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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
- 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?
- 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