F*&! Joe Torre

The New Blog

2008-04-23T18:22:00.002-05:00

For anyone still interested, After the Revolution was taken, so I named the new blog The Joe is Dead, Long Live the Joe. That wound up presenting some problems as far as an address was concerned. Here it is http://wwwnewjoe.blogspot.com Please note that there is no dot between www and newjoe. If you put in the expected dot, it will take you elsewhere--to some guy who has lost or tried to lose alot of weight. Anyway, I've been slow starting and the blogspot is pretty sparse (no Zack to help make it fancy), but I have begun my critique of the new order. Hope to see you all there some time this season.

AFTER THE REVOLUTION

2007-10-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

With the passing of Torre to Los Angeles (Scott Proctor felt a sudden stabbing pain in his pitching arm) and of AROD to supposedly "greener" pastures (though I'm betting with the Yankees out of the mix, he won't get that 30m a year they were offering him), with the entry of Joe Girardi, a pitching rotation of 20 somethings (Chamberlain, Wang, Hughes, Kennedy and Rasner--especially if Pettite leaves), possible starting roles for Phillips (at third) and Duncan (at first) , all sorts of money suddenly available for signings in the next few years--Clemens, AROD, probably Pettite gone, maybe MO and PO as well, Farnsworth and Moose in their last year--it promises to be a Yankees Extreme Makeover, and I for one am really jazzed about it. The name of this post will be the name of the new blog beginning sometime in Spring Training and continuing through the season. All of this contingent upon me figuring out how to create a new blog, but I have several months.

I thought all along that Girardi was the best pick, had some doubts late about staying within this increasingly sentimental organization, but now that slow Joe is taking his act, his bench coach and who knows what else to LA, where the bloom will come entirley off the rose for all to see--I think Girardi is safe in his role as the anti-establishment choice. And once he starts kicking (and sitting) veteran butt, it will be clear that there is a new spirit blowing through the Bronx, one that knows the only victories that matter are the ones to come.

See you all, hear from you all, I sincerely hope, next season at Aftertherevolution.blogspot.com

TAKING IT PERSONAL

2007-10-19T15:18:00.000-05:00

Watching Slow Joe's news conference today (what manager holds a nationally covered news conference on the occasion of his firing?), I realized that I came to my present place of employment the same year Torre took over the Yankees and what is more the professional arc of my department uncannily mapped onto the arc of the Yankees fortunes. Perhaps that is why I have in recent years felt so keenly tied to them. For both organizations there was in the early to mid nineties an influx of new blood, the rush of a sense of shared purpose, and a corresponding rise to excellence. We were never able to live the Steinbrenner doctrine; we were never the world champs in our particular line of intellectual endeavor. But we became pretty good as a group; I venture to say very good. And then just about the time the Yankees started their long slow slide into underachievement, we experienced something of the same lapse into intellectual complacency, self satisfaction, and a sense of grievance against the very expectations we had helped to create for ourselves. We were still good, just like the Yankees; we may have evne become better on paper, just like the Yankees. But we had lost our edge, on a collective basis, in the professional field itself. We started to make decisions that violated the very principles of our own improvement. We catered to the Giambi's and the AROD's of the world, to the aura at the expense of the substance of excellence. And from this dual narrative skein, I derived one lesson about professional organizations:

1. Nothing corrodes guiding principles

2. Nothing imperils standards

3 Nothing produces the stench of hypocrisy

quite like the fetishism of personality.

Watching Joe field the questions of those fawning reporters, watching GM loser Steve Phillips and blowhard extraordinaire John Kruk trip all over their own tongues in describing the Yankees offer to Torre as an "insult," a 5 million dollar, elevator claused insult, a contract paying him 40% more per annum than any other manager in the game, but an insult, I realized as if for the first time that Torre has come to stand at the very center of the Yankee cult of personality. He manages the media so well they all say. Yes, indeed, much better than he manages the ballclub, and it is after all the media that can elevate your personality beyond the bounds of the office you hold or the part you play. As Torre himself said, self-described baseball haters were coming up to him in the streert and telling him they hoped he stayed, indicating that his purchase on the job now had startlingly little to do with the actual requirements of the job. Pundits were praising a quiet dignity that is but the other side of the comotose passivity that helped grease the skids since 2001, indicating that the excellence of Joe Torre in the public mind was less and less about the excellence of the team he piloted on the ballfield. Torre has in some sense, and temporarily to be sure, come to be bigger than the Yankees themselves, more important than the fortunes of the team, not least because he himself played a part in shrinking those fortunes over the last few years. And as I have blogged before, it is not just him, it is The Dynastics (Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettite, Clemens), though he of course fronts the group. As one by one this group whined about the possibility of Torre being fired, the media worried about whether they were being served, whether they would be happy with the outcome, whether they were being respected. It was as if the Yankees were no longer about the organization, their self-styled mission, the Bronx, New York City, or their nationwide fan base, it was about the psychic well-being of a small handful of mega-millionaires who were but a small part of the dynasty fashioned almost a decade ago. Is it any wonder that that same small group of players and the man who leads them should have lost, as the last 3 years clearly demonstrate, their competitive edge? Why do they so love Torre if not because he no longer pushes them out of their comfort zone? What is his repeated definition of the ALDS as a crapshoot about if not to allow his players to be comfortable with getting themselves bounced every year, usually by margins which evince that luck had nothing to do with it? I'm sure the late Johnny Oates used to tell his Rangers the same thing while the Yankees were beating their brains in every year. Once may be a crapshoot (98, 2005), twice may be a coincidence (99, 2006) but thrice begins to look like the law (2000, 2007).

Which brings us at last to the stench of hypocrisy. Because we like to assume the viability of meritocratic principles, the fetishism of personality--valuing people in distinction from rather than conformity with their accomplishments--necessarily breeds a virulent strain of hypocrisy. One never likes to see the object of glamorizing affection devalued, particularly since it incriminates one's own taste and judgment. So in the wake of the Detroit debacle last year, which unquestionably set this year's bar higher than the team wound up jumping, it was inevitable that people would take personally Joe's being held to the account they knew was coming. What you saw, as a result, was a series of defense strategies, as threadbare as they were predictable: asserting Joe wasn't responsible for the losses while conveniently forgetting the credit he got for the championships; emphasizing less tangibly baseball skills like managing the media and conveniently omitting to mention his massive tactical deficiencies (sports journalists ought to just say we like him, we really like him--it's the truth and it destroys their credibility as journalists, a twofer); insisting he got superstars to play team ball (actually they never played team defense; they couldn't hit situationally, which is the definition of team offense; I'll concede the bullpen operated as a team unit to blow games, but that's about it); he took the pressure off his players (yes, and as a result they became the posterboys for overpaid fat cat ballplayers).

Because the fetish of Torre draws upon the nostalgic fetish of the dynasty era, its toxic effects are likely to go on well past the now concluded tenure of torre himself. Already idiot columnists like Bob Klap-isch and Tom Ver-douche-i are insisting the Yankees must pay, and overpay, to ensure the services of Rivera and Posada, among the last of the Old Guard. But it is perhaps well to remember that when Torre was hired he had no previous connection to the Yankees. My point is not to do away with fetishism--sports fanaticism is in fact nothing else--rather to shift the fetish back where it belongs, onto the franchise or, as Seinfeld correctly puts it, onto the uniforms (there is no more proper fetish object than clothihg--ask Victoria's Secret). The front office must shift fan investment back to the pinstripes and to the players only insofar as they are wearing the pinstripes. When the last dynasty began, the players were thrilled to be Yankees. Now the Old Guard seems to believe the Yankees should be thrilled to have them, however they might perform when it counts.

It is for this reason that I have come to question my earlier recommendation that Girardi be made the new manager. Maybe we need to cut the ties to the dynasty altogether, as George did when he hired Torre. Maybe it should be La Russa or Valentine or somebody else, somebody who will manage the kids to measure their accomplishments in terms of the future of the greatest franchise in the world, rather than a past identified with a few increasingly obsolescent individuals.

I don't know if, as Michael comments, "the goal is attained and our work is done." The goal, as always, is to witness another championship. But certainly the avowed purpose of this blog is exhausted. I want to thank George and his boys for making Torre an offer that he couldn't accept, I want to thank slow joe himself for being crazy enough to turn it down. I want to thank you all for reading and responding. I've had just the best time doing this.

Farewell, farewell
To you who did,
You Lonely travellers all
The cold north wind
Will blow again
The winding road does call
Farewell, farewell

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE STEINBRENNER

2007-10-08T23:40:00.000-05:00

Dear George (if I may),

On behalf of sensible Yankee fans everywhere, let me first say, You promised! You promised if our beloved team flamed out once again in round one, you'd fire the man who has presided over what can only be called an historic run of Yankee post-season futility. When was the last time the Yankees reached the postseason 7 years in a row and failed to win a ring? The answer, never. Six times? Never. Five times, Never. Four times, never. Three times, then? Actually, never. Twice in a row is the longest streak of postseason failure before this one. If October is what counts, as Yankees folk like to say, then AROD is a piker compared to this guy when it comes to postseason foundering. Geez, George, remember when you almost fired Billy Martin for getting swept in his first World Series against the Big Red Machine? How could you not fire Torre for getting swept by the red Sox after being up 3-0?

The one thing at which Torre still excels is cultivating the national press, and in case you haven't heard, they have already started wringing their hands over his fate, wondering if you would really fire Joda, assuring fans you probably won't, making arguments in Torre's defense, even explaining why you really can't. Peter Gammons has recently emerged from his day job--Hall of Fame bathroom attendant to Theo Epstein--to forcefully defend Torre as only a Red Sox operative could. According to Gammons, striking a theme that is becoming quite the rage among the empty-headed blowhards known as sports pundits (I swear they make Rush Limbaugh sound like Albert Einstein by comparison), you can't fire Torre because of the players. The players revere him, the players love him, the players play for him. But if the players don't win for him, and they haven't done that for quite awhile, who cares how they feel? They play, presumably, for their obscene paychecks; if they don't win to ensure his obscene paycheck, they have no right and should entertain no expectation that they will call the tune. If the players claim he is blameless for this very expensive losing streak, that they and they alone are responsible for the embarrassment we have just witnessed, why in the world would anyone credit their input. Once they improve their mediocre defense, their poor situational hitting, their egregious bullpen work, they can take on the added responsibilty of determining mangerial policy and personnel. Until then, I think you should tell Jeter, Posada, Rivera et all to shut up and play! (and while they are at it play better).

Gammons goes on to warn darkly of a free agent revolt. If Torre is fired, Posada will be a Met within a week, Rivera will make you miserable in negotiations, AROD will opt out etc. Here is where you must approach the matter rationally and seize your opportunity. Remember, you brought Torre back this year in part so you could coax Clemens into accepting a 28M dollar prorated contract for 6 wins. How did that work out? Let Posada become a Met; he'll have Minyana crying in no time. You shouldn't be giving expensive new contracts to 36 year old catchers under any circumstances. Yes Jorge had a great offensive season this year, a miraculous one. But that's just the point. At 37, and without divine intervention, his offense is likely to drop off the shelf. His passed balls were way up this year, his runners thrown out were down and he swooned at the plate in the postseason, just like last year, and for the same reason. HE'S OLD AND HE WEARS DOWN. Even if he can still play next year, you'll have to go for at least two years and at 38, the chances that he'll stink far outweigh those that he'll still be an All-Star. Look at Jason Varitek. Posada was never the defensive catcher he was, and do you really want to pay through the nose for that offensive capability? Mo will make negotiations miserable? The best thing you and Cashman did was refuse to offer an extension until after the season. With an ERA of 3.15, a number of blown saves, a rising WHIP, an inability to come in with men on base, Rivera cannot lose much more ground and still be an elite closer. How many years do you want to offer him and how burned are you likely to be on the back end? If Mo wants to go, let him go. NOW IS THE TIME TO TURN THE PAGE. (As forAROD, if he wants to opt out, count your blessings and repeat after me, never has anyone done so much with so few men on base and so little with so many.)

The temptation to cling to dynastic glory spells the death of a franchise. Ask the Boston Celtics, ask the Chicago Bulls. For that matter, ask the New York Yankees of the 1960's. They hung onto Mantle and Tresh and Richardson and Ford and Kubek and Elston Howard, and having won 14 pennants in 16 years and 9 world championships during that span, they missed the postseason for 12 consecutive years before you yourself brought the franchise back to respectability. If you can't learn from the mistakes of those you proved wrong, what can you learn from? Of course there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in certain quarters if you showed the Old Guard the door. But that is the beauty part of firing Torre. The Old Guard will leave you and you can rebuild the empire without being seen to have violated any sentimental bond with the players. The future of the Yankees is named Hughes, Kennedy, Chamberlain, Wang, Ohlendorf, Sanchez, Cano, Duncan, Cabrera, Tabatha and others you have yet to acquire. Their loyalty to Torre is minimal, as minimal as his abilty to cultivate their talents. We already know what Joe Girardi can do with young players. He had the equivalent of a futures team over there in Florida and he almost got them to the playoffs. But the key word here is future. In every great enterprise, from the Roman Empire to the American space program, there is always a moment or a series of moments when its past is so compelling, so substantial, so impressive, its present so distressed, and its future so uncertain that it threatens to turn into an exercise in nostalgia, an undead organism constituted by its own fading memories. Now is such a moment for the Yankees. That dynasty, those championships that you are being asked to revivify by keeping a Rivera or a Posada or a Torre or even a Pettite, they happened not just yesterday, but last century, last millenium. They are now as dead as your chances of adding to their number with the last players who won them.

George, one of the great things about your ownership these last 35 years has been your understanding of what the Yankees are in a psychic sense. They are not merely a baseball team, not merely a business enterprise, not merely a metropolitan attraction. They are, and you know this, an ever renewed promise of triumph. It is precisely to renew that promise that you vowed to relieve Torre of his job if he failed yet again to deliver on its terms. If you are not to be responsible for breaking the pact that holds the empire together, you must be true to your word in this case. Nothing less than the future of the Yankees, as the promise of triumph, depends on your willingness to consign Torre and, if need be, his player acolytes, to the past they so dominated.

Reaching the postseason repeatedly since the last championship has made it harder to let go of that dynastic period, I understand. Every year it seems just within reach, rather like the American dream at the end of The Great Gatsby: next year "we will run faster, stretch out our arms further..." But if we too do not want to be "borne ceaselessly into the past," however magnificent that past was, we need to recognize when its over. Torre's inability to manage this team effectively is the living presentness of the dynasty's irrevocable pastness. He has to go, not just in spite of the Old Guard's wishes, but so that they will go as well. It's past time for a new Yankees order.

I ONLY HAVE MY WIFE

2007-10-08T12:57:00.000-05:00

to testify to this, but she will. Last night, between bites of the most delicious veal, I was screaming at the Yankee hitters through the first four innings: "Why do you idiots keep trying to pull this guys sinker; you can't fucking pull a sinker! Then Kevin Long, Yankees hitting coach was interviewed in the fourth and he indicated his belief that the Yankke hitters looked good despite the meager results and I'm screaming, what are you talking about, their approach is exactly wrong! Come the fifth inning, with each hit, Matsui, Cano, Cabreara, I'd say to Joanne, which way did that hit go, to which she'd respond, with the patient good humor for which she is known, "the other way."

Come this morning, I find out on the internet that the Yankees are congratulating themselves for changing their approach in the fifth. Congratulating themselves! Excuse me, isn't hitting the sinkerball where it is pitched Spalding Guide baseball 101? And if I know that as a fucking literature professor, and know it well enough to proclaim it in real time, why the hell doesn't Kevin Long know it, or Joe Torre, for that matter, who was a helluva batsman in his day?

People make alot of Steinbrenner insisting on victories out of his managerial staff, but I wonder if he isn't simply insisting on, and not getting, competence. As a native of Cleveland, he undoubtedly knew the midges were a temporary phenomenon and that Torre should have asked for a delay or, failing to receive one, created a delay through argumentation. And if I know you don't pull the sinker, I bet George, in his more lucid moments, does as well. George is undoubtedly eager to fire Torre, as they say, but not because Torre is "too popular," rather because he is unjustifiably popular, and because most people know baseball too little to grasp that (and the players themselves don't want to grasp it), George has to wait like some ghoul for the truly unacceptable outcome to make his move.

For me, its a win-win, either the Yankees triumph, my ultimate baseball desire, or Torre gets the ax, a close second.

Last thing--Jeter is looking like the new AROD. After a dreadful first couple of games, he makes that horrible throw which cost the Yankees a run (how was that not an error) and then hits into two consecutive rally killing double plays, befiore striking out klater in the game. ARODIAN indeed!

PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE?

2007-10-06T10:37:00.001-05:00

Before the series, I said the Yankees could conceivably lose the first 2 and come back to win it. Of course, I didn't count on their offense looking quite this anemic. Was my patience misplaced?
Probably. But the anomaly remains that the Tribe is going with their 2 weak pitchers, and Byrd has been particularly bad, in games 3 and 4 at the stadium. The notion that the Yankees could do the one thing they do well, hit mediocre pitching, and win these 2 games, is not that far-fetched. Returning to Cleveland against Sabathia is of course very tough, but they would have Pettite on full rest and he did show what a warrior he is last night.

If our patience is to be rewarded, the Yankees are going to have to start showing some patience at the plate. Carmona entered the ninth having only thrown 89 pitches. The Yankees, particularly Damon, Jeter, AROD and MAtsui were not grinding at all, they were waving. And to my mind that means they were pressing or, if you like, gagging. They have to get back to making the pitchers throw strikes. Carmona got K after K on pitches oout of the zone.

You know who always shows good plate patience, Jason Giambi, and it is probably no coincedence that he is hitting over 500 against Cleveland this year, including doing well against Carmona and getting a hit in his only appearance this series. It makes perfect sense that he could hit Carmona--he's a low ball hitter. Then why, you m ight ask didn't Torre DH him instead of the hapless Matsui, particularly after the first game when it became clear that for whatever reason, Hideki doesn't have a clue at the plate right now. Well, that brings me to my last riff on patience. I showed too much with slow Joe last night when I indicated he didn't contribute to the loss. I didn't think you could quibble too much with his in-game moves, bur he clearly did hurt them by not playing Giambi, who would have set a different tone at the plate. He now says he'll "think about it" for game 3, but as we all know, thinking isn't slow Joe's strong suit, closing the barn door after a loss is. Carmona was really the guy you wanted Giambi to face, the guy for which the rest of the team really needed the help.

Note: Although this series recall's last year's debacle, these Indians are not last year's Tigers. I thought Pettite exposed them last night as a free-swinging team that doesn't hit situationally. If you pitch then reasonably tough, you can beat them regularly. That the Yankees lost, and lost by giving up the tying run without a single hit, only exposes themselves. I think last year's team would have won that game. Which is to say we should be running out of patience not just with this team but with a franchise unable to right itself.

DISGRACE!

2007-10-05T23:42:00.000-05:00

Cleveland cound't do anything and still the Yankees managed to lose this game. Amazing! Base on balls, wild pitch,bunt , two outs and a wild pitch. Please! Posada has yet another passed ball, this time on a strikeout. Vizcaino gets too fine and has to groove one to Hafner. And that's not even mentioning the utter futility at the plate: Damon looked pathetic, Matsui looked worse than pathetic, Cano was impatient, Mankiewitcz was in April form, Jeter was pretty bad and AROD, well AROD was OCTOBERROD, 3 strikeouts and a pop out, extending his streak of RBI-less at bats in the post-season over 60 and his hitless streak to 17. But the truth is he didn't even stick out in his chokishness: the Yankees have indeed become his team.

The criminal thing is they got the performance they needed out of Pettite and the performance they needed out of Rivera, but just like the regular season, they just stopped even putting men on base once the game was tied. This loss was decidedly not on slow Joe; the players lost it for themselves. Remember in September when Torre and Damon and Jeter kept saying, in explanation of their hot streak, "Well we know we're a good team." Eh, not so much. This series is now looking exactly like the Detroit series of last year, only worse, just as Detroit looked the the Angels series of the year before, only worse. The Yankees are a still a team in decline, by inches, increasingly painful inches.

GAME ONE

2007-10-04T22:56:00.000-05:00

Well BGW got his wish, as the Yanks were not only beaten but humiliated. Let's see if it concentrates their collective mind as it has in the past. The scary thing is, this looked like deja Detroit all over again.

Actually the game was, if not closer, than at least more in doubt than the score indicates. In the fiftth inning three classic blunders by slow Joe contributed to the Yankees failing to score more than one run and thus failing to tie the game and secure the momentum. First, with 2 on and nobody out, he fails to have Jeter lay down a bunt. This was small ball phobia so obvious and so costly that even the announcers at TBS wondered about it, and did so in advance. They wanted a sacrifice, which would have put men on second and third for Abreu (who did happen to double). I would have let Jeter swing away once and when he fouled the ball off, have him drag bunt the next pitch for an attempted hit. After Jeter made out and Wedge intentionally walked AROD, Sabathia ran a 3-0 count to Posada with the bases loaded. Under such circumstances I believe in allowing the pitcher to help you out. Green light the 3-0 if you like, as the Yankees did, but put a take sign on 3-1. Pitchers never groove that pitch, are often out of the strike zone with it (as Sabathia was) and hitters are almost always over-anxious on that count. Finally, after Posada whiffed, Matsui came up. I don't even know what he was doing in the game. He has an unbroken history of futility against Sabathia, and in his first 2 at-bats he had already shown why. I mean he looked feeble up there. I would have rather seen Giambi at that point. With the bases loaded, his refusal to go out of the strike zone could have proved helpful and his familiarity with Sabathia has resulted in a far less hopeless record than Matsui. That inning waws the turning point, and Joe simply did nothing to improve their prospects.

By the way, did you see that Kenny Lofton? Four years later and he can still play! I still say he is the best evidence there is for Sheffield's Torre as white man's manager thesis.

Pettite tomorrow. If we get to a game four, I say let Hughes or Wang pitch it and then come back with Pettite in Game 5. I don't want to see Wang pitch at the Jake again.

FEARLESS PREDICTIONS

2007-10-03T11:51:00.000-05:00

The only series I have no real sense of an outcome is the Yanks-Indians. I feel strongly that the Phillies will beat the Rockies in 4, the Cubs will take the D-Backs in 5 (on the strength of the Lou factor) and the Angels will dispose of Boston in 4 (the Angels are banged up, but Escobar seems recovered and Boston has no starting pitching after Beckett.)

Boy, looking back on these, I wished I had picked the Indians! I'm so consistently wrong, it would have augured well.

THANKS FOR THE ERROR

2007-10-01T00:40:00.000-05:00

I think the Sox just made a huge tactical mistake. They took the 8 day series, despite the fact that the Angels have 2 aces they can now pitch twice, on full rest, and the Sox have Beckett and a group of starters equal in their adequacy.

At the same time, they have done the Yankees a huge favor. If Cleveland is going to send its pitchers out on full rest, they will need to throwboth Byrd and Westbrook, along with Carmona once and Sabathia twice. I'm not saying the Yankees will win this series, but they can win it, and I'm not sure that would be the case facing both Sabathia and Carmona twice with only Byrd or Westbrook between them.

WHERE ARE WE?

2007-09-24T17:43:00.000-05:00

As the Yankees now seem assured of playing October ball and entering the playoffs as baseball's hottest team, I thought we might pause and look at the three problem areas this team has had for the past couple of years, to see if any improvement has been made.

Bullpen: JOBA, JOBA, JOBA. And frankly not much else. Vizcaino has been better the second half of the season, but Ramirez is unreliable at best, and really seems to have a weakness for the long ball. Farnsworth is so bad, I don't think they should even put him on the postseason roster. His is a uniquely flammable combination of ineffective wildness (he throws alot of 4 pitch walks) and grooved fastballs ripe for the hitting. I think Bruney and Britton are both better bets, and they are both pretty awful. Villone is adequate for a batter or two. Veras is either very good or dreadful--you know which right away; unfortunately Joe doesn't.

The real weakness in the bullpen is the starting pitching, which is either too old (Clemens), too contact averse (Mussina, Wang), or too wild (Hughes) to give the bullpen any kind of break. If the starters could consistently go 7-8, Joba, Vizcaino and Mo would make for a pretty awesome pen. But those other guys will have to pitch sometimes, and when they do we will probably lose. The relievers give even a good tactician a very narrow marign for error. Slow Joe can no more walk that line than Dumbo the Elephant can cross the big top on a suspended skein of dental floss.

Situational Hitting

There has been improvement here, both because of slight upticks in the performance of Damon and Matsui, a huge uptick in the performance of Mankiewitz and because Jason Giambi is one of the best pinchhitters in baseball right now. The last is not really that surprising: he was always willing to take alot of pitches, not fearing to wait for the one that would define his night, and that is a good mindset for a pinchhitter.If you combine this improvement with the implosion of Scot Shields, I think you actually have to give the Yankees a shot against the Angels this year.

Defense

Cabrera is the best defensive center fielder the Yankees have seen since Mickey Mantle, or at least Mickey Rivers. Mankiewicz has been hitting well enough to keep the first base job, which is a giant improvement over Giambi. Jeter's sliding back into the erratic play of the spring and Cano has regressed some at second, though he still turns a mean DP. Posada is not where he was last year in terms of nailing runners, but he's not too bad. Has had some butterfingers lately. We need Damon's coverage with Matsui's arm in left. Overall, you'd have to say this team is not going to win a WC with its defense, but it may have risen to a leveel of adequacy where it need not lose one either.

Torre

He still stinks.

I saw him interviewed yesterday and he was talking about how the season turned around when he started playing Melky. Hey Joe, that happened last year too, but you were too stupid to play him every day in April and May. If you had, the yankees would probably be up a game or two at this point instead of down two. Moreover, Torre's prejudice against youth continues and may well cost the Yankees the title. Quick, who on the available evidence is the best starter on this team. Right now it is probably Ian Kennedy. He's certainly no worse than 2, three at the outside. But Joe's misplaced sense of seniority is such that Kennedy's not even going to be in the rotation come the playoffs and probably slots in behind Hughes (whom he has outperformed) simply because he came up a few months later.
No Torre is still Torre. There's a difference between old school and old fool and he never learned it (which by the way is the definition of the latter).

A POEM OF THE TIME(S)

2007-09-15T11:36:00.000-05:00

I woke up this moring and this ditty came more or less rushing into my head. Without bragging on it too much, let me just say, as a literature professor, that the attentive will find multiple allusions to major poets and some prosodic and structural grace notes.

2004: A Race Oddity; or
The Chowderhead's Song

When Manny, being Manny,
is on his late September holiday
and I am forced to watch the spectacle
of my beloved Dice-K
issuing walks and gopher balls
because, they say, he's hit the wall,
I need not pine, I need not chafe,
but go into my mental safe
and retrieve the memory of 2004
When three down, we won four
in a row, say no more,
I need say no more
(which is good, cause I got nothing more to say)
We are the dogs, that was our day.
Our one and only little day.

When Curt throws fastballs ready-to-launch,
Fatter than his own considerable paunch,
When his blog entries blow
harder than any pitch he'll throw,
And when he finds time for a thousand
explanations and justifications, and worse,
That a single Yankee homer will reverse,
Well, then, I too can wave the bloody sock
And remember Two Thousand and Four,
When he was our very own Rock
of Gibraltar, or Plymouth,
or whatever bulbous legend he'd like to claim
to talk himself into the Hall of Fame.
Say no more doughboy,
You need say no more
(Cause even we're sick of what you have to say)
How you stole the credit from Pedro
and Derek Lowe,
So you could have your day.
Your one and only little day.

When Bucky fucking Dent comes back
As Aaron fucking Boone,
And McNamara's blunder
In leaving in Bill Buckner
Comes back as Grady Little's boner
In leaving in our Pedro,
When I must needs endure that litany,
That endless fucking litany
Of what it means to be a Yankee,
Of the 40 pennants and 26 Rings
Enough to stuff small countries
Full of bling,
I can still drag it out once more,
Like some recalcitrant old whore,
The ghost of Two Thousand Four
(Like some Republican
with Two Thousand One)
When Manny still seemed a holy fool
And Curt was a little less the Tool
Before the HGH gave David Ortiz
Jason Giambi's broken knees
And Papelbon was still a gleam
In Jeter and AROD's late inning eyes
And Theo still seemed youthfully wise,
Before he shipped Arroyo off for Willy Mo
And Gabbard for Gag-me
Treating our franchise
Like his fantasy team.
Before that immortal trio
Of Cabrera to Renterria to Julio.

But now I'll say no more.
Now, really, I need say no more.
(Which is good cause there's so much more to say
Of Red Sox losers before and since that day)
Of how Goose Gossage made us ill
And Jason Veritek's declining skills.
But I can still reflect upon that day,
That glorious day, Two Thousand Four,
Before it slips completely away,
When we won four
To lift Babe's curse
And finally, finally freed ourselves--
Of the ability to speak of anything else.

THE MARATHON ASIDE,

2007-09-15T01:42:00.000-05:00

the most important thing that happened to the Yankees tonight was probably that Cleveland won, LA lost and now they are tied for the second best record in the league. While the Yankees seem to me unlikely to catch the Red Sox, though the latter are one of the most overrated teams in recent memory, they now have a pretty good chance of avoiding the Angels in the opening series (a non-consummation devoutly to be wished).

As for the game itself, a win is a win but that's about the only thing you could say for it (oh, and of course Boston really does suck!). Everything that is wrong with the Yankees was fully on display. The situational hitting was terrible; they left a boatload of guys on against Dice-K, who true to form gave out 4 free passes in addition to several hits. They let him off the hook in the first with the bases jammed and then Jeter swung at ball 4 in the dirt in the sixth, when the walk would have brought in a run, closing the lead to 5-3. Last but not least, when Dice-K began his typical meltdown in the 4th, giving up a lasar double to Posada and a long triple to Matsui, with noone out, Cano and Cabrera saved his ass by repeatedly going out of the zone, just when he was doing his best to mix in some walks with the blasts.

But of course the situational hitting was nothing compared to the glovework. Giambi's miscues were preposterous. The grounder was inexcusable and the dropped throw from Abreu was worse. But the truth is he should have also picked the throw from Jeter in the first, and if he had any sort of an arm, he would have gotten the picked-off Ellsbury on the way to second. Giambi homered for one run, but gave away three. God do I miss andy Phillips. With a ground ball pitcher like Pettite ( or Wang) you need a first baseman who can play the position. I'm not sure I wouldn't have gone with Betamint. Posada was almost as bad by the way. He had two passed balls, he should have had an advancing Pedroia at second, and he seemed out of synch all night. Finally there was good ol' Joe's mismanagement of the bullpen. Can anyone tell me why Sean Henn was in a game that was not already over one way or the other. Now that Veras and Bruney have returned and Vizcaino seems healthy, why is Henn even allowed to dress?

No, the win tonight was more about Boston's troubles than the Yankees' prowess. Oki-Doki is just that with his opponents at this point. I don't think he's tired--he hasn't pitched all that much--but he's becoming familiar. And you know in Japan, where he was really familiar, much weaker hitters were making him look less than sensational the past couple of years. I think he's a novelty act whose novelty is wearing off. As for Papelbon, he's still great, but both Jeter and AROD have shown an abilty to deal with his heater, Jeter by fighting it off (remember game four of the 2006 massacre), Arod by jumping it (remember the GW homer earlier this year). As for Dice-K, his performance, his best in weeks, was vintage Jared Wright: get through 5+, don't get hurt too bad, leave men on base for the relief corps, and stress them to the max. If the Yankees had exercised greater patience, his stats would have been as lackluster as his performance actually was. He too is not tired, hell he was throwing 95 into the 6th and he never throws higher. But he's actually a little like Mussina: a) his out pitches are usually out of the zone (he has more velocity than Moose but his fastball is really flat) so b) he gives up lots of walks to patient line-ups and c) he then gets frustrated and serves up hittable strikes.

I have concentrated on the ills of the Boston staff because that is what was supposed to save them from a diminished line-up. Obviously there is a power outage in New England, especially with Manny on vacation or hiatus or sabbatical or drugs or whatever the hell he is on. Ellsbury looks talented but I can see why he only hit 2 homers all year in AAA. We found out tonight why Drew has sucked so bad all year and I really feel bad for him on that, but the fact remains that he has given and continues to give them no pop whatsoever. Lowell is a better hitter but a lesser slugger than ever--he may not even reach 20 homers let alone the 35 he used to be good for. Varitek is-- as I said last year and again this spring--done, done, done. His last at bat, against Mo, whom he has owned, was nothing short of pathetic. If he played for any other team, and if he wasn't a world-class wanker in any case, I'd pity him for it, or at the least feel guilty for all the shadenfreud I am taking about his descent into sub-mediocrity. As a team, they have to string together lots of hits (or Yankee errors) to score runs, particularly when you do the sensible thing and walk the still dangerous Ortiz (if only for the comedy of watching him try to pull all that steriod enhanced fat around the bases on those steroid damaged wheels). And their singles hitters--Crisp, Lugo, Kielty, Youkilis--are all hitting below, in some cases well below 300. If it weren't for Pedroia to back up against Ortiz and Lowell, this team would have all the offensive explosiveness of the Minnesota Twins.

Well, big day tomorrow. The Tigers try to beat Santana with someone I've never heard of. If the Yankees can put them 5 games down in the loss column with only 14 to play, I think the wild card is sewed up. After all, if the Yankees can just go 7-6 against the Rays, O's and Jays, the Tigers would still have to go 12-2 the rest of the way to tie, and that's presuming the unpresumable, that we lose Sunday to Goehring's nephew.

JOE BLOWS ANOTHER ONE

2007-09-13T22:20:00.000-05:00

Slow Joe wasted a great effort by Ian Kennedy tonight by refusing to play small ball with the game on the line. Top of 9, 1-1, and Abreu singles. AROD up and he hasn't really done anything all game. Now noone expects AROD to bunt in this kind of a situation, but the truth is he's probably the second best bunter on the team after Jeter. If he lays one down, he may get a hit; he'll certainly get Abreu over for Matsui to drive in. Matsui's infield hit would have put him on third with one out and Cano's little grounder would have scored him. Cue Mo! You have to play to the dimensions of the game and particularly on the road. Now the pressure is off Boston altogether; even a sweep would leave them pretty comfortably ahead, with nothing but cripples left to play.

I love the decision of the league to allow the champs of the AL determine whether they will play in the 8 day series, in which you would get to start your # 1 & 2 twice apiece and your # 3 only once, or whether you would play the 7 day series, in which only your #1 would get a second start and you would have to use your # 4. I love it because a) it brings such interesting strategic calculations to bear and b) it allows the best record to dictate terms to the wild card, diminishing the chance that the wild card will win it all, which it has done entirely too many times.

Now trhe first three times I heard about this it was from pundits asserting that the Sox or the Angels would use this as an opportunity to "stick it to the Yankees" (they all used that phrase) by putting them in the more compressed series in order to limit their use of the Hut. Leaving aside the fact that recent performances by Hughes and all of Kennedy's outings have served to make the Yanks' rotation look deeper than most, the idea that any team would use this opportunity to lower another team's chances rather than enhancing their own is a pretty ridiculous example of rivalry-think.

If the Red Sox choose the long series, they will increase rest for Papelbon going through it, but since they have an Ace and then 4 number 4 starters, they can't really exploit the rotation advantage. If they were playing Cleveland, choosing the drawn out series would involve them in 2 games apiece against Sabathia and Carmona. With the Sox shaky starting pitching, I'm not sure they could survive that. What if Beckett loses a close one to Sabathia? They have to beat Carmona at least once with either the incandescent MR. K or Fat Man/Fat Pitch. They'd be better off going short one would think of forcing Cleveland to pitch Westbrook. That way a Beckett/Sabathia split (the most likely scenario) and a win by Schilling or Wakefield over Byrd ( a possibility) sends them to the next round.

If the Angels choose a short series, as the pundits envision, they have to pitch both Saunders and probably Colon, against Clemens and Kennedy for the Yanks. Wouldn't they be better off going long so that they can pitch both Lackey and Escobar twice, with one of them getting both his games in LA? Under that scenario, the Yankees would need a split against that pair on the road and a victory against Saunders in NY just to earn the right to face Escobar or Lackey again in a road game 5.

If Cleveland manages best record, they positively have to go long. It's really their only hope of beating the Yankees, who will, I guarantee you, beat both Byrd and Westbrook.

My point is the difference in the compressed and extended series is too great for anyone making that choice to worry how it affects anything but your immediate relation to your own opponent as determined by your own rotation.

ALPHABET SOUP

2007-09-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

A-ROD
If you are like me, you believe the holder of the greatest single season record in sports, the home run record, remains Roger Maris, 61 in '61. Yes he had 8 more games than the Babe but he could'nt bounce them over the fence. all subsequent marks, Mcguire, Bonds, and Sosa, are testament not to the prowess of the player but to the juice of the juice. That's why I am surprised more people are not talking about the chance that the real record could fall this year. Yes, AROD would need to hit 10 in the next 17 games, but he's got a short porch at fenway, a week bullpen in Tampa and an imploding staff in Baltimore--plus toronto, whom he always hits well. Could happen, especially since there's no pressure. the Yankees march towards the playoffs is getting more secure and the public, being asses, do not recognize thee Maris record.

Dice-K(O)

By June, I was saying that while Dice-K may be good, he isn't great because he walks too many batters and he frequently blows up in the 4th or 5th inning. finally, after his last disaster, the Boston message boards are abuzz with this insight. So now we can quantify things precisely: the average Yankees fan, me in this case, is roughly 3 months smarter than your average chowderhead, who is nonetheless smarter than the sports punditry. The latter still haven't awakened to this fact: they are all obsessed with how Dice-K may have hit the wall. his problems are doubtless exaggerated by having to pitch every 5th rather than every 6th day, but the tendencies were there all along. Moreover that same sports punditry regularly yaks about how deep boston's starting pitching is. Huh1 They're like one pitcher deep, Josh Beckett. Dice-K has been melting down,, but no worse than Wakefield since his stint on the DL, and this is par for the course with him. Once his back goes out his knuckler flattens out. Lester has an ERA north of 5, and Schilling has a fastball south of 88mph. they won't start Bucholz and Taveras is just plain unreliable. If you take recent appearances by Hughes and Kennedy to heart, the Yankees starting pitching is deeper, and that's even if you discount Clemens as injured and Moose as finished (although apparnetly on 15 days rest he can pitch effectively into the 6th inning).

DJ

Perhaps mthe most impressive thing about the Yankees recent 7 game streak is how little Jeter has contributed. I don't know if that knee is really bothering him, but he has had an unusually long string of o-fers and 1-fers. On the record, one has to assume he will be back hitting soon, which could well mean the winning if not the actual streak will continue through September.

YOGI

If you haven't heard the song Deja Vu (All Over Again) by John Fogarty, you should definitely check it out. It wins my award for the best use made of this Yogi Berra malapropism.

SLOW TO GET THE MESSAGE, JOE

2007-09-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

After the Sox sweep, Jeter pointed out that they had to play with urgency every game. A 9-1 loss to the Rays never looks like urgency, but there was the hangover effect and they did bounce back. But today, Slow Joe failed to manage with urgency. After taking out Pettite too early in May, thereby overworking an already subpar bullpen, today he left him in long after everyone watching knew he should be lifted. Not only did Pettite throw 119 piches, or 10-15 too many for him, hbe struggled through the 6th inning, loading the bases and just escaping, and was struggling in the seventh when Pena cam up to effectively end the game. He had given up hits to 5 of the last 7 batters, and yet Torere doesn't make a move. When Pettite is struggling, you should be happy to get 6.1 out of him. Put in Vizcaino to get the outs. If he does and you score to tie things in the bottom of the frame, or go ahead, bring in the Joba to Rivera connection. Otherwise continue with Vizcaino and pitch Ramirez or Farnsworth if you must. But give yourself a chance to stay in the game. Remember every game is like the playoffs now (as Jorgew sais) and in the playoffs you always go to the bullpen in situations like that.

SHIT,

2007-09-01T01:24:00.000-05:00

I feel like saying.

We've been insisting that the idea that the Yankees returned to form owing to ease of schedule was a canard, but now there is pretty convincing evidence. The Yankees have played .630 ball against the division leaders and do not have a losing record vs. any of them (8-7 v. boston, 3-3 v. LA, 6-0 v. Cleveland, 17-10 overall. It would be more accurate to say that this is a very good team at home and a pretty bad team on the road (2-1 v. LA at home, 1-2 on the road, 3-1 v. Detroit at home, 1-3 on the road, 6-3 at home against Boston, 2-4 at Fenway, and don't even get me started about Camden Yards. Of course this is part and parcel of the close game problem. It is easier to win close games at home, where you have the psychological reassurance of last-ups.

The great thing about the Boston series was that every game was close and they won them all. Each one was the kind of game you need to win come playoff time. But they'll need to win them elsewhere too, particularly as a wild card.

The Phillies are fucking awesome! With Utley and Hamels back and Burrel siddenly hitting again, I predict they will win the East. Yes they have no starting pitching beyond Hamels, but the Mets have Maine and nothing and the Braves have Smoltz, Hudson and a very bad team.

The Yankees have two of the greatest cut fastball pitchers in the history of the game, Andy Pettite and MO. Will somebody please teach Hughes how to throw one? As it currently stands, his fastball is too straight, so he has to be fine with it, despite its velocity, and he winds up walking too many hitters.

BGW is right. Torre has grown too complacent about putting Giambi in the line-up. Cano shouldn't be hitting 8th anyway.

I have decided that basball cannot continue to have a DH in one league and no DH in the other. The NL is in danger of becoming a permanent minor league. The AL has access to all sorts of hitting talent the NL doesn't have. As a result, it takes a better pitcher to make it in the AL than in the NL. AL rejects, hell Yankees rejects like Wells and El Duque, wind up in the National League. The economics of the game only exacerbates this trend. With their veteran reserve army, the AL can cultivate their minor league prosepcts longer, so they are that much better in their pre-arbitration, pre-free agency years on the majors. Honestly, I don't see how the NL can be expected to sustain parity with the AL so long as the DH differential exists.

They all said the sweep means nothing if they lay an egg today, and then they did so anyway, botching plays, failing to hit etc. OF course everyone else (Boston, Seattle, Detroit) laid an egg too so the sweep's significance remains intact, but they really need the next two. When was the last time the Rays won 7 of 8; what a time to get them.

WEDNESDAY'S WIN

2007-08-29T23:33:00.000-05:00

Q.E.D. (again).

Seriously this game went just as my last post envisioned. The Yankees won for one reason: no Manny. Every time the Red Sox had men on base (Roger allowed 7 in 6 innings), Varitek, Crisp, Lugo or the egregious Drew stepped to the plate. And as bad as these guys have been overall, they're that much worse outside Fenway. Watching them hack proves just how terrible the White Sox must be.

Speaking of terrible, the big F... suddenly has all kinds of movement on his formerly flat fastball, and he still can't pitch worth a damn. Seriously, why would Torre call onhim with a three run lead in the eighth: Ramirez, another inning of Vizcaino, Bruney, all safer choices.

But as sucky as the big F...is, he did manage to prove he was not the sorriest ass player on the field. Think about it, F...head gives up a 2 run homer to Youk, putting the Sox back in the game. He's obviously rattled, so much so, he has to leave without finishing the inning. But before he does, he pitches to J.D. Drew, the 24 carat, $70,000,000 proof positive that Theo Epstein is a boy-idiot. Now Drew's lifetime batting average against F...er is something like 569, and F...er is f...ing done anyway. So this is Drew's chance to finally redeem this awful season by putting the Sox back in a game they had seemingly lost. And slow Joe is apparently too ignorant or lazy to get F...Up out of the game, as was clearly indicated. No matter, Drew is such a fucking loser, he strikes out anyway, just like he did in the 8th last night against the Hut. I'm a Phillies fan too, and I still remember when that Bible-thumping prima donna refused to play for the Phillies and made them trade him. All I can say now is thank god, he's been a bum in St. Louis, in LA and now in Boston. He's a number accumulating, perennially underachieving, always injured gagmeister. I'm surprised the Yankees didn't sign him to be Carl Pavano's alter ego.

Tomorrow the only Sox player I hate more than J(u)D(as) Drew: the Blob. Sweeping this series by destroying any residual illusion that this perpetually pontificating porker is still a big time hurler would be really sweet.

HANGING,

2007-08-29T00:42:00.000-05:00

it has been said, concentrates the mind. So does embarassment.

Tonight the Yankees were dealing with both. The embarassment of the immediate past, a 16-0 shellacking from the Tigers, and the execution in their immediate future, the likely loss of the last available playoff spot. If the embarassment is forever, the execution grew a little less likely, thanks to one of their better played games of the season, an error free, bullpen supported,
Pet(t)ite gem, against the so-called best team in baseball, in, most importantly, a very close game.

And it was one of those weird nights when all the relevant news was good. The Tigers lost to the Royals, putting them 2 games back of the Yanks, the Mariners lost to the Angels, cuttting thier wild card lead to just one game (the Mariners have the misfortune of yapping at the Angels heels in the AL West, as a result of which the Angels are really focused on crushing them, and that reduces their chances in the one race, the wild card, where they might be viable). The Phillies beat the Mets, for the second straight game, on a Rhino walk-off; Chase Utley is back; and Cole Hamels will return for his next start (well, it matters to me!). And Manny Ramirez pulled his back out, ensuring that he will not play tomorrow night and probably for the rest of the series. Bobby Kielty hurt himself as well, so the Boston outfield for the next game and maybe 2 is Crisp, Drew, and someone I've never heard of (who is undoubtedly better than Drew).

Of the three games, I always liked the Yankees' chances best in the finale. They figure to rake the Bloated Windbag, whose just a few peglegged strides behind Mussina in the race down hill, and Wang typically pitches well with good run support (and of course everyone pitches better when Manny sits). The game I liked next best (and I figured the Yanks to win two out of three, which of course wouldn't help all that much) was tonight. Pettite has been so good and Dice K is, as I have been saying for so long, so overrated. I know he hasn't gotten a lot of runs in some of his losses, but he was 2-0 against the Yankees despite having a Mussina like ERA of almost 7.00 aganst them. I think he's a little better than his 13-11, but no better than 14-10: he walks too many, gives up too many homers and his prone to abrupt blow-ups, particularly against good offenses. Pettite meanwhile is better than his 12-7--remember all those no-decsions he had early on. I would say he should be more like 16-8. Tommorow night's game I figured for a loss, especially considering how good Beckett has been on the road this season (ERA, 2.00). But now things are interesting. Rocket knows that he hasn't earned his money, or anything like it, but this is the kind of game in which he can simulate having done so. Maybe he'll take the combined inspiration of his friend's success and the never-ending quest to prove Dan Duquette not just wrong, but the stupidest man in GM history. Despite Manny's decline as a home run hitter this season, his absence makes Boston so much weaker, because it greatly reduces the cost/risk of pitching around Ortiz. If they follow him with Drew, you have the opportunity of etching the $70,000,000 fiasco he has become into the long Red Sox lore of futility. If they back him with a single/doubles hitter like Lowell, Ortiz himself becomes more likely to clog the bases than to score, particularly since there are no good hitters in the Sox lineup after Lowell (Drew, Crisp, Varitek, Lugo, the nameless outfielder) these are all people you shoud be able to get out in a pinch. And with the recent struggles of Youkilis, this line-up just doesn't scare good pitching if Manny ain't in it. Whether Clemens can represent "good pitching" of course remains to be seen. But they do have a puncher's chance at home with this match-up and these line-ups and if they manage to win, I think the pressure in the finale switches to the Red Sox, a Ramirez-less Red Sox for sure. Becasue if the Yankees did manage to sweep, the lead would be down to five games, and while I continue to believe the Yankees are not good enough to surmount that handicap--certainly not with Boston's schedule-- everyone will once again start speculating that they might, and Boston will be given another chance to go in the tank, you know like last year, the year before that, the year before that etc, etc going back to 1978, if not 1941. At the very least it will put the last 3 game set in Fenway back in play--a five game lead is only a two game cushion towards making that series irrelevant. There are a good number of games in between, and if the Yankees manged to pick up 3 during that span, then even a 2-1 series win would ensure that both teams would be playing for the division down to hte last week, or game. All of which would, I think, make it more likely that the Yankees would get the wild card, the only prize worth expecting at this point.

Oh but the news is still better. Mussina apparently doesn't rate up there with Tanyon Sturtz in Torre's affections. He's out on Saturday in favor of Kennedy. What makes this great, beyond the simple fact of being spared a Moose-outing, is that the opponent is the Devil Rays. The chances of Kennedy being successful are accordingly maximized, and if he is I don't see how they can deprive him of another start.

Well, well, you know it's a charmed night anytime Joda actually does the right thing, but when the right thing involves replacing a trusted if cooked veteran with a young player, well that's like one of those comets that cycles around on a millenial basis. Or is it, could it be, that Torre has now decided to handle his personnel in the manner we, the inexpert fans, have been demanding for the past year or more? See, I don't call him Slow Joe for nothing. What's next a suicide squeeze in a truly decisive situation? We should all live so long.

IF YOU HAVE TO LOSE,

2007-08-28T15:48:00.000-05:00

this is the way to do it: Mussina getting lit up on the way to the worst road shutout in team history. Why does this one hurt so good?

1. There can no longer be any dispute, Moose is done, if not for his career certainly for this season. the Yankees can no longer afford to give games away by putting him on the mound. torre is already said that it's tough with all that he has accomplished, but you know what, he never did all that much for the Yankees and he still has never won a ring.

2. If Torre does the play the sentimental old fool, a part for which he has shown himself perfectly cast, and decides to give Moose another chance, it will grease the skids for his own departure into the retirement home.

3. The Yankees, including this Yankee team, have always responded well to humiliation. I think the chances of their having a successful series against Boston and a good run after that were actually increased by the shameful way they collapsed last night.

Taken as a whole, however, this past series has ben little short of a disaster. The Yankees have altogether closed one of their routes to the playoffs and what may be worse they've opened the other route to some real competition, the Tigers themselves. I have been confident about the Yankees' wild card chances because I knew they would ultimately pass the Mariners. But the Tigers have 6 games left against the Royals, 6 games left against the White Sox (the wqorst team in all of baseball), and only three left against Cleveland. The Yankees could have put them away with a 3-1 victory in the series. Instead they're only a game back of N.Y. and looking like the favorites to take it.

SUNDAY'S LOSS

2007-08-26T16:53:00.000-05:00

Q.E.D.

LEVELING OUT

2007-08-26T01:44:00.000-05:00

Now that the Yanks are blowing neither hot nor cold, but playing more or less 500 ball against the best teams, we can see what was actually at stake in their long run back into contention. Was it simply a matter of beating up on weak teams? Clearly not, as they won series against the D-Backs, the Angels, the Tigers (3-1) and swept the Indians. They also won their last series against Boston. Cashman says it is just a matter of the performance levelin g out with their talent. This is how good the Yankees are, he says. Well, if this is what the Yankees are, there remains a big problem that has been neither solved nor dispelled during the run. The pundits who held the Yanks' winning ways to be an augur of October baseball liked to say, they were not just winning, they were destroying teams. I would say they can only win by destroying teams. What made the hot streak exactly that was that their offense was firing so completely that they were able to blow team out on a regular basis. And as everyone from Torre and Jeter on down pointed out, that sort of raking just couldn't continue. The reasonable hope has been that when things cool down, they won't go back to the flat passive offense of the first two months. The uinexorcised specter, however, is not the iunability to score 5 runs instead of 2, but the inability to win with 5 runs instead of 8. Whent the yanks get 4-6 runs they tend to be involved in 1 run decisions, or what amounts to the same thing, extra inning affairs. And they lose these games with positively brutal regularity. Part of the reason they lose these games, which they've done twice on this road trip (while winning none) are the old bugaboos, bad situational hitting and missed chances for small ball production. In my last post, I noted how this cost them game 1 in Anaheim. But the is a second reason as well.

Even now that the Yankees' bullpen is vastly improved it still suffers a curious weakness. The Yankees have no middle relievers to speak of. In last night's game, the bullpen perforemed marvellously well after another bad outing from Clemens (whose contract missed his real worth by one decimal point). Ramirez gave up nothing, Joba gave up nothing, Farnsworth gave up nothing Vizcaino gave up nothing, Rivera gave up nothing. and in the end Torre had to bring in Henn, just like in LA, which is the baseball equivalent of putting up the white flag. How does this happen? Because while the other hurlers may pitch in the middle innings, they are still short relievers. Not one of them goes more than an inning at a time in a close game. Nor should they necessarily. Vizcaino and Farnsworth are almost never as effective in the second inning of work (not that F...face is all that effective in the first), Ramirez and Joda would get burned out iof they had to throw 2-3 innings at a time. And that day has long since passed for Mo. It is the absence of any middle relievers that creates the weird situation that the Yankees carry a ton of relievers, several of whom are either great (Mo, Joba), very good (Vizcaino), or good (Ramirez), and yet perpetually seem to have no bullpen depth. Look at Boston, a bullpen ranked the best in the AL. They have 2 great relievers, two good reliever (Snyder, Del Carmen), oanokay reliever (Lopez), a Farnsworth level reliever (Timlin) and a Henn level reliever (Gagme). The difference is that Snyder will give you 3 innings, Delcarmen will give you 2-3,Okajima will give you 2, Lopez will give you 2. The Yankees bullpen can no longer be said to be burned out by overuse; after all F...doesn't get used all that much, Joba and Ramirez are new, Mo hasn't gotten all that much work this year, Vizcaino's work load is way down of late. But they still play out like an overworked bullpen because they are all short men, with the exception of he (Joba) who must be preserved. It will be interesting to see if the Yankees actually make use of the expanded roster as a key element in their playoff run. Do they add Kennedy, Stephen Wright, even Karstens and Igawa as relievers, making up in sheer numbers what they clearly lack in durability. I know this. Barring another ungodly offensive explosion, they need to start winning some, I would say the bulk, of their one run/walk-off/extra inning games if they want to avoid the double disgrace of not only snapping the division title string but missing the playoffs altogether.

MARK IT DOWN

2007-08-21T23:20:00.000-05:00

If the Yankees fail to make the playoffs this year, if they fall short chasing Seattle or get passed by the Central runner up, we might look back ona very specific moment when the momentum shifted and the recent run petered out. It is Monday night, the sixth inning. you need to take at least one from the Angels to prevent this single series turning into the biggest pothole of the season. They've just come off an east coast swing, limiting their home city advantage. The weakest pitcher on their team takes the hill, while you know the weakest on your team will face their ace the following night. You are starting a youngster with no muscle memory of Yankee futility in Anaheim. And now, in the 6th, you actually have a 4-3 lead. You also have men on first and second and nobody out, with a real chance to extend your lead, which is crucial since this is a team, unlike the Yankees, that excels at scratching out runs. You have Cano at the plate, with Phillips following. but you know its late enough in the game that you can pinch hit Giambi for Phillips and bring Betemit in for defense (which Torre did in fact do). You give me this situation or any situation like it and I will always sacrifice. Men on second and third 1 out, you should score a run, with a grounder or a fly. A hit you get two. First and second lots can go wrong; second and third not so much. And you don't need a blow out, you have the opportunity to beat the Halos at their own game. Play the percentages Joe; play the NL ball for which you were once known. Nah! Torre sits there and does nothing. Cano hits it hard but right back to the pitcher who turns two (that's what can go wrong!) and the Yankees fail to score, leaving the Angels ready to pounce and win just the kind of one run game the Yankees can't seem to. Mussina follows script tonight and gets bombed (Ian Kennedy for fifth starter!) and the Yanks are 2.5 out of the wild card, 6 back in the East and suddenly falling fast. Baseball is like that. A single poor managerial decision can put your season in jeopardy. That's why it matters that slow Joe is so slow, tactically speaking. And, to be honest, I don't give a fuck how much Derek Jeter loves or respects him.

AGAIN,

2007-08-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

with the fundamentals.

Between the accolades for their hitting and questions about the strength of their opponents, what people seemed to have missed about the yankees recent run of success was how fundamentally sound they were, particularly in the field. Well, everyone should notice now because their record is heading south in direct correlation with their fielding. If you set aside the 12-o blowout, which we can pretty much blame on the decision to pitch Karstens (who hasn't been even mediocre since the broken leg), the losing streak is built on key miscues. Yes, Mo blew up in the 4-3 loss but if it hadn't been for a costly error by Jeter and an absolutely unforgiveable failure on hughes's part to cover first (cost 2 runs), extra innings wouldn't have even been necessary. Last night of course AROD turned an inning ending DP into a prelude to a Slam with one wave of his glove. As Bauer correctly points out, the 4 run result had alot to do with Moose being Moose, i.e. a fragile, pouty prima donna just looking for the lack of support necessary for him to fail in peace. But still,, you put him on the mound, as they have elected to do, then it becomes all the more important to be impeccable so as to not give him any excuses.

I've been following yankee baseball a long time and the only team I can remember that approached this one in streakiness was the Mattingly teams of the mid-80's and you know how that turned out. I am ready to make this prediction, with absolute certainty. the Yankees mat play October baseball, depending on what the momentum dynamics prove to be, but their string of division titles is at an end. The Red Sox are much better at avoiding the losing skein, are much more consistent, that is to say, and with a healthy, if not enormous lead, that fact alone will be determinative.

CAUTION

2007-08-15T12:43:00.000-05:00

won't cut it.

The Yankees dallied with bringing Kennedy up to start last night's game and went insted with the "safe" choice, which was also the choicee nmost likely to result in a loss. You would think they would have learned from Chamberlain and Hughes that these prospects are not made out of glass. they can withstand the pressure of major league exposure without falling to pieces.

On another front, today's line-up shows the virtues of the Yankees' new committment to bench strength. they are sending in a line-up against monster lefty Eric bedard thaat has only one left-handed bat in it (Matsui). quite a feat for this left-heavy team. but options are only as good as the use made of them. Last night, they faxced Angel Cabrera, who is as wild as they come and can be pressured by speed on the bases. he is just the kind of guy you want Damon playing against. damon works walks ansd steals bases. Slow Joe sat him. Further evidence of his lack of tactical acumen.

Speaking of evidence, the performance of Brower last night, combined with his earlier showing, proves he won't do. Torre preferred him to younger pitchers because he can throw everyday and againstt all kinds of competition. Well so can I. but I can't get anyone out, which seems to be Brower's problem. Here's a rule of thumb. When a youngster does well in AAA, it is an index of major league readiness. When a veteran without major league success does wwell at AAA, a la Brower, it only goes to show the value of the experience-differential that he loses in the Bigs.

THE GLASS IS NEVER FULL

2007-08-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

The one irritating thing about the Yankees' great run has been that Torre has been receiving credit for a phenomeneon he did his best to preclude. Pundits who were slow to come around to the realization that slow Joe is a train wreck in pinstripes are now expressing regret that they ever did. And those that stubbornly refused to see the evidencee in front of them now feel vindicated in their blindness. So, for the record, the Yankees have climbed back into this campaign despite, not because, of slow Joe. Let's look at their erstwhile problem areas.

Item 1: Defense We said all along the defense on this team is entirely too weak, especially given the nature of the starting pitching: contact specialists like Pettite, wang and Mussina. Johnny Damon comes down with multiple, chronic injuries and status quo Joe is forced to play Melky on an everyday basis, as we have been begging him to do since last year. The improvement of the defense in center, the fact that Melky actually throws people out, has made an immense difference. Secondly, Cashman went out and got Molina, who is a huge upgrade defensively as well as offensively over Nieves. If there is any reversal of opinion merited by this run, it is regarding Cashman. He remains a completely dreadful judge of pitching talent, a liability that has cost the Yankees--in wins, championships and treasure--but he is much better judging position players and unlike status quo Joe, he believes, as we do, that the kids are alwright.

Item 2 First Base Just as Damon's injuries brought in Melky, injuries to Giambi and Skanky Manky forced Torre to play Phillips, who like cabrera has combined fine defense with timely hitting, the other commodity in short supply earlier in the year. So Slow Joe has benefitted from a 25% change in his line-up, making it younger, more energetic, better defensively, more clutch--and he had nothing at all to do with it. Melky has been so great--and remember we wailed when they were set to trade him last year--that a lynch mob would form at the clubhouse door if Joe tried to sit him now.

Item 3 Youth /Speed Cashman brings up Duncan, who represents another huge infusion of youthful energy, and with the return of Melky, the long absence of Giambi, Damon resting every third game and usually only "playing" DH, this is a much faster team on the bases and in the field than it was in the spring.

Item 4 Bullpen Cashman trades Proctor and assigns the woeful Meyers, so that Joe will be forced to pitch the young flamethrower Joba. Proctor was never great, but Torre ruined him as a serviceable middle reliever. But Cashman probably figures Joe doesn't like to play rookies, so Chamberlain is probably safe from predatory arm abuse, for now. Meanwhile, the bullpen has experienced a huge upgrade, all at the expense of Torre's vision, not in alignment with it. Before we give Cashman too much credit on this one, however, one has to wonder, with respect to Meyers anyway, what took him so fucking long. But I guess better late (Cashman) than never (slow Joe). Even with the upgrade though, this bullpen is pretty thin, and it is partly Torre's fault. Vizcaino is the key figure in the 8th, and while he has been pitching well since late June, Torre has already overworked him, making future performance iffy. And other than Chamberlain, there is noone else to get them to Rivera. Torre, who has as many new ideas as the Bush administration, can't be counted on for a solution. Does Cashman have the backbone to designate Farnsworth (who Torre won't use now anyway because of the spat with Posada) and bring up Ohlendorf? With Karstens the long man and Villone the lefty/mop up guy, the position Farnsworth is occupying is too important to be left thus vacant.

Item 5 Starting Pitching Cashman options Igawa so that Torre has to bring Hughes back earlier than he wanted. Status quo Joe was talking end of August (which means September 10-15th in Joespeak) but once again Cashman forced his hand. Hughes is likely the third best starter on the staff right now (after Wang and Pettite) with a bullet. Cashman also of course signed Clemens, a move I didn't particualrly like; but one would have to concede that with Chamberlain playing a much needed role in the bullpen, Clemens is probably better than the available alternatives. Not 20+ million better, mind you, but then it's not our money.

Item 6 Situational Hitting/Small Ball This is the one area where I think you have to give the devil his due. Joe's inordinate fondness for old age can be a strength: it makes him far more patient with struggling veterans than most of us and I think in the case of Abreu in particular that patience has paid off. He has also shown some willingness to bunt, squeeze and hit and run, though not nearly enough in my view. The way they are mashing right now tends to consolidate his push-button tendencies, which could spell trouble when they cool off.

Item 7 The Bench Cashman deserves all the credit here. The trade for Betemit looks like a good one, the promotion of Duncan definitely looks good and acquiring Molina ranks right after the Texiera trade as the best pick-up by anyone at the deadline. I will say this for Torre; he hasn't forgotten how Giambi carried them in mid-summer last year and the year before.

The Yankees are playing better in large part because they are a different and better team than they were in the spring and in almost every case the improvements were made against Torre's express or enacted wishes. Right now, they are hitting well enough to mask all of the tactical deficiencies he continues to possess and to enhance his reputation as a clubhouse savant. But nothing has changed so far as Joda is concerned. And on this I agree with the pundits, though with a significant difference. their position is , See, he can still manage brilliantly and you shouldn't denigrate him just because of a losing streak. My position is, actually, he hasn't been a very good manager for a really long time, and you shouldn't canonize him just because of a winning streak.
A team, Bill Parcells correctly said, is its record. For very good reasons, he didn't say the same of its coach or manager.

NOW THAT THE DUST HAS SETTLED,

2007-08-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

I think I see it.

What were the Yankees thinking in subtracting relief pitching when the bullpen is the weakest area on the team? I don't know if Proctor was the third best reliever on the team--I'd have put him fourth at best behind Bruney, maybe fifth behind Villone, at least now that Torre has totally blown out his arm--but when everyone can get hit, they certainly need bodies back there. Are they running up the white flag as BGW suggests and preparing for next year? Or does bringing back Ramirez, bringing in Karstens, and bringing up Ohlendorff and of course Chamberlain really give them the best chance this year. Or is this a F*&! Joe Torre (trademark pending)?I think all of these things are true at the same time. Cashman believes they can get to October with some combination of these new, underworked relievers in place of the overworked ones they currently have: don't be surprised if Bruney, Villone or Meyers go at some point. The front office might well be moving to the point of denying Joe the comfort of the status quo, taking away his mediocre veterans and leaving him only the youngsters to go to.

But the point at which these present and future imperatives nmay disverge may be Chamberlain. The future is, or should be, a rotation that includes Wang, Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlain. That prospect would indicate keeping Joba in the minors starting, even though he may be a better bullpen solution than Ohlendorf, Ramirez or Karstens. Either way it should be interesting.

The most traumatic part of the trade deadline was also the most hopeful. The Yankees refusal to give up any of their young guns for Eric Gagne led directly to the Red Sox acquiring him. While that move may give the Chowderboys the modern equivalent of the Nasty Boys, as one pundit put it, it shows that the Yankees are thinking in terms of dynasty building again instead of quick fixes. If they had acquired Gagne, everyone would have said, there they go again giving up on the future for a broken down veteran, and every one would be right (I'll comment below on the Red Sox decision to trade Gabbard). Secondly, it shows that the Yankees are back to charting their own course rather than seeking to interfere in the Sox's plans. Daniel told Cashman straight up, if you don't part with Kennedy, Chamberlain or Cabrera for Gagne, the Sox will get him, and Cashman said well then they'll get him. The emulous reactive mode of personnel strategy was always Red Sox ideology, no the Yankees, and it never served them particularly well. With the media explosion surrounding the rivalry, the Yankees have been drawn into the maelstrom of worrying about their chief enemy instead of the ultimate goal and it has purchased them the fool's gold of division titles at the expense of the rings. It's good to see the organization step back form this syndrome. It could only lead to a greater reliance on the mercenary approach to building the team rather than the cultivation of home grown talent. (The Bronx Is Burning Yankees was the only island of success for the mercenary approach in a franchise that has won consistently from within.)

What about the Red Sox move? Well if this was fantasy baseball, the pick-up would be an unimpeachable score, and it may turn out that way in real life, at least for this season. But their bullpen certainly ain't broke, so the impulse to fix it has to count as a dangerous one. They have promised Gagne thatn he will be the main set-up man for Papelbon and the sometime closer. But Okajima is in fact better than Gagne, by a considerable margin. While Gagne has cashed almost all of his save opportunities, you have to remember that these have come against mainly bad teams, the only kind Texas beats. As the closer, he has in fact appeared against mainly bad teams, making that 2.15 ERA a little deflated. The comments by some that he is the Gagne of old is flatly contradicted by major league scouts and by the radar gun, which shows his fastball at 91 not 97, greatly decreasing the gap for his change-up. I don'tr see how you move Okajima and his 0.98 ERA back into the seventh in favor of Gagne, particularly if the latter isalso to pitch the 9th occasionally. If they don't keep their promise to Gagne, on the other hand, he is likely to destroy the chemistry of the bullpen. He's a rental anyway; he will surely leave to reclaim his closer status next year. If he feels lied to he is likely to take the kind of aggrieved mercenary attitude that can hurt a team. The sox are playing with fire, and while it may blaze their trail to the world series, it might also burn down their house. You have to wonder, given that their greatest need is offensive production and their second is long relief, did they make this deal just to keep Gagne from the Yankees--a bad reason when your 8 games up--or because they couldn't resist Gagne's reputation, despite the injury problems, a Yankee-like thing to do. In either case, they gave up alot for a rental. Jason Stark claims they didn't give up any of their 6 top prospects, but the fact is they offered one of them, Hansen, and the raqngers rightly preferred Gabbard. Like DelCarmen, one of their other "top" prospects, Hansen proved to be not very good at all, while Gabbard has been excellent, 4-0, an ERA lower than anyone on their staff not named Beckett, a much more solid pitcher this year than another one of their top prospects, Lester, was even before his cancer scare. They also gave away Beltre, and did so reluctantly, knowing 5 years from now, long after Gagne has left Boston, and likely the majors, the consequences of this deal are likely to haunt them. This is the kind of deal for which the Yankees have long been known and long been criticized. Sometimes that criticism has been unfounded, as mine might turn out to be here, but more often it has been dead on. And it will be in thic case, unless Boston manges to win it all, which Gagne or no Gagne is considerably less than an even chance.

Before this deal happened, or was even discussed, I told my Bosox-loving brother that I thought their chances may well rest on whether they were willing to depart from plan and reputation and make Gabbard part of their top three, ahead of the (ever)fat(ter) man and Lester. Now they have forfeited that opportunity altogether. We'll see.

SO, DOES JOE TORRE TREAT BLACK AND WHITE PLAYERS DIFFERENTLY?

2007-07-29T12:56:00.000-05:00

The case for the prosecution should begin with one Kenny Lofton.

Charges against Torre of racism or its near, unconscious relatives were summarily dismissed by the press owing to the unreliably egocentric, paranoid and all around prima-donnaish nature of the plaintiff. And I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment of Gary Sheffield's character, or lack thereof. I mean this is someone who manages to be a confessed steroid cheat while continuing to deny the offense.

But the one man who has backed Sheffield up is Kenny Lofton, and his history with the Yankees and beyond makes him, in my view, a compelling witness. Lofton was brought to the Yankees to take over cf duties from a failing Bernie Williams. But Torre never gave him the opportunity to be a full time player in NY, which is clearly what he was signed to be. Instead torre used him part-time and used every shortcoming in his performance as a part-timer to lessen his playing time even more. Now all these years later, Lofton has since proven and continues to prove--in LA, Texas, and now in Cleveland--that he remains the 300 hitter, basestealing threat, and run-scoring machine the Yankees thought they were signing. Of course, the "couldn't do it in New York" label has been dragged out by Yankees management and their journalistic acolytes to explain this state of affairs. But as Melky has proven, the inability to sustain a decent BA or OBP on 10 at bats a week is no indication whatever of one's ability to do so on a full time basis. As fans and followers of the Yankees, I believe we should utterly reject and denounce the whole NY is a "special trial" discourse, which may have had some explanatory value concerning Doyle Alexander but has increasingly become a means for disguising or disavowing the organization's responsibility for not getting what they should have out of their players. Lofot didn't fail as a Yankee because he was playing in NY; he failed because he wasn't playing in NY. Torre's refusal to use him as the regular he'd always been and was expected to be cost the Yankees a first rate CF, who still is a first rate corner outfielder, and may well have cost them a championship in the process.

But, you may now be asking, what does this have to do with skin color? Or what makes me opine that it might have something to do with race? The short but complete answer is Johnny Damon. Damon, like Lofton, was brought to NY to be the regular CF. But unlike Lofton, he is white. And unlike Lofton he was allowed to play regularly and so was given a chance to succeed. Unlike Lofton, when he started to make outs, he was left in the line-up. Unlike Lofton, he continued to hit poorly as a regular and was still left in the line-up. Unlike Lofton, he has now made it clear that he can't, for the moment anyway, hit major league pitching consistently, and he is still left in the line-up. Unlike Lofton, he quickly came to the point where he could no longer hold down center field, and still he is left in the line-up. Unlike Lofton, none of his miscues or misthrows have caused him to be shown-up by his teammates, the way Mariano Rivera showed up Lofton, something you don't do without the manager's consent or connivance. The showing up is important because it chimes with Sheffield's complaint that black players got called out by Torre and white players did not.

Does any of this prove Torre is overly race-conscious? No. Nor, to be honest, do I much care about such proof one way or the other. I root for the Yankees to win, not to be a model of racial harmony. When everyone's making millions, there may be racial victimization, but its priority, compared to things in the real world, is impossibly low. I do care, however, if Torre's latent racial attitude's constitute yet another weakness in his managerial arsenal, if those attitudes militate against the Yankees' defining mission: to win, to win it all, to win all the time.

Sports are the perfect racial laboratory, because performance between the lines is, or can be made, substantially color-blind. As a result, the phrase racist loser contains a basic redundancy. To be the former is, on a level playing field, to be the latter. The Red Sox proved as much throughout the fifties and into the sixties. And racially speaking, of course, the red Sox are the last thing you want to be.

SAME OL JOE

2007-07-28T23:45:00.000-05:00

He'd rather have the worst DH in baseball, provided he's a veteran with a reputation, than a rookie like Duncan who has been successful so far. Maybe he'll be willing to put Giambi, a veteran with a reputation, in as Damon's replacement. He'd better because the guy is just killing us. How can you have an overpriced offense-heavy team and be playing a 240 hitter without power as your DH. Only in the bizzarro world of Torre and the Cahsboy.

CABRERA AND PHILLIPS CANNOT DO IT

2007-07-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

all by themselves. Phillips had 2 hits and a walk, Melky a triple and an RBI and nobody else did anything. A perfectly solid performance by Pettite wasted. When a Yankee starter goes 7 full and gives up 3 runs, they need to win. Sometimes you let down, like the finale in K.C., especially when your starter puts you in a demoralizing hole. But when you've just put an easy win in your pocket (the suspended game) you have to keep the momentum going.

Can the Yankees hit good pitching (like Guthrie)? That appears to be the season-determining question. With Rivera, a resurgent Vizcaino, a usually solid Bruney, an adequate Proctor, one could make the case that the Yankees are a decent relief arm away from an acceptable bullpen, and Jorba Chamberlain could be that man. With a solid Pettite, Clemens and Wang going deep into games, and the second coming of Phillip Hughes, even the deplorable Mussina cannot stop the rotation from being good enough to secure a wild card. But while we know the offense can pile up the stats and score in bunches, it has yet to be demonstrated that they can hit good pitching, and with their legendary inability to manufacture runs, if they can't hit good pitching withn some degree of consistency, the latest spate of wins, however refreshing, is only a mirage.

But I generalize. The question as to whether the Yankees can hit good pitching does not apply equally to all its members. Jeter has obviously shown he does and so has AROD, whose troubles have always arise from the situation rather than the pitcher. Likewise Abreu--when he is hitting, he hits everyone, and when he isn't, everyone makes him look bad. It's too early to tell for Phillips and the indications are that Melky can hit good pitching, which is why he often has multiple hit games in Yankee losses. Posada has hit everyone this year. So that leaves, chiefly, Cano, Damon, and Matsui. Good pitchers give Cano trouble by working on his lack of plate discipline, but other than coaching him, what are you going to do? I mean you have to play him. The same is not true of Damon,however, who has only hit the cripples this year. I would submit that dropped to the bottom of the order a healthy Giambi, if he is indeed healthy, would be more productive than a Damon hitting 245 and under 200 against the top of the rotation. If Damon is playing left field, he's worth having in the line-up--he's so much better with the glove than Matsui. But I'm not at all sure he is enough of an offensive threat to be your DH.

Now I have not been enthusiastic about the prospect of Giambi's return, suggesting he should be left in the minors. BGW has likewise been scornful, wondering if the Yankees really need more offensive thump purchased at the price of speed, defense or fundamentals. Amid their recent winning streak, the answer seemed to be an obvious no, but then they didn't beat a decent starter through that entire stretch. And last year, with Sheffield and Matsui gone, Damon hurt one week, Jeter another and Posada another, Giambi's bat really did carry the team. Indeed, Giambi has produced every season prior to this one in the manner in which he is capable. I think he needs to be given the chance to display that offense again (if he is right), understanding that it is the job of the manager to limit the correlative costs of that productivity. Do not put him in the middle of the order where his talent for drawing walks merely clogs up the bases. Put him at the bottom of the order, where he can pick up Cano, Melky and Phillips, and where his walks will turn the order over to your new lead off man, Derek Jeter.

Here's a line-up I'd try. I would bat AROD third becasue you know he is going to hit until the games become truly meaningful, and right now you're just trying to make sure they do.

Jeter
Abreu
AROD
Matasui
Posada
Phillps
Cano
Cabrera
Giambi

YANKEES GONE WILD

2007-07-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

Card.

Dice-K finally stepped up big against a good team last night and the Yankees were the main beneficiaries. With the Mariners dropping a doubleheader, the Twins losing again (and again today), Cleveland alone looks to stand between the Yankees and October. Seattle is only 1.5 games up (and cratering), actually just one if you count the game the Yankees have in hand from the suspended contest against Baltimore. And on that basis, even the Indians are only 4 up, which is nothing at this point in the season. What's more, Cleveland is playing really poorly at the moment. They looked just terrible against Lester, whose only out pitch was an out of the zone high fastball that the Tribe just kept swinging at. If they hadn't gotten themselves out repeatedly in the 4th, he never would have survived the inning. With Beckett going tonight, the Yanks have a chance to narrow the gap to 3, though Mussina may well scotch that hope.

Hughes looked great again last night, winning 4-0 and Clemens continues to pitch beyond my expectations. Almost every start since the first couple, when he was still in spring training mode, has not only been solid (look at his ERA!) but, more surprisingly, has gone 7 or 8 innings. With added rest, even the mediocre bullpen hads proven serviceable, particularly Vizcaino, whose ERA is 0.99 since May 28 (in 26 appearances). With RJ all but announcing the end of his career yesterday, I have to give the Cashboy credit for once. To get someone to take Johnson's contract and give up anything at all for the privelege looks pretty astute.

A rotation of Clemens, Pettite, Hughes and Wang, with added bullpen help from Chamberlain (to replace the hopeless Farnsworth) and Ian Kennedy (to replace Meyers) could get the Yankees into October even if they cool off, as they must, with the bats. Phillips has been transformative for this team in the field: with his average and pop, he allows Torre to DH Damon without worrying that he has sacrificed too much power and to DH Duncan without worrying that he has sacrificed too much contact. He's fielding the position beautifuklly as well. Plus last night, after the Yankees surrendered 2 rund of their early 6 run lead, Phillips successfully laid down a sacrifice that put them back up by 5 in the fourth. It's just that kind of tack on run that breaks the other team's momentum, prolongs the outing of your starter, increases the rest of your bullpen etc. and it all stems from doing the fundamentals right. When you trade Sheffield, Giambi, and Damon on the field for Abreu, Phillips and Cabrera, you have lost all sorts of potential in one sense, but you will be playing a sounder all around game. And that's what the Yankees are doing.

My in-laws are in upstate Pa. this week and say the weather is great. Jason, give Wilkes-Barre a try.

THESE KIDS ARE ALWRIGHT TOO

2007-07-23T16:49:00.000-05:00

In last year's installment of the kids are alwright, I begged the Cashboy not to trade Melky for some middle reliever as he was proposing to do (please hold your applause), and I extolled the virtues of playing youngsters like Melky, Bubba, Wang, Phillips etc. I also excoriated Torre for his belief that youth is to be wasted on the minor leagues. His recent handling of Ramirez suggests maybe he hasn't learned his lesson thoroughly just yet, but there is also evidence that he is beginning compelled to. The right side of the Yankees infield, their hottest DH and the centerfielder of the present and future (thank god they didn't trade him), along with Wang and the soon to be returning Karstens and Hughes (not to mention the injured Rasner) means the Yankees are in a full fledged youth movement even as they strive to regain playoff position, or rather they have any shot at the playoffs thanks to this youth movement. If we had a manager instead of a head of cabbage, the return of Hughes would mean the end of Mussina and Igawa (bad as he is, he's better than Moose) would be left to fight it out with Karstens, the loser becoming the long relief man in a pen that would be shrugging off Farnsworth and Meyers and bringing up Joba Chamberlain, the 22 year old with Zumaya heat. And now that Giambi is just about ready to play, Scranton-Wilkes Barre should be getting an aging, steroid-addled slugger in exchange for Shelley Duncan, this years answer to Shane Spencer. Or Bud could just suspend G-force zero and spare us the drama, and the salary. In any event, I repeat what I said last year, win it with the kids or die trying. Either way, its better than another year of Torre's Hoaries.

And next year, hire someone worthy of the youth to be groomed, someone like Girardi. If he could take those Marlinings to the brink of the playoffs, imagine what he could do with these guys.

AS A PHILOSOPHER OF THE FUTURE,

2007-07-22T00:28:00.000-05:00

Nietzsche likely had the sports pundit in mind when he conceived of man as a herd animal.

During this midseason's break madness, evryone in the punditsphere seemed to be asking the same question: can the Yankees catch the Red Sox, will the Yankees catch the Red Sox? I know that's two questions, but evidently they don't, becasue they treated these two propositions as coextensive with one another. Actually, they are not just 2 different questions, they differ in that one is a question, will they, and one is not in question at all? Obviously, the yankees can catch the Red Sox, have the theoretical capacity to accomplish this task, are sufficiently competent to keep such a mission within the realm of possibility. Will they catch them is another matter altogether.

Why does the heard treat these questions as one entity. Because their answer, no on both counts, is entirely centered on the Sox. The Yanks will not catch them becasue they cannot because the Sox are just too good to fold. now this is all preposterous in a number of respects. Firstly, with a 7 game gap and 70 to play, a team may be caught without "folding." Of course the gap used to be 14.5, which points to the fact that the Sox, far from being immune to the swoon, have already been doing their share of exactly that. Since the end of May, the Red Sox record is exactly the same as the Kansas City Royals record, and if that isn't folding what is. Of course the Sox could wellm fold and still avoid being caught by the Yankees.

Why does the Big Red Press assume their beloved Sox can't fold despite the abundant evidence to the contrary? Their pitching is apparently too good, too deep or both (the minor variations in the bleat of the sheep). A pitching staff with Tavaras as its fifth starter can hardly be called too deep, and one that also has Wakefield as its fourth starter can hardly be called too good. All the more so since the bullpen, though monstrous strong at the end, is almost as weak in the middle as the Yankees'. The too strong, too deep predicate ultimately rests on the notion that the Sox have not 1 but 3 bona fide Aces in their rotation, as well as the best closer in baseball. I won't quibble the last point, although Joe Nathan and K-Rod might be counterposed, but the 3 Ace thesis is just further preposterousness. Schilling was no ace before he went on the DL, and while the Nation-al spokesman are fond of saying he'll be rested and ready, a brief glance is enough to confirm he's also fatter than ever and not shape. Schilling hasn't been scaring good teams since 2004 and invoking him as an ace now is an exercise in nostalgia. As for Dice-K, he's just great, as long as the opposition isn't very good. He has had 2 weak starts against the Yankees, been clubbed by the Indians and the Tigers, chased by the White Sox, beated badly by the Blue Jays. He has not been very good when he doesn't get alot of runs. His record, 11-7, is good but not ace-worthy; his ERA, 4, is good in the AL but not Ace worthy. his record at stopping losing streaks is okay, but not Ace-worthy, and his propensity to blow up in the 4th or 5th inning is dangerous for Boston come playoff time. That leaves Beckett, a true ace this year, but alone in that regard. Tavaras, Shilling and Wakefield have all been very bad in their last 4-5 starts; Dice-K has been bad in 2 of his last 3. The slump Boston has experienced since the middle of June is directly tracable to a pitching rotation "too strong" and "too deep" to allow it to happen.

If Boston wins the East this year, it won't be because their pitching was too great or because they were so good as to be uncatchable. It will be because the Yankees have already blown 10-15 games they should have won, because the Yankees still only have three starters worhty of the name, because an already bad bullpen was destroyed by mismanagement, because Damon is hitting in the 230's etc. etc. We who have watched in agony as the Yankees sink into an unworthy decline can only stand amazed at the fact that they are a mere 7 games behind, and if we seek an explanation for this undeserved good fortune, the last place we will find it is in Boston's invincibility.

But then one should remember that the pundits report less on the games being played than on the sound of their own collective voice. That's what being a herd animal is all about.

JOE MATTERS BECAUSE

2007-07-08T12:39:00.000-05:00

Shit Happens.

Psychoanalysis tells us that whatever the status of reality an sich, our experience of the real is exhaustively determined by the frames provided by our fantasies. Analogously, our current experience of the game of baseball has been fundamentally altered, reconditioned, by the explosion in fantasy baseball. For one thing, the existence of leagues in which the game is literally played "on paper" or the virtual equivalent thereof has tended to endorse the phoney science of sabermetrics beyond anything justified by what happens on the field of dreams. I mean, sabermetric me this, what passel of context insensitive numbers can explain or could have predicted your 2006 world champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. Sabermetrics, as we know, is a discourse of the GM (and of one GM in particular, Billy Beane, who, the last time I checked, has won exactly what his discourse is worth, nothing--he's the alan Sokol of baseball, only without the irony, but maybe that's Michael Lewis's bailiwick: after all, he first became famous writing Liar's Poker not Money Ball).

A related effect of the fantasy (league) frame is to turn MLB into a GM-centric game, the way college basketball is a coach-centric game or the NFL is a QB-centric game. An admittedly important part of the game--finding, recruiting, signing, keeping and trading talent--has become the essence of the game, from the fan's perspective, because it is the aspect that they can, in their fantasy leagues, participate in fully. We now have pundits discussing who "won" the trading deadline, as if it is a game in itself, because in the fantasy world it is the game in itself. This phenomenon has in turn changed the way we think and talk about the "real" game in itself. When a team like the Yankees is stinking it up for an entire half season, all of the talk revolves around what they need in the way of additions: a new first baseman with pop, a middle reliever with an out pitch, more speed etc. All valid points of analysis, to be sure, but none provide actual solutions the way they might in a fantasy league, where the objective is to maximize your statistical load through GM-like, or GM light, decision-making. This is where the problem of baseball fundamentals becomes important: who gets the bunt down, who hits the ball to the right side, who throws to the right base, hits or misses the cut-off man,who works the walk and, most impotantly of all, when. It doesn't take the best or the most talented ballplayers to get the fundamentals right and yet you won't win over the long term if you don't. So no GM is baseball can ultimately provide for fundamentals; the next big acquisition will not solve this problem, the next brilliant move, be it a trade or a promotion from the minors won't create the team efficiency that sound fundamental baseball affords. Fundamentals are both the both the basic unit of play and the aspect of the game least amenable to outside control. They constitute a margin of irreducible difference between fantasy ball and actual ball, hence between an imagined GM-centric MLB and the real MLB, which can never be GM-centric in the end.

The point of mediation between what happens on the field, baseball as a players game, as we used to think of it, and what happens in the staging of the field itself, baseball as a GM's game, as we currently imagine it, is of course the manager. He is the proximate influence not over whether the team hits or pitches--hence the old saw that he's not responsible, he can't play the game for them--but over whether they play the game the right way, whether they do all the things they absolutely must do to win and they absolutely can do as professional athletes, if they maintain a sufficient intensity of focus and concentration--which is precisely why managers do matter so much even though they can't actually play the game.

In a fantasy Gm-centric world, Joe Torre can remain serene, as he was yesterday, that his team is enormously talented and will win in the end despite their egregious failure in every category of fundamentals. This is the manger as faux GM, which is what comes of earning your stripes as a clubhouse "presence" rather than an on-field tactician. But in the real world, where baseball is not just a sport, an athletic competition, but a game, a contest that admits of multiple ways of seeking advantage, a manager who relies on talent alone or who is negligently wastes his talent by not compelling them to do the little things they might feel are "beneath" them (like bunting) will soon be a losing manger, and then a fired manager, and finally a manager in the one league suited to his tastes and talents--fantasy baseball.

Unless of course his owner has lost the mind his GM never had. And then the manager will be left to wake up to reality on his own or to ruin the franchise.

CASE IN POINT

2007-07-07T19:23:00.000-05:00

Anyone curious about why the Yankees will not be playing October baseball need only have tuned into today's game against the Angels to have all their questions answered. The panopoly of Yankee shortcomings was on display. They scored a run early but failed to bust the game open then and there because they couldn't comeup with the necessary 2-out hit. The culprit was Damon, who remains a mere husk of his former self and currently one of the worst all-round players in the league. Clemens pitched brilliantly and would have won the game on a shutout except for a mishandled play by AROD that prevented getting the man at the plate. It was a miscue, not an error, but don't worry there were 5 of those, all committed by the Yankees. Two of them cost the Yankees the winning run in the 13th, but only after they'd squandered opportunity after opportunity to win the game. Most notably, they had Posada on 2nd with noone out, but failed to play the kind of small ball that wins games.

Finally, down 2-1 in the 13th, the great wild card, Torre's ineptitude, revealed itself and the game was lost. Actually, it was pretty interesting watching the game on Fox because Girardi was serving as colorman. He was trying not to criticize his "mentor" but stumbled into it at the end. With 1 out, Cairo singled and then stole second (he was out, but they are the breaks you have to cash). A wild pitch put him on third before K-Rod walked Damon, creating the possibility of a DP. At this juncture, Mo-Jo suggested that slow Joe might have Melky, who'd already KO'd 4 times, lay down a drag bunt to bring in the tying run and put Damon in scoring position for Jeter. Then he said if Cabrera drag bunted, Cairo could walk home. Melky takes strike one. AgainMo-Jo says if Melky bunts down first, Cairo walks home. Pitch out. Now it seems slow Joe has extracted the committment from Soscia that he wanted, surely a bunt is in play. No, Melky is swinging away and fouls it off. Again Mo-Jo talks about the easy run a bunt would provide, while conceding that it is harder to do with two strikes. He adds, however, that Melky will probably be thrown the same curve in the dirt he'd fanned on all 4 times. So why not pull a surprise 2 strike drag, especially since you wouldn't have to start the runner? Melky strikes out on a curve in the dirt. Jeter almost gets one through the infield but they lose. The lasting implication from the broadcast is fairly simple to read: if Mo-Jo were the manager instead of slow Joe, they'd be playing more small ball, worrying more about fundamentals, looking more like and winning more like the Angels.

All I can say is, welcome to our world Mo-Jo. Errors, situational hitting, making contact to move runners, bunting at the right time, stop giving runs away and start stealing runs late in the game. We've been saying it all along. What's wrong with the Yankees is simple, painfully simple, with the accent on painfully. They play lousy fundamental baseball, maybe the worst fundamental baseball in the entire major leagues. And no amount of talent can compensate for that. But you know you can't make this case while repeating the mantra about how great a manager Slow Joe is. If the manager is responsible for anything, it is making sure the basics are attended to and refusing to excuse the failure to do so. But all Mr. Mellow Joe does is make excuses for the stinking fundamentals of his team. After today's debacle, he actually said he didn't let the 5 errors bother him because they were the result of great effort. Heavens, can somebody tell me what the fuck Little League baseball is if not a prolonged series of errors, miscues, misjudgements and missed opportunities caused in the main by great but inefficacious effort?

If you're about good baseball, major league baseball, playing the game the right way, then Mr. Mo-Jo, you have to join the infantilized rabble who keep saying the Emperor Has No Clues, instead of defending the status quo on status quo Joe, that he is some kind of saurian genius.

HE'S CLUELESS TOO

2007-06-28T15:52:00.000-05:00

Today Brain-less Cashboy declared, "It's been a bizarre season. I don't understand what's been happening." What's been happening is that you have been ruining the team with your total ignorance of baseball talent. You don't understand this because of your total ignorance of baseball talent. Today's salient example. During the off-season, the Pads wanted RJ so badly they were willing to give up stud set=up man Scott Linebrink for him. Braqinless elected to deal Johnson to the D-Backs instead for the woeful Vizcaino, in part because Cahsboy was cxonvinced Ross Ohlendorf could be his next big league ace. Well we know all about Brainless's idea of an Ace (see Mussina, Wright, Pavano, brown et al.) Ohlendorff is currently 1-3 with an ERA of 5.19. Just for comparison, Matt Di Salve, whom the Yanks had to throw back, is 5-1 with an ERA under 2, and Clippard is 4-2 with an ERA of 3. Even chasde Wright is 4-3 with an ERA under 4. I could be wrong, but it's looking doubtful Ohlendorf will prove a major league pitcher, let alone an Ace, and the Brainless Boy-Wonder blew a major opportunity to shore up a beleaguered bullpen. Defending Torre earlier this year, he said if we don't win, it's my fault. That may very well be his only 14 carat insight on any baseball matter in his entire existence.

NO, IT GETS BETTER

2007-06-27T23:32:00.000-05:00

Tired undoubtedly of the futility with men in scoring position, the Yankees put noone in scoring position tonight, at least not until the ninth, when they were already down 4-0. For the record, they went 0-2 at that point to continue the abasement.

I thought the Yanks shouldn't have signed Clemens because they simply weren't play-off ready enough to need another aging pitcher. Turns out Clemens wasn't good enough to earn that kind of dough anyway. At 1-3, with a 5.32 ERA, Clemens adds to the interminable list of terrible pitching deals done by Brainless Cashboy. It's up to 282 mil in absolutely wasted money. Once George is down 300 mil, do you think he'll finally say enough?

Since we can pretty safely rule out October, the question now is will the Yankees ever get and stay over 500? I think you could actually argue no, that they have already given up on the season, at least inwardly, and that mind set will produce more failure. Even Joe sounded resigned after tonight's debacle. "At this point," he said, "you can't worry about the season, you can only worry about tomorrow." That's because barring the Flood, there will be a tomorrow, but there ain't no season left for this team.

NOTES ON A SELF-EXECUTION

2007-06-27T15:08:00.000-05:00

1. Turns out Proctor already walked in the winning run this year (against LA) and if WHIPs were restricted to walks, his would still be almost 1.oo. The lesson is he's a middle reliever who hasn't the control or the nerve to pitch with the game on the line. This isn't a question of overuse but of limited ability. Slow Joe should go with (an underused Mo) in such situations. The meat of the order was coming up in thwe 10th; Torre should have given them a chance to win the game.

2. Proctor would still have gotten out of trouble if instead of hotdogging his catch of the bunt, he had taken the opportunity for an easy double off at second, as Jorge was screaming at him to do. Of course, the O's first run came on the lackluster defense of Bobby Abreau. Last night, I should have said No Offense, No Bullpen, No Bench, No Glovework, No Chance. There are just so many things the Yanks do poorly (No bunting too).

3. As JBAUER says, they are wasting an explosive year by AROD. But they are also wasting Jeter's 345, 410 and Posada's 339, 405. Cano, Matsui, Abreau have all been terrible and Damon is turning into another Giambi, someone whose defense is so bad yopu can only DH him and whose rep as a hitter far exceeds his real proficiency.

4 Clemens-Bedard tonight. I say they lose again.

5 What do all of these people have in common: Torre, Cashman, Guidry, Mattingly, Abreau, Rivera, AROD, Nieves, Cairo,Damon, Giambi, Matsui, Farnsworth, Proctor, Mussina and Meyers?

NOTES FROM A SELF-EXECUTION

2007-06-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

1. Turns out this is the second time this year that Proctor has walked home trhe winning run. given that he is primarily amiddle reliever, this is an extraordinary stat. It sure doesn't speak to overuse. It speaks to the fac that he is a middle reliever and shouldn't be entrusted with game situations. Clearly he hasn't the nerve. Joe's always whing about Mo getting too little work. Well the top of the order was comiong up in the 10th. Send Mo out for the ninth, hope you score in the 10th and send him out again. If you don't score then send out Proctor. That way you've given Jeter, Matsui, Arod and Posada a chance to win the game for you.

2. Proctor made a great play on the bunt pop up in the ninth, but instead of whirling and throwing for an easy DP and a possible Triple, he styled it, making a spectacle and, ultimately, a loser of himself. he doubles Patterson off second (he was almost to third) like Jorge is screaming at him to do, the O's probably don't score.

3. The O's got on the board through the uninspired defense of Cairo and Abreu in letting a pop up drop: last night when I said no offense, no bullpen, no bench, no chance, I shouldn't have overlooked the mediocre defense. It's just that there is no end to the things this team does poorly (no bunt for example).

4. JBauer 2977 points out that the Yankees are wasting an explosive season from AROD. True. but they are also wasting a great season from Posada (339, over 400 OBP) and Jeter (345, over 400 OBP). They are wasting a good seasopn from Pettite (3.24 ERA) and some good play from Melky. But you have to look at the guys who have been down as well: Cano still at 270, Matsui at 278 and repeatedly striking out in the late inngs (killed a rally that way last night), Abreu (enough said) and of course Damon who, injuries or no has been just plain awful. If he ws the second coming of Jesus in Boston, he's the second coming of Jason in NY and I don't mean the slasher. I mean Giambi. Like Giambi, you can't play him in the field and like Giambi his reputation as an offensive force greatly exceeds the reality. Melky is actually better offensively aas well as defensively than Damon is these days. Have you noticed Damon is even spoiling pitces and running up pitch counts anymore. It's like he's defeated when he enters the box.

5. Finally, let's remember, the Yankees didn't just lose to the O's last night, they lost to the O's without Tegada, their only marquee player. 0=5 with runners in scoring position can do that to you, especially when you help the other team to score without hitting.

ANOTHER GRITTY EFFORT,

2007-06-26T20:36:00.000-05:00

likely gone to waste.
Pettite gives up just 2 in seven, but the Yankees again fail to hit with men on base and only manage 2 of their own, with a couple of DP's (of course) and strike outs. Cairo is the type tonight, going 2 for 3, 2 hits with the bases empty and a pop out with runners on 1st and 3rd one out (the Yanks fail to score again). Now in the bottom of the 8th they bring in the big F..... Can you believe our set-up man has an ERA of 5.16? How is he still pitching in meaningful situations (by which I mean major league situations)?

Ninth inning, two men on, one out and both Abreu and Cairo fail to get the ball out of the infield. Late in the game, with winning runs on base you have to pinch hit for Cairo. The Yankees have no bench; I mean literally no major league talent on it at all! Now they have to hope for extras. I'm not holding my breath.

Proctor walks the lead off man. Have you noticed that the Yankees' relievers cannot throw strikes when they need to? Having given up a hit to
Roberts and benefitted from a gift pop out on a bunt, Proctor walked another batter to load the bases! Will he walk in the winning run a la Bruney?
He did it! He walked Hernandez to lose the game. Proctor faced 5 walked three of them, gave up a single and only got the guy who gave himself up. Ball 4 to Hernandez wasn't even close. This team gets worse and worse: no offense, no bullpen, no bench, no chance. They just lost 6 of 7 to glorified AAA teams.

C'mon George. Clean house. It stinks in here.

OFF DAY ITEM

2007-06-25T19:26:00.000-05:00

As the Yanks prepare to take on the Orioles, it is worth noting that they are closer to this sorry team, which has already fired its manager, than they are to the wild card, and over twice as close to the O's than they are to the Red Sox.

CONGRATULATIONS!

2007-06-24T21:56:00.000-05:00

to Ken Griffey Jr. He passed Big Mac (supersteroidize me) on the all time home run list and he is almost certain to become the sixth player in MLB history to reach 600 homers and only the fourth to do so without the benefit of cheatjuice. That he did so in the steroid era, when many of the pitchers were juicing as well, only magnifies his accomplishment. With all the talk of Mac-Android, Barry the Bloat and, more recently, of (Honey, I Shrunk the Sammy) Sosa, I had forgotten--and I suspect others have as well--that Griffey always was and still remains the greatest slugger of his generation, indeed the greatest slugger since Aaron, Mays and Robbie hung em up. Considering all the injuries, he is managing to combine the margin of unfulfilled promise we associate with Mickey Mantle with the relentless home run production we associate with Aaron. That he did so clean in a dirty, dirty fucking era, that he did so while playing a truly spectacular center field--in his prime he was the second coming of Willie--that he did so, again in his prime, with a flair and a grace that Dimaggio himself would have envied (were he less profoundly narcissistic) make him the kind of player I count myself lucky to have seen. The pundocracy now routinely assures themselves they are giving him his props by pointing out that he's a certain hall of famer. Shit, Eddie Murray, Bruce Sutter, Robin Yount, Kirby Puckett, Dennis Eckersley are all of Hall of Famers, proving how debased that currency has become. Ken Griffey is an All-Timer,--greater than Sosa, Mcguire and even, in the end, Bonds. Congratulations Junior. I hope with this milestone and the 600th bomb to come, you finally get the credit you are due.

IT'S A NEW LOW; NOW CAN WE

2007-06-24T18:29:00.000-05:00

fire Joe. He doesn't know how to play small ball anymore, but he knows how to be victimized.
The giants stole 5 bases, scored on a squeeze (which the Yankees seem to think is beneath them) and benefited from an error on Nieves. Since the latter nonentity may be the single worst offensive player in the league, his performance with the glove today really begs the question, what the fuck is he still doing on the team. Mussina turns in a Jared Wright-like performance, 5 mediocre innings, further straining the bullpen. And with the game effectively over anyway, the big F... commtted the baseball equivalent of shitting his pants in public--he gave up three runs without getting through a full inning.

A 7-2 loss to drop the series to one of the worst teams in baseball, after getting swept by another weak team. This is worse than anything that happened before the winning streak, not least because they have pissed away most everything they gained in the streak. They are once again a laughingstock and not just in chowderheadnation. This season is now almost half over (73 games) and they are still under 500, probably the most talented team to be this bad in the modern era.

What is to be done, Tolstoy might ask were he a Yankee fan, other than satisfying the desire for a purge by releasing the incompetent GM/manager team. So far as salvaging this season is concerned, the strategies for doing so now have all the credibility of strategies for salvaging victory in Iraq. They are comparatively easy to formulate and all but impossible to believe in. The one thing I would suggest on this score: instead of simply firing slow Joe, make it clear to the players, who always profess their love and respect for him, that they are costing him the job. Win 20 of their next 25 or he's gone and I'll bring in someone whose only task will be to make your lives miserable for the remainder of the season.

If on the other hand, George is prepared to face reality and give up on the season, he should really try to get rid of some of these players for prospects, beginning with AROD, whose market value has never been higher. I know he has a no trade, but I'm sure he is sick of being a career long loser and there are teams in the national league, like the Padres, who would likely be playing in the world series if they acquired him.

What George should know is that his fan base now requires some dramatic move on his part, if only to make it clear that he feels as aggrieved as they do with a management team, a line-up, a a bullpen and a bench that have gone beyond disappointing all reasonable expectations to disgracing the uniform they wear and the legacy carry forward.

PART OF PLAYING SMALL BALL

2007-06-24T15:43:00.000-05:00

is what you do to avoid giving up runs. Secons and third, one out and Pedro Feliz, a decnt hitter at the plate. Following him is the substitute catcher, hitting 167 and then the pitcher. Anyone who knows anything about the game, knows you walk Feliz, play for the double play and if yuou get a strike out, or a opo up you face the pitcher. the Yankees, managed by someone who has forgotten anything he once knew. pitch to Feliz and give up a free run on a sac fly. Posada ain't playing, neither is Abreu, neither is Damon, and Jeter is hurting. One run could easily be a killer.

WHICH IS MORE SICKENING?

2007-06-23T23:31:00.000-05:00

The Yankees play or Torre's reaction.

Everything that make this Yankees squad such a disgrace to the franchise was on display today. They left 50 some runners on base, the bullpen imploded, walking three batters in a single inning to give away the lead, they failed to come up with the big hit time and again, including a pathetic strikeout from Jeter, Torre refused to play small ball when he had the chance, passing up at least two squeeze opportunities that would have won the game (Lou won a game today with the squeeze in Chicago), Torre failed to take out Bruney (who clearly couldn't find the plate) until after maximum damage was done--in sum the Yankees blow a four to one lead against an awful team then fail to rally behind AROD's 9th inning home run or, more significantly, his 11th inning double, and lose the game in 13. They should have won easy in nine, should have won hard in 11 and they lost altogether. They scored four in four and then went a full game scoring only one more despite hit after hit after hit. It's the kind of game only losers can manage to lose, particularly when they are playing against a bunch of losers like the Giants. The entire Rockies series did not disgust me as completely as this one game, as watching Cano blow chance after chance to win the game, as watching Matsui strike out in the 11th, against a shitty pitcher, when almost any kind of contact would have won the game, as watching Jeter swing and miss at an obvious ball four to kill a likely rally, as watching Meyers and Bruney throw ball after ball, none of which were even close (Bruney walked in the go ahead run, despite the fact that Bonds swung at 2 pitches out of the zone; in other words with the bases loaded and the game tied late, Bruney threw 6 straight balls). Seriously, at various points in this game I felt physically ill.

But what about that other Joe, you know the one getting paid a king's ransom to extract the highest caliber of play from his similarly well-compensated charges? What was his state of mind, having witnessed this debacle up close? What were his sentiments as the easiest road trip possible just went to 1-4, ensuring that the west coast portion can at best aspire to a 333 winning percentage? How unacceptable does he find the fact that the Yankees season is going down the drain (now 6.5 out of the wild card) against such seemingly unworthy competition? How enraged is he by the team wide epidemic of choking from which ironically only AROD, the erstwhile choker in chief, seems immune?

Well Joe said, a) "I guess it wasn't our day" (it wasn't the day that gagged, it was you and your team), b) "I have no complaints other than the final score" (how'ja like that limosine ride, Mrs. Kennedy) and c) my person favorite, "You can't blame the bats today" Why not? "We got 17 hits" (the object of the game is not to get hits but to score runs, and when you have a lot of the former and few of the latter, the bats are to blame). How does the greatest franchise in sports come to be managed by a clown who doesn't appreciate the significance of situational hitting. If you're leaving a ton of men on base ( and the Yankees outdid themselves in this sorry regard), then you are not hitting in any meaningful sense--by definition.

How can Torre remain comparatively satisfied with his team when thery are falliong further and further behind by letting games they have in hand slip away? And how, short of the Alzheimer's explanation, can George remain satisified with a manager unfazed not just with losing but with losing pathetically, as they've done this entire trip.

For myself, I am finally coming to realize that no amount of calculation can explain why this team will not play in October or justify any residual hope that they will. All you have to do is look at the production of Matsui, Cano, Abreu, Cairo, and Damon in innings 1-5 vs innings 6-9 in close games. Look at the Whip of the bullpen pitchers once they have at least one man on base. Look at the deplorable record in 1 run games, among the worst in the majors. The numbers tell you the kind of thing numbers ordinarily don't: that this is a team without much heart. Until Torre calls them on this lack, and stops praising their "effort," he will be worth even less than usual.

So the answer is....BOTH.

YOU CAN'T CURE STUPID

2007-06-23T00:38:00.000-05:00

There is no time like a victory for analyzing slow Joe's deficencies as a field tactician. One can take pleasure in the recognition, without the bitterness that attends defeat.

Top of the eighth. Proctor has just finished a nice 2/3, but now his ass is on the pine, from which, as we know, it never returns the same. The Yanks lead 6-2 and Cairo leads off with a double. This is the perfect time to squeeze out another run, late in the game with a weak bullpen at your back. One of the few Yankees that can actually bunt, JD, is available to pinch hit and Melky, whose been great at making contact, will follow. Needless to say, slow Joe lets Proctor bat. He doesn't get it done, Melky's grounder can't get the run in and the Yankees don't score (thanks in part to yet another base running snafu). The lead remains 6-2, and Proctor goes out and gicves up a homer to Bonds and a single to the following batter, necessitating a 2 inning stint from Rivera. They could have been up 7-2, Bruney could have gotten them through the eighth etc. etc. Instead the Giants actually had the tying run up to bat in the 8th. Ultimately no harm done, but a game that could have been lost on the sheer obtuseness of the manager. He won't play small ball, even when it's the obvious option and he can't learn from the patterns of his bullpen arms in order to manage them effectively. Torre is living proof that Ron "Tater" White is entirely correct: you can't cure stupid.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY

2007-06-21T22:42:00.000-05:00

I so revile Torre, a you need to look no further than today's game. A must win, with an advantageous stretch threatening to go up in smoke thanks to tgheir failure to grind at the plate, it is up to the manager to make sure they are playing with the focus and urgency necessary to keep their season afloat. Instead they lose yet another one run game, this time thanks to a handful of baserunning errors! Cano, Jeter and Abreu all screw up at different points in the game and Torre is left insisting they kn ow how good a team they are, as if their self-image is the ultimate issue. The truth is they are NOT a good team. As Bill Parcells says, you are wht your record says you are and a 500 record says you're mediocre. They ARE an immensely talented team, which makes their mediocrity all that much more the disgrace.In baseball, the difference between being talented and being good typically involves tending to the local: to the here and now of a baserunning situation, a pitch choice, the position of your fielders, the wasting of a single pitch to getg one that's hittable. When you are talented, certainly as talented as this team, playing well is frequently aboujt just keeping your head in the game, completely, for nine full innings. Too often, this team has its head up its ass. And at the end of the day, that's a firing offense--for the manager.

THE YANKEES BELIEVE THEY CAN WIN EVERY GAME,

2007-06-21T01:19:00.000-05:00

or so they say. But if they don't reinforce that belief with early, abundant offense, they tend to lose, and look bad doing so. One of the ways of understanding that this team, recent winning streak aside, is still not all that good, is that they only know one way to win. Blow teams out over the first 6-7 innings and then watch their bullpen give some but not all the lead back.

This is bad. Over a road trip where they had a significant advantage schedule wise over Boston, they've already dropped 1.5 games further back. Without a significant turnaround over the next 7 games, and they will have blown an opportunity they just can't afford to lose.

CRUNCH TIME

2007-06-20T01:48:00.000-05:00

I know we can't expect the anks to keep up the recent pace, but tonight was still a brutal loss for a number of reasons. Anytime Mussina pitches that well they need to win. Melky got 2 hits in the leadoff slot, which they have to cash in. And finally if the remainder of the season is to be about more than the wild card (they are still in excellent shape there, only four back of both Cleveland and Detroit and virtually even with the A's and Mariners), then this is the time to amke a move. The Sox have the Braves, the Padres and the Mariners, while the Yanks have the Rockies, the Giants and the O's. Both are on the road and the Yanks have historically been the better road team, so it is imperative that they make up a couple of games over this stretch. After tonight, they have lost a half game--from 8.5 to 9-but remain 8 back in the all-important loss column. If they can reduce that gap to 7, 6 in the loss column, then they only need to pichk up another game or two to put the remaing series decisvely in play. The key is to win each of these series, which means taking the next two. They definitely blew one tonight, with the ols situational hitting bugaboo returning. But if they really have their confidence back at the plate, they should be able to shake it off. This is the most important stretch of the season before the actual stretch drive. It's not now or never, but it is now or now or never.

BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE

2007-06-11T01:43:00.000-05:00

It's nice to have a winning streak to assess for the first time this year. As BGW pointed out a few days back, the key was game three of the streak, the finale against the Chisox, which set them up for a return home, a weak opponent and Roger's return. In that game, they got pretty lucky, one would have to admit. Torre sat both Jeter and Posada, leaving the Yankees with no offense to speak of, while starting Mussina, who has needed more offense than the Yankees can provide. But then the Sox, with Erstad and Crede on the DL, decided to sit Dye and Uribe as well, leaving them with only 2 hitters in the line-up likely to hurt you. As a result, Mussina was able to challenge hitters keep his pitch count down and last 6 fullinnings instead of the ususal 4 and a third. He couldn't get anyone out in the seventh and coughed up the slim 1-0 lead, but kept us in the game. It is worth noting, however, that the Yanks were unable to win the game until Torre put Jeter and Posada in.

Still, the game did feature one of the hallmarks of this streak, the Yankees ability to produce in the late innings. for this stretch, they have been refusing to give up at bats; Pirates manager Tracy even referred to their incredible grinding ability, which was of course entirely AWOL in May. They have found a balance, patience without passivity, which they have been unable to strike previously. When the season began, they were passive, except for Jeter, AROD and Posada. Once losing set in, they were impatient, except for Jeter and Posada. But now they seem willing to take pitches, including strikes, but aggressive in their swings. Why this has happened is difficult to say. I would assert that the replacement of Giambi by Melky has been a big help. Giambi walked too musch given his slowness afoot, struck out too much, and refused to try and contravene the shift. He really was a much too quiet at bat in the middle of the order. Melky allows Posada, Matsui and Cano to move up, and for his own part makes solid contact, particularly with men on base. He's really a much better player, in every phase, as a regular than as a parttimer. He is not only a great improvement on Damon defensively, by playing CF, he makes Damon a better player offensively. Lastly, one of the big problems the Yankees have had in recent years is a tendency to wait for the home run. This line-up will have problems--like a low hit to run ratio--but that won't be one of them. AROD is now the only legitimate power hitter in the line-up. Little Buster Brown Olney has pronounced this a great problem, but I'm not so sure. I think the team as a whole is less laid back offensively without all the boppers, and players like Posada and Matsui can still get you 20 bombs apiece.

Torre so rarely makes a tactical move worth praising that I don't want to pass up the opportunity to notice when he does. Having just sat Posada a couple of games ago, it might hqave seemd unwarranted to do so again today. But ther truth is the Pirates are the kind of team you can afford to be undermanned against. This way Posada can start the next 6, D-Backs and Mets without a problem (and with another day off).

UN-FUCKING-BELIEVEABLE

2007-06-07T18:35:00.000-05:00

For the reasons cited, both in my posts and in your commentaries, this is a huge game, made all the bigger by boston finally getting off the schneid today. So what does this bumbler do but make it clear he has no clue, no clue whatsoever. He not only sits Posada, which one must on occasion, but he sits Jeter as well, much against the latter's inclination. Torre's way of proving that the Yankees are not just a 500 team seems to be creating conditions whereby they will be at best a 500 team but with qualifications. there is the less is more philosophy and then there is deliberately creating conditions for the "excusable" loss. They had better be really hot, because with Moose pitching and a lineup that features not a single 300 hitter, they are already in real trouble.

LESS IS MORE

2007-06-07T13:36:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed that the Yankees picked it up offensively as soon as Giambi went down. It's not that Giambi was unproductive (although he was); the truth is, they are getting just about the same, maybe a little less, out of Melky than they were getting out of him (21, 000, 000 doesn't go as far as it used to). It's because the rest of the team expected Giambi to produce. Now that the Yankees see their lineup depleted, each individual takes responsibility for putting the runs on the board. They adopt the grinder mindset they needed all along. We saw the exact same thing happen last year. Matsui and sheffield went down and then the little injuries--Damon, jeter, Posada--piled up in late june and July annd the Yankees just kept winning, inspiring a Dr.Seuss ditty on my part. Look at the kind of at bats you're getting from Cano (he's actually laying off pitches), from Abreu (he's actually stepping into pitches), from AROD (he actually looks concerned to make contact first and the seats second), from Cairo and Melky (who have actually been assets at the bottom of the lineup recently). But BGW hits it on the head when he says tonight is key, a 3-1 series win over the Sox following a series win over the chowderheads would give the Yanks some real momentum going into a series with the weak Pirates and the return of Roger. It was 14.5 games five minutes ago; now it's 10.5. This swing gives me no hope that the Yankees, given what they are, can catch Boston, but it gives me pleasure to know that the swing is enough to to create some anxiety, much denied anxiety, in Boston. Oh I know how they say 2004 changed everything, but the fact that they say it, the fact that they say it more often and more vociferously since the massacre of 2006, proves that it may have changed something (they are more obnoxious than ever) but it hasn't changed everything (their obnoxiousness still arises from their insecurity and, as Z notes, thei ressentiment).

A BOLD PROPOSAL

BGW anticipated my commentary on the importance of being Melky in centerfield. After a strong throw Tuesday night, he gunned down the speedy Owens last night in what could well ahve proven a game saving play for the Yankees. Melkty is getting to balls that Damon couldn't hail and Bernie couldn't even track without a radar device. He has transformed the outfield in the process and reminded all of us who didn't need reminding how important outfield defense is and how underserved it is on the Yankees. Here is my proposal: if Damon can play first base effectively, or even adequately, and I don't know that he can, but if he can, I think the Yankees should make Matsui their DH and give Kevin Thompson a try in left field. He can definitely play the position annd it would give the Yankees a reasonably tight outfield for the first time since soome jackass decided it would be a good idea to move Chuck Knoblach to left.

Speaking of defense, AROD made a bone head play Tuesday night, leaving third base uncovered on a grounder to short and allowing Dye 2 bases on an infield out. But I must admit the play only served to remind how comparatively solid AROD has been in the field this year. Even as his batting average plummeted from 356 to 290 over the month of May, he didn't let it affacet him in the field and you have to give him credit for that.

Wang looked great last night and he showed what difference velocity makes--he can throw strikes without fear, unlike Mussina who has to get the batters and the umpires to concede him a Maddux-Glavine like margin for error--and what a difference movement makes: his 92 mph fastball is more effective than any triple figure heater thrown by the big, straight F.....

"HE COMPETES, HE'S NOT AFRAID OF WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN"

2007-06-06T17:57:00.000-05:00

said slow Joe of the Yankees newest pitching hope, Tyler Clippard. but evidently Joe is afraid, very afraid. After the yankees jumped to a 5-1 lead in the top of the 6th, Joe inexplicably decided not to send Clippard back out to finish the quality start he was in line for. I say inexplicably for three reasons:

1. Clippard had only thrown 89 pitches. That's alot for five innings, but even at that rate, he would have finished the 6th with 107.

2. A crucial part of being an effective big league pticher is shutting the door on the opposition in the half inning after your team spots you a lead. It's somethng the Yankee pitcheers have been just dreadful at, particularly the dying Moose. This was a great opportunity to test and train that intestinal fortitude that torre brags on Clippard about, since the new lead was a comfortable 4 runs. Why waste the chance?

3. The bullpen is in shambles in case como-Joe hadn't noticed--partly cause they suck, but partly because he makes them suck every stinking night. If you're not going to rest your bullpen when your starter is faring well and you've got a big lead, then you have committed to exhausting them and losing games all August and September as a result. Torre would up using Procter for 2 innings lst night as well as a subpar Bruney (is he getting tired) and a typically ineffective big F.... before closing with Rivera.

Well, let's hope Wang gives us 8 tonight, cause you know Moose will be done in 5.

HOW DOES HE KEEP HIS JOB?

2007-06-04T18:54:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here watching the game on my computer and after Cano draws an uncharacteristic walk to put men on first and second with noone out, I start screaming, "Have Phelps bunt!" Phelps is okay, but he hits the ball on the ground alot and he is slow as can be. I know he's a double play waiting to happen, and if he just bunts the guys over, you've got 2 cracks at a single that will plate 2 and one shot at a sac fly or run-scoring ground out. I mean they'd play the infield back this early. but Joe doesn't have him bunt. Joe is fucking comatose over there in the dugout. so what happens? Phelps grounds into the DP I predicted and they wind up scoring nada. With Di Salvo on the mound, they have to keep up the offensive pressure and they didn't. We'll see if Joe has just cost them another one.

Once again no hindsight here. It's what every half-way knowledgeable fan can judge for themselves in real time.

FROM WATCHING HOUSE,

2007-06-04T17:13:00.000-05:00

I've learned that the thing that'll really kill you is multiple systems failure, and that's really what the Yankees have been going through. In dissecting Saturday's game, I didn't even bother to stress how badly their defense has regressed. The path Abreu took to Ortiz's flyball was criminal and might well have cost them the game, particularly when combined with Jeter's errors, particularly the second one. When your bullpen is so bad, you can barely focus on the failures in situational hitting, and those failures are so frequent, they take your mind off the fielding woes...well you know you've got problems. On top of e verything else, you would have to say that the starting pitching has finally stabilized, in a really bad place. I don't think DiSalvo is a major league pticher and it remains to be seen when and if Clemens ever starts. Mussina is no longer a major league starter and Clippard is as yet only adequate. Wang is inconsistent, and I hope I'm wrong but I definitely saw signs of Pettite wearing down last night. The injury to Hughes was a killer, that we know, but I think the injury to Rasner was an overlooked disaster. He hasd turned into a fairly serviceable starter. Despite last night's win and the second consecutive series win against the Sox, there is not one area of play I think the Yankees especially proficient in right now. They are not speedy. The play by Abreu on the Ortix single last night was a reminder how shaky thier outfield is. Without giambi and with a greatly diminished Damon, they are not so dangerous at the plate as they need to be. their starting pitching and their bullpen both are in shambles.

We have blamed Torre and he has earned the opprobrium. We have blamed Cashman, and he has earned the obloquy. But I have to concede that the rash of injuries does resemble the sort of plague that afflicted Boston after the massacre last season.

Wang DL, and still getting back into form
Abreu DL and still getting back into form (or not)
Matsui DL still rounding into form
Giambi DL, rest of the season, huge
Pavano, well they should have seen that coming.
Mussina, DL, but he wasn't going to be any good anyway
Hughes, DL, most of the season, huge
Rasner, DL, the whole season, huge
Karstens, DL the whole season
Damon, no DL, but hurt all season
Clemens, we've lost 2 starts already
Mienkawitz, OK that's a blessing in disguise

That's fifteen guys, which is a helluva lot and that's not even counting Sanchez who would be have been brought up at some point to help the bullpen. If none of these injuries had happened, I think the yankees would still be an unlikely candidate for the postseason. With them, it's going to take a cultural transformation. They have to really believe they are the underwhelming underdogs they have become and grind the way underwhelming underdogs need to do to win. If they continue to think of themselves as hyper-talented and merely needing to come into their own--and that's been the buzz so far--then they are dead.

WHOSE SIDE IS JODA ON?

2007-06-03T16:16:00.000-05:00

Having echoed the Blue Jays criticism of AROD's ruse, Torre goes out of his way to refuse to support Cano's entirely colorable claim that Lowell went outside the rules in throwing an elbow mid-baseline on Saturday. In other words, Joda refuses to support his own players but bends over backwards to support Boston's. Some Yankee pride. This in and by itself is a firable offense.

DOWN AGAIN,

2007-06-02T18:36:00.000-05:00

and this one's on Joe. Amid his other shortcomings, we should not forget that Joe remains among the worst tacticians in the game. How many times have we observed, correctly, that once Scott Procter's butt is back on the bench after pitching he is done. Even though Procter threw last night, Joe brought him back for not one but 2 innings today, and after a perfect first he gave up 5 runs in the second. That Jeter seems to be regressing to mid-April form in the field (2 errors in a single inning) didn't help, but make no mistake Procter was overworked and showed it.

It's a shame too because once again the Yankees made their case that the Fuehrer really is done, scoring 5 runs, all earned, in 5 innings (Melky is showing that if you pencil him in everyday, he will play). But of course geriatric Mike couldn't get to the 6th either and then you have Torre's fire department pouring gas on everything.

INTERESTING STAT!

2007-06-02T12:18:00.000-05:00

I confess to not knowing how to do the whole Elias thing, but I would venture to say that last night was the first time in the rivalry that Ortiz and Manny collected 7 hits between them in a regular season game and the Red Sox lost in a blow out, or lost at all for that matter. What does it tell us that this offensive powerhouse could lose badly when its 2 big guns were on almost every time up.

1. This team has become Youkilis dependent thanks to the dreadful performance of J.D. Drew. Manny and Ortiz are getting less back-up and so the offence is more front loaded. If I were a Sox fan, I would be screaming on my F*&! Terry Francona blog that Lowell should be batting fifth, at least until August when he runs out of gas.

2. Manny ain't being Manny. Everyone has noted how cold Manny was in April, how typical that was, how he was bound to heat up like always. Well by the end of May, Manny is usually sizzling and continues to do so until mid-August when he tends to fade for about a month or so before resurging. And in a way Manny has heated up. His batting average has risen to 282 and at this rate he should be at 300 in no time. But Manny is not driving the ball with anything like the consistency one ordinarily sees by this point in the season. Here's my interesting stat. Manny's slugging % right now is almost exactly the same as Jason Varitek, who really isn't a power hitter anymore, and the same as Dustin Pedroia, who never was and never will be. Manny got 4 hits last night but he didn't collect the RBI's he would have in past years from 2 of those hits being homers. Are we seeing a decline in Manny owing to age, continued unhappiness in Boston or his own self-distracting propensities?

AND NOW A WORD FROM THE MANAGER OF QUEENSBURY

2007-06-02T00:47:00.000-05:00

Tonight Torre scolded AROD in the press for his attempt to distract or confuse the left side of the Toronto infield. This is so typically Torre and one of the many reasons he should have been excused from the indignities of major league managing some time back.

Any reader of this blog knows I have little use for AROD. I think he's every bit the choker he's cracked up to be. And I find these little tricks of his--the slapped glove, the "call"--to be positively infuriating. But here's the thing. I think they are infuriating because he's such a choker. There is no talent in the game who is less of a gamer than AROD, and these pranks of his, intended to be the sign of a gamer, are in fact just the signs of his inauthenticity; they are the ersatz indices of a gamesmanship that AROD doesn't really possess.

Torre on the other hand objects to AROD's ruses because they simulate gamesmanship rather too closely for the comfort of his conscience; they represent a skirting of the manners, though not the rules of the game, and as such they offend Torre's exorbitant sense of baseball decorum. This, by the way, is the same sense that leads him to discourage his pitchers from the rough justice of bean ball retaliation. Torre doesn't want to win "that way," which is why I believe he responded in the end to fellow manager John Gibbons' accusation that what AROD did reflected poorly on "Yankee pride."

Well, I would remind Holy Joe that Yankee pride begins with winning. Losing with dignity is like dying with dignity, a contradiction in terms. So instead worrying whether his players are cheating to win--this in a league mind you that is defined by steroids, amphetimines, corked bats, and various illegal pitching substances--he should be worrying about why it doesn't seem to be working. He's alot like AROD in this regard: his moral arbitration is the ersatz sign of a managerial seriousness he has long since lost.

Does Torre want authentic Yankee pride? Well, I would refer him to the sainted Whitey Ford, who probably never threw a legal pitch in his career or Yogi Berra, who scuffed the baseballs for him. Together they were on 14 pennant winning teams in 15 seasons, during which stretch they won 9 championships. The greatest home run in the history of the game, Bobby Thompson's shot heard round the world, probably resulted from a crafty sign-stealing system. Does it lose any of its allure, any of its class on that account. I think not. And if Torre thinks it does, and he evidently does, I would suggest he involve himself in another athletic form, because baseball, from Ty Cobb to Gaylord Perry to Sammy Sosa to Barry Bonds has always been about the cheating at one level or another. Torre thinks such conduct is beneath him and the Yankees, but what is beneath them is the brand of ball they have come to play under him, where the old saying "if you're not cheating you're not trying" has been reversed and cheating has become the only sign of effort his team puts forth.

Torre protects his players against perfectly valid charges of listless play, but he will not protect them against Red Sox headhunters or Blue Jay whiners, which is to say he will protect them from the opinion of fans who want to see them win but will not protect them against the actions or the grievances of competitors paid to make them lose. In this case, he would rather fuel the fire of ridicule surrounding AROD, even though he knows it will damage his performance going forward, than defend his player in despite of his own exaggerated scruples.

And so we have the umpteenth reason to dismiss Torre:
HOLY JOE, HE'S TOO GOOD FOR THE GAME.

IN YOUR FACE!

2007-06-01T23:18:00.000-05:00

I ordinarily think the bean ball is an inexcusable tactic. But I am always willing to make an exception for the Red Sox. They throw so persistently at Yankee batters and seem to rest assured that slow Joe will be too "classy" or comatose to respond. So when they threw at Cano in the ninth, for no apparent reason, it was good to see Scott PRocter take advantage of Joe's earlier ejection. He picked out the hottest chowdrehead and took aim at his jawline. Would it have been hoorible if he actually clipped Youkilis and ended his season. Why...no, it wouldn't. It would be a lesson for everyone in Boston about playing with fire one too many times. At thbis point, I think the Yankees should make it known that Clemens will pitch on Sunday (even if he won't). That way Boston pitchers will have reason to believe that any further shenanigans will be met forcefully and with extreme prejudice.

As for the game itself, I think it was telling in a couple of respects. First, however well the Red Sox having been doing so far, their rotation is far less formidable than everyone has been saying. This was Wakefield's third or fourth poor outing in a row, which only means summer is here, Dice-K has been having real problems, even if they go undocumented in the national press, Tavaras is wildly inconsistent, particularly when he is not facing the Yankees, and Schilling looks quite hittable, particularly when he is facing the Yankees. Beckett may not lose a game all season, but I'm certain he's good for 1-2 more trips to the DL.

Meanwhile, it's hard to see the Yankees challenging anyone. But if they played the league with the same intensity they bring to the Bosox series, that wild card deficit (6 games and shrinking) would be gone in no time.

HEY, ACTUAL RESEARCH!

2007-06-01T01:25:00.000-05:00

If you check out the Yankees' minor league system, you can find out some interesting things. For example, noone on Trenton can hit and yet they are 5 games clear in first place. At AAA Scranton, Andy Phillips is hitting 324, with a 900 OPS and is now a second baseman (2 different guys named Duncan, Eric and Shelley, share first). For his part Kevin Thompson is only hitting 260, with a 733 OPS. So why not bring up Phillips instead of Thompson. Well, there's the position thing. With Damon going to DH, they probably need the extra outfielder (and Kevin Reese is hitting 220 at Scranton). But I say, why not bring up both of them. With Giambi going down and Abreu not hitting, the feebleness of the Yankees bench is a bigger and bigger problem--Nieves, Manky, and Cairo (.135) are just terrible. Send either Cairo or Manky down, preferably the latter, and bring Phillips up. Listen, this team is so fucking left-handed you really don't need to platoon just to get another one in the line-up. And nothing about Manky's defense has been sufficiently spectacular to make up for his automatic out status. We all knew the Manky acquisition was dreadful when it happened--another Cashboy bungle--and it has only become more obvious with time. With the Yankees having to worry about run production, they can't afford to leave their most successful minor league bat down on the farm.

SILVER LINING

2007-06-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

No, there is none I can find to the Hughes injury. But Giambi's foot, which may keep him out for a month, 6 weeks or even the season, will at least force the Yankees to DH Johnny Damon. With his leg problems and his perennial bad arm, he is nowhere near the center fielder that Melky is, and he'll likely be a good deal more productive if he's resting his legs most of each game.

The problem is now they need even more production out of power positions like first base and right field. Hopefully, Phelps poerformance against the righty in Toronto will translate into his playing first permanently, or until something better comes along. Noone can survive a first baseman hitting 220, leasdt of all the 2007 Yankees. Right field is a tougher call. Kevin thompson is better than the Abreu we've seen all May, but he isn't as good as Abreu can be. Do they deal for an outfielder? Can they?

HAVING JUST GOTTEN THE WORD THAT HUGHES IS OUT FOR TWO MORE MONTHS,

2007-05-31T16:26:00.001-05:00

I now read that Giambi has been oput on the DL with torn tissue in his foot. he's expected to be out three weeks. This I have to say is a crushing blow to any residual hopes they might have had. a resurgence of the offense depended on Giambi having the sort of mid-season comback he had last year. Now the Yankees have no effective DL. Because they were willing to forego offense from their starting first baseman, their back-up catcher, their reserve infielder, and to forego power from each of their starting and reserve outfielders, they are at this point really screwed for offense. They don't have the speed on this aging team to rely exclusively on small ball, and now they don't have the mid-order thunder to expect to win games going long. If there was still a season to be salvaged, it can only be salvaged at this point by a trade or the sudden and explosive maturation of Andy Phillips.

IF DICE-K WERE A YANKEE,

2007-05-31T10:17:00.000-05:00

the pundits would, not unreasonably, be questioning whether he was the latest in a line of recent disappointments in pitcher signings. His ERA is about double Andy Pettite's, so we can imagine that his record would be at best reversed, 3-6 versus 6-3. He certainly has not pitched as well as Johnson did the last couple of years and everyone thought he was a failure in pinstripes. He's been better than Jared Wright was last year, but actually not all that much, whatever his potential seems to be. My point is that while Dice-K may turn out a good, even great pitcher, he has been neither so far and the pundits have been, to say the least, reluctant to say so. He is regularly still advertised as part of the Sox three-ace starting rotation. Whne you have three number ones like that, they always say. Well noone else has three number ones like that because noone else is regarded as a number one on the basis of a 4.83 season and career ERA. You don't become a number one by garnering run support, you have to shut people down start after start. Unless you are Dice-K. Then all the "experts" who slated you for Cooperstown on the basis of your first spring training start--see Heyman, Verducci, Donovan--have to protect their reps as prognosticators by insisting, against the evidence, that he has been what they said.

For whatever reason, Dice-K tends to have single inning blow-ups, 4 against Cleveland in the 6th last night, 5 in the 4th against Texas the start before. He has avoided that peril on a number of occasions to pitch stellar games, but almost always against weak teams. Indeed he has only pitched a really good game against a good team once so far this season. He's not getting results nearly as impressive as Schilling, who seems to have lost his fastball entirely. BGW can tell me how the great Dice-K is regarded on the streets of Boston, but in media-land he is still a god, despite performances that have been human-all-too-human.

MAN HE'S COLD

2007-05-30T19:09:00.000-05:00

Two on one out in the 2nd inning with the Yanks up 5-0. This is just the spot for the prototypical AROD blast. But he grounded out. He's not even producing the meaningless RBI. Something's wrong.

I POSTED A DEFENSE

2007-05-30T18:29:00.000-05:00

of the possibility, though not the likelihood, of the Yankees making a recovery this season exactly 23 minutes before they took the plate in the 1st inning of tonight's game. In that inning they scored 5 runs, thanks in part to the fact that Joe actually did something different: he started Phelps against a righty and Phelps rewarded him with a two out, two run single. Can this please be the last of Skanky Manky I'm Sorry I Stanky? None of this qualifies as a sign of the apocalypse. But how about this? Jorge Posada actually stole a base. I find that bare fact more improbable than any prosepctive outcome to the season. Hell, if Jorge can steal, the Royals can make the playoffs.

I MUST GO AGAINST THE GRAIN

2007-05-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

of my own pessimism in order to be true to a still more ingrained reflex, my instinct for regarding sports pundits with the contempt they, more than any other form of expert this side of creationism, so richly deserve. What exactly is a sports expert anyway? Clearly, it's not the same thing as a medical expert or a legal expert. There is no agreed body of knowledge one must master, nor is there any agreement on what mastery of such a body might entail. My definition of a sports expert is, an incredibly lucky version of the unemployed guy at the end of whatever bar you happen to be in.

Anyway, this guy at the bar, the one ESPN (which Joyce memorialized in Finnegans Wake as the Everywhere Spilling Puss Network) decided to give a column, has roundly pronounced the Yankees season over, at least as far as the playoffs are concerned, has pronounced them "out" of the postseason hunt. Now make no mistake. I don't think the Yankees will be playing in October. I don't think the Yankees will be above 500 at the end of the year. I take a back seat to noone in viewing Torre as an alchemist of defeat, turning the gold of talent into the lead of failure. But I have to, no one has to, put some qualification on one's ability to read a future so extended. Noone is out of a race, in this case the wild card race, just because they are 8.5 games back near the end of May, and certainly not a team with the residual potential of the Yankees. We could wake up a week from now, Clemens, Pettite, Wang, Mussina, and ultimately Hughes could be giving us 7 quality starts out of 10, while Giambi, Damon, Cano and AROD could all start hitting like they are capable (yeah, I'm having a harder time imagining Abreu doing that). They could turn into one of the hotter teams in the league while Detroit, Cleveland, the suddenly resurgent Twins and the White Sox play and die in that steel cage match they call AL Central. I'm not saying it will happen, but it could. It's not only possible but vaguely plausible. Noone would have thought this would happen, the Yanks at 21-29, when the season started. That's why you play the games. As the Yankees found out to our chagrin; you can't always be winning games just because you are the Yankees. But we should recognize at this point, you can't always be losing games just because you're the Yankees either. You would have to keep playing the way they are playing.

IT HAS GOTTEN SO BAD

2007-05-29T23:53:00.000-05:00

that having lowered his ERA from 2.66 to 2.51, Andy Pettite not only lost anyway (to go an amazing 3-4), but felt it necessary to apologize for just not pitching well enough. This on a night when Abreu's BA fell into the 220's, Skanky Manky's to 220, Cano's below 250, Damon's below 260, and the Yankees made 2 errors (DJ, AROD), plus a misjudges play by AROD. If this team were in A Babe Ruth league somewhere, the parents would be calling for slow Joe's head.

CORRECTIONS (MINE) AND EXCUSES (THEIRS)

2007-05-29T17:26:00.000-05:00

It turns out dustin McGowan hadn't won a game as a starter since August of 2005, not May 2006 as I mistakenly reported. Apparently the Yankees didn't feel too bad about handing him his biannual victory. skanky Manky reported that he has electric stuff with a 96-97 mile fastball. Of course when your struggling to hit 220 I'm betting everybody's stuff looks electric. Jeter confirmed that he threw hard and never straight and you couldn't be patient with him. Of course Jeter went 2-4 and if the rest of the club did likewise, Mr. McGowan's last win would still be a distant memory. Of course the real question is given that he is the second coming of Walter Johnson, why can't he beat anyone but the Yankees?

ADDENDUM

2007-05-29T11:54:00.000-05:00

It turns out this McGowan fellow's name is Dustin. Before last night he hadn't won a game since May 3 of last year. The reason he tamed the mighty Yankees: they were swinging at anything and he wisely threw a lot of balls on strike 2. So it would seem the main effect of the hour long meeting that Po-Joe held before the game was that the Yankee bats abandoned the only positive quality they had retained hitherto, their patience. Whatever Torre used to have as a motivator and a focuser, and it wasn't nothing, has left the building along with Abreu's heart, Giambi's eye, Damon' s legs, AROD's nerve and Cano's hustle.

OK SO THIS IS CLASSIC

2007-05-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

Down 3-0 in the bottom of the seventh and Joe yanks Vizcaino who did well and puts in Villone. Fair enough. villone gets the bottom of the order out and then gives up consecutive singles to Rios and Overbay. Shouldn't we think about yanking him while we've still got a game. Joe doesn't and Villone throws a wild pitch, runners on 2nd and 3rd, no DP in order. So joe has him inentionally walk Wells. Here's where it gets good. Glaus comes up. he's hitting 271, except against lefties (like Villone), he's hitting 458! His OBP against lefties is 552! He's got the bases loaded and he's historically shown a better than even chance of getting on base and so driving in a run. So of course Joe finally comes and gets Villone to put in a right hander. Except he doesn't! He doesn't bring in Bruney or Procter or the big F..... he leaves Villone out there and Glaus singles to center. It's 4-0 and Troy's stats against lefties are even gaudier thanks to no-mo Joe. Please all of you fuckwad pundits out there from little Buster Brown Olney to Fat Fuck Kruck. Do not tell me this man any longer knows how to manage a game.

Oh dear, while I was blogging Joe left Villone in to pitch to another right-hander, Frank Thomas, who Villone promptly walked to deliver another run for the Jays. Finally Joe takes him out, bases still loaded folks, to bring in the single biggest clod in the entire bullpen, Mik fucking Meyers, who proceeds to give up, immediately, a 2 run single to some guy I've never heard of. And it's 7-o. If you are watching this debacle George, will you please, please fire Joe, fire Guidry, fire Kevin Long, fire Mattingly fire Cashman, and send half of these veterans down to AA, where they will have to ride buses. Please.

Well, I spoke too soon. With the seven run lead they've left McGowan out there to pitch the 8th. He just got Skanky-Manky the almost Yankee to ground out. Oh Jeez, Damon just whiffed. Did I mention this nobody starter has seven strikeouts? Well Jeter just got his second hit of the game to raise his average to 355. Too bad nobody else on this team bothers to show up. And I would venture to say at this point, at the risk of rank heresy, that as great a player as Jeter is, maybe he's not such a great captain. The best captain the Yankees ever had was Billy Martin in the 1950's when they went something like 7 for the decade in World Championships. I think at this point Billy would have been well beyond getting in their grill and would have moved on to punching their lights out. I think we need some such aggression (short of physical violence) out of Jeter.

Well, they left McGowan in too long. Matsui just broke up the shutout with a homer. Let's see what AROD can do. He can ground out to shortstop, ending the inning and the Yankees' meager chances. Anyone care to wager on this guy's batting average by the end of June? I'm thinking 280.

As we head into the 9th, this game is over and so is this post.

IT'S SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL SO FAST,

2007-05-28T20:07:00.000-05:00

you need the in-game blog just to keep up. somebody named Mcgowan has just thrown his 107th pitch to end the Yankees half of the seventh. I doubt we will see him again tonight, so now seems a good time to reflect on what he did. He came into this game with a 7.29 ERA. he will leave it with something closer to a 5.29 ERA. he wne t7 and allowed the Yankees just 3 hits, a single by Jeter, who stole second and was stranded; a double by AROD, who later struck out with a man on; a walk to Melky, who never got past first; and a single by Abreu, who also stole second and died there. three hits, one walk, and of course no runs to a supposedly formidable line-up, by someone who hasn't gotten anyone else out. Every time you think they've hit bottom, they manage to sink a little lower.

IT IS HARD TO KNOW

2007-05-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

what George can be waiting for at this point. In early May, one might have reasonably said that the Yankees start was not all that atytpical and looked worse by reason of the Sox unwonted success. That was then. since the Yankees last reached 500, at which point they confidently stated that they had turned things around, they have played 5-11 ball or right about at .300. That's Kansas City Royal and Pittsburgh Pirate territory. Tino visited the clubhouse and judged only "4 or 5 guys" hearts to still be in it: I'm thinking Jeter, Posada, Pettite, Matsui, and Damon. To have a team give up en masse is the greatest indictment possible of the manager, particualrly when the team is as star-studded as this one. To have a team that would give up is the greatest possible indictment of the General Manager, particularly this early in the season. There really seems no rationale left for holding onto these guys. It's time to turn the page.

On the smaller scale, the Yankees have been carrying a 12 man pitching staff all season to give themselves the greatest possible bullpen depth. While I support that idea in theory, some of these guys stink so bad thay are not really giving support at all. I propose bringing Andy Phillips, who is ripping up AAA, back to the big leagues and optioning Vizcaino, who is a BP pitcher right now. The Yankees badly need production from the right side of the plate and they should look to see if Phillips can provide it.

WE TEND TO FORGET

2007-05-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

because Farnsworth and Vizcaino are even worse that Scott Proctor still sucks. Today he reminded us forcefully, giving up a double to his first batter, walking the second to load the bases and then proceediing to walk two more to lose the game. The Yankees bats helped, of course, by failing to score in the seventh with 2 men on and less than one out and then scoring only one in the ninth with 2 men on and nobody out. I have no words to express just how bad this team is, surely the worse assemblage of high-talent players in modern baseball history.

I'M SORRY, BUT

2007-05-27T11:46:00.000-05:00

I have to give my self props as an analyste du George.

At 12.07 Am on Wednesday the 23rd, I blogged (check the entry) that George would be looking to fire not Torre but Cashboy if current trends continued. Later that same day, to much ruffling of the pundits, George announced that it was indeed boy Brian and not Torre who was "on a big hook" for this season. "He wanted sole authority," George said, "and now he has to deliver." Them's scalping words, just as I predicted.

HOW ARE THE SOX DOING IT,

2007-05-27T10:41:00.000-05:00

How are Chowderville's finest kicking the Yankees ass and running away with the division. The pundits chorus with one voice, it's the starting pitching, that great starting pitching that Theo studiously invested in. As usual, the pundits are at least half-wrong.

The starting pitching has been good but certainly not great, particularly as compared with the Yankees' starting pitching, which everyone knows has been injury plagued and awful. No, actually, it's not the pitching at all; it's the run-scoring stupid! Josh Beckett has a 7-0 record with exactly the same ERA as Andy Pettite (3-3). Dice-K has a 7-2 record with an ERA one third of a run higher than Wang (2-4). Tavares ERA has been comparable, until this week, to Mussina's and he has been able, unlike Moose, to maintain a 5oo record. Schilling is 4-2 with an ERA higher than Clippard's and comparable to Rasner's before he went down. Wakefield's ERA has gone up a full 2 runs a game over his last three starts as the weather warms up.

But as Boston's pitching has actually worsened, their run scoring has gotten progressively better. How have they done it? Well they have 3 guys over 300, just like the Yankees and none of them (Lowell, Ortiz, Youk) has anaverage as high as either Jeter or Posada. Noone on their team as as many homers or RBI's as AROD. Hell Manny doesn't have more rbi's than Jeter. They have a line-up as filled with holes as the Yankees. You think Abreu stinks, check out J.D. Drew (227). You think Damon's been disappointing--not compared with Crisp (240's). Has Cano let us down? Well he's hitting better than Lugo who was supposed to be their sparkplug. Adn Pedroia's not exactly setting the world on fire either. Varitek has been better than expected, but he's no better than Giambi, and Manny has been going worse all around than Matsui. The answer is sadly familiar. As bad a situational hitting team as the Yankees are, that's how good the Red Sox are. When you get on base someone will bring you home. Their hits occur next to one another not scattered through the nine innings. And that means they are producing in the clutch. and that in turn menas they are, and it kills me to say it, a team with character, certainly a good deal more character than this version of the Yankees. Remember Knoblach did not hit 300 form the Yankees; Brosius didn't hit 250 and Giardi didn't either. O'Neill was typically not a 300 hitter, nor was Tino, nor Raines, nor Fielder, nor Strawberry nor Posada. The last dynasty was built on timely hitting not overwhelming offense (unlike the Ruth dynasty (27-29), the Dimaggio-Gehrig dynasty (36-39), but like the Dimaggio- Mantle dynasty (49-54) and the second Mantle dynasty (58-62). From 96-2000, the Yankees were a team whose stats belied their greatness and while this Boston team has achieved nothing yet, they are setting the same pattern.

The pundits, I am pleased to announce are wrong again. While Boston's pitching may be better, they are not necessarily pitching better; and while their hitting may be no better, they are in fact hitting better, much better.

STATE OF THE YANKEES,

2007-05-26T23:15:00.000-05:00

state of denial. After yesterday's ugly loss to the Halos, Derek Jeter declared, "We don't feel like here we go again. We don't feel like we're back to square one [following the Boston series]." this was the guy who used to say after every menaingful late season and postseason victory "it doesn't mean anything unless we win tomorrow." Well after today's still uglier loss--when Wang gives you 8 full with 3 earned, this line-up absolutely must win--the Yankees are significantly behind square one, in worse shape than they have been at any point this year, 11.5 behind Boston and 7.5 back of the wild card leaders, with many teams between them and the Tigers. They are getting no significant production from Giambi, Cano, Abreu, Cabrera and whoever is playing first, too little from Damon, Matsui and Arod. Only Posada and Jeter are playing to or beyond expectations and Jeter's own expectations for his teamates seem to have been lowered at some point in the process. I don't give them much chance to win tomorrow with Mussina on the mound and forgetting for the moment about the postseason, should they drop 6 games under 500, at what point during the season, if ever, can one expect them to get back to even. I'm thinking late June-early July, which will surely be too late to make any kind of run.

Yesterday I asked how we came to this point, showcasing Cashboy's malfeasance as GM. Today I ask where should we go from this point.

The first thing needed is to end the Brian and slow Joe show, and not merely out of anger vindictiveness or a sense of just desserts. They are managing and GM'ing the team to save their jobs, a task which involves winning now. They can only imagine winning now by playing the veterans, even though it has become increasingly clear that nothing of the sort is going to work. Bring in somebody with the charge to rebuild, really rebuild, accepting all the pain that entails for the present. Then start dealing. Trade Clemens back to the Astros. You'll have to eat a good deal of the contreact and you'll have to get Clemens to agree by telling him he's going to be in the bullpen here, which means he's always on call, never allowed to go home, and will in fact not get to pitch. The Astros have a real chance to get to the series, particularly if they get Clemens. Secure prospects. Trade AROD. He's going to opt oput at the end of this season anyway and the Yankees are never going to give him a raise. They know he's still not the clutch player they want and he's already getting a mint. Of course AROD can veto any deal, but you can make it clear to him that you are bringing up Eric Duncan or whoever else and if he elects to veto, he will be wasting an entire season on the bench, with rumors that the team has carefully nurtured swirling around him and threatening his next big deal. There is value to be secured for AROD. Trade Giambi for prospects. The Angels are interested. YOu'll have to pay most of his contract, but really we want him gone anyway. He too has a no-trade, but if there is a player more liable to soft blackmail, I don't know who it is. See if there is any market for Mussina. If not convert him into a middle relief guy. See if there is a market for Abreu. In any event, we should be playing Melky. He did pretty well as an everyday player last year. Are his struggles this year an indication that he just doesn't have it or are they an effect of part time status? We need to find out. Get rid of Farnsworth, Meyer, and Vizcaino--by any means necessary.

The pundits have started to circle the wagons around Cashman like they have always done for Joe. They say he's in trouble for trying to rebuild. Bullshit! He's in trouble for failing to rebuild and for failing in his rebuilding. He still goes for veterans at every opportunity and when he elects to get rid of them he's too impatient to find the moment of market pressure when they would bring the highest return (see Johnson and Sheffield).

It is time to really rebuild. Right now the Yankees are a collection of largely overpriced, underachieving, indisputably talented losers. The only way to return to dynasty level is to fill the team with young players who are winners, whatever their degree of talent. As recent history show, status quo Joe is no friend of youth. And as the Carl Pavano episode abundantly illustrates, Brian Cashboy, his unswerving apologist, is no judge of character. They should be fired, ASAP. Not because they have not turned things around, but because only their departure will create the conditions for doing so. The continued employment of these two gentlemen, as an index of some continued faith in their effectiveness, is in and of itself a state of denial.

FOR THOSE WHO IMAGINED THE YANKEES HAD TURNED A CORNER

2007-05-26T01:10:00.000-05:00

with theBoston series, think again. And the reason why they haven't and won't and can't was plain to see tonight. Here's the telling statistic: Jered Weaver, 5 innings 3 earned; Tyler Clippard 4 innings, 3 earned. The main difference was in the bullpen, or the Yankees utter lack of one. And this isn't a question, or merely a question, of overuse. Di Salvo gave up 3 earned without recording a single out, and he hasn't pitched for a full turn in the rotation, having gone only 3 in his last start. then Vizcaino, who mercifully has pitched very little of late, gave up 4 earned in just a single inning. In other words the bullpen is back to where it was 2 years ago when John Sterling famously said, "Well the Yankees' relievers are simply incapable of getting anyone out."
Why are we here? Well Joe's mismangement is one glaring reason. But the case of Vizcaino points to another, aptly highlighted by the Boss earlier today. This is not only Brian Cashman's team, the one he put together, it is Brian Cashman's bullpen. He was the one who could have dealt Randy Johnson to the Padres for a prospect and Scott Linebrink, a successful set-up man. Instead he went for three prospects and Vizcaino from the D-Backs. Since only one of those prospects was supposed to be any good, one has to wonder why he didn't go for the better reliever. The fact that that one prospect, Russ Ohlendorf, is apparently yet another disaster, means that Cashboy effectively gave Johnson away and now has no bullpen to show for it. The best one can hope for out of Clemens, for which Cashboy so overpaid, is a line like this, 6 innings, 2 earned or 5 innings 1 earned, but with the likes of Vizcaino and Farnsworth, Meyers and DiSalvo, the Yankees will be losing those games 7-5 anyway. The recent failure of the bats has made people forget about how truly bad this bullpen is, how mediocre their defense, how injury prone their players (Giambi, Damon) and how shaky much of the starting pitching (Mussina and Clemens in particular) remains. Yes the Yankees will hit in the nend, but that doesn't mean they'll win. Not by a long shot.

In a rather grim paradox, it now looks like Cashboy was not stymied by the old George's proclivity for high priced obsolecent talent; he was protected by it. Everyone claimed Brian knew what he was doing bu didn't have the authority to effect the right moves. Now that George has gotten out of his way, so to speak, Cashboy is not liberated but exposed, exposed as a fraud, whose baseball judgement ranks right up there with Danny Ozark. Let me list some of the names and contracts for which the Cashboy has been primarily responsible Pavano (DL), Sanchez (DL), Ohlendorf (no good), Jared Wright (awful), Britton (no good), Vizcaino (sub-awful), Skanky Manky the almost Yankee (enough said), Nieves (1 for the last five years, and thrown out trying to stretch it), Villone (is he still here?), Farnsworth (a working man's Pavano), Clemens (is he still alive?), extending Mussina's contract when God himself couldn't extend his career. By contrast, George was responsible for Johnson (a big disappointment but not a disaster), Giambi (a mixed bag), Matsui (a big plus), AROD (an AROD), and Kevin Brown (the worst thing until Pavano). I think George's record was pretty bad, but Cashman's is even worse despite his sharing Michael's philosophy of player development. He has managed to do what George hadn't done since the late 80's: produce a Yankees team where sufficient improvement in the near term seems almost impossible. I think that corner won't get turned next week, next month or even next year. The ext really good Yankees team migh not come until 2010, by which time we can only hope Cashman is the general manager of a bowling alley in Akron.

YANKEE/NOT A YANKEE

2007-05-24T01:08:00.000-05:00

I said when they brought him back that I couldn't define a ture Yankee but I knew one when we saw it and Andy Pettite was the real deal. In the immediate advent of this series, I pointed out that I always like our chances with Andy on the mound. Tonight, with little bite on his breaking pitch, little control over his cutter and a 2 seam fastball that only occasionally hit the 90 MPH barrier and never broke it, Andy tamed the big bad Red Sox bats, sending Poopie home without a hit, Lugo and Varitek likewise, and surrendering only one run in 7 full to lower his ERA for the season to an amazing 2.66. To give you some context that is the exact same ERA as Josh Beckett, who has been the gold standard this year; it's about half a run better than Santana, a run and a half better than Shilling and 2 runs better than Dice-K. Torre awoke from his slumber to make the acute point that Pettite basically does it on courage. Great games for Damon, Jeter (3 hits apiece), Matsui (2 hits, 1 homer) and Cano (2 hits). If they could just get Cano going like last year they could move him up to 6th and get some continuity through the top of the line-up. Abreu and Giambi continue to founder and for the momet there seems no solution to the problems they pose.

Speaking of courage, tonight's not a Yankee is the most gutless sissy ever to wear the pinstripes. Carl Pavano has whined about needing elbow reconstruction surgery and even though 2 doctors say rehab might do the trick, Brian Cashboy, who is Pavano's rival in testosterone deficiency, has acceded to his sniveling demands to collect the rest of his 40 mil much as he has collected almost all of it to date, on the DL. Pavano's agent. doubtless a representive specimen of that sleazy tribe, claims that this is about allowing the 31 year old sissy to resume his career, albeit after his contract with the Yankees has expired. Why the Yankees care about the future of cahone-less Carl after he is done with them is beyond me. But the truth is that he will not have any future career anyway. Who is going to pay even the minimum for someone 33 years old, coming off major surgery for just one of the many ailments he's complained of over the past few years (including a boo-boo on his bum), someone who hasn't pitched more than a few games at any time since he was 28. No Pavano's career will now be defined, like Doyle Alexander or Steve Sax, by his failure as a Yankee. He's now a very affluent punch-line.

For his part, Cashboy claimed that Pavano had never once laid down on the team, a sentiment derisively disbelieved not only by the fans but by Pavano's teammates whose contempt for him has been made clear. Cashboy knows that Pavano's laziness, indifference and gutlessness all point to his, Cashboy's own shortcomings as a judge of talent, fitness and character, i.e. his increasingly apparent ineptitude as a GM. If Cashboy is not as big an idiot as Steve Phillips, he's mighty close. Someone should wake George up to the fact that Cashboy is abusing the owner's generousity by throwing money down as many pitching rat holes as he can find (Johnson, Mussina, Jared Wright, Kyle Farnsworth, with Pavano being the capper). I can't believe George wouldn't want to fire him were he compos mentis. Cashboy is to Gene Michaels what Pavano is to Pettite, the faux Yankee to the true.

I HONESTLY BELIEVE

2007-05-23T15:31:00.000-05:00

that the pitch Mussina threw Manny in the first inning last night was the biggest meatball I have ever seen thrown in anger at the major league level--86 mph, right down the middle, no movement whatsoever, belly button high. Manny has been struggling this season, but even at his worst he's going to lose a pitch too fat for batting practice.

Well, the Yanks failed to hit Tavares yet again, just like BGW predicted, and afterr giving him props for his analysis, I began to wonder why. Well even with his 5.50 ERA coming in Taveras has been one of those rh's, like Pettite and MO, who are especially hard on left-handed hitters. They were batting just 212 aginst him. And as we all know the Yankees can't hit LH pitching this year.

But with that answer came another question. why don't the Yanks, and other teams for that matter treat pitchers like Taveras as left-handers and set up their line-ups appropriately. Why not play Phelps instead of Man-Cow, why not sit Abreu and let Cabrera go righty? Why not let Posada go righty? Baseball people always use the platoon percentages to show how smart they are. why don't they think it through to the next level? doesn't it matter more that Tavares' ball moves like a lefties than that he actually is a lefty?

YANKEE FANS, THIS ONE INCLUDED, FELT NOTHING

2007-05-23T00:07:00.000-05:00

but disgust for Randy Johnson's underwheliming geriatric performance in pinstripes. But you know he was never this bad, never nearly this bad. Mussina gave up 7 runs, all earned in 6.1 innings, an all too typical outing that leaves his ERA at 6.56 for the season. The thing is he is not giving the Yankees any real chance of winning when he takes the hill. It is a measure of Torre's knee-jerk managerial idiocy that the only logical step, the one I have been urging, will be taken much too late, say in August, if at all. Steinbrenner has been blasted, including here, for his preference for players in his own age group, but Torre's the one who simply refuses to recognize that the walkers and the artificial hips might be a sign they can't do the job anymore. What is really striking though is that the pundits, who have been recently opining that the Yankees "look old" (they might have said "look their age"), never include Mussina among feeble and infirm even though his play suggests he's the one most ready for the home. At least the fans are waking up; they booed him off the mound tonight. How long, do you think, before we get scolded by the pund-ass-cracy, for our ingratitude and our spleen, a la AROD?

While the"Moose" clearly needs to be "put down," he didn't lose this game alone. That bubgaboo, inept situational hitting reared its head once again. The Yankees had the bases loaded in the fifth and the eighth and got just 2 runs, both on fielder's choice outs that killed the rally. In the ninth, they got runners on 1st and 2nd with noone out and came away with nothing. I think Giambi's refusal/inability to bunt or hit the other way to force other teams out of that shift is a metaphor for the Yankees' incapacity to exploit offensive opportunities.

Finally, in the stopped clock is right twice a day department, slow Joe noted that once your in this kind of hole, it's all about winning series and the pressure is on to do that tommorow. Indeed. The yankees lost 2 of 3 to a weak Seattle team, followed by losing 2 of 3 to an offensively challenged White Sox team, followed by losing 2 of 3 to their crosstown rivals. It's as if their urgency is so limited they can only bestir themselves to salvage one game out of each encounter, which somehow allows the to think they'll be alwright, even as the cascade of lost series makes their position, if not their attitude, ever more desparate. Well, as far as I can tell, this is the wall they should be feeling at their backs. If they lose tomorrow night and wind up the series falling yet another game behind, to 11.5, I think the division is practically and psychically out of reach and the wild card perilously close to being so.

But on the bright side, if they lose tomorrow night, I think there is a very good chance George will fire....no, not Torre, but, that's right, Cashboy. I think George is begiining to feel nostalgic for the old days of scalping his employees for their failures but doesn't wish to disturb his investment in Roger Clemens by removing the man Rocket wants to pitch for. So I think Cashboy just may get the axe. There is a double irony here: A) Cashboy would be fired as a surrogate for the man whose job he has been ardently protecting recently--not least by saying don't blame him, blame me; B) Cashboy is probably right; he should be the first to lose his position. There was a time when Torre did some extraordinary things for this franchise, admittedly all too long ago. There was never a time Cashboy did anything all that great and the things he has done wrong are as egregious as they are numerous.

ALMOST THE LAST THING i SAID

2007-05-22T18:26:00.000-05:00

on the previous post was that I wish someone other than Mussina was going tonight. Well so far he's pitched one full, given up 3 runs on 5 hits and thrown 30 pitches. He won't last 4 I'm betting and he's probably dug them a hole they won't get out of. His ERA is now 6.56. I'll say it again. He's looked lousy since Tampa. He's got very little left. He shouldn't be starting anymore. Oh and Brian Cashboy is wholly responsible for the ridiculous contract they gave him. We'd have been better off keeping Johnson than this hasbeen.

The Yankees plan to pitch Clippard instead of diSalvo from here on out (until Hughes returns). better to pitch them both and leave Moose out to pasture.

AMAZING THING 2

2007-05-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

If Jeter scores a hit tonight, he will have hit safely in 76 out of the last 79 games he has played in with at least one official at bat. That has been accomplished only once in the history of the game: DiMaggio in the streak year of 1941. If Jeter hits in both games of the remaining series to go 77-80, he will ha ve done something noone has done. Pair that with the 13-20 with 2 out RISP and it really is hard to see why anyone calls this guy overrated. Chowderheads who claim he is overrated, and they're numbers are legion, have all the class and credibility of Yankee fans (and their numbers are miniscule) who have in past years claimed Manny can't hit.

BIG THING, LITTLE THING, AMAZING THING

2007-05-22T12:01:00.000-05:00

The big thing from last night's game was not the win, it was the energence of Wang as a 4 pitch pitcher (Sinker, Slider, change-up, curve). the slider and the change-up look just like his money pitch, the sinker, except for the speed of the latter and the angle of break on the former. The enhanced repetorie allows him to challenge hitters and get more strikouts, limiting the bad luck to which contact pitchers are liable. Meanwhile, my April prediction that Wakefield would cool down as the weather heats up looks to be coming true. His ERA over his last 2 games is about 8.50. Before that it was about 1.70.

The little thing, which only seems little in the context of a win, occured in or around the seventh inning last night. The Yankees were winning but could clearly have used another run for comfort. The bases are loaded, the slumping Abreu is at the plate, and the count is 3-1. The important thing here is that Romero had thrown 19 balls in his last 23 pitches. He now has to throw 2 strikes in a row to a guy with a pretty good eye to avoid walking in a run. He has not strung 2 strikes togetheg his entire outing. So of course Abreu swings at the next pitch and grounds out to end the inning. I don't blame him. He's a batter after all. I blame slow joe, who obviously should have had the take sign on in that situation. but there's just nobody driving the truck over there during the games.

The amazing thing: with 2 outs and runners in scoring position, Derek Jeter is 13-20 this season. That's right, he is hitting 650 with 2 outs and RISP. And people wonder why Yankee fans think AROD is a choker by comparison.

They have Tavares going tonight. Kind of a must win. I wish we had somebody other than Mussina. If we get this one, alot of the pressure shifts to the Fat Man tomorrow night, and I always like our chances with Andy on the mound.

RESPONDING TO BGW

2007-05-21T16:24:00.000-05:00

Who would I like to see replace slow Joe if he goes down, hopefully soon. Well, let me say first of all that I want to see Pena retained as a coach, not promoted to manager. I think Jorge Posada has been a much better player in every phase of the game since Pena's been on board and you can't overestimate the value of a dependable receiver. Second, I take your point BGW about the value of Larry Bowa's fire on team that seems all but extinguished of late. But I too remember well his tenure in Philadelphia (the other team I follow on a day by day basis) and my feeling was that he was nearly as bad a field tactician as slow Joe, not as mind-numbingly orthodox, but mind-bendingly tone-deaf. But retaining him as third base coach would, I agree, be a good idea. At the risk of being utterly conventional, and you have to risk that sometimes, I would like to see slow Joe replaced by Mo-Joe, i.e. Joe Girardi. Girardi manages with fire, he's great at developing young players and I'd like to see the Yankees get younger in a hurry, and he's willing to stand-up top anyone in the organization, which I think would prove particularly necessary if George continues to fade and Brian Cashboy continues to work here. Plus, I like the idea of having a manger good enough to keep around for 10 years (which is would have meant firing Joe in 2004, perfect!) and Giardi is young enough to envision that happening.

Look back at this blog and you will see I have been lusting to see Clippard in the majors along with Hughes. He sure looked good last night. I'm thinking about next year and a rotation that includes four youngsters (Hughes, Wang, Clippard, Rasner) along with Andy Pettite. I don't know if they'd win the division or anything, but I think it would be fun. Sort of like watching Verlander, Bonderman, Robertson and Maroth develop over in Detroit. I still say send Mussina to the bullpen now!

THIS BLOG HAS MADE FUN OF GEORGE,

2007-05-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

for his pretension to expertise on baseball talent, his addiction to big name superstars in the twilight of their careers, and his apparent descent into senility. But for all that I have always felt he is the single best owner in baseball, because he is the one who has always shown the fans of his team respect and affection in his willingness to spend whatever it takes to field a winning or championship team. Now George you must show those same feelings for Yankeedom in another way. You owe us fans, all who have contrinued to pay attention to this trainwreck of a team with something other than morbid, rubberneck fascination, new personnel in control of things in the Bronx--a new manger (bye Joe), a coaching staff (bye Gator, bye Donnie B., but I'd keep Pena), and most of all a new GM (bye Brian). On the last point, isn't it fair to say that Cashman never in his career built a championship team for the Yankees. Don't we owe the last dynasty to Gene Michael and its sad aftermath to boy-Brian. I think I'm right on that, which is just one more reason that he, like Joe, should have been gone sometime ago. But now George, now you owe us nothing less than their empty heads on a platter. You can't remain the best owner in baseball if these mediocrites remain in place.

TWO DOWN,

2007-05-20T00:56:00.000-05:00

Four to go. Or maybe it's two down one to go. If the Yankees lay a big enough egg tomorrow and get swept by the Mets on national TV, maybe Steinbrenner won't wait for the Red sox series.

The injury to Rasner can't help but give you the sense the Yanks are snakebit, and at least they showed a little fight today, but they still managed to leave 26 men on base, 26! That's unconsionable. And Joe has to take a lot of the blame for this one as well. There's absolutely no reason for Meyers to be on the roster, but if there were, it would be as a single out left-hand specialist and occasional mop-up man. You don't try to get four innings out of him at the beginning of the game unless you've really just given up on the possibility of winning. Slow Joe is forever complaining that MO gets no work, on account of the fact that the Yawnkees have needed a save since April, so why not have him pitch 2 today, followed by 2 from Bruney, 2 from Villone etc. Meyers apparently campaigned for the start tomorrow night, which is no reason to allow him to pitch at all, let alone fulfill his wish. I mean I'd like to start for the Yankees as well, but like Meyers I don't have the ability. Meyers' request should have been given the same consideration as mine would have been, zero.

In any event, it was nice to see AROD find his comfort zone; there's just nobody like him when you are down 5 in the 8th and you need a meaningless solo blast. And Cano continues his night- mare season with a 3 error game (actually, if not technically 4!). Shades of the late Chuck Knoblach! Meanwhile Giambi and Abreu continue to vie for most useless and overpaid person on the team--which is also to say the majors.

Tyler Clippard tomorrow night. Something of interest anyway.

ONE DOWN,

2007-05-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

Five to go.

Poor Andy Pettitte. Do you know how hard it is to fashion a 2.83 ERA over eight starts in the DH league and have only a 2-3 record to show for it. And this was supposed to be the team that could guarantee run support.

Oh and Giambi, working on a 1-25, stated after the game that "this team is capable of reeling off 15 straight wins." And of course he's right. Just not in the major leagues, either one of them.

Good bye Joe
You gotta go
Me oh my oh!
You can't think
Your team stinks
Even George says so.

THEY KEEP DRAGGING ME BACK

2007-05-18T11:52:00.000-05:00

Apparently the Yankees no longer care enough to be a good team, but they have been good for so long they don't know how to be a bad team. And as a result they've become that worst of all baseball fates, a joke.

Tino Martinez noted on NY radio yesterday that the only guys on this team that look like they care about winning are Jeter and Jorge. He didn't include Mo or Mr. April. I think he's dead right. Last night I watched the Boston highlights and saw a physically challenged borderline major leaguer by the name of Eric Hinske do a full scale lay out to save a flagging Fat Man from giving up a 2 run double and the Sox from losing the game. Hinske then homered to win the game, giving Boston a sweep of the other good team in the AL, Detroit. The play summarized everything about this season. The Sox, like the Mets, are playing with so much energy, so much desire and the concentration these things bring, while the Yankees are playing without any of these qualities. Oh Melky would have attempted and perhaps made that catch (Tino should have included him in the small coalition of the winning) but none of the other outfielders would have made it and only Matsui would have tried (probably breaking his wrist in the process). Torre should play the Hinske tape 24 hours a day in the Yankees clubhouse, under a caption that reads: You want to know why we are 9.5 back--because they want it so much more than you do.

Meanwhile fecklessness and futility turn to folly as Kyle Farnsworth complains about the terms of Clemens contract and Giambi takes time out from his busy schedule of leaving men on base to complain that all of baseball has not offered its fans a blanket apology for the bad pharmocological behavior of people like, well, Jason Giambi.

Let's see. To Farnsworth I would say that we Yankee fans are less enthusiastic about the prospect of Clemens not going home on off days than we are about the prospect of you going home and staying there, permanently. I didn't want the Yankees to sign Clemens in the first place, but if there is anything more ridiculous than the inflated-prorated contract they offered him, it's the 38 mill you are getting for blowing leads and failing to answer the bell on account of your back. Yankee fans actually feel more relief when you can't pitch than you provide when you do.

As for Giambi, the only apology that seems really pressing right now is the one you and most of your teammates owe Yankee fans for the way you are playing, or not playing.

When you have the 8th best record in the AL you have earned a measure of obscurity the Yankees appear unable to abide. But when you thrust yourself into the limelight under such circumstances, it can only be at the price of making jerks, fools and simpering twits of yourselves, which the Yankees have now undertaken to do. All I can say at this point is six more games, 3 with the Mets and 3 with the Sox, after which Torre will surely be fired and my work here will finally be done.

AFTER THE YANKEES FINALLY WON A GAME LAST NIGHT,

2007-05-17T15:58:00.000-05:00

Slow Joe was heard to say, "Hopefully this will start something because they are certainly capable." He seem to find the Yankees competence to be soem sort of compensation for their performance instead of the aggravating factor that it is.

Well today they were back at it, relying ona competence they see no particular need to demonstrate and they went down yet again, in the ugly manner of yesterday's afternoon game, i.e. without so much as an offensive whimper. Abreu did nothing, Giambi did nothing, Matsui managed to kill two rallies with twin double play balls, Cano did almost nothing, Cabrera did nothing, even Posada did nothing. Di Salvo wasn't very good, but a stellar job by the bullpen, keyed believe it or not, by Ron Villone, kept the Yankees in the game right up to the point that the bats frittered it away altogether.

I don't know what Mattingly does as bench coach; I suspect nothing at all. Since status quo Joe only follows the most conventional wisdonn, the most hidebound orthodoxy, in every decision he makes, I don't see that he needs a whole lot of affirmation from his underlings or that he pays much heed to any dissent from that quarter. That being said, Mattingly needs to be "demoted" to a more useful post, batting instructor, at least for all those left-handed hitters I just listed, who are having terrrible years (and you can include Damon as well). Cano has gone from being Rod Carew to being Larry Bowa; Cabrera has gone from being sufficiently dangerous at the plate to warrant getting his glove and legs on the field, to being a huge offensive liability. Matsui has lost all his pop and abreu all his consistency. It's time to find out if Kevin Long is the bane I suspect him of being.

In any event, that is the last advice I will be dispensing for awhile. This team is barely worth following, hardly worth watching and definitely not worth blogging. The Yankees have elected to waste a huge amount of money on the dim possibility of a Rocket-resuscitation. I propose to waste no more of my time on this team until and unless that possibility becomes a reality somewhere down the road. It is one thing to be losing, which can be analyzed and repaired; it's another thing to be dead, which can only be dissected. Right now this team is just dead and I'm too disgusted with their fetid corpse to dissect them anymore.

ANOTHER DAY,

2007-05-16T18:26:00.000-05:00

Another defeat.

The Yankees went down again, for the 4th time in the last 5, and went down listlessly, effortlessly, indifferently. They were not inept, but they were totally flat. They didn't show up to play. They lost to a Triple AAA pitcher named Danks, a man without much of a fastball and an inconsistent curve, who has had precious little success at the MLB level. They lost to a team who fielded not a single player with a BA better than 260 and 2 with a BA under 200, including Konerko. They lost in a familiar way, with AROD striking out in a key situation because having fallen in love with his own April, he now disdains to swing for anything but the bleachers. They lost playing station to station ball, the failure to send Damon in the fifth costing them a key run when Jeter singled. But most of all they lost because Mussina's return to the rotation is no solution for what ails Yankee pitching.

Allow me to elaborate. Mussina is okay so long as he is very efficient with his pitches in the early innings. that happened alot last year in the early going. But teams caught on and by the end of the season, we were back in 2005, when he couldn't get past the 6th to save his life. Game 2 against the Tigers was a classic exhibit. The White Sox know, as most teams now do, that if you make Mussina work a little early, he will be gassed in the middle innings. He will start pitching away from contact, run more counts, get that much more tired, and ultimately lose enough velocity on his fastball that waiting on the breaking stuff and especially the change-up becomes pretty easy to do. And then he gets hit. Of course the problem is exacerbated by the strain under which the Yankees bullpen has been working, and today those two problems came together to cost the Yankees the game. In the fifth Mussina gave up a run on two ropes, putting the Yankees down 2-1. With two outs, the batter hit a towering fly to left that Melky brought back from over the fence to end the inning (Matsui never makes that play). The Yankees tie it in the top of the 6th (they should have gotten more). Mussina resumes the mound and gives up a towering fly to the same place in left by A. J. what's his name, only this one flies five rows back into the stands. 3-2 Sox. Four of the last five baalls have been ripped and it is surely time to bring the Moose out, even though he's only gone 5. But Torre doesn't, maybe because he feels he has abused his relievers enough. Long story short, Mussina hangs a couple of curves, fools noonne with his change, and gives up 2 more runs while only getting one out. So Torre hasn't saved any tread on his bullpen and now he has lost the game as well. My point is that Mussina has become a part of the bullpen problem in a way that neither Di Salvo nor Rasner have been. But when Hughes or Clemens returns, whichever comes first, a bold and astute manager would make Mussina part of the solution, by making him the yankees main man in middle relief. The guy is a really good pitcher for 2-4 innings. But he's not a starter that can take you deep anymore, and with the Yankees' bullpen problems, they can't afford somebody who just falls off the cliff in the 5th or 6th inning (you can actually see it transpiring on a pitch by pitch basis). The move I suggest won't happen (I said a bold and astute manager, not a slow and status quo Joe), and if the move was made, it wouldn't suddenly turn the yankees into winners--something must happen in the team culture for that--but it would, literally, provide a double measure of relief, turning a source of need into a source of replenishment.

It certainly a better idea than say bring back Ron Villone, which is exactly what Cashman did today, in what I can only hope is his last act as Yankees GM.

FAR FROM SLAMMING DAMON,

2007-05-15T18:04:00.000-05:00

Brian Cashman today came out and agreed with him on the likelihood of Boston winning the division. If you don't think you can win today, why are you playing people that will not be around to help you win tomorrow, like Abreu, Mankiewicz, Mussina, Damon himself? If you don't think you can win today, why in the world would you pay Clemens 1 mill per start just to spice up the futility? And if you can't win today, spending upwards of 200 mill, why don't you, just out of a sense of shame,

a) shut the fuck up
b) get the fuck out

I don't know about you, but I think it's now official, Brian cashman is a worse incompetent, a more virulent toxin and a bigger loser even tham the man whose job he saved (in yet another act of GM fecklessness).

AFTER THE YANKEES' UNFORGIVEABLE LOSS TO THE MARINERS,

2007-05-15T00:48:00.000-05:00

and the Sox improbably fortunate comeback against the O's, Johnny Damon opined that if Boston kept going this way noone was going to cathc them. Huh? First of all, the Yanks are so far behind not because Boston has been that great but because they themselves have been that bad. After all, Detroit and Cleveland have records nearly as good as Boston's and they haven't had the advantage of taking 5 of 6 from the Yankees. Second, and more troubling, it sure sounds like Damon is preparing himself and the fans for failure and explaining it away as another team's overwhelming success. Isn't it a little early to be throwing in the towel in this way.

Actually Damon's position is the just the flip side of the Yanks' more conventional rationalization, i.e. it's still early, there's plenty of time to right the ship, there's no reason for concern. In either case, license is claimed for playing without urgency: either we will succeed automatically in the fullness of time or the Red Sox will render our efforts futile by their own excellence. The important thing is not to care too much, not to sweat things too much, not to struggle too much. Nobody on this squad is going to smack themselves on the batting helmet, hard, when they strike out, as I saw Paul O'Neill do. I wish Paulie would come back just to smack half of them in the head with his bat sans helmet. It's hard not to hate a team that cares less about how they are doing than you do.

TO BE PRECISE,

2007-05-14T13:09:00.000-05:00

Cano, 4-41, Abreu 1-22, Giambi, 0-18, AROD 2-17, all current slumps. The yankees 3-4-5 hitters during this period are hitting a rousing .055, that's right .055! Kevin Long, see ya.

THEY'RE BAAAACK!

2007-05-13T18:45:00.000-05:00

And so am I. Returning from a forced layoff from the blogosphere, I find that everything has changed about the Yankees, changed, that is, into something far more familiar than what we endured in April.

At the end of last month, incessant injuries combined with an overused and overrated bullpen to create the impression that the Yankees' pitching woes were insoluble, condemning the team to an early exit from the championship stage. Now with the acquisition of Clemens, the news that Hughes hamstring isn't so bad after all, the emergence of Rasner and DiSalvo, the continued brilliance of Pettite, the return to reasonable form of Mussina, the projected return to consistency of Wang, and the liberating relegation of Pavano to the ahs heap of baseball history, one can envision a fairly formidable rotation and a transfusion of young pitching into the bullpen, allowing losers like Vizcaino, Meyers et al. to be designated for retirement. But you will do me the justice of remembering that even at the nadir of the pitching fiasco, I noted that the Yankees were squandering some decent efforts. Now that mini-trend has become an epidemic as the Yankees have reverted to the kind of offensive malaise we saw much of last year, i.e. lousy situational hitting, even worse late inning, clutch hitting, too much station to station baserunning, too much waiting for Homer etc.

Damon, Abreu, Cano, Cabrera have all been pretty bad most of the season, and with the exception of Damon, they have been even worse in the clutch. Giambi has done nothing since the bone spur cropped up, and his production was crucial throughout April. Speaking of April, Mr. April decided to get a jump on October futility by going silent in May--maybe he just figures Dave Winfield has the patent. Jeter and Posada simply cannot drive the offense by themselves, as well as they are hitting, and Torre continues to believe he can afford to play Mankiewicz at first because he has such big names--though not big bats--elsewhere in the order.

Today the Yankees wasted a great outing by Pettite in a manner that recalled last year all too clearly. Down 2-0, they get one back thanks to Jeter, but they go on to waste two rallies, one in the 7th inning and one in the 8th. In the first Torre replaces Phelps with Mankiewicz to get the match-up and a double play immediately ensues. You don't sub for a decent hitter with a crappy hitter just to get the match-up, particularly when the better hitter is warm and the worse is coming up cold. Pinch-hitting is difficult enough for people whoi can actually hit, without leaving it to the likes of that feeb. Then in a classic moment, AROD strikes out on a 3-2 fastball with 2 on in the eighth. This after AROD's error in the third cost the Yankees their first run. In other words, AROD failed to win the game at the plate and managed to lose the game in the field. Yes, it's just like old times.

Only now the Yankees are 8 back of Boston and in danger of being blown out of contention before Clemens even returns to overblown fanfare and compensation.

SHUT UP AND PLAY BALL!!

2007-04-30T17:23:00.002-05:00

This from the NY Times:

"Nobody discounts the possibility that Steinbrenner could fire Joe Torre. But if Steinbrenner did it, he would anger many of the players and threaten to poison an already sullen locker room. To the players, firing Torre would be foolish."

An already sullen locker room? What do these guys have to be sullen about? They're getting paid well to play poorly or to nurse injuries, all for a player's manager they claim to revere. Can somebody explain to me why we should care how this group feels about who has the manager's job? I think Torre should get fired for his inability to think in real time game situations, his addiction to the status quo, his continued =refusal to play small ball, his inability to run his bullpen, his unwillingness to fight to win games, which sometimes includes plunking people, the way he mollycoddles his players etc. But let's say I am entirely wrong and someone like Jeter is right, that the sad state of the Yankees is all the fault of the player's performance. Well, then, they're the ones who are getting him fired and they shouldn't be blaming Steinbrenner for merely executing what their failures demand. Either it's partly his fault or entirely their fault, but either way they should just shut up and play.

EXCUSES

2007-04-30T00:33:00.000-05:00

EXCUSES.

Cashman continues to peddle the injury line, how they'll be fine once they recover from all their hurts. But they've lost 8 of the last 9 with thier line-up essentially intact, and half of those losses came with their #1 and #2 starters on the mound and another one with their # 4, who has also given them their only win in that string. The rotation of late has really only been short Mussina and since he hasn't thrown a fastball at better than 85 MPH all year, he is likely to be more of a liability than an asset at this point. The return to physical health has not entailed anything like a return to competitive health. Quite the contrary. The pitching remains mediocre to poor and now a whole series of bats have gone in the tank: Damon, Matsui, Cano, Cabrera, Mankiewicz. As a result they have developed new ways to lose.

When I tallied all the money Cashman has squandered on bad pitching of late, I should have included the 24 mil he paid for the dregs of Mussina's career. Mussina never received sufficient blame for blowing the lead they got him against the Tigers last year in game 2. He holds ion and they go up 2, they might well be the defending champs right now. He was good in then spring and early summer of last year but he wore down in the late summer and fall, obligingly leaving the handwriting on the wall that the Cashman elected not to read.

DOWN GOES

2007-04-29T15:43:00.001-05:00

FRASIER!

UPDATE

2007-04-29T13:12:00.000-05:00

Not 1 minute after the last post Mankieiwicz hits a 3 run homer. Amazing! I wish my denunciations of Yankee losers always had that effect.

MANKIEWICZ IS JUST ANOTHER NAME

2007-04-29T12:55:00.000-05:00

for no will left to win.

As the Yankees trial 2-0, against Julian Taverez of all people, in what may be the decisive must-win game fo the season, it occurs to me that starting a first baseman who is still hitting 140 at this point of the season signifies a defeatism that all by itself warrants firing the manager. Especiallty when Josh Phelps, while no superstar, has proven himself a serviceable figure in the field and a solid presence at the plate. This is status quo-ism at its worst. Joe thought he was going to platoon them, so even though Mankiewicz is far worse against righties than Phelps will ever be, Joe just keeps doing it. Why the fuck do the pundits keep protecting this guy's reputation?