The Basement View

Before I begin, as I was preparing and researching for this column, I noticed that I screwed up last years baseline. The reason I use a baseline is to stack the players I am putting on my ballot against the others on the ballot and simply saying: are they better than this group? If the answer is yes, they are a HOF’er (simple right? I even screwed it up!), if no, they are either an honorable mention, on the baseline itself, or in a white void in between the baseline and immortality. Where my mistake happened was electing three players that were on my baseline (Pettitte, Jeff Kent, and Larry Walker), by electing them, I messed with the baseline (I’ll blame it on 2020…), so apologies. I’ll be better!   Looking over this years’ ballot, while continuing to realize that voting for the Hall of Fame should be as objective as possible (difficult task, but at least I’m making progress compared to some of the BBWAA), and sorting out the 2021 baseline, I’ve come to the conclusion that this year

As the playoffs start, yet again the Jets will be watching alongside me and the rest of Jets nation, as the real season begins. I could write at nauseum about how dreadful the Jets were and how Adam Gase (along with the rest of the Jets coaching staff), or how Sam Darnold continues to fail to progress as a signal caller in the NFL, or how most of the J-E-T-S faithful aren’t truly fans of the team. Rather than waste energy doing that, I’ll be optimistic and take a deep dive into what a successful offseason could look like. Joe Douglas in my eyes gets a pass for the 2020 offseason, three players who could’ve help win games (Josh Doctson, C.J. Mosley, and Leo Koloamatangi) and could’ve been starters at points in the season, had his first two draft picks (Mekhi Becton and Denzel Mims) sidelined for important parts of the season, and of course, Adam Gase coached the roster Douglas put together. Now, Douglas gets to hire a coach for the first time as a general manager, has the fourth most

Yankees fans should go through their closets and pick out a funeral outfit just in case DJ LeMahieu moves on and gets paid by another team other than the Bombers. As nightmarish as that might be for Yankee fans, it is a fantasy that could become a reality sooner rather than later. Assuming the Yankees won’t budge on their offer for LeMahieu and he leaves breaking the hearts of most of the fanbase (like Cano in 2013) the question becomes how do the Yankees field a contending team for 2021? According to Spotrac, the Bombers would have $47.2M to work with under the $210M luxury tax. That $210M number looks like the depths of hell for the Yankees because of the pandemic. Acting out of financial flexibility instead of need to field a championship roster, the fans won’t care, fans only care about the success on the field. After getting Gerrit Cole last December, the feeling around the Bronx was that the Evil Empire was back, with the Death Star “fully operational.” Instead, the Death Star