Frauds?

I'm still going to do Trip Guides for the NHL teams in the newly-started 2019-20 season, because I'm a New Jersey Devils fan. But I won't do them for the NBA teams, because I've been an NBA free agent since the New Jersey Nets moved to Brooklyn in 2012, and, the way the schedule works out, it's just too much work this week alone.

Does that make me a fraud? Not like Brian Cashman is a fraud.

Cashman is a fraud because his job is to help the New York Yankees win the World Series. The main part of that job is to get the players necessary to do it. Part of that main part of that job is to give the Yankees the best available starting pitching rotation.

He could have gotten Justin Verlander and/or Gerrit Cole, but let the Houston Astros get them both.

Letting the Astros get Verlander made all the difference in the World (Series) in 2017. It didn't make a difference in Game 2 of the current American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Astros, although the Astros still won the game.

But not getting Cole -- who is a free agent after this season, and will be available again -- cost the Yankees Game 3. They didn't hit, and ended up losing 4-1, thus throwing away the home-field advantage they'd taken from the Astros by beating Zack Greinke and winning Game 1.

Of course, Cashman is not solely to blame. James Paxton, whom he did get, did poorly in his start in Game 2. Luis Severino, who was supposed to be, as Arsenal fans would say, "like a new signing" when he finally came off the Injured List, didn't do a whole lot better in his start in Game 3.

And what happened to the bats? What happened to the Bronx Bombers? What happened to Aaron Boone's "fucking savages in that box"? Check out these on-base percentages:

* Giancarlo Stanton, .500, 2-for-4, 1 home run, 1 RBI, but injured and missed Games 2 and 3.
* Cameron Maybin .500, 1-for-3.
* Gleyber Torres, .500, 5-for-12 with 2 walks, 2 home runs, 6 RBIs.
* DJ LeMahieu, .467, 5-for-13 with 2 walks.
* Aaron Hicks, .400, 0-for-3, but with 2 walks.
* Aaron Judge, .357, 4-for-13 with a walk and an RBI.

Those guys have gotten the job done. These guys have not:

* Gio Urshela, .250, 2-for-11, although a walk, a homer, and an RBI.
* Edwin Encarnacion, .214, 1-for-12, although 2 walks.
* Brett Gardner, .154, 2-for-13.
* Didi Gregorius, .083, 1-for-12.
* Gary Sanchez, .077, 1-for-13.

So of the 8 guys who've started all 3 games, 5 have gotten on base 1/4 of the time or less. That is unacceptable.

This team had a 1996 or 2009 vibe all year long. They picked a hell of a time to turn into the 2006 or 2007 ALDS Yankees. (In those 2 series combined, the Yankees scored 30 runs in 8 games, winning 2 of them.)

"Hold on a minute, Uncle Mike," I can hear you saying. "Aren't you frequently saying that sometimes, we just have to credit the opposition for being good enough to beat us?"

Yes. But that doesn't apply to the New York Yankees. They have the resources to get the players good enough to beat anybody. They won 103 games this season, and swept a Division Champion in the AL Division Series. They had their chances to win Games 2 and 3 of this ALCS, and flopped in both.

Game 4 was supposed to be tonight, but the weather had other ideas. This will enable the Yankees to start Game 1 winner Masahiro Tanaka again, on full rest. It will also enable the Astros to start Greinke again.

The day after he pitched, I went on Twitter and said that Tanaka, not Jacob deGrom of the Mets, was the best pitcher in New York, because deGrom had never faced the kind of overwhelming pressure that comes from pitching for the Yankees in the postseason. (No, not even in the 2015 World Series did he face it. The Mets in the World Series do not face the kind of pressure the Yankees face in every round: Win or you have failed.)

And I spent 4 days telling Met fans how stupid they are for saying that deGrom was the best pitcher in baseball. The details don't matter.

The Yankees are going to need Tanaka to be the pitcher he was in Game 1, and the hitters to hit like they did in Game 1. And then they are going to need them to back Paxton up the same way in Game 5, and then whoever starts Game 6 and, presuming we don't take the next 3 straight, Game 7.

All season long, the Yankees gave us hope that maybe, just maybe, this was going to be the year when Cashman's transactions finally paid off.

If they don't, then they are a team of frauds.

And Cashman will be the biggest fraud of all.

UPDATE: Little did I know just how fraudulent the Astros were.