On Tuesday, David Ortiz made some waves in the New York Yankees universe. It certainly wasn’t the first time, and even with just one year remaining in his career it likely won’t be the last. Big Papi has made it known that he’d like an ovation at Yankee Stadium on his farewell tour. At first […]
Author: Nick Ashbourne
The Yankees have built around surprisingly young pitching
In recent memory the concept of “youth” and the New York Yankees have gone together like mayonnaise and black licorice. It should be noted that I make that analogy as someone who thinks black licorice is the proverbial bees knees and mayonnaise is an absolute abomination, but I like to think it works whatever your […]
Luis Severino, home runs, and the big-league difference
Last year Luis Severino had an excellent season by all reasonable measures. He made quick work of the upper minors, and arrived with the New York Yankees in time to help them into the playoffs, all at the tender age of 21. By the end of the year, fans were praising Brian Cashman’s refusal to deal […]
Bryce Harper is evolving in a Yankee-friendly direction
Bryce Harper is an incredibly good baseball player. The New York Yankees are an unfathomably wealthy organization. Following the 2018 season these two facts could converge to help author the biggest contract in the history of baseball. The operative word being ‘could.’ The inevitability of such an event has likely been overstated, but the Yankees […]
What does it take for Didi Gregorius to crush a southpaw?
For Didi Gregorius, 2015 was a year of firsts. It was his first season in pinstripes, his first full year as a starter and his first time feeling the oppressive burden of replacing one of baseball’s most iconic players. Entering the season, all three of those examples were to be expected, but Gregorius also achieved a first that […]
Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi are not actually the same person
When you are building a starting rotation it is usually wise to fill it with five different human beings. That’s par for the course and teams don’t tend to deviate from it. Four-man rotations can overburden arms, and cloning is far too expensive to be a feasible roster-building option. However, the New York Yankees have […]
Chase Headley is keeping poor company offensively
Chase Headley is one of the few players in baseball who’s simultaneously plenty good and quite disappointing. In 2012, he knocked 31 balls over the fence while calling Petco Field home and the world hasn’t quite adjusted its expectations. However, when the New York Yankees signed the third baseman to a four-year deal worth $52 […]
Greg Bird Will Be a Twitter Star
More often that not professional athletes do not make for the best follows on Twitter. What they tend to put out is cliche-heavy statements in support of teammates and some thinly-veiled sponsored stuff. This isn’t to say that athletes are boring human beings, they just have a lot more to lose than to gain by […]
Brian McCann Has Never Caught Baseballs Worse than in 2015
Unlike in most jobs, the basic function of a catcher is inherent in the job title. If you tell someone at a cocktail party that you are a Regional Director of Electronics and Advanced Systems Engineering, there is a good chance they won’t know what you do on a day-to-day basis; if you tell them you’re a […]
Aroldis Chapman Has No Need for Conventional Wisdom
It can be said a million ways with numbers, charts, and even flowery chains of adjectives, but put simply Aroldis Chapman throws baseballs harder than anyone else and it isn’t close. Parents are consistently telling children that they are one-of-a-kind, and for most of us it’s absolute poppycock. However, if the Chapmans ever relayed this […]