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Does Joe's return open door for 'Yankee Years Part 2'?

Posted by Steve S. at 7:00 am 5 Responses »
Sep 222010

Wake up Joe, you're the Yankee manager again

Here’s the scenario. Girardi gets a knock-out offer from the Cubs. One that the Yanks could match, but choose to pass on. Girardi, despite his loyalty to the Yanks, feels the tug of going home and is enticed by the opportunity to bring the Windy City it’s first World Series championship in over 100 years, perhaps the most elusive Holy Grail in all of Baseball. This opens the door for Torre to return as Yankee manager, and he emerges as the best candidate. Bobby Valentine is well thought of by the Yankee brass, but has always had difficulty dealing with people in front offices and the media. Pinella is both too old and too ‘old school’  to work well with Cashman. Tony Pena is a terrific coach, but lacks the skill set for the top job in a city like New York. Donnie Baseball and Buck Showalter just took other jobs. Don’t forget that Hal Stienbrenner was the one who wanted Joe to be there yesterday. He may be smoothing the path for Torre as plan B if re-signing Girardi falls through. What was once thought to be impossible is now at least plausible, Torre returns to the Bronx as their manger for the 2011 season.

This made the rounds yesterday, but frankly I think it’s all far fetched. First, don’t read too much into the Yanks inviting Torre back for what was essentially a public funeral service for George Stienbrenner. Anyone who’s ever been involved in planning a funeral knows that you invite people for all sorts of reasons, giving priority to the wishes of the deceased and celebrating his life over any personal differences which may still remain among the living. George was a person who made loads of enemies, but would eventually make up with most of them. Steinbrenner made up with Dave Winfield of all people, whose personal battle ended up with George being banned from Baseball. Whatever appeared in Joe’s book is a tempest in a teapot compared to what went on between him and Winfield. Joe was Steinbrenner’s manager through his greatest run of success as Yankee owner, George would have wanted Torre there. That doesn’t mean the people who run the Yanks (namely Cashman and Randy Levine) have any desire to see Joe return on an everyday basis.

Next, despite their photo-op yesterday, the bad blood between Cashman and Torre is far from resolved. Torre’s main point in his book was that he and Cashman had drifted apart, with Brian going down the advanced stat path and Torre seeing the game as ‘having a heartbeat’. Torre believes in words like ‘clutch’ and ‘guts’ which Cashman thinks are small samples and utter bullshit, respectively. This isn’t a problem when Billy Beane hires someone like Ken Macha or Art Howe, but it clearly was an issue between these two men. Brian will have much to say about who the next Yankee manager will be, and it’s hard to see him and Torre working together after all that was said in that book. A working relationship requires a certain amount of trust, especially in a big media town like New York where distractions can come from all directions, and these two simply don’t have it.

If you want to sell me that Monday night opened the door for Torre’s number 6 being retired, I’ll buy it. But for a return to the dugout? I just don’t see it happening.

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On YES

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 1:00 pm 36 Responses »
Aug 242010

I’ve been holding a lot of this back, so if this seems like nit picking, I’m sorry. These feelings on the Yankees’ behemoth of a regional sports network have been welling up inside me since the beginning of the season.

But, since I’m generally a nice guy, I’m gonna start with some positives. Generally, YES does a good job presenting the game. There are rarely picture quality issues and aside from the occasional close-up-that’s-too-long, the camera work is solid and acceptable. They may not try anything bold, but they keep it simple and there’s something to be said for that.

A good portion of this piece will be about the Yankee announcers, but to their credit, they’re generally pretty good. My girlfriend has the Extra Innings package so I’ve had a good deal of exposure to non-Yankee announcers and aside from Vin Scully, I don’t particularly like any of them. Most of them blatantly root for the teams they call games for and are just way over the top. Michael Kay may be annoying and John Flaherty may be boring, but at least they maintain a veneer of objectivity. Still, though, some changes need to be made.

Jack Curry was a wonderful addition to the YES Network and doesn’t get nearly enough air time. That he only does sideline reports (more on these later) and pre/post game is criminal. He’s got personality, he’s not awkward while talking, and he generally brings good information to the table. YES needs to do more to give him more exposure.

The same goes for the other desk-jockey of the YES family, Bob Lorenz. While he’s spent some time in the booth this season, thankfully, he needs to get even more time. He’s very personable and doesn’t seem obnoxious like Michael Kay. I’d love to see/hear more of Bob in the booth.

As for the current booth, I have a few complaints as well. Michael Kay is just annoying. I think everyone’s in agreement about this, right? He makes it very hard to like him, he asks dumb questions, makes dumb statements, and generally makes the game less enjoyable.

John Flaherty sucks the life out of the booth every time he’s in there. His voice is more monotonous than one of those wheels you had when you were a kid that went “The cow/sheep/horse/frog/etc. says…” when you spun the arrow. He repeats himself constantly (he wouldn’t be proud of this) and there’s nothing mind blowing about his analysis.

Paul O’Neill is okay. He’s somewhere in the middle of Kay and Flaherty. He’s not as annoying as Kay or as boring as Flaherty, but he’s just…bland.

Al Leiter and Ken Singleton are the only announcers I really like. Al is enthusiastic and adds good analysis. Singleton may be calm sounding up there, but he’s not boring. I also like the way he takes subtle digs at Kay every time the latter asks a stupid question. More of these, please (along with less Flaherty and Kay).

The sideline reports YES added this year, whether they’re with Kim Jones or Jack Curry, just annoy me. They totally break the flow of the game and only serve as a distraction. Every time they go to the reporter, I feel like I’m watching the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast during that one inning. You know, that one inning when the announcers completely ignore the game in front of them and talk about something completely unrelated. YES keeps the discussions a little more focused than ESPN, but the break in the action is certainly undesirable.

YES is like the Yankees: it’s one of the best in the business, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. The network definitely doesn’t need a major overhaul and there are definitely a lot of positives (seriously, who doesn’t love Yankees on Deck?), but changes could be made (I really don’t need to see the Reggie Jackson 3 HR game again, YES. How about some more minor league coverage?).

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I Guess We Should've Seen this Coming

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 3:00 pm 1 Response »
Aug 182010

Shockingly enough, John Harper thinks the Yankees should’ve retained Johnny Damon. His title puts at least some of the blame on Damon, rightfully, but he of course ends up right in the same pitfalls as usual. Let’s cut this bad boy up (emphasis on the bad).

Still, you had to be blind not to see that Johnny Damon and the pinstripes were perfect for each other last year, and all these months apart has only made it harder to fathom that the two sides allowed such a relationship to end prematurely.

Not necessarily, John. The Yankees were aiming to get younger and more athletic this season. Re-signing Damon would not have accomplished that. I’m not finding it all that hard to fathom, especially considering the relative success of Brett Gardner.

On the other hand, Cashman was too quick to move on and sign Nick Johnson after trading for Curtis Granderson, essentially closing the door on Damon. Cashman, however, insists that Boras was telling him at the time he had a firm offer from another team for more money than he was willing to pay Damon, and that’s why he moved on.

Even with Johnson’s injury, I’d still make that move–and the Granderson trade–instead of signing Damon. While Johnson as DH loses power to Damon, I’ll take those supreme on base skills. Fun hypothetical: Nick Johnson had a 24.5% walk rate before being injured. If he had as many PAs as Damon, Johnson would have 110 walks by now.

As it turned out, Cashman didn’t have a great winter. However, strong seasons from Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner have helped the Yankees survive the predictable loss of Johnson to injury and the less predictable struggles of Curtis Granderson, and they lead lead the majors with 618 runs scored

While Granderson hasn’t performed as well at the plate as we’d like, he’s been hitting well of late. It’s also worth noting that both Curtis and Johnny have been worth 1.8 WAR this season, and that doesn’t include Granderson’s game last night which featured a homer, a walk, and some UZR busting plays.

But that doesn’t mean the Yankees wouldn’t be a better team with Damon hitting in the No. 2 spot in the lineup. That doesn’t mean they won’t miss his clutch bat – as well as that of Hideki Matsui – come the postseason.

I’ll take Nick Swisher and his .381 wOBA in the number two spot in the lineup, thank you very much. As for Matsui, he’s wOBAing .327 right now and has been up and down all season. I wouldn’t trust his bat in the playoffs anymore than I would trust Granderson’s.

Am I sad to see Johnny in another uniform after four solid years in the Bronx? Yeah, of course. Damon was a good player who was charismatic and easy to like. But, this isn’t about likability or favoritism; it’s about winning. Going into this season, Nick Johnson’s supreme on-base ability coupled Curtis Granderson’s relative youth, power, and ability to play a premium position gave the Yankees a much better chance of winning than bringing back Damon (or Matsui). Good luck for the rest of the season in Detroit, Johnny. We miss you and appreciate everything you did for us Yankee fans. And remember, it’s not personal Johnny…it’s only business.

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Yanks complain and McCarver backtracks . . sort of

Posted by Steve S. at 6:51 am 10 Responses »
Jul 202010

Photo courtesy of the MLB.com

By now you’ve probably heard of Tim McCarver’s comments on the FOX Saturday broadcast, where he compared the Yankee front office to the Nazi and Communist regimes. If not, here it is again (video):

You remember some of those despotic leaders in World War II, primarily in Russia and Germany, where they used to take those pictures that they had … taken of former generals who were no longer alive, they had shot ‘em. They would airbrush the pictures, and airbrushed the generals out of the pictures. In a sense, that’s what the Yankees have done with Joe Torre. They have airbrushed his legacy. I mean, there’s no sign of Joe Torre at the stadium. And, that’s ridiculous. I don’t understand it.

The New York Time Bats blog has a follow up to the story, where Timmy backtracks a tiny bit.

McCarver, a close friend of Torre’s, said Monday in an interview from Florida that his analogies between the Yankees and the Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union were “inappropriate.” But he added, “In my opinion, the underlying point here remains true: Yankees management has erased Joe Torre from their history.” He said, “I don’t think the Yankees have embraced the image of Joe Torre.”

McCarver said he had seen the photographs of Torre that hang at the new stadium but that he did not believe the team does enough to honor Torre’s integral role in leading the Yankees to four World Series championships. “Retiring his number would mean embracing his legacy,” he said.

Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ director of media relations, called the Fox truck on Saturday to complain about McCarver’s comments. In a statement issued Monday, Fox Sports said that McCarver “regrets” using the World War II analogy and that it would take no action.

So until Torre has his number retired, Timmy won’t be happy. Gotcha. He might want to call his friend and ask him whose idea it was that he wouldn’t return to the stadium. If he had any intention of being fair he might ask himself how he would feel if he was Hal Stienbrenner, owned the Yanks and a former employee wrote a book saying some of the nasty things Torre did about his father, painting him as a bully and a buffoon, and Torre’s saying his experience with a father who beat his mother regularly prepared him for working with George. George was a man who, as we all know, was too addled by dementia to defend himself from Torre’s remarks at the time.

From Fox’s point of view, they might actually like the idea that Tim has stirred up a bit of controversy here. People may tune in the next time he does a Yankee game just to hear if he says something even dumber. For the rest of us, it just cements a suspicion Yankee fans have long had about Tim. That he’s still bitter about the way his (very short) tenure as Yankee analyst ended, that he’s always been someone who favors the National League style of the game, and that he is completely blind and one sided when it comes to Joe Torre. I’m not sure Tim has really been all that relevant for many years now, but this episode takes him from to obscurity to oblivion for me. I’ll never again get too worked up over anything he says from this point forward, since I know where it’s coming from.

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Shockingly Enough, Reporter Misunderstands Innings Limits

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 3 Responses »
Jul 022010

Tim Smith of the New York Daily News doesn’t get it.

If the reader knows anything about baseball, this title insults him or her immediately. Even those with a cursory knowledge of the game know that innings limits generally apply to young pitchers just breaking into the Majors. This is obviously not the case with Felix Hernandez since he’s been around since he was 19. He may still be young, but he’s a veteran.

Although Hernandez is just 24 – the same age as Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes – you don’t hear anyone with the Mariners talking about the “Felix Rules.”

Maybe, Tim, that’s because Hernandez has been pitching in the majors since 2005 (when he was 19…this just in: he’s called King Felix for a reason) and has already had his innings built up. And that was a process that didn’t happen over night. Let’s start in the minors…

In 2003 as a 17 year old splitting time at Low and Regular A, Hernandez threw 69 innings flat. In 2004 as an 18 year old at at A+ and AA, Hernandez threw 149.1 IP, for an increase of 80.1 innings; this is a pretty big increase, but not an unmanageable one. In 2005, splitting time at the majors and minors, he threw a total of 172.1 innings, a slight increase of 23 innings. In the next two years, both at the Major League level, obviously, Felix threw 191 and 190.1 innings respectively. Since then, he’s thrown back to back seasons of at least 200 innings pitched and he’s leading the league with 121.1 so far in 2010.

See that, Mr. Smith? Even with a guy as awesome as Hernandez, there was a gradual build up in innings before he was just unleashed unto the baseball world.

All young pitchers aren’t built the same. But the way that Hernandez handled the Yankees Wednesday night, you wonder if all the coddling of Chamberlain and Hughes is necessary.

These two things have nothing to do with each other. At all. The connection isn’t even tenuous.

The philosophy behind limiting the innings of a young pitcher makes sense.

I agree! But the rest of the paragraph…

I’m not a fan because it takes a mental toll that outweighs the physical benefits. Chamberlain’s psyche still may be affected, although he won’t admit it. How long will it take for him to get over it? Who knows if he’ll ever get over it?

I think the physical benefits far outweigh the supposed “mental toll” of innings limits. If a guy gets hurt the next season because he tossed too many, what good will his mental strength be then? As for Joba, well this is something everyone says. All the time. Why? Why can’t it be that he just struggled pitching? Why can’t it be that he was ineffective after reaching his career high in innings? Why is everyone so quick to make this guy out to be a mental midget because he did something that a lot of young pitchers do (struggle)?

There are plenty of cautionary tales about limiting the innings on a young pitcher’s arm – Fausto Carmona and Kerry Wood come to mind. But when you see Hernandez baffling experienced hitters such as the ones the Yankees have, you wonder about keeping the training wheels on for guys such as Chamberlain and Hughes.

The “training wheels” are off of Hernandez because this is his sixth season in the majors. And, if you’d bothered to look at his minor league and early Major League career, you’d see that he wasn’t just throwing a ton of innings right away. This just in, New York media: the Yankees and Mets aren’t the only teams that employ innings limits.

It seems that Hernandez, who entered the league at 19, has grown and learned without any specific set of rules governing the number of innings he’s pitched in the major leagues. And for one night he showed the Yankees just how much he had learned.

How does Smith know that Hernandez wasn’t on a throwing plan during his minor league career? I’d be willing to be he was. Something tells me Smith didn’t bother to ask any Mariners people about that.

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Question for the MSM

Posted by Steve S. at 6:52 am 3 Responses »
Jun 302010

Since Dave Eiland was the reason for pitchers NOT pitching well in his absence, do we now get to BLAME him for bad outings now that he’s back?

Fair’s fair, you know.

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Burnett's Struggles Are Physical, Not Mental

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 5:00 pm 6 Responses »
Jun 172010

One silly media narrative that I have always hated is the idea that inconsistent athletes struggle due to some sort of mental deficiency rather than a simple lack of talent. The issue came up this morning, when Joel Sherman stated the following in a column:

It was craft vs. daft. Moyer, the pitcher with the greatest ratio of least stuff to most savvy, discombobulated the Yankees without topping 81 mph. Burnett, the pitcher with the greatest ratio of most stuff to least savvy, single-handedly revived the reeling Phillies with a combination of inaccuracy, indifference and ineptness that would have made Oliver Perez proud….

Can you imagine if you could put Moyer’s brain in Burnett’s head? You would have fewer tattoos, a higher pitching IQ and an ace. Instead, Burnett is what he is: the Lamar Odom of baseball, a player who fails to maximize awesome skills due to a lack of concentration and daily conviction.

AJ Burnett’s struggles have nothing to do with a lack of conviction, effort, or concentration. They are attributable to a lack of skill.

Burnett has some of the best “stuff” in all of baseball, which leads people to believe that he is as skilled as some of the aces that grace the mound around baseball, such as Doc Halladay or Justin Verlander. Once one makes that assumption, it is easy to take the next logical step and believe that he simply does not try as hard as they do or focus as well as they do and therefore is not as successful. However, this house of cards is built upon a faulty foundation, as it ignores the fact that command and control are both physical skills of pitching.

Being able to locate the ball and throw strikes where you want them on a consistent basis requires incredible precision, something that AJ Burnett is simply not equipped for. He has trouble consistently repeating his delivery, not for a lack of trying but because it is quite difficult, particularly for a pitcher of his height and build, and he is not physically gifted enough to do so. While his stuff compares favorably to that of anybody in the game today, his subpar command and control and his limited repertoire mean that an off-day for even one of his pitches can lead to a difficult outing.

Even if Burnett does lose focus at times, his struggles have little to do with conviction. He can go to the mound with complete focus and want so very badly to throw strikes, yet some nights it will be to no avail. He has physical limitations that make him a solid #2 starter rather than an ace, and people need to stop psychoanalyzing him after every run of poor starts.

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Mike Lupica Writes Something Silly

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 4 Responses »
Jun 092010

In an other wise relatively harmless article that was in yesterday’s Daily News, Mike Lupica said something that really got under my skin:

Cano covers No. 3 and No. 4 in the order, he covers no-show Nick Johnson and Curtis Granderson and Brian Cashman letting Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui just walk out the door.

I’m not mad about the Cano praise, but I’m peeved by the comments on Granderson and Cashman. Why is Lupica blaming Granderson for getting hurt? It’s also worth noting that Granderson has been hitting well of late. Including last night, he’s batting .324/.390/.595 with four doubles and two homers–one a grand slam–since returning from his groin injury. I’m not sure what Lupica’s watching, but that comment seems totally unfounded.

As for the shot at Cashman? That’s completely unnecessary. The Yankees made offers to both Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon and they definitely made every effort to retain Johnny Damon, even offering him a two year contract when no one else was doing so.

How are the two of them performing? Matsui started hot, hit a skid, and is now back up to respectability with a .344 wOBA. Damon has cooled off as well, but is at a .354 wOBA, which is still good. Not including last night’s game, Brett Gardner’s wOBA is .377 and he’s been worth 1.4 WAR thus far, compared to Damon’s 1.0.

The Yankees are definitely doing more than okay without Matsui and Damon and Lupica’s comment is certainly out of line. But, then again, should I really expect something different out of him at this point?

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Bullpen By Committee Working For Minnesota, Media Silent

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 6:47 pm 4 Responses »
May 282010

Tom Tango makes an interesting point in a post over at The Book Blog:

Twins’ bullpen is first in MLB in Situational Wins (WPA/LI), and 4th in MLB in WPA. They are 5th in ERA and 10th in FIP.

This is just like your buddy coming back from Vegas, and only telling you about the days he won big and ignores the days he lost big. “Look at me! I’m nostradamus! I’m going to make 100 predictions, 50 of which will be wrong, but boy will I tell you about the 50 that are right!”

Media: do me a favor, and next time an ace reliever goes down, just say this: “It’s going to be a tough road for the team, but there’s a decent chance that the team won’t miss him at all. That’s because baseball is subject to such random variation that to pin the outcome of the season to any one player is foolish.”

Yes, I know this means that the 1000 articles that were written about Joe Nathan gets lowered down to 1. And I know that means that you won’t get easy money on the standard woe-is-Twins article when Nathan went down. Be a man about it, and write something with more inspiration.

You likely have not heard much about the Twins’ pen this season, simply because it is a boring story that does not hold interest like the initial panicked missives that questioned whether the Twins could recover from the loss of their star closer. Now, I too am surprised at how good the Twins bullpen has been, as they have had little drop-off from last season despite losing one of the two or three best closers in the game. It illustrates that a good pitcher like Jon Rauch can slide into the role and perform adequately, and that closers in general are overrated. But those are themes that do not fit the media driven narrative about the sheer difficulty of closing baseball games, so you are unlikely to find much written about this topic.

When the Red Sox went with a closer by committee system and did not succeed, most media members clucked in derision at the stat-heads and their silly ideas about baseball. Yet when the facts cut in the other direction, we hear nary a peep coming from the skeptics. I am not suggesting that the success of the Twins bullpen proves that anyone can close or that a bullpen can be constructed by just tossing together some solid arms, but it does warrant a more in-depth look at the issue from people who have long claimed the opposite to be true.

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Harper Wrong

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 4 Responses »
May 052010

John Harper thinks the Yankees should trade Javy Vazquez to the Mets. He is wrong.

First off, Vazquez is making $11.5MM this season. Unless the Yankees want to pay the rest of it, I don’t think anyone would take it on. I also don’t think that the Yankees would want to pay someone with Vazquez’s talent to not pitch for them. It’s also doubtful that the Yankees will give up on Vazquez at all. Anyway, onto Harper’s article.

PHILADELPHIA – There’s a perfect solution to the Javy Vazquez problem in the Bronx: trade him to the Mets and everyone comes away happy.

Well, no. It’s not a perfect solution and not everyone comes away happy.

Think about it. For the Mets there’s just no getting around the obvious – they’re going to need another starter to parlay their hot couple of weeks into serious contention this season. They can’t live with the inconsistencies of both John Maine and Oliver Perez over the long haul.

Sure, getting Javy Vazquez makes sense for the Mets. He is, after all, a pitcher with a good track record. Anyone would want him.

And while Vazquez is a mess mentally trying to overcome his issues pitching with the Yankees, put him back in the National League and he’d likely go right back to being a dependable starter, if not the Cy Young contender he was last year.

So being in the NL will give Javy his fastball velocity and curveball movement back?

For the Yankees, meanwhile, they could wash their hands of what is developing into a major problem. And the way Phil Hughes is pitching, as well as their Big Three, they could plug Sergio Mitre – who has looked very good in relief – into the rotation and be just fine.

Sergio Mitre has pitched 7.1 innings and has walked more batters than he’s struck out. His ERA looks great at 1.23, but his FIP is at a solid-but-much-less-impressive 3.98 and his xFIP is 5.41. Right now he’s giving up fewer than three (!!) hits per nine, has an .088 BA against and a .102 BABIP against. Those numbers will not keep up in relief, let alone starting in what is arguably the toughest division in American sports.

Considering the Yankees would also be dumping Vazquez’s $11.5 million salary, it shouldn’t take more than a decent prospect to make it a fair swap.

I can has Jenrry Mejia?

Somehow, I don’t think Cashman is ready to [trade Mitre]

Hey, look at that! I agree with him, but for different reasons. Harper says it’s about pride. I think he’s not ready to do that ’cause it’s May 4th as I write this and no player should be given up on that early.

Cut to the end after a few paragraphs detailing Minaya’s former pursuits of Vazquez and how the Mets feel good about Johan, Mike Pelfrey, and Jon Niese and how they don’t want to solve their pitching problem by letting Jenrry Mejia start.

The easy answer to all of this is Vazquez. It makes all the sense in the world for both the Mets and Yankees. If only someone could convince Cashman of that.

Well, frankly John, you’ve done an awful job at explaining why. You don’t say why it works for the Yankees, nor do you specify whom they should receive. Better luck next time.

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