YED 2010 - October 22 YED 2011 - October 6 YED 2012 - October 18 YED 2013 - September 25 YED 2014 - September 24 YED 2015 - October 6 YED 2016 - September 29 YED 2017 - October 21 YED 2018 - October 9 YED 2019 - October 19 YED 2020 - October 9 YED 2021 - October 5 YED 2022 - October 23 YED 2023 - September 24
Greg Joyce, Post:
Jon Heyman, Post:What has been apparent for over a month is now official: The Yankees will be watching the playoffs from home. . . .
A season that began with World Series aspirations will now end next Sunday and go no further. . . . [T]he Yankees (78-77) will enter a critical offseason in which Hal Steinbenner has promised they will take a hard look at all aspects of their operation.
"When you don't show up and you don't produce and you get kicked out like this in the regular season, that's a big failure right there," Aaron Judge said. "We got a lot of work to do . . . [there is] a lot of stuff going on around here that needs to be fixed. . . . There's a lot of stuff we gotta work on and improve . . ."
[T]he only hint of intrigue over the final week of the season will be whether they can avoid their first losing record since 1992. . . .
It was a fittingly miserable Sunday afternoon in The Bronx, with rain and wind picking up throughout the game in front of a sparse crowd.
In an all-too-familiar trend, the Yankees offense was hardly heard from, mustering just six hits — a handful of them wind-aided — as they narrowly avoided being shut out by scratching across a run in the ninth inning. . . .
They were a season-high 11 games above .500 at 36-25 on June 4 . . . Since that high-water mark, the Yankees have gone 42-52 . . .
"What could go wrong has kind of gone wrong," said DJ LeMahieu . . .
The Yankees are wisely hiring an outside agency to pinpoint all their many issues . . . [L]et me save them some time and provide some Cliffs Notes to highlight the biggest problems.
Before we get to the most obvious and crushing issue, let's list some other important but secondary stuff:
1. The Yankees remain as unhealthy as ever. Heading into the weekend, they were tied with the Reds with 37 injured list placements, behind just the Giants (42) and notoriously star-crossed Angels (38). They were third in IL days lost with 2,009, behind the Dodgers (2,345) and Angels (2,197). The Dodgers overcame their many injuries with overperformance and characteristic depth. The Yankees' depth is something less than amazing — they are more like the famously top-heavy Angels. And only one player seriously outperformed, AL Cy Young favorite Gerrit Cole.
2. They are unathletic and unexciting. The Yankees are 20th in stolen bases (96), tied for 25th in triples (13) and dead last in doubles (206). They still somehow draw fans as they always do. Those fans are as loyal as they are angry.
3. They don't appear to have enough big league-ready kids to spark a turnaround. Jasson Dominguez, in his recent cameo, looked like a revelation before he, too, wound up in sick bay (after Tommy John surgery, he should be ready sometime early next season). The others have had moments, but appear something short of saviors. . . .
[I]t'll take a lot to turn the Yankees back into contenders. Let's face it, not even a certain Cy Young season by Cole and another great year (two-thirds of a great year, anyway) by superstar Aaron Judge could lift them into contention. . . .
OK, now for the real issue, which is that they can't hit. Yes, they still homer now and again . . . but they have the lowest batting average among all major league teams.
Technically, the team that's hoping to go to Las Vegas, is slightly lower at .224. But the Athletics shouldn't be counted, as they obviously weren't trying this year (or at least their owner wasn't trying).
Anyway, forget them. The Yankees are at .226, which is their lowest mark since 1968, the year no one hit . . .
They have eight players with at least 50 plate appearances batting under .200. They had two former MVPs (Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson) batting under .200.
Unfortunately, this is not the year to be needing hitters. The best hitting free agent catcher may be Gary Sanchez, and we know they aren't going there.
2 comments:
The 1 Column that will never ever get old ........
Thanks, Allan!
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