Judge hits his 30th home run, breaking Joe DiMaggio's record for most home runs by a Yankee rookie -- in the season's 84th game!

Pirates score 10 in the top of the 1st inning against the Cubs, and I honestly felt bad for Cubs fans for the first time in over two years. Just imagine getting excited to go to a game, and within 30 minutes, they lost.

Hey everyone, how's your team doing at the break? Are you happy? Hopeful? Despondent?

Things look grim in Toronto, as my Jays dropped Sunday's game 19-1 to the Astros. Toronto actually split the series 2-2, but since both loses were blowouts (the other was 12-2) it feels as if they lost. Toronto's 41-47, eight and a half out of first place and five back of the wild card, which seems like an accurate reflection of how they've performed. This team ain't going nowhere. Aside from Justin Smoak, Roberto Osuna and Marcus Stroman, everyone seems to be having a disappointing season, some due to injuries, some due to age, some for mysterious reasons, perhaps unrequited love. Maybe down the stretch we'll get a look at some of our hot shot prospects (Vlad Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette). Other than that, not much to look forward to the rest of 2017.

Vlad and Bo were just promoted to High-A so it seems unlikely they'd appear in the majors this year. Exciting prospects though.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that my Tigers sold everyone off. Over the winter, I heard Kinsler and the Dodgers thrown out there, and was wishing they wouldn't trade him. With Fulmer winning the ROY, and Verlander getting robbed of a Cy Young, I thought we had another run.

Daniel Norris was supposed to be what Michael Fulmer is right now, but he can't get past the 6th inning. Jordan Zimmerman got his fastball back to 93-94 after it barely hitting 90 the year before. Our bullpen was supposed to be solid with the Wilson bros coming in the 7th and 8th, Frankie in the 9th, Shane Greene coming in whenever, Bruce Rondon (touted as the next great Tigers closer but never panned out) seemed to mature finally, and Joe Jimenez was gonna get called up anytime soon.

Wilson bros and Greene have been nice, but everyone else has been a disaster.

After JD got injured in Spring Training, and we heard the news that he was gone til May, guys like Jim Adducci, JaCoby Jones, Tyler Collins and Mike Mahtook stepped up in the clutch the first few weeks of the season. We were .5 game out of first, JD was coming back, Castellanos had the highest line drive rate, and the 2nd hard hit rate in the AL, but his BA was only in the .240s, Miggy hadn't been Miggy just yet, but started to hit homers to RF, Avila was batting .370, Upton started going, everything was starting to look good. We were about to go on a run....until they didn't. For some reason, the lineup, which consisted of Kinsler, Avila (still on fire), Miggy, V-Mart, JD, J-Up, Castellanos, Mahtook/Collins, and Iglesias....just couldn't score runs. Seemed like every game, they have a 3 or 4 run inning near the beginning of the game, and took the rest of the night off. It's baffling.

Anyways

sell:

Miggy
JD
Kinsler
J-Up
Verlander
Iggy
Avila
J-Wil
A-Wil
Castellanos

and see of Dave Dombrowski will take V-Mart off our hands.

Blow. It. Up.

Some of those guys have some massive salary commitments attached to them and would almost strictly be salary dumps, with the Tigers still eating a lot of those salaries just to move them. It looks like a long, ugly rebuild if indeed that's the direction it goes.

Posted by skunk206 on 7/10/2017 2:41:00 PM (view original):
Some of those guys have some massive salary commitments attached to them and would almost strictly be salary dumps, with the Tigers still eating a lot of those salaries just to move them. It looks like a long, ugly rebuild if indeed that's the direction it goes.

Yeah DD did a great job of turning Cespedes into J Wil and Fulmer, Price got us 3 of Toronto's top 8 pitching prospects, including their number 1 guy Norris. But Avila got Zimmerman in an ugly contract, and it seems the trade rumors are quiet on Kinsler and JD, which are disappointing

The Yankees, whom I root for for those not knowing this, have had so little production and quality fielding from their first base position - 10 different players have played and 7 different players have started games at first this year, none batting over .200.

So, to find this little production at the position once played by Lou Gehrig, Don Mattingly, Mickey Mantle, in his last years, Chris Chambliss, Tino Martinez, you have to go back, a long way. And shockingly, the Yankees would be better off at first base with...

....wait for it....

..wait for it....(past Felipe Alou, Ron Blomberg and even Danny Cater once we went to Boston for Sparky Lyle...)

...



to Curt Blefary in his awful 1970 season, after the trading of Joe Pepitone that brought him to NY.

Even he was better than the production the Yankees have gotten this year from first base, and that was in a very low offensive stats era.

Get us a first baseman !!

Which also brings up a sad fact: the Yankees got essentially nothing for Clete Boyer, who played into the early 70s for a good Atlanta team and Pepitone, with all his limits and faults.

They could have had two pretty good fielding and pretty good hitting players at the corners, in an era when John Ellis, Blefary, Jerry Kinney, etc. etc. passed for players at those positions. Take out that one good season by Danny Cater, for which we are thankful since the Red Sox fell for it and gave us Sparky Lyle for him, bringing the Yankees back from the dead after nearly a decade, and you have a big hole at first until Chris Chambliss shows up.

Maybe the Jays could hook the Yankees up with Justin Smoak in exchange for some youngsters? The question in Toronto (and I guess elsewhere) is did the 30 year old Smoak have a fluke first half (23 HR, 56 RBI, .294/.360/.575), or is he a late bloomer who's finally learned how to hit? I've seen almost all his at-bats this year and I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards the latter.

The Yankees were rumored to have engaged with the Marlins about Justin Bour, so the pursuit of a LH power-hitting 1B seems underway. Smoak could be an option, but it's so rare to see intradivision trades. With the news that the Phillies are probably going to be shopping Tommy Joseph to make room for Rhys Hoskins to take over 1B for them, could Joseph be an option for the Yankees? They seem to prefer LH bats, but Joseph has hit 15 HR so far this year and is a solid run producer.

Posted by skunk206 on 7/10/2017 2:41:00 PM (view original):
Some of those guys have some massive salary commitments attached to them and would almost strictly be salary dumps, with the Tigers still eating a lot of those salaries just to move them. It looks like a long, ugly rebuild if indeed that's the direction it goes.

I'd take a rebuild in Baltimore. Instead we have a GM that sees a mediocre team 4 back of a WC spot and thinks "SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THERE'S A CHANCE!!"

The second WC is a goldmine for sellers - too many GM's like Duquette will pay way too much for a shot at a one-game playoff just to say they made the playoffs.