Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 2)

By Ryan Bologna
Feb. 3, 2021
New York Sports Nation

Since his break out sea­son in 2017 Aaron Hicks has been a qual­i­ty play­er for the Yan­kees. With the way much of the fan­base speaks about him you would not think that to be the case.

Hicks receives a lot of crit­i­cism because his tra­di­tion­al stats like bat­ting aver­age are not flashy, which is why many fans might scoff at my notion that he should bat lead­off. This is exac­er­bat­ed by the fact that DJ LeMahieu is a pro­to­typ­i­cal lead­off hit­ter in the mind of tra­di­tion­al base­ball fans.

In this era of base­ball there are many oth­er ways to eval­u­ate a play­er that are straight up just bet­ter rep­re­sent play­ers abil­i­ties. Sin­gles, dou­bles, triples and home runs all count the same on a player’s bat­ting aver­age while a walk is not account­ed for. This does not mean that bat­ting aver­age is com­plete­ly worth­less and some­one bat­ting over .300 is not impres­sive, it just means that it is not the most accu­rate stat to rep­re­sent a player’s performance.

Many Yan­kees fans are old school and they use bat­ting aver­age as their main stat to eval­u­ate play­ers. That is what leads to the crit­i­cism of Hicks. But because fans are not look­ing at things he does well his val­ue to the team is under-appreciated.

Many say the $10 mil­lion price tag to Hicks is too much, but that can not be more untrue. Corey Klu­ber is get­ting paid more than Hicks in 2021 and he has not pitched a full year since 2018. Hicks on his price tag is a bar­gain for the Yankees.

Hicks sees the plate real­ly well. He has post­ed a 15.1% walk rate since 2017, which is 12th in the league in that span. He is also in the top 10 for walk rate since 2018. To paint a pic­ture even fur­ther of how good Hicks’ eye is, he was in the 97th per­centile in 2018 and the 99th per­centile in 2020 for walk rate.

What does this mean? Hicks has one of the best eyes at the plate and gets on base at an elite rate, which is exact­ly what you want from your lead­off hit­ter. Hicks is also just a straight up pro­duc­tive hit­ter, he has a 123 weight­ed runs cre­at­ed plus (wRC+) since 2017, which is not elite but sol­id, so it is not like walks are the only thing he provides.

Now that Hicks’ strengths as a play­er are estab­lished, let’s talk about why the best line­up con­struc­tion for the Yan­kees would have Hicks in the lead off spot. Below is my ide­al line­up con­struc­tion for the Yankees:

1) Aaron Hicks CF
2) Aaron Judge RF
3) DJ LeMahieu 2B
4) Gian­car­lo Stan­ton DH
5) Luke Voit 1B
6) Gley­ber Tor­res 2B
7) Gio Urshela 3B
8) Gary Sanchez C
9) Clint Fra­zier LF

I could be talked into some swaps in the low­er half. I also think Gary Sanchez could be in for a bounce­back year and could see him­self get­ting moved up in the order with a hot start.

That top half of the line­up is some­thing I would love to see and I think it would result in a ton of leads ear­ly in games for the Yan­kees. As for LeMahieu, some might think that mov­ing him down is a shot at him when it is not. With the rate LeMahieu puts the bat on the ball I real­ly like him bat­ting with run­ners on base.

Yan­kees fans should know how well LeMahieu hits with run­ners in scor­ing posi­tion. Him hit­ting third behind Hicks and Aaron Judge would put him into more of those sit­u­a­tions, espe­cial­ly in the first inning. If that doesn’t hap­pen, then there is a good chance that Judge just hit a home run and the Yan­kees are already up 2–0 two bat­ters into the game.

The upside of this for Hicks is that rather than being in the mid­dle of the line­up and fans desir­ing some­one that will hit in those run­ners on base more often than he does, he can be the table set­ter. In this line­up he would be on base at a high rate for the Yan­kees best hit­ters in Judge, LeMahieu, Stan­ton and Voit. I think every Yan­kees fan wants to see those play­ers at the plate with run­ners on base as much as possible.

You want your best hit­ters at the plate with run­ners on base. Hicks would pro­vide that in the lead off spot, and it would be wise for the Yan­kees to con­struct their line­up in a way that pro­vides the best oppor­tu­ni­ties to score runs.

By Ryan Bologna
Feb. 17, 2021
New York Sports Nation

Many thought the Yan­kees could have used one more arm in the bullpen when this off­sea­son started.

After New York squared away the high­er pri­or­i­ty moves they want­ed to make with DJ LeMahieu, Corey Klu­ber and Jame­son Tail­lon, they trad­ed Adam Ottavino.

That Ottavi­no trade indi­cat­ed that the Yan­kees were not done for the off­sea­son. He was owed $9 mil­lion for the last year on his con­tract and the Yan­kees did not trust him enough in the play­offs and also pre­dom­i­nant­ly used him against right­ies. Ottavi­no is not a bad pitch­er, but for the usage the Yan­kees got out of him his con­tract was not worth it.

Weeks lat­er we found out what the Yan­kees did in the bullpen to make up for Ottavino’s depar­ture. They signed relief pitch­ers Dar­ren O’Day and Justin Wil­son. O’day’s con­tract costs $2.45 mil­lion for lux­u­ry tax pur­pos­es while the cost of Wilson’s deal is not con­firmed yet but believed to be for around $2–3 million.

These are not splash moves by any means, but even if we assume Wilson’s deal is for $3 mil­lion both of those deals come to less than $6 mil­lion on the lux­u­ry tax pay­roll. So both of these deals com­bined cost less than Ottavi­no did by him­self. Not to men­tion that there is a chance the Yan­kees will trust both of these pitch­ers more than Ottavino.

So it looks like Bri­an Cash­man might have improved the depth of the bullpen while also cre­at­ing more pay­roll flex­i­bil­i­ty. It could prove to be a smart move, and maybe it cre­at­ed enough room to bring Brett Gard­ner back.

Some­thing else to note is that O’Day is a righty and Wil­son is a lefty. So this cre­ates more options for Aaron Boone to go to in var­i­ous situations.

Wil­son is a for­mer Yan­kee. He had a good sea­son for the Yan­kees in 2015 before get­ting trad­ed to the Tigers for Chad Green and Luis Ces­sa. This year the Yan­kees could use Wil­son in matchup based sit­u­a­tions in ear­li­er innings before Green, Zack Brit­ton and Arold­is Chap­man come into the game.

Many Yan­kees fans know O’Day from his days in Bal­ti­more. He is a sidewinder who could essen­tial­ly step into the role Ottavi­no used to have and be used against right­ies. O’Day also does not strug­gle with walk­ing bat­ters as much as Ottavi­no does. So maybe he will even be an improvement.

These moves are not as notable as some of the oth­ers this off­sea­son, but qui­et­ly Cash­man has cre­at­ed more flex­i­bil­i­ty in the bullpen for the 2021 season.

By Ryan Bologna
March 3, 2021
New York Sports Nation

Gary Sánchez is arguably the most polar­iz­ing play­er on the Yan­kees. Since his break­out after being called up in 2016 he has had an up and down career, most recent­ly hav­ing a very bad sea­son in 2020.

My view on Sánchez is that 2021 is his year to either sink or swim. But despite the strug­gles I am opti­mistic about what Sánchez can do for the Yan­kees this year.

Gary Sanchez DESTROYS this ⚾!#YANKSonYES LIVE https://t.co/2NGnVkw7Bh pic.twitter.com/Tb7xWOdJwh

— YES Net­work (@YESNetwork) March 1, 2021

The first notion I hear a lot about Sánchez from many fans is that he has not been good since 2017. This is bla­tant­ly untrue. Sánchez had an .841 OPS with a 116 wRC+ and had the most home runs by a catch­er at 34 in just 106 games played in 2019. That is unde­ni­ably a good sea­son, espe­cial­ly when you con­sid­er what all of the oth­er catch­ers around the league typ­i­cal­ly do.

I brought up 2019 because it shows that despite what many think, in the last 162 game base­ball sea­son Gary Sánchez was a good play­er. I know I did not address his defense yet, but bear with me because I will.

On Thurs­day Green­wich’s Parks & Recre­ation Dept held a pub­lic hear­ing with the tree war­den con­cern­ing Ever­source’s request to move three trees on Indi­an Field Road.

Deputy Tree War­den Steven Gospodi­noff said the three trees in dis­cus­sion are Nor­way Maples, approx­i­mate­ly 17 inch­es in diameter.

Ever­source request­ed to remove the trees so access an area that until 2012 was acces­si­ble to their trucks. Since then the trees and a guard rail have pre­vent­ed access to equipment.

A pow­er out­age last Sep­tem­ber was also cit­ed as a rea­son to upgrade util­i­ties in that area, which they say is only pos­si­ble with trucks.

“The one out­age last Sep­tem­ber, I think it was like 40,000 cus­tomers went out,” Pat Tra­cy from Ever­source said. “We are under­go­ing a recon­struc­tion of part of that to pre­vent dam­ages in the future. To do that we need to access, which is blocked by a guard rail off the side of the road.”

Tracey Alston, com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions spe­cial­ist for Ever­source, said that upgrad­ing the equip­ment is intend­ed to pre­vent a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion to what hap­pened in the pow­er out­age last September.

“There cur­rent­ly is a project to upgrade as well as assist with reli­a­bil­i­ty and con­tin­ued ser­vice down here,” Alston said. “We don’t want a rehash of last year, so there’s cur­rent­ly an ongo­ing project to upgrade equip­ment and this is all part of the plan.”

Alston said that Ever­source has been work­ing with the Town to remove the guard rail and replace it with a gate, but the access would still be blocked to trucks if the trees were left there.

“Even if you remove the guard rail the trees are still block­ing access for the util­i­ty vehi­cles to actu­al­ly be able to access the path,” Alston said.

Green­wich res­i­dents won­dered if this was a one time event, or if trucks would con­tin­u­al­ly need to access the area after the upgrades were completed.

“It would be ongo­ing main­te­nance so it wouldn’t be a one time thing,” Alston said. “There is cur­rent­ly a small walk path that’s kind of been over­grown and there’s nowhere for trucks to actu­al­ly be able to get off of the road to access our equipment.”

Tra­cy said that part of the prob­lem is with trees in sight lines. She said when a truck is pulling out, the trees block views of oncom­ing cars, cre­at­ing a safe­ty hazard.

Green­wich res­i­dent Chris­tine Surette pro­posed hav­ing some­one with a high-visu­al jack­et direct traf­fic while the truck pulls out as an alter­na­tive solu­tion to the obstruct­ed view.

JoAnn Messi­na, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Green­wich Tree Con­ser­van­cy said her group would be will­ing to assist Ever­source if they were will­ing to work with them on replant­i­ng in that area.

Ms. Alston said replant­i­ng is some­thing Ever­source might be will­ing to do.

Mr. Gospodi­noff said a final writ­ten deci­sion will be made and emailed to those in atten­dance and those that request­ed a pub­lic hear­ing by Tuesday.

A plaque was unveiled above the kind­ness rock gar­den at West­ern Mid­dle School in ded­i­ca­tion to Steven Sudell on Tuesday.

Bar­bara Jacowl­eff, who taught an advi­sor base class that ded­i­cat­ed their com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice for Steven, described what the kind­ness rock gar­den means for West­ern Mid­dle School.

“The rock gar­den was cre­at­ed as a trib­ute to Steven but also in an effort to keep his lega­cy of com­pas­sion alive,” Jacowl­eff said, adding that the gar­den rep­re­sent­ed who Steven was as a per­son and will help the Town remem­ber him.

“We want Steven to be remem­bered as some­one who rep­re­sent­ed the heart of West­ern Mid­dle School and exem­pli­fied com­pas­sion,” Jacowl­eff said.

The kind­ness rock gar­den was put in front of the school to encour­age peo­ple to be kind to each oth­er and set the tone for the day as stu­dents walked in.

Jacowl­eff said that before she met Steven, she asked the class what they want­ed to do for their com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and every stu­dent in the class want­ed to raise mon­ey for him. This led to the Steven Sudell Sprint, which raised $8,000 in three weeks.

The class also sold war­rior t‑shirts through­out Green­wich with the help of assis­tant teacher Nicole Pin­cus, which raised $4,000 for Steven in three weeks.

Jacowl­eff said the community’s over­whelm­ing response was what her real­ize how spe­cial Steven was. She also cit­ed an instance when a girl at West­ern gave her a let­ter to give to Steven when he was under­go­ing treatment.

Jacowl­eff read the let­ter before pass­ing it along to Steven. She said the let­ter described a time in ele­men­tary school when the girl had felt like an out­cast and sat alone at lunch. She said Steven noticed this and went to sit with her at lunch. With­in a few months that stu­dent had a table full of friends to sit with.

Jacowl­eff said Steven not only dis­played tough­ness, but also was car­ing for every­one else, evi­dent in his fundrais­er sell­ing socks and cre­at­ing draw­ings to bright­en oth­er people’s days.

“When Steven was bat­tling can­cer, instead of lay­ing in bed feel­ing sor­ry for him­self he was rais­ing mon­ey,” Jacowl­eff said.

Steven’s close friend Jack Ryan spoke at the unveil­ing and said the gar­den and plaque rep­re­sent­ed the way that Steven treat­ed every­one around him.

Steven’s moth­er Amy Sudell said that it meant a lot to her that the whole school ral­lied around the fam­i­ly. She also said that she hopes that the gar­den can make days eas­i­er for stu­dents as they walk into the school.

The bronze plaque in the front of West­ern Mid­dle School was paid for through fundrais­ing, which Jacowl­eff not­ed was a reflec­tion of the Town’s con­tin­ued sup­port of the Sudell family.

“It’s a tes­ta­ment to how well-loved the Sudell fam­i­ly is in the Town of Green­wich,” Jacowl­eff said.

By Ryan Bologna
April 14, 2019
Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut Newswrit­ing II

There are about 9,000 fed­er­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty zones in the coun­try, 72 in Con­necti­cut, and Mans­field is the only rur­al town in the state.

The Town of Mans­field and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut are col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Con­necti­cut Eco­nom­ic Resource Cen­ter to deter­mine what should be done in the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones. Spokesper­son Stephanie Reitz said UConn is giv­ing $25,000 to CERC in this col­lab­o­ra­tion. Mans­field Coun­cil­man David Freud­mann said the town is giv­ing $35,000 to CERC.

Town Man­ag­er Der­rik Kennedy said the fed­er­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty zones help cer­tain select­ed areas in devel­op­ment and it is good news that Mans­field and UConn applied for and received an oppor­tu­ni­ty zone.

“It’s a real­ly great thing,” Kennedy said. “Through the fed­er­al government’s tax act two years ago, now these oppor­tu­ni­ty zones were cre­at­ed.  What it does is it pro­vides high-net worth indi­vid­u­als across the coun­try to invest in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment jobs and infra­struc­ture in these fed­er­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty zones.”

Kennedy said he wants the town to lead the way and start a trend that oth­er towns follow.

“I want to be the first town to real­ly go for­ward with these oppor­tu­ni­ty zones and real­ly make this a thing,” Kennedy said.

Freud­mann said he is all for devel­op­ment until tax­pay­ers are relied on.

“If the devel­op­ers want to come and spend their own dime on it, I’m fine with it,” Freud­mann said. “I’m all for devel­op­ment. I’m against tak­ing from the taxpayer’s pock­et to pay for it.”

The four areas of focused devel­op­ment are in the north­west quad­rant of Mans­field.  Four Cor­ners and King Hill Road are the two areas on town prop­er­ty while the Mans­field Depot Cam­pus and the uni­ver­si­ty Tech Park are the two UConn properties.

Freud­mann said that the tem­plate for Four Cor­ners is the exact same one that was used for the Down­town Storrs area as well. He said that the project involved 3/4 mil­lion dol­lars just on pre­lim­i­nary work, and tax­pay­ers are still pay­ing for it today.

Kennedy said there is a lot of poten­tial growth in the Four Cor­ners area because of the recent exten­sion of sew­er and water lines to the intersection.

“With­out the util­i­ties, you’re not going to get a lot of growth on telling peo­ple that they are going to have to have their indi­vid­u­al­ized sep­tic tanks and try to fig­ure out where they’re going to get their well water from,” Kennedy said. “Now with util­i­ties there, they could just tap in like they’re in a city and go.”

Kennedy said Mansfield’s plan of con­ser­va­tion and devel­op­ment, which is a 10-year plan that every town is required to have, influ­enced the plans in Four Corners.

“We had to make sure that the zon­ing regs allowed for the prop­er devel­op­ment in that area that we were antic­i­pat­ing based on what the plan of con­ser­va­tion and devel­op­ment said they want it to be,” Kennedy said.

Over the course of the plan of con­ser­va­tion and devel­op­ment, the Four Cor­ners area should look sim­i­lar to how down­town Storrs does after res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, Kennedy said.

Kennedy also said the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones will help decrease the town’s reliance on state aid, which is present because of all of the land that is not tax­able because it is owned by UConn.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty zones might ben­e­fit UConn as well because of the devel­op­ment it would attract that it wouldn’t be able to do oth­er­wise, Kennedy said.

“It might be that shot in the arm that UConn couldn’t do by itself in attract­ing entre­pre­neurs and oth­er types of build­ings that are going to go on your tech park.” Kennedy said.

May­or Paul Shapiro said because of unique cir­cum­stances the town was able to receive an oppor­tu­ni­ty zone.

“Because the cen­sus tract that includes Four Cor­ners includes our res­i­dence halls,” Shapiro said. “Stu­dents, even if they have rich par­ents, don’t have mon­ey. Because of that strange fac­toid, we became an oppor­tu­ni­ty zone. We applied for this des­ig­na­tion. We were surprised.”

Shapiro said that build­ing hous­ing in Four Cor­ners will help attract investors and ben­e­fit residents.

“If done right, Four Cor­ners can work real­ly well by offer­ing mul­ti-fam­i­ly hous­ing, per­haps dif­fer­ent options than [what is] avail­able in Storrs Cen­ter, and it will take the bur­den off of those of us who pay res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty tax­es,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro men­tioned UConn fac­ul­ty mem­bers devel­op­ing tech­nol­o­gy as an exam­ple of poten­tial investors, along with oth­er options.

Reitz said there are no plans right now for the Mans­field Depot Cam­pus and the Uni­ver­si­ty Tech Park, which are the two oppor­tu­ni­ty zones on UConn’s cam­pus, but the uni­ver­si­ty is mak­ing their best use of them in their cur­rent state.

“For now, we’re max­i­miz­ing our use of sev­er­al build­ings with research and spe­cial­ized engi­neer­ing pro­grams and would be open to ideas from the pri­vate sec­tor as ways to use oth­er parts of the prop­er­ty,” Reitz said.

Freud­mann said he sus­pects that UConn would like the town to take over the Depot Cam­pus prop­er­ty and he is con­cerned about contamination.

“UConn would love for the town to take it over,” Freud­mann said. “It’s prob­a­bly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. I’m not claim­ing any­thing UConn did caused that. It’s from the old Mans­field Train­ing School.”

CERC is meet­ing with prop­er­ty own­ers and advis­ing the town coun­cil based on data analy­sis on what to do in these areas, Kennedy said.

After gath­er­ing all of the infor­ma­tion on the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, CERC will then give that to investors to get feed­back on what they would be inter­est­ed in doing, Kennedy said.

Freud­mann said he had some con­cerns about the col­lab­o­ra­tion and is weary about UConn’s involve­ment with CERC.

“Why does the town have to get involved in it?” Freud­mann said. “The very fact that UConn is kick­ing in $25,000 to this study. UConn wouldn’t give a dime to the town.”

Court­ney Hen­dric­son, vice pres­i­dent of munic­i­pal ser­vices at CERC, said that Mans­field is dif­fer­ent com­pared to oth­er areas that have been des­ig­nat­ed as oppor­tu­ni­ty zones.

“Mans­field is unique in that they are not only one of the few rur­al oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, but that the town is being proac­tive,” Hen­dric­son said.

Hen­dric­son said that CERC has met with prop­er­ty own­ers, UConn staff and local busi­ness­es seek­ing invest­ment. The goal is to get a wide range of voic­es and allow them to tell CERC what they want to see done in the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, she said.

William Rood, a Mans­field res­i­dent, was not ful­ly famil­iar with the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, but he said it is some­thing that the town should jump on.

“It seems like a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty,” Rood said. “I don’t know all the ins and outs of how it works, but if there is a chance for the town to devel­op areas that they wouldn’t be able to on their own, then steps should be tak­en to take advan­tage of the opportunity.”

Rood also said that he remem­bers when Mans­field didn’t have the Down­town Storrs area and that more devel­op­ment like that would be a pos­i­tive move for the town.  He said oth­er res­i­dents he knows might not be informed enough about what the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones mean.

Kennedy said he noticed oth­er towns not tak­ing as much action or tak­ing advan­tage of these oppor­tu­ni­ty zones like Mans­field is.

“It’s such a huge deal,” Kennedy said. “A lot of towns I don’t think real­ize how big of a deal this is, and that’s why we’re try­ing to get out in front of it.”