Have a question for Jason Giambi?
-
- April
- 29
To celebrate the first anniversary of the blog in February, we had a reader Q&A with Derek Jeter, complete with audio.
People seemed to dig it, so we’re going to try and make this a regular feature.
The next interview will be with Jason Giambi, who graciously agreed to help out the blog. The six-pack of Red Bull I gave him for breakfast today might have helped.
Here is how it works: You’re invited to e-mail in one question. I’ll pick the best 10 (and maybe a few extras) to ask Jason. Then I’ll post the answers and the audio. It will be exclusive to the blog.
Yes, steroids are an issue with Giambi and I’m certainly willing to ask him such a question. But asking him whether he took steroids is a non-starter. He has a stock answer saying that he apologized and moved on, etc.
He’s a colorful character and will talk about most anything, so think it over, come up with your question and send it in. I’ll accept questions for 48 hours or so and hopefully we’ll post the answers by this time next week.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 10:27 am by Peter Abraham.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: 
| 
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Peter Abraham
Would he waive his no-trade clause to go to the Angels(if the angels picked up his ‘09 option, or if NYY paid him 2-3 mil to waive it)?
What other team would he waive his no-trade clause to(if that team picked up his ‘09 option, or if NYY paid him 2-3 mil to waive it)?
I would interested to know if Jason was asked by the Yankees if he would waive his no-trade agreement this past off season and agree to a trade to another team?
from BRIAN HEYMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS :
ron guidry: “Sometimes that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to get ticked off and throw like you know you can throw. And if they beat you, they beat you. But they didn’t beat him today.’’
with all the rumors swirling yesterday about torre and by default guidry, this shows the intangible stuff that guidry brings to the table. he may not have years of biomechanical study under his belt, but he understands competing as well as anyone.
i think channeling aggresion at the right time is what baseball is all about . you can’t play hyped up all the time like football, but a little attitude at the right time can go a long way.good players know when to turn it on.
if they play with that attitude again today, they should be in good shape with wang going. they’re not out of the woods yet. they need another win today to put all the crazy” fire people” stuff behind them.
ortiz put out some attitude after the game with his comments abouts igawa. it’d be very nice to see wang shut him down today. it’ll also be interesting to see how serious torre is taking this game today. if posada is in there again, we’ll know he’s taking it seriously that his job is in jeopardy.you can’t put nieves and mientkiewicz in the same lineup and expect to get many runs on a regular basis. nieves is handcuffing torre. i expect a move to be made there if he doesn’t get some hits soon. poasada will get burned out if he can’t get his scheduled days off. that said, i hope posada’s in there today.
Nieves is handcuffing Torre? How many backup catchers can hit. I know Nieves has 0 hits, but he’s the reason this stable of All-Stars are not scoring runs? Nope, it’s Damon struggling, Abreu struggling, Cano swinging at everything etc. I could care less if Nieves gets a hit or not. We have bigger fish to fry than back up freaking catcher.
I like what phelps has done offensively is there any talk about making him the second string catcher. I believe he caught an inning against Oakland a week or two ago also how is eric duncan doing so far this year could we see him replace minky and phelps replace nieves? is that at all plausible?
Don’t discount the backup catcher issue. Its significant when your starting catcher is 35.
Nobody is saying Nieves has to hit .300. But, you can’t hit .000 and be an asset to any team.
He is “ok” defensively. He’s not great. Couple that with his complete inability to hit and, its a wonder anybody who evaluates players for a living saw him as a reasonable alternative for the position.
They had Greg Zaun lined up to sign but, when Barajas reneged on his deal with the Blue Jays (and signed with the Phillies), the Jays came back to Zaun and offered him starters money and a starters position.
Back luck for the Yankees. However, IMO, they needed to have a better backup plan than Wil Nieves.
One of the real issues re: the team is its bench. Its awful and, that’s not on Torre. That’s on Cashman.
You can trim payroll, which is admirable. But, you can’t leave yourself that vulnerable on the bench when you have an old, unathletic team.
Trimming payroll doesn’t mean you have to be bad. Just means you have to make better baseball decisions.
Joe has made his share of mistakes this year but, the bench is not on him. Its on Cashman.
At some point, they have to find a way to improve the bench as the season goes along. Its not good enough for the long haul in its present construction.
awesome feature, if I can think of a real good question i’ll email it in.
I understand, but do we really need Nieves to hit? Just give Jorge the day off once in awhile and have him rested for the whole season. We’ll score enough runs.
The poor bench will come back to bite us if one of Arod, Jeter, Cano or Posada gets hurt for a long period of time. But right now is it really killing us? If we’re getting any starting pitching it’s a moot point and we will start getting better starting pitching. I’m not worried about the bench. Could it be better? Sure, but I’m more concerned with the rotation than backup catcher.
“I could care less if Nieves gets a hit or not. We have bigger fish to fry than back up freaking catcher.”
i like that healthy bad attitude that a yankee fan is showing, we’ll be needing more like it today. but 20 % of the playing time of a regular player is significant. if a team doesn’t play every edge they can get , they’re not going to be a good team . off the top of my head redman at minn. hit .341 last year and over .300 the year before. he won a game the other night when gadenhire left him in the game in late innings instead of pinch hitting mauer in a clutch situation . gardenhire came out after and said he’d be taking heat if it wouldn’t have worked out leaving redmman in to hit but that he wanted to give mauer a full day’s rest.
there’s a reason the twins overachieve on a 60 million dollar payroll. if the yankees want to overachieve on a 185 million one ( that’s a good one), they need to do the small things as well as the big things that casual fans notice. taking care of the back up catcher role is as important as any thing else. if torre is going to manage well , he needs the appropriate role players to make moves and do his job.
The bench players are Nieves, Phelps/Minky, Cairo and Cabrera.
Cabrera’s staying, based on his performance last year. Maybe he gets sent back temporarily, but that’s it. Would Kevin Thompson do better? Who knows?
Phelps hit the cover off the ball in ST, now he’s cold. Will he come back? I would still hold on to him and see, maybe play him a bit more. If Texeira, or someone of his ability, becomes available I would go for him, of course, but you can’t count on it at this point in the season.
As far as the backup infielder and catcher spots, it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t get Zaun; I think he’d be a good pickup. However, they didn’t. Now what? How much are you willing to give up to upgrade at these spots? Would you trade Brian Bruney or Scott Proctor for a player who might play once or twice a week, for 2-4 at-bats? That might be what it would take. We’re not going to get a “battleship” for a “rowboat” (as someone once said). I’d be willing to try Albert Gonzalez or Chris Basak from AAA, but, again, there’s no guarantee.
It’s tough making the decisions. And as someone who has to make decisions on a daily basis, I know this.
Randy I brings up Redmond on the Twins. I don’t know how well he catches, but his hitting looks nice. I’d like that production here. I really don’t think that Minnesota would be interested in Carl Pavano (one can dream), but if they offered him up for a package of Bruney/Proctor/Hughes/Clippard/Kennedy/Chamberlain – what would you do? Trade someone who might light it up for a number of years for a backup catcher? Remember how the Twins got Santana? I think they got him from SF as part of the AJ Pierzynski (sp? trade), and I think a minor leaguer named Joe Nathan came along on that, too. Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but you can see my point.
I hear Johnny Damon is not ruling out the DL, is there any update on his status?
there’s a ton of back up catchers out there: with redmond leading the list( not redman )
from 2006: mike redmond-min-.341
mark lieberthal – phi- .273
david ross- cinn-.251
laird -tx .255
blanco-chc-.241
jose molina-cal-.240
torrealba-col-.328
valentin-cinn.269
sntder-arz-.277
greeene-sf .289
bennet-sl- .223
treanor-fla.229
wilson-detroit-.283
paul-tampa-.260
rivera-mil-.268
fick-wash-.266
castro-nym.238
one more thing about back up catchers. even posada has trouble with signals( as seen in recent days), getting in sync with pitchers, etc. redmond( yeh joe, would love to have him) has been with the twins for 6-7 years. he knows the pitchers and they know him. this may not show up over a small sample of a few games, but over a year it adds up. and look how good the yankees were when they had girardi and posada. having a good combination of catchers is gold for a manager.
Santana came over in the Rule 5 Draft Joe. Liriano is the one that came along in the trade you’re talking about.
I think Zaun made it clear he wouldn’t play back up so he may have been less attractive to the Yanks.
And I don’t think Phelps has been cold exactly. He just isn’t getting consistent playing time.
Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser and Liriano for Peer-zinskee. (Great deal!)
Question for Jason: Jason, given that many (most?) teams play a shift defense when you bat, leaving most of the left side of the infield completely open, why doesn’t Torre ever have you bunt? We know that your OBP is among the highest in the league, but wouldn’t the threat of the occasional bunt to third base force teams to play you straighter?
The backup on the Phillies’ name is Mike, not Mark.
You’re right, if we only had a decent backup catcher we’d be all set. Our lineup is stacked, if we have to really count on our backup catcher for offensive production, we’re screwed. You guys not only want All-Stars at all starting spots, but on the bench as well. Geesh.
I second Greggy’s question on bunting. Gotta ask that one. Also, does he have the latitude to bunt without Joe calling it? Would he bunt on his own if he had the freedom to?
If he bunts, he is doing what the opposition wants him to do, hit singles not extra base hits. Therefore, why would they remove the shift if all he is going to do is bunt?
“this stable of All-Stars are not scoring runs”
second in the league averaging almost 6 runs a game is “not scoring runs????”
Sometimes when I read garbage like this, you people embarrass me as a fan. The Yankees don’t score runs like fat kids don’t like cake.
RI Yankees Fan, Your comment doesn’t really make sense to me. Perhaps you can explain to me how the shift of infielders prevents Giambi from hitting extra base hits, if that’s what opposing teams are really focused on, and are happy to give Giambi a single. If so, I have a great idea, walking him 100% of the time will completely eliminate any threat of an extra base hit!