Today on Pinstripe Alley - 3/9/21

Did you miss the off-day with no fake baseball? If yes, then good news! There’s more fake baseball today! If no, then, well, I don’t know, please enjoy passing the time with this random video I found of all 257 Yankees homers hit in 2017 (shout-out to Ji-Man Choi’s two-dinger cameo at 31:19).

This morning, Peter will look into the implications of MLB returning to its original 2020 plan of a 26-man roster rather than the 28 we saw in 2021, and speaking of 2017, Tom will preview the 2021 season of everyone’s favorite enormous baseball-bashing boy, Aaron Judge. Later on, I’ll look back on A-Rod’s 2009 hip surgery for the history post, and Cooper will break down a recent interview about the upcoming Triple-A season from Scranton RailRiders president John Adams.*

*No relation to the president John Adams. (Or the other one.) (We think.)

Today’s Matchup

New York Yankees at Detroit Tigers
Time: 1:05 PM EST
TV: None (available on MLB.tv Audio via WXYT)
Venue: Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium

Fun Questions

1. A thought experiment: suppose you were presented with two buttons regarding the fate of Aaron Judge’s career. Assume he is a career Yankee in this hypothetical. Button No. 1 would lock in career numbers for him that match David Justice. Button No. 2 would let the chips fall as they may, and he could either top Justice or fall below. Which would you press?
2. Same prompt as above, but this time with Judge and José Bautista.

For reference, Justice & Bautista’s numbers compared to Judge now (acknowledging that Judge will be 29 in April and his rate stats will eventually decline regardless):
Justice: 1,610 G, .279/.378/.500, 305 HR, 129 OPS+, 40.6 rWAR
Bautista: 1,798 G, .247/.361/.475, 344 HR, 124 OPS+, 36.7 rWAR
Judge: 424 G, .272/.390/.558, 119 HR, 150 OPS+, 20.2 rWAR