Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Apr 26, 2009 
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A.J. Burnett’s implosion led to the Yankees losing 16-11 against the Red Sox.
Brian Bruney will be out two weeks. This notebook also has updates on the roster moves.
The Baseball Beat looks at how the economy is impacting baseball.
14NY Yankees 6.41era
LAST.WORST,BOTTOM OF THE BARREL, CABOOSE,NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP, DRAGGING UP THE REAR,
14TH PLACE !!!
…just like yankee management drew it up huh?
what the hell is going on?
a management couldn’t put a pitching staff together that would do this bad if they didn’t even try.
you could have 12 livan hernandez ’s and not be this bad.
are the pitchers really that bad? are they ruined once they get here? who ruins them? what ruins them? the pressure of being a yankee? just what is going on?
because this is totally unequivocally unacceptable.
yankee management is paying about 75 million dollars for pitchers to so far have the worst pitching in all of major league baseball.
30 NY Yankees 6.41 era
THIRTIETH !!!!
did i mention that no one is worse as of sunday,april 26th in all of major league baseball?
i have a simple question?
how can a management spend so much and get so little in return?
there is no spin for this.
this is an embarrassment.
From the last thread….
“Joba should be in the bullpen, his dominance has decreased because he had to pitch more than one inning and cant throw as hard as he can. Put Phil Hughes as number five when wang comes back…Have Joba, Melancon, Bruney setting up for Rivera….BETTER CHOICE!!”
That’s a faulty assumption that I’ve heard going around all the talk radio stations. Joba was dominant as a starter and a reliever before his shoulder injury last year. He was not as dominant late last year in the bullpen and hasn’t been so far this year. There is no reason to believe that the Joba we see now wuld be dominant in the pen.
Joba has the potential to be a stud. A CC Sabathia type of righty. There will be growing pains. It will take patience but as long as he can stay healthy it benefits the team now and in the future for his development to keep him in the rotation!
Read an article yesterday on the net where professional soccer teams were playing games in Mexico city with empty stadiums because of the swine flu virus. They were afraid to allow fans to come to the games.
Saw yesterday too where they are awaiting results from suspected cases in New York.
Watching overpaid millionaires playing a kids game may soon be the least of anyone’s worries.
“30 NY Yankees 6.41 era
THIRTIETH !!!!
did i mention that no one is worse as of sunday,april 26th in all of major league baseball?
i have a simple question?
how can a management spend so much and get so little in return?
there is no spin for this.
this is an embarrassment.”
Hard to believe if you had told me that the Yankees pitching would be dead last in baseball at any point of the season I would have laughed you off. This is frankly embarrassing. Too many guys on this team are simply not doing their job and they know who they are. Something had better change real soon because this is beyond pathetic. The worst pitching staff in the entire Major Leagues, disgraceful.
(also from the previous thread)
Not to change the subject but…
At games at the Stadium in the past where we’ve beaten the Sux but they have really given us a battle, I’ve walked away from the series only partially satisfied because while it is always nice to walk away with a win, it always leaves me feeling that the Sux are a problem.
Well, looking at these two past games in “retrospect”, I’m actually not as bereft as I was say last night. I think losing Friday certainly hurt as much as anything because it involved Mariano. A healthy Bruney and that game probably was ours. Now we are cobbling together our bullpen and another unlikely scenario occurred yesterday – Burnett didn’t shake off some calls that made him uncomfortable and ended up serving up a few cookies.
To say that we battled is an understatement. We could have walked away with both games. We didn’t. I agree with the posters who have said that we will only get better.
Let’s go and take tonight’s game and walk away with all the positives that we can.
GO YANKEES!!!!!
“Too many guys on this team are simply not doing their job and they know who they are.”
cal-
i run a small business. individual employees may sometimes not do their job, but if most of my employees are not doing their job, i look in the mirror first .
i am the one who hired them, trained them, and supervised them.
ultimately it’s on me.
i don’t see how it is any different with the yankees.
Now now, about the Yankees being 30th and the Yankees spending so much money.
I believe we may have a paper tiger here.
It is obvious that the reason that the Yankees are 30th in ERA has to do mainly with Wang. They didn’t pay a lot of money for him!
Let’s try to be fair.
How much of that ERA number is due to Wang? Also, yes I realize CC has gotten off to a slow start.
Just wondering at what point is Dave Eiland held accountable? He was brought as pitching coach because he had worked with Hughes and Kennedy and was going to help them and we saw how that worked out last season.
I know that it’s early but every starting pitcher seems to have mechanical problems and the bullpen pitchers are, for the most part, a mess. Isn’t the pitching coach’s job to be able to work these things out with the player?
trisha-
have you ever heard the story that if you put frogs in a pot water on a stove and slowly bring the temperature up they will not jump out and will eventually be killed by the heat, but if you put them into the hot water that would kill them they jump out immediately?
ribbit,ribbit
yankee fans have gotten used to the incompetence because it happens slowly and they get used to it.
jump out before it’s too late
I didn’t see the game after the top of the 4th. Apparently that was a good thing.
If AJ was “squeezed,” that’s unfortunate. But was the umpire at least consistent in his squeezing? Meaning, did he do the same against Boston? In any event, the result stinks.
What concerns me most is this all or nothing bullpen. Not one of them yesterday could put the brakes on. And it’s been like this all season, short although it may be at this point. They’re either all good in the same game, or all bad in the same game. It’s really weird. I know the starters haven’t been giving the length on a consistent basis, and as a result the bullpen gets overworked and overexposed. BUT the fact that not one of the pitchers brought in last night was effective is ridiculous. And, did I say, weird?
I’m not going to start pulling my hair out, but it is something that gives you pause.
How can it be that one night a pitcher can be great, and the next time out, it’s like he forgot how to pitch?
Anyway, I’d love for Andy Pettitte to have a good game today. I had said, before the series started that I expected one win out of three games. The fact that they could have won the first two is disappointing, but I also said I wanted them not to lay down and die, which I don’t think they did. The game Mo blew, well, one strike away from winning. What can ya do?
Yesterday – well, it sure seems like the more people hype up a pitchers’ duel, the more the likelihood the game turns into a battle of the bats. Yesterday was one of those. Beckett did not have it, either.
I think the starters will come around. When they do, the bullpen should be able to get straightened out. But it’s like the month of April is has been spring training for the pitching staff.
Tampa is in last place. It’s early. Really, it is.
Oh, and the RISP statistic is really starting to bug me. Not because they Yankees have been having “trouble” with RISP, but because of the fallacy of the stat. The Yankees scored 11 runs yesterday, and by accounts, could have scored more. But if a guy hits a double with a guy on first, and that runner scores, no it wasn’t a hit with a RISP, but it was an run-producing hit. Also, it doesn’t take into account that in a particular inning, they could have scored 2 or 3 or 4 runs, but left a runner or runners in scoring position at the end of the inning. I don’t know, but Iook at the runs scored. Everyone who reaches base is not going to score, no matter what base they’re on.
The Yankees aren’t having trouble scoring runs. They’re scoring runs. The Yankees are having trouble giving up more runs than they score. 11 runs should be enough on most days to win. I’m not going to fret that they “failed” at certain times with RISP yesterday. BUT there are definitely hitters on that team that need to look at what they’re trying to do in those situations. I NEVER root for a HR. I always root for single. Just a little hit to keep things going, as if no one was on base.
Oh, GB7, if you’re here, we were at the Trenton game last night. I just wanted to say you indicated that Pope got knocked around. That’s not quite accurate. He was dominating for the first 5 innings. Only 1 hit, and I forget how many strikeouts. I don’t think he walked anyone either for those 5 innings. In the 6th, he lost it. Gave up 4 runs. So he got knocked around in one inning.
S.A., which isn’t unusual for CC. So you could say he’s right on schedule!
When one of your starters is having a problem (Wang) it is not unusual to overuse your pen. When you overuse your pen, it’s not unusual for the team ERA to creep upward.
This is really a tempest in a teapot, in my opinion.
“It is obvious that the reason that the Yankees are 30th in ERA has to do mainly with Wang”
i think it’s obvious it’s not all wang, but let’s be objective.
what is the yankee’s team era without wang ?
surely the the statistically adept among us will come up with an answer.
my intuitive hunch is that without wang the team era would still be around 5.75.
just for fun , any other guesses without looking ?
Randy, the difference is that I have perhaps infinite patience but also realize that the Yankees have actually done quite well despite Wang’s big problems.
I seriously am not worried about the team, I believe the Yankees have put together an excellent team, and I think they will continue to work out their injury and pitching issues and all will be fine.
I’m happy to have this discussion at the end of the season and fall on my sword if it turns out I had it all wrong. But I would be a total idiot, in my estimation, to panic when I totally understand the dynamics of what is happening and feel total confidence in the ability of this team.
Of course I always respect your right to hate Cashman so much that you dissect (to me) the equivalent of a fly speck in the season and manage to find reason to hoist the red flags and call the season a failure!
What the heck is the ‘Swine flu’ never heard of it.
Randy, I guess you missed the part about a bullpen’s overuse and their ERA suffering in the process. Sorry but as much as you hate Cashman, it really isn’t going to fly.
If you want to have a discussion about how you believe Cashman overpaid for the team, please at least try to appear reasonable and do it a little later than the second week of the season!
My God.
The Yanks are on an historically bad run, from Buster Olney:
“But beneath the ugliness of those numbers, it gets worse. Brian Bruney, who was supposed to be the set-up man, is on the disabled list with a sore elbow, and Damaso Marte has an ERA over 15. Jose Veras struggled with his command again in the marathon against Boston Saturday and is part of the reason why the Yankees have become only the fourth team since 1900 to give up 15-plus runs in at least three of their first 17 games in a season. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the other three are the 2000 Blue Jays, the 1951 St. Louis Browns and the 1904 Pittsburgh Pirates.”
And yet, the Yanks are still above .500. We KNOW this team is not going to remain historically bad, so it’s just a matter of riding out the storm until reinforcements arrive.
randy l
I’m a solution kind of gal not a blame one.
Get rid of Cashman? Get rid of Girardi? Get rid of Eiland? Get rid of players? Who you replacing them with?
Sounds like off season kind of changes you are advocating not in season ones. Since they are a long way from the off season, what adjustments are doable and what are hyperbole?
Let’s see:
Andy tonight: I’m praying for a complete game from him.
CC Monday vs. Detroit: Would be nice to see a better performance from him. Like a 8IP 1R 4H 0BB 5SO performance
Hughesie(maybe) Tues vs. Detroit: Just do your best child!
Jobber Wed vs. Detroit: I’m hoping for a nice efficient outing here
Tues and Wed might..might..be painful for the bullpen. Would be nice for the children to give us some nice outings those 2 days.
Let’s see what happens.
Jennifer, this link is to an article in the Post today about Swine Flu.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04.....166307.htm
Question for Pete.
Is MLB preparing any contingency plans yet. Who wants to fly down to Texas where they already have confirmed cases? Not that it will be contained there as the kids in the article above makes plain. They suspect a trip to Cancun to be where they may have got it.
Joba as a starter is like Arod playing 3rd.
Arod isn’t bad at third but he’s still the best shortstop on the team.
This Swine Flu situation is getting a bit scary.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/C.....038;page=1
They did score 11 runs yesterday but if you break it down they still didn’t hit with RISP.
Of the 11 runs 5 did not come with a RISP. Cano hit a 2 run HR with Teixeira at first. Then hit a solo HR. Damon hit a solo HR.
The ball Damon hit to Pedroia that got the Yankees a 10-9 lead should have been an out.
The only Yankee that actually got a hit with a RISP is Swisher.
They were an anemic 3-17 with RISP.
Red Sox on the other hand 6-13…
trisha-
it’s not about you or me being right in the end. we both want the yankees to be good.
if when running my small business, after having one of the historical bad months ever, i just said we’re good and we’ll snap out of it and did nothing, i’d be put of business in no time because you don’t test historical lows without something being wrong when there is a long history.
the results of the pitching is really bad. there’s no denying it. the numbers are there.
that said the team is ok at 9-8 .
i don’t know where the problem lies with the pitching. i don’t know if it’s the management , the coaching, or the playersor any combination of all three, but i know it’s something that needs to be looked at to solve the problem and move forward.
its not about blame ;it’s about finding solutions and getting it right. i’m fine with keeping everyone there. just have everyone to something better.
surely you don’t have a problem with having everyone look at themselves and find something to improve. as an organization, everyone with the yankees involved with pitching has to do better.
“Get rid of Cashman? Get rid of Girardi? Get rid of Eiland? Get rid of players? Who you replacing them with?
Sounds like off season kind of changes you are advocating not in season ones.”
pat-
i don’t think i said anything about getting rid of people. i said yankee pitching results are bad , really bad, and everyone involved has to be better.
surely some of you out there are in a results oriented business. denial doesn’t improve anything. you don’t spend the money the yankees did on pitching and be in last place by accident.
something is wrong. forget firing anyone. forget demoting anyone, but get better. if you don’t try, it’ll never happen. and if you don’t think there’s a problem you won’t change anything.
if you don’t change anything, nothing will change.
the yankees need change with the pitching results.
that’s just a fact.
The Swine Flu thing is getting just a little scary…
And about the ERA, please remembber that includes Wang’s 34 ERA. Yeah, even without it it’ll still be high, but it won’t be quite that side.
We’ve seen that this team has the potential to be great. Everything’s there. It just hasn’t clicked yet.
gutless. absolutely gutless.
$$$ can’t buy heart.
Who would’ve thought we would be envious of the Washington Nationals pitching staff?!
The worst part of this is the glee the chowda-heads must be taking in all of this.
Surreal.
This team has guts. It doesn’t have consistency right now. But it has guts. And the last thing that matters is what Red Sox fans have to say. (Except for randy l and Trisha and anyone else who has to live amongst them, and even then, only because they have to hear it and it’s aggravating, not because it’s important.)
Our team ERA is pretty cooked for the rest of the year, bullpen ERA too.
Both are dead last in the league and probably won’t improve much statistically even if these guys turn it around.
Red Sox fans should be gleeful because of these last two games? Their ‘amazing’ pitching staff gave up fifteen runs in two days with their two best pitchers on the mound and their closer in both games. Sure their offense has looked good despite fat sloppy and they’ve showed some fight, but the Yanks have been fighting too. It’s been a slug fest IMO. Excuse me if I don’t wet myself at the thought of the Red Sox pitching.
I know people want to pile on AJ (and rightfully so, that was a terrible choke job by him blowing a 6-0 lead), but we did tie the game and eventually re-take the lead.
But this bullpen of ours gave it back everytime we scored. We could have still won this game if we actually had some stoppers in the pen, not just a cast of characters who throw hard with mediocre control like Veras, Alba, Marte, Edwar, Robertson etc. who are an adventure every night.
That is the bigger issue– the lack of quality in the pen. That’s why Melancon was brought up so early, they knew this bullpen will sink us without any stability, just like Cleveland’s did last year.
Doreen, Agree with you. The Yanks are still above .500 without ARod and with Wang pitching so poorly. I still think that they are a playoff team and will get it going.
I agree Doreen – the team has guts. I’m not going to fly off the handle because of two bad losses and I’m not going to blame the Yankees because the pitching’s been bad. It’s on CC to get himself straightened out – we need him. Unlike others, I am not going to trash AJ because of yesterday. I love what I see from him, on and off the field; he’s still a guy I think will do very well in a big spot. Wang just needs some time – he’ll be fine. Andy will be Andy and eventually Joba will settle down.
Back to the guts – the team may not execute all the time (or even most of the time), but I don’t see any quit in them. It’s a looooooong season and while I may say stuff like “this team just isn’t that good” after losses like we had on Friday, that’s just my emotions taking over. In a month or two, maybe the Yankees will be the hot ones and the Sox will be struggling. YOu can’t judge a team over the course of two weeks or else why not just have the playoffs now?
Guts might be the only team this team has, judging by their ability to come back every night.
What we don’t have is a team that can get a clutch hit, or get a clutch out from their bullpen.
Those 2 things will sink us more than anything else. The offense will be fine (even if it gags in big spots) and the pitching staff should atleast be adequate depending on what happens with Joba, Hughes, Wang.
The Red Sox are going to run away and hide with the division by the time our issues get sorted out (Wang, Joba, bullpen, A-Rod, Nady, maybe CC etc.)
Like us, they are trotting out a quality starter every night in the summer. And unlike us, they are healthy and know how to hit in the clutch.
Steve -
Are there any bona fide “stoppers” left in baseball? This is not a snide remark but an honest question. It seems to me that these days, the guys who are good enough to put the stop on are instead closers, who end up pitching the ninth inning. Yes, they shorten the game, and I don’t want to disrespect someone like Mariano, but generally speaking, their job is easy.
I think the save statistic and the way saves are awarded is not always valid or accurate. A true save is the guy who comes in with the bases loaded (whatever inning that is) or a trouble situation, and puts the brakes on, and getting the game back on track.
Unfortunately, middle relief is devalued.
Relief pitchers want to be closers because -ahem – that’s where the money is. A relief pitcher who is consistently good at stopping rallies doesn’t get rewarded at contract time, necessarily. But he might get rewarded with a closing role at some point. I don’t know if I’m making sense, but the whole things seeems topsy-turvy to me.
randy l
I was encouraged by AJs “Note To Self” moment in the postgame. Introspection is a good thing and can usually bring on the biggest change. I think Bruney figured that out before last year too.
I get your business analogy. I work in a travel related industry. I could have done everything right in October 2001 and my business still would have sucked. If I sat back and said “but this used to work pre- 9/11″, I would have been unemployed by December but if I changed everything I did on September 12th, business wouldn’t have been one bit better. A combination of short term tweaks and long term planning was the only way to go.
I think this years team is more self aware and open to trying something new. Heck, even Alex said something self aware that was positive instead of negative a few weeks ago.
I’m giving them a little longer leash than some because I think they did anticipate that CC has been a slow starter and Joba would have growing pains. I think they were thrown for a loop with the Wang issue and the Bruney injury. A little regrouping is necessary but I think they are in a better postion to address it this year than they have been in the last few years.
Church, T-Ball and the park are calling. Catch you all later for the game.
Middle relievers – the stupidest invention in baseball. They’re worthless to baseball teams across the league and they’re KILLING this otherwise solid team.
When your bullpen consists of mostly soft-tossing finesse middle relievers, you eventually reach a point – or many points – where you must play with fire and use them in tight games.
Over time, you rack up a truckload close losses like the last 2 in Boston. Those losses are the difference between making the playoffs and going deep into the postseason.
Take a pacifier out of the mouths of Hughes and Kennedy and stick one in the rotation while the other becomes the 6th starter.
I’ve been pro-start-Joba since day one. Right now he is our 5th starter. Let me repeat that. He is our 5TH STARTER.
What would you rather have? A lights-out setup man in this pen or a 5th starter that can easily be replaced by someone like Phil Hughes?
Mo-Joba-Bruney-Melancon-Marte-Coke
Screw the rest.
Maybe develop Joba as a starter in another life. This team needs him there with Mo. I can’t believe I changed my mind on this but this bullpen is the one thing stopping this team from gaining the psychological advantage in the close games that separate world series championship teams from inconsistent ones.
Jorge Posada is the WORST catcher!
A.) Cannot Frame Pitches (Glove always off the Corner)
B.) Hard time throwing runners out
C.) Is Spastic when a throw comes home & 9 times out of 10 allows the runner to score.
D.) Ellsbury stole HOME Plate on him…This is not Pettite’s fault…This is Posada’s fault.
Posada – You are fired as NYY’s Catcher