Good night from Cleveland
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- April
- 25
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Not much to report on this one. Andy Pettitte was hard on himself for losing a 3-1 lead and the Yankees were punchess offensively over the final three innings.
“When I have a lead and I pitch into the middle innings of a game, I feel like I should hold that,†said Pettitte, who like many players is fighting the flu.
Jason Giambi (now hitting a robust .186) was pleased with how his swing is staying consistent. Not only did he hit those two long homers but he smoked a line drive off Rafael Perez in the seventh. That’s a good sign.
One telling stat: The Yankees are 1-12 when trailing after six innings. There hasn’t been a whole lot of late-inning energy in his group so far. That’s largely a function of the injuries and the ever-changing lineups.
A-Rod said he felt fine during a group interview held outside the bathroom while he was holding a toothbrush. It’s likely he will DH tomorrow just to give him a break.
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Congrats to good guy Wil Nieves, who hit first major league homer tonight. It was a two-run walk-off blast for the Nationals against the Cubs. Good for him
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on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 11:25 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Good for Nieves. What a stand-up guy.
I love Wil Nieves.
good for him! what a nice guy he was- always smiling
Matthew, I hope you’re predicting what place you think the Yankees will be in on May 15. Otherwise, what’s the point of “First!”?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
What’s the over/under on how deep Ian Kennedy gets tomorrow? I’m saying it’s 4.2 innings and I’m taking the over.
what kind of toothpaste does A-Rod use? yankee fans want to know!
The fact that this game points out is that Cleveland has better young talent than the Yankees, ie, Sizemore is the best player on the field, with apologies to A-Rod, he is a gold glove CF, he can hit for power, hit for average and can steal a base, he is a solid, solid player.
Martinez and Peralta are great young hitters and then there’s their shutdown bullpen, young hard throwing studs.
As far as young elite talent for the Yankees: Cano has the potential but is in a terrible funk, and besides he and Joba, that is it as far as all-star caliber young talent on the Yankees.
The good news is that the next wave of talent is coming, McCutchen, Melancon, Cox, Robertson, Betances, Horne – pitchers; Almonte, Gardner, Jackson, Montero, Romine and Suttle – fielders.
Most of them are 2-3 years away, but are the next dynasty in the making.
Nick, you’re an optimist. I’m afraid that I would have to take the under. Ohlendorf must be ready for another 3 innings after his long rest.
I’ll take the under, and he’s demoted after for a reliever for a player who will later be demoted for a starter (please not Kei!)
I say IPK goes 6+ and has a good outing tomorrow.
Full disclosure though….I’ve been drinking a bit tonight. lol
That’s largely a function of the injuries and the ever-changing lineups
— haha, ever changing lineups is the reason we are 1-12 if trailing after 6 innings.. Joe “Green tea” torre will never let that happen…
great point Peter… just wonderful analysis
Tim,
how nice of you to double post.
Not only does ARod have a career OPS .114 pts higher then Sizemore, but his SB% is better. Sizemore is very, very good… but he ain’t ARod.
“Cano has the potential but is in a terrible funk, and besides he and Joba, that is it as far as all-star caliber young talent on the Yankees.”
we have our first Cleveland troll? or just a bitter Yanks fan?
Peralta is good, but he has been terribly inconsistent the past few years. As good as he can be sometimes, he can be just as awful.
“young hard throwing studs”
Tim?
and yes, if you include Peralta on that list, then Melky is on it as well. The fact that you left 21yr old Hughes off but included your hard throwing studs is glaring.
Tim is full of himself……
Congratulations! Nieves.
Bob-
Very true about Peralta.
I’m liking the way Melky is playing this year. He’s solid in the outfield, has a great arm, is a battler at the plate and seems to have developed a little more power. He may never win a gold glove or be a perennial all star but he always seems to be in the middle of an exciting play somewhere in a game.
Tim has a man-crush on Jensen Lewis
Andy’s such a warrior. If not for that tough inning, we’d be celebrating a win. Good news on other fronts though, as Boston as well as some of the other tough teams took a loss.
Best of luck to IPK. Don’t think about making your Fox debut. Focus only on getting outs. Lots of outs. You are getting very sleepy…
copied from previous thread about Cleveland’s young talent:
yes, they do.
but Cleveland also went a solid 5 years in between playoff appearances while they committed to rebuilding.
do you think if the Yankees committed to nothing but building young talent while missing the playoffs for 5 years they wouldn’t have insane young talent?
just saying. context matters.
Yep, Cleveland is the perfect example of “you have to tear it down to build it back up.”
Very well run organization.
“do you think if the Yankees committed to nothing but building young talent while missing the playoffs for 5 years they wouldn’t have insane young talent?”
I don’t know if the talent would be insane but lots of the fans on here would be. Some don’t seem to be the most patient group.
yeah, sure…Cleveland has a great bullpen — only against the Yanks but not the Sox. I only wish we had the pleasure of facing Borowski.
“Very well run organization.”
definitely agree. Shapiro is an excellent GM.
i don’t think you have to tear it down to build it up. Connie Mack tore his great teams down, and ended up with 1-2 decade stretches of bad teams. etc.
and there are examples of teams rebuilding and still contending for championships. That would be what I’d expect the Yankees to do
Hey Pete:
No post-game audio? Oh well.
Enjoy Cleveland.
Hey guys, just got back from seeing Rochester Red Wings/Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, and saw Phillip Humber pitch for Rochester…he was okay, but left in the fifth. Iron Pigs were leading 6-2 when we left mid-8th (my friend and I had to drive back to Syracuse)
Going to see Scranton/Syracuse tomorrow (ok, technically later today) though I’m a little peeved I’ll miss out on Shelley!
“Sizemore is the best player on the field, with apologies to A-Rod, he is a gold glove CF, he can hit for power, hit for average and can steal a base, he is a solid, solid player.”
Mark Shapiro is a terrific GM – perhaps the best in the game.
But the Cleveland position players all have significant limitation.
Grady Sizemore is a very good CF.
He is also one of the most over rated players in baseball.
Somehow there’s this idea that’s developed that Sizemore is an elite player.
He’s not. He’s not even close.
The idea that he’s anywhere near the ARod, Pujols, Hanley Ramirez universe is absurd. I won’t even get into the statistics because it’s not even worth it – he’s so far behind by any meaningful measure.
Curtis Granderson had a better season than Sizemore last year. Is anyone comparing Granderson to the game’s best players?
Perralta may be a good offensive shortstop but he’s also arguably the worst defensive shortstop in baseball. Worse than Jeter. He had the lowest zone rating of any shortstop in baseball last year.
Same thing for Martinez. An awful defensive catcher.
The indian’s advantage over the yankees is their starting pitching. They have Sabbathia and Carmona at the front of the rotation. Westbrook and Byrd are good for teh back end.
If the Yankees want to beat teams like the Indians (especially in the playoffs) they need to develop front line starting pitching.
CB,
But Sizemore’s so *cute*. gag.
Very surprising news. The yankees promoted Steven Jackson to AAA and not Dave Robertson.
JB Cox was promoted and took Jackson’s spot.
Cox was expected to go to AA. But there was speculation that Robertson was being fast tracked and would be going to AAA.
After a rough season last year Jackson has really turned things around and has been lights out in AAA this year (Girardi really spoke highly of him in spring training). The yankees left him exposed to the rule V draft this past winter (he’s not on the 40 man roster). Jackson was part of the Randy Johnson trade. He’s a power sinker baller.
Interesting and somewhat unexpected move.
Sorry that news on jackson comes from Jennings. Here’s the link:
http://emedia.thetimes-tribune.....Barre.aspx
Thanks CB, you are always on top of it.
I have to think that the Yankees now see Jackson as a guy who could potentially help them in the pen this year.
That’s a really remarkable turn of events from this time last year.
Jackson started out the season in AAA and was horrible. He got demoted to AA and still wasn’t very good form most of the season there. He turned things around towards the end. Then the yankees sent him to the Arizona fall league which was something of a surprise given his up and down performance (in general only the better prospects are setn to Arizona).
The yankees go three prospects for Randy Johnson (in addition to Vizcaino) – Ross Ohlendor, Alberto Gonzalez and Stephen Jackson. It would really be something if all 3 of those players were on the big league roster this year.
did someone from the soxs climb in the yankees clubhouse?
congrats to nieves.
a grady sizemore vs. a-rod debate. i’ve officially reached the end of the internet.
pete’s post earlier today summed it up: fearsome offense, sometimes-good pitching. i still think they will win the division but they sure don’t look like much of a force to be reckoned with at the moment.
Magical ingredient uncovered for Giambi:
THE FLU.
“One telling stat: The Yankees are 1-12 when trailing after six innings. There hasn’t been a whole lot of late-inning energy in his group so far. That’s largely a function of the injuries and the ever-changing lineups.”
I don’t agree that there has been a lack of scoring in late innings. A lot of teams it seems that the games are out of hand by the 7th inning due to horrible pitching, so the offense has been scoring but it’s not enough to counter the poor pitching.
Here are how many runs the Yankees average per inning this season:
1st inning: 0.42 runs
2nd inning: 0.29 runs
3rd inning: 0.38 runs
4th inning: 0.83 runs
5th inning: 0.63 runs
6th inning: 0.54 runs
7th inning: 0.67 runs
8th inning: 0.50 runs
9th inning: 0.42 runs
So ranking from best to worst, the innings rank as follows:
4th, 7th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 1st, 3rd, 2nd
It seems painfully obvious that the Yankees offense has been lacking in the first 3 innings, not the last 3 innings. So the 1-12 record has nothing to do with lack of energy late in games or changing lineups.
Here are the number of runs the Yankee pitchers average giving up each inning:
1st inning: 0.38 runs
2nd inning: 0.29 runs
3rd inning: 1.00 runs
4th inning: 0.46 runs
5th inning: 1.04 runs
6th inning: 0.63 runs
7th inning: 0.42 runs
8th inning: 0.50 runs
9th inning: 0.12 runs
So you can easily see that the Yankee pitching has been beyond awful in the 3rd and 5th innings. The 6th inning also isn’t good. I don’t think it is coincidental that the Yankees have had issues with starters not going deep into games and middle relief getting pounded. This is the real crux of the problem. Once again, it has nothing to do with a lack of energy late in games or changing lineups.
And you haven’t grasped the more important meaning of the 1-12 record when trailing after 6 innings. The Yankees have played 24 games. They have been trailing after 6 innings in 13 of them, which is a very high percentage for a team that is expected to compete for a playoff spot. As the above numbers suggest, the Yankee offense has been lacking in the first fthree innings, and the Yankee pitching has been getting hammered in the 3rd through 6th innings. This is why they have trailed after 6 innings in more than half of their games.
And let’s see what the scores of those 13 games have been when the Yankees trailed after 6 innings:
Nyy-Opp:
0-4
4-6
1-5
2-5
0-4
2-4
4-7
3-7
1-8
0-4
2-3
5-6
4-6
The deficits can be listed as follows:
1 run: 2 game
2 runs: 3 games
3 runs: 2 games
4 runs: 5 games
7 runs: 1 game
Not surprisingly, the one game they won was one of the games where they trailed by only 1 run after 6 innings. I don’t think any reasonable person can expect a team to win when down by 3 runs or more after 6 innings, especially since lots of teams save their best relievers for the 8th and 9th innings with a lead, which would apply in most of these games listed above. There were 8 games where the Yankees were trailing by 3 or more runs after 6 innings. So there were 5 games where the Yankees trailed by 1 or 2 runs after 6 innings. That leaves 5 games remaining where they had a “shot” to win. They are 1-4 in those games where they trailed by 1 or 2 runs after 6 innings. Certainly you can’t expect them to have a winning record in those situations. So at most you might expect that they could have won one more of those closer games and should maybe be 2-3 in those 5 games. It’s no big deal really.
The most alarming thing is that the crappy hitting in the first 3 innings combined with the crappy pitching in the 3rd-6th innings have put the Yankees in that hole 13 times out of 24 games. That is what needs to be fixed. There is absolutely no reason to blame things on lack of energy late in games or lineup switches. That has little, if anything, to do with the 1-12 record when trailing after 6 innings.
The same thing can be run to see
Feel free to ignore that unfinished line at the very end of my previous post. I forgot to erase that line.
Also in my opening paragraph it should read “A lot of times” instead of “A lot of teams”
FWIW, todays “Game 24″ thread was perhaps the dumbest read in the history of words.
Just ctrl+f the word Giambi and you’ll see the stupidity and bandwagon nature in some of the Yankees fans in their comments. Starts off with everyone ready to nail big G at the stake for being in the lineup then ends in a lovefest that is too XXX for this blog.
Remember the last year that Giambi came off an injury plagued season he was the comeback player of the year with an insane OBP of .440. Oh yeah, and on June 1st he only had 4 HR’s, 13 RBIs, and was batting .230 something.
Give the guy a chance to get his blood pressure going.
Giambi did nothing to alter my thoughts. His obviously declining bat skills are keeping pace with his stonefingers and horrific footwork at 1st base.
His gloating over feeling good with a bat in his hands is a smokescreen. He will soon come to grips that this in fact is his final year as a Yankee.
Unless the Yankee hierarchy decides to DFA him when the team gets on a roll in May, he could be the most expensive pinch hitter in the history of the game.
With the Yanks going up against the lefty Sowers today, it’s a perfect opportunity to get Gonzalez some at bats. Cano is lost,his body language is terrible. Maybe a couple of days off for him against Sabbathia and Sowers will be beneficial to both him and the team.
Also, if Heath Phillips continues to pitch well in Scranton, it’s time to swap him out for Traber.
Give everybody a chance will leave the team no chance.
State your support to anybody you like. Just don’t forbid others to dislike what you like. You don’t have that kind of right.
re: Cleveland, young talent vs. Yankees
When is the last time the Yankees’ brass warned us that “this will be a rebuilding year”? When is the last time the baseball press said that about the Yankees? That’s not how things are done in this organization, so the comparison is not a good one.
Or is it? With the three young pitchers and the big contracts about to expire, could this year and at least next be “rebuilding years,” but Cashman is afraid to tell us… or Hank?
How bad is Giambi in the field? Of 30 qualified 1Bman (2008 small sample size I grant you), Giambi is 22 of 30. Those ‘worse’ in Zone Rating:
Player_____________ F-PCT ZoneR
Jason Giambi, NYY__ 0.989 0.800
Richie Sexson, Sea_ 0.991 0.789
James Loney, LA____ 0.995 0.788
Conor Jackson, Ari_ 1.000 0.786
Paul Konerko, CWS__ 0.994 0.783
Prince Fielder, Mil 0.996 0.778
Carlos Delgado, NYM 0.983 0.730
Adam LaRoche, Pit__ 0.988 0.640
Now the truth is by the end of the year, Giambi will be very near, if not at, the bottom of the pile. He might not be ‘THE worst’, but he will be very close. And defensive metrics are not totally accurate, so 3 decimal places might be foolish. But they might be good to tell you who is above average, average, below average, who and suks.
My point is, do you bench the horrible gloves of Sexson, Konerko, Fielder, Delgato and the rest? The Yanks aren’t the only team with a no-glove guy at 1st.
Giambi ‘gives’ away bases with his terrible throwing, but is also better at ’scooping’ that many guys. Scoops save errors (and BHs on close plays) and don’t really show up on stats… but it is a valuable asset and we have already seen Giambi save ARod, Jeter and Cano a number of times.
Also, the Ynakees have chosen to be an offense first club.
Jeter has been called the ‘worst fielding SS in the game’, but he is in for his bat.
Posada is below average (and can very well be seen just watching Molina foe a few games) but he is in for his bat.
Matsui has never been very good in LF, but now he downright stinks… but again, good bat.
ARod? Zone Rating over the last 3 years shows him in the bottom 3rd, and he does seem to make throwing errors.
Abreau? He might be considered average because of his speed and arm, but ZR has him below middle, usually in the bottom third.
JD? maybe slightly above average, top half or better in ZR. Obviously his arm detracts from his overall value.
Is Melky a glove man? He still has issues with the routes he takes and is about middle of the pack ZR wise. His arm is obviously a big plus.
Cano often flashes brilliance with the leather, but unfortunately has lapses on easy plays. He has a great arm, is brilliant on DPs and is top third or better ZR wise. He is probably the only Yankee starter you could call well above average on defense.
Even on the farm, Miranda, Shelly and Montero are all no-glove (although maybe Montero can be an average 1Bman?). I don’t know where Tabata rates. AJax and Gardner are both above average.
So, defensively, my take is:
Cano – well above average
Melky, JD – slightly above average.
ARod, Abreu, Posada – average to slightly below average.
Jeter, Giambi, Matsui – well below average
So… while Giambi stinks with the glove, if he can post a .850 OPS or above, like many other teams, he is still an asset at 1B.
“If the Yankees want to beat teams like the Indians (especially in the playoffs) they need to develop front line starting pitching.”
i agree, but with the twist that the yankees just need to stink less than other teams starting pitching. my thought is that the best teams are just not that good anymore with revenue sharing spreading talent to teams like kansas city, tampa, milwaukee, etc.
those teams literally have our #3 starter, our good middle relievers, our first baseman. but they also have key position players and pitchers from all the other good teams too. the question is not how to be really good. the question is how to stink less than other teams and still come out on top when the playoffs come.
i don’t really see how the trend towards young and cheap helps in the long run because someone like hughes by the time he hits free agency will do it at 26. he will be one very expensive 26 year old if all goes well. what are the yankees to do at that point,discard him for younger and cheaper? teams like the indians face the same problem. sabathia was young and cheap and they brought him up early. he’s not so cheap anymore, but he’s young still. and he’ going. so how is that they are building a long range powerhouse if they have to let someone like sabathia go. they either sign him and have a high payroll or another team does and they have a better pitcher than the new kid cleveland builds up.
i just see this process as a slow decline in the quality of the best teams with all teams getting closer to each other in talent. us yankee fans are having to digest having a lot of really bad players on the team especially middle relief and starting pitching. the good news is our crummy guys can beat their crummy guys. i think.
as you might guess, i’m not a fan of parity. i like really good uber teams. but the reality is they aren’t going to exist anymore . you think chien ming wang is definitely going to be a yankee if he wins 19 for three more years. not necessarily. other teams that have the yankees money from revenue sharing will be using it to bid on wang. the combination of the other teams having more money and the yankees having less means it’s not a slam dunk the yankees will keep their own young stars anymore than cleveland will keep sabathia.
it’s a whole new world and the bad baseball we are seeing with the yankees is the new standard.
Hank has intimated in several interviews that, “this is the year to get the Yankees”. Meaning, better times are ahead.
That’s about as close as anybody in the organization will ever go without saying the “R” (rebuilding) word.
Personally, I have no problems with rebuilding, reloading or whatever you want to call it. I hope they go deeper with it this year and bring more younger players into the mix. This team lacks energy for one simple reason. Its an old team. Young players bring energy to a team. Old players do not.
Their offense dies in the later innings because its a lineup of one dimensional, free swinger type of hitters. Most of the guys in the lineup aren’t working pitchers like they used to. Abreu and Cabrera are about the only guys who have consistently put together those kind of AB’s so far this season.
The rest of the guys just swing from the heels and hope for the best. Not the recipe for late inning magic, IMO.
Will that change as the season goes on or, because of the age and declining skills of many of the players on the team, will they remain undisciplined at the plate? Only time will tell.
Every team, no matter the sport, has a certain window of opportunity. The key to successful organizations is realizing when a certain window is closing and you begin to rebuild/reload with certain key guys still in place so you can make another run. It seems that’s what the Yankees are trying to do now.
Once Joe Torre left, the window for that era closed. They hired a new manager who specializes in working with younger players.
That kind of sends the red flag as to where the direction organization is going.
Obviously they are stuck with certain players for contractual reasons. After this season, that will no longer be an albatross around the franchise.
Its not easy to do it this way and its especially difficult to do it this way in NY. Where the mandate from the fans and media is, “Its ok if you want to rebuild/reload. Just win the World Series this year”. Kind of impossible when you think about it.
They are doing what they have to do right now. Hover around .500 and try to keep it that way until the schedule becomes more manageable and they can get younger players ready to contribute later on this season.
The problem I see though is the identity of the team still hasn’t changed. Its still offense, offense, offense, a little pitching and no defense. While that may entertaining for some when they are scoring, its not a formula for championship baseball.
I think the biggest problem Girardi, Cashman, et al will have is changing the culture of the team/organization.
Its been so wedded to this offense first philosophy for so many years, its going to be awfully hard to convince people that has to change.
Its why we get into so many disputes on the blog over Giambi. Occasional HR’s don’t overcome what he does defensively and in other areas of his game that hurt the team.
Its going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out this year. You wonder if management/ownership will truly be on board with changing the culture of this team if it involves losing a lot more games than they imagined this season.
Randy,
Your points are very well taken. Revenue sharing has definitely had an effect on the Yankees.
For the future, they will always have money to spend on free agents and have money to sign their own free agents. The new stadium will be a cash cow for the Yankees. The challenge will be spending the money intelligently.
For example, if they have a bad season this year, do they go nuts and spend a ton of money on free agents, overpaying if necessary, scraping their entire long term plan?
By doing so, several years down the road, it may put them in the position they are in right now. Possessing a handful of unproductive players with undealable contracts.
Or, do they supplement what they have have going from within with the right kind of free agents? Shorter term deals, guys who can play in NY, fit their roles, etc.
Its going to be interesting to see if they have the onions to stay the course.
Mike Tyson used to say, “Everybody has a plan until they punched in the mouth”.
The Yankees have a solid plan. The problem is, how will ownership react if this is their “punch in the mouth” year?
Nobody knows the answer to that one.
There’s much to agree with in SJ’s take. The difference is that Cashman is attempting to phase in the new and phase out the old at the same time and with NYC being what it is and Yankees fans having little patience, it’s a delicate thing to do.
If Joe Girardi adjusts with the idea that he has a 23 man roster to work with the transition part will be much easier and any contribution by Giambi and one other of the players expected to be in their final year is a bonus.
This could be Brian Cashman’s most trying year in that he must know who to shuttle from AAA and the time to do it.
The month of May will be a strong indicator of how this season will play out.
“Is anyone comparing Granderson to the game’s best players?”
Several have. He was one of the AL’s 5 best players last year and is frequently talked of as “a Jimmy Rollins in the outfield”
did i miss the joint you guys were passing around when sizemore became better than arod and peralta was better than cano?
Darrell Rasner with a scheduled start tonight at AAA. If he pitches another gem, how can he be denied ?
I will be happy a year form now when Giambi is gone. I have been arguing with Yankee friends for years about his lack of defense and the cost to the team. Not only him but Matsui. The Yankees enamored with offense ignored the defensive liabilities of both and look what we have now? A logjam at DH. I can’t wait for next season and hope that the replacements for these older players can do a bit more than deliver homeruns.The old adage that defense and pitching wins ballgames is still true.
I would be much more worried about the direction of this organization if George was still running the team.
Sure he spent money, but he also made a lot of bad personnel decisions and almost never listened to his baseball people.
Hank talks a lot but he appears to be a little different from George. He seems to be on board with the youth movement. That’s something George would have never gone for.
god, i am so sick of giambi. nice that he’s giving you more than he’s taking or whatever pete said, but doesnt anybody remember he is making around $20M! is that what we look for in a $20M guy nowadays, he gives you more than he takes away? id trade the guy for brandon inge in a heartbeat, a guy who does nothing spectacular but everything that wins games, at 2 positions no less!
sj-
it goes without saying that giambi is a relic from along ago age purchased in a different economic environment. mussina is too. in the new economic climate, any one team won’t have so many of these including the yankees.
i agree with you that young players add youthful energy and that it’s a good thing to add each year. the question is how far you take it. with some players youthful energy doesn’t outweigh being really good. no matter how much energy shelly duncan or melky cabrera or some other young outfielder has, they are not as good a hitter this year as manny.
they will never be as good. so while bringing up the energy is great, being a veteran and being really good is still better. but you can’t find enough mannys or arod to fill a whole team nor could you afford it.
it’s not all youthfulness or all veteraness that is going to be the best team. it’ll be a blending of the two. it goes without saying the yankees right now have too much expensive old veteraness right now that will peel off next year so it is as you say a transition year.
but cleveland is not going to be a better team next year without sabathia. the red sox are not going to be a better team without manny. individual teams that are good are in general getting worse. that’s a trend that your idea of constant youthful energy doesn’t help.
at some point the big bucks have to be paid for the really good veterans. there’s not going to be a league of all these perpetually young teams playing each other. there’s no sense to aim at being this kind of team that’s not going to exist.
i think we’d probably come close to agreeing on what is a good blend of young and veteran , but the thing i’m really saying is that neither the yankees nor the red sox are going to be as loaded as they were a few years ago. mike timlin pitched the last inning in a game that counted in the standings last night.
need i say more?
sorry i meant 3 postitions for inge (c, 3b, of)
this looks like a bloated, stodgy team again, similar to how it looked before cano and wang showed up. think about this, im not proposint any trade here b/c its just too complicated, but imagine if this didnt have giambi, damon or matsui and instead had mientkiewitz (sp, i tried!), brandon inge, and gardner on it. the yanks just dont have those kind or great defensive role players that can finish a game, or manufacture a run when the big guns arent going. i think id like that team alot better. and i like giambi damon and especially matsui but this team is just bloated and inflexible.
Cash had the “onions” to stand by Phil Hughes and not trade him when I’m sure he would have loved to have Santana; I have no doubt that Brian believes in his long-term plan and, if still with the team next year and beyond, intends to follow it through to fruition. The nice thing is, it doesn’t have to end. If they keep their philosophy intact, the good players (granted, most of whom will not be stars or even big leaguers) will keep coming. I guess you could say it all began with Phil, but he’s just the beginning…….so, we need to sit tight.
As to the offense, we do not have a lineup of one-dimensional sluggers. Jeter is a great hitter, but hardly a power threat; Cano is a terrific hitter -he’s got some HR power and obviously he’s a high average guy; Abreu…..he’s basically an all-around good hitter. A-Rod does everything (hits for avg. AND power), Jorge doesn’t slug a lot of HRs ….a good amt to be sure, but that is not all there is to his game. Matsui – a solid all-around guy. Giambi -yes, clearly he is an all or nothing guy. Melky – not a HR guy. This is a truly excellent lineup – now I can not account for why they all go into tailspins at the same time, but I have no problems with the construction of the offense (except for Giambi, and he will be gone next year).
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