The Comprehensive Yankees vs. Astros Ultimate Showdown Preview
Look how sad the Astros fans are (Bob Levey / Getty Images)
1. How do you feel about the state of the Yankees heading into this series?
Alec: Much better than two weeks ago! The Yankees have gotten into a nice groove over their last four series. Granted, the competition hasn’t been stellar, but we’ve seen the players play up to expectations, which was better than the lifeless play we saw versus Tampa and Toronto. They are only 2.5 back in the East and are rounding into form. The future looks bright for this team.
Will: So good. Alec and I discussed on Saturday, and I’ve officially reached “Love This Team” status with these guys. Stanton is ripping the ball all over the yard, Judge has returned to his (normal) MVP-worthy level of play, and the guys who were cold are heating up.
Aaron has returned to take the MVP award that was stolen from him
— Yankees Files (@YankeesFiles) May 1, 2021
I’m not gonna name any names regarding who the thief is but if your name RHYMES WITH Mozay Maltuve and you may have spent a number of years cheating at Major League Baseball and won an MVP in 2017 thereby robbing Aaron Judge both of the award and of millions of dollars in arbitration salary, I’d like to name your name. Jerk. Cheating jerk. Jerk.
2. What are your observations about the Astros this year?
A: The Astros are a flawed team, but honestly most non-Dodgers teams in baseball are. They bring back the same high powered offense that the Yankees are used to, but are considerably less deep on the pitching side - Justin Verlander is recovering from Tommy John surgery and Gerrit Cole will be sitting in the home dugout rather than the visitor’s dugout. They certainly can make the playoffs again, but are not as formidable as the 2017-2019 team was.
W: There’s no avoiding it, they’re a good team. But I’m a lot happier to see their lineup without George Springer and their staff without Justin Verlander (or Framber Valdez) than I would be otherwise. I’ve also observed that their best player is currently Yuli Gurriel, who’s 37. Call me crazy, but I think Houston’s going to need to look elsewhere for production once his .359 BABIP cools off. That’s an Aaron Judge BABIP. Yuli Gurriel is not Aaron Judge. And it’s funny, I noticed a certain Jose Altuve is hitting .275 with a .701 OPS, a far cry from when he hit .346 with a .957 OPS in 2017. If only BANG we had any way to BANG identify a major BANG difference between BANG those years… Ah, well.
3. What are your thoughts on the Yankees-Astros rivalry?
A: I’m very unsure of how these teams regard each other. The sign stealing scandal will obviously be at the center of everyone’s mind (it will certainly be on Yankee fans’ minds), but it’s been a long time since the events in question actually occurred. I’m here for bad blood, but you have to wonder how much the players actually still care. That being said, I am here for the pettiness and the Astros have acted like they’re above punishment, so if the Yankees want to start some beef, it is totally justified.
W: If the Yankees are anything like me, they hate the Astros. I doubt the Astros hate the Yankees very much, but I bet they would if the Yankees had operated a years-long cheating scheme, used it to go to the World Series twice and win it once, beat the Astros twice in the playoffs in that span, and then faced no repercussions for it. I bet they’d be ESPECIALLY mad if the Yankees had then claimed that the cheating scheme that they tried so hard to set up and hide had not provided them with any advantage.
We know the fans hate Houston, and this is going to be a big series for fan energy. I don’t know that we’ll see anything boil over, but I expect more intensity than we’ve seen at any other time this year.
4. Do you think the Astros were adequately punished for the sign stealing scandal?
A: I refer you to the name of our fantasy baseball group chat - Ban the Astros and Rob Manfred from Baseball.
W: As a serial murderer who currently walks the streets as a free man, never convicted of anything despite the overwhelming evidence against me, I find the response to the Astros from MLB to be perfectly appropriate.
If you think the Astros were adequately punished for CHEATING FOR YEARS AND RIDING THEIR SUCCESS AT CHEATING TO A WORLD SERIES WIN you should never read this blog again.
5. Which was most heartbreaking - the 2015 Wild Card game, Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS, or Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS?
A: The loss in the 2015 Wild Card game felt preordained - that Yankees team was spiraling down for two months and ran into Dallas Keuchel, the hottest pitcher in baseball. 2017 was disappointing, but you couldn’t be too upset about losing that year when it seemed like the start of the next great Yankees dynasty. Game 6 in 2019 was the real killer for me. I watched DJ’s game tying home run from a pub called the Phoenix Landing in Cambridge, Massachusetts and lost my mind among a bunch of Red Sox fans. It was one of the most incredible Yankees moments I can remember, but it will unfortunately be lost to what happened next. Minutes later, the Sox fans were dancing on my grave as Altuve rounded the bases against Chapman. The 2019 team seemed very special and although the Yankees were farther from winning the series in their Game 6 loss, the thrill of the DJ home run made losing out that year all the more painful. I would like to play the video just so we don’t forget how awesome DJ’s home run was.
W: While I totally understand saying it’s 2019 Game 6 due to that game being such a roller coaster, I have to say it’s 2017 Game 7 for me. That Yankees team had big Team of Destiny vibes, and it just felt like they would figure out a way to win. Games 3-5 in New York were so cool, and they just needed to snatch one measly game in Houston to go to the World Series. I also take the 2017 loss harder in light of learning that THE ASTROS OPERATED A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME because there was no way the Yankees were the worse team, as CC Sabathia has repeatedly emphasized.
6. Best Yankees-Astros game?
A: I really enjoyed Game 5 of the 2019 ALCS, where Aaron Hicks hit that pole scraping home run off of Verlander and James Paxton pitched his best game as a Yankee to prolong the series. But it has to be ALCS Game 4 in 2017. That comeback had the stadium shaking and when Gary doubled into the gap, you knew the Yankees were back. It was the pinnacle of the magical 2017 run and will go down as one of the great Yankees playoff moments in history.
W: On the same page as Alec here, Game 4 2017 is just the right answer. I’m talking about stuff like this Chase Headley play when I say that team was a Team of Destiny. It literally took the Astros OPERATING A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME to stop them.
W: For some honorable mentions though, I was at this game in May 2018 in which the Yankees came back from a two-run deficit in the ninth. It also featured one of the most absurd plays i’ve ever seen.
W: There’s also this one, in which Gary Sanchez made Ken Giles beat himself up.
A: “Giles allows HR, punches self” is an all time caption.
7. Which Astro do you hate the most? Do you respect any Astros?
A: Jose Altuve should be banned from baseball and honestly probably sent to federal prison. I don’t mind Zack Greinke.
W: Jose Altuve should not just be banned from baseball and sent to federal prison, he should be treated an an enemy combatant (I do not know what this entails but it’s definitely worse than just being sent to federal prison). The only Astro I respect is Lance Berkman. The reason I respect Lance Berkman and not Jose Altuve is that Lance Berkman did not OPERATE AND ILLICITLY BENEFIT FROM A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME and Jose Altuve did.
A: Plus, his trade to the Yankees confirmed that Berkman was a double agent all along.
8. How will the Yankee Stadium crowd react this series?
A: Folks, it’s going to be rowdy. Yes, there will only be 25% of a full crowd, but I expect them to bring 100% energy. We will see signs, hear chants, and maybe even witness people getting stuff thrown at them again. Don’t tell me you wasted all your ammo against the Rays!
W: Folks, I anticipate that the Yankee Stadium crowd will be raucous as they express their displeasure at the Astros for OPERATING A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME FOR WHICH THEY WERE NEVER PUNISHED. I normally want fans of the Yankees to carry themselves with grace and class but I am fine with them going full Philadelphia this series. MLB put the Astros in a position to have street justice doled out against them, and fans are just as much in a position to provide that as players. Go nuts.
9. Where do you see the Astros finishing this year?
A: I hope they finish in last. I think they will finish in first. They have the pieces to win the division and are facing flawed competition of their own. Also if you cheat you can win anything you want if there’s no threat of punishment. But on the other hand they got swept by the Tigers. So they’re probably bad.
W: There are more players on Houston whose production I find unsustainable than players who I project will continue to mash (see Yuli Gurriel). I’m also not sold that guys like Altuve, who was BAD last year and average this year, can produce without REAPING THE BENEFITS OF THEIR YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME on a game-to-game basis. Their run differential was artificially inflated by the A’s pitching to an ERA over 8.00 early in the year, and did you really read this whole article to see me pick the Astros to win their division? Astros finish in a dead heat for second in the division with the Angels and miss the playoffs.
10. If the Yankees and Astros meet again in October, who's winning the series?
A: The Yankees, and I’m not just saying that because I write a Yankees blog. This Yankees team, for the first time in this short rivalry, is definitively better than the Astros when they’re playing at their best. Taking Cole from them is a huge swing in pitcher value and the lineups are pretty comparable. Give us Yankees-Astros IV this fall and let’s see what happens!
W: Now that the Astros appear to have been prevented from OPERATING A(nother) YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME, it would have to be the Yankees. If there is any justice in the universe, it will be.
Speed Round:
Say some mean things about Carlos Correa.
A: Correa is a subpar shortstop and bad at hitting.
W: Carlos Correa is a fraud of a player who has only been good in a full season one time when, not surprisingly, his production was buoyed by the OPERATION OF A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME. Carlos Correa runs his mouth a lot for a guy who has only ever led the league in one stat one time: sacrifice flies.
Say some mean things about Alex Bregman
A: Bregman is a subpar third baseman and bad at hitting and his name should be Bergman.
W: It is impossible to ignore the dip in production from Bregman that perfectly coincides with the Astros being exposed for OPERATING A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME. It’s also funny that his playoff production is so weak given that he, ya know, benefited from the OPERATION OF A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME. Like bro, you LITERALLY KNEW WHAT PITCH WAS COMING but you’re a career .167 hitter agains the Yankees in the playoffs? Have you tried being good at baseball?
Zack Greinke is super weird.
A: Yes.
W: I get that the cute thing to do on baseball Twitter is to be enamored with Zack Greinke and how he throws the ball really slowly and still gets guys out but he’s a weird guy who never stops doing weird things, tends to look really stupid, and went into a profession where you HAVE TO be in front of thousands of people all the time and talk to the media frequently, and then tried to opt out of those aspects of baseball as if they were… optional. Don’t like the guy.
Isn't it crazy that knowing what pitch was coming didn't help the Astros?
A: People don’t talk about this enough.
W: Something tells me that you would not take the risk of OPERATING A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME if you didn’t think it would help you.
How much money should Jose Altuve have to give Aaron Judge for the arbitration earnings that he stole from him by cheating to win the MVP award?
A: 50 million dollars.
W: Baseball Reference has Altuve’s career earnings at about $89 million, and he’s due another $87 million through 2024. With that in mind, I’d say about $2 billion. I want Altuve’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren to be paying off debt to Aaron Judge at some absurd interest rate and even still, that may not be adequate punishment for the OPERATION OF A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME.
A: Also this.
Share your thoughts on BuzzerGate.
A: Release the Buzzer Tapes! It was real and no one will tell me otherwise.
W: Look, we already know the Astros OPERATED A YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME. Why would we act like anything falls out of the potential scope of that operation?
Final Thoughts?
A: Astros suck. Yankees only. Bring the heat on Tuesday.
W: Only one of these teams rode a YEARS-LONG CHEATING SCHEME to a World Series and was never adequately punished for it. I hate the Astros. I hope the Yankees score 5 trillion runs this series and Jose Altuve is forced to retire from baseball out of embarrassment.
#YoSoyGary
