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Pssst....."transition year"

Posted by Steve S. at 2:00 pm 29 Responses »
Feb 062011

OK, there it is. I said it. Now let’s that have swirl around in our collective Yankee palates for just a moment. Admit it, deep down in the crevices of the hearts of Yankee fans we’ve all given it some thought lately. Andy’s gone. Derek’s getting old. Jorge’s already so old he won’t catch anymore. The Killer Bs are too far away to save us this year. Even the good lord himself showed some troubling trends last year. Bartolo Colon. Freddy Garcia. The Summer of Meat (h/t Brock Cohen). The name of the game is pitching, and the Yanks just don’t have much heading into this year, at least not in most of their rotation unless you’re one of those people who believes AJ Burnett AND Phil Hughes will be better in 2011 than they were in 2010. I’ll give you one, but for both I’ll have to see it to believe it.

Sure, I just painted a pretty grim picture. In any season, there will be a fair share of pleasant surprises. Nobody (except maybe Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi) thought Brett Gardner would be as good as he was last year, and he played most of the season with a bum wrist. In 2009 Phil Hughes went from a struggling starter to a lights out setup man mid season. In 2008 Mike Mussina had one of his best showings as a Yankee, after everyone thought he was done the year before. But while there are always surprises on the upside, there will also always be the unforeseen injury and/or decline in performance that hinders a team as well. Who would have predicted Derek Jeter would have the worst season of his career in 2010 coming off his 2009 campaign? Who would have predicted A-Rod would spend the past two seasons missing a month each year after being a picture of health up to 2008? Maybe Ivan Nova becomes the next Chein Ming Wang. Maybe Russel Martin turns back the clock to the player he was in 07-08. Can you count on either? No.

And what can we really expect out of Derek? His strong 2009 showing made us quickly forget his down 2008, and the downward trend line that was emerging. Joel Sherman addresses this in his column from this morning:

In an attempt to rebound, Jeter underwent a batting boot camp recently with hitting coach Kevin Long to continue alterations to Jeter’s stance and swing that began late last season. Long and the Yanks are confident Jeter will produce better results in 2011. Should he return to the land of .300 hitters, then discussions of the end can be tabled for at least another year. But what if .270 last year was not a blip, but a first step toward .250?

Imagine how grim Jeter’s march to the 74 hits for 3,000 would be. The tension of the negotiations would infiltrate the season as Joe Girardi would be forced to decide if (when?) to drop Jeter toward the bottom of the lineup and possibly even begin to give away some of his playing time, perhaps to prospect Eduardo Nunez.

The return of Jeter’s offense is one way the Yankees can compensate for worrisome starting pitching. But Jeter turns 37 this year, and the only full-time shortstops to excel offensively at that age or older were Luke Appling and Honus Wagner. Jeter can begin showing in spring if he can defy age and history.

Let’s be honest, odds are overwhelmingly against Derek. The Yanks need to pull the baseball equivalent of an inside straight in poker to win the division, and maybe even just to win the Wild Card. Imagine if one of the top 3 Yankee pitchers misses a month (much less the year) with something innocuous like a pulled hamstring running to cover 1B. Worse yet, imagine its CC. Now your rotation becomes AJ-Hughes-Nova-Colon-Mitre for the next 4-6 weeks (hyperventilation bags are located above your seat to the left). You need nearly perfect health from the top 3 starters AND a bounce back year from AJ Burnett to make the Yanks the wild card favorite. Phil Hughes needs to build upon his success from last season, not regress or pitch the same. He enjoyed absurd run support last year that’s unlikely to continue. Let’s also not forget that Phil doesn’t exactly have a spotless health history. AJ has been healthy the past 3 years, but only made 30+ starts in one of his 9 seasons before 2008. Betting on perfect health from any area of your team, especially when it comes to pitching, is the type of wager that only a fool would make.

The Yankee lineup compares favorably to that of the Red Sox, but the two rotations aren’t close. Further, the rest of the division doesn’t feature any easy outs anymore. With the signing of Vladdy and Buck at the helm, you can’t count on the O’s for a nice, fat lopsided divisional record anymore. The Rays certainly took a step back, but added Damon and Manny and are still talented and dangerous enough to figure to be a winning team. The Blue Jays made the move of the offseason unloading Vernon Wells’ contract, and that’s on the heels of unloading the Alex Rios deal last year. The Jays very quietly won 87 games last year, and with their new found added financial flexibility they figure to be able to make the moves that could put them over the top, perhaps as soon as this year’s trade deadline. The projection systems have the Yanks around 90 wins this year, which puts them back in the pack with the rest of baseball’s Wild Card contenders. That’s a dangerous position to be in.

With all this being said, I still think the Yanks have a solid shot at making the playoffs. If the top 3 are pitching well heading into October, or they land a big starter sometime this season, they could look much different in a playoff setting than they do currently. But we as Yankee fans have come to assume October baseball as something of a birthright, and this year has all the markings of a team that could take a step back. That’s nothing new, even in the Yankee dynasty years of the 30s and 40s had their dry spells where they needed to retool. After winning the WS in 1928, from 1929-1946 the Yanks had three 3-year stretches where they didn’t even make the playoffs, finishing 3rd or 4th some years. Those were teams that included players like Ruth, Gehrig, Dickey, DiMaggio and Berra. Look through some of those years when they fell short. Or those teams from the 1980s through the mid 90s. When they fell short, just about every year the lineup was there but the pitching wasn’t. Just like 2008, and maybe this season as well.

TYU's Super Bowl Sunday Yankees Trivia Contest

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 4 Responses »
Feb 062011

With the focus of the sports world on the NFL and the Yankees seemingly done tinkering with their roster until pitchers and catchers report, The Yankee U is running a Yankees trivia contest as a diversion.

The rules are simple. The first question is below. The answer to that question should be put into your web browser’s url area, where you should follow it with .blogspot.com. This will lead you to a page with another question, where the same rules apply. On each page, specific instructions are included to make sure you enter the right words, so be careful. For example, the answer may be Derek Jeter, and the instruction would read, add a 1 at the end of the name. This means the web address to the next question is derekjeter1.blogspot.com. There are 42 questions of varying difficulty, in honor of the great Mariano closing another All-Star game victory. The winner must leave a comment on the final page. Included in the comment should be the answers to questions # 6, 9, 17, 23, 29, 36, 42,and a name. The winner should then email me by using the contact us feature in the right toolbar. If you think I made an error in the setup, email me. Some of you may have played this game before, but I hope you’ll give it another try. The winner gets to write a guest post of any length on any topic in the week following the contest. Good luck, and happy hunting.

Question # 1: Let’s start with an easy one. What were the Yankees called immediately before they were the Yankees? Give the city and team name. (ie newjerseycornhuskers.blogspot.com)

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Should the Yanks retire #46?

Posted by Steve S. at 9:00 am 8 Responses »
Feb 062011

(Authors Note: I haven’t ditched the 5 part ‘Assessing Brian Cashman’ series. I’ll return to it on Monday)

Let me say up front I think its rather excessive how many numbers the Yanks have already retired. I’ve weighed in on the topic here in the past, so I’ll simply recap my thoughts quickly to set the stage for this piece. Just because a player is beloved doesn’t mean the team should retire their number. The Yanks assemble teams loaded with great players all the time, there has to be a more objective, team-related standard to apply for what is a team related honor. Placing highly in major categories on the franchise leader boards is a good place to start. For instance, as storied as Reggie Jackson’s run with the Yankees was, including 4 post season visits 3 AL pennants and 2 WS titles, Mr October only played 5 seasons with the Yanks. He’s 6th on the Yankee list in SLG, but 29th in HRs and 43rd in RBIs. Its difficult for me to imagine retiring Reggies number and not that of, say Charlie Keller (18th in HRs, 22nd in RBIs, 8th in SLG, 6 WS rings) or hall of famer Red Ruffing (ace of  7 WS champs and #2 on franchise list in Wins) As beloved as Phil Rizzuto was as an announcer, he wasn’t a great player. You want to retire his microphone for the Yankee museum? Fine. His number as a player? No.

Popularity with the fans is certainly a consideration, despite as seriously as us hard core fans may take the game, it is after all the entertainment business. But retiring a number forever has to go beyond mere popularity. Sal Fasano was a fan fave a few years ago, if the Yanks retire #26 for Sal’s Pals, I just might have to find myself a new hobby.  But I digress. I can understand wanting to recognize historic achievements such as Elston Howard being the first African-American Yankee, or Roger Maris’ magic 1961 campaign. I can understand wanting to recognize the ‘face of the franchise’ from a great era. Don Mattingly was certainly the face of the team from 1984-1995, but it wasn’t a great Yankee era and nobody could argue he was a better overall player than HOF teammate Dave Winfield. Nobody loved Billy Martin more than I did as a kid, but I’ve yet to hear a cogent argument as to why his #1 is retired along side Casey Stengels #37. At best, we seem to have a haphazard standard being applied in these matters. During the momentary love affair we all have with our favorite players, we should caution ourselves to remember that retiring a number is forever. When a kid who’s born today looks at the retired numbers 20 years from now, in the context of the franchise numbers as a whole (and at the time of retirement) will it still make sense? In some prospective cases yes (Derek Jeter) in others (Paul O’Niell) clearly no.

On to Andy. We all know was beloved by most Yankee fans, myself included. He was a rock solid, if unspectacular pitcher on many winning Yankee teams for 13 seasons. He was only considered the ace of his staff one year (1996) and perhaps the forgettable 2008 season as well (though Moose had a big year). As far as the franchise lists go, I’ll run through all the major categories. Andy is #3 in Wins behind only HOFers Whitey Ford and Red Ruffing. He is 44th in ERA. #2 in Games started, #4 in IP. But its the MLB all time post season numbers that argue strongest for Andy.  He is #1 all time in Postseason Wins (19) Games Started (42) and IP (263). From a SABR standpoint, that mostly tells us he a good pitcher who had more opportunities than anyone else, but from the perspective of the Yankee brass, that reflects roughly two decades of winning baseball, which is something they will want to tout loudly to fans and the world.

So lets total this up. I’ll use a variation on my standard Hall of Fame argument for retiring Yankee numbers. For the HOF I generally ask “Can we compose a plaque?” that will be sufficient to put the player in question along side the all time greats. For this exercise, I’ll ask “Can we write an introductory speech?” that will be impressive enough to put him in the pantheon of Yankee immortals such as Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle, etc. In Andy’s case, I think the answer is yes.

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