This is another one from the drafts queue:
In the meantime, we can see how the PJ theory has worked out very well for the Yankees who although in the midst of a prolonged losing streak (five or six games in a row), return to New York still in first place!
That’s saying something that a team can lose six games in a row and still hold the division lead.
In round about four weeks, we should be seeing the big Mets fire sale. This will be a clearing house of players who are close to free agency as the Mets look to restock the farm system. You are currently seeing the last of Curtis Granderson, Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera, maybe Jay Bruce, maybe Lucas Duda, maybe Addison Reed, maybe Jose Reyes, maybe Rene Rivera, maybe Fernando Salas.
Of that group, I would like to see the Mets hold on to Lucas Duda but I think he’s likely to go. I’d like to see them keep Rene Rivera (and trade Travis D’Arnaud), keep Jose Reyes. I’d even like to see them keep Jay Bruce because he certainly has come around.
Thing is they won’t keep a lot of these guys and they shouldn’t.
The Mets aren’t going anywhere. They have a good team but not a great team. When they hit the pitching sucks, when the pitching is good there’s no hitting and of course the bullpen has been something of a disaster. They would need to have two very prolonged win streaks of 10 games apiece to even think about being in contention.
It’s not happening this year - and here it is only June.
Now, the Yankees have a better chance only because of the PJ theory but they also have a very tough road to hoe. Their starting pitching is highly suspect - Tanaka and Sabathia are not the sure things they might have been. Severino has a long way to go before you can count on him. Pineda is one bad outing from going off the rails. The Yankees will need one, maybe two starting pitchers for their rotation before the end of the year if they want to get deep into the post season.
Then there’s the offense...
I know everyone is blown away by Aaron Judge but don’t get too excited. A lot of folks around the major leagues haven’t developed a book on Judge yet who only appeared in 27 games last year. They simply haven’t figured out how to pitch him and once they do, those long balls he hits are going to get less and less frequent.
I watched a little bit of the Yankees versus Oakland over the weekend and came away unimpressed with Judge. He’s a monster, don’t get me wrong! A bat looks like a toothpick in his hands but he has huge holes in his swing. He’s a mistake hitter, he gets around on mistake pitches and because of his size he can jack the ball out of the park but, make no mistake, major league pitchers are smart and they are crafty and it won’t be long before Judge is seeing a steady diet of pitches inside and off speed that will only wind up as long foul balls.
It will remain to be seen if he is smart enough or talented enough to make an adjustment.
Gary Sanchez hasn’t impressed me either. He’s too big to be exceptionally nimble behind the plate. As a matter of fact right after I wrote that I did a quick search and sure enough the Yankees themselves want Sanchez to shed some weight. Catching is not easy and Sanchez is a too big. If you do a quick look you’ll see other teams scouts have noticed it too.
And now he’s injured.
The team has two players that need to produce all year long to have any chance and those are Matt Holiday and Brett Gardner. If those two stay healthy and productive the Yankees should do well but if they are lost for any length of time it will hurt the team a lot more than Yankees fans may realize.
Still without those pitchers it isn’t going to be easy but they still have a way better chance than the Mets and going into this season you would have never thought that. I myself dropped the ball with my preseason predictions to be sure.
So, there’s this theory of baseball I have, let’s call it the PJ Theory.I started this earlier this year and the Mets fortunes have only worsened and not improved. We are well on the way to another lost seasons which any Mets fan will tell you is incredibly frustrating to say the least.
The PJ Theory of baseball goes something like this... any team that plays well in April say ten games above .500 is guaranteed to be in the playoffs if not win their division. The reason I say this is because when you get to the end of any baseball season of 162 games, a team that wins say 98 games or two or three either side that number is the one winning the division (and going further too).
98 games is a 98 win 64 loss record. There’s a 34 game difference between wins and losses which sounds like a lot but is a lot less than people realize.
Once you win 10 games or have ten more wins than losses early in a season, all you have to do for the rest of the year is win ONE more game a week than you lose. If you get 15 games above .500 it’s even easier! Just avoiding any prolonged losing streaks and you’re there!
Yankees fans should be very happy right now, because the Yankees record is, in fact, about 10 games over that magical .500 mark.
Mets fans? Well, it’s not time to start worrying yet but looking at the record as I wrote this they are two games BELOW that .500 mark!
I would probably worry a bit more about the Mets if it wasn’t that their biggest power threat was on the disabled list, their starting catcher and first basemen are on the disabled list, two of what was supposed to be one of the best starting rotations in the league is on the disabled list as well as their 6th starter. They missed their closer for the first three weeks of the season. They had their regulars all off to a slow start.
So, there’s that.
But, we don’t want it to get much worse and hopefully they got that long losing streak out of their system and won’t have another one like it for the rest of the year.
In the meantime, we can see how the PJ theory has worked out very well for the Yankees who although in the midst of a prolonged losing streak (five or six games in a row), return to New York still in first place!
That’s saying something that a team can lose six games in a row and still hold the division lead.
In round about four weeks, we should be seeing the big Mets fire sale. This will be a clearing house of players who are close to free agency as the Mets look to restock the farm system. You are currently seeing the last of Curtis Granderson, Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera, maybe Jay Bruce, maybe Lucas Duda, maybe Addison Reed, maybe Jose Reyes, maybe Rene Rivera, maybe Fernando Salas.
Of that group, I would like to see the Mets hold on to Lucas Duda but I think he’s likely to go. I’d like to see them keep Rene Rivera (and trade Travis D’Arnaud), keep Jose Reyes. I’d even like to see them keep Jay Bruce because he certainly has come around.
Thing is they won’t keep a lot of these guys and they shouldn’t.
The Mets aren’t going anywhere. They have a good team but not a great team. When they hit the pitching sucks, when the pitching is good there’s no hitting and of course the bullpen has been something of a disaster. They would need to have two very prolonged win streaks of 10 games apiece to even think about being in contention.
It’s not happening this year - and here it is only June.
Now, the Yankees have a better chance only because of the PJ theory but they also have a very tough road to hoe. Their starting pitching is highly suspect - Tanaka and Sabathia are not the sure things they might have been. Severino has a long way to go before you can count on him. Pineda is one bad outing from going off the rails. The Yankees will need one, maybe two starting pitchers for their rotation before the end of the year if they want to get deep into the post season.
Then there’s the offense...
I know everyone is blown away by Aaron Judge but don’t get too excited. A lot of folks around the major leagues haven’t developed a book on Judge yet who only appeared in 27 games last year. They simply haven’t figured out how to pitch him and once they do, those long balls he hits are going to get less and less frequent.
I watched a little bit of the Yankees versus Oakland over the weekend and came away unimpressed with Judge. He’s a monster, don’t get me wrong! A bat looks like a toothpick in his hands but he has huge holes in his swing. He’s a mistake hitter, he gets around on mistake pitches and because of his size he can jack the ball out of the park but, make no mistake, major league pitchers are smart and they are crafty and it won’t be long before Judge is seeing a steady diet of pitches inside and off speed that will only wind up as long foul balls.
It will remain to be seen if he is smart enough or talented enough to make an adjustment.
Gary Sanchez hasn’t impressed me either. He’s too big to be exceptionally nimble behind the plate. As a matter of fact right after I wrote that I did a quick search and sure enough the Yankees themselves want Sanchez to shed some weight. Catching is not easy and Sanchez is a too big. If you do a quick look you’ll see other teams scouts have noticed it too.
And now he’s injured.
The team has two players that need to produce all year long to have any chance and those are Matt Holiday and Brett Gardner. If those two stay healthy and productive the Yankees should do well but if they are lost for any length of time it will hurt the team a lot more than Yankees fans may realize.
Still without those pitchers it isn’t going to be easy but they still have a way better chance than the Mets and going into this season you would have never thought that. I myself dropped the ball with my preseason predictions to be sure.
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