Tag: New York Yankees – Bent Corner

There’s a reason people hate the New York Yankees

Manny Machado won’t be a free agent until next offseason, but Aaron Judge is already making his pitch to the All-Star shortstop on why he should join the Yankees.

“Adding him to our lineup that we’ve already got would be something special. I told him he’d look good in pinstripes,” Judge said.

Judge said he made his pitch to Machado before Wednesday’s spring training game.

“He just kind of laughed it off and didn’t really say much,” Judge said.

You know who else looks good in pinstripes? Satan.

Personally, I’m looking forward to when Manny Machado is no longer in an Orioles’ uniform, but the reasoning is purely personal. I think he’s a tad bit overrated as a player, but more importantly for me personally, I don’t like Manny Machado as a person. I don’t like how he turned his back on his country, the United States, and played for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.

Manny Machado played for the USA on the 18U National Team.

Manny Machado cosplaying as a citizen of the Dominican Republic.

Manny Machado is not a citizen of the Dominican Republic. Manny Machado is a citizen of the United States. As great as a player he might be, I’d rather not have him on a team I watch and root for. What he did was worse, far worse, then what some NFL players did by kneeling for the National Anthem.

With all that said, Aaron Judge engaged in tampering. That’s cheating. That’s what the Yankees do, they cheat. Worse, they tend to always get away with it.

My hope is the Orioles will be able to trade Manny Machado for pitching prospects, preferably those with high ground-ball rate (GB%). What is GB%?

From MLB.com:

Ground-ball rate represents the percentage of balls hit into the field of play that are characterized as ground balls. Each ball that is hit into the field of play is characterized as a line drive, a fly ball, a ground ball or a pop-up.

Ground-ball rate can be used as a metric to evaluate both hitters and pitchers, although it’s more frequently used to evaluate pitchers.

With pitchers, ground-ball rate can be very telling. For one thing, it lets us know what type of pitcher we have. Pitchers with high ground-ball rates have a tendency to allow fewer home runs (which result from fly balls and line drives). Obviously, preventing home runs is one of the most important aspects of pitching — as no outcome is more damaging.

Pitchers who possess high ground-ball rates have a tendency to induce a high number of double plays as well, and are generally more successful than pitchers who try to get by with high fly-ball rates.

For a pitcher to be successful in Camden Yards, I believe they have to have the ability to make batters hit ground balls.

Yankees best player to make only $622,300 this season

New York Yankees’ outfielder Aaron Judge, the 2017 American League Rookie of the Year, will make only $622,300 this season. He hit 52 home runs last season, yet he’s not even a millionaire.

He’s his team’s best player, yet he’s one of its lowest paid players. Japanese born pitcher Masahiro Tanaka with a 2017 ERA of 4.74 will make $22.14 million this season. Pitcher CC Sabathia, long past his prime, is slotted to make $10 million this season. How does this not piss Aaron Judge off?

Can you even get a decent apartment in New York City if you don’t make a million a year?

Rays Logan Morrison learns why people hate the Yankees

There’s a reason people hate the Yankees. Major League Baseball named New York Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez to the 2017 All-Star Home Run Derby. Sanchez has 13 home runs. Tampa Rays first baseman Logan Morrison has a problem with that. Morrison has 24 home runs, yet didn’t get invited to join the Home Run Derby to compete for home run supremacy.

Here’s a Logan Morrison quote from the Tampa Bay Times:

“I remember when I had 14 home runs. That was a month and a half ago.”

This situation illustrates why most civilized people hate the New York Yankees. How can a guy who has 13 homers make the Home Run Derby while a guy who has hit 24 homers sit at home?

I don’t like the Home Run Derby. I’d rather watch Korean soap operas than watch the Home Run Derby and I don’t even speak Korean. That said, Morrison has earned a spot on the American League Home Run Derby squad, while Sanchez has not. Sanchez has a spot on the squad not because he earned it, but because he plays for the New York Yankees.

Players who play for the Yankees constantly get things handed to them they don’t deserve.

MLB and the TV networks favor the New York Yankees and their players because of who they represent. Not only do they represent New York City and the Bronx, they represent fair weather baseball fans nationwide. No matter where you go in this country, you’ll find gaggles of people who claim to root for the New York Yankees. Never mind that most of them probably think Derek Jeter is still on the team. The powers that be know the Yankees will always mean more viewers on TV. Commercials showing players wearing pinstripes and the NY logo will translate into more TV viewers, not only for the Home Run Derby, but for the All-Star Game.

I hate the New York Yankees. I hate them for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons is their fan base. There are self-proclaimed Yankees fans who have never been to New York City, let alone set foot in the Bronx. They root for the Yankees because during their formative years, the Yankees were winning championships.

People like that disgust me.

MLB's hollow tribute to Jackie Robinson

One of the advantages of reactivating my Facebook account is that I get to see lots of ads. A while back I must have “liked” the official Lids Facebook account. I now get to see ads from Lids in my Facebook feed.

That’s not a problem. I like to wear overpriced hats associated with professional sports franchises. By Lids peppering my Facebook feed with ads, I now have a better idea on what I should be spending money on. In other words, being a good consumer.

There was an ad I saw yesterday that made me look twice. It was for hats honoring Jackie Robinson, the first black player to play in Major League Baseball. Not the first black player good enough to play in Major League Baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first black player the racist pricks who controlled Major League Baseball allowed to play.

Major League Baseball has now turned the legacy of Jackie Robinson into a way of making money. These hats at Lids are just one example. The thing that surprised me about the ad is that they couldn’t even bother to get his name right. It’s Jackie Robinson, not Jackie Robins.

It annoys me that every team in Major League Baseball gets to honor Jackie Robinson when only the Dodgers signed him and put him on the team. When I see a Yankees hat with 42 on the side, I think it’s honoring famed closing pitcher Mariano Rivera. He played 19 years of the Yankees and he wore the number 42 like Jackie Robinson. He started wearing it before Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson’s number league-wide. Players who already wore the number 42 could continue to wear it.

Why were they allowed to do that? If you want to mass retire a number you should be willing to enforce it immediately. We’re all for honoring someone or something, unless it’s inconvenient. Having to change the number on your uniform would just be too inconvenient.

Every year I saw Mariano Rivera play with the number 42, the more I associated that number with him, not Jackie Robinson. Like every other Yankees player, his name wasn’t on the back of his jersey. All he had was a large 42 on the back. Even now when I see the numbers of retired players at Camden Yards, the blue 42 makes me think of Mariano Rivera, not Jackie Robinson.

MLB's hollow tribute to Jackie Robinson - Bent Corner — Retired numbers at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

It looks it me that the Orioles are honoring Mariano Rivera. This is the same team that has a statue of Babe Ruth in front of the stadium. Babe Ruth, the greatest Yankees player of all time.

Mariano Rivera is passionate about Dustin Pedroia's 'red-hot passion'

Former New York Yankees ninth-inning pitcher Mariano Rivera shared in a new book that he thinks Boston Red Sox Dustin Pedroia is the superior second baseman over former Yankees teammate Robinson Cano. In The Closer, Rivera says that he doesn’t think Cano “burns to be the best” or that he doesn’t see that “red-hot passion in him that you see in most elite players.”

What does that even mean? He might as well say that Cano doesn’t have the eye of the tiger or the thrill of the fight.

Rivera also supposedly wrote, “Nobody plays harder, gives more, wants to win more. He comes at you hard for 27 outs. It’s a special thing to see,” and “If I have to win one game, I’d have a hard time taking anybody over Dustin Pedroia as my second baseman.”

Nobody plays harder? From 2007 to 2013, Cano averaged 160 games a season. For the same period, Pedroia averaged 141 games a season. It seems that the first prerequisite for playing harder is actually to play.

I think it’s ridiculous that Rivera would publicly criticize a former teammate, and then claim he would rather have a player from the Yankees’ most hated rival than said teammate. It doesn’t even matter that it’s stupid and statistically speaking, not true, claiming that Pedroia is a better player than Cano, is a jerkish thing to do.

Rivera is probably just trying to stir up interest in his stupid book by insulting a former teammate. I doubt he would’ve said negative things about Cano if he hadn’t signed with the Seattle Mariners in the offseason. He went after Cano because he’s an easy target, at least for Yankees fans, the only people I could see reading this book.

Yankees fans that can read that is.

Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda ejected for having pine tar on his neck

New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was thrown out of last night’s game against the Boston Red Sox for having an illegal substance on his neck. It is believed that the illegal substance was pine tar.

Pine tar allows a pitcher to get a better grip on the ball. Grip is good. Baseball being baseball, hitters are allowed to use pine tar, pitchers are not. With that said, it’s kind of an unwritten rule that nothing will be said about a pitcher using pine tar when it’s cold, as long as they aren’t being obvious about using it. In cold weather, it’s harder to grip the ball. Pineda’s problem last night was that it wasn’t cold and he was being very obvious about it. He had it right on his neck for the world to see. Red Sox manager John Farrell asked the umpire to check Pineda’s neck and the rest was history.

The Red Sox went on to win the game 5-1.

As fate would have it, last night’s game was televised nationally on ESPN. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the four-letter network alerted the Red Sox about the pine tar on Pineda’s neck, knowing that the inspection and subsequent ejection would create lots of drama.

If there’s one thing ESPN likes is drama.

I’m not so sure it was Pineda’s fault. Once I saw a magician pull a quarter out from behind a young girl’s ear. Who was responsible for producing the quarter, the girl? I don’t think so. For all we know, a magician or a wizard could have put the pine tar on Pineda’s neck. I couldn’t help but notice that although the umpiring crew checked Pineda for foreign substances, they didn’t check the stands for wizards or magicians.

I guess we’ll never know.