Yankees Twitter Reacts (Feb. 16-22)
Welcome back to Yankees Twitter Reacts, my column filled with the best and worst takes, funniest tweets, reactions to Yankees news, and everything in between from our beloved Yankees Twitter. I want this to be as fan interactive as possible, so remember to hashtag #BPYankeesTwitter or tag me at @T_Danks_to join the conversation and submit the best and worst tweets of the week!
It finally feels like baseball season is starting to fully return, as Yankees and baseball news alike comes in bunches every single day. There was plenty of that this week - between Manny Machado's deal with the Padres to Tommy Kahnle's insane caffeine addiction, here's this week's edition of Yankees Twitter Reacts.
Check out last week's breakdown in case you missed it.
NEWS OF THE WEEK - MACHADO IS TAKING HIS TALENTS TO... SAN DIEGO?
As we all know, All-Star Manny Machado finally signed a 10-year, $300 million deal with the San Diego Padres on Tuesday. This deal was surprising not only because he got the mega-money he was looking for after months of inactivity on the free agent market, but also because he signed with the Padres - a team that wasn't expected to be in the Machado sweepstakes. Yankees fans were split on whether or not they even wanted Machado, making this a very interesting week in the world of Yankees Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Feinsand/status/1097920701850374145
YANKEES TWITTER REACTS TO THE SIGNING
On the @YankeesPodcast Twitter account, we posed the question to you guys: How do you feel about the deal? The tweet got 275 total responses, and here are some of the best....
https://twitter.com/YankeesPodcast/status/1097913136630427648
https://twitter.com/kylekokawski/status/1097965173669810179
https://twitter.com/Cody_Mullins8/status/1097914585565351936
https://twitter.com/MaheshNYCTO/status/1097913596967817217
https://twitter.com/EK315/status/1098077185162788865
https://twitter.com/willyjrh/status/1097979351637856261
https://twitter.com/spumoniking/status/1097925414729576450
https://twitter.com/NYYChaseFor28/status/1097923149113503745
And how could any of us forget what this little guy had to say on the topic...
https://twitter.com/SNYtv/status/1097920225876590592
TOMMY KAHNLE DROPS HIS INSANE CAFFEINE HABIT
In other (and clearly more important) Yankees news, Lindsey Adler tweeted early Thursday about how Tommy Kahnle dropped his caffeine habit this offseason. Doesn't seem like a big deal, right? That is, until you find out what this guy has been drinking. Five Red Bull's and two coffees a day for 5-6 years? Holy smokes. I have so many questions about this, as did the rest of Yankees Twitter...
https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/1098603350176817156
https://twitter.com/Andrew_Rotondi/status/1098613600472743936
https://twitter.com/RyanGorrie/status/1098669737385607168
https://twitter.com/tiller_daniel/status/1098669465091198976
https://twitter.com/vitanarry/status/1098633648872534017
https://twitter.com/EricKopp21/status/1098621162995757056
https://twitter.com/FacadeViews/status/1098622379696230400
After posting a combined 1.7 WAR with the White Sox and Yankees in 2017, Kahnle was lost in 2018 and actually spent more time with the RailRiders than the Yankees. Let's hope the reduced heart rate for Kahnle will be a good thing in 2019.
UPDATES FROM YANKEE CAMP
Now that spring training is in full force, Twitter is a great place to catch up on what's going on at camp. The best people to follow for these updates are Yanks reporters like Bryan Hoch, Coley Harvey, and Brendan Kuty to name a few. Here are some of the highlights from this week:
https://twitter.com/BryanHoch/status/1098617292412338176
https://twitter.com/ColeyHarvey/status/1097930997658779648
https://twitter.com/BrendanKutyNJ/status/1098284774756675584
https://twitter.com/BryanHoch/status/1098301395550253059
YANKEES ZIPS PROJECTIONS
This week on The Bronx Pinstripes Show, Dan Szymborski joined and talked about some of the 2019 ZiPS projections for the Yankees. ZiPS is a player projection system that Szymborski created, and it uses growth and decline curves based on player type to find trends. Here are a couple tweets where you can learn more about some of the 2019 projections for the Yanks.
https://twitter.com/fangraphs/status/1097858492621340676
https://twitter.com/BronxPinstripes/status/1098565758379020288
https://twitter.com/YankeesPodcast/status/1098338552742666244
WORST TAKE OF THE WEEK
https://twitter.com/JoeVa100/status/1098861998949961730
The most popular cold take of them all - that the Yankees are cheap! While Joe from Brooklyn does bring up some numbers to defend his argument, the most important one is that the Yankees are expected to be top three in the league in 2019 payroll. That fact alone doesn't deserve the adjective "cheap." This would all be great if we were playing MLB The Show, but you have to be realistic. A $220 million payroll is a lot for any team, regardless of the revenue. Heck, there are eight teams that are expected to have a payroll of less than $100 million! The notion that the Yankees are cheap just doesn't make sense, despite the mass amount of revenue they bring in.
BEST TAKE OF THE WEEK
https://twitter.com/nick_serrone/status/1098082590123270144
This is probably the best way to sum up the Machado deal. It seemed pretty clear based on all of the reports that the Yankees were not willing to give Machado close to $300 million, let alone 10 years. While I'm sure Machado did actually want to be a Yankee, he did what was best for him - and he chased the money. As Nick points out, Robinson Cano also chased the money and has not been to the playoffs since. Congrats to Manny for getting his money, but it's clear he didn't go to the Padres to win. The Yankees now move on to bigger and better things.
FUNNIEST TWEETS OF THE WEEK
https://twitter.com/CharlieYankee28/status/1098648638639620101
https://twitter.com/JakeM0NTGOMERY/status/1098621895166038016
https://twitter.com/SpooKy_vx/status/1097951488402485249
Thanks for reading this week's edition of Yankees Twitter Reacts! Remember, if you see something that you think deserves to be in the column next week, be sure to hashtag #BPYankeesTwitter or tag me on Twitter @T_Danks_ ! And be sure to listen to the most recent episode of The Bronx Pinstripes Show: http://smarturl.it/YankeesPodcast