The Pinstripe

The Yankees' ongoing commitment to youth is on full display as the number 8 prospect, Austin Wells, gets the call for his big league debut. Set to make his entrance alongside top prospect Jasson Dominguez, Wells is the latest addition to the surge of youthful energy in the Yankees' lineup. His promotion follows recent call-ups of highly touted prospects Oswald Peraza and Everson Pereira, forming a promising core of emerging talent. Minor League Career: Despite being selected in the first round of the 2020 draft as a catcher, there have been questions about his long term position at the major league level.  Due to this, the Yankees are looking to broaden his capabilities by providing opportunities in the corner outfield as well as planning on giving him an opportunity at first base. At 24 years old, Wells might have seen his debut sooner if not for an unfortunate rib injury during spring training, leading to a delayed start. Wells' minor league journey spans four years. In 2...

The New York Yankees are poised to welcome their number one prospect, Jasson Dominguez, to the big leagues. Dominguez's debut, set for Friday, September 1st, is a highly anticipated event that signifies a pivotal shift in the team's approach. With the recent departure of Harrison Bader, an outfield spot has opened up, setting the stage for Dominguez to make his highly anticipated debut in pinstripes, something fans have been waiting for since he signed as a international FA in 2019. Minor League Journey: Jasson Dominguez, affectionately known as "The Martian" due to his unearthly potential even as a 16-year-old, made headlines when he signed with the Yankees for a record-breaking $5.1 million bonus.  In 2022, he climbed the ranks from low A to AA, showcasing his potential with a solid slash line of .273/.376/.461 and an OPS of .837 across 120 games. Throughout 2023, Dominguez continued to prove his worth. Starting the year in AA, he initially faced some challenges but...

Welcome back to The Pinstripe Weekly Recap! This week, the Yankees navigated through a series of ups and downs, resulting in a 2-4 record. Let's delve into the details of their performance against the Nationals and Rays, and highlight the notable moments from both ends of the spectrum. Team Performance Overview The Yankees encountered a challenging week, facing off against the Nationals and Rays. The team finished with a 2-4 record, battling their way through a series of tough matchups. The offense struggled, maintaining a team average of just .197 and a high strikeout rate of 27.1%. Despite this, the Yankees managed to maintain a positive run differential of +4, largely due to decisive victories against the Nationals (9-1) and the Rays (6-2). Pinstripe Positives Luis Severino's Redemption : One of the week's bright spots was Luis Severino's impressive performance. He threw 6.2 innings of shutout baseball, offering a glimmer of hope that he might be turning his season a...

  Sunday night, we went over the moves the Yankees should make to best position themselves for success going forward.  The season is a wash already and they need to start preparing for 2024, and the best way to do that is to play their prospects.  The most realistic route that Hal Steinbrenner and co. will follow this offseason is to not make any major acquisitions (no Cody Bellinger, Ohtani, Snell etc.) and look to cut salary to lower their luxury tax   Let's now look at what moves the Yankees should make this offseason and what the ideal rotation and lineup/bench look like for opening day 2024. Stantonian Issue We need to first address the massive issue the Yankees currently face. Giancarlo Stanton has been awful recently, hitting just north of .200, and looks like he can barely move now.  Additionally, he seems to whiff at sliders away consistently and is in danger of becoming an easy strikeout. Stanton can't really play the field given he can't run, and...

  "Frustrated" Manager Aaron Boone Boone recently met with Hal and Cashman and said they are all "disappointed" with how the season has gone.  Glad that Hal is finally starting to understand what he didn't about two months ago when he went on the Michael Kay show saying "I don't understand why the fans are frustrated."  The frustrations back then were only the start, as when those comments were made the Yankees were in third place with some potential positives (I.e. Nestor and Rodon coming back), which is somehow a situation almost any Yankee fan would take right now.  The Yankees are on 2-10 over the last two weeks, dropping 8 straight games with the last three being to the hated rival Red Sox.   On top of being a very bad baseball team, the Yankees don't play a brand of baseball that is fun to watch.  There are some players worth watching, such as Gerrit Cole, Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe, Clarke Schmidt, Mike King, and Gleyber Torres, but ov...

  Welcome back to the Pinstripe Progress Report.  We wrote last week how the Yankees had to go at least 5-1, and ideally 6-0 against the White Sox and Marlins as they had a tough task ahead of them with the Braves and Red Sox looming this week.  Well, the Yankees took on this task and pretty much rolled over and died, dropping both series 1-2 and capped off the week of painful baseball by blowing a 4-run 9th-inning lead against the Marlins.  Let's start off with players who were positives for this team before getting down to the biggest disappointments. Pinstripe's Positives: Gerrit Cole :  Cole did not have his best stuff in either of his outings this week but still managed to give the Yankees an opportunity to win the game.  Against the White Sox Cole went 7 strong innings of 2 run ball before giving up back-to-back leadoff singles, that Tommy Kahnle (more on him later) allowed to score bring his run total up to 4 for the game.  On Sunday, Cole then ...

  Thank you for checking out The Pinstripe's progress report!  This week the Yankees faced two of the AL's best, with the Rays and Astros visiting the Bronx.  The Yankees dropped the series to the Rays going 1-2 and split the four-game set against the Astros, going 3-4 overall this week against two teams that are locks to make the postseason.  The Yankees hit .236 this week and pitched to an ERA of 3.86, being outscored by five runs this week.  Let's look at some positives and some disappointments from this week in Yankee baseball. Positives Nestor Cortes :  Nestor made his long awaited return from injury on Saturday, and dominated arguably the best team in the AL.  Nestor, still building his pitch count up, dominated the Astros, pitching 4.0 innings with 8 strikeouts and allowing only one run.  Nestor resembled the pitcher we've come to love and who was an all-star last year, keeping the Astros off balance all afternoon.  If this is the Nest...

  The Yankees have been a frustrating team recently.  The front office essentially slapped the fan base across the face with their handling of the trade deadline and the Yankees continue to struggle offensively outside of Aaron Judge.  Part of the offensive struggles is due to the Yankees' favoritism towards veteran players.  They continue to hit Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo (who we just found out has been concussed for two-plus months, potentially explaining his poor play), DJ LeMahieu, and previously Josh Donaldson in the heart of the order despite showing signs of regression and being below average hitters.   The most frustrating part of this situation is that these players being forced into the lineup daily is stopping young prospects from getting an extended run at the major-league level, stunting their development and tanking their value.   However, rather than focusing on the negatives, let's focus on the positives.  The Yankees be...

  Yankees GM Brian Cashman At this point, the season is pretty much a cruel joke.  Between the daily Boone-isms -- the most  recent  being an infuriating way to say nothing helpful -- and the lack of urgency from the entire organization, the players included, the Yankees have given us no reason to keep watching them play baseball.  Alas, most of us still will torture ourselves by tuning in every day just to watch them find new ways to embarrass a team most of us have loved our entire lives. Let's start with the trade deadline and the terrible decisions that started way before the 6pm ET deadline passed. Live look at Yankee fans during the Trade Deadline The Trade Deadline Brandon Kuty  of the Athletic said it best when he  tweeted  "The Yankees put the dead in Trade Deadline." After looking like a defeated team Monday night (we'll talk about this later), most believed the Yankees would do a minor sell at the deadline, offloading players with expir...

  Brian Cashman, GM and SVP of the Yankees In yesterday’s post, we discussed the arguments for why the Yankees should buy and whom they should target. Today, we’re going to talk about some reasons why they should sell, and at the end of the article, I’ll give my two cents on how I believe Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner should approach this deadline.  Let's get into it. Reasons not to buy: In yesterday’s post, there were a lot of hypotheticals driving our argument for buying.  Realistically, not all of those are going to work out.  Maybe the rotation lives up to the hype, but watching Rizzo and Stanton hit, can you fully convince yourself that they will turn it around?  Is Judge’s freak toe injury still bothering him?  Can the other key players with concerning injury histories (Rodon, Bader, Stanton) stay healthy? Can Gleyber keep this approach for the rest of the season?  Will the current high-leverage guys in the bullpen have enough in the tank co...