Sweet and Sour

The Yankees ended the 2008 season with a doubleheader at Fenway after Saturday's rainout. In the early game, Mike Mussina finally bagged his 20th win in a season, capping a campaign that would have been worthy of the Comeback Player of the Year award, in any season where Cliff Lee's body wasn't possessed by aliens. The late game was a little more like the Yankees' season as a whole: a desperate struggle to beat a Boston team that hardly seemed to be trying to win, marked by a tough time scoring runs and some bad pitching by Darrell Rasner. A win, and a season-ending sweep of a Red Sox team that was clearly in tune-up mode for the final series, would have allowed the Pinstripers to finish their season with 90 wins and given us a small psychological boost going into a long, hard winter. But this wasn't really a season for feel-good endings, so the Red Sox nabbed with a walk-off tenth inning victory, the immortal Jonathan Van Every knocking in Alex Cora for the win.

For the first time since 1993, the Yankees season ended with the Yanks on the outside looking in at the postseason. In 1993 I'd just graduated college, a cell phone you could barely fit in a coat pocket was a cutting-edge luxury, and next to nobody had heard of the Internet. It's been a long wild ride for the Bronx faithful, and I'm grateful that it lasted this long. Looking, ahead, 2009 promises big changes. Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Bobby Abreu are free agents, Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano will be free agents if their options aren't picked up. In different ways, the Italian connection of Mussina, Giambi and Pavano have each been emblematic of the 21st Century Yanks. Mussina (like the Yanks) has been good but not great over the past eight years. Giambi has been simultaneously frustrating and underrated; despite all the steroid drama, there were only two real bad years out of the Giambino's seven in the Bronx. Pavano--well, he's been the symbol of how far the Yankees have fallen from the late 90s peak, an overpriced player whose name itself became a punchline.

We'll have October to watch everyone else play for the World Series title (can I hear a "Lets go Rays"? OK, maybe not...) and some months after to see how this particular Humpty Dumpty tries to put itself back together again. Will the Yanks stick with their homegrown players, despite a season that presented significant setbacks for each and every one of them? Should veteran warhorses like Mussina and Pettitte and Abreu return next season? Will CC Sabathia get fitted for a set of XXL pinstripes, and if so, will it be a mistake of Pavanoriffic proportions? Time will reveal all things, and we'll have time to discuss it, starting with September in Review tomorrow, and season reviews to follow.

Some odds and ends:

Schadenfreude is such a lonely word: For all the Lupica talk about how New York is now the Mets' town again, they finished with the exact same record as the Yankees, and they're now just as likely to win the World Series. I wasn't exactly rooting against the Flushing warriors, but given the way that Mets fans stunk up the joint during this year's Subway Series, I'm not exactly sad that the Phillies overtook them for the division title, again, and that the Brewers snuck past them to grab that Wild Card.

Joe vs. Joe: First of all, congratulations to Joe Torre, as well as his pinstripe alumni coaches--Don Mattingly, Larry Bowa, and Mariano Duncan--for making it to the playoffs in his first year managing the Dodgers. This is the type of news that's bound to set off all sorts of recriminations about how the Yankees would have been so much better if Torre, not Joe Girardi, had been at the helm for Yankee Stadium's final season. There's no way to tell, but let's get some perspective here, in the current Yankee manager's defense. First of all, the Dodgers won the weakest division in baseball, with a record five wins worse than the Yankees. Second, both managers had to deal with injuries--each lost his staff ace about 100 innings into the season--but the Dodgers got a historic second-half push from an extremely motivated Manny Ramirez, who hit almost .400 over the last two months of the season. Xavier Nady was nice, but not that nice. Third, Torre gave Juan Pierre 400 plate appearances, which is kind of as bad as giving Melky Cabrera 450 PA, just without the excuses of youth and defense. I wish Torre the best, and missed him (and Donnie Baseball) during the Stadium's swan song, but it really doesn't pay to look backwards.

Brief Political Digression: Friday's presidential debate looked like a draw from here--each candidate seemed to do best in the areas they were expected to have trouble. McCain managed to dominate the conversation during the section of the debate that was on the economy, dragging the discussion to comfortable terrain where he could talk more about earmarks and spending than market regulation. Obama didn't back down during the foreign policy section of the debate, despite McCain's constant digs at his lack of experience and supposed naivete. The absolute worst line of the entire debate, from McCain: "I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict." So the key to victory is avoiding failure? Thanks for the tip...

Dead Team Walking

No sooner do the Yanks show signs of life against one of the best teams in the majors, the Tampa Bay Rays, than they give those gains back against the worst team in the AL. You could excuse the Yanks poor performance against Brandon Morrow on Friday--the youngster, making his first major league start after spending a season and a half in the pen, was throwing bullets. But Sunday, the starter had a much lesser pedigree--Ryan Feierabend is no one's idea of a world beater, but he kept the Yanks to just two solo homers. Mike Mussina, going for win number 18, spit the bit with some longball action of his own, allowing Adrian Beltre and Jose Lopez to go deep against him. A second homer, against Jose Veras, gave Lopez a career day, and the Yanks are kicked into fourth place in the AL East.

Things aren't going to get easier, with the Yanks in Anaheim to play the team with the best record in baseball. Ugh.

***

By the way, I'm holding a chat over on the Baseball Prospectus web site at 1:00 PM, Eastern. Everyone's invited to join in and ask some questions. The link to the chat session is here. Hope to see you there.

Catching Up

The season has been slipping away, both from me in terms of the blog and from the Yankees in terms of their hopes of sending the House that Ruth Built to its great slumber in October rather than in September. The former couldn't be helped--I have some seismic changes going on in my life that made regular posting pretty hard to manage. The latter? They say luck is the residue of design, and there's been a lot of criticism of the design Brian Cashman brought into this season. Everyone knew the path the Yanks chose--leaning on a trio of young pitchers and a lineup larded with elder statesmen--was risky, but it was also part of a larger plan by which the Yankees rebuild from within. Sadly, larger plans don't carry much weight in the Yankees' universe; at least, no one wants to hear the excuse that we can't win now because we want to set up to win in the future. In those terms, this season is likely a bust.

I haven't written the Yankees off--after seeing what the Rockies (and, conversely, the Mets) did last season, writing anyone with an over .500 record in August seems silly--but the hope that the Yanks will pass the Sox (both Red and White) and Twins for the Wild Card is coming out of my heart, not my head. My head sees the lower than 5% chance on the Playoff Odds Report and gives a shrug and a sigh.

In the meantime, as far as the blog goes, I'm relaunching things for the stretch run. We'll be fiddling with new looks for the WTDB, new links, and for the immediate future, very short entries (fewer than 200 words each) to catch us up on the various and sundry topics I missed over the last month.

Don't Call It a Comeback

Anyone who didn't think the Orioles would claw their way back for the win, the minute they saw LaTroy Hawkins on the mound, raise your hand. Anybody but Joe Girardi have their hands down? Didn't think so.

It was really looking better for the Yanks last week, but it only took two games for the Orioles to derail that optimism and send the Bombers back to the AL East cellar. The Yanks lost on Memorial Day despite Darrell Rasner continuing his Aaron Small impression, and again last night after the Yanks had 4-0 and 8-4 leads. Hawkins figured in both losses, though Ian Kennedy gets some partial credit for once again taxing the bullpen with a 3 inning start. Why was Joba Chamberlain paired in a tandem with Mike Mussina rather than Moose's shorter pitch-alike, Kennedy? The way Kennedy was seldom able to go even halfway into a regulation game, you think it would have been a natural situation to allow Joba to stretch out his arm in anticipation of becoming a starter again.

That's all academic now. Kennedy has joined Phil Hughes on the DL, and Joba may well wind up pitching in that slot, anyway. The season is frustrating again, just when things were starting to look up.

***

I got to catch Sunday's game in the Boogie Down Bronx with my Dad, the first game he's been to in a few years. Dad's largely a sports non-combatant--the only real reason he cares about baseball is because he knows that the game has a profound effect on me and my brothers' moods--but he enjoyed the Yanks' comeback greatly, and seemed to be having a pretty good time even before the Mariners' bullpen coughed the game up n the eighth inning.

Up until then, things looked pretty grim. Chien Ming Wang had a second straight start where his control was off, and the team's defense was spotty behind him as well. Jarrod Washburn, a guy who'd been as hard to hit as a tee-ball this season, provided six innings of really solid work--this was something we saw on occasion last season, as well, and it follows the pattern of the Yanks being unable to hit any starter that throws lefthanded (with the nine-run outburst against Erik Bedard on Friday perhaps serving as the exception that proves the rule). As was the case last week, the Yanks looked constantly on the verge of breaking out against Washburn, but they could never quite fire up the engines all at once.

Luckily for the Yanks, the Mariners are a brutally bad team. Their excellent bullpen performance last year, the one that gave them that nifty record in one-run games, hasn't held up this season. The Mariners pen--thanks in part to the trade that sent George Sherrill to the Orioles, and in part to the simple volatility of relief performance in general--is currently below replacement level in WXRL, and the pitching staff as a whole is below replacement level by VORP.

So the Mariners' eighth inning meltdown wasn't a surprise--except to the extent that seeing the Yankee offense perform is sometimes surprising, these days. Bobby Abreu's at bat against Arthur Rhodes reminded me of the Rhodes-David Justice matchup in a long ago ALCS, and JJ Putz's freak fall/bad throw later in the inning was just the kind of play that happens to a team when they're going bad. It's a fluke, but good teams hang in there to capitalize on those flukes.

The question is, are the 2008 Yankees a good team?

***

After I criticized Girardi for not coming out to argue the wrong side of the Subway Series Delgado home run call, the skipper seems to have gotten the memo that he should be a little more expressive in his support of the club. Last Thursday, he threw a classic, Piniella-style fit over a strikeout call on Jason Giambi, a good enough tantrum to earn him a suspension. In last night's game, he was all over the umpiring crew for continuing the game in the ninth, when it was raining so hard that Hideki Matsui was having all sorts of trouble seeing the ball and gripping the bat. Girardi was 1 for 2 on the arguments (wrong on Giambi, and right about the rain). But a little theatrics--specially if they're heartfelt--can really help keep your keister off the hot seat when the team is underperforming.

Aggravating...

Today, I go to my local coffee shop to buy tea--don't ask me why. Now, I'm more of a coffee guy than a tea guy, so I have no idea what I'm doing ordering loose tea--anything beyond packets of Twinings or Bigelow (like you get at the supermarket) is out of my league. The woman I'm dealing with at the counter is obviously a coffee person too, so I'm getting no help. I very tentatively ordered a quarter pound of Darjeeling something or other, and after she measures it out, she hands me off to a guy with tattoos at one of the registers.

"That'll be $5.88, champ," the tat guy says. It's a bit familiar of him to have a nickname for me--I don't come to this coffee shop that often, and I'm hardly a regular. I have singles, so I count out the bills to hand to him.

"Here's your change, champ." There's a definite sneer to the way he says it. I don't get it. Did I do something wrong? Was I rude? No. Maybe I made a stupid choice with the tea--mispronounced it, or it's some vile concoction that they've never found anyone fool enough to order?

I wave off a plastic bag for the tea, and walk out to my next errand. It's about two blocks later that I realize what the guy was going on about. The cap I'm wearing is the one with the "2000 World Champions" patch on the side. I actually don't like the look of the patch on the side of the head, but other fitted lid shrank a bit, and this one still fits like a charm.

So what was the tat man's deal? I tend to think Red Sox fan whenever someone is randomly rude to me--horrible prejudice, I know, but it seems to be the way that the demonstrative Sox fan living in New York City rolls. But then I remembered that it's Subway Series time again, and that maybe he was a disaffected Mets fan, still mourning the loss of the 2000 Series. Given the timing, he might have thought I was wearing the cap just to rub the rhubarb of any Mets fans I might meet. His reaction would be somewhat reasonable, even if it's still rude.

Win or lose this weekend's series, at least I know now what I'm wearing the next time I go to buy coffee.

******

Before the season, over at BP, I predicted that "the first Mets/Yankees game that Johan Santana starts" would be the season's game to watch. Santana now being a Met after spending much of the winter pursued by the Yankees--a decision the Yankee brass went back and forth on, very publicly--this wasn't exactly a courageous call. Little did I know that general timing (and a Friday rainout) would make this game even more momentous. We have a split on the players who were rumored to be headed to Minnie if Santana were coming to the Bronx: Melky's showing imroving power, but Phil Hughes is hurt and Ian Kennedy is ineffective. Both New York teams limped onto the Subway, and rumors were rampant coming into the series that Willie Randolph's job hangs by a thread in Flushing. And in the first inning, that thread was looking a bit frayed--the Captain took Johan deep with Damon on base to give the Pinstripers a 2-0 lead.

But that was as good as things would get on the day. The Mets got three runs in six innings off of Andy Pettitte, who again alternated an effective start with a bad one. The YES Network guys praised Kyle Farnsworth as he was coming into the game, which was a certain jinx, which drove things out of control. In the ninth, the Yanks brought the tying run to the plate without any outs--but it still didn't feel like the result of the game was in any doubt. 7-4 final.

The thing that killed me--that's been killing the Yanks all season, really--was the pair of six-pitch innings the Yanks handed Santana in the middle of the game. It seems like this team just isn't dedicated to working the count the way previous Yankees squads have. Part of that is just what happens when you replace Jorge Posada with the Moel-lina tandem, and A-Rod with some combination of Morgan Ensberg and the Attorney General. But those understudies only account for one of those innings, but what about the other one? Why is this All-Star offense puttering around?

It's only May, but it's getting late, early. Anyway, here's hoping tomorrow night's game doesn't get rained out.

Required Reading

Anyone who's read this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of Bronx Banter. I was lucky enough to spend a bit of time with Alex Belth on Monday, as well as his fellow Banterer extraordinaire, Emma Span, my Baseball Prospectus friends Joe Sheehan, Jay Jaffe and Steve Goldman, and Kevin Baker, who is one of the contributors to the Anatomy of Baseball compilation.

It was a great joy being at a table where I was clearly the worst-read person there. At one point we basically became a baseball version of the McLoughlin Group, going around the table for opinions on books, the end of Yankee Stadium, Joe Girardi's shaky start as Yankee manager, Will Leitch (and sports blogging along with him) getting pilloried on Bob Costas Now.

Speaking of books (and Bronx Banter), I got to participate in Alex's Essential Baseball Books project, nominating my top ten books. I restricted myself to non-fiction works, and worked off the top of my head (sadly, my apartment doesn't have space for all my books, so there were a few favorites, like Ball Four, that I missed solely because they're in storage rather than on my bookshelf). You can find the Essentials series at these links: Part I, Part II, and Part III.

From Part III, here's my tardy list:

Bill James, Politics of Glory -- Wonderful exercise in applied sabermetrics: James takes a dash of numbers, a huge dollop of historical research, and systematically ticks off the problems with baseball's most revered institution.

Steve Goldman, Forging Genius -- Has all the things you'd expect in a bio--fun anecdotes, character sketches, historical details--and throws in a strong dose of logic on top of it, to explain how Casey Stengel became the guy that led the Yankees to all those pennants. I suspect it would be interesting to read this back-to-back with the next book, because the authors' styles are so different.

David Halberstam, Summer of '49 -- It's like the movie Apollo 13: even if you know exactly how the 1949 pennant race ended, you still probably won't be immune to the suspense that Halberstam builds up in this book. Essential read for Yankee fans.

Alan Schwarz, The Numbers Game -- Great history of the game, told through the eyes of statheads from era to era.

Bill James, Historical Baseball Abstract -- It's a bit like Disneyland, huge and easy to get lost in. There are maybe three great books' worth of work in there.

Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Between the Numbers -- Excellent primer on a broad range of stathead topics.

Michael Lewis, Moneyball -- Cliche? Maybe. A bit dated, just five years after it was published? Sure. Doesn't matter. Moneyball drags you into the collective mind of a MLB front office better than any book I've ever read.

Peter Gollenbock and Sparky Lyle, The Bronx Zoo -- Sentimental pick. I was still a kid with illusions to shatter when I read Gollenbock's story of what really happened with the 1978 World Champs. You never get your innocence back.

William Goldman and Mike Lupica, Wait Till Next Year -- Can you remember when Mike Lupica actually liked baseball? I think this book was the beginning of the end of that. The NFL and NBA, peek in here, but Goldman (of Princess Bride fame) and Lupica mainly focus on the 1987 Mets with a decent side helping of Yankees stories. The essential parts for baseball fans are Goldman's humor, and Lupica's glimpses into how sports journalism works.

Rob Neyer and Bill James, The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers -- Probably the most unique baseball reference book out there--I mean, how many times do you think of a pitcher, but can't quite remember all the pitches he threw, or what his best pitch was?

More book talk later, I hope

What's Cooking?

It's been a long week. The Yanks haven't had a breather in the 17 days since Opening Day, and won't get one until after this weekend's series in Baltimore is over. Then it'll be another two weeks before their next scheduled day off. You'd think that someone would have sabotaged the sprinkler system at one of the ballfields by now.

I don't have much to say about the team right now, other than they might not have the guns to hang with the Red Sox all summer in the Stadium's final hurrah. The Yanks are 7th in the league in runs scored, and have scored three or fewer runs in 8 of their 17 games so far. Robbie Cano, Jason Giambi, and Johnny Damon have struggled so far, and the young starters have combined to allow 22 runs in 22 1/3 innings.

I've been quiet this week because my computer's hard drive gave up the ghost, just after its warranty ended. Like many, I don't back up nearly as often as I should (this is particularly galling, since I'd set up a Time Capsule to handle La Chiquita's backups, but hadn't found the time to set it up for my own), so I lost a month's worth of data.

Anyway, the unscheduled downtime has given me the opportunity to catch up on my DVR'd TV watching (La Chiquita and I splitting her computer so that we'd each work during the other's downtime). Which means--since the WGA strike turned this into the weakest TV season in memory--Top Chef is probably the best thing on the tube right now, outside of baseball. I'll be posting a review of that later today.

Baseball Eve

So, tomorrow it's all happening for real. Tomorrow, Yankee Stadium has its last Opening Day. Let's look at the squad that'll attend the beginning of the end at the House that Ruth Built:

Pitchers (12)

Starters (4)
Chien Ming Wang
Mike Mussina
Phil Hughes
Ian Kennedy

Wang gets tomorrow's start, which'll be a small-print bit in the history books. Seniority rather than outlook makes Mussina the Game Two starter. Having Mussina and Hughes back-to-back could be hard on the pitching staff, unless Hughes learns how to economize a little with his pitches, or Mussina gets effective enough to pitch deep into ballgames again. Pettitte starts the season off the roster, although MLB.com has him as the starter for Friday's matchup against the Rays, even before IPK gets his first start of the year.

Relievers (8)

Mariano Rivera
Joba Chamberlain
LaTroy Hawkins
Kyle Farnsworth
Jonathan Alabadejo
Billy Traber
Brian Bruney
Ross Ohlendorf

One of the few decisions of the spring was "Joba Chamberlain: starter or reliever?" In the short term, the answer has come out reliever, but the idea is still to make him a starter, perhaps as soon as later on this season. I worry that he'll get stuck in the bullpen, particularly if an injury put Mariano out of action for an extended period of time, he could wind up the Yankee closer, and find it hard not to get pigeonholed a bullpen role afterward. One of these guys is likely gone when Pettitte returns, and since I've stacked them in rough pecking order, I'd have to say that Bruney or Ohlendorf, the last two relievers to make the roster, are the likeliest cuts. Three games is not a long time to make an impression. With a new manager in town, Kyle Farnsworth has disclaimed that the limitations once placed on his usage were his idea. It'll be interesting to see if Farnsie finally pitches worth a damn now that he's in his walk year.

Catchers (2)

Jorge Posada
Jose Molina

No surprises here. The Yankees didn't have anyone in camp in a position to unseat Molina, or rather, Molina's 2-year contract. It may be impossible for Posada to match his 2007 performance--an A+ performance, in my view--but he's going to have to maintain his 2004-7 form to keep this offense moving.

Infielders (7)

Derek Jeter
Alex Rodriguez
Robinson Cano
Jason Giambi
Wilson Betemit
Shelley Duncan
Morgan Ensberg

The first three guys should, if healthy, play 150+ games each as the entrenched shortstop, third baseman, and second baseman, respectively. The last four will make a hash of playing first base, DHing, and backing up the infield and outfield. Ensberg was one of the other decisions of Spring Training, winning out over Jason Lane for the job of a second righthanded bat (after Duncan) to balance out this left-leaning lineup. Good job by the Yanks of going with longterm performance over Spring statistics in that decision (for much of the Grapefruit league, Lane was outhitting his former Astros teammate). Giambi, like Farnsworth, is playing for next season's payday. The ideal would be for him to start the majority of the games at first, some 100-120 games. We'll see about that.

Outfielders (4)
Johnny Damon
Melky Cabrera
Bobby Abreu
Hideki Matsui

Technically, Duncan's the fifth outfielder here. That works if you consider Damon a proper backup in center, I guess. Brett Gardner would probably have made the team if he was a righthanded hitter. We'll have to see how the newly-married Matsui adjusts to DHing regularly. That aside, everything here is a known quantity. The Yanks have to hope for continued growth from Cabrera and for Damon to perform the way he did in the second half last year.

Here's to a great season!

Enough a' Spring Already!

I haven't written anything about Spring Training so far, and I have to admit, I've felt a little bit disconnected from the whole Grapefruit League scene this off-season. As the amazing Emma Span pointed out at Bronx Banter today, Spring exhibition baseball is only just good enough to take the edge off your baseball addiction--methadone to the season's black tar heroin. This off-season, the winter leagues kept my baseball jones from getting too powerful, so I have had a hard time getting all that excited about exhibitions. The few innings I've seen here or there have been nice--I've missed the Yankees, and it's good to see them--but I'm saving my energy for the April to October grind.

It doesn't help that the signal-to-noise ratio down in Tampa has been, perhaps, at a historic low. There aren't that many interesting positional battles. There aren't many new acquisitions, for us to wonder how they'll fit in. The pitching staff whiz kids are here, but that story already got much of its play last August, September, and October. The local media can't seem to decide if Andy Pettitte's a louse for using HGH or a hero for ratting out Roger Clemens--they'll have to wait to see how he pitches during the season to decide how to treat him. It's made for a lot of unengaging coverage.

The meme this Spring seems to be about the Yanks losing that classy sheen they had under Joe Torre. Over the last two weeks, a home plate collision, a spiking, and a halfway decent brawl were decried as the end of civilization in Tampa. This week, there have already been two articles worrying about the Yanks' "slide into crassness" with Larry Brooks in the Post complaining about Joe Girardi allowing a pending-trial Jim Leyritz into the clubhouse; and Richard Justice licking his chops at the prospect of a return to the Bronx Zoo, with Hank Steinbrenner and Girardi playing the George/Billy Martin roles (hat tips to BTF for both links).

(An aside: This is one of those I don't understand--even if he's writing for the Sporting News, does anyone consider Richard Justice a national columnist? Why the heck should a Houston/National League guy be excited about the prospect of Hank Steinbrenner turning into his dad? Even more important, why should anyone care if he's excited? I guess that's the price of being the Yankees: everyone's all up in your business, even if they're in the NL Central.)

Mind you, Justice admits that it's not the Bronx Zoo yet, and that Cashman is still running the joint in the "boring/classy" way, but that doesn't stop him from breathlessly proclaiming that "You can't make up the stuff that's happened to the Yankees in the past six months."

I guess Justice doesn't have much of an imagination. What happened in the last six months? Losing in the ALDS? That happened in 2006 and 2005; it's old hat. Joe Torre walking away rather than taking an insulting contract offer? Torre came to the Yanks when exactly that happened with Buck Showalter after the 1995 season. The Yanks not landing the big trade for a franchise pitcher? That was Curt Schilling back in 2003. Heck, it was Randy Johnson for half his career--and just look at how happy he made us when he finally got here. Nope, can't make any of that stuff up.

We're a week away from baseball's false start--the pair of Boston/Oakland games in Japan-- two Sundays away from ESPN's Opening Night, and just shy of two weeks away from the real deal, with the Yanks hosting the Blue Jays on Yankee Stadium's final Opening Day. One way or another--send the cathedral out on a winning or losing note--it figures to be a bittersweet season. And I can't wait for it to start.

Waiting on Mr. Mitchell

It's T-minus one hour before the George Mitchell steroid press conference. I swear, MLB must have scheduled this thing specifically to interfere with my writing schedule, since I'm on deadline for three different projects, two of them baseball. A few short-form reactions to recent news:

1) The Yanks Sign LaTroy Hawkins:

I'd have been much more psyched about this a few years ago than I am now. I'd always imagined LaTroy to be a strikeout guy, but if you look it up, he's pretty weak in that aspect, and getting worse. Still, with Joba in the rotation, Kyle Farnsworth being sucky and limited, and Luis Vizcaino leaving us for greener pastures, Joe Girardi is going to need a setup guy that he's comfortable going to in the eighth. I like the fact that this is only a one-year deal.

2) Carl Pavano asked to take a minor league deal:

This one was reported as a done deal over the weekend, before Can't Pitch Carl balked. The move would've allowed the Yanks to clear space on the 40-man, while somehow still getting insurance to pay for part of Pavano's salary, meanwhile Pavano would have had someplace to rehab. This made too much sense to ever happen. It would mean that Carl would have to do something that actually benefits the Yankees--can you imagine that? I swear, if this guy blew his brains out, the bullet would still manage to hit a vital member of the Yankees' team.

3) Yanks Say Good-bye to Andy Phillips, Darrell Rasner, Matt DeSalvo, T.J. Beam, and Bronson Sardinha:

Phillips was released just before the Rule 5 draft, to make room for Jose Molina. Rasner, Beam, DeSalvo, and Sardinha were non-tendered last night to make room for the Yanks' returning free agents. The only one of these that's a surprise is Sardinha, since it looked like the team was warming up to him last season, putting him on the playoff roster. The others were arms who'd been passed on the depth chart, and Phillips, who never showed the power he'd need to be a backup corner infield guy.

4) Kuhn to the Hall, Miller on the Outside Looking In

Marvin Miller should have gotten into the Hall of Fame when the Veteran's Committee vote was expanded to all living Hall-of-Famers a few years back. That group, dominated by the same veteran ballplayers who enjoyed big salaries and pensions as a result of Miller's advocacy on their behalf, couldn't get its act together to get the job done, one of the single greatest acts of ingratitude that you'll see, ever. This year, with the keys to the gates of Cooperstown given to baseball management types, Miller never stood a chance. That his nemesis, the late Commissioner Kuhn, was voted in while Miller was rejected was as direct a snub as you'll see.

Option B

"Beeeeeware the Pavano!"

A ghostly voice woke me in the night. The radiator in the bedroom was going full-blast, and I woke up in a sweat, as if I had a fever. Carl Pavano? Where?

After looking around and making sure that Can't Pitch Carl wasn't in the bedroom, threatening myself and La Chiquita with grievous bodily harm. I settled back down for some rest. What the heck was that about?

"Beware the Paavaaaaanoooooo!"

I woke back up, peeved. What Pavano? And why did the ghostly voice think that moaning out a different word in the sentence would make me more likely to heed its call? I mean, for the first time in three years, I was finally over my Pavano issues--Carl had his Tommy John surgery in June, and it seemed like the timing of that was so that the Yankees could ensure he'd never again pitch in a Yankee uniform (since even people with normal healing times usually take more than 15 months to come back from ligament replacement). The Yanks would keep him on the roster, get back whatever they could in insurance money, and then we could put one of the worst free agent signings ever behind us, forever.

"Beware the..."

I swear, if I found that ghostly voice I was gonna bust him upside the head. What damn...

Oh! And then I got it: this was about the Johan Santana non-deal.

The Yankees now swear up and down that they won't pursue Santana. After Hank Steinbrenner's ultimatum--the kind of peevish complaint guaranteed to inspire rebellion, if not veiled accusations of tampering--the Yankees and Twins were unable to settle on a third prospect in the great Santana hunt of 2007. The Bronx Bombers' main rivals (in this and seemingly everything else), the Red Sox, seem to have also struck out in the short term. The Yanks are saying all the right thing about sticking with their youth movement on the mound. But even if the Melky and Hughes for Santana deal is off the table, there's still danger lurking in the weeds.

It's Option B, better known as Oakland A's pitcher Danny Haren. Or as my mind has been thinking about him since the ghostly visitation...the Pavano.

I know that's not quite a fair comparison. Haren's a really good pitcher, who's been extraordinarily resilient over the last three years:

YEAR NAME AGE W L IP SO9 RA+ SNLVAR
2005 Dan Haren 24 14 12 217 6.76 1.13 5.2
2006 Dan Haren 25 14 13 223 7.1 1.11 5.3
2007 Dan Haren 26 15 9 222.7 7.76 1.30 6.3

(Yes, I've written this blog for four years, and I still can't figure out how to make a table look good. Sorry.)

But then again, Pavano was also a pretty good pitcher in the couple of years before he choked us under a veil of tears joined the Yankees:

YEAR NAME AGE W L IP SO9 RA+ SNLVAR
2003 Carl Pavano 27 12 13 201 5.96 1.02 5.2
2004 Carl Pavano 28 18 8 222.3 5.63 1.42 7

He was really good. He just wasn't the best available. That year, the offseason after the 2004 ALCS disaster, the best starter available was Pedro Martinez, late of the Red Sox. The Mets picked him up, and the Yankees settled for the next best thing, Pavano. There were things to commend Pavano over Martinez. Martinez had known health issues, and was older. If you'd asked who was the safer bet to receive a four-year deal, Pavano from ages 29-32 or Pedro from ages 33-36, you'd probably answer, the young guy without arm trouble. Still, even if Pedro doesn't pitch another inning at Shea, you'd have to say that the Mets got more mileage out of the $53 million they gave Martinez than the Yanks got out of the $40 million they gave Pavano.

Back to Haren. Billy Beane is a smart guy. He has a very good young pitcher, Haren, signed to a nice, below-market contract ($9.5 MM over the next two years, $6.75 MM club option for 2010). Why would he want to trade away a guy like this?

It's because of the market that Johan Santana has created. Santana isn't just a good pitcher, he's the best pitcher. A lot of people have supposedly been scared off by Santana's reported contract demands, but there's a hunger for what he brings to the table. He's not just a #1 pitcher, he's the #1 pitcher. The ace of aces. Only a handful of hurlers can claim to be in his company--Josh Beckett, Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, Roy Oswalt, C.C. Sabathia, maybe Justin Verlander--and none of those guys have his performance record. Haren isn't part of that group, he's in the next group, which includes young guys like Felix Hernandez, Erik Bedard, Chien Ming Wang, Cole Hamels, Scott Kazmir, and a few others,* who are close to that elite level but just fall short, or haven't yet proven they can do it consistently enough to be one of those "once in a generation" type pitchers. Like Martinez, Clemens, and Randy Johnson were in their respective primes. Like Santana is now.

When a pitcher like Santana is available, guys you've long considered untouchable become...touchable. If you have to surrender a Phil Hughes, or Jon Lester, or Clay Buchholz, or Clayton Kershaw, you grit your teeth and do it. Those guys may have the potential to become the next Santana or Peavy or Beckett, but there's value in knowing that you have someone who's already made it to that level, who's survived grind of operating at as an ace year in and year out.

So if Beane is making Haren available, it's because he hopes to let the Twins do the hard work, loosening GM's fingers off their best prospects as everyone vies to get the best pitcher in baseball. And then, once everyone's gotten used to the idea that Hughes isn't untouchable, that Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury can be had, then Beane can sweep in and market Haren, as the best pitcher available not named Santana. And it's not that hard to talk yourself into this idea: Haren's pretty good, and his contract is small-market friendly, and for all I know he's super-kind to children and animals. But he's not Johan Santana--he's just the next best thing.

Forget Pavano, which is pretty much a fighting word in any Yankee fan's vocabulary. Last year, the best pitcher available was Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Yanks were outbid, handily, on the posting fee for the best talent out there, but they settled for Option B--Kei Igawa. Last year, the Yanks paid about $30 million (the posting fee plus Igawa-san's salary) for Dr. Kei to pitch more innings in the minors (77 1/3) than in the majors (67 2/3). Sometimes the best move is not to make a move at all.


[* NOTE: Before anyone complains about that list of second-tier #1 pitchers, I'm not counting guys who are on the wrong side of 30. Many of them--John Smoltz, Tim Hudson, A.J. Burnett, Roy Halladay--can be just as good as any of the guys I've listed, but likely wouldn't have the same trade value.]

The Hank Ultimatum

It's been a year of ultimatums in the Yankees organization:

If you don't give us extensions before opening day, we'll become free agents!
--Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada to Brian Cashman

If you opt out, we won't re-sign you!
--Cashman to Alex Rodriguez

If you don't win the Division Series, you're history!
--George Steinbrenner to Joe Torre

Unless you start the bidding at $350 million over ten years, he's opting out!
--Scott Boras to the Yankees, re: Alex Rodriguez

If you don't offer me more than one year, I'm gone!
--Torre to the Yankee brain trust


Some of the ultimata (that's the alternate plural, per Websters) proved to be for real--Rivera and Posada did each dip a toe in free agency, although it doesn't look like they got serious with anyone but the Yanks; Torre did actually leave when the Yanks' one-year "paycut, with performance bonuses" deal turned out to be final--others less so. Despite the Old Boss's stern warning, Torre was offered a contract--albeit one designed to be rejected. Despite all the posturing by both sides of the A-Rod Opt-Out drama, Alex opted out, but (thanks to a little advice from the Oracle of Omaha) negotiated a deal to return for less than the promised $350 million. So for all the threats of definitive action, the record in 2007 has been a mixed bag.

Now, the latest ultimatum comes from Hank Steinbrenner to the Minnesota Twins. If he's to be believed, Johan Santana will be a Yankee tomorrow, or the Yanks won't trade for him, period. He claims that the Yanks have a fair offer on the table--reportedly Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, and one pick from the Yanks' column B of prospects (e.g., no Joba Chamberlain, no Ian Kennedy)--and that if a deal can't be worked out on Monday, the Yanks move on. In an unrelated, but connected story, Santana's told the Twins that he won't agree to be traded during the season, giving new Minnesota GM Bill Smith deadlines to deal with.

I've been shy about talking up the Yankees' pursuit of Santana because it's one of those situations that's all speculation, no news. If I had to give odds, I'd say they still favor Johan Santana starting the season as a Minnesota Twin--as I pointed out last week at Baseball Prospectus, two draft picks (which is what the Twins would get for losing Santana as a free agent) can be a pretty substantial return, often better than one gets from an ill-considered trade. All told, in situations like these, it's often true that no one knows anything, and you wind up wasting a lot of time for something that never comes to fruition.

Now, thanks to Hank layin' down the law, we're likely to have some news--real news--on this issue by Monday night...maybe.

As far as the deal on the table goes...it's fair. I'd be heartbroken to see Hughes go, and I'm a huge fan of the Melkman--despite the fact that he often has weeks where he looks like absolutely doesn't belong in the majors. Nonetheless, if the package is Hughes, Melky, and Chris Britton (or Alberto Gonzalez, or Juan Miranda) then I think you have to pull the trigger, not because Hughes and Melky are chickenfeed, but because it's Johan Friggin' Santana, the best pitcher in baseball over the last four years, a lefthanded stud who's still on the correct side of 30.

Keep in mind, I've never heard anybody refer to the alternative as "Danny Friggin' Haren." The first time that happens, it might not be a sign of admiration. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Aside from the Yankees' role in the Santana saga possibly coming to a head; the Hank Ultimatum is important as the final, definitive proclamation that Hank--not Hal, not any of the Steinbrenner sons-in-law--is the Boss, Part II. The Decider. The Big Cheese. Numero Uno Honcho.

Boss II is definitely doing a formidable impression of the elder Steinbrenner, complete with threats and bluster and hokey-sounding proclamations about what "the Yankees" should or should not do. Is Brian Cashman still involved in the Yanks' decision making? Heck, I need reassurance that Cashman's still alive. I halfway suspect that when Pete Abraham puts up audio from Cash's next presser at the winter meetings, the Yankees' GM is going to be mispronouncing words like someone in a hostage tape.

A-Rod: The High Price of Admission

Well, as I guess you've already heard by now, there were about one hundred and nineteen million reasons why Alex Rodriguez should be treated differently than Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. That's allegedly how far apart the two sides were when they were attempting to hook up for a meeting to keep Alex in pinstripes.

I don't know that I've ever heard of two parties starting off that far apart in a salary negotiation. Then again, there's only been one negotiation like this one in baseball history, and that happened the last time Rodriguez hit the free agent market.

However, I probably wouldn't be thrilled to see the Yanks make that kind of commitment to any player, under any circumstances, so I guess I'm not as torn up about the Yanks being unable to negotiate Alex under the circumstances he's created as I would have been otherwise.

Part of me would like for this to be the last time we talk about Rodriguez, but I have to be practical--I'll be doing team grades and tallying up the Player of the Week/Month awards, so obviously he'll figure highly in that, plus the MVP award, plus the hoo-ha that will come down the pike if he signs with one of the Yanks' many rivals.

But here's another practical consideration I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere: how long did it take for the Texas Rangers to grow fatigued of A-Rod's last contract? Let's say that Rodriguez does get his 10 years and $350 MM from some ballclub. How many teams will be able to sustain that level of expenditure throughout the life of the deal? Isn't it likely that three or four years down the line, someone will be looking to get out from under the crushing burden of the next Rodriguez contract, or Alex himself will be seeking a trade to get out from under a losing team?

And when that happens, who're they going to call? Which teams would be able to absorb $35 or more million per year in salary? It's a small list, and it's headed by the Yankees.

So while some media members and fans rush to burn those bridges and close the book on the A-Rod Era (and I'm sure that in the months to come they'll be joined by team execs and former teammates), I wouldn't be quite so fast on the trigger. While I doubt that A-Rod will don the pinstripes in 2008 or 2009, I wouldn't bet that he's forever done playing for the home team in the Bronx.

***

I'd forgotten that before the same World Series game when A-Rod made such a big splash by having his agent announce to the world that he was opting out of his contract, he'd snubbed the ceremony in which he was to receive the American League Hank Aaron Award from Hammerin' Hank himself. Now Alex (well, Boras) wants to make it clear that Alex is really sad that he was too busy to come to Game 4 (but not too busy to upstage baseball's premier event) and that he meant no offense to Aaron. Since Aaron's a pretty classy guy, he'll probably accept Rodriguez's half-assed non-apology and vague family commitment excuse.

***

The reported shake-up of the coaching staff for the Girardi era gives some interesting clues about the direction the team is taking. Where the last coaching staff was full of star power--guys with management experience coaching first (Tony Peña), third (Larry Bowa), and the bullpen (Joe Kerrigan); Yankee icons as bench (Don Mattingly) and pitching (Ron Guidry) coach--the rumored coaching squad is a bunch of no-names. The only returning members are hitting coach Kevin Long--who's reportedly getting a huge-for-a-coach three-year $1 million contract--and Peña. They'll be joined by a pair of ex-Yankees who scuffled in the majors--Bobby Meacham at third base and Dave Eiland at pitching coach--an organizational soldier sitting next to Girardi on the bench ("field coordinator" and advance guy Rob Thomson) and ex-Cub pitcher (and former Girardi associate) Mike Harkey in the bullpen.

This no-frills approach indicates a partnership between Girardi and Cashman, promoting some guys from within but also bringing in a few guys who coached for Girardi in Florida. It's hard to believe that anyone named "Steinbrenner" would have selected a staff with this little name recognition. The biggest announcement of this bunch is Eiland, who will be charged with the Yanks' pitchers of the future--Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, and the like. Eiland has been a pitching coach for the Yanks in the minors (AAA last year) and his selection is hailed because he worked with the Yanks' blue-chippers on the farm. But methodical analysis by the always-insightful Cliff Corcoran indicates that Eiland's influence may be a bit overstated--for example, Kennedy and Chamberlain breezed past AAA this season, . Still, with once-coveted pitching coach Leo Mazzone available on the market, going with Eiland at this crucial juncture is a big statement about dealing with known quantities rather than big names from outside the organization.

Rock Bottom

So, the idea is that we could have a new Yankee manager by tomorrow, so let's look at the world that Joe Torre's successor will inherit.

The Boston Red Sox are the World Champions, for the second time since 1918. For the second time in the last four years, they've cut through the National League's representative like a bad Taco Bell burrito. The question about the Red Sox isn't whether they've got a great team or whether they deserve those championships, it's what the heck happened in 2005 and 2006? Seriously, what happened those two years? How on Earth did this freakish monster of a team fail to reach the World Series both years, much less fail to make the playoffs, last year?

Josh Beckett turning into scrub last year was the cruelest form of false hope for Yankee fans. Think about it: if a new, young Yankees acquisition had the 2006 that Beckett had (5.01 ERA, big drop in strikeout rate in his shift to the harder league), what would happen to him? It's not a rhetorical question. It's almost exactly what happened to the Yanks with Javy Vazquez in 2004 (14-10, 4.91 ERA, K/9 dropped into the sixes). You turn up that kind of turkey of a season in pinstripes, they ship you off in disgrace, to a losing team, eat almost all the salary they spent giving you a huge contract extension when you were acquired, and get someone even more hyped and dump another salary extension on him. One crap season here means you're garbage, never to be trusted to win again. Don't like Vazquez? Look at Jose Contreras, or Jeff Weaver--same story.

You could argue that none of those guys was as good as Beckett, and you might be right. But then again, all of them--Contreras, Vazquez, even Weaver--have gotten rings over the last four years.

Well, Beckett had his one crap year in Fenway, and they didn't send him to the glue factory, didn't ship him off to Atlanta for John Smoltz, or somesuch. He stuck around, and this year, Beckett was everything that Boston was promised last year and then some. Effectively, he was the reason that the Red Sox season wasn't over when they were down 3-1 in the ALCS. Now he gets his second ring of the 21st Century.

But wait, it gets worse. The Red Sox are loaded with prospects; Beckett isn't going anywhere, and neither is David Ortiz. (Ortiz, by the way, doesn't turn 32 until next month. He's younger than both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. I shouldn't be surprised, but doesn't it feel like he's been plaguing us forever?) With Pedroia, Ellsbury, Youkilis, you have a relatively young, home-grown core to back Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. It's a damned nightmare.

The other challenge that the next Yankee manager faces going into next year, is that they have to face the Red Sox juggernaut without the presumptive AL MVP. Showing his usual impeccable timing, Scott Boras announced mid-game during Game 4 of the World Series that Alex Rodriguez has elected to opt out of his contract with the Yankees. Here's how Boras explained the decision:

"Alex's decision was one based on not knowing what his closer, his catcher and one of his statured pitchers was going to do," Boras said. "He really didn't want to make any decisions until he knew what they were doing."

Well, I wouldn't call Mariano Rivera "his" closer, or Jorge Posada "his" catcher. The possessives imply some sort of leadership on Alex's part that was never in evidence during his Yankee tenure. I'm not even sure what the hell a "statured pitcher" is, other than faint praise for Andy Pettitte. But it sure sounds like Alex made a decision, here, doesn't it? And that decision means, that if the Yankees hold to their word, A-Rod's career in pinstripes is over. Rodriguez has thrown out the Yanks' exclusive negotiating window (which could have stretched as far as ten days after the end of the World Series), and tossed away the millions the Rangers were going to pay the Yanks on his existing contract. Brian Cashman has said for months that if A-Rod opts out, they won't bid on him.

I hope they hold to their word. I'm sure that if the Yanks opened the vaults (say with 10 years and $300 million), Alex would return. Heck, it might even make sense, locking him up for the bonanza that'll come as he pursues Bonds's home run record, keeping him out of the hands of a league competitor like the Angels or the Red Sox, who could ride A-Rod to a period of dominance. I don't begrudge the man his money, or the fact that he's chosen to exercise a contractual right at a time when his leverage couldn't be any greater. I don't think it's greedy to demand to be paid what you're worth, or to have that determined by the market.

Nonetheless, if Alex Rodriguez is in the Yankee lineup come opening day, I will be there booing as hard as I can. Not really booing Alex--I've never been a big fan of that--but booing the Yankees organization. Because for all I accept Rodriguez's contractual rights, this announcement--opting out without so much as meeting with management, hearing an extension offer, or even allowing the Yankees to announce their new manager, first--was a giant wad of spit in the Yankee organization's face. If they come crawling back to sign Alex now, it would be just as humiliating as it would have been for Joe Torre if he had accepted the one-year contract the brain trust offered him.

It's demeaning. And if anyone in the Yankee organization, from the elder Steinbrenner on down, has any self-respect, it's a game they won't play. So screw you, Alex. I absolutely loved having you on this team, and I really wanted you to win a ring in pinstripes. I don't blame you for the fact that it didn't happen. But now you've opted out, so there's the door. Don't let it hit you on the way out.

The new Yankee manager will just have to do without you. I wish the new manager--be he Mattingly or Joe Girardi, as Sunday's rumors held--a lot of luck. He'll need it. I'd love to wish Alex good luck, too--but there's just too much..."uncertainty" about his status for me to do that.

Hold Those Tigers?

The Yanks got out of rat-infested Los Angeles of Anaheim having lost only one net game on the Mariners and Red Sox, which is as good as fiascoes like that series get. I hate the Angels. It's like the whole team is designed specifically for the purpose of giving the Bombers fits (which it may well be). That said, the Yanks were in Monday's game and won Wednesday's game, only really getting outclassed in Tuesday's 18-9 pelting. A few random notes:

• On Monday, we saw the first casualty of the Joba Chamberlain rules, since Joba's nine pitches on Sunday disqualified him from entering the game at any of the big points where a win could have been salvaged. Publicly announcing that there are special rules on how you're going to use Joba (or Jon Papelbon, or Mariano Rivera) are fine bits of public candor, with the side benefit of shielding management's backside when things don't work out, the old "We couldn't use him in that spot. My hands were tied by the rules." But you have to wonder the strategic cost of telling the other team which pitchers aren't available ahead of time in any game. Wouldn't you rather keep them guessing?

• At some point the need to protect a young bullpen arm from Torre (and Joba needs the protection--just ask Scott Proctor, Paul Quantrill or Ron Villone what happens when you become Joe Torre's favorite toy) will have to be balanced against the fact that this team does have a shot to win this year, and that flags fly forever. When will that happen? Last week of the season? In the playoffs, when one ace reliever can really make a difference?

• OK, I know I'm starting to sound like Michael Kay, who seems to bring up the Joba Rules thing each game, asking the exact same questions, as if Al Leiter and John Flaherty are suddenly going to change their answers. I have to say, I'm impressed by the way Kay sounds freshly flabbergasted about this issue each and every time he raises it.
  

• BTW, the Joba Rules means that the Yanks carry three relievers with special care tags on their usage--Chamberlain, Rivera, and Farnsworth--which, added to the fact that two of those pitchers are their best relievers, is a managerial straightjacket.

• Tuesday's matchup of Mike Mussina's slow fastball against Garrett Anderson's slow bat was just a perfect nightmare. Mussina's still a good enough pitcher to get you through the regular season, but as things stand right now, would anyone be comfortable with him making a start should the Yankees make the playoffs?

• Has anyone considered that maybe the crap that Orlando Cabrera has on his batting helmet might be contributing to Angels Stadium's rodent problems? I guess to some people, the giant craplike smear of pine tar says "valued member of the 2004 World Champions." To me it just says "slob, and a possible Health Code violation."

• One more Joba point. He needs a nickname. Given the fact that he's a big guy, this "Joba the Hutt" thing is just waiting to blow up in our faces the day he shows up to Spring Training 20 pounds overweight. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, like naming your girl-child "Britney" or "Paris" these days. We've got a lot of creative energy amongst the Yankees Faithful--someone needs to find a better name.
  

• I wrote a small bit on the (for the moment) demise of the Puerto Rico Winter League on BP's Unfiltered blog. Take a moment to check it out.
  

• Despite a horrible series against the Angels, the Yankees are still in a spot where, with a little help from the Tigers and White Sox, next week's series against Boston could be very interesting. More on this (I hope) over the weekend.

Separated at Birth?

Bronx Banters's Emma Span brought this up the other day, about people people remarking on Shelley Duncan's looks (or lack thereof). Personally, I think that there's enough of a resemblance that he could have been Matthew Lillard's stunt double in Summer Catch. Actually, considering the weak cuts that Lillard took in that movie, you can make that "should have been."

[For anyone that hasn't had the pleasure, Summer Catch is one of a trilogy of movies released in 1999-2001 which were lightly remodeled youth remakes of good 80s movies, just starring Freddie Prinze Jr. this time. So you had Wing Commander, a/k/a Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Top Gun, you had Boys and Girls, a/k/a Freddie Prinze Jr.'s When Harry Met Sally, and finally Summer Catch, Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Bull Durham, just set in the amateur Cape Cod League. The highlights of Summer Catch are few, but I've taken the time to catalogue them for you:

1. Brian Dennehy in a phoned-in role as Prinze Jr.'s manager. Dennehy's a multiple-Tony winner for his work on Broadway, but I'd argue that, as good as he is on stage, he's actually much better at this kind of phoned-in "look, I had to make a mortgage payment and this was the only offer my agent had" kind of role. If "Best Phoned-in Performance in a Lousy Motion Picture" were a category at the Oscars--and it should be--Dennehy would be a two-time winner for this movie and Gladiator...the one with Cuba Gooding Jr.

2. An uncredited John C. McGinley as a scout for the Phillies who, for no good reason, speaks with a thick Louisiana accent. If you ever meet McGinley, please ask him to repeat the line, "He trow de hebby ball. And de hebby ball ain't gonna find many bats."

3. Jessica Biel as the awkwardly-named Tenley Parrish. There's a shot of her getting out of the pool in this movie that's nearly worth the price of admission all on its own.]

Since getting whooped by the Rays Friday night, the Yanks have been on the warpath, doing what they need to do in Kansas City while two of the four teams ahead of them--Boston and Cleveland, trade body blows in Jacobs Field. The Red Sox lead is down to 6 1/2 games, but I'm still only keeping track of the Wild Card standings, where the Tigers (who beat ex-Yank Jose Contreras like a rented mule last night) have a 4 1/2 games lead on the Yanks, and the fading Mariners (losers of their last six at a time when the Yanks have won six in a row) stand between the Bombers and Detroit, but lead by only a half-game.

So tomorrow, Alex Rodriguez--currently sitting at 499 homers after an eighth-inning two-run blast of Gil Meche--and Kei Igawa lead the Yankees against the Royals one more time, before heading off to Baltimore, where they'll have an odd double-header on Friday. First, at 7:00 PM they'll complete the game suspended by rain on June 28th, which was left with the score 8-6 and two outs in the top of the eighth inning. Then, at that game's conclusion, they'll play another one at Camden Yards. Let's hope neither of those games goes into extra innings...

At the Break: The Hitters

In the Week in Review on Monday, I did the pitcher's grades at the All-Star Break. Now it's the hitters' turn:

Alex Rodriguez (A+): .317/.413/.665, 30 HR, 86 RBI, .341 EqA-- Possibly the best offensive season by a Yankee since 1961...so far. The only category in which Alex is trailing his performance last season is (possibly) marital bliss. The Yankees, not wanting to give up the best player in baseball (or the money that the Texas Rangers are throwing into the kitty for him to play for the Yanks) have announced that they're willing to negotiate with Alex in-season to get an extension done, so long as he agrees not to opt out of his contract at the end of the season. Alex's agent, Scott Boras, knows he has the Pinstripers bent over a barrel, so he's reveling in doing that crazy thing where he talks to himself about how bad-ass one of his clients is, and how much money he'd get on the free market, in earshot of a reporter. That's gonna be a fun negotiation, fer sure.

Jorge Posada (A): .326/.399/.505, 9 HR, 25 2B, .305 EqA -- No one's talking about extending Hip Hip Jorge! in season--which probably means that it's more likely to happen than in Alex's case. He's having one of his best seasons, ever, but does that mean the Yanks can afford to forget that he'll be 36 years old in a month?

Derek Jeter (A): .336/.408/.463 -- Aside from an early-season spate of errors, hasn't slacked off his 2006 performance at all. Just amazing.

Hideki Matsui (B-): .274/.358/.464, 11 HR, 54 RBI, .274 EqA -- Not bad, but no better than his disappointing 2003 performance. When you figure that this is a 33 year old leftfielder with old player skills...it kinda figures that way.

Robinson Cano (C): .274/.314/.427, 6 HR 40 RBI, .247 EqA -- That grade could be lower...but the scarier thought is that this is precisely the sort of player that Robbie looked like coming up through the organization. He could easily reach his rookie season numbers from where he is right now...but you'll probably be healthier if you don't hold your breath waiting for him to replicate his 2006 performance.

Melky Cabrera (C-): .275/.331/.385, .252 EqA -- More playing time than anyone expected; better in centerfield than anyone expected; but the bat and the power have been disappointing.

Jason Giambi (C-): .262/.380/.436, 179 PA, 7 HR -- Was his regular self in April, was injured in May, and now is in plantar facia limbo. But at least he'll be spending his spare time with the Mitchell commission, so at least he won't be wasting his ti...on second thought, he will be wasting his time! Even before the injury, was less valuable than ever because he wasn't able to play first base. The team could definitely use another big bat, though...

Bobby Abreu (D+): .264/.352/.373, 12 SB -- Looked like his career was over in April and May, then mysteriously snapped back to his regular self in June. For about six weeks there, looked like he couldn't hit high school-level pitching, like he'd never played the outfield before in his life, and like he didn't care. I've seen weirder things, but not by much.

Johnny Damon (D+): .245/.339/.344, 5 HR, .251 EqA -- The last time Boras was talking to the New York media about how special one of his guys was, he was trying to sell the Yankees on Damon being the best centerfielder since Mickey Mantle (just, y'know, more durable). Well, he's still never hit the DL in his career, but that's more for his benefit than the team's. The team is stuck with a DH who doesn't hit for much power, doesn't walk much, and whose wheels don't work. Funny, though, for a guy whose legs aren't healthy, he's stolen 15 bases without being caught.

Miguel Cairo (D): .263/.308/.323, .234 EqA -- ...first baseman. Sure, he gets the occasional single. But still...firstbaseman. Say he's all clutchy if he's the utility infielder, maybe it's not so bad. Maybe. The less said about this, the better.

Doug Mientkiewicz (D): .226/.292/.379, .230 EqA -- The lefthanded Miguel Cairo. A little better. More palatable back when Damon was a center fielder, and Giambi was a DH.

Josh Phelps (D): .263/.330/.363, .239 EqA -- He could've had a better shot, but he also could've done more with the shot he got. Book's closed on this bold Rule 5 experiment, since he's a Pittsburgh Pirate now.

Wil Nieves (F): .120/.154/.120, -.123 EqA -- We only wish he was a Pirate. Signature moment of the first half just might've been when Nieves broke his seasonal 0-fer, then immediately got thrown out at second trying to stretch it into a double.

Incomplete:
Andy Phillips-- Everything looks good so far, but we've been down this road before.
Kevin Thompson -- I still think he can be a great spare part, but he's having a tough time making a case for that.
Chris Basak -- Why is he taking up room on the 40-man roster? Not that I begrudge him, but it just makes no sense.



So, if we look at all of this

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

It's Wednesday, so the Yankees must be losing to a last-place team again. Technically, the Orioles are no longer a last-place team, two wins against the Yankees (and two losses for the Devil Rays against the White Sox) having pulled them past Tampa Bay into fourth place.

And what wins they were! On Tuesday, the Yanks tied the Orioles at two in the sixth, off a two-run homer by a chiropractically-adjusted Johnny Damon. But the good feelings didn't last--in the ninth, Scott Proctor experienced yet another meltdown to hand the O's a win on a hit and three walks, including the walk-off bases loaded walk (which we shall henceforth call the Proctor Special).

Wednesday, the business was a little more routine, with the Orioles producing a big sixth inning against future Hall of Famer--and current holder of a 1-3 record, and a 5.32 ERA. Rocket hasn't pitched well (seven hits, three walks, and no strikeouts in six innings), but he couldn't have figured that the Yankees would give him no run support. The Yanks have produced 14 total runs in the five games Clemens has started this season--and nine of those runs came in his first start against the Pirates. For the second time in two weeks, a young lefty shut the Yanks down completely, giving Clemens no chance at a win. The last time it was Oliver Perez, this time it was the O's Erik Bedard casting a Canadian spell on the Yanks' bats. Bedard and Clemens traded zeroes for five innings, but in the sixth, the younger man kept on cruising while the living legend ran out of gas, giving up four runs, including a three-run jack to Aubrey Huff.

Through eight games, this road trip has seen the Yanks at 1-7, scoring three or fewer runs in six of those losses. The team seems to be finding stylish new ways to lose--I'm fully expecting the winning run in tomorrow's game to come on an ill-timed catcher's interference--and there's no indication that the bleeding is going to stop any time soon. After the Orioles, the teams the Bombers face only get better. The cliche at times like these is to say, "Now is not the time to panic." But the question is: if not now, when? We talk about panic like it's a bad thing--chaos and despair, and whatnot--but the fact is, sometimes panic gives you that shot of adrenaline you need to survive. Worse, sometimes panic is inevitable.

So, it looks like the Yanks will soon face a choice of evils. You pretty much have three kinds of panic moves in baseball. First you have the addition by subtraction concept, where a player of obvious value is let go for little or nothing in hopes that his removal will change the clubhouse chemistry, and light a fire under some complacent posteriors. Then you have the addition by addition tactic--a big shot player is brought aboard, usually at great expense in money and/or young players. Last, you have firing coaches or the manager.

Now, arguably the Yanks have already made the second kind of panic move--Hello, Mr. Clemens!--although that's never put them out of the running for surrendering a few blue-chippers for a veteran something before. The first type of panic move seems hard to pull off--most of the underperformers on the Yankees' team are making eight figures, and would be pretty hard to give away, unless backed by a few truckloads of money.

So that leaves the coaching staff. The offensive woes the Yanks have experienced would, in the past, have cost Kevin Long his job, but two factors stand in the way: first, he's apparently close to Alex Rodriguez, one of the few Yanks who's actually pulling his weight right now; second, he's not a big enough name to be the token sacrifice for this kind of disaster. No, if the Yanks go for the third option, the backside in the frying pan will be the biggest backside of them all: Joe Torre's.

I've said before, firing Torre would be a matter of change for change's sake. But of the panic options, it's probably the least harmful of evils. A bad acquisition--specially one that comes at the cost of one of the Yanks' big prospects, like Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes--could haunt the team for years. The only aesthetic deletion the team would be likely to make would be to jettison Kyle Farnsworth (and perhaps kick the Edwar Ramirez era into gear...) but Blockhead Kyle is a deckchair on this here sinking luxury liner. Torre...barring the miracle of all miracles, he's not coming back in 2008. Heck, even if the fortunes inverted themselves and the 2007 Yanks won the World Series (the BP Playoff Odds reports still give the Yanks an 18% chance to make the postseason), the smart money says Torre calls it a day. So firing the Skipper--maybe kicking him upstairs in the typical Yankees preemptive hiring maneuver--is probably the move that would have the least negative impact on the club.

It'd be a crappy way to thank Joe for the great service he's given the Yankees and their fans. But with the biggest motivational tool in Torre's arsenal failing on Monday Tuesday (he started Bobby Abreu eighth in the lineup against a righthander, like he did to Alex Rodriguez last year in the Division Series against Detroit) you have to wonder, does he have any tricks left? Heck, there might not even be enough time left in the Yanks' season for him to leak a story to Tom Verducci (like he did, again against A-Rod, last season).

These are depressing thoughts, but then again it's been a depressing season for the Bronx Bombers.

***

Speaking of depressing seasons, I've been following the no-fanfare end of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip's run, and I'll try to put something up about the series finale, which is being broadcast tonight (10:00PM Eastern). As I'm sure we'll get into, Studio 60 wasn't perfect, and might not have even been good. But I've watched it regularly nonetheless. It probably deserved a better fate.

In happier news, Prospectus Toolbox continues to do well--this week we looked at that humble, controversial statistic, the Run Batted In. Check it out (free, as usual).

Rock Slide

Heartened by a discussion of how much of the material out in the blogosphere is disjointed thoughts, not "publishable" in any traditional sense, here are some choppy ruminations of my own:

How exactly does this work again? The Yanks went from red-hot, tearing through three teams in their last five series that are well over .500 (and one that was pretty close when we got to them), and now they manage two measly runs over their first two games against the Rockies. Now, these are not the same Rockies the Yanks faced last time they went to Coors Field--the humidor and better pitching means you're less likely to see a football score these days. But it's not like we're looking at the '66 Dodgers, either. The team's eighth in the league in RA+--strictly middle of the road.

Two friggin' runs! Total!

The thing with the Yanks' early futility this season is that it leaves very little margin for error. Two losses in a row, to a team that's over .500, shouldn't be the end of the world. But one more loss puts this team back to .500, which would mean they've frittered away 8% of the schedule they had left the last time they hit .500. So there's really no relaxing if you're a Yankee fan in 2007, I guess. Tomorrow, Roger Clemens tries to avert the sweep against the Rockies' best pitcher this season, Rodrigo Lopez. No pressure, huh?

***

Here's a question: things were going pretty well, and then they cast off Josh Phelps for Andy Phillips? The team had one useful bat on the bench, heading off to face the NL...and we just tossed it away. Why?

It's judgment day for Jason Giambi under Bud Selig's "talk to the Mitchell Commission or face the consequences" ultimatum. I have some thoughts on the ultimatum, and Giambi's choice, over on Baseball Prospectus Unfiltered.

Sometimes if you're a baseball fan, even when you win, you lose. For example, Jeff Weaver shut out the Pirates last night, after being one of the very worst pitchers in baseball this season. Now, your pitcher throwing a four-hit shutout when he's been going through hard times is a good thing, specially when your team's only 4 1/2 games out of the AL Wild Card lead.

So, I guess it's possible Jeff Weaver has turned things around, just as the team was about to send his backside to the glue factory. On the other hand, after the cheering dies down, it's likely that the sound you hear is a disembodied voice telling Ms fans, "I hereby condemn you to ten more starts of Jeff Weaver."

May heaven have mercy on their souls...

Quinientos/Cien

For any of those who don't know Spanish, the title is the two numbers of the day for the Yankees: 500 (or should I say, .500) and 100. After Chien Ming Wang and the Yanks beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Battle of the Wormkillers at Yankee Stadium tonight, the Yanks' record stands at 31-31, a .500 record. Wang gave the Yanks seven good innings, only allowing a solo homer to Chad Tracy. All the offense Wang needed came in the first inning, when Bobby Abreu's homer brought in Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter. Hideki Matsui scored an insurance run in the seventh to make the 4-1 final score.

Now, there are those out there that would mock mighty Yankee fans for celebrating reaching .500. But everyone has to start somewhere, and if we have to start in mid-June, that's what it has to be.

That's where our other number comes in. The Yankees have 100 games left in the 2007 season, which is a fair number for a team that is, effectively, starting from zero. A 60-40 record from here would mean 91 wins--good, but likely no cigar for the division or the Wild Card slot. Still, it doesn't seem hopeless. Now, that doesn't mean that it's likely--while the Yanks were reaching .500, Tim Wakefield was beating the Rockies to keep the Red Sox 9.5 games ahead of the Bombers in the AL East; Detroit's Justin Verlander was no-hitting the Brewers to keep the Wild Card lead (which they share with the Indians, along with 1st place in the AL Central) at 5.5 over the Yankees, with three teams in between the Bombers and the leaders. That's a lot of work to do.

Tomorrow's the first day of the rest of the season.