YANKEES IDENTITY IS TOP & BOTTOM RELIANT

The 2016 Yankees team is a team that is both young and old. Their pitching has both tons of talent and questions marks. Their offense is both talented and paid handsomely, while also experienced. They don’t seem to have a true identity though as was mentioned by Jason Keidel on CBS New York. But I think they CAN have an identity and it blends both the top and bottom of the lineup.

I wrote last April how the Yankees do with Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner. When the speedsters get on base and score runs, the Yankees win. It proved true over several parts of the season, and as they struggled, so did the ball club, (look at August and September.) The starting rotation doesn’t really provide the Yankees with an identity like say, the Mets, and their bullpen will be great but right now is not at its peak due to injury and suspension.

For the Yankees to be successful, the top, Ellsbury and Gardner, and the bottom, Didi Gregorius and Starlin Castro, must mold together and make it happen.

That seems to be happening, as Casey stated the other day on Twitter:

I am freaking LOVING the Castro, Gregorius combo right now #BYB

— Robert Casey (@BleednYankeeBlu) April 7, 2016

Castro came out in a ball of fury and several fans were already saying ‘Thank goodness they didn’t resign Cano’ and ‘We actually have a second baseman.’ I agree with those statements for sure. I believe he was a terrific acquisition, and we all definitely do now, who fits a need and will be a great asset as the Yankees get younger.

The top has to get on base and give the boppers, ARod, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann, a chance to drive them in. Those guys will have some big hits and hit plenty of home runs over the season. Without Ellsbury, Gardner and Aaron Hicks, who should play quite a bit, on base though, those towering home runs are just solo shots. Great, yes, but two and three run shots are a heck of a lot better.

The bottom two, Castro and Sir Didi, the start of the youth movement in the infield, will also have to produce in both the RBI department and the on-base department. If those two can turn the lineup over to Ellsbury and Gardner, followed by the meat of the order, good things will happen.

The rotation has some talent and will keep the Yankees in plenty of games, but they are inevitably going to have rough starts, everyone will. Look at Michael Pineda on Wednesday. He did not have his best stuff and left some sliders in the heart of the plate. A very young and talented Houston Astros took advantage and put up six runs on eight hits against him. But the offense was not going to let the Astros stay in the game. No way, no how. Look at Nathan Eovaldi.  He was similar yesterday, but the Yankee offense kept them in the game. Read MOMENTUM FOR OUR NEW YORK YANKEES for more.  

The team will win games with pitching and will win games with the offense, including the home run, but without the top and the bottom getting on and coming together to turn the lineup over, they are not going to score many runs. When they do come together though, look out.

On Wednesday, the one, two, eight and nine hitters combined to go 8-17 with four walks, five runs and five RBI. Those types of performances will sure help win some ballgames!

We all know it takes 25 men, plus plenty of call ups and acquisitions, to win over the course of a long 162 game schedule. Some games will be 2-1 wins and loses while others will be offensive battles, with some great comebacks and blown opportunities along the way.

But if the top and bottom can flow together and allow opportunities for the guys who get paid a ton of money to drive them in, the team will be successful more often than not. That could be the identity we are looking for.

It also means #winning.

 --Dan Lucia
BYB Senior Writer
Twitter: @DManLucia




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BRETT GARDNER STILL HEARS THE BOOS

Nobody likes being booed. There's nothing earth-shattering about that statement. Especially baseball players. It comes with the territory when playing as the visiting team in another ballpark. But it's another thing entirely when it's your own fans venting on you. "If I was pulling for the Yankees, I’d be booing Brett Gardner’s last at-bat, too." That was Brett Gardner's take this week on his own performance in the 2015 American League wildcard game. Three strikeouts and a weak grounder on the night the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs by the hottest pitcher in baseball. Based on that quote, I'd say he is still trying to put that memory away.

It was not that different from the way the 2012 season ended for the Yankees. Nick Swisher was one of my favorite Yankees. He had a great rapport with the Bleacher Creatures, until the playoffs that year when he got into one of his postseason slumps. He let a ball fall in front of him, and the next thing you know he is the target of a city's worth of frustration. “That’s the last thing that I ever thought would be in this ballpark, that people would get on you that bad. Especially your home, where your heart is, where you’ve been battling and grinding all year long." I hated reading that quote the day it was printed, and I hate it today.

Swish played his heart out that year and all four years that we had him. Brett Gardner will be starting his ninth season in the majors, all with the Yankees. He has had to work through periods of trade rumors several times in his career. They were never so pronounced as they were this offseason. It has to make it that much harder when what you really want to do is to use the offseason to make a clean break, put the past in the rearview mirror and start with an optimistic outlook. Nick Swisher got to do that by starting with a new team the following spring. Gardner is coming back to the same fans. A lot has been made of his .302 average last year in the first half vs. .206 in the second half. He knows it. It wouldn't surprise me if he starts out with a bang, with a determination to prove the naysayers wrong.

I guess it's how baseball works. You win and you get cheered, you lose and you get booed. That's life. Hopefully, we can all put that memory behind us and start a new season with some good productivity. I'll leave you with this quote from Gardy on how the spring is going. “I know it’s March, but I feel great right now. I feel excited to go out there and play a game.” I'm excited to see him go out there and play well.

--Ike Dimitriadis, BYB Senior Staff Writer
Twitter: @KingAgamemnon
My blog is: Shots from Murderer's Row







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