Good afternoon everyone, it\u2019s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember to send in your questions for our bi-weekly call by e-mail to\u00a0pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.<\/p>\n
ReadingYankee asks: Given the injury history of these two pitchers who are potential front line starters, which one has the best possible outcome in the next couple years: Chase Hampton or Bryce Cunningham? Obviously, this would be assuming they do not get injured again.<\/p>\n
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On the surface it\u2019s a difficult call: MLB\u2019s prospect rankings listed Cunningham above Hampton at the end of last year, but Hampton was listed as much closer to the majors, which is a major factor in determining if pitching prospects are going to pan out or not. However, given Hampton\u2019s two extra years in the minors amounting to just a 71 inning difference in experience between the two, I\u2019d give the edge to Cunningham having the easier path to the majors and thus contributing quicker. Because the truth is, we simply can\u2019t assume that neither one gets injured again during their development \u2014 there\u2019s nothing more volatile than a pitching prospect, and this is the risk they run. Cunningham\u2019s first year being disrupted isn\u2019t too much of a surprise, but Hampton\u2019s now tossed just 18.2 innings in the last two years, 5.2 of which came in Double-A, and it\u2019s hard to see a world where he can rise to the majors quickly even if he has a stellar 2026 to turn things around.<\/p>\n
Chip23 asks: So, if we take Cashman\u2019s statements at face value, that he has put together a \u201cChampion-caliber roster\u201d then should we also assume that a failure to win a championship is a reflection of the manager and that he will be held accountable?<\/p>\n
Not necessarily, because there\u2019s a bit of word-play from Cashman going on whenever the topic of being championship-caliber gets discussed. Because the organization views championships and the postseason at large as being a crapshoot (whether that\u2019s correct or not is a a different discussion, one we\u2019ll talk about in a second!), so long as the team is in the running and plays in October baseball, it\u2019s not a failure to miss out on outright winning a title. If that wasn\u2019t the case, then Cashman and Boone would be in extremely hot water by now having only gone to and lost a single World Series during their tenure \u2014 but as we know, the organization is quite comfortable with both of them running the ship. Perhaps things would change if they flamed out in the Wild Card Series a couple years in a row, but even with the relative disappointment of losing convincingly in the ALDS the team can point to the fact that they were tied for the most wins in the division and competed with the team that went to the World Series.<\/p>\n
The idiot that said, \u201cHarper is coming\u201d asks: Can we change the terminology from \u201crunning it back\u201d to\u00a0\u201cwalking it back\u201d? One implies a little more urgency than the other. I don\u2019t see any urgency from this organization to be worthy of \u201crunning it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
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So, let\u2019s get into the thought process of the offseason overall, shall we? There\u2019s no denial that the team didn\u2019t display much urgency this offseason: they locked in fairly early on bringing back Cody Bellinger without showing much interest in the top of the market with Kyle Tucker, called his bluff when he was adamant about pushing for extra years and were willing to let someone else sign him, and then mostly fixated on minute bullpen moves to flesh out the roster while bringing back bench pieces. However, where they stand at the end of the day is still a top three team<\/a> by FanGraphs\u2019 projections, and outside of the Dodgers\u2019 horde of talent they\u2019re firmly in the mix to be the second-best team in baseball.<\/p>\n On the one hand, they weren\u2019t pushing to improve themselves very much this offseason, which has it\u2019s frustrations (which I share). On the other, they correctly assessed that they had a top team in 2025 that ran into another top team, and reasoned that they can get back to the Fall Classic with the roster they have now. Is it how I personally wish they operated this winter? No, I wanted them to be much more aggressive, but at the end of the day I\u2019m not upset with the result either. I just wish it could\u2019ve been settled about a month or two ago so we could\u2019ve avoided the endless cycle of questioning whether they\u2019d do something interesting.<\/p>\n OLDY MOLDY asks: Do the Yankees avoid another Boone June Swoon in 2026?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a case where I\u2019d argue Boone could and should be held accountable for his record \u2014 because while the team has gotten into the dance every year barring one, they sure have looked highly inconsistent at the very consistent rate. Their almost penciled-in summer of poor play each year has been one of my major gripes with the team, and it lines up with their level of preparation that got put on display for the world when the Dodgers took them to task in 2024. Their fundamentals have been, in my opinion, highly suspect throughout this championship window, though mainly from 2020 on. Finding a way not to nosedive and potentially cost themselves the division with a terrible two-month stretch would go a long way towards building more faith in what they\u2019ve constructed, so here\u2019s hoping Boone and company can avoid it this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good afternoon everyone, it\u2019s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[1797,2458,5,704,34008,1365,39,29,4,62,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-558463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-aaron-boone","9":"tag-american-league-division-series","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-bryce-cunningham","12":"tag-chase-hampton","13":"tag-cody-bellinger","14":"tag-dodgers","15":"tag-kyle-tucker","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-new-york-yankees","18":"tag-toronto-blue-jays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116025726422870672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}