Email Exchanges – Page 12 – Keefe To The City

Apr 10, 2014

Derek Jeter Begins His Goodbye to Yankees-Red Sox Series

It’s the first Yankees-Red Sox series of the season and that means it’s time for the first email exchange of the season with Mike Hurley.

There have been a number of Red Sox to become Yankees over the years and Jacoby Ellsbury is in the top tier of names who have switched sides and put on the pinstripes after becoming an icon in Boston. The center fielder will play against his former team for the first time this weekend at the Stadium in what is the first Yankees-Red Sox series of the season.

A Yankees-Red Sox series? You know what that means. An email exchange with Mike Hurley.

Keefe: It seems like just yesterday I was writing to you at the beginning of September with the Red Sox coming to the Bronx for a four-game series and the Yankees looking at their last chance at making a run at a postseason berth. What happened next? The Yankees lost the first three games of the series, despite scoring 25 runs in the three games, and salvaged the fourth game, but the season was over. Then the Major League Baseball Players Association went on strike the following Monday and the season was ended prematurely and for the third time since 1994, we were without a baseball postseason just like 2004 and 2007.

The last time the Yankees and Red Sox played, here was the Yankees lineup:

Curtis Granderson, CF
Alex Rodriguez, DH
Robinson Cano, 2B
Alfonso Soriano, LF
Lyle Overbay, 1B
Mark Reynolds, 3B
Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Brendan Ryan, SS
Chris Stewart, C

In that game, Vernon Wells, Zoilo Almonte, Eduardo Nunez, and J.R. Murphy also entered the game.

Things are a little different here now with Derek Jeter back, Brett Gardner is back, Brian McCann catching, Carlos Beltran in right field and Jacoby Ellsbury in center field. Even Mark Teixeira was back for 21 minutes before landing on the disabled list with a hamstring injury, which won’t bother him, since he can now personally drive his kids to private school in Greenwich for the next two weeks.

This weekend will be the first time Ellsbury faces the Red Sox and even though his switch of teams hasn’t really fully set in and I don’t think it will until two weeks from now when he plays in Fenway as a Yankee, it must be weird for Red Sox fans to see him wearing pinstripes this weekend. When Johnny Damon switched sides starting in 2006, it was weird, and even though he was the face of Red Sox culture in Boston, it wasn’t as weird as Ellsbury to me because Damon changed his whole look and image as if he were a different person. Ellsbury is just the same guy with a different uniform on.

So welcome back, Hurley. The first of six Yankees-Red Sox series this season. I can’t wait for the pregame montages of the last 10 years of this rivalry to get everyone amped for April baseball.

Hurley: That’s funny, I faintly recall being at Fenway Park as the Red Sox bulldozed their way through the Rays, Tigers and Cardinals last October … but yeah, that seems impossible. I was probably dreaming.

Ellsbury vs. the Red Sox is definitely going to be weird. It’s been weird watching him in that uniform for the past week, and it’s going to be 10 times weirder seeing him against the Red Sox.

I wish there was another word to use other than “weird,” but that’s really all it is.

It’s not like this was never expected. Ellsbury basically had the same relationship with the Red Sox that Jonathan Papelbon had for so long. Both sides knew that the player wanted to reach free agency and then cash in with a contract from the highest bidder. In both cases, the Red Sox weren’t expected to be the highest bidder, and in any such situation, the Yankees are always a threat to be the highest bidder (unless the available player was a closer from 1997-2013).

So it definitely wasn’t shocking to see Ellsbury sign with the Yankees, but it remains … weird.

I contend the Johnny Damon switch was crazier, because Damon was kind of a heart-and-soul-of-the-Sox kind of guy, a leader in the clubhouse, a face of the franchise type, a guy who publicly said he’d never go to the Yankees. I never expected him to bounce like that. But Ellsbury? Fans appreciated him a lot here, but I don’t think it ever reached the level that it did with Damon.

And I know this is your website and everything, but can we talk about Jeter next? I mean, I need to talk about JEETS being unable to field a routine grounder to short, because he can’t bend over, and then his pathetic dive to try to cover for the fact that he can’t touch the ground with his glove on a routine play. Please, please, let’s talk about that next. If that wasn’t a Pride/Power/Pinstripes moment, then I don’t know what was.

Keefe: I have no idea what you’re talking about regarding Derek Jeter. On Tuesday against Baltimore, I vividly remember a grounder up the middle that he gave full effort on and it was unplayable for any shortstop in the league or any shortstop in history without the use of a shift. I don’t remember seeing a grounder go up the middle and looking away from the TV thinking it was an inning-ending double play and that the inning would be over only to do a double take and look back at the TV to see the ball rolling to Jacoby Ellsbury. Nothing to see here. Move along.

But in all seriousness, I don’t care that Derek Jeter lets an occasional playable grounder up the middle get past him. If Ivan Nova could be trusted, he would have bailed out Jeter for his inability to end the inning. Instead, Nova gives up a three-run home run and the Yankees are in 3-0 hole before they even hit for the first time in the game.

Jeter will be 40 in June and that’s what happens with 40-year-old shortstops. Actually I’m going to have to say “I think that’s what happens with 40-year-old shortstops” because I can’t remember any team, nevermind a team looking to contend for a championship, having a full-time 40-year-old shortstop. But like I said, I don’t care. I would run Jeter out there at short for the next 10 years if he wanted to keep playing. I’m not a cold-hearted computer slave when it comes to baseball and while I appreciate advanced statistics, I’m loyal to players who did so much for so long, let alone players I grew up with. I’m fine with Jeter playing shortstop like someone from your Greater Boston men’s league, and I would be more than happy if the Yankees signed Bernie Williams and he hit .219 for them this year. (.219 might be a bit generous at this point.)

I understand the need and want to compete every year, but having a player of Jeter’s defensive capabilities at this point isn’t going to be the reason the Yankees don’t win the World Series, if they don’t win the World Series. It will come down to the middle of the order, which has been a disaster through the first nine games and the rotation, which is supposedly led by a once-fat, now-skinny CC Sabathia who has about 129,000 innings under his belt and is making $700,000 per start. But by the end of the year, I think we will realize the Yankees’ rotation was set up backwards and should be really be more like Pineda-Tanaka-Nova-Kuroda-Sabathia than the other way.

Hurley: What do you think Jeter thinks when he sees Ellsbury get GAME THREE of the season off? Or when he sees Mark Teixeira say he’s not really injured too bad but he’s going to go on the disabled list and collect about $2.1 million to do absolutely nothing for two and a half weeks?

You mention that the guy is 40, and I think it’d be great if he just stopped caring at all about anything this year except for winning. I’m picturing him getting in Ellsbury’s face, spit flying everywhere, Jeter just embarrassing the guy in front of everyone. That would be awesome.

But instead, we’ll just see a Jeter whose No. 1 priority seems to be being kind of a jerk to media nerds who ask him bad questions. So boring.

I’d get into how insane you are to be OK with trotting out an old man at shortstop like it’s not the most important position on the diamond, but I think that kind of speaks for itself. Plus, I almost feel bad. It’s like you’re watching your family pet die a slow, painful death, on live television, in high definition, in front of 50,000 people. Ouch.

Stephen Drew is available, by the way.

Keefe: Well, Jorge Posada was more like watching the family pet die. After the Yankees’ 2010 ALCS loss to the Rangers, I wrote that he was like the aging family dog, who would have his good days that would make you think the days of old were back, but then there were the days he would just lay around all day or poop in the middle of the kitchen floor and you realized it was time.

I’m disgusted by you mentiong Stephen Drew and the Yankees or any member of the Drew family and the Yankees. The same goes for the Weavers. If the Yankees could trade Francisco Cervelli and all of the suits who sit (or actually don’t sit) in the seats between the bases for Jered Weaver, I would pass. No, I really wouldn’t. But I would like to. I picture the Drews driving around Georgia in the early 90s with J.D. and Stephen in the back and the “O’Doyle Rules!” family scene from Billy Madison taking place. The fact that both Drews have World Series rings and both with the Red Sox is so effed up it makes me hate sports.

You brought up a funny thing about Jeter and that is the way he handles the media. He has been praised his whole life for handling the media better than anyone else and who praises him for this? The media! Why did I use an exclamation mark there? Because Jeter is actually very sarcastic and condescending to the beat nerds that worship the ground he walks on, yet they are the ones that have created this image that he can do no wrong with a microphone or camera in front of him. I can only hope that when Jeter is hanging out with his buddies and one of his YES postgame scrums in front of his locker comes on TV, he says, “Hey everyone, quiet down! The part where I embarrass the 5-foot-2 nerd with the gut and BBQ sauce stain on his Polo shirt from 1993 for asking me how I felt when I took Lester’s fastball the other way is coming up!” And then they all laugh and drink beer. Yeah Jeets!

Hurley: It is a weird thing. Derek Jeter may very well be the nicest guy in the world for all I know. But he also might be the biggest dick ever. How could we possibly know?

The guy is a flat-out jerk with the media, but I never judge any athlete based on his interactions with the media. I actually respect him for putting nerds in their place for being nerds, because not every athlete can get away with that without getting trashed in the media. So good for him.

But it would be pretty funny if in real life, he was just an A-hole. He’s been praised for staying single and playing the dating game for so long, but maybe it’s because nobody can stand being with him. I mean, frankly, a guy who makes me put my phone into a bowl so I can’t use it while I’m at his fancy mansion already gets things starter off on the wrong foot.

And I officially forget what, if anything, we were really talking about. So I’ll just link to a picture to the scene you described, the one of Jeter hanging out with his buddies.

Keefe: I feel like Conan O’Brien doing one of his interviews with Norm MacDonald in how far off track we have gotten. But while we’re talking about players who are dicks to the media, let’s talk a little David Ortiz.

Last month we had the annual David Ortiz Isn’t Happy About His Contract meltdown, which can now be counted on like Groundhog Day. This time, however, Ortiz didn’t call the city he plays for a “shithole,” but not like it would have mattered anyway because it’s David Ortiz. He can pretty much to do whatever he wants and no one cares. If he were the mayor of Boston, and he would win if he ran, and he put a TGI Friday’s and WalMart in the North End, shut down the MBTA except for the hours of 10am-11am, removed the Freedom Trail bricks, made Charles Street a one way going the other way and evicted Halftime Pizza, no one would be upset. (As long as he keeps the Domino’s on Staniford Street open late night, I’m fine. Is it bad I still remember their phone number, 617-248-0100, from 2004?) Why would no one be upset or rioting? Because it’s just David Ortiz!

This is a guy who outed as being a PED user, held a press conference about it in New York, admitted to taking things he knew were bad, started to break down like an aging and overweight power hitter should and his release was being talked about and then he magically rebounded and hit like it was 2003 again. I mean he said, “I never thought buying supplements was going to hurt somebody’s feelings. If that happened, I’m sorry about it.” He said that! And no one cared!

Not only did he return to his former self, but he went on to hit .688 in the World Series against the Cardinals and instead of people wondering how he has picked his career up off the mat, he is leading the league in jersey sales. Is this real life?

Hurley: Well, when you put it that way, it looks pretty bad. Yeah, he hit .688 in the World Series, but he also hit .091 in the ALCS, so it’s not like he was going all Incredible Hulk on us for the entire postseason.

But yeah. I don’t know what the heck David Ortiz is on because I don’t know what anyone is on. Obviously, I think the days of syringes going in butts in clubhouses across America are over, but most of these guys are taking something that you can’t find at GNC.

I think the fact that A-Rod, Braun and Co. weren’t even caught by MLB’s testing but were busted by the Miami New Times (is that a website or a font?) tells you that the athletes, as always, remain ahead of the testing.

But if Ortiz is on some funky stuff, he’s hardly the only one, so I don’t know how to possibly place what he’s doing in any special context.

I also think your tales of his demise are exaggerated. He had two bad Aprils in three years (2008, 2010), but he finished those seasons with respectable .877 and .899 OPS (how do you pluralize OPS?). You might have taken great joy as Ortiz went 8-for-56 in April 2010, but maybe that blinded you to his month of May, when he hit 10 homers and batted .363. Unless you’re insinuating that he doesn’t start popping pills until late April?

Keefe: I guess that’s what I’m insinuating. So I can expect a David Ortiz trip to “GNC” very soon since it’s now April 10.

The Yankees have their questions and unknowns like any team does at this point in the season. But coming off their second missed postseason since 1993, people around here don’t want to have questions and unknowns, they want answers. They want to know everything before it happens. And that’s why I turn to you.

Last year, the Red Sox were picked by many to finish last in the AL East and be one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball. They were coming off their worst season maybe ever as part of the one-year Bobby Valentine era and looked like it would take them a decade to climb out of the hole Theo Epstein and ownership had put them in. (Thanks, Dodgers! I appreciate it!) In April 2013, the Red Sox’ chances at competing fora postseason berth were about as good as me putting together a 10-team parlay during an NFL Sunday. But the players they needed to rebound and to steal a line from Michael Kay, who apparently isn’t happy with me right now for questioning his analysis of a bunting situation, “they need players to play to the backs of their baseball cards.” Everyone did and they won the World Series.

In the new postseason format, you have to really, really, really, really, really suck to not be in contention for at least the second wild card. The 2013 Yankees had Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay in the middle of the order for nearly the entire season and they weren’t eliminated until Game 158 last year. Maybe the Yankees do have a lot of performance (CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Kelly Johnson) and health concerns (Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Michael Pineda) to worry about, but there is definitely proof that the stars can align.

I hope someone drills someone this weekend or the benches clear because I’m not sure what we will talk about when they meet again in 12 days.

Hurley: The stars definitely can align, but when you’re using the 2013 Red Sox, aka the most unlikely championship team in history, to boost your spirits about the 2014 Yankees, that’s probably an indication that maybe even you realize that your expectations need to be adjusted.

The 2013 Red Sox were an anomaly, so you might want to look elsewhere to find inspiration that the Yankees can win a World Series this year. I do think recent years have shown that teams don’t need to be great at all to win — they just need to get good pitching, good defense and timely hits from relatively unknown middle infielders to win the whole thing. The 2010 and 2012 Giants, the 2011 Cardinals and the 2013 Red Sox were far from “powerhouses,” and the fact that Edgar Renteria (!!!!), David Freese and Pavlo Sandoval served as the Series MVPs in those years supports that.

And you’re right to say that a team really has to suck to be out of contention for the second wild card spot, but:

A.) Aiming for the second wild card spot is really sad, and

B.) The AL East is still crowded.

For whatever reason, the Rays are always in the playoff mix, even though their players change every year. The Red Sox don’t look great early this season but they are the defending champs and probably shouldn’t be counted out just yet. So that means the Yankees really have to be better than the Orioles, which I’m not positive they are. (Also, the Blue Jays are a baseball team.)

I feel pretty comfortable saying the Yankees, with their 40-year-old shortstop and freakishly skinny “ace” and hairy-armed binder-wielding manager, are not going to win the World Series. But good luck to you in your insane-as-ever following of the team. I look forward to watching you melt down on Twitter all summer long.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 7, 2014

Brian Roberts No Longer in Third-Base Dugout With Baltimore in the Bronx

The Yankees open the Stadium against the Orioles and that calls for an email exchange with Mark Brown of Camden Chat.

After back-to-back losses to open the season in Houston, which made me question if I even like baseball, the Yankees have won three of their last four games to get to .500. It took the 2014 Yankees 48 1/3 innings to hit their first home run of the season, but Brett Gardner ended the drought and I no longer have to worry that this season is just a continuation of last season with the Stadium opener against the Orioles on Monday.

With the Yankees and Orioles playing the first baseball in the Bronx of the year, I did an email exchange with Mark Brown of Camden Chat to talk about how Buck Showalter has changed the culture and the direction of the Orioles, what it will be like to watch Brian Roberts play against the Orioles and how Yankees fans will miss Jim Johnson as an Oriole with Tommy Hunter now their closer.

Keefe: I said during the 2012 ALDS that Buck Showalter wanted to win that series more than anyone wanted anything in their life. After he was fired by the Yankees following the 1995 season before they went on their dynastic run and then fired by the Diamondbacks following the 2000 season before they won the World Series, Showalter has had a couple devastating breaks in his career.

When Major League Baseball decided that in 2012 (and only for 2012) there would be a 2-3 format for the division series, I thought Showalter and the Orioles had a real chance at beating the Yankees in the ALDS. And when they won Game 4 at Yankee Stadium, I was petrified going into Game 5, knowing that the Yankees could lose the ALDS in Game 5 at the Stadium for the second year in a row.   The Yankees won the series, but after not having won more than 79 games since 1997, the Orioles had gone 93-69, won a one-game playoff in Texas against the Rangers, who were coming off back-to-back AL championships and had change the perception of the franchise for outsiders.

Last year, the Orioles weren’t as good (85-77) as they had been in 2012, but they still proved they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon and are going to be in the mix for playoff contention for the foreseeable future.   It seems like the culture chance with the Orioles started when Showalter took over the Orioles during the 2010 season, as they went 34-23 under him and then 69-93 in 2011 before reversing their record in 2012.

How has Showalter changed the Orioles and how do Orioles fans feel about him?

Brown: I’m not sure we’ll ever know just how much Showalter was really a factor in the Orioles turnaround, but as far as O’s fans are concerned, things got better when he got here. It was almost an immediate change in that 2010 season, going from lackluster play under two other managers to a great finish with basically the same roster. The players talk about the advantage of having someone who’s going to hold them accountable. Guys like Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, who’ve been around a while, would know better than me.

Even with 2011 representing an interruption of progress, a not-great full season under Showalter, there was still that wonderful final series against the Red Sox, where the O’s, with nothing to play for, sent them packing from the playoffs. I believe that it was Showalter who had them believing in that happening. In retrospect, that Game 162 magic feels like it was the prologue for the great 2012 season that was to come.

When Showalter was hired, there were all these stories about how he wore out his welcome everywhere else he’d been. That was concerning at the time. Now that he’s been here for some winning, I’m not too worried about that either. Showalter likes to say that he’s tired of watching someone else walk his daughter down the aisle. Maybe that means he learned something about what didn’t work out in his other stints as a manager.

He’s signed through 2018, and while he has occasional moments where his tactical decisions frustrate fans – as any manager will – I don’t have any reason to dread him being around that long. The franchise seems to have finally found some stability in the dugout and the front office and it’s meant good things so far.

Keefe: For years, Brian Roberts killed the Yankees. He played just about a full season against them during his time with the Orioles and hit .288/.344/.429 14 home runs and 66 RBIs in 152 games. I have always been a fan of Roberts since he played the game the right way, even if he was a pesky switch hitter, who always seemed to be involved in every Orioles rally against the Yankees.   Now Roberts is a Yankee, and I’m happy about it and believe he is a perfect fit at second base for this team for at least this year, and possibly more if he can stay healthy for the first time since 2009.

How frustrating was it with Roberts suffering so many injuries over the last four years and what’s it like to see him as a Yankee now?

Brown: You mentioned feeling bad for Markakis that he didn’t get to participate in the playoff push, but for me, it’s Roberts who makes me sad that he missed out on all of that. Here was a guy who’d literally given his physical health for some awful Orioles teams of the 2000s. He was probably the best player on a number of those teams. That was his era of the Orioles. It was a losing era, but it wasn’t his fault. He came and he played except for when he suffered significant injuries. He never got to be a good player on a good Orioles team. At least Markakis contributed, even if he didn’t play in the postseason.

It was frustrating to watch him battle so many nagging injuries as he got older, particularly his concussion problems, because he was making $10 million a year. Turns out it’s not a great idea to have an aging second baseman signed for four years at that price. I don’t blame Roberts for that. You knew he wanted to be playing.

What will be really frustrating is if he finds the fountain of youth while playing second base for the Yankees this season as the Orioles continue to have poor performance at the position. It’ll be strange watching him in pinstripes, but I don’t hold it against him for going there. It was clear that the O’s weren’t very interested in bringing him back, for better or worse. The Yankees had a need in the infield and a chance for him to keep playing. I wish him well, except for when he’s playing the Orioles.

Keefe: I felt bad for Nick Markakis when he missed out on the end of the 2012 season and the postseason after being hit by CC Sabathia and breaking his hand. Markakis had played through miserable years with the Orioles starting in 2006 and then went on the disabled list for the first and second times in his career the one year they win 93 games and reach the playoffs.

After his .300/.362/.485 season with 23 home runs and 112 RBIs in 2007 at the age of 23, I thought Markakis would continue to progress into a star in the league. While he has been a very good all-around player in the league for his entire career, he never turned into the top-tier player I thought he would.   How do you view Markakis and what has held him back from taking the next step?

Brown: I don’t understand Markakis. As you mentioned, he had that great season at a young age and instead of building on that, he’s only declined as he’s gone through what are the typical prime years – this as his salary escalated thanks to the extension he signed on the strength of his early seasons. At one time he looked like the next good career-long Oriole. Now it’s not even a certainty he’ll be with them beyond this season, as there’s very little chance the Orioles will be picking up a $17.5 million option for 2015.

His power has vanished. Even if you consider 2013 an aberration, when he says he was battling nagging injuries and having to make adjustments he never had to make before, he’d still had declining power in 2010 and 2011. It’s a mystery. What happened? I have no idea.

There was a whole spring full of stories about how this is going to be a new-look Markakis. In photographs, he looked to be more muscular than he’s seemed in several seasons. There’s still some hope about him rebounding for this season, although it hasn’t been a great start for that cause over the first couple of series of the season.

Keefe: No Yankees fans were upset that Phil Hughes wasn’t part of the future plans of the Yankees after last season, however I’m sure Chris Davis was saddened to know that Hughes was moving to the AL Central. It hasn’t been fun watching Davis finally put it together in the majors with 86 home runs over the last two years. Last year, when he hit 53 home runs with 138 RBIs, it reminded me of A-Rod’s 2007 season with the Yankees when he hit 54 home runs with 156 home runs. I remember how fun it was watching every A-Rod at-bat thinking that he would hit a home run every time at the plate or at least once a game.   What was it like watching Davis’ incredible 2013 season and how has it been watching him figure it out and develop into a true, consistent power hitter in the majors?

Brown: You are exactly right about how fun it was to watch Davis. The best part is when he hits a home run and you can’t even believe it went out. He’s so strong, he can just flick his wrists and sometimes it goes out even if he doesn’t get great contact. He had a broken bat home run. He goes opposite field. He pulls the ball over the right field scoreboard. He crushes them to deep center. He was homering anywhere and everywhere.

No one in Orioles history had ever had a season like that, so it was cool to know we were seeing something that no Orioles fan had ever seen before. Not bad for a guy who came over in a late July trade for a closer.

Keefe: When I think of Tommy Hunter, I think of Game 4 of the 2010 ALCS when he went 3 1/3 innings against the Yankees, allowing three runs on five hits, while striking out five and walking none as the Rangers went on to win that game 10-3 and take a 3-1 series lead. I remember that game because A.J. Burnett started it for the Yankees and it was basically the end for the 2010 Yankees.   Hunter never really put it together as a starter with the Rangers or the Orioles, but then the Orioles put him in the bullpen and he has been a completely different pitcher and probably belonged there all along. He has gone from a back-end-of-the-rotation guy barely hanging on to a spot in the majors to the closer for the Orioles.   What do you think of Hunter as the closer following the Jim Johnson era? I’m going to miss Jim Johnson. I’m going to miss him a lot.

Brown: When the Orioles were running Hunter out there as a starter, my nickname for him was “Five Runs, All Earned”, because that was in his box score seemingly every time. He couldn’t get lefties out. Transforming into a bullpen arm was the best thing for his career. He pumped up his velocity since he only has to air it out for one inning.

That’s helped him, but he still struggles against lefties – he gave up 11 home runs last season and all of them were hit by lefties. That makes me nervous about him as the closer, especially if it’s a one-run game. But, he doesn’t really walk batters either. At least that should be enough to avoid some patented Johnson disaster innings.

The traumatic moment of my childhood was the Jeffrey Maier play. The traumatic moment of my adulthood is Johnson against Raul Ibanez. You might miss him, but I won’t!

Keefe: I love the nickname for Tommy Hunter. I used to call Hiroki Kuroda “Coin Flip” when he first arrived with the Yankees in 2012 and have had many other nicknames for pitchers like Phil Hughes and Boone Logan, but I will refrain from writing those here since I’m hoping to keep it at least PG-13.

Joe Girardi’s decision to pinch hit Raul Ibanez for Alex Rodriguez was the most important decision of Girardi’s tenure as Yankees manager. If Ibanez does anything there other than hit a home run, Girardi is second-guessed about pinch hitting for his $29 million player. It took a lot of balls for Girardi to make that decision, but I’m glad he did. It was a memorable night at the Stadium.

The American League East is as good as it’s ever been. The Yankees revamped their roster by handing out eight- and nine-figure contracts left and right after their down year, the Red Sox are coming off their third World Series in 10 seasons, the Rays are coming off their third postseason appearance in five years, the Blue Jays have built a strong offense and lineup and the Orioles are coming off back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 1996-97. With the division so competitive and tight this year, there’s a chance the East could send three teams to the playoffs.   What are your expectations for the Orioles this year and how do you think they will finish?

Brown: Before the season started, I predicted that the Orioles would win 86 games. I felt like the offense would be good and the rotation would be OK and that’s about where a team like that would end up. Not great, but good. A whole lot like last year, in fact, just with a slightly different cast of characters.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 4, 2014

The Derek Jeter-Jose Reyes Debate Is Over

The Yankees head to Toronto to face the Blue Jays after a disastrous opening series and that calls for an email exchange with Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter.

When I saw that the the Yankees were going to open the 2014 season in Houston, I penciled them in for a 3-0 start to the season. At worst they would open the year 2-1. After back-to-back disastrous games to open the season, the Yankees head to Toronto at 1-2 and with an offense that has looked like a continuation of last season despite the addition of Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran.

With the Yankees and Blue Jays meeting this weekend, I did an email exchange with Tom Dakers of Bluebird Banter to talk about Jose Reyes and the Blue Jays since their November 2012 trade with the Marlins, the decision to trade prospects for R.A. Dickey and what it will be like for Blue Jays fans to no longer see Derek Jeter in the Yankees lineup.

Keefe: For nine years years in New York, I was forced to be involved in Derek Jeter-Jose Reyes debates, the same way I was forced into Derek Jeter-Nomar Garciaparra. Mets fans would cite Reyes’ abilities and excitement against Jeter’s accomplishments and championships. I would have to defend Jeter against fans who believed that the Yankees would have achieved the same success with Jose Reyes in the lineup over the years. But over time, the potential for Reyes was overshadowed by him becoming the face of everything that started to go wrong with the Mets after their 2006 NLCS Game 7 loss and has continued to go wrong since their September 2007 collapse. Like the Jeter-Garciaparra debate, it seems like the Jeter-Reyes debate has headed the same way.

Sure, when Reyes is healthy and playing, he is a dynamic and rare talent, especially for a shortstop. But “when he is healthy” isn’t something that happens that often. Since 2008, Reyes has played at least 133 games just once and after one inning this year, he’s back on the disabled list with a hamstring injury.

What are your thoughts on Reyes and since I’m asking, what are/were your thoughts on that entire deal with the Marlins?

Dakers: I liked the trade, at the time, but then I figured Emilio Bonifacio would be able to play second base (boy was I wrong) and that Josh Johnson would become our ace (0-for-2). My least favorite excuse for a bad move by a general manager is “anyone would have done the same thing.” I want the GM that does moves that turn out better than anyone would have expected. For a team that prides itself on due diligence and scouting, I don’t know why they didn’t notice that Bonifacio wasn’t good with the glove or that Johnson’s arm was hanging by a thread. But then, we all make mistakes.

A season later and all we have to show for the trade is a mid-rotation innings eater (definitely not a bad thing to have, but not something that will put you in the playoffs) and an often injured shortstop who is entering his 30s who is owed a ton of money over the next four years. I think it is safe to say the trade didn’t work out.

Reyes, when healthy, has been a lot of fun to watch. Unfortunately, he broke his ankle, two weeks into last season and when he came back he wasn’t 100 percent. Favoring the ankle slowed him, and it was very noticeable on defense. For a good part of the season he had the one step and a dive range, only he rarely dove.

This year it is a hamstring problem. I’m hoping it doesn’t keep him out long but I don’t think we are ever going to get a full season out of him.

Keefe: R.A. Dickey became one of my favorite non-Yankees (and there aren’t many of those) during the 2010 season when he put together an 11-9, 2.84 season for the Mets. And his season should have been even better considering he had seven starts where he pitched at least six innings and gave up two earned runs or less and lost or received a no-decision.

I was nervous about Dickey joining the AL East last season following his 2013 Cy Young campaign in 2012 because he had given the Yankees some trouble in the Subway Series in the past and you never want to add front-end starters to other teams in your division. Dickey wasn’t the same pitcher with the Blue Jays (14-13, 4.21) that he had been in the NL, though given the team’s performance and the stat conversions from the NL to AL, it’s not like he had an awful year. But to me at least, I wasn’t as scared of the knuckleball specialist I had been in the past and I think that has carried over into this year. Though I’m sure I will regret saying that when the Yankees face him on Saturday in Toronto.

What are your thoughts on Dickey as a Blue Jay? Were you for the team adding him to the rotation and do you trust him as a front-end starter?

Dakers: No, I wasn’t thrilled with the trade. Trading two of your very top prospects for a 38-year-old pitcher, even if he throws a knuckleball, just seemed wrong to me. The idea was to put the Jays over the top, and if it worked it would have been worth giving up Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard, but it didn’t.

Dickey is 39 now and he isn’t the normal knuckleball pitcher. He throws a harder version of the pitch than most, so I’m not sure that he will age as well as most did. Last year the drop in velocity was blamed on a sore neck, sore back. This spring he says he’s 100 percent healthy, but he had a rough spring and his first start of the season didn’t exactly make Blue Jays fans think that he’s going to get his second Cy Young Award. Pitchers, even knuckleball pitchers, do lose something as they age, and maybe R.A. has lost a little bit too.

He did finish strong last year, he had a 3.57 ERA in the second half of the season, so I’m not without hope that he’ll be, maybe not the pitcher he was in 2012, but a good member of the rotation.

Keefe: After watching Vernon Wells for nearly a decade as a Blue Jay against the Yankees and then for another two years as an Angel, he became a Yankee in 2013 thanks to a ridiculous amount of injuries. I was actually optimistic about Wells joining the Yankees near the end of spring training last year and I fell into the same trap that the Angels must have when they traded for the backloaded $126 million man.

The Yankees needed Wells. They needed an experienced major leaguer who could provide power, even if his lowest batting average and on-base percentage went against everything the Yankees had been built upon since the mid-90s. But with Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson injured to start the year, the Yankees had to find depth somewhere. And at the time, paying $13.9 million of his remaining $42 million seemed like a bargain. I mean the Yankees have spent much more money on worse players.

On May 15, Wells hit his 10th home run and had 23 RBIs in just 38 games and 143 at-bats, and was boasting a .301/.357/.538 and the Yankees were rolling. I thought Wells had revived his career at the age of 34 by putting on the pinstripes and it seemed like the Yankees’ latest reclamation project was working. The problem was the Yankees’ entire 2013 team became a reclamation project, eventually failing, and this included Wells as he would hit just one more home run with 27 RBIs over the rest of the year in 281 at-bats, hitting .199/.243/.253.

Wells didn’t work out with the Yankees the same way he didn’t work out with the Angels after not working out with the Blue Jays following his big contract. What happened to Vernon Wells after signing the $126 million in his prime? For Blue Jays fans, what was it like to watch his career fall apart after his success from 2002-2006?

Dakers: What was it like? Sad. Just sad.

Vernon was a favorite of mine. It really isn’t his fault that the team offered him way too much money. He really was the sort of player every fan says he wants on their team. Runs out every grounder hard, always hustles, good teammate, and all around good guy. Unfortunately, he also tended to pick of little nagging injuries, hamstring problems and wrist problems. He also tried to play through these too often. We do like guys to be tough, but sometimes it’s best to take some time off to heal.

The nice part was that Alex Anthopoulos was able to trade him before his salary went up through the roof. His last season with us he was paid just over $15.5 million, and he had a pretty good season, the next season he was paid just over $26 million. It was the prefect moment to trade him, especially since the Angels took almost all of his contract.

Keefe: On Opening Day 2003 in Toronto, Derek Jeter went down with a shoulder injury when he collided with catcher Ken Huckaby at third base. That was on March 31 and he didn’t return to the Yankees until May 13.

Before breaking his ankle in Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS and missing the rest of that series and nearly all of the 2014 season, that shoulder injury in Toronto was the closest I had ever come to not having Jeter in my baseball life. He has been the Yankees shortstop since I was in fourth grade and I have grown up with him as a staple in the Yankees lineup and my life every spring, summer and fall.

Since this is Jeter’s last season, what has been like for Blue Jays fans watching him against your team all of these years? I always get the Yankees fan perspective on experiencing Jeter for all of these years, but you never hear about what it’s like watching him from the outside. The ovations and ceremonies on the road during the Derek Jeter Farewell Tour are one thing, but will it be weird for Blue Jays fans to not see him in the Yankees lineup when they play starting next year?

Dakers: Well, playing against the Yankees has changed so much, over the last few years. Jorge Posada is gone, Mariano Rivera is gone and Alex Rodriguez has been mostly gone. With Jeter missing last year and not really being the same player he was in the past. And now Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson gone it doesn’t seem like the same Yankees as in the past.

An infield made up of an old Mark Teixeira, Brian Roberts, Brendan Ryan and Yangervis Solarte (who?) doesn’t really exactly strike fear in our hearts.

Yeah it will be weird not seeing Jeter out there. He’s been around for so long. He’s the last link to the great Yankees teams of the 90s. Last year, without him, they just weren’t the same team (though we still couldn’t win against them). It will be interesting to see if the Yankees can come up with a new “face of the franchise.”

Keefe: Entering the season, I was confident about the 2014 Yankees because of their free-agent signings and because of their revamped rotation and because I knew there couldn’t be the same series of devastating injuries of last year. I expected them to take care of business in Houston to open the season and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Yankees scored just seven runs in three games and without the Yangervis Solarte you asked about and Ichiro, who has become the Yankees’ fifth outfielder, they might have left Houston 0-3. But even 1-2 is pretty disheartening considering the Astros lost 111 games last year.

As for the Blue Jays, after their franchise-changing trade with the Marlins, they became the team to pick to win the division and contend for the playoffs. But like the Yankees, injuries and underachievers ruined last year for them and now they seem to be forgotten in the AL East.

What are your expectations for the Blue Jays this year?

Dakers: Honestly? This has been the most frustrating offseason of my life as a Blue Jays fan. Last year the team was ‘all in’, making huge trades, signing free agents, building a buzz about the team. This year, nothing.

Last season everything that could go wrong did. Injuries? Damn near everyone on the team dealt with some sort of injury. Three members of the season opening starting rotation went down with major injuries. On offense Jose Reyes, Brett Lawrie, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Melky Cabrera and Colby Rasmus all spent time on the disabled list. Most of them for long stretches of time. Other players had their baseball skills seemingly removed. It was just an awful season.

Going into this offseason, the team had three vital needs: improving the starting rotation, finding a major league second baseman and getting a catcher that could get on base more than once a week. Of the three, the only move the team made was to let J.P. Arencibia leave and sign free agent Dioner Navarro. Oh, and they let Josh Johnson go, in a addition by subtraction move.

So we end up with a rotation made of up R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and three guys who had a collective 10 major league starts last year: Brandon Morrow (who missed most of last year with a nerve problem in his pitching arm), Drew Hutchison (missed all of last year coming off Tommy John surgery) and Dustin McGowan (who has made a total of four starts over the last five years, because of various arm problems). It isn’t a rotation that should fill one with confidence, but odds are they have to be better than last year.

Personally, I see a .500 team. The Injury Gods almost have to be nicer to the Jays. There is a ton of talent there. A great offense (when healthy), a great bullpen and a starting rotation that has a little more depth than last year, even if we didn’t make a big free agent signing. If the team finishes more than five games above or below .500 I’ll be surprised.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 27, 2014

The Break Is Over for the Rangers and Blackhawks

The Rangers begin the post-break schedule and stretch run of the season against the Blackhawks and that calls for an email exchange with Tab Bamford of Committed Indians.

The break is finally over. After 20 days without Rangers hockey, the Blueshirts return from the Olympic break without their leading scorer, but with three challenging games over the next four days. The Rangers host the Blackhawks on Thursday, head south to see the Flyers on Saturday and then back home to play the Bruins on Sunday. Now that there are just 23 games left in the season, we are officially in the stretch run and it all starts against the defending champions.

With the Rangers and Blackhawks playing for the second and last time this year, I did an email exchange with Tab Bamford of Committed Indians to talk about Patrick Kane’s performance in the Olympics, if Blackhawks fans trust Corey Crawford and what it’s like to be on top of the hockey world.

Keefe: The Olympics are over and they didn’t end the way I wanted them to for Team USA and that’s because they couldn’t score enough or actually when it came to playing Canada or Finland, they couldn’t score at all.

Patrick Kane is the face of hockey in the United States. He is the best American-born player in the NHL and was the best player on the 2014 version of Team USA. It was Kane who everyone turned to control and carry Team USA’s offense in the Olympics and lead them offensively to the gold-medal game, but he never got going. Kane seemed to hit a rough stretch just as the Olympics began and appeared to be in a funk and snake-bitten when it came to breakaways, penalty shots and shootouts as well as a couple of shots that were inches away from tying the semifinal game against Canada. But I’m sure Kane will have his goal-scoring abilities back when the NHL returns and the Blackhawks visit Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the Patrick Kane-type of game we expected in the Olympics against the Rangers.

It’s disappointing that Kane wasn’t his usual self in Sochi because had he been, Team USA could have gotten past Canada and could have ended the now 34-year drought since this country’s last gold medal. But he shared his frustration with the media after the loss to Finland and looked like one of a few Team USA players that wanted to be playing in the bronze-medal loss.

Are you disappointed with Kane’s performance in the Olympics and him missing out on the chance to become a bigger name and face for the game?

Bamford: Not at all. If you look around that USA roster, there were plenty of guys not pulling their weight, especially at the center position. Kane, like Zach Parise, needed to be a bigger part of the scoring, but Team USA simply didn’t have the horses to put together two or three quality lines that could generate consistent offense.

Keefe: Henrik Lundqvist is now in his ninth season in the NHL and out of the eight prior seasons, Lundqvist has been to the playoffs seven times, losing in the first round three times, the second round three times and the conference finals once. Any success the Rangers have had in the post-lockout era can be attributed to Lundqvist, but here in New York, casual fans or Islanders and Devils fans like to cite his Cup-less career as a reason why Lundqvist isn’t what his stats suggest, despite playing at a Vezina-worthy level since his rookie season.

I always say if the Blackhawks had Henrik Lundqvist as their goalie, it’s scary to think of the type of record they would have and the type of dynasty they could build. If the Blackhawks can have the type of regular season they had last year and then the postseason they had, winning their second Cup in four years, with Corey Crawford, it’s hard to imagine what they could do with someone like Lundqvist.

Last year in the playoffs it seemed like the Blackhawks’ biggest concern, especially in the Final against the Bruins, was how Crawford would play. Do you trust Crawford in net after having now won, or is goaltending still a concern for Blackhawks fans?

Bamford: I trust the Blackhawks’ group of defensemen and the combination of Crawford and Antti Raanta to be good enough … and that’s the key. Crawford has his moments of Vezina-caliber brilliance and others that leave you wondering how the hell he ever made an NHL roster. But, for the most part, he’s been good enough to win games. He was overused and banged up early this season and how he performs down the stretch will be important.

Keefe: I went to college in Boston and know a lot of people that were either at Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final or were watching it with the belief that the Bruins were forcing a Game 7 in the final couple minutes back in June.

What were the emotional changes like at the end of Game 6 and those 17 seconds that changed hockey history? Going from looking at a Game 7 at home for the Cup to looking at overtime to either win the Cup or go to that Game 7 to looking at winning the Cup so quickly must have been hard to handle.

Bamford: Truthfully, I think there was a lot of disbelief on both benches. To have an empty-net and tie the game is one thing, but to score again 17 seconds later to pull ahead in any game is almost unfathomable, much less in a Stanley Cup-clinching game.

Keefe: The last time the Rangers won the Stanley Cup I was in second grade. It will be 20 years this June since the Rangers beat the Canucks in seven games and the MSG Network is running out of storylines to overkill into making documentaries about from that season. The Rangers need to start making new memories since their best memories in the last 20 years are losing to Flyers in the 1996-97 conference finals and losing to the Devils in the 2011-12 conference finals.

Prior to the Blackhawks winning the Cup in 2009-10, they hadn’t been to the finals since 1991-92 and hadn’t won it all since 1960-61. But after almost 50 years without winning the Cup, the Blackhawks have now won it twice in the last four years.

What is it like to be on top of the hockey world, for someone who forgets what that feels like or means? As a Yankees fan, I have never bought into the idea of a grace period and treat every season as if the Yankees haven’t won the World Series in decades. When it comes to Blackhawks, do you believe in a grace period or would you be devastated if the season ended any other way than with the Cup back in Chicago?

Bamford: It’s surreal. You talk about the Rangers drought … the Hawks hadn’t won the Cup since 1961 before 2010. But, beyond the lack of a championship, the Blackhawks hadn’t even been relevant in almost a full generation. After they burned down a roster loaded with Hall of Famers like Chris Chelios, Ed Belfour, Steve Larmer, Denis Savard and Jeremy Roenick, fans in Chicago were left with a team that was ranked the worst in professional sports (not just hockey) by Forbes less than five years before they hoisted the Cup.

Any fan that’s been around the team for longer than five years will tell you it didn’t make sense that they were champions for a while in 2010 because of how far they had come in such a short amount of time. They were among the last place teams in wins, attendance, revenue, All-Star and postseason appearances. They couldn’t get a call back from an agent, much less sell season tickets. Now there’s a waiting list for tickets that’s thousands of names deep. In a town that had the Cubs, White Sox and Hawks all down for so long, having the Hawks rise to the top has been a wonderful experience for fans.

Keefe: I attended the Rangers-Blackhawks game in Chicago in January. It was my first time in Chicago and my first time at the United Center and it was an awesome experience that was made even better by the Rangers’ 3-2 win.

In that game, the Rangers led 2-0 after the first, but blew that lead (which came as no surprise), before Carl Hagelin broke the tie in the third. It was an encouraging win, beating the defending champions in their building, and since that game, the Rangers have gone 10-4-0 and have positioned themselves as the current 2-seed in the Metropolitan.

Before the break, the Rangers were playing their best hockey of the year (with the exception of a 2-1 home loss to the Oilers on Feb. 6). Now with what will have been 20 days off between games and without Mats Zuccarello for the next few weeks, I’m not sure what to expect from the Rangers as they return from the break.

What kind of game do you expect on Thursday night and are you concerned with how the Blackhawks will play coming off the break?

Bamford: It’s hard to know what to expect out of either of these teams with the number of Olympians returning to the ice. For Chicago, there’s looking back at the Olympics and forward to Saturday night’s outdoor game against Pittsburgh as distractions surrounding a big game against a quality opponent at MSG. The first five minutes to begin the game and the last 10 minutes of the third period will show us a lot about how ready both of these teams are for the home stretch.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Rangers

Feb 7, 2014

Final Pit Stop for Rangers-Penguins

The Rangers and Penguins meet for the last time this season in what is their last game before the Olympic break and that calls for an email exchange with Jim Rixner of PensBurgh.

After Friday, there will be three weeks without Rangers hockey. I know, it’s devastating. But in place of Rangers hockey is Olympic hockey and Team USA hockey, which will do more than fill the void left by the NHL. In the final game for the Rangers before the Olympic break, they meet the Penguins for the final time this season and the last thing you want to do before having a long layoff is play the best the team in the Eastern Conference on the road, but that’s how the Rangers are set up.

With the Rangers and Penguins meeting on Friday night in Pittsburgh, I did an email exchange with Jim Rixner of PensBurgh to talk about if Chris Kunitz is the luckiest player in the league, whether or not Penguins fans trust Marc-Andre Fleury and if Dan Bylsma should have received his contract extension.

Keefe: Chris Kunitz is the luckiest man in the world. Or at least the luckiest hockey player in the world. A solid player and reliable scorer through the majority of his career, Kunitz did have 161 points in 163 games with the Ducks between 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons. But prior to the 2012-13 season, Kunitz’s career single-season high for goals was 26, which he scored in 82 games in 2011-12 with the Penguins. And then last season as a linemate of Sidney Crosby’s, Kunitz’s production took off and he scored 22 goals … in 48 games! This season, also as a linemate of Crosby’s, Kunitz has 27 goals in 56 games and is on pace for at least a 40-goal season.

Not only is Kunitz riding Crosby to career point totals and contract extensions, but the wing is also on Team Canada this year over some very worthy candidates and you would have to think he will also be a linemate of Crosby’s there.

I feel like you could stick pretty much anyone and I don’t mean just any NHL player, but rather any actual person on a line with Crosby and they would be good for 15-20 goals. Am I wrong for constantly bringing up this argument with others (you’re not the first) about Kunitz being lucky to be on a line with Crosby? Is it wrong for me to cite Crosby as the sole reason for Kunitz having career years in his mid-30s?

Rixner: I don’t think it’s wrong to cite Sidney Crosby as being a great help in the production of Chris Kunitz. Kunitz is sitting in the top 10 in the league in scoring, and if he’s on a team that’s not the Pittsburgh Penguins, we all know that’s not going to happen. Crosby’s the best player in the game, so of course he’s going to boost his linemates statistics and that’s definitely been the case for Chris Kunitz.

But I don’t really think it’s luck that’s made the Kunitz-Crosby combination a success, or the sole reason that Chris Kunitz is a productive player. First of all, his skill-set meshes perfectly with Crosby in that they both like to play low in the offensive zone and use a grinding, cycle-based game to use their lower-body strength to outwork opponents and drive chances from right in front of the net. Kunitz also has underrated in-zone playmaking ability, he has good vision and is capable of playing the puck very well in the offensive end with touch passes. He’s tough enough to hang in front of the net on power plays and that can pay off with chances. His hands are quick enough to convert them.

Then there’s also familiarity. Crosby and Kunitz have played 2,200-plus minutes together at even strength in their careers and even more on power plays and in practices for the past five years. They know what each other’s tendencies are and how each will react in every situation. Crosby knows what Kunitz will do, say on the forecheck should the defenseman break to the left. He knows where Kunitz is going to go if he gets the puck, and he knows precisely when he’ll arrive there. That’s something, that in a short tournament like the Olympics, will be very useful. Players like Crosby and Gretzky and Lemieux are said to be “two steps ahead” of everyone and if you give Crosby a linemate he knows, likes and is productive with, that removes one more element of unknown variables on the ice and helps push him even further ahead of the competition.

To that end, Crosby scored seven points in seven games last Olympics, but consider that three of those were assists against a weak Norway team. Another was a shootout goal (which counts to stats). Aside from the flashy golden goal in overtime, Sidney Crosby wasn’t really that consistently productive in the 2010 Olympics with Patrice Bergeron, Eric Staal and Jarome Iginla (the three linemates they tried him with).

Keefe: Marc-Andre Fleury was the goalie for a championship team and was also the goalie for a team that lost in a Game 7 for the Cup. He can win in the playoffs because he has proven he can even if those two seasons were five and six years ago.

But after his 2011-12 playoff debacle against the Flyers when the Penguins were bounced in six games by a 7-seed and the disaster last postseason against the Islanders that saw him lose his job to Tomas Vokoun, it seemed like maybe Fleury was ruined. However, so far this season, he has played better than he has any other year and he might set career bests in wins, goals against average, save percentage and shutouts. What’s different about Fleury this year compared to last spring and do you trust him?

Rixner: I trust Marc-Andre Fleury, but shakily so. The most unsettling thing about his meltdowns in 2012 and 2013 in the playoffs was that he had pretty good regular seasons before the bottom dropped out and now again this year, we’re seeing another strong regular season. The hope is that there are some changes from year’s past. The Penguins have a new goaltending coach. Fleury’s seen a sports psychologist that’s hopefully helped get his mind to a better place. The Pens now have Rob Scuderi back, a defensive defenseman who’s thrived in the playoffs in L.A. and Pittsburgh. And they also have Jacques Martin as an assistant coach to lend a defensive conscious to the team.

Will it work? I’d be lying if I said I was 100 percent confident, but there certainly are enough changes to at least believe they’re not just trying the same thing every year. Also, I think it’s important to remember that the Pens failures have been more than just on Fleury. In 2012 when the Pens met the Flyers, Philly got under their skin and had the speedy and skilled forwards to trade chances with them. Ditto the Islanders last year in terms of having impressive team speed and ability to counter-punch a wide open Pittsburgh team. All we as Pens fans can do right now is hope that they play more responsible hockey in front of Fleury and that he can continue his strong regular season into the playoffs.

Keefe: After the Penguins’ Cup win over the Red Wings in 2008-09, I thought we were about to see an Oilers-esque run from the Penguins built around Crosby and Malkin. And if they had Henrik Lundqvist the last few years, they might have put one together. But since winning the Cup, the Penguins have lost in the second round, the first round twice and the conference finals despite usually being the best or one of the best regular-season teams.

Dan Bylsma took over the team during their Cup-winning season and has led them to the playoffs in each of his four seasons. But after the Penguins were swept by the Bruins last year following to straight years of first-round exits, it seemed like there was a lot of backlash and criticism toward Bylsma and that he might be on his way out. Then the Penguins went and gave him a two-year extension through the 2015-16 season. Are you a fan of Bylsma and were you a fan of the extension?

And on another note, what can I expect from Bylsma over the next few weeks as the Team USA head coach in the Olympics?

Rixner: Well, the Oilers didn’t have a formal salary cap and were able to keep their Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Coffey, Anderson and Fuhr for much of the ’80s in their run. The Pens have had to drop Jordan Staal, Sergei Gonchar and even role players like Scuderi, Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy due mainly to the salary cap within a few years of winning it all. Their team depth has definitely diminished since winning it all in ’09.

I’m fine with Bylsma, because like you mentioned he is a solid regular-season coach. The Penguins have, by far, lost the most man-games to injury in the league this season, but they’re still the best team in the East. It helps having a good team anchored by Crosby and Malkin, but the coaching staff has plugged lesser guys into big roles and it’s worked. They also have the No. 1 power play and the No. 1 penalty kill in the league so far right now. Again, a lot of that credit goes to the execution and skill of the players, but that’s also a credit to the coaches for their preparation and instruction. And, at least they keep the team invested and do more than “just go through the motions” on most nights.

Team USA ought be great for Bylsma, because it has so many players who fit perfectly for the philosophy of his north-south style. Zach Parise, Dustin Brown, David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Ryan Kesler and, yes, Rangers captain Ryan Callahan. It’s a match made in heaven for Bylsma who likes his wingers big, physical and active on the forecheck. He also stresses the defensemen making the long, vertical stretch pass, and I think the skill and ability of the USA personnel defensively really fits what he looks for as well. It’ll be interesting because Bylsma usually has the stud centers in Crosby-Malkin, and center is probably the biggest weak point on Team USA (compared to the talent that Canada, Russia and Sweden has) so we’ll see how he handles that.

Keefe: The Shawn Thornton-Brooks Orpik incident and that whole Penguins-Bruins game as a whole (including James Neal and Brad Marchand) got a lot of attention for the gongshow that it was. As someone who went to college in Boston and who has friends from there and who live there and even some who covers the Bruins, I’m certainly aware of the Boston perspective of everything that occurred in that game and their take on the suspensions and injuries that resulted from it. Do you think your Penguins are a dirty team?

Rixner: I don’t think the Penguins are necessarily dirtier than any other team (especially since they no long employ Mr. Cooke). They certainly have some hot-heads, but NHL players are basically all alpha-male young men with a lot of testosterone who are playing a physical and emotional game that moves really fast. There’s no excuse for James Neal’s actions that night, but consider that he kneed the same guy in the head who pretty viciously boarded him five months earlier. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, but it’s not just the Penguins players who are starting incidents or behaving badly, as the cowardly action from Thornton showed as well.

Keefe: I attended both of the Rangers-Penguins games at Madison Square Garden this season and in the first game (Nov. 6), the Rangers won 5-1 and in the second game, (Dec. 18) the Penguins won 4-3 in a shootout. In their only game in Pittsburgh this season (Jan. 3), the Penguins won 5-2.

I go into every Rangers-Penguins game with a pessimistic view because to me, the Penguins are a terrible matchup for the Rangers. They rely on their offense and power play to win games, while the Rangers rely on Henrik Lundqvist and pretty much only Henrik Lundqvist. That’s why the Rangers’ 5-1 win back on Nov. 6 was so surprising and also why their late comeback on Dec. 18 was as well. You would think the Jan. 3 game is how a Rangers-Penguins game should play out, but so far this season the Rangers have gotten three of a possible six points against the Penguins and I’m content with that.

But since the last time these two teams met, the Rangers have gone off on an 11-3-1 record and are playing their best hockey of the year as Alain Vigneault’s system is finally coming together. What do Penguins fans think of the Rangers and what kind of game do you expect on Friday night?

Rixner: Most Pens fans, to be honest, aren’t all that concerned about any threat within the division. With every team 17-20-plus points back in the rear-view mirror and being non-threats all season, the focus has been more on injuries and seeing the team play well more-so than worrying about anyone chasing Pittsburgh. Personally, I’ve always thought Washington, Philadelphia and the Rangers would be the biggest division challenges for the Pens, and I even picked the Rangers to win the division in my pre-season predictions. Maybe I slept on the transition time Vigneault would need, but I’m not surprised that now the Rangers are playing good hockey lately.As far as the game goes, we’ll have to see. Right on the eve of the Olympics, a lot of players might have their minds on vacation, or heading over to Russia. I know Evgeni Malkin has been just sensational recently and really seems motivated and focused on getting his game in gear in time for his big homecoming. The Pens are an amazing 23-4-0 so far this year at home. They’ve been beyond impressive on special teams and have had pretty good goaltending too. They’ll look to use their strengths to get out to a good start and an early lead and then just coast on to victory. Hopefully the Martin/Orpik combo can get ready for the Olympics by keeping Rick Nash off the scoreboard and limiting his chances as much as possible and the Pens will go into the break on a high note.But, if they check out a game too soon, as we saw in November, the Rangers definitely have the firepower and ability to beat Pittsburgh in a relatively easy fashion. It’s cliché, but the first period will be key. If Lundqvist can come up big on the Pens and keep it 0-0, I like the Rangers chances. If the Pens can punch through and get a 1-0 or 2-0 lead, obviously the chances that they’ll end up getting the win go way, way up.