Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Dec 14, 2008 
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In the Sunday Baseball Beat, Joe Torre has some thoughts on Joe Girardi and why he thinks 2009 will be a good season for his replacement.
good morning, Peter
At least Girardi didn’t start injured Kevin Brown in game 7 with Mussina and Lieber rested, or placed A-Rod 8th in a do-or-die playoff game.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12.....144124.htm
Manny to the Bronx
fact or fiction?
due to George King’s fingerprints, i’ll go with fiction.
“Girardi doesn’t smoke, drink or gamble.”
Send Joe my condolences…
As always, George King is full of BS.
They are not going after Manny Ramirez.
So what if Hank wants him – he doesn’t control the purse strings.
Putting Manny on that team would be like throwing a grenade in the middle of that club house.
It’s not happening.
“In 2007, when the Yankees forced Torre out…”
–
Don’t you mean, “In 2007, when Torre turned down a contract offer to stay with the Yankees…”?
Joe Torre who?
Joe Torre should worry about managing the Dodgers.
CB – from a previous thread you said:
“Casey Stengel.
Stengel invented the notion of platooning players. And he did that based on his observation that left handed hitters are less likely to get a hit off a left handed pitcher and vice versa for right handers.
The casey stengel example is relevant to baseball. Casey was one of the major innovators in the use of statistics in baseball and people thought he was an idiot for doing that when he did.”
You are, of course, absolutely right. But Casey was even more creative/clever than that. I saw many games back in the 50’s where Case would match up lefty’s against lefties and vice versa, depending on how he felt the match ups would work.
Two example: First one – Bottom of the ninth, Casey has Enos Slaughter (LH) bat against one of the top lefty relievers of his era, Don Mossi. Slaughter singles through the middle to score the winning run.
Second example, the Yanks have the bases loaded against the great Early Wynn (RH) in around the fourth inning with the pitcher, Bob Turley coming up. Turley’s been struggling, the Yanks are down 4 zip. Casey sends up Bob Cerv (a power hitting RH) who promptly crashes a Grand Slam.
In both situations, Casey had real good alternatives on the bench to bat. Instead he matched up according to how he felt the PH would perform vs. the pitcher in question, rather than just rely on the lefty/righty standard move (even though, as you pointed out, Casey invented the platoon system based on exactly that – righty/lefty percentages.)
Casey was a lot of things, good and bad. One thing he wasn’t, was dumb!
Thanks so much, CB, for your detailed and always interesting commentary.
What? Now, Torre isn’t allowed to discuss his friends on other teams? Get over it, little man.
Stengel platooned, but, not always in a treditional platoon. Hank Bauer had two homers is a game and in a close game, Bauer comes up to bat against a left handed pitcher and Stengel replaces him with Gene Woodling, a left handed hitter. Bauer starts scraming at Stengel, but, stops when Woodling homers to put the game away. Stengel was a strange combination of things as a manager. He had more intuition and gut feeling than anybody else I’ve seen or read about.
***traditional*** platoon
vinny-b (bring back Petitte)
December 14th, 2008 at 5:13 am
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12.....144124.htm
Manny to the Bronx
fact or fiction?
due to George King’s fingerprints, i’ll go with fiction.
—
I hate to say I told you so but I will enjoy it if one of these things happen.
Pete, I know you said theres no way this could happen so I am hoping that you are just part of the stealth plan of the Yankees to keep the price down until we swoop in.
This is a must to protect the rest of our off season pitching investments.
Go get Tex today while the rest of the country is watching football.
Gas is down and so is Manny
I don’t know if King is bluffing or not, but I sure hope we get Tex.
CC Press Conference tentatively scheduled for Wednesday but keep reading to see what the sticking point in the Melky/Cameron trade is. That should make some people happy.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12.....144123.htm
When has George King III been right about anything? That said, it would make sense for the Yankees to get involved with Teixeira to drive his price up for Boston.
andydandy
December 14th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Joe Torre should worry about managing the Dodgers.
You remind me of people who thought Torre should be brought up on tampering for speaking to Posada and Jeter on the telephone during the season.
In other words, you’re an idiot.
There is no necessity for Mike Cameron.
I don’t disagree with passing on Andy as that would accomplish 2 things, give us money for Tex and allow the young guys a chance to grow. I know many will say let them develop at the minor league level, but I think Hughes is ready if healthy and the 5 spot will be skipped early on anyway.
I don’t believe however that Andy will sit and wait around until we come begging, that ain’t gonna happen.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/.....814.column
pat December 14th, 2008 at 8:50 am
CC Press Conference tentatively scheduled for Wednesday but keep reading to see what the sticking point in the Melky/Cameron trade is. That should make some people happy.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12.....144123.htm
Please continue your stupidity and crush this deal Melvin. Youre doing us a favor. Ask for Hughes that usually does it.
It’s tough to imagine Manny Ramirez with a Jorge Posada type of haircut and a uniform that doesn’t look like pajamas.
pat,
Thanks for that. One thing is apparent, and that is Igawa can pitch. He just can’t pitch for the Yankees. The NL would be a great place for Igawa, although I think that the NL West would be a better division for him.
I do like that we weren’t willing to give up anyone on the 40-man, especially those kids. Wonder if Pittsburgh wishes they chose Coke instead of RC Cola? They seem to like their Tab alright.
Gary @ 9:36; “a uni that looks like pajamas” Big LOL !!! Good one!
Manny makes sense in any lineup if you go by the numbers. Unfortunately he’s terminal clubhouse cancer. A-Rod is a self-centered, immature jerk but you can ignore most of his garbage. Manny, on the other hand, has quit on his team, faked injury and struck a traveling secretary in order to get out of his contract. Acquiring him would be an insult to the “play the game right” ethos of Jeter, Posada, Mo and Girardi every minute of every day.
Gas is combustible and so is Manny
Arod is the Manny whisperer. It could work.
O/T but TCM just did a remembrance of movie people who passed this year. It was unusually long and particularly sad. Lots of familiar faces. It’ll be a very emotional Oscars with Paul Newman’s passing.
murphydog,
Kudos for working in terminal and cancer to the same sentence. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, though!
anyone know if there selling the CC and AJ jerseys yet?, im going up to the city this weekend and i hooping i can get one
There was a Jerome James sighting last night…
Joel Sherman can make some good points at times. He’s defending the Yankees honor against all the baseball people who claim the Yankees are killing baseball with their spending sprees:
It also is true that the Yanks are the mother lode to the industry: More than $105 million combined in revenue sharing/luxury tax is distributed from the Yanks to other clubs. And though the 30 teams share equally in items such as merchandise sales, MLB.com dollars, and rights fees for radio, TV and international media, does anyone believe there are as many Kansas City Royals jerseys sold as those of the Yankees?
In other words, much of the sport gladly takes the massive dollars generated by the star-driven Yankees with one hand, and then slaps the Yanks with the other hand when the Yanks purchase more stars.
there is a very good chance hughes,acevez & other can hold down the 5th rotation spot.
the problem with that is joba will have to be moved up to the 4th spot putting more pressure on the whole team.
joba needs to be in the 5th spot all year & we need to use our pitching debth to rest him & for injuries so the 10 or 12 million spent on pettitte is worth the money.
what happens if we have 2 injured pitchers??? will not be pretty & it might force us to spend money on a pitcher or despearately trade for one.
i understand saving the money & upgrading the offense but this team should not be in this position anyways.
joba needs to be on a very strict pitch count.i would not go over 140 under any circumstance & that will take skipping several starts & pulling him early on several occasions.
we simply can’t afford to gamble with his future.he is a young,under control,cheap,great pitcher.
we wen’t this far & should finish the pitching staff 1-5.
i do not know what happened with the c.c. negotiations but why did it take an extra year & 21 million dollars???
arod the same thing,10 yrs 30 million a year.they should of done an 8 yr/216 million at the most.
jeter’s contract coming up will be very interesting.he will not wan’t to take a pay cut or much of one.do we need jeter making even 15 million a year??posada would of been great for 3 yrs/42 million.mo deserves what he is getting because he is mo.
3 yrs is perfect for mo & he is off in the sunset & melancon should take his place.
http://bronx-bomberz.blogspot......beast.html
this team seems to be well balanced but feels like it is missing something outside of a cf.
we need to upgrade cf as much as possible.this team has no speed.
cano is a terrible base runner this is why i would of traded him for kemp & still would even if i had to add kennedy/melky because kemp is getting paid like 500.000 a year,is 2 yrs younger,stole 35 bases & will put up the same numbers as cano.
if cano struggles offensively he is not worth a whole lot as we witnessed.his speed doesn’t change games & his defense is average.
“The Yankees and Brewers continue to haggle over how much of the $12 million due to Kei Igawa for the next three seasons the Yankees will swallow in order to complete the swap of Mike Cameron for Melky Cabrera.”
——————————————————
Adios Igawa?
Oh happy day!
“Cancer in the clubhouse” is such an overused phrase. Cancer or not, Manny was a key part of two world series wins during his 7+ years in Boston. They were clearly a much better team with him than they were without him.
I also think the RS were in part to blame for the Manny fiasco. They helped to promote his whole Manny-being-Manny, baseball-savant persona. They essentially encouraged him to believe he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it.
Manny would have been a better option for the NYY while Torre was still in the Bronx. However, I still think he could be a good hire if the Yankees understand what they’re dealing with and handle him appropriately. The guy can obviously still play and he’s always had a thing for the Yankees. Furthermore, he would probably just destroy the RS in their 19 head-to-head matchups.
mel:
Just being clear
“If we’re going to win the pennant, we’ve got to start thinking we’re not as smart as we think we are.”- casey stengel
all the comments about casey in the blog the past few days caused me to come across the above gem in his wikipedia page.
my pet peeve with people in charge is in general is that they forget they are often not as smart as they think they are. casey seemed to have bottled the ability to question himself and everything else with his approach and humor.
the yankees are in the curious position of abandoning their younger and cheaper philosophy of the past few years. the yankees should put casey’s quote on the wall of everyone in yankee management.
it’s not that cashman was wrong that the younger and cheaper direction was something to try to go towards. the error was that he had no doubt about his ideas. he fell in love with them . really good gms are flexible and don’t throw away whole years being stubborn about their ideas. has any gm been more wrong than cashman was about kennedy,hughes, joba, melky, etc. and what what his weird fixation with screwing up first base? actually that continues.
if casey were around and in charge of the yankees, what we’d see would be constant experimentation with the goal of winning every year without the silliness of looking too far down the road. casey knew, having been around the game for so long, that in baseball things change too quickly to get too far ahead of yourself ( or to fall in love with your own ideas).
Manny knocked down a 64 year-old assistant traveling secretary because the man could not get him a ridiculous number of tickets over the player allotment at the last minute. Knocked him down.
His BA and OBP and OPS, even if .450 and .700 and 1.500, would still not justify his actions.
“In other words, much of the sport gladly takes the massive dollars generated by the star-driven Yankees with one hand, and then slaps the Yanks with the other hand when the Yanks purchase more stars.”
Agree with Sherman’s assessment, though I don’t think as many teams complain about it as we all like to believe. Further, no team that doesn’t use most every dime of revenue sharing money to improve their on the field product(and the recently heard from Marlins do not) should be bitching.
That said, I’d be more impressed if Sherman could defend the Yankees doling out a quarter of a billion for pitching while begging the City for nearly a third of a billion for the new park. I like having the pitching, but that doesn’t fly.
“However, I still think he could be a good hire if the Yankees understand what they’re dealing with and handle him appropriately.”
In other words, treat him with kid gloves and overlook his bad behavior, his need to be “special” and tendency to test the rules. Or, given his track record, should they fine him heavily/bench him the first time he steps out of line (you know it won’t be the last) and then deal with him moping and taking a night off? It would take Po and probably three others to hold Girardi back the first time Manny was Manny – assuming Po wasn’t the one who had to be held back.
IMO, you cannot make a commitment to having Girardi as your skipper and want everything that he brings to a team and then go out and pick up Manny. It sends a completely inconsistent message. Po or Matsui can protect A-Rod, maybe even Cano.
Mike Lupica has another “Yankees as Evil Empire” column today. He whines about the Yankees spending.
However a more informed article in the Times, explains why they have to spend.It is worth reading, and may lead to Texeria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12.....f=baseball
oh, murphydog. I’m disappointed. Can’t you find another way to express your feelings for Manny? I’m not sensitive to it personally, but that was pretty bad.
Anyhoo. You don’t like Manny, that’s pretty clear.
But there’s no arguing that we’d be better with him. You’d have a very tough time proving that in court. Even with a very long list of character witnesses!
I do not like Manny, and couldn’t root for him. I’m not delusional enough to think that has any affect on the Yankees, but they should join in the collusion and tell Manny he can go join up with Barry Bonds and start a league for all the HoF losers who can still hit but aren’t worth the baggage.
“Younger and cheaper” is all relative.
Payroll will be lower in ’09 than ’08.
CC is younger than Mussina.
Swisher is younger than Giambi.
You can slice it either way to support or argue against him getting “younger and cheaper.” But the overall direction of the team is to get younger, I believe.
Ack, I think that’s wrong. You can’t argue that we wouldn’t be better with him.
“You’d have a very tough time proving that in court. Even with a very long list of character witnesses!”
But Mel he couldn’t use those character witnesses to prove action in conformity with past actions! Stupid Rule 404 and its ban on propensity evidence.
Randy:
Couple thoughts:
1) I think Cashman’s actions this offseason more or less represent him admitting he was wrong in his approach last year and was prepared to remedy it this time around.
2) He hasn’t necessarily abandoned the youth movement. Sabathia is a relatively young ace of the staff and none of the highest thought of prospects are gone.
I know this was discussed many times on the comments as well as Pete on his blog.
I still don’t understand both in business and on the field reasons why we are not going to be going strong for Mark Teixeira. I agree with the fact that the payroll is definitely going to be higher than last year’s with all the new signings, raises for Wang/Nady etc.. and the addition of Tex. Even then, I don’t think we are past the 220mm mark which is not that much more than last season. Everyone talks about the new stadium as a cash revenue which can justify the need to be spending more this season than last.
Secondly, it may not be the easiest to move Matsui or Damon and say 75% of their salary but I’m sure something can be done. I looked at the 2009/2010 free agents and don’t really see anyone coming off the books except Holliday (correct me if I am wrong). This means that we are skimping on 20mm for 1 year (at least 28mm from matsui and damon are gone for next year), for a once every two year kind of player. And this time, it actually fits a large need.
Also, if the payroll for this year is the big problem, I’m sure they can structure Tex’s contract so that the money is heavily loaded in Year 2 through 4 which should be his best years anyway. You can argue with me that this is not practical but this is a worse case scenario in terms of affordability.
Getting Tex not only fills a defensive need at 1B, it fills our 3rd spot in the lineup with a patient switch hitter. He also wants to be East. NY is close to Maryland, they will be in contention for years to come and he will just be another Boras client on the team. I don’t see him as the guy wanting all the attention on him like K-rod.
Please Pete, tell me why this doesn’t make sense if I am the Yankees? You stated in two of your blogs that there is no more money for Tex. Tex is bound to save at least 2 games with his defense and 3 games with his offense. Not to mention the players around him will get better looks (arod and jeter) and that should contribute to 2-3 games of wins. We can be a 100 game winning team with Tex.
Dave, see CB’s analysis in one of yesterday’s posts…he explains the Yanks’ projected wins added/subtracted based on the moves they’ve made and potential moves they could make.
mel:
“You can’t argue that we wouldn’t be better with him.”
Maybe. IMO, depends on the rest of the team chemistry and character.
The Sox have been more of a rough and tumble group over the years, which, I think was/is one of their strengths. Manny could be Manny there (and he can be Manny in LA for half a year) without causing too much of a problem. But even Boston had to give up on Manny.
The Yankees and their ownership are presently pretty four square and traditional. (The Bronx Zoo was a long time ago). As I indicated above, they went for Girardi because he was a no-nonsense, “fundamentals count” leader who also had an appreciation of statistics. Out with the old, in with the new. Manny is not “down” with the new plan.
Manny is not misunderstood at all. He’s understood too well.
murphydog-
always look forward to your sunday morning comments, but i have to admit i actually love to watch manny hit. he’s as good as good gets. i look at him as an idiot savant so his antics don’t bother me the way they normally would.
now that cashman has decided to go for the jugular,adding manny would be very sweet. manny hitting behind arod would make arod even better. no tandem in baseball would be as dangerous.
the trick with manny is to keep next year’s salary always dangling ahead of him. maybe a 30 million one year contract that renews each year after reaching certain performance levels would be an effective way to go with manny.
Rob NY:
“But Mel he couldn’t use those character witnesses to prove action in conformity with past actions! Stupid Rule 404 and its ban on propensity evidence.”
Hey, go easy on the civilians
(Besides, let’s assume it’s a criminal case and thus it’s evidence of modus operandi).
Hey, hey! I watch enough L&O to know what’s going on.
randy l,
Agreed. IF Manny were to be a Yankee, he’d magically transform from a fill-in-the-blank to OUR future hall of famer.
randy:
True, it’s hard to argue with Manny’s numbers but it’s equally hard to argue against Manny’s toxic effect, especially on a team as straight-laced and foursquare as the Yankees are these days. It’s like putting a guy with a screaming Stratocaster into the choir for the Ave Maria. Might sound interesting once or twice, but it’s not likely to work over the long haul.
Don’t understand the desire to add Cameron and his $10 million contract-that money can be better spent. He’s an aging CF with a .330 OBP last 5 years. Give Gardner a shot-if nothing he gives you defense and speed. If it doesn’t work out, you can fill the gap at the trading deadline.
I don’t care either way if Manny is a Yankee but Manny’s quirkiness amuses me so for entertainment value he would be fun in NY. Baseball talent no withstanding. All the craziness is white noise and once he steps on the field, he’s one of the most talented hitters in the game.
Wouldn’t CC’s “great teammate” and “great clubhouse presence” counteract anything Manny could infect the team with?
Fans who think they really know what goes on in a clubhouse or try to babysit the players are funny. Most have dealt with worse than Manny before and will deal with worse than Manny again sometime in their lives.
Keeping Manny happy is easy- high expectations on the field and low expectations off it. Pay him and expect him to be at the stadium 2 hours prior to game time. Fact of life is there are different rules for different players.
The youth movement is stll alive. The Yankees plan on giving a 23 year old Joba a spot in the rotation, the bullpen will have Coke and Melancon in it. Jackson should be ready by ’10 (god willing), and Hughes and Aceves should get some spot starts this year.
The kids in the minors (Montero, Romaine, Laird, et al.) are still 2-3 years away.
sign manny and i resign. so do alot of other people.
randy l :
i do not think cashman or anyone else knew for sure about anything.
you never know as a gm,player,fan so i doubt cashman thought he knew for sure.
he just didn,t wan’t tp pay the big dollars & lose prospects when he waited & just used money.
with trading for players there is no fall back option & it takes years to rebuild a farm system but now if cc,burnett & these other free agents do not pan out we have a fall back option,our kids that we kept.hughes,kennedy,acevez,ajax,coke,brackmam,melancon,betances,montero,romine & dozens more,mostly pitchers.
it was an excellant job by cashman & you will see it pay off when these kids come up starting with melancon.
then you will see the difference.
not all will pan out but if 25 % of them do we are in great shape.
going forward we should have a catcher/first baseman/dh with montero,an outfielder in ajax,a closer with melancon & many more.
i would of liked to keep tabata,olendorf,karsens & the other player involved in the nady,marte trade but it is what it is & we got a cheap outfielder and marte.
nady will probably be gone after 09 so i would not have done that trade because we could of gotten marte as a free agent i believe & nady is a boras client & will want 15 million a year.
i would of used tabata & the others combined with others to get a cf,fb,pitching but that is just me.
after their run in the 90′s they traded ou prospects away for aging veterans wich increased payroll & left us with nothing if it didn’t work.it is totally different this time.
we have gotten more payroll concious wich is a start.
damon,matsui,nady off the books after 09,mo for 2 more years,posada for 3,jeter up after 2010,swisher not too long,molina,etc…..
we need to keep drafting & developing at least a decent percentage of players so we can lower payroll & compete.
we have to get more bang for our buck.
it is done in the nfl & by many mlb teams.
Another thought for those clamoring for a Manny or Teixeira. Consider those title winning teams of the late 90′s. Any of those lineups as strong as what the team as currently comprised can send out??? This is a team that stands to send up a lower third of Cano, Swisher and Cameron (I know he’s not here yet, but he likely will be).
Those teams had no Arod and had a couple more easier outs than this group. This team needs to add Pettitte and Cameron and its good to go to me.
If Manny gets a “Giradi cut” and says ” I have always wanted to be a Yankee” and “Youk is a baby” and “I will hit better then Arod this year” 500 times I will forgive and forget.
Fredo,
You are saying that the winning teams of the late 90′s did not have a strong lineup. Completely agree with that but I feel like the level of offense and pitching is better now. And who would not want to have a better offense if they could? Of course you would.
“I think Cashman’s actions this offseason more or less represent him admitting he was wrong in his approach last year and was prepared to remedy it this time around.”
fredo corleone-
we are in rare agreement on that. as cashman gets experience in the game he does appear to be learning. i’m poking fun at cashman by saying that because i tend to look at him as a baseball light weight who is the perfect example of the old peter principle.
ironically, i think that while cashman still has the young players he bet the farm on last year ( and the year before), i think he’s given up prematurely on some parts of the plan.
melky could still be a good player. at the least, a solid fourth outfielder who could play all three outfield position on the yankees is valuable. the yankees have come down on him prematurely. for example, did youkillis play regularly with the red sox at melky’s age? the yankees need some patience with melky. you don’t think austin jackson would be better with competing with melky in 2010 than being given the center field job?
and i think hughes , with a solid spring at triple a, could be ready finally to contribute as a 5th starter. with all the money being thrown around wang needs some love too. don’t be surprised if he doesn’t develop even more pent up anger towards the yankees if they don’t sign him to a long term contract soon.
Lupica along with the rest of Yankee Haters International would prefer that the Yankees ineptly spend another $240M on payroll, again miss the play-offs then to decrease it by a substantial margin sign better players to again become competitive.
Murphy: I thought it was clear enough from my post, but I definitely do NOT think the appropriate way for the Yankees would be to “treat him with kid gloves and overlook his bad behavior.” More like the opposite.
Ah yes Murphydog I can see the argument now: Identity is in issue because we are trying to determine whether we will get Manny the Secretary Slayer or Many the Pitcher Pounder. Evidence of his horrendous conduct in Boston goes to proving that identity.
My biggest baseball argument against Manny is that he would force Damon into CF most days and if you remember him losing that game in Toronto, you don’t want him there. The other option is sitting Matsui outright in exchange for Manny at DH. Well that’s no good because Matsui can still mash. Trade one of our LF you say? Matsui is as untradeable as Mike Lowell and Damon is always ‘tweaked’ and owed 13m.
CB has said it and I agree: the way you upgrade this team is CF, or 1b if Swish can play center.
BD –
“Cancer or not, Manny was a key part of two world series wins during his 7+ years in Boston.”
Make that a key part to three world series. Ortiz thinks Boston could have won last year with him, and he may be right, so the dreadlocked diva has ‘cost’ his team almost as many series as he’s helped them win.
“They were clearly a much better team with him than they were without him.”
And if he’s acting up, which he often does, NY would have to deal with the consequences of him, his antics, his salary on the books, but without his best effort.
Not a chance worth taking especially for a guy who’d be so expensive but can’t play defense.
For those who keep suggesting a trade of Matsui just so the Yankees can get Manny, you need a dose of reality. No team will help the Yankees by taking on Matsui’s salary. The Yankees will have to pay 80%+ of his salary just to trade him for a nothing prospect. Add that to what Manny will cost and you have no deal. Sorry to inform you all, but paying $30mill+ for what is essentially a DH is asinine. It’s quite apparent that some individuals still believe that a beer league softball offense is the way to go. Pitching is the path to success and thankfully the Yankees have decided to go that route.
Re: Dunn
There is a reason why teams like the Cubs and Phillies prefer guys like Ibanez and Bradley/Abreu (two old men and a malcontent) over Dunn. There is no bargain waiting to be siezed by acquiring him.
The thing that separates the late 90s Yankees lineup with the current one is OBP. Power wise they are very similar.
Manny Ramirez never cared for New England or Boston and made that plain after saying he missed Cleveland and his friends there during his 2nd season with the R Sox.
He was contract driven and made the best of it until his antics became a problem.
The R Sox ownership should have addressed things as far back as 2003 but there was no way they were going to be able to move his contract and were boxed in with his protection for Ortiz.
It would be up to Scott Boras to sell him on the difference of playing for the yankees before ever signing his name to a contract. He got a little taste of Yankee methods playing under Joe Torre last year. It’s more up to Boras than it is up to the Yankees.
“It’s like putting a guy with a screaming Stratocaster into the choir for the Ave Maria.”
… but what if it’s clapton playing the ‘screaming Stratocaster” ?
i’m hoping that when it get’s late in the winter and manny still doesn’t have the long term contract he wants that the yankees can come up woth something short term and creative that works for manny and tha yankees.
it wold be pure theatre watching manny and arod hitting back to back. red sox nation would go into cardiac arrest just thinking about it. that alone make it worth doing.
I dunno, I’d think a strong lineup has a better chance of winning than a weak lineup. That’s just me.
I prefer Tex to Manny because of his age.
Because of his age, Tex is unlikely to be in the Yankee plans (oxymoronic, huh?).
I prefer winning to losing.
We’ll make it work even if we get neither.
sign pettitte & call it a winter.play gardner/melky & maybe ajax is ready at the end of the season.
?
??
Woooooo. look at my handle. I got lots of stuff. LOL. LOL.
People are tabulating the number wins someone brings with their bats or gloves… does anyone keep stats on how many runs or games ‘being Manny’ has cost his teams over the years? It’d be interesting see the net +/- balances out.
The ensuing debates would be between these schools of thought:
Let’s say his season totals were his bat brings 9 wins for his team and his defense/antics is good for 4 wins for the opponents.
One side will say the net is +5 wins so it’s a positive.
Another side will say all that matters is the -4 wins he gave the opponets, because if you add the wins that’s what the team should have.
Yet another side would be that 9+4=13 because those were instances he should have been helping the team INSTEAD of hurting them, not sitting neutrally on the bench. Give him that it the speculative difference (who really knows what would have happened if he wasn’t thinking of a ham sandwich on that fly ball) would be actually at least -4 and as much as -8, but certainly not the +5.
I’d go with the third argument. The high end is what the team should be expecting for 20+ million bucks, so compare to what he really should be doing instead of screwing around.
It’s all stat-head semantics to me though. In my world they have to play the game on the field.
If Texeria goes elsewhere, then Many becomes even more important ….Him in the lineup makes the Yanks a very dangerous team…..But the CF issue is an issue…So that would leave a rotation of lf /dh for Manny & Matsui…..Maybe CB can do the numbers and see if the defensive fall off & the offensive increase bares out……Randy I, good to see you back…..What’s your take on the pitching acquisitions ???? Great promise though…
“we need to keep drafting & developing at least a decent percentage of players so we can lower payroll & compete.”
can’t argue with that, but have we seen a slow, gradual development with young players that seasons them properly? that’s what i see as missing with the yankee development plan. even with joba the development plan has been sketchy at best. the yankees need to be more patient with young players and most of the time bring them up at a later age. bringing a prospect up too soon is more harmful than bringing them up too late.
the twins develop young players very differently than the yankees bringing up players after longer minor league experience and get much better results.
“CB has said it and I agree: the way you upgrade this team is CF, or 1b if Swish can play center.”
I would agree, but also add the bench and protection for Arod in the line-up. So the trick is, one player filling 2 needs.
“For those who keep suggesting a trade of Matsui just so the Yankees can get Manny, you need a dose of reality. No team will help the Yankees by taking on Matsui’s salary.”
First I am not advocating a Matsui trade. But I would think the teams interested in Giambi would have to consider a Matsui trade. A’s maybe. And yes salary will be an issue. So difficult but not immpossable.
No to Manny. Just no. For all the reasons cited by murphydog. As far him being amusing, I agree to a point, and just so long as it is watching his antics from afar. I suspect that a daily diet of Manny being Manny would cause a lot of hearburn.
The Yankees, with th exception of filling that last spot in the rotation, could be done. Or they could have a couple more significant moves up their sleeves. If they’re done (including the Cameron deal), I think they go into the season much improved over last season strictly due to the pitching, and we’ll see about the offense. It should be sufficient. If not, adjustments will be made during the season.
Cameron is an okay acquisition, his advanced age notwithstanding, because it is a one-season move. I hope that Jackson stays in AAA all season, with a September call-up only. No need to rush guys.
I would still love the Yankees to get Tex, but I don’t expect it at all. I hope the Angels are truly all-in and that Tex is the guy they’re saying he is “the prototypical Scott Boras client” who will go where the best deal (most money) is and that the most money is not in Boston. CC ended up where the money was (but he didn’t have any real offers from his location-of-choice teams), but Tex may not because he has offers from his preferred east coast teams.
Still a lot of time to go before spring training. Should be very interesting.
I cannot imagine the Yankees with Manny, nor does it make any sense because of Matsui’s status as outlined by Ty and Fredo. Tex on the other hand is a perfect fit offensively, defensively and chronologically.
Signing Tex crowds the OF with Swisher, Damon, Melky, Gradner and Nady… Swisher has the most trade value but there’d be a market for Nady too.
Tex is eight years younger than Giambi. Swisher is seven years younger than Abreu. AJ is seven years younger than Mussina. CC is four years younger than Pavano.
I’d say that’s consistent with trying to get younger.
“the twins develop young players very differently than the yankees bringing up players after longer minor league experience and get much better results.”
All depends on the players involved I think.
Joe Mauer was in the bigs at the age of 21 and was their starting catcher at the age of 22.
Justin Morneau was in the bigs at the age of 22 and was their starting 1B at the age of 24.
Matt Garza came to the bigs at the age of 22 struggled for 2 years and then was traded after they got frustrated with him. I think they’d like him back right now.
Francisco Liriano had a cup of coffee at the age of 21 and was a starter at the age of 22 and then got hurt and needed Tommy John surgery.
I think it’s easy to say the Twins give their players longer minor league experience but the four examples above are all players who were brought to the bigs pretty early on in their careers.
Robinson Cano and Chien Ming Wang were 22 and 25 respectively before being brought to the bigs.
randy l
every team rushes players.
liriano,etc….
when you are in AAA and you are lights out you have to be brought up if you have 3 pitches as long as they don’t get abused.
a tast in the majors can be a good thing to evaluate a player & see what he is made of.
kennedy’s attittude,ego or whatever you wan’t to call it can be a good thing????
when is enough enough???
you can’t tell even if we add manny,dunn,cameron,tex or whoever.
at least we kept our prospects.i believe a lot of them will force their way into the lineup.
Tarheelyank,
Matsui is a perrenial .300/20+homers/100rbi guy. His contract is up after 2009 allowing a large degree of flexibility for the Yankees. As it is, paying $13mill for a DH (Matsui) is obscene. Yet, people are advocating paying $20mill+ for a position that should be used to rest guys on the team but still keep their bats in the lineup. After the acquisitions of CC and AJ, do you think that a smallmarket tightwad team like the A’s are going to want to take on $13mill or a large portion for a DH thereby helping the Yankees become more dangerous than they are? I think not. Secondly, why would Matsui, who has a full NTC, even agree to go to a team that probaly won’t make the postseason when he can play in a new YS supported by a rotation that dreams are made of?
bodhisattva
December 14th, 2008 at 9:07 am
There is no necessity for Mike Cameron.
“““““`
totally agree! but they may be trying to banish Melky from the organization. it could be inevitable.
“
As the lineup stands today, there is no reason to pitch to PayRod. I don’t see how they wouldn’t make a solid attempt at getting one of these guys. personally, i don’t think either is a good fit for this team.
Not very interested in what Torre thinks of our team.
It would be nice for Arod to have some protection but Manny? I’m not sure, very very tempting but it could turn into a huge disaster too. What to do what to do I don’t know.
pat m-
i have a seasonal business that wraps up right about now, so i get to annoy some people on the blog more now.
i agree totally about the great promise. i’m excited about sabathia and burnett, but i am cautious about burnett because he’s just so erratic. i worry about him getting buried by the pressure if he goes into a three month funk like he did last year. will he be able to block out booing fans and an always questioning press while in a similar three month slump and then be the guy who was lights out the last three months?
experienced guys like us ( nice way of saying old) know that playing for the yankees is different than playing for anyone else. i’m not sure if burnett, because of the inconsistency, is going to fit in well. one trait most successful yankees have is that they don’t get too high or too low. being as inconsistent as burnett is a problem. it would take someone very strong mentally to not let the resulting new york pressure affect them when they slump badly. reggie did it. some players can. hopefully burnett can, but we won’t know until we see things play out. the best scenario is that he gets off to a good start and doesn’t have to deal with the fans and the press turning on him.
as an aside , i think this year may be the year hughes is finally ready to begin contributing. he was just too young before for the pressure placed on him. now that he’s experienced some failure, i think we might see a different hughes and more the one you saw in his early days.
The Yankees simply haven’t had many minor league prospects in their organization in recent years who were good enough to play in the majors due to poor drafting and ignoring the drafts for years.
I think that’s why what they do with their prospects is placed under a microscope.
In September Buster Olney had an article detailing just how poor the Yankees minor leagues have been when in comparison to the other major league teams.
They’ve pretty much been dead last in drafting and developing both pitchers and hitters. It wasn’t until after 2005 that the organization shifted it’s focus and started drafting good players again.
I think it’s too early to say how good or bad the organization is at drafting and developing players until we see how the picks they’ve been drafting from 2006 and on turn out.
Here’s a link to Buster’s Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....id=3589629
I should be more accustomed to NY reporters and a lot of the other talking heads around the county to rail away at the Yankees decision to spend money on two #1 starters. People cry that Cashman is abandoning his youth movement and just buying players, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you actually listen (read) what Cashman has spoke about all year and all last year was having roster flexibility. Going into 2008 he didn’t have that. Hughes and Kennedy definitely could have used a little more time in the minors to work on secondary pitches and whatever other issues they had. Instead, they were penciled in as #3 and #5 starters.
With the addition of Sabathia and Burnett, Cashman gives himself the flexibility to use some of those pitchers without having to rush them. Think about some of the other young pitchers, like McAllister, Betances, Brackman, Horne, De la Rosa, etc. who don’t have to be rushed because now there are 3 pitchers that can throw 200 innings.
Additionally, if the Yankees add Cameron, they don’t have to rush and slow down AJax’s development. The fact that they have these arms in the fold now and if Andy comes back or Sheets is signed they can use some of their young arms to restock their position players, again getting younger, by trades. There is no more valuable commodity in baseball than young pitching. The Yankees have this asset in spades.
I only saw one or two people mention it, but what happened after the Red Sox missed the playoffs in 2006? They went out and spent a boatload of cash while supplementing those transactions with some of their homegrown talent. This is the same track that Cashman is attempting to take.
I think the two signings were great not only from the standpoint that the Yankees get two #1′s but also because it still allows Cashman to infuse the roster with the Yankees young talent or use the young talent in trades without having to rush them.
randy and fredo,
I agree that Cashman is now correcting mistakes that he made last off season. I’ve generally felt that this is a strength of his – he’s seems to me at least to be willing to admit mistakes and try to change tactics.
That said I think something that’s being unappreciated a bit is the alternative choices he had to fix the lousy pitching staff over the past few years.
Simply put – what even decent – never mind good – free agent pitchers have been available over the past 3 years?
The supply of pitchers making it to the market completely dried up. There was no one worth signing.
So the alternative was to make trades or to grow your own. Now the thing is those two strategies are most often diametrically opposed. Any trade for a pitcher requires young pitchers as trade bait.
Of course this was the entire dilemma with Santana last off season.
Looking back at the last two years many people are finding the approach from last year to this year as being completely inconsistent. That the much talked about youth movement of last season is now done and a completely new approach is being taken.
I don’t think that opposition is as stark as people are thinking.
I do think they decided on a long term strategy last off season to hold on to their prospects and take the risk of signing CC this off season. That was the decision. That was the strategy that would allow them to get an ace while still continuing to build through youth.
If they had traded Hughes and Kennedy last off season then that would have been a serious dent in the youth movement – not only because you lose those two players but you are clearly moving in a different direction.
Was all of this done perfectly? Not at all. But the fundamental decision was whether to trade youth for Santana to maximize the chances of winning in 2008 or to take a big risk in 2008 with the young pitchers and take the additional risk of trying to sign CC in 2009.
I think that and bringing back Alex were the big decisions that were going to impact the direction of the franchise for years to come.
I’m very leery about this AJ Burnett signing so this is a whole different issue.
I think the Burnett signing is the one that really speaks to Cashman feeling that he made a mistake last year much more than the CC one.
At the same time I think both Hughes and Kennedy aren’t ready and in many ways have taken a step back from where they were last year.
But this year had a relatively deep supply of pitching talent on the market. So this year they have the option of taking risks with money instead of risks on young talent that might not be ready.
I think they’ve wanted to become a pitching first team for a while and were willing to use different mechanisms to do so.
There just hasn’t been the kind of talent on the market that would allow them to steadily accumulate their bank of young talent while still improving the big club.
I think they’ve been targetting this off season for a long time because this was the winter that talent was coming onto the market and they’d have a lot of money for older veterans coming off their books.
“when you are in AAA and you are lights out you have to be brought up if you have 3 pitches as long as they don’t get abused.”
i couldn’t disagree more if you mean that the player be permanently brought up. the twins don’t do this. they would never count on young pitchers the way the yankees counted on hughes and kennedy. they bring pitchers up to plug a temporary hole and for the pitcher to get a taste of the majors. then they send them back down to get more triple a experience after getting that taste of the majors.
look at the average age of the twins young starts last year. they are much older than the yankees young starters. that’s by design. even liriano last year was kept down long after he was lights out at triple a. that was partly because they were keeping his mlb meter from ticking away ,but it’s was also in keeping with their belief in developing players slowly but consistently.
this whole idea “that he doesn’t have anything else to learn at triple a ” is silly with really young players. look at buchholz and hughes as perfect examples. they both would have been well served with longer seasoning at triple a.
Manny being Manny and ‘baseball savant’ is all cute and well and good, but being a lovable goofball who tears the cover off the baseball is just one side of it; quitting on your team and assaulting an over-60 clubhouse employee isn’t so cute. But did I mention how he hits?
mel writes: “The NL would be a great place for Igawa, although I think that the NL West would be a better division for him.”
You’ve got him going in the right direction but not far enough.
hi Randy l. I was shocked, shocked, to see that you took a shot at Cashman yesterday. But today I wasn’t shocked at all; whenever anyone mentions Casey Stengal, the first thing I think of is how bad Cashman is too. Grrr, that Cashman!
But you sidestepped my question about the free market. Both Livan and AJ Burnett were free agents, available to any team. Of course you can say that Burnett only got his deal because Cashman is a bad GM who shuns real baseball people around him and doesn’t have the self-confidence to listen to wiser voices – that’s understood. But still, the Braves went after him too. So, is Livan going to get similar offers?
http://bleacherreport.com/arti.....stems-1-14
the yankees farm system is ranked 10th & boston is 11th
for what it is worth.
i think the yankees were ranked 5th before the nady & marte trade,not sure 100 5.
leading the way is jackson,montero,melancon,kennedy,betances,Zach McAllister.
not sure 100 percent(correction)
“even liriano last year was kept down long after he was lights out at triple a.”
Randy,
Liriano was in the bigs permanently at the age of 21. The only reason why he didn’t stick was because he needed TJ surgery.
And is 17 points too much to give in an NFL game?
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/.....rsuin.html
Here it is …. Yankees to go after Manny – mentions looking to trade Nady possibly (BAD IDEA)
I’m fine with the Manny idea, but don’t trade Nady too
Don’t make sense to trade Nady. I know he’s easier to trade but Matsui is the one that needs to be traded if you’re going to get Manny.
What, are they going to put Manny in RF then. That’s stupid.
IMO going 5 years on Burnett was illogical on 3 fronts.
1) he’s been on the DL 9 times in his career.The chances of him having 5 injury free seasons through his mid to late 30′s is slim.
2)The $16mil would have been better spent on the best 28 year old hitter to reach the free agent market in years. Teixeira would have solved the #3 spot in the lineup perfectly and provided Gold Glove defense.
3)The Yankees,especially under Cashman’s guidance the last 3 years, have concentrated almost exclusively on drafting pitchers. If you are going to draft pitchers almost exclusively, you need to provide position players to the roster via free agency or trades.That’s all the more reason that Teixeira made more sense than Burnett.
ANSKY – Your entire argument is both baseless and incoherent. What is the factual basis for your assertion that Manny’s defense + antics win 4 games/season for his team’s opponents?
According to your logic, Manny only helped the RS win one WS title: They won two, but his “antic” of getting himself traded to the Dodgers cost them another in 2008, so we should subtract that one from the two they actually won. That makes sense (hint: not really).
I guess in your mind, if the Yankees DON’T sign Manny, that’s negative-1 WS title for the Yankees and their all-time total drops to 25.
clear money so they trade Nady who will earn 5-6 million?, while manny will earn 20+ million? doesnt make much sense
Bru-
Those rankings of the NYY farm system, were just in the AL.
JoeT-
Don’t give much credence to everything George King writes.
Matsui has a NTC, and can only be counted on as a DH, if that.-have heard no reports as to how well he is progressing after knee surgery. My bet is that Manny stays in LA, either with the Angels if they don’t sign Tex, or the Dodgers.
I’m just wondering if those that want to sign the Mindless One realize he’s 37 years old. He’s not looking for a 1 or 2 year deal. By age 39 he wont even have to fake his injuries.
what happened to the rick ankiel rumors
raymagnetic :
that had too do with money.
he did or filed a grievance.
if a team nneds pitching & a player is pitching well they are going to call you up unless innings,injury are a concern.
joba came up & it turned out to bee the right thing.he can at least learn in the biggs.
if you have a deep rotation then it might be different.
the pitcher will let you know when he is ready by his performance.
he was or did file.
I don’t believe at all that the Yanks are going after Manny or Tex. If they had ANY thoughts of trying to get Tex they wouldn’t be very close to getting Cameron. It is 1 or the other. Cash said at the beginning of the off season that they wouldn’t sign both top free agents. I think they are nuts if they don’t at least make an offer for Tex. They have soo much money coming off the payroll next year and this decision should be about the next 6-7 years not next year. If money is the reason. Then make the contract so he doesn’t make so much $ next year. Or don’t trade for Cameron and don’t sign Pettitte…That is $20m right there. They can get a cheaper pitching option for the rotation and play Gardner in CF. I would rather go that route then not get Tex.
“o that would leave a rotation of lf /dh for Manny & Matsui…..Maybe CB can do the numbers and see if the defensive fall off & the offensive increase bares out……”
Pat M.
Figuring out what Manny could be worth in terms of runs produced and runs saved/allowed on defense is very tough, IMO. Perhaps the toughest veteran player in the game to figure out.
I’ve seen plenty of projections for manny but in general I don’t think they are adequately accounting for the vast range of potential performances one could see from Manny.
Case in point – who is Manny at this stage in this career? The guy who played for the Sox and was mailing in his effort and putting up good numbers but not the great ones he has in the past or the guy who went to LA and played baseball on a level few people in history could ever come close to?
Projecting an average or expected outcome for Manny is really tough because what you worry about the most is the range of what he could produce. And that’s very wide.
The issue that makes life very tough to figure out what manny is worth is figuring out his defense.
He is not a good defensive player. That’s for certain. But it’s real important to figure out whether he’s kind of bad, terrible, or amongst the worst defenders we’ve seen in recent history – which is what a lot of the statistics suggest.
For quirky reasons Fenway park’s left field messes up nearly all of the defensive statistics systems. So in the past Manny has put up monstrously bad defensive numbers. At least some of that has to do with the measurements just not working in Fenway.
Case in point – last season when he was with boston defensively manny was on pace to be one of the worst outfielders in baseball – close to patt burrell territory.
With the dodgers he was slightly below league average.
What makes manny so difficult to project is that it’s hard to gauge how motivated he will be – and the motivation looks to have potentially a much bigger effect on his defense than his offense.
If Manny is motivated I could see him being 60-70 runs better than a replacment level left fielder offensively. He could in fact be 80 runs better in a huge year (left field has such high average rates of production it’s very hard to start getting 70-80 runs better).
60 runs at the plate is around 6 wins. But then the question is what’s his defense going to be. If he’s really bad – he’ll be -20 or so in left field. The defense really hurts his value if that’s the case. It turns him from a +6 win offensive player to a +4 win overall player.
Then the real difficulty for the yankees is where would he play.
Becuase Damon is such a good defensive LF (he’s really very good out there) he looks to be around +1-2 offensively and maybe +1.5 defensively.
So replacing Manny for Damon isn’t going to help much if Manny plays bad defense.
Now there’s simply no way you can move Damon to CF and play manny in LF. That would be the majors worst defensive OF by far.
Can you get rid of Nady and play manny if RF? I can’t see that – he’d be awful in RF.
I also don’t see that much benefit of getting rid of Matsui at DH and playing Manny. Manny will clearly hit better – he could be much better. But the money issue will be enormous as you’ll have to eat all of matsui’s contract to trade him and then you take on the additional risk of manny blowing up.
It’s a tough fit. If we knew Manny would be the player he was with the dodgers – both defensively and offensively there are clear benefits.
Given the uncertainty however I don’t see how he fits in ways which make one confident that the team will benefit from him being on it vs. the risk he carries.
Again – this all gets back to the problem in CF. Damon can’t play there and as long as Gardner is penciled in there he remains the guy you have to get rid of.
You know what I think of Manny as a player.
You look through baseball history – the guys with really special bats are guys who can put up the following lines: .300 BA/ .400 OBP/ .600 slug %.
That is unreal, truly elite production.
I think Manny has done that 6-7 times in his career. He is a monster talent with the bat.
I’m just not sure of the fit given the yankees current roster.
“Brewers asked for Phil Coke, Jose Veras and Mark Melancon and quickly were told no.”
Good job Cash. As for Manny no, no , no , no , no…And I’m Dominican telling you this !
CB-
Phenomenal analysis, very well written. You really should have your own blog.
CB-
How about at least a guest blog appearance?
i hope this is true
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12.....144124.htm
CB,
I know we’ve had a heated exchange in the past and I acted inappropriately in regards to your post on Lowe vs. Burnett and Tex vs. Manny but I wholeheartedly agree with your most recent post on Manny. I don’t see where he fits given the financial risks and the long term prospects of finding a big bat to add to the middle of the order.
What do you think of trading for Prince Fielder next offseason as he enters arbitration raises that will makehim too expensive for the Brewers? Do you feel the Yankees have considered him over Manny, Tex or Holliday? Perhaps he can DH after Matsui’s contract expires.
I got one for you. Send Nady to the Reds with Kennedy, and McCalister for Joey Votto.
Davy
December 14th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I know this was discussed many times on the comments as well as Pete on his blog.
I still don’t understand both in business and on the field reasons why we are not going to be going strong for Mark Teixeira. I agree with the fact that the payroll is definitely going to be higher than last year’s with all the new signings, raises for Wang/Nady etc.. and the addition of Tex. Even then, I don’t think we are past the 220mm mark which is not that much more than last season. Everyone talks about the new stadium as a cash revenue which can justify the need to be spending more this season than last.
Secondly, it may not be the easiest to move Matsui or Damon and say 75% of their salary but I’m sure something can be done. I looked at the 2009/2010 free agents and don’t really see anyone coming off the books except Holliday (correct me if I am wrong). This means that we are skimping on 20mm for 1 year (at least 28mm from matsui and damon are gone for next year), for a once every two year kind of player. And this time, it actually fits a large need.
Also, if the payroll for this year is the big problem, I’m sure they can structure Tex’s contract so that the money is heavily loaded in Year 2 through 4 which should be his best years anyway. You can argue with me that this is not practical but this is a worse case scenario in terms of affordability.
Getting Tex not only fills a defensive need at 1B, it fills our 3rd spot in the lineup with a patient switch hitter. He also wants to be East. NY is close to Maryland, they will be in contention for years to come and he will just be another Boras client on the team. I don’t see him as the guy wanting all the attention on him like K-rod.
Please Pete, tell me why this doesn’t make sense if I am the Yankees? You stated in two of your blogs that there is no more money for Tex. Tex is bound to save at least 2 games with his defense and 3 games with his offense. Not to mention the players around him will get better looks (arod and jeter) and that should contribute to 2-3 games of wins. We can be a 100 game winning team with Tex.
——
Amen Davy, from our mouths to cash’s ears
Just say no to Manny.
I wonder how many people that bashed Manny while he was on the Sox are the same ones who want Manny now. He is a headcase (and yea, I know we’ve already got some on the roster) but Manny is a unique one.
He would probably do wonders protecting Arod, but c’mon, he is not what this team needs. Besides, the only way to get him here would be to offer a way over the top contract which would be better spent on Teixeira anyways. Let’s be content with the massive pitching upgrades and minor offensive moves.
No to the headaches. No to the antics. No to the selfish, greedy, get my own way attitude. No to Manny.
“If they pass on Teixeira, the Yankees will try and bolster a sagging lineup with Ramirez… And to clear some money, they might entertain offers for outfielder Xavier Nady, who made $3.35 million last year, is arbitration eligible and a free agent after the 2009 season.”
pursue Manny, don’t trade Nady
It seems that getting Manny still is a possibility.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/.....rsuin.html
One thing that was talked about last year, but not this year is whether Matsui or Damon can learn to play 1B.
How does that fit into all these permutaitons if Manny is on Yanks? I reconize that Swisher will be better than both, but for one year, some kind of juggling is required, including Swisher to bench, if Manny is on Yanks. It would not be an issues from next year as the contracts of both Matsui and Damon expire, though I see Damon possibly coming back as LF on a short contract.
It’s a George King article which means it’s 30 % true.
Brandon (SHOW SHEETS THE MONEEEEEY !, CC & AJ are Yankees!)…”Don’t trade Robi !”
December 14th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
It’s a George King article which means it’s 30 % true.
————————————————————
His byline (George King III) is worth 30%?
“pursue Manny, don’t trade Nady”
He’s a FA after this season and chances are he is what he is, .270/ under .340 OBP % a good slugger but the price for a HR/SO guy is not worth it. As for Manny if you value the future of what the Yankees are trying to build, which is a no nonsense group a group of bluechippers that don’t play w/ lack of effort then you wouldn’t want this. Manny is a 50/50 on one hand he makes them a powerful lineup on the other he’s a ticking time bomb that will bring his teammates and coachs down.
“I got one for you. Send Nady to the Reds with Kennedy, and McCalister for Joey Votto.”
You may have something here. Ofcourse I’d stretch it and get Bailey too say add Jose Veras.
There’s no debating Manny’s hitting abilities. The big question is how much longer can he maintain it? He turns 37 in May. Unless it’s for A Rod money, he probably wouldnt even consider a 2 year deal.
Yes, he’s helped his team win 2 World Series. On the other hand,his team did not win the World Series in his other 14 seasons.
I was pro-Manny up until recently when I realized that if the Dodgers lose him, they have more incentive to keep Matt Kemp.
Trading Cano+ for Kemp and signing Furcal for 2b is a must move in my eyes unless the Yankees have a really innovative plan for leadoff after 2009 when Damon’s gone.
I still don’t see one that satisfies me.
As far as our search for a big bat, I’m fine with passing on Manny in the short term because I’m starting to feel like trading for Prince Fielder next offseason and sticking him at DH in 2010 makes more long term sense both logistically and financially.
I’m actually starting to lean towards ….Oh god
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....yerId=4808
“One thing that was talked about last year, but not this year is whether Matsui or Damon can learn to play 1B.”
I’ve thought about this.
The optimal way to improve the offense would be if by some sort of magic matsui could play a so so defensive 1b.
At the end of last season Matsui volunteered to play 1b though I don’t think he’s ever played there before.
I Matsui could play 1b a wealth of new opportunities opens up for the team.
They trade Nady who would be attractive given his salary. Then they could move Swisher to RF and play Matsui at 1b.
What that does is that it clears up the DH spot.
Then the team could definitely go out and sign Manny or at least Adam Dunn or even Bobby Abreu and play them at the DH spot.
That would be a strong upgrade though that would still leave Gardner in CF.
This all said this is not going to happen. Cash has already said he wasnts a real 1b and I don’t know if Matsui’s kneed would tolerate standing for that long during a game out on the field.
It’s great in theory but very unlikely.
What I haven’t seen anyone mention is that the Burnett signing also plays as focusing the attention of the baseball world on the Yankees again. That’s important because the Yankees team is the tail that wags the dog, the Network. Now the generator of the baseball boom is back. The Evil Empire is looming once more, RSN is off the front pages. Cameron is coming here mostly to make CC at ease. Signing Manny is not such a bad idea. Short term contract, protects A Rod and most importantly turns the focus of the piranhas away from A Rod, CC and Burnett to the walking headline. Besides I think the Bleacher Creatures would adopt Manny instantly. I find that I have a soft spot for the “lovable idjit” myself.
signing manny would be nuts.
we have to get payroll under control until we figure out what the economy will do.
we are in a tough spot because we made bad moves for years.
pitching we needed so bite the bullet.the rest of the league makes do with their payroll & it is time we do.
suck it up.we have to play small ball.
this is why cano for kemp would of been a good idea.
cano stinks on the bases with 2 sb,kemp had 35,is younger,cheaper.
then we get a 2nd baseman.
damon,matsui,nady are off the books after 09.
sign pettitte & we will be fine.
195 million just doesn’t buy what it used to.oh wait,tampa bay has a 70 million dollar payroll,boston has around a 130 million dollar one.
around 2.5 million dollars a win is sickening.
“this is why cano for kemp would of been a good idea.
cano stinks on the bases with 2 sb,kemp had 35,is younger,cheaper.
then we get a 2nd baseman.”
He’s staying ! Live w/ it !
Boras promised Manny $25M/year over 4 years. Interesting to see what he ends up getting after not answering the Dodgers 2 year $47M offer.
I wouldn’t mind Dunn. Heck, bat him 5th and Swisher 6th. If nothing else, the opposing teams pitcher would throw about 10 pitches between them.
That said, where would you play him, 1B with Swisher in RF?
Other teams don’t have the 4.3 billion Yes Network to feed and maintain. Think about it, that’s 4.3 billion run on baseball and hype. Would people pay some outrageous sum to go see Manny at Yankee Stadium once the press generates all those headlines about him? It’s like running to see a car crash.
There is a reason that Dunn is not generating interest. All the managers are not stupid. He’s a walking pylon, (that’s a pun, get it)175 SO and 40 HR, paper power – looks good on paper.
I’m sure this has been pointed out before, but if Matsui and Damon disappear next year, so does their production. You know, Damon, one of our only reliable hitters last season, and Matsui, one of our most sorely-missed hitters last year? You can spend on another bat this season, but they’re still going to have to be replaced after they’re gone.
Brandon,
Trading Cano for Kemp and signing Furcal for 2b makes more sense than anything I’ve seen in regards to addressing the leadoff situation after Damon’s gone.
If we get Cameron for CF our outfield defense would be Kemp in LF, Cameron in CF and Nady in RF (with Gardner as the 4th OF).
That to me looks like one of the better defensive configurations of any outfield in baseball.
Then the Yankees can take the best offer for Damon or Matsui. Since Damon is more valuable and can lead off for most teams in baseball, I would think he’d be the one to go which would make Furcal the leadoff hitter.
Matsui would remain the DH for one more year and then the Yankees can trade for Prince Fielder in the 2009 offseason and stick him at DH.
In 2010, the outfield would be Kemp in LF, Jackson in CF and Nady in RF. If Jackson isn’t ready to play CF then Posada or Prince Fielder moves to 1b, Swisher to LF and Kemp to CF.
The versatility of Kemp (LF or CF), Swisher (1b or LF), Posada (C or 1b) and Prince Fielder (DH or 1b) makes this possible.
I wouldn’t get too hung up on Cano vs. Furcal given the way a Cano+ for Kemp swap impacts the roster both short term and long term.
“December 14th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
It’s a George King article which means it’s 30 % true”
any truth relating to a George King article, is purely coincidental.
“Trading Cano for Kemp and signing Furcal for 2b makes more sense than anything I’ve seen in regards to addressing the leadoff situation after Damon’s gone.”
LOL it’s not gonna happen for both sides plus I’m going to add this Rafael Furcal to latin press released he is not looking to play 2B, he is looking for a SS gig somewhere. He’s been saying that since the Braves moved him.
And he’s terrible defensively.
“And he’s terrible defensively.”
Kemp in the OF yeh I know.
I meant Furcal but what the hey.
“Rafael Furcal to latin press released he is not looking to play 2B”
If he open heartedly embraced the idea of playing 2b then he would instantly lose leverage in negotations with a team who wants to sign him to play 2b. Furcal saying he won’t play 2b is the same as CC saying he prefers to play on the West Coast. If you pay Furcal shortstop money to play 2b he will take it. If the Yankees are targetting him as their leadoff hitter after or in place of Damon (which I hope they are) then they will get their man. Money talks. I also think there’s added value in signing Furcal because he can spot Jeter as shortstop. If there’s concern about Jeter’s diminishing range at short, Cano doesn’t really benefit the team in that regard because he’s not very versatile. Furcal can play 2b, shortstop, leadoff, steal bases and post a comparable OBP to Robinson Cano’s OBP.
“hi Randy l. I was shocked, shocked, to see that you took a shot at Cashman yesterday. But today I wasn’t shocked at all; whenever anyone mentions Casey Stengal, the first thing I think of is how bad Cashman is too. Grrr, that Cashman!”.
nick in sf-
admittantly my mind sometimes works in strange ways. i have no idea why that popped into my mind. maybe just because the stengel quote is so great-”“If we’re going to win the pennant, we’ve got to start thinking we’re not as smart as we think we are.”- casey stengel
i just think that’s something brian cashman should keep in mind at all times.
i would think you more than anyone with your finely tuned sense of humor would appreciate laughing sometime at one’s own theories. cashman is just too much of a true believer for my tastes. for whatever reason, his plan of the past few years was an easy one to see through.
the problem with burnett is that he wasn’t better for half a year than the pitcher you say won’t get much of an offer for the upcoming year. if you want to refute that, you can try, but it’s a fact. you, like many other yankee fans seem to be in denial that burnett’s first half happened last year.
i’m of course hoping as a yankee fan that we get the lights out aj burnett. i’m just going on record saying the deal makes me nervous because of his streakiness, and that i wouldn’t have made this deal.
If Furcal said he was open to playing 2B, wouldn’t that make him more attractive to teams? Wouldn’t that expand the universe of teams that would consider him?
Bo Knows,
Furcal isn’t ideal defensively for shorstop but he wants shortstop money. It’s an easy problem to solve though.
Since we need a leadoff hitter in the near future I say pay Furcal shortstop money to play a position where the throw is shorter and the degree of difficulty is lower than shortstop.
Gotta love Torre.
“If Furcal said he was open to playing 2B, wouldn’t that make him more attractive to teams? Wouldn’t that expand the universe of teams that would consider him?”
It would that’s why people think he’s stupid because he’s leaving alot of $$$ based on preference. He mmust really hate 2B.
the first thing I wake up to is, seeing a comment about trading Cano then sign Furcal to play 2B? wth. :evil;
I say keep Cano. Trade for Ichiro instead.
Converting someone to 1B, in most cases, is not as easy as it seems. Perhaps Matsui can learn to play the position well enough, perhaps not. Would he field the position better than Giambi? Probably. Better than Swisher? Probably not.
Even considering the .260′s career BA, Swisher would probably be good enough over there. No doubt having Tiexiera instead would be better, especially if the alternative were having him play in Boston.
Situations bounced around recently suggest an outside shot for Tiexiera becoming a Yankee would be if Pettitte doesn’t sign for a lower salary. Then you don’t make the Cameron trade and you go after Tiexiera with the Cameron + Pettitte money. Swisher (plus any number of combinations of players) could then be part of some trade package land an OF or even two. But if that doesn’t happen, Swisher ain’t a bad 1B so converting someone like Matsui (or Posada) isn’t really necessary.
Manny ain’t going to play for Boston again, that’s for sure, so you don’t have to consider him playing there as an alternative to not signing him. And having Tiexiera in our lineup even further negates any pressure to sign Manny. And you save money.
Another theory for not going after Tiexiera could be the possible need for Posada to move over there (not a good enough reason for me no to go after Tiexiera) or keeping the position space open for Montero, Miranda or even future FA Albert Pujols. Unless you KNOW you’re getting Pujols later, Tiexiera now seems the best option to me.
Again, Pettitte signs there’s no shot. Assuming Swisher is locked in at 1B there’s no shot. And who knows … maybe Tiexiera just wants to play in Anaheim or wherever.
CB,et al
In my humble opinion the four Yankee weaknesses for 09 are 1B, CF, bench and line-up protection for Arod. Beside Tex, who I see filling 3 out of four, are there any players who would address multiple “needs” you would advocate obtaining.
Just as a flyer, any chance or precedent that Andruw Jones rebounds to his former gold glove, homerun machine self? I know he’s been a disaster the last two years. But at just 31 is he worth another chance? Of course the Dodgers would have to eat a lot of payroll.
Nick in SF,
If Furcal is looking for shorstop money it would be against his interests to say that he would be open to playing 2b. He needs a team that values him as a shorstop rather than a second baseman.
If the Yankees value Furcal as a leadoff hitter they can pay in shortstop money to play 2b. They can also offer him the opportunity to spot Jeter at shortstop which would keep him satisfied about the next contract after this one which would be his final contract probably since he’ll be 31, 32, 33, 34 in a probable 4 year deal. 34 in the final year of the deal.
If you insist on trading for Kemp. Sign Hudson and have Jeter lead off. Better defensively.
Andrew Jones sounds like he doesn’t even love baseball anymore. He’s severely overweight, he’s a guy that lost the passion for the game. LA press calls him Tubbo.
(Their words not mine)
As for those Matt Kemp fans it’s simple, if you want that guy so badly you wouldn’t trade a cost effective 2B who could be on of the best at his position in a few years. So if it’s that much of a need then trade Hughes. You have Brackman/Betances/De La Rosa/McCallister/Garcia all waiting in the wings, if Kemp is that much of a need/want then the guy you should want to deal is Hughes.
“Just as a flyer, any chance or precedent that Andruw Jones rebounds to his former gold glove, homerun machine self?”
no, he became a bum. I don’t think he could be fixed.
I see what you’re saying, Bret, but I think it cuts both ways. A guy who is willing and able to play both positions could be more attractive to more teams
S.o.S.,
Hudson is my second choice.
The problem with Hudson is:
1) He can’t spot Jeter at shortstop like Furcal can.
2) He doesn’t solve the leadoff spot for 4 years like Furcal does.
3) Jeter would be leading off at age 36 in 2010 and the Yankees will probably wished they would’ve brought in Furcal a year earlier. Once Furcal’s off the market, there goes your leadoff hitter and he’s one of the better ones in the game.
I should have added this.
Jones, who hit .158 with 76 strikeouts in a 2008 season limited by injury to 75 games, is expected to begin playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic this week, something the Dodgers hope will serve as an audition for prospective suitors.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....ntere.html
Why does anyone want Jones. He has been awful for at least the last two years. probably more. I don’t know how the heck he got the contract he did from the Dodgers.
2006 was his last decent year.
jennifer,
its because Colletti is an idiot.
Gun slingin’ Farve better cool it
randy l., in what way have I denied anything about AJ Burnett?
But I am confused about something. You say that Yankee fans are overlooking your claim that Burnett was as bad as Livan for the first half of last season. Yet you touted Livan’s achievements and worth for all of the same first half of that same season. So Yankee fans are ignoring how Burnett was as bad as the player you thought was so valuable? I think I’m not as smart as I think I am too!
I would not sign Tex for 8+ years. Giambi was a much more leathel hitter going into free agency. Signed him for 7 and we were hancuffed for 4 of them. Yes Tex is a better fielder but that alone isnt worth signing him till he’s 50. We would have landed in another albotross deal. Look at how Tinos production fell after getting into his mid 30′s. We would have a high priced Mieweuouitz for the last few years of that deal. Ill pass.
Bad Hart
The critical need is someone to protect A Rod, meaning Tex or Manny. Tex has gotten out of hand long term. Saddle the Yankees with too many long term contracts. Manny would be more manageable, three years, play RF for a year but terrible defense. Ideally you need to trade for a stud RF. Kemp comes with a lot of baggage as well. Trading Cano could be courting disaster. There are no top line IF out there and Hudson would be no screaming hell. Pre 2008 Cano was so valuable because of so much above replacement value.
The defense better wake uP!
Nick in SF,
Well given that shorstops are more highly valued than second baseman and get bigger contracts, I think Furcal should distance himself from second base at least in theory.
He also wants to play shorstop for the next 4 years because that influences the value of his final contract after this next one. His last contract could be significantly bigger if he signs it as a 34 year old shortstop vs. a 34 year old second baseman.
The advantage the Yankees have is we can pay Furcal shortstop money, maximize his defensive abilities at a position of lesser difficulty (2b) and offer him the opportunity to showcase himself as shorstop since he would be spotting Jeter at shorstop throught the next 4 seasons. After 2010 (the final year of Jeter’s contract) I would give him 2 more years as a full-time shorstop. Furcal would be making enough appearances at shorstop during Jeter’s final contract to prove to teams that he can still play the position.
Nobody wants the Jones of the last two years.
The question- is he done, or at 31 does he have a chance to rebound?
cb-
do you have any ideas why cashman seems so fixated on keeping first base a perpetual revolving door? it’s almost getting comical how the position just keeps being put on the back burner with stop gap measures each year.
also , a while back you mentioned how how un-cutting edge baseball prospectus, as far as statistical analysis , has become. who do you like now in that role?
Seems the drop off occurred when the testing program was put in place?
I’d want the Big Donkey before I’d want Tubbo… I wonder how much Dunn would cost ?
“The question- is he done, or at 31 does he have a chance to rebound?”
I would say he’s done. He became fat, and isn’t a CFer anymore.
CB
December 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
This all said this is not going to happen. Cash has already said he wasnts a real 1b and I don’t know if Matsui’s kneed would tolerate standing for that long during a game out on the field.
It’s great in theory but very unlikely.
————————————————————
If the knee condition were the only concern, it wouldn’t bother me. Mantle played there for two years and there’s no way matsui’s knees could be worse than that. whether there is somebody around that could teach him the footwork and how to dig balls out of the dirt, I don’t know. Mantle had Pepitone to instruct him, and he did the transfer in spring training. A crash course with Martinez starting in January? I’m just bored and adding a little to the conversation.
“Seems the drop off occurred when the testing program was put in place?”
I agree. With him starting winter ball I guess we will see what kind of shape he’s in.
what are the “6 major newspapers covering the yanks home and away” that the article spoke of besides thr daily news…the ny post….the ny times..???
Hitman,
Furcals defense hasnt been good since going to LA. He has been injury prone as well. Jeter actually had better numbers leading off the year prior to recieving Damon than Johnny. As far as someone replacing Jeter if he gets injured. I dont see them switching Furcal to short. When was the last time that happened? I would think they would bring someone up instead(esconlona i beilieve was the last one). So if it comes down to solid d and the best possible lead off man. Id go with Hudson and Jeter. Not sold on Furcal.
“I’d want the Big Donkey before I’d want Tubbo… I wonder how much Dunn would cost ?”
I would say probably around 25 a year. Since the Yanks might trade Nady, and the Reds need a right handed bat so Jeff Keppinger + prospects to be acquired?
the Yanks and Reds would be a good match.
“The critical need is someone to protect A Rod”
Is Arod no longer a superstar or something??? This notion that he needs protection is beyond ridiculous. He IS the protection in that lineup. Nobody ever protected Bonds. Nobody protected Ramirez either. Who’s Albert Pujols protection?
Rodriguez had a good season last year. His 150 OPS+ for ’08 is higher than his career number. He doesn’t miss most of a month, and he’s probably a 40 homer 120 RBI guy last year. He wasn’t the problem and neither was the .375 OBP, 30+ homers and nearly 100 RBI that hit behind him.
Bret the Hitman
December 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
S.o.S.,
Hudson is my second choice.
The problem with Hudson is:
1) He can’t spot Jeter at shortstop like Furcal can.
2) He doesn’t solve the leadoff spot for 4 years like Furcal does.
3) Jeter would be leading off at age 36 in 2010 and the Yankees will probably wished they would’ve brought in Furcal a year earlier. Once Furcal’s off the market, there goes your leadoff hitter and he’s one of the better ones in the game.
————————————————————
As many teams as there are needing a 2nd baseman and nobody’s offered Hudson a contract? You don’t think there are concerns/issues about his wrist and thumb? It’s the same reason that so few teams are going after Sheets….medical concerns.
BTW I found this clip hilarious for some reason.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.....8203341491
“do you have any ideas why cashman seems so fixated on keeping first base a perpetual revolving door?”
Objection, your honor. Leading question based on a false premise.
far as Manny is concerned, if were any truth to NYY bein interested, they would not have traded for Cameron. As they would’ve left Garnder in CF.
“I would say probably around 25 a year. Since the Yanks might trade Nady, and the Reds need a right handed bat so Jeff Keppinger + prospects to be acquired? the Yanks and Reds would be a good match.”
Dunn 25 million ? for the combine 2-3 yrs. I don’t see that yearly for him. And yes the Reds would be a good partner to deal Nady to since they seen him whoop on them countless times.
jus look at Leon…!!!
Wait, there are people who’d rather have Andruw Jones than Manny?
I don’t know if anyone know this, but the water in the Yankee clubhouse has curative powers. It’s so powerful it can get the most surly, ornery players to conform. What it can not cure is the fat and lazy syndrome. Pavano didn’t spend enough time to benefit from it’s powers.
I’m with you Ed. Let’s match up with the Reds and fork over Kennedy+ for one of their young position players. Jay Bruce is listed as RF but I thought he was a CF? Anybody think he’d be available for some young (semi-blocked) starting pitching?
Nice run Leon Washington.
Oh boy Leon it’s either concussion or whip lash
Leon have a knack, for making the big play when his team needs it the most.
Reggie who ?
*its
I thought we got a 1B?
Bush. That would be Reggie Bush, and he is better than Leon Washington.
Brandon,
Didnt the Reds already trade Bailey?
“Jay Bruce is listed as RF but I thought he was a CF? Anybody think he’d be available for some young (semi-blocked) starting pitching?”
Not in a million years.
nick in sf-
i disagree. you are way too smart to think you think that you are not as smart as you think you are. ( i have no idea what i just said )
livan was paid only 4 million last year. that’s the difference. you have to admit that if on july 9th when aj burnett had a 5.21 era that it was highly unlikely he’d be getting a long term 85 million dollar contract this fall.
you don’t bet on baseball like football do you? just kidding nick, just kidding.
“Not in a million years.”
lol wishful thinking I guess. I mean if the rumor mill has us trading for Kemp why not Bruce?
“Didnt the Reds already trade Bailey?”
There was some scuttlebut that he’d be involved in a possible dealf ro Dye, but Bailey is still in the Reds organization.
Rob:
Bruce > Kemp
SOS,
No.
Rob,
RF is Bruce’s natual position. the only reason Bruce is in CF because of Griffey before he was traded.
Brandon,
I mean to say 10-15 a year, having 25 a year would be something like Manny and Teixeira’s demands.
“Brandon,
Didnt the Reds already trade Bailey?”
No they haven’t.
yes, randy, that’s why AJ was smart to wait until the season ended to put his services on the open market. Livan didn’t wait, though, since the Twins cut him. But now he’s available again, just like AJ was.
Anyway, I preferred CC to AJ when it wasn’t apparent that we might sign both.
Here’s a happy memory for everyone: just a few days ago, our pal Peter Gammons was reporting that AJ was on the way to Atlanta unless the Yankees “muddy the waters.” I don’t think Gammons can see his reflection in those waters anymore.
IN case anyone cares DOmincan League Baseball will be on ESPN Desportes todayat 4PM
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.....5172719475
You guys remember this ?
YES is replaying Johnny Damon’s 6 hit game from last June. In that game Andy Pettitte got pounded by the Royals. They wouldnt be showing this game just to set us up for an announcement that Andy’s not coming back now would they? lol
Changing the subject for a second. Does anyone know what the most yards passed for a year was(Marino)? Drew Brees has 2 games remaining and is at 4332. Does he break it(Detroit,Carolina remaining)?
I grew up a Marino fan, hope he doesnt.
who said Dunn can’t field?
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.....5172719217
Someone threw 2 shoes at Bush
“Someone threw 2 shoes at Bush
”
that was a great special report wow
Dunn pulling a Jeter:
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.....8173324879
“do you have any ideas why cashman seems so fixated on keeping first base a perpetual revolving door?”
randy,
First base has been a disaster – I think that’s in part been the product of the Giambi contract blowing up on them. When you’ve devoted 20M to a position and then that player gets hurt it becomes very difficult to fix that position adequately.
That said, I think Cashman has stopped the revolving door. I think he really likes Nick Swisher and sees him as a good two way first baseman who is signed to a reasonable contract for the next 3 years.
Before that really bad year with Sox this past season Swisher was a highly thought of young player. The Sox paid a fortune for him in that trade in terms of talent.
I think the yankees look at him as their 1b this season and hopefully the next two. I think they’re counting on the idea that Swisher was very bad last year because the Sox played him out of position.
You know how unbelievably demanding CF is as a position. He has played CF in the past. But that doesn’t make him a CF.
On top of that they wanted him to hit leadoff – again something he’s never done before.
I think they see Swisher as the guy who is going to stop the revolving door at 1b.
I know one of your big concerns with the yankees this past season was that they were no longer seeing enough pitches and making guys work. No more wearing out the Pedro Martinez’s of the world to exploit the pen.
Swisher saw 4.4 pitches per at bat last season – most in the majors. Cameron saw 4.2 which i think was 5th.
I think both players fit into their general offensive scheme well. Swisher in particular as he gets on base alot.
Regarding baseball prospectus. I like their site and I read their stuff all the time. So I’m not trying to say in any way that it’s just to be ignored.
That said I have two thoughts:
1. People who do statistics in baseball are generally not statisticians. Many of them in come from finance (e.g. Nate Silver). But they actually don’t have extensive backgrounds in statistical analysis.
If they did – many of them wouldn’t take their work so seriously. Statisticians generally treat numbers with healthy skepticism. Much more so than what I see from many self-described sabermatricians.
This issue goes way past baseball prospectus. It’s just my opinion buy I think it’s a general issue in sabermetrics.
So many analysts just make very rudimentary statistical mistakes all of the time. Baseball Prospectus included.
It’s just baseball so you live with it. I would never run a ball club based on that stuff however. It’s not even close to good enough to run a team by, IMO.
With any innovators, there are certain legacy issues that develop as a field develops and baseball prospectus is suffering from that.
There are two major issues going on with them. First, one of their founders Clay Davenport came up with one of the earliest methods for measuring defense.
It was great at the time but now it’s completely, 100% outmoded. I can’t believe they are still measuring defense the way they are.
So while BP’s VORP statistics is fine, their WARP stat (wins above replacement) which combines offense and defense is really suspect – I don’t really look at it at all.
The other thing they did that was part of the issue with being first at doing anything was that they defined replacement level play in a strange way. Now they invented the concept and should be give a lot of credit for that (that was really good work – developing replacement level – excellent conceptual work). But I wish they’d just bite the bullet and update their methods instead of sticking with what they’ve been doing.
As far as sites like BP – a couple I like are beyondtheboxscore.com and statscorner. Fangraphs.com has really become a terrific source of data – by far the best right now.
Their analysis is fine but they tend to take their statistics too seriously.
“Dunn pulling a Jeter:”
More like the wall playing tackling dummy.
“Swisher saw 4.4 pitches per at bat last season – most in the majors. Cameron saw 4.2 which i think was 5th.”
That’s a great job by the scouting office.
“More like the wall playing tackling dummy.”
[quote]
Paul
December 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
what are the “6 major newspapers covering the yanks home and away” that the article spoke of besides thr daily news…the ny post….the ny times..???[quote]
The Star Ledger and Newsday I’d imagine.
And the Journal News of course.
timo
December 14th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
[quote]
Paul
December 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
what are the “6 major newspapers covering the yanks home and away” that the article spoke of besides thr daily news…the ny post….the ny times..???[quote]
The Star Ledger and Newsday I’d imagine.
And the Journal News of course.
————————————————————
The Duckville Gazette didn’t make the list?
Brandon that is disgusting. I don’t like him either, but it is rude. Plus it is some Iraq dude. And if you hit someone with a shoe it is a sign of disrespect.
“In my humble opinion the four Yankee weaknesses for 09 are 1B, CF, bench and line-up protection for Arod. ”
1b is fine with swisher. CF is a big issue – you can’t have a guy in the line up that makes outs 70% of his at bats (unless you are the 2008 yankees and then you’d have 3 of those… which is a huge reason they didn’t make the playoffs). So I agree with you there.
I don’t think ARod necessarily needs protection. He would benefit from another bat behind him – but all players would, including Pujols.
But as long as Alex stays patient (which he doesn’t always do) then he should just draw walks and run up a .430 OBP.
The line up is deep enough to drive Alex in when he gets on base.
Alex can’t get into the mentality however that he has to be the one to drive in every run because then his swing is going to get long and he’s going to start striking out on bad pitches – which he tends to do when he’s slumping.
When he lets the game come to him – as he did in 2007 – he’s utterly devastating.
“Brandon that is disgusting. I don’t like him either, but it is rude. Plus it is some Iraq dude. And if you hit someone with a shoe it is a sign of disrespect.”
Hmm… not to get political here, but drowning our country in inconceivable amounts of debt, and entering us into a war is pretty disgusting too.
Have a chuckle.
LOL JUST SAY NO BRET
nick in sf -
sabathia seems solid for the next three to four years. after that i have no idea because he is the precedent for anyone that big pitching that old.
one thing i do like about cashman this winter is that he’s given probability a chance to make him smart. when the red sox signed matsuzaka, lugo, and drew it turns out they only needed one to turn out well to get them over the top.
cashman with signing both sabathia and burnett has increased his odds that something good will happen. one more signing( i’d prefer an offensive player) and he’d have the odds really in his favor. teixeira or manny would do that nicely though neither is likely to happen.
Farve keeps both teams in the game.
randy,
Don’t know if you’ve seen Buster Olney’s column today but if not take a look.
I think it’s a very accurate take on what the yankees are doing and the logic behind it.
Here’s the general conclusion he draws – referring back to the santana trade and building with youth:
“the argument that several executives made with the Red Sox and Yankees was that if you were patient — patient — then you might have a shot at a pitcher much like Santana, in CC Sabathia, and the cost would only have one layer. Sure, you’d have to give him a huge contract, but you wouldn’t have to give up top prospects along the way.
So the Yankees, in the end, were patient and got Sabathia, and the pundits who are saying that the team has blown up its plan for player development are simply not paying attention. In fact, the signings of Sabathia and A.J. Burnett are absolutely in keeping with the refocus on the farm system. ”
http://insider.espn.go.com/esp.....ney_buster
Nick when I watch him throw failmarys I keep thinking about the theme song to “the good the bad and the ugly”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr794ld4ibI
YANKS SHOULD GET TY WIGGINGTON FOR OUTFIELD CORNERS, 3B, 1B, 2B UTILITY. Has good pop, not too expensive $4M/yr and decent .280 battting avg.
**CC takes physical on Tuesday**
The plan is for CC Sabathia to arrive in town tomorrow night, take a physical Tuesday and possibly be introduced as the Yankees $161 million savior by Wednesday.
———————
Yes!!!
**The Brewers asking too much for Cameron**
Because the Yankees have told the Brewers they cannot have any of pitchers on their 40-man roster, Igawa is the best the Brewers can do.
Brewers asked for **Phil Coke**, Jose Veras and **Mark Melancon** and quickly were told no.
————
Doug Melvin must really hate us! Cameron isn’t worth thos 3 pitchers!
source: http://www.nypost.com/seven/12.....144123.htm
Can Ty Wiggington play SS? If he could, he would be the ideal utility man. I know he can play full time for another team, but he could play considerable time in NY.
thoughts…
“Doug Melvin must really hate us! Cameron isn’t worth *one of those 3* pitchers!”
FIXED.
i dont know if anyone posted this article but its a great piece by buster olney
http://insider.espn.go.com/esp.....ateChanged
Ed – CC and Wang, the Dynamite Duo!
December 14th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
The Brewers asking too much for Cameron
Because the Yankees have told the Brewers they cannot have any of pitchers on their 40-man roster, Igawa is the best the Brewers can do.
Brewers asked for Phil Coke, Jose Veras and Mark Melancon and quickly were told no.
——————
Doug Melvin must really hate us! Cameron isn’t worth thos 3 pitchers!
————————————————————
Melvin wasn’t asking for all three….only one of the three to be added to Cabrera.
Blondie had better ball control than Favre.
I say we give Melvin the middle finger & and sign Ben Sheets he’d lose the better draft pick and have to settle for a 3rd rounder.
“Doug Melvin must really hate us! Cameron isn’t worth thos 3 pitchers!”
Thank god. Lets sign Sheets and really tick him off. That way he will never give us Cameron.
“Because the Yankees have told the Brewers they cannot have any of pitchers on their 40-man roster, Igawa is the best the Brewers can do.
Brewers asked for Phil Coke, Jose Veras *and* Mark Melancon and quickly were told no.
Each side expects the deal to get done eventually.”
GB they asked for a combo package.
Hey, Brandon! Why don’t you *fix* your handle?!?
Milwaukee had to be asking for only 1 of those 3 pitchers. Not all 3.
Veras is not an unfair request. Except, with today’s market the Cameron trade reverts to a salary dump. Despite the center-field shortage.
mel because it’s not official until Cash saids so. I’m optimistic.
GB,
like Brandon said, they are asking for a combo package. i just left out the last part of the paragraph.
“Can Ty Wiggington play SS? If he could, he would be the ideal utility man. I know he can play full time for another team, but he could play considerable time in NY.”
Wigginton has never played short… he’s mostly played at 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and LF (in that order). But he, along with Cody Ransom should have the infield covered nicely. Those two, along with Molina and Gardner/Melky would be a solid bench.
Brandon (SHOW SHEETS THE MONEEEEEY !, CC & AJ are Yankees!)…”Don’t trade Robi !”
December 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
GB they asked for a combo package.
————————————————————
The only gms that I can think of that would be that foolish to think they could get that package for Cameron is Beane and at one time, Littleton of Pittsburgh and Bowden. Melvin wouldn’t waste his time making a ridiculous suggestion. He’s the only Brewer exec that wasn’t upset by Cashman’s request for the Brewers picking part of Cameron’s contract.
But if we sign Sheets, won’t be he blocking a spot in the MRI tube that our young pitchers might need?
Ed – CC and Wang, the Dynamite Duo!
December 14th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
GB,
like Brandon said, they are asking for a combo package. i just left out the last part of the paragraph.
————————————————————
That’s what I said. Melvin asked for one of the three pitchers plus Cabrera in the deal….not all three of them.
Well that was a stupid penalty, no discipline in those Bills
vin
December 14th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
“Can Ty Wiggington play SS? If he could, he would be the ideal utility man. I know he can play full time for another team, but he could play considerable time in NY.”
Wigginton has never played short… he’s mostly played at 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and LF (in that order). But he, along with Cody Ransom should have the infield covered nicely. Those two, along with Molina and Gardner/Melky would be a solid bench.
————————————————————
Wigginton can get a fulltime slot with at least three teams. There are at least two other utility players available that play better defense than Ransom and can hit some, too. They play the three infield spots (3rd, SS and 2nd).
This summary of Nick Swisher last week from Yahoo sports sums up my thoughts on his too.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/sn/200.....veorhotair
Nick,
Your boy Marshand Lynch is like a greased pit out there.
i was just reading the blog real quick, and I thought to myself.. DO you guys have any friends??? Like I’m not being mean, but even during the Yankee season, everyones on here blogging during the games.. I don’t get it.. Do you just sit on your computer ALL day??? Will someone answer me..
oops.
*greased pig
GB,
I think its all 3 of them, it didn’t said “either” or something.
Did the Jets lose Leon for the day ?
I miss Marshawn, he was a monster for Cal.
But Jahvid Best is pretty good too. Go Bears!
I’m pretty sure they did not ask for those three pitchers, but rather one of them as a combination with Melky.
There is no way they would have asked for all three of those pitchers at once – that is just stupid.
YO GUYS
just read this:
Yankees closing in on Teixiera. His talks with the Angels, Red Sox, Orioles, and Nats came to a standstill when the Yankees swooped in. They had heard of all previous talks falling through when they went to Teixiera’s agent, Scott Boras, and offered a 7 year, $175 million contract. Boras, on behalf of Teixiera, said they would mull it over. Just a few hours ago, Boras reportedly contacted Yankee GM Brian Cashman and told him they would like to accept the aforementioned offer. So as it stands now, the Yankees have reportedly invested $418.5 million in P CC Sabathia, P A.J. Burnett, and 1B Mark Teixiera in 5 days.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
yo provide a link or you get banned per Pete’s rules.
Aaron: most of my friends are boring grownups who live in the suburbs and don’t care who is going to play CF for the Yankees next season. But I might go over to a friend’s place tonight to watch the Giants/Cowboys game. Then again, maybe not.
I really liked that 25 mil a year for Dunn. Attention nobody is beating the door down to get him. Very few takers for him last year. As I said paper power, fantasy baseball numbers, Giambi II and how did that work. Cashman Credo – younger and more athletic.
Joe Schmoe 2
Care to name your source?
thanks for being honest Nick, I was just curious.. Because if no one had friends, I’d say lets have a Giants party in Westchester…lol.. GO G-MEN!!
not particularly
“# Nick in SF December 14th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
But if we sign Sheets, won’t be he blocking a spot in the MRI tube that our young pitchers might need?”
Are you kidding me? The new stadium comes equipped with a full spread of MRI tubes as part of Pavano Memorial Hall. They spared no expense.
And we are never getting Ty Wiggington as a bench player. Hes going to definitely start someone. Multiple teams want him.
“Care to name your source?”
schnapps Liquor
have to agree with Ed.
I believe the ideal option for the #3 hitter is: Nick Johnson. Injuries or no injuries.
hopefully Washington will land Texeria.
WTF ? I thought Brandon Jacobs was the only one w/ that ability.
Wow did the Jets really just look that pathetic?
Aaron,
I’m a grown adult that has managed to hang 3 storm windows on my porch, have wonderful phone conversations with my grown daughters that live on both coasts, clean 2 bathrooms, vacuum the living room, showered and now am preparing a roast for dinner while my wife holiday shops. I did all this and managed to post here 5 or 6 times. In other, like the rest of my friends here, I’m a pro.
Aaron,
my life involves school and work, and i’m only 24. the only time I hang out is weekends. sometimes, i even post here when i’m in school or at work.
And Jackson’s a greased piglet out there.
Joe Schmoe 2-
Hey Idiot, next time you try to post a fake news source can at least try to spell Teixeira the right way?
im just busting balls guys , enjoy your sunday.. GO G-MEN!!!
Drive 4-5, VERY IMPRESSED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr794ld4ibI
Sometimes I post from my blackberry while ignoring my friends in person. I try to be sly about it.
the Jets lose.
Woody Johnson: time to get to work on Bill Cower’s contract details.
cb
first of all thanks for the new sites you said you liked. i just finished reading a couple of good concise articles about burnett and the yankee staff in general on fangraphs which i hadn’t heard of before you mentioned it. i’ll check out the other ones later.
olney seems to agree with you that these signings are part of an overall cashman plan that is ongoing and not just a reaction to the plan going badly as i often suggest. you may be right, but we’ll need to see some young players progressing this year and next to validate that belief.
hughes and a few other young yankee players in the system should be closer to being able start contributing. joba has to be more steady in his development. cano has to get back to his past good years. last year was a disaster for the younger and cheaper plan. hughes, kennedy, cano, melky, wang’s injury, and even joba’s injury made it a very bad year for the youth plan.
my position is that the yankees are new at development and that they make a lot of mistakes because of this. i would say they tend to rush prospects. i would think the yankees would give a player like melky longer to develop. they seem to rush him and then give up on him. if there was such a thing as a yankee way, a player like melky should have some yankee way in him. i wouldn’t give up on that up so quickly after spending so much time teaching it..
the problem is that maybe there is no yankee way that emphasizes the fundamentals being taught in the minor league system. for example, we have yet to see a hitter come out of it that can bunt. if there is no yankee way being developed then i don’t think we’ll see a steady progression of yankee players and pitchers emerging from it. developing a yankee way to do things is essential if players like austin jackson are going to be ready when their time comes.
Any chance that Joe Schmoe and bobcat are related?
Give Lynch the player of the game award.
woops ….
this game is all comedy
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!??!!
How do you fumble the football in that situation!
my GOD!!
I think Losman might be Joe Shmoe.
Drive 4-5 –
You’re not alone. I just considered this sort of stuff as normal weekend activity for someone who’s got a busy life – and is a fan of the Yankees and Pete’s blog.
Goat of the game Bills offensive cordinator…WTF are you doing taking the ball away from Lynch.
wow…that is just a terrible, terrible play call.
the jets can tackle no one right now, especially lynch.
wow…terrible.
Losman is the Jets MVP for today
“Any chance that Joe Schmoe and bobcat are related”
at least Bobcat was convincing.
Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn the ref got messed up there !
How does the ball not see Lynch’s hands ? they need to fire that offensive cordinator.
NIce pick by Revis. Too bad that, even if the Jets win, they will have shown why they probably won’t go far in the playoffs.
“I believe the ideal option for the #3 hitter is: Nick Johnson. Injuries or no injuries”
Ha Ha Losman stinks. And some knuckle head on draft day said Losman will be better then Eli.
I used to live in the Buffalo area. When they drafted Losman, my Bills fan friends loved him.
Last year, when they drafted Edwards, they loved him too.
The Yankees would have 25-man roster room for Wigginton, Gardner and Ransom assuming the team carries 12 pitchers, 2 catchers, 1 DH, 4 infielders, and 3 outfielders.
Ransom can play all IF positions. Wigginton can play all IF positions well enough except SS and can play 2 corner OF positions. Gardner can play all OF positions.
Tom-I guess your Bill fan friends are very loving?
Losman is horrible
I got a feeling Pennington extracts his revenge in that final meeting.
Losman must have be Farve student.
S.A.-They still love Scott Norwood up there.
Then again, so do I…
Throw to the sidelines Losman!!!
Losman must be a Farve student *
What the hell was that ? Eh..
AS SOON AS I LIE ABOUT TEIXIERA, MLB.COM SAYS THE YANKEES ARE NOW SETTING THEIR SIGHTS ON HIM!!!!
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/articl.....;fext=.jsp
Buffalo is just horrible
The jets got away with one. I need a drink after that.
Anyone else had the YES replay on of the Johhny Damon 6 hit game? I was at the Stadium that day and couldnt believe how bad Pettitte pitched,especially with men on base. He ended up allowing 10 earned runs. Anyone who bellyaches if Andy doesnt return should watch this game and see what they’re not going to be missing. I love Andy, but he should swallow his pride and accept his paycut if he wants to come back.
“Yankees enter Teixeira fray
Club reportedly interested in slugger, *but price might be too steep*”
IDK what it is w/ most of these posters. It’s a ploy to drive up the price on Boston and LAA. This doesn’t state even an offer from NY. Washington will land him.
My God I scream as I bow!!! Joe Schmoe IS bobcat!! lol
Given my druthers I’d throw AJ and his ailments back into the pond and hook Tex.
bobcat?
a wild feline?
bobcat was a poster here during the height of Santanamania. His “inside information” worked folks up to a frenzy.
“My God I scream as I bow!!! Joe Schmoe IS bobcat!! lol”
Not admitting he was wrong w/ the first report, staying away until updates that suit his defense are available, talking like he is an insider. Yeh all signs point to
[IMG]http://i33.tinypic.com/2vaehid.jpg[/IMG]
http://i33.tinypic.com/2vaehid.jpg
say the yanks get tex what would the payroll most likly be like next year
“my position is that the yankees are new at development and that they make a lot of mistakes because of this. i would say they tend to rush prospects.”
I agree with you. I think they are new to this and are making mistakes.
But I’d also say that might be inevitable. Any time any organization tries to change its direction mistakes are going to happen.
And they have. The yankees were trying to change as an organization in two ways in the past few years.
1. Re-emphasize player development
2. Become a pitching first organization again.
Those are just not easy to do – they are particularly hard to do at once, especially in the transition period.
As you move from one organziational model to another there’s going to be a transition period where you’re likely to be thin – when you’re moving away from the old way and into the new way.
But that transition point is brittle and fraught with pitfalls.
That’s why not trading for Santana was such a seminal event for the franchise, IMO. It emphasized patience and the willingness to save young talent while waiting to risk money this winter instead. Which is what the yankees should be doing.
Now you made the point that you think the yankees have rushed prospects. I agree with this. I wasn’t happy they called up Hughes when they did as I didn’t think he was ready.
But part of rushing prospects is related to trying to change – when you change a talent gap develops and its tough to fill. I think they wound up rushing some talent in order to avoid getting more older veterans to fill in those gaps.
I bring this up because I think you have to look at AJ Burnett in this light.
Burnett was signed not only because of his talent/potential – but because he was way of not needing to try to rush Phil Hughes or any other young pitcher again.
Burnett is monstrously expensive but that’s part of the price of not rushing prospects. You have to fill in the cracks.
AJ’s a huge risk. But I think he’s the kind of guy who could really help as they transition to a younger staff. Yes he blocks up a rotation spot – but he also gives guys like Hughes and Brackman time to grow.
Glad you like fangraphs. The big thing with that site is the player related data they have on it – just search for any player. It’s really unbelievable. The articles they write are good – but they do tend to over read numbers.
Forgot to mention what is perhaps my favorite sight. It’s a bit different than most and narrower as it’s only on pitching. But it’s very unique. It’s a sight run by Josh Kalk who has done a lot of work looking at the new Pithc F/X data.
As a former catcher I think you’ll love it once you get used to looking at it’s data.
http://baseball.bornbybits.com/2008/pitchers.html
This is the link to the main site. Josh also has a web based tool that allows you to do specific searches. Take a look at the player cards first.
I use this site a lot and have really used it a bunch this hot stove season as the yankees have batted around acquiring so many pitchers and the data has got collection on pitch f/x matured a lot in 2008. Much better than 2007.
Take a look at CC’s player card. Wow. He’s just close to the ideal pitcher. His stuff is phenomenal.
For fun – take a look at the plot of CC’s release points. What an athlete. And then for comparison click on Josh Beckett’s card and take a look at his release points.
CC is an amazing athlete. As big as he is – his ability to repeat his delivery and find a common release point for all of his pitches is just phenomenal.
The data on AJ Burnett’s stuff is also just unbelievable. It’s hard to get over how nasty his stuff is. Burnett’s curve ball might be the most unique pitch any pitcher in the game throws. I don’t know how the guy hasn’t won more games. Hopefully that changes.
I agree with AJ over Tex – we need starting pitching desperately. That was the real Achilles’ heal last season.
If the Angels don’t sign Tex, it will be a disaster for them, I think. They would have lost Kotchman for nothing, as they were going to win that division, anyway, and they didn’t get past the first round. The draft pick will be insignificant to make up for that, I would think.
No I admitted I was wrong when I posted “I LIE.”
Saying one thing that’s false as a joke to watch people’s reactions doesn’t make me someone that talks like an insider.
Jeez, take a joke people.
new Pete post —–>
And bobcat at least managed to talk a good game.
Ok I admit it, I liked the sound of Joe Schmoe’s fake Tex news. I guess that means I would like the Yankees to add Tex in lieu of Andy or Cameron.
I say Yanks will sign Teixeieieieieira – Schmoe ain’t joking.
Damon/Jeter/Arod/Tex/Matsui/Posada/Cano/Swisher(RF)/Gardner
Like to see how Arod would hit batting 3rd instead of cleanup.
CC/Wang/AJ/Sheets/Joba
Oy Vay – whuddateam!
Actually forget Pettitte and Sheets – let Hughes/Aceves/Kennedy/Coke fight it out for the 4th or 5th spot.
Paul,
Dailies from the local suburbs like to think of themselves as major newspapers, even as part of the ballyhooed ‘NY media’.
BD – Those were purely arbitrary numbers picked out of the sky. The point was more about people using complex mathematical formulas & statistics in general to quantify X or Y number of games won or lost by this player or that, while not putting the significance of the Manny antics into perspective. To me, baseball’s not about a spreadsheet of formulas.
To me it is simple……It is like the Beltran situation a few years back…..If Tex will take a reasonable contract to come here…..8 for 160….then the Yanks should pull the trigger…..sign Andy for 10 mil and go with Melky/Gardner in CF for now…….Yanks should have never passed on Beltran and it still hurts them today. Wat is the difference if the payroll is 200 mil or 215…when u are up that high it becomes rididculous to knitpick…
Sign Tex up!
Keep in mind that Red Sox fans absolutely adored Manny during his time there (except for the last few months before he left). I’m pretty sure most of us won’t care that much about his antics when he’s winning us baseball games.