Hey, Yankees subscribers!
We’re excited to kick off our new weekly segment, “Covering the Bases,” where we dive into all the latest and greatest happenings with the Bronx Bombers. From big plays, quizzes and the best reads on your favorite team, you can view this as your backstage pass from our two beat reporters on the team to all things Yankees in the last week. Feel free to let us know in comments if you like this story format.
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Power rankings: New York Yankees are No. 4
In this week’s power rankings, we went with our “wish you were here” theme, highlighting one injured player that would make a difference.
Previous ranking: 3
Wish you were here: Gerrit Cole
The Yankees have held their own in the rough-and-tumble American League East, even with the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner on the shelf all season. The strength of this team was always going to be its run prevention, which has remained stalwart despite Cole’s absence. The starting rotation features five pitchers with an ERA+ somewhere between league average (Carlos Rodón at 105) and pretty good (Luis Gil at 122). The return of Cole, who has begun throwing light bullpen sessions as he recovers from elbow inflammation, would provide an ace for the unit. The Yankees will need him if they want to leapfrog the Orioles. — Andy McCullough
The big league quiz
The latest hits
ICYMI, our national writers weighed in with what they are hearing and seeing
1. A reason for optimism (and pessimism)
Jim Bowden noted a reason for every club to feel hope and one reason to not. Here is what he said about the Yankees:
Reason for optimism: Juan Soto has been the AL MVP thus far, slashing .331/.441/.589 with eight home runs and 25 RBIs. Anthony Volpe is raising his game offensively, batting .262 with three home runs and seven steals. Anthony Rizzo was the AL Player of the Week last week. The team is first in the AL in on-base percentage after ranking 10th last year. The pitching staff ranks third in the majors in team ERA at 3.07. The Yankees have been winning with their best starter, Gerrit Cole, on the IL and they’re hoping he’ll return by the end of the month if all goes well. Aaron Boone is once again proving why he’s one of the best managers in baseball in leadership, strategy and building team culture.
Reason for pessimism: They are in the same division as the Orioles and third baseman DJ LeMahieu continues his stay on the IL with a fractured foot.
2. What we learned in the first month
Jayson Stark identified all the things he learned in April, including a first for the Yankees:
In last year’s first edition of the What We Learned column, we made this regrettable pronouncement: Juan Soto should have taken the Nationals’ money!
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Ehhhh, have we mentioned that overreacting to April is one of those things we’re best at?
Juan Soto, San Diego Padre, didn’t have the look of a generational talent. But Juan Soto, New York Yankee? That guy might have a future.
In his first 30 games in The Pinstripes, Soto bombed seven homers and reached base 60 times. Look at all the players in history who have done that in their first 30 games as a Yankee:
Juan Soto, 2024
(don’t go looking for the other names … he’s it!)
“What happened in San Diego did not surprise me,” said one exec who has known Soto for years, “because I think it shocked the hell out of him that the team that signed him, groomed him and developed him was the same team that traded him. And then the reality of that hit him. And he was on the other side of the country, as far away as he could be from the Dominican (Republic). So I wasn’t surprised. I really wasn’t.”
But now here’s Soto, in the Bronx, leading the Yankees in average, on-base percentage, slugging, OPS, homers, RBIs and runs scored. And most of the execs we surveyed now think he’s a lock to sign a deal when he reaches free agency this winter that tops the $440 million the Nationals offered him in 2022. We should mention, though, that opinion wasn’t unanimous.
One exec mentioned the piece Brittany Ghiroli wrote in The Athletic about Soto’s adjustment issues in San Diego — and said that would “scare the absolute crap out of me” if his team was thinking about dangling half a billion dollars in front of Soto.
The Yankees, obviously, wouldn’t have to worry about that unknown. But if this turns into a negotiation involving only a couple of teams, “how big is it going to get?” the same exec asked. “I question if (the contract) is going to start with a five at that point.”
Whether it will or it won’t is a mystery to be solved many months from now. But either way, you won’t have to worry about whether Juan Soto will be able to afford that brand new 4K Ultra HD flat screen for his basement.
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3. Dave Winfield gets his statue
Tyler Kepner pointed out in the recent edition of his weekly “Sliders” column that Winfield finally got a statue.
A few months ago, Bret Boone found himself at an event with Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. Boone expected Winfield to ask about his brother, Aaron, who used to imitate the slugger as a boy. Or, perhaps, about his father, Bob, a teammate on All-Star teams in the ’70s and ’80s.
“So we’re chit-chatting,” Boone said. “And he goes, ‘How’s your Uncle Rod? We were teammates in Fairbanks.’”
Winfield’s time as an Alaska Goldpanner, in 1971 and 1972, was pivotal in his development as a hitter. A dominant pitcher for the University of Minnesota, Winfield finally got to show off his hitting prowess in a collegiate summer league in Fairbanks, where he launched a home run estimated at 500 feet that struck the Fairbanks Curling Club building across the street from Growden Park.
On June 21, before the Goldpanners’ annual “Midnight Sun” game, that moment will be celebrated for posterity with a statue — the first anywhere depicting Winfield.
“To be honored like this, it’s a wonderful thing,” Winfield said in a Zoom conference this week, according to MLB.com. “I look forward to bringing my family to a place that really made a difference in my life.”
The inspiration for the statue came from a New York Times article noting that Hall of Famers liked to jab Winfield about not having one. The writer of that piece — hi there — heard about the teasing on a Bret Boone podcast with Ozzie Smith, the Hall of Fame shortstop who has a statue in St. Louis.
“I remember with Ozzie, I was separating people,” said Boone, himself a former Alaska Goldpanner. “I’m like: ‘There’s great players, there’s Hall of Famers, and then the ultimate, I think, is when you get the statue.’ That’s the next level. That’s the separator. You’re not just a run-of-the-mill Hall of Famer, you’re a statue Hall of Famer.”
Now that Winfield has reached that peak, Boone said, he needs to get him as a guest on his podcast. It seems only fair.
Baseball beat
Our beat writers Brendan Kuty and Chris Kirschner picked out what you need to know
Luis Gil continues his incredible start
The rookie went six innings and held the Astros to just a run on Tuesday. Gil (3-1, 2.92 ERA, seven starts) has allowed three hits or fewer in six of his seven starts this year, holding hitters to a .143 average. Anthony Volpe said Astros hitters seemed baffled facing him. “It’s like the fastball is 110 mph,” Volpe said. “It’s like the hardest fastball they’ve seen.”
The latest on Gerrit Cole
Cole threw 15 pitches off the bullpen mound on Saturday. His fastball averaged 89 mph and touched 91 mph in what was a non-maximum effort outing for the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner. Aaron Boone said Cole is expected to throw another bullpen at some point this week. Cole would not put a timeline on when he thinks he may be back in the Yankees’ rotation but he is eligible to come off the 60-day injured list at the end of the month. Because of where he is in his throwing program, it’s almost impossible Cole will be ready to go by then. The Yankees have said multiple times that Cole will need a full spring training, so roughly six weeks that includes multiple rehab starts to return.
Swinging through history
A flashback to this week in Yankees lore
Speaking of Dave Winfield, in a May 4, 1990, game against the California Angels, Yankees manager Bucky Dent, first base coach Mike Ferraro and Winfield argued a call at first base where Winfield was ruled out on an attempt to make it back to the bag. Winfield would find himself back in Anaheim soon after, as the Yankees dealt the future Hall of Famer to the Angels a week later. The trade was held up for five days due to Winfield’s objections, but was finally settled after a nine-hour meeting with an arbitrator at MLB offices that resulted in a contract extension for the 38-year-old. The deal put an end to the often tumultuous saga between Winfield and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, but was just the beginning of a chaotic season in the Bronx, one that will be explored in a new documentary out next week on Peacock.
Did you catch this?
Before Saturday, Aaron Judge had never been ejected in his life. Never in his nine-year MLB career. Never in his three seasons spent in the minor leagues. Never in his three years at Fresno State. Never in his four years at Linden High. And never in Little League. But eight words while walking away from home-plate umpire Ryan Blakney was all it took for Judge to get tossed.
“Nah, that’s bulls—,” Judge said, according to audio captured by on-field microphones. “You’ve been bulls—-ing all game.”
Judge had his back turned to Blakney, but it didn’t matter. Blakney thought Judge’s words were enough to toss the New York Yankees’ captain. Judge said he didn’t know he’d been ejected until he heard the Yankee Stadium crowd roar in his defense.
“You’re not going to tell me I’ve been bulls—-ing all game,” Blakney said to Judge, according to YES Network’s audio.
“I was very surprised,” Judge said. “(It’s) a 5-3 game, late in the game, battling through the count and kind of walking away saying my piece. I’ve said a lot worse. I usually try to not make a scene in situations like that, so I was a little surprised walking away that happened.”
Judge gets tossed. pic.twitter.com/m19GbX32RQ
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 4, 2024
Judge is the first Yankees captain to get ejected since Don Mattingly on May 13, 1994. After the game, a pool reporter requested to speak with Blakney to understand what transpired between him and Judge, but he was made unavailable for comment. Instead, crew chief Alan Porter, Saturday’s third-base umpire, spoke with the reporter and said he hadn’t conversed with Blakney.
“Apparently, Aaron did not agree with the pitch and said something that you shouldn’t have said, and he was ejected,” Porter said. “We do what we can to keep guys in the game, but he said something he shouldn’t have said.”
(Top photo of Juan Soto: Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire / Associated Press)