Well, the Yankees season is over once again. Another year of disappointment after the team has spent hundreds of millions to watch and expect this team to win more games than the previous year. Well, a sweep to the Houston Astros is not the way they wanted to end it.
Once again, a team that had solid pitching, couldn’t get it done on the hitting end shockingly. They had filled their batting lineup with world-class sluggers in Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, with Judge now being the AL home run regular season leader in history.
But what happened? He disappeared in the postseason once again. From pitching around Judge to him having an array of popups and strikeouts, the Yankee’s instability could be easily blamed on Manager Aaron Boone for potentially not setting the lineups correctly to exploit the opposing pitching or we could frankly just blame it on the big guy at bat.
But we obviously won’t do that. Judge is on track to be the highest-paid baseball player in the MLB, if not ever in MLB history.
His power and potential in the game of baseball are truly outstanding. The question will be who will want to eat that massive contract? With the Yankees still being the true leaders in the “Judge Sweepstakes” to reland him and keep him grounded as a Bronx Bomber for a long time, I think teams on the West Coast especially the San Fransisco Giants could prove otherwise.
With a lot of space open for Judge on the Giant’s roster, I could definitely see a change of scenery for the big guy and his choosing to head over there. If this happens this will most likely double the highest-paid Giant in history Buster Posey who received a contract of 167 million dollars in 2013.
With San Fransisco assuring that the dollar amount won’t be an issue, they also promise to almost guarantee a reunion with his former teammate, Anthony Rizzo, to be in the bay as well next season. We’ll see if Judge wants to pair up with Rizzo across the country and enjoy the warmth in Cali, or if he’ll stick to his roots and continue a legacy as a New York Yankee.
A Win for the Houston Astros, or Was It?
The Houston Astros had just won the World Series. A truly legitimate World Series to add to that as well. You’d think the team and owner would be ecstatic. The big bettor in Mattress Mack surely was, and so was everyone in the Houston community as well. Players seemed happy.
So what’s the problem? Well, the owner Jim Crane obviously thought there was one. He went on a week after the World Series to fire both the men that made this happen in the first place, their general manager in James Click, and his assistant getting the boot.
Why would they do that? They paired an amazing team together. They picked up Justin Verlander. They sculpted and grew an enormous amount of players that they once drafted in Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yordan Alvarez and Framber Valdez. They even last year drafted that infielder that ended up becoming the World Series MVP!
Seriously, what’s the issue? Astros owner Jim Crane initially hired Click in Jan. 2020 to stabilize the Astros in the wake of the sign-stealing scandal. And Click did just that, compiling the most regular-season victories in the American League during his three-year tenure, capping off an 11-2 postseason with the 2022 World Series title.
With the owner not breaking down much of an explanation for this unexpected move, Click and as well his right-hand man James Powers will be highly pursued by the rest of the MLB as they have to be considered some of the best people on the market to run a baseball franchise after what we’ve seen with their keen farming selections with the Houston Astros.
Things seem to never last too long in sports, we’ll see if Houston can continue with such success in their upcoming seasons without the same guys running the power circuit.
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