Today on Pinstripe Alley - 1/19/23

I know that I’ve been writing about the Yankees for a long time at this point. But few things drive that point home more than the retirement — on the same day, no less — of two veteran big leaguers who I remember discussing as Baby Bombers when I started at Pinstripe Alley over a decade ago.* I don’t think I ever thought that David Phelps or Adam Warren would become longtime starters or anything, but they both turned in very nice careers! A combined 690 games and 13.9 rWAR is nothing to sniff your nose at, and both were simply effective guys to have around. Best of luck to them both in their futures!

*For the record, I still think that the Yankees should have given either of them a shot as early as 2011 instead of weirdly acquiring the totally-whatever Brian Gordon when they were hurting for pitching. I don’t care that he had hitting experience and they were about to play in a National League park! Anyway.

Today on the site, Sam will muse on DJ LeMahieu’s Yankees career and likely just over the halfway mark, Josh will offer his rebuttal to a recent FanGraphs article that argued in favor of a Harrison Bader extension, and John will continue our “Next-Best Yankees Playoff Games of the Past 25 Years” with another classic from 2019 that kept the season alive. Later on, Malachi will try to pin down which matchups might be best for Isiah Kiner-Falefa in (ideally) a reserve role, and Esteban will lay out an interesting possible role for Michael King at the beginning of 2023.

Questions/Prompts:

1. Were you more of a David Phelps or Adam Warren guy a decade ago when they were Yankees prospects?

2. What was your favorite sitcom growing up?