October 3rd 2017
We just weren't good enough over the last 30 games of the season. We went 16-14 meaning we ended up 4 games back from Tampa at the top of the AL East. We fell short of the Wild Card spot by 3 games. Ouch. Another season without any meaningful ball in October. The World Series win in 2015 bought me some leeway with Hank Steinbrenner, not sure how two years out of the postseason will go down.
In my defence, if you can call it that, injuries played a big part this year, our whole outfield were on the DL for some or all of September pretty much, but even so we could and should have been better when we had our first choice players out there.
One of the only highlights over this run was Robinson Cano hitting his 300th career home run. That said he only hit 7 all year! A serious drop in power from Robi.
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Matt Snyder was the standout player on the offensive side. As you can see below, he featured in the top 5 of a number of MLB hitting stats.
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Brett Anderson was undoubtedly our ace pitcher, well worth the big splash on his salary. Chris Sale was underwhelming, he gets a lot of K's but just seemed to lack control this year.
Final MLB Pitching stats:
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This team overview graphic shows exactly what the issues are, great offensive stats, poor pitching. Again.
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Mason Williams is a player we need to keep healthy. His power numbers have really ramped up, although it has come at the cost of his speed and basestealing threat. That's not so much of an issue when he's rounding the bases after a lead-off homer though!
Here are our team batting stats for the year. Keep an eye out for
SS/3B Octavio Martinez (near the bottom) in the future. He's only 19 and we signed him out of the Dominican 2 years ago. Damon rates him as a true phenom, fielding abilities are off the scale as his base stealing potential. Has very little pop in his bat but that may come with time and if not he's got enough weapons in his arsenal already. His nickname may give you a clue as to how highly he's rated, they call him 'Honus'. High praise indeed.
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The pitching staff never seem to offer me any such hope. Brett Anderson led the way, although it would be harsh of me not to mention Josh Johnson having his best season yet in a Yankees uniform. The bullpen were very disappointing and I need to make changes in there even more than the rotation I think. Anyway, these are their stats:
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Over the coming weeks and months there will be some interesting decisions to be made. Manager Joe Girardi and Scout Damon Oppenheimer both come to the end of their contracts at the end of this month, I need to decide whether or not to extend them or take us in a different direction.
Other contract issues also need to be resolved sooner than later, Josh Johnson, Trevor Cahill, Sean Burnett and Max Scherzer are all out of contract the end of the month. How many of these generally underperforming pitchers do I extend? Do I let them walk? Do I extend with a view to trading? Decisions, decisions. Well thats what Hank pays me for. Hopefully after I've met with him in a few days, he'll still be paying me!