Ordinarily a left-handed power bat with plus defense would seem like a significant upgrade for the Yankees at the gaping hole that was third base. But I don’t think I have to tell the Yankee legions who have been watching this team bumbling along at a 14-22 clip since June 13 and 11-18 against the American League East that Ryan McMahon does not address the inherent problems that are making for a long, frustrating summer in the Bronx.
In fact, no amount of trades at the deadline can cure what we have consistently witnessed for too long now — a team sorely lacking in fundamentals, with a one-dimensional home run-or-bust offense that too often (especially this year) beats itself. In a way, everything that is wrong with the Yankees and right with the AL East-leading Blue Jays was manifested in their recent series in Toronto in which the Yankees committed a total of seven errors and scored all of their runs on homers.
“That’s the difference between the two teams,” a Blue Jay scout told me. “The Jays have a bunch of players who put the ball in play — they can beat you 10 different ways, whereas the Yankees can beat you just one way. And the Yankee defenders are not adept at dealing with a team that constantly puts the ball in play. They have below average defenders at 2-3 positions at any given time.”
Not coincidentally, the Blue Jays rank first in the majors in hits and last in strikeouts. The Yankees by contrast have the eighth most strikeouts in baseball and they’ll likely go even higher after this deal.
McMahon should provide solid defense at third and will hit some home runs, but not nearly enough to overcome all the additional strikeouts he brings to the lineup. Hopefully he won’t be another Joey Gallo, but at the time of the deal Friday he was hitting .217 with a National League-leading 127 strikeouts. In his career McMahon has barely 100 more COMBINED walks and hits than strikeouts. It seems to me the Yankees need to get away from acquiring these swing-and-miss kind of players, while what they do need are more players like Caleb Durbin, the diminutive third baseman they traded to the Brewers in the Devin Williams deal who has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball over the last six weeks (.347, .899 OPS).
The only reason the Yankees were able to win the AL pennant last year was because of superior starting pitching and the fact the AL overall was the weakest it’s been in years. They were doing it again this year with starting pitching and then Clarke Schmidt went down for the season and Will Warren proved exasperatingly inconsistent as their No. 5 starter. And they could not cover up Anthony Volpe’s alarming regression at shortstop and the other infield issues.
Presumably GM Brian Cashman isn’t done at the trade deadline and he’ll be able to secure another frontline — or semi-frontline — starter in the mold of the Pirates’ Mitch Keller, and with Luis Gil due back soon as well, the Yankees should be able to advance to the postseason, even with Volpe at short.
But there is no escaping the fact this is still a fundamentally flawed Yankee team that needs a new shortstop and can only beat you with the home run — and that’s an organization-wide issue that isn’t helped by Aaron Boone’s continual “everything’s gonna be fine” platitudes.
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
Baseball folks are still talking about the truly bizarre ending of last Monday’s Phillies-Red Sox game — with a 10th inning walk-off catcher’s interference — something that hadn’t happened since the Dodgers got one against the Reds on Aug. 1, 1971. The equally unlikely recipient of the catcher’s interference was Edmundo Sosa, the Phillies unsung backup infielder who had entered the game a few innings earlier as a pinch hitter for Bryson Stott. Red Sox reliever Jordan Hicks had previously intentionally walked Max Kepler to load the bases and on his fifth pitch to Sosa, a slider away, Sosa checked his swing and his bat clearly ticked the mitt of Red Sox catcher Carlos Narvaez. Home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott initially didn’t see it but when Sosa told him he felt something, a replay review was called and the call was reversed. Narvaez said he didn’t think he was that close to Sosa but nevertheless took responsibility. “That’s can’t happen,” he said. “I’ve got to be better.” But catcher interference calls ARE happening more and more these days. There have been 56 of them already this season according to the Elias Sports Bureau and the season is barely half over. In 2018 there were 41. That went to 61 in 2019 (5th most in history), then 62 in 2021, 74 in 2022, 96 in ’23 (second most in history) and then a record 100 last year. Why is this happening? Did somebody say “framing”? The new No. 1 criteria in a catcher’s defensive abilities is accomplished by the catcher crouching closer to the plate and the batter in an effort to quickly bring the pitches into the strike zone. We doubtless won’t have to wait another 54 years for the next walk-off catcher’s interference. … As the trade deadline approaches one thing seems clear — just about every team with postseason aspirations is looking for relief pitchers. Even the Dodgers, the team that seemingly had everything, are frantically trying to shore up a porous bullpen. Tanner Scott, who they signed last winter for four years/$72 million, has been pretty much a bust as their closer with a 4.14 ERA and seven blown saves, and in two games last week, three of their other relievers, Ben Casparius, Will Klein and Kirby Yates all started their first innings of relief by walking three batters in a row!… By now it’s no contest the Pirates’ Ben Cherington, working on his seventh straight losing season, is the worst GM in baseball, but failing to sign his second-round draft pick, right-hander Angel Cervantes, who last week said he was honoring his commitment to UCLA, was unforgiveable, As one baseball exec said: “You cannot be that far off in your signability projection in the second round! Your boots-on-the-ground scouts have got to get it right!” But Pirates owner Bob Nutting doesn’t seem to care or realize his GM has failed him miserably.
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