Neil Keefe

Jul 9, 2014

The State of Brian Cashman

Brian Cashman gave his most recent State of the Yankees to Mike Francesa, so it’s time to look at the State of Brian Cashman with the “first half” of the season almost over.

We are almost at the “halfway point” of the season. But when the “first half” of the MLB season ends, the Yankees will only have 68 games or 42 percent of their season left. Time is ticking for the Yankees to start playing like the Yankees or at least start playing the way they were two weeks ago. Luckily, the AL East has become what the AL Central and NL West were for so long and even at 45-44, the Yankees are a strong finish in Cleveland and Baltimore this weekend from possibly being in first place.

Brian Cashman talked with Mike Francesa on WFAN and gave a sort of First Half State of the Yankees, so of course it’s time to give a State of Brian Cashman for the first time since Feb. 20. Back in February, Cashman crushed my confidence about the 2014 Yankees a full 40 days before the season started, but rightfully so apparently since they are one game over .500 after 89 games. However, it’s a little odd that the person responsible for building this team and this roster is the person who entered the season admitting that they weren’t going to be that good, and his feelings haven’t really changed.

On the big picture for the 2014 Yankees.

“Frustrating so far. We’ve had underperformance; we’ve had injuries, inconsistency. It’s been a frustrating first part and it’s obviously my job to find ways to improve on what we’ve got and to make some adjustments and we feel we have to do that. I feel I have to do that.”

I’m glad that Brian Cashman feels he has to make some adjustments to the one-game-over-.500 team he built coming off an win and postseason-less season. That’s very nice of him. What’s also nice is using the word “frustrating” to describe the 2014 Yankees. I would have gone a different route in my choice of word, but “frustrating” is a very nice way to put. It’s kind of like when the Yankees get seven hits in a game, all singles of course, and Joe Girardi claims they swung the bats “well.” So yes, the 2014 Yankees have been “frustrating.” How frustrating? Let’s look at the Yankees’ season by month.

April: 15-11
May: 14-14
June: 12-15
July: 4-4

The Yankees are one game over .500 right now. When they were six games over .500 at 39-33 two weeks ago, Suzyn Waldman was telling John Sterling how Joe Torre used to like to say you need to move above .500 in increments of five and how the Yankees’ next stop was 10 games over .500. Since then, the Yankees have gone 6-12, so about that 10 games over .500 …

On why he chose to designate Alfonso Soriano for assignment.

He struggled poorly against left handed and right handed pitching. We got him because we were struggling so badly last year against left-handed pitchers and that’s something he’s always been good at .. this year the defense hasn’t been there clearly, the offense against righties and lefties hasn’t been there and this is a bad defensive club already … We’re at the halfway point. I can’t keep waiting. I have to all of a sudden make some changes if we feel there might be some better options and so the play kind of played the way off the club I guess.”

We’re not at the halfway point. We’re at the “halfway point.” The halfway point was last week when the Yankees were busy losing 4-3 in 12 innings at home to the Rays, which was the third loss in a five-game HOME losing streak. Two nights before that during Game 79 of the season, Cashman was (to steal a line from Tim Wattley in The Campaign) “playing hee-haw with the eff-around gang” in a private booth, canoodling with Kenny Chesney while his half-billion offseason dollars went a combined 2-for-12 with four strikeouts and made one terrible pitch to Mike Napoli. (That was the most I will ever get on Masahiro Tanaka and I felt bad even typing that sentence, but it went with the whole half-billion dollars thing, so I had to bring Tanaka into it. Sorry, Masahiro. Please don’t let your MRI come back with bad news.)

I said everything I had to say about Alfonso Soriano on Wednesday and Cashman only helped my argument by saying that Soriano believed he needed to be a full-time player to get on track, which he clearly did need. And Soriano was supposed to be an everyday player on Opening Day when he was going to be the full-time DH for the 2014 Yankees before Mr. The Knees Beltran needed to become a DH and Soriano became an outfield platoon with Ichiro.

On CC Sabathia.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

CC Sabathia needs to see Dr. James Andrews, but according to Cashman, Andrews is at a convention in Seattle with every other big-time surgeon where I imagine they are all getting absolutely hammered and watching the ticker on ESPN hoping to see news about athletes that were injured and will need to undergo season-ending surgery. “Bronson Arroyo needs Tommy John! Next round’s on Jim!”

There are rumors that Sabathia might never pitch again because of the possibility of microfracture surgery, but until then, I can only hope that Sabathia does come back this year to bolster the back of the rotation. (That’s right, I said back of the rotation for the $700,000-per-start “ace.” No big deal.)

On the trade between the A’s and Cubs.

“We had a lot of conversations clearly with the Cubs about Samardzija as well as Hammel as well as both at the same time and I think that the Cubs liked a lot of the pieces that we had. I think we were certainly in the arena. The fact that Theo was engaging me as much as he was, I know he likes our players. I know that there were packages that had interest to him for one or both combined that could have worked.”

I had to really hold back the tears when I heard this because what Cashman basically said was,” Hey Yankees fans, I was right there to completely fix the rotation, get us two frontend starters and make us the favorite in the division, but I didn’t! But I was close! I was really close!”

I’m not sure what the Yankees would have had to give up to get the duo, considering what the A’s gave up to get them, but if the Yankees had gotten both of them, this would have been their rotation:

Masahiro Tanaka
Jeff Samardzija
Jason Hammel
Hiroki Kuroda
Brandon McCarthy

Instead it’s:

Masahiro Tanaka
Hiroki Kuroda
Brandon McCarthy
David Phelps
Shane Greene

I’m guessing if Cashman was looking to get both then that’s not good news for hoping that Michael Pineda will be back soon or in 2014, but now with the starting pitching market as thin as it is and the Top 2 starting pitchers on the market both gone, Pineda has to come back in August and be as good as he was in April.

I would have rather had Cashman tell Francesa he didn’t even know Samardzija and Hammel were available or that Theo Epstein recently got a new cell number and he only had his old number. But hearing him say the Yankees “were in the arena” makes me feel the way I did when Cliff Lee was about to become a Yankee before the Phillies ruined everything. (Cue the Cliff Lee Sad Songs Playlist.) I’m just going to pretend that Theo was stringing him along with his buddy Jed Hoyer and they were sitting in a room talking to Cashman on speaker phone all seven times, pressing the “mute” button anytime Cashman was talking and screaming with laughter like Larry David and Jeff Garlin looking at the “Freak Book” at Ted Danson’s birthday party making Cashman think he really had a chance to land either or both of the starters.

On Carlos Beltran.

“I think Beltran looks like he’s starting to come through it a little bit on the elbow. I think his swings definitely look healthier, but obviously we have to deal with the knees too that he’s had now for a number of years … We have to deal with protecting Carlos.”

I love that Cashman says Beltran has been dealing with “the knees” (not one knee, but both) for a number of years now. There’s nothing like signing a 37-year-old outfielder to a three-year deal (he currently can’t actually play in the outfield) when you know he’s been dealing with “the knees” for a number of years and then needing to “protect him” in the first one-sixth of his deal.

Beltran is hitting .216/.271/.401 and the whole idea of getting Beltran was because of his postseason success (51 games, 16 home runs, 40 RBIs, .333/.445/.683), but you have to get to the postseason to get Postseason Beltran. So far his regular season has been more Postseason Nick Swisher and his health and ability to play through injury has been Regular-Season Mark Teixeira. So far the Yankees have been like Beltran: an underachieving disappointment.

Podcasts • Rangers

Jul 9, 2014

Podcast: Brian Monzo

Brian Monzo joined me to talk about the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since it ended and the departure of Benoit Pouliot, Anton Stralman and Brian Boyle.

The Rangers’ last game was 28 days ago and therefore we have been without hockey for 28 days. But the best part about having your team reach the Stanley Cup Final, other than playing for the Cup, is extending the season so long that next season doesn’t feel that far away. And with the Rangers playing until mid-June, we got the NHL Awards, the NHL Draft and the start of free agency all immediately following the devastating Game 5 loss.

WFAN Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN producer Brian Monzo joined me to talk about the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since it ended, the ridiculous contract Benoit Pouliot received from the Oilers and whether it matters that Anton Stralman and Brian Boyle signed with the Lightning.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 8, 2014

Sorry, Soriano

Alfonso Soriano became the first scapegoat for the 2014 Yankees, but he gave me a lot of memories during his time with the Yankees.

I was sitting in a hotel room in New Jersey for a junior hockey tournament when one of my teammates came barging into the room yelling, “WE GOT A-ROD!” in a tone comparable to Axl Rose asking “DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE EFF YOU ARE?!”

Alex Rodriguez: a Yankee. The idea seemed surreal and knowing that he had recently been traded and then untraded to the Red Sox, I didn’t really believe it. But once it was confirmed I started thinking about where he would play and where he would hit and if the Yankees would ever lose another game, but I wasn’t thinking of the most important question: who did the Yankees give up?

***

Don Mattingly was my favorite player when I first started attending Yankees games at the age of four in 1991 and it was his player T-shirt I wore over and over and over until the NY on the front started to break apart and fade and the dark blue of the shirt started to look more like New York Rangers blue than New York Yankees blue from the washing machine. I was only nine when Mattingly played his last game in 1995, but I wasn’t without a favorite player for long because the following April on Opening Day 1996, Derek Jeter started at shortstop … and has ever since.

Jeter has been a staple of my baseball life for nearly my entire life as well as for many other 20-something-year-olds in the tri-state area. It’s Jeter’s number 2 I wanted to wear and his swing I tried to emulate and his at-bats I had to watch and his line in the box score I checked when I missed those at-bats. No one has ever come close to Mattingly and Jeter for me, but in 2001, someone became a close second to those two.

***

Last Wednesday, I sat in Section 203 at Yankee Stadium and watched the Yankees slowly and miserably lose to David Price and the Rays and for some reason I paid extra close attention to Alfonso Soriano in right field. At the time I didn’t know it would be the last time I would ever see him play for the Yankees. It’s been nearly 11 years since I first thought I would never see him play for the Yankees again sitting in that hotel room in New Jersey.

Even getting the best player in baseball and destroying everything the Red Sox had spent their entire offseason working for, I was devastated to see Soriano get traded to the Rangers. After Jeter, he had become” the guy” even if he was coming off of a 20-strikeout performance between the ALCS and World Series. But when you’re acquiring the reigning AL MVP at 28 years old and locked up for at least four more years, you’re more apt to get over a trade of that magnitude and more willing to forget how much fun it was watching Soriano play.

I have wondered too much over the last 10-plus years what things would have been like if the Red Sox had successfully traded for Alex Rodriguez and if Alfonso Soriano had stayed with the Yankees all of this time instead of going to Texas, Washington and Chicago. Would 2004 have ended differently? Would Soriano have stayed at second base? Would Robinson Cano ever have been a Yankee? Would A-Rod still be getting paid by a Major League Baseball team? Would A-Rod have become a professional wrestler or a contestant on The Apprentice or a star of Celebrity Rehab? Would we ever have found out about A-Rod’s love for high stakes poker and for strippers and prostitutes? (I think if the Yankees had a crystal ball in February 2004, they probably wouldn’t have made the trade.)

I started to think about all of this on Sunday when I found out that Soriano had been designated for assignment. At .221/.244/.367 he was nowhere near the .256/.325/.525 player he was during the second half of last season, but in a limited and platoon role, his numbers were understandable for a guy who averaged 144 games per season over his 13-year career as an everyday player. With the Yankees struggling to score runs and coming off another embarrassing one-run effort on Saturday, a game in which Soriano went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and had his third straight two-strikeout game, he became the first scapegoat for the 2014 Yankees. Someone had to pay the price for the Yankees scoring two runs or less seemingly every day and since Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran contractually couldn’t pay the price and because the .212/.289/.376-hitting Kelly Johnson, who has one home run since May 3, is apparently a distant relative of Brian Cashman, Soriano was the one who had to go.

Soriano was supposed to be the Yankees’ designated hitter this season. He was supposed to play in the outfield only to give others a day off. But because of the old, brittle signing of Carlos Beltran and having the softest player in all of baseball in Mark Teixeira, Soriano lost out on being the full-time DH and was relegated to infrequent at-bats as part of an outfield rotation with Ichiro. The Yankees put Soriano, a career everyday player, in a position to fail and when he did, they let him go.

He became the first Yankee to fall on a team whose $180 million first baseman has missed games for being tired from standing on the bases, whose $85 million catcher isn’t hitting and just keeps telling the media how horrible he is, whose $45 million right fielder can’t play right field, whose $153 million center fielder is proving his 2012 power was an anomaly and who is playing at a level less than the left fielder who only got and whose $700,000-per-start “ace” hasn’t pitched since May 10 and might never pitch again. Soriano wasn’t the problem with the 2014 Yankees, but with the Yankees only owing him about $2.5 million for the rest of the season, he was the easiest choice for Brian Cashman to show he finally means business after watching the nearly half-billion dollars he spent this offseason play .500 baseball for 86 games.

Even Jeter, who never seems fazed by any roster move, was surprised by Soriano being designated for assignment. And Jeter was right to be with the time and chances given to others who offer much less in an everyday role.

“Soriano is like family to me,” Jeter said. “I have played with him a long time, when he first came up and when he came back. Sori has had a tremendous career here in New York and it was difficult for him this year. Not playing every day, it’s hard to be productive. I feel for him and I am going to miss him but I will be in touch with him. He is like a brother to me. He should be proud of what he was able to do.”

I’ll remember Alfonso Soriano for his magical 2002 season when he led the league in hits, runs and stolen bases, when it felt like he would lead off every game with a home run. I’ll remember him for hitting .400 against the 116-win Mariners in the 2001 ALCS and the way he tried to single-handedly carry a mediocre Yankees team to the playoffs in 2013, hitting 17 home runs and 50 RBIs in 58 games. I’ll remember his high socks, his long swing and the way he stared at most likely all of his 412 home runs until they reached their destination. And I’ll always remember feeling like Mikey McDermott sitting on a full house with three stacks of high society on the line following Soriano’s solo home run against Curt Schilling in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead before it all came crashing down a few minutes later when the Diamondbacks showed aces full like Teddy KGB.

Soriano won’t have a plaque in Monument Park and there won’t be a day for him at Yankee Stadium. Eventually his legacy will likely become the answer to the question “Who was Alex Rodriguez traded to the Yankees for?” that the YES broadcasters ask during a Yankees-Rangers game in 2029. But for me and for the generation of Yankees fans my age, he’ll always be the scrawny kid that came up wearing number 58, switched to 53 then to 33 and settled on 12, swung the biggest bat in the league, started all the handshakes and long tossed with Jeter down the first-base line before every game.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jul 3, 2014

The Yankees’ Trash Has Turned into the Twins’ Treasure

The Yankees need to start winning and they need to start now. There’s no better place for that than a four-game series in Minnesota against the Twins.

The Yankees followed a four-game winning streak with a four-game losing streak. Then after back-to-back wins they have now lost five straight. What does that mean? Other than that they have been a bad team for a while now, I have no idea. But I hope it means that they are about to go on a 12-game winning streak.

With the Yankees and Twins meeting in Minnesota for a four-game series, Jesse Lund of Twinkie Town joined me to talk about Phil Hughes’ first half-season with the Twins, Eduardo Nunez’s surprising production and how two failed Twins starters have become reliable relievers.

Keefe: The last time we talked was on May 30 for the last Yankees-Twins series. A lot has happened in those five weeks. Mainly, the Yankees have gone in the tank. Before that series, the Yankees were 28-24 and since then they have gone 13-18. I thought after finishing their nine-game road trip with four wins in five games that they would use a home series against the Twins to start a summer run, but that didn’t happen. The Twins didn’t use their series win over the Yankees in the Bronx to start a run of their own either, going 14-18 since since then.

What has gone wrong for the Twins since the last time they played the Yankees?

Lund: I don’t know if as much has gone wrong as much as it’s just the Twins playing to their true talent level. Some guys could be doing better (Nolasco, Arcia) and some guys have cooled off (Dozier, Escobar, Suzuki), but it’s really just an issue with inconsistency. And that’s to be expected when you have a roster of middle-of-the-road talent … and that tag is probably being a little generous.

This team has some pretty good role players, but with Mauer out and one of their new hot hands (Danny Santana) also on the disabled list, the lineup has been patchwork and being competitive is mostly down to the starting pitcher having a good night.

Keefe: My worst nightmare came true on June 1 at Yankee Stadium and I was in the Stadium to watch it unfold: Phil Hughes beat the Yankees. Not only did he beat the Yankees, but he was in line for a loss after giving up two earned runs over eight innings before David Robertson had a meltdown and the Yankees gave up six runs in the ninth for a 7-2 loss.

Since that start, Hughes has slowly started to return to being the Phil Hughes that pitched for the Yankees in 2013, allowing five earned runs in three of his five starts. The biggest difference about 2014 Phil Hughes is that he isn’t walking anyone. He has walked just 10 in 103 innings this season after walking 42 in 145 2/3 innings last season. (As you can tell and as I told you last time, I’m rooting heavily against Hughes after how he pitched his way out of the Bronx after being sold to Yankees fans for about a decade.)

Are you waiting for pre-2013 Phil Hughes to show up in Minnesota or do you think 2014 Phil Hughes is here to stay?

Lund: I don’t think he’s as good as he was the first two months of the season, but I still think he’ll be better for Minnesota than he was for the Yankees. He’s established a nice rapport with Kurt Suzuki, who has a better acumen for game-calling than I expected, but Hughes has also been pitching with a good deal of confidence. To live and die up in the zone, I guess you need to have a good deal of faith in your abilities. I see Hughes stabilizing as a solid No. 3, which will make him well worth his contract and, until Alex Meyer arrives, also probably makes him the best pitcher on staff.

Keefe: In the ninth inning of that nightmare June 1 loss, Eduardo Nunez doubled in the ninth in his only at-bat of the game. If I’m rooting heavily against Phil Hughes this season then I’m rooting incredibly against Eduardo Nunez after his Yankees tenure and his projected future costing the Yankees Cliff Lee in 2010, as I told you during the last email exchange.

Nunez is hitting .305/.337/.463 for the Twins this year with three home runs in 87 plate appearances after hitting .260/.307/.372 with three home runs for the Yankees in 336 plate appearances last year. As for Yangervis Solate, Nunez’s replacement on the Yankees, well after carrying the Yankees through the first two months of the season, he was sent down to Triple-A on Thursday prior to the start of this series.

What are your thoughts on the man the Yankees referred to as Nuney?

Lund: I think he’s one of those fine role players I mentioned earlier. The Twins organization’s inability to plan for issues in center field has led to a lot of infielders playing in the outfield somewhere, and that’s opened up a few opportunities for Nunez. As long as we don’t need him to step in for anything more than a couple of games at a time, he’s a perfectly suitable bench option, provided he keeps producing. You’ve seen firsthand how quickly he can lose his ability to produce, and I sincerely doubt that he’s suddenly tapped into his missing potential now. It’s not easy to be one of those guys – a guy who only gets playing time when he produces but can’t get playing time when he doesn’t produce and so how to you earn the playing time to produce when you’re not producing, but for now he looks like a nice get. I just wish he’d be willing to take a walk.

Keefe: I remember in 2009 when Glen Perkins was a starter and Brian Duensing was a starter, starting Game 1 of the 2009 ALDS. That was five years ago and now the two are no longer starters and haven’t been for a couple of years now. However, Perkins has turned into a reliable closer for the Twins and Duensing a reliable middle reliever.

Are you disappointed with how the potential starting careers of the two turned out, or are you happy that they turned out to be viable options in the bullpen?

Lund: It’s different for each guy. For Duensing, he was durable enough to start but he didn’t have the stuff and right handed hitters ate him for breakfast. So he’s turned into a pretty reliable middle innings reliever, even if Gardy doesn’t utilize platoon advantages as much as he could to get the most out of the lefty.

For Perkins, he seemed destined to be a wash out. His fastball sat right around 90, the curveball was too big and too slow, and he was just hit hard. Constantly. No doubt you’ve experienced this before as a fan — a guy with decent potential can’t make the adjustment to big league ball, his performance suffers, maybe says the wrong things to the wrong people in the organization and he’s in the dog house and you can already hear signatures going onto his walking papers.

But then he told the organization there wasn’t anywhere else he wanted to be, the team gave him an opportunity out of the bullpen, he started throwing 97, developed a slider and gave up on the curve, moved up the bullpen hierarchy and now he’s one of the best relievers in the American League. So while for Duensing it was a situation of low expectations and just being glad the guy found a place to be effective, with Perkins it was the case of a first round draft pick nearly going bust before being reinvented. There’s no disappointment there, just surprise.

Keefe: When we last talked, you said you thought the Twins would win 70 games before the season started and on May 30 you still believed that to be true. At 38-45, the Twins are 10 games out in the Central and would need to go 32-47 the rest of the way to meet your prediction, which won’t exactly be hard for them to do. After another month of baseball and half the season left, are your feelings on these Twins still the same and how your opinion on their future changed at all?

Lund: I think I’m willing to up my projection to 75 games. Now that’s without taking into account the fact that the Twins should be selling off spare parts at the trade deadline, which would change things again. But at the halfway mark they are on pace to win 76 games – a ten-game improvement over 2013 – and that’s a big step in the right direction. It’s been a rough two or three weeks here, but it’s definitely been a lot of fun watching the team be more competitive this year.

Watch Party

Jul 2, 2014