Opening Day – Page 4 – Keefe To The City

Feb 23, 2015

Yoan Moncada Proves the Yankees Are No Longer the Yankees

The Yankees chose not to sign Yoan Moncada in what is the latest of a trend that should have people questioning what their plan for the future is.

This is not good. This. Is. Not. Good.

I was thinking of sending in the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s “Black” instead of writing this since I am holding back tears and shaking, but I wasn’t sure if turning in Eddie Vedder’s work as my own counts as plagiarism since it’s a song.

Just over four years and two months ago, I started a column that same way. That column came after Cliff Lee chose the Phillies over the Yankees. Five months after Lee didn’t end up on the Yankees and cost them a trip to the 2010 World Series, the Yankees couldn’t get him again. For weeks, Yankees fans were told Lee would be a Yankee. The Yankees would offer the most money, the Yankees gave him the best chance at winning and his supposed best friend was CC Sabathia, who was a Yankee. But somehow Lee ended up in Philadelphia.

Last week I wrote, “Get Me Yoan Moncada on the Yankees“, which now is nothing more than a waste of 1,490 words explaining why the Yankees desperately need to sign the 19-year-old Cuban. This morning, I received a text from my girlfriend that said,”Moncada to the Red Sox” and my heart sank. It was the same feeling I had in December 2010 when Jon Heyman started reporting about a “mystery team” entering the Cliff Lee sweepstakes before it was leaked to be the Phillies.

Yoan Moncada on the Red Sox? I’m sure Eddie wouldn’t have minded if I just posted his lyrics to “Black” instead of taking the time to write this depressing column.

I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star
In somebody else’s sky, but why? Why? why?
Can’t it be, can’t it be mine
We, we, we, we, we belong together! Together!

It’s time to look back at how I felt that day when Lee chose the Phillies and compare it today with the Yankees choosing not to sign Moncada. And like that day, quotes from Michael Scott of The Office will take us through the decision because right now that is the person who most resembles our trusty GM and ownership.

Here we go. (Now playing: “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.)

“But I always thought that the day that Steve Martin died would be the worst day of my life. I was wrong. It’s this.”

I didn’t think I would feel the same way I did on the day that Lee chose the Phillies over the Yankees, but I do. Actually, I feel worse. Moncada didn’t choose the Red Sox over the Yankees, the Yankees just didn’t choose him and that’s what hurts more. If the Yankees upped their offer, he would be a Yankee. He was going to go to the highest bidder and they were outbid. They didn’t have to do anything other than give him more money. But nowadays, the Yankees apparently don’t have money. It’s time to change the team’s marketing campaign from “Our history. Your tradition.” to “Our history. Your tradition. We’re poor.” (Now playing: “All Out Of Love” by Air Supply.)

“How do I feel about losing the sale? It’s like if Michael Phelps, came out of retirement, jumped in the pool, belly-flopped and drowned.”

In the movie Heavy Weights, at the demolished go-kart track at Camp Hope, Gerry has this exchange with Pat.

Gerry: “Did this place always stink this much?”

Pat: “No, Gerry. This place used to stink very little. In fact … it didn’t stink at all.”

Gerry: “Well, it does now.”

There was a time when a player of Moncada’s potential meant that reports that other teams like the Dodgers, Red Sox, Padres and Brewers being involved in talks for him were just noise. No one would have believed that any team other than the Yankees would land a player like Moncada. That’s no longer the case. The Yankees have become Camp Hope under Tony Perkis.

(Now playing: “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” by The Smashing Pumpkins.)

“My whole life, I believed that America was No. 1. That was the saying. Not, ‘America is No. 2.’ England is No. 2, and China should be like 8.”

The Red Sox have never signed a free agent the Yankees truly wanted until now. Yes, the Yankees wanted Curt Schilling back in the winter of 2003, but they didn’t really pursue him. They just figured they would get him and Schilling figured he would be a Yankee until the Red Sox front office flew to Schilling’s for Thanksgiving and changed his mind. This is the first time the Red Sox have gotten a free agent the Yankees wanted and it could have been avoided for a few million more dollars. The same kind of millions they wasted on Kei Igawa or Jaret Wright or A.J. Burnett or A.J. Burnett to pitch for the Pirates or any one of a number of bust free agents past their prime.

The Red Sox greatly (and thankfully) overpaid for Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was supposed to come to the majors with an unhittable “gyroball” that was going to mimick Roy Halladay’s “palmball” in EA Sports’ MVP Baseball 2005. J.D. Drew? The Yankees didn’t want him or have a need for him. Carl Crawford? Aside from a dinner with Brian Cashman, the Yankees were never really interested. Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval? The Yankees were never in on them. Whenever the Yankees have gone head-to-head in free agency with the Red Sox, they have won. Until now. (Now playing: “Every Breath You Take” by The Police.)

“Here’s the sitch. Two weeks ago, I was in the worst relationship of my life. She treated me poorly, we didn’t connect, I was miserable. Now, I am in the best relationship of my life, with the same woman. Love is a mystery.”

When spring training starts, I start to worry about the Yankees. But near the end of spring training and as Opening Day gets closer, I start to feel overconfident about the Yankees. I think it will be a great year, even if it won’t be, and I talk myself into believing they will win the World Series.

Over the last couple of weeks as I started to think about this season and how it hinges on the health of Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda and how at any moment I can look at Twitter and read that one of them is hurt and POOF! the season is gone, and I’m left sitting on my thumb trying to find something else to do this summer. But then with the signing of Moncada appearing imminent and with the Yankees holding private workouts twice in the last few days, I started to gain hope that the Yankees would have the Next Big Thing in baseball and a potential superstar. Now I’m sitting here again waiting to hear that Tanaka has elbow discomfort or that Pineda has one of any of a long list of injuries he has had or could endure and the summer will be ruined. (Now playing: “With Or Without You” by U2.)

“You know what? I had fun at prom. [pause] And no one said yes to that either.”

George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973. In the 37 ½ years of his life that he ran the team (I know that number depends on when he technically stopped being in charge and you also have take away the years he was banned), no one except Greg Maddux turned down the Yankees, until Cliff Lee. Again, Yoan Moncada didn’t turn down the Yankees, the Yankees turned him down, but this is another example of life during the Hal (and maybe Hank?) Steinbrenner era.

The Yankees let the Mariners outbid them for homegrown start Robinson Cano. They didn’t care to pay to bring back their homegrown closer in his prime in David Robertson and he went to the White Sox. They let the Dodgers sign Brandon McCarthy and didn’t want to spend to enhance their rotation. They never even tried to get Jon Lester, Max Scherzer and James Shields. That’s right, the Yankees never tried to get any of the three best starting pitchers in a give free-agency year.

Sure, last year they went out and spent when they said they wouldn’t. But they got Masahiro Tanaka, who was Cy Young-worthy, but also whose right elbow is a ticking time bomb, overpaid for Jacoby Ellsbury, signed Carlons Beltran 10 years later than they should originally have and gave Brian McCann a five-year deal just in time to endure the catcher’s worst season of his career. (Now playing: “How’s It Going To Be” by Third Eye Blind.)

“You know what Toby, when the son of the deposed king of Nigeria e-mails you directly, asking for help, you help! His father ran the freaking country! OK?”

The only way I won’t feel like my dog got run over every time Moncada steps to the plate against the Yankees is if he becomes the Cuban position player version of Jose Contreras or if he is somehow lying about his age and is actually in his mid-20s right now. It was Theo Epstein in December 2002 who was trashing his hotel room after finding out Contreras had signed with the Yankees for four years, $32 million, so maybe this one will go the Yankees’ way? Or maybe Yoan Moncada is actually 29 years old?

1. Everyone who has ever seen a baseball seems to agree that Moncada is the real deal and could potentially be the best Cuban player to reach the majors yet.

2. The Yankees’ overspending in the international market means that they will not be allowed to offer an international free agent more than $300,000 for the next two years.

When you know about these two things, how do you NOT sign Moncada? If his agent tells you, the Red Sox offered $31 million, you answer back that you’re going to $35 million just to be safe. And if he tells you another team went to $35 million. You go to $40 million. That is, unless you have another potential future face of the franchise/middle-of-the-order hitter in the system, who would easily be the No. 1 pick if he were eligible for the draft. There’s a better chance A-Rod gets a standing ovation on Opening Day than there is that a player of that caliber is currently in the organization. And even if the Yankees believe they have a player like that, they also believed Eduardo Nunez would be the heir to Derek Jeter’s shortstop and were never willing to trade him in a deal for Cliff Lee or others. He ended up getting traded for a minor-leaguer because career minor-leaguer Yangerivs Solarte took his spot. (Now playing: “The Heart Of The Matter” by Don Henley.)

“There are ten rules of business that you need to learn. Number one: You need to play to win. But, you also have to … win, to play.”

I have no idea what the Yankees’ strategy is the for the future. Wait until A-Rod, Teixeira and Sabathia come off the books and then spend wildly again? In a few years when that happens, Moncada will be in the majors and hitting third for the Red Sox, and the Yankees will be trying to find a player like Moncada. If your strategy is to spend and spend and spend then you can’t take years off from spending. Especially when you’re the Yankees. Especially when you sold part of YES to FOX for an amount that could put every senior in high school in New York City through college. Especially when you’re charging $12 for watered-down Coors Lights in plastic cup. Especially when ticket prices keep going up and it costs roughly $19,000 to sit between the bases for a regular-season game on a Thursday night against the Astros.

The Yankees are like the guy at the blackjack table that stays with a 16 with the dealer showing a 7, but only sometimes. If you’re going to do something like that, then do it consistently. Don’t sign Kei Igawa because of Daisuke Matsuzaka and then not be in on Yu Darvish because Matsuzaka and Igawa sucked. Don’t say you’re not going to spend money because of the $189 million luxury tax threshold and then spend nearly $500 million on four free agents (Tanaka, Ellsbury, McCann, Beltran) because you missed the playoffs and the Red Sox won the World Series. Don’t not go out and try to get the best free agents (Lester, Scherzer, Shields, Moncada) at areas of need (starting pitching, good young talent) because the free agents you signed the year before had bad years.

That’s how small-market teams operate. They can’t afford to throw money around and have it not work out because then they don’t have any more money to throw. The Yankees aren’t a small-market team with financial restraints. They are the effing New York Yankees. It’s time they started to act like it again. (Now playing: “Un-break My Heart” by Toni Braxton.)

“I miss the feeling of knowing you did a good job because someone gives you proof of it. ‘Sir, you’re awesome, let me give you a plaque! What? A whole year has gone by? You need more proof? Here is a certificate.’ They stopped making plaques that year.”

The five-year grace period for the Yankees is over. The five years following a championship is over. If you believe in the grace period, then this year you are free to act accordingly if the Yankees don’t win the World Series.

The Yankees have won one World Series in the last 14 seasons. That one World Series is because of A-Rod. The same person that some Yankees fans seemingly hate and want to boo and the same person the Yankees are so upset with for taking performance-enhancing drugs. They are mad that he put illegal substances and likely some with unknown short-term and long-term side effects to try to stay healthy and play baseball better. Without A-Rod, the Yankees lose Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS and maybe Game 3 too. They lose Game 2 of the 2009 ALCS and maybe don’t come back in Game 3 of the 2009 World Series and trail that series 2-1.

Luckily for the Yankees, A-Rod is still a Yankee. Because this week when he is at spring training, all of the lazy media members can give their attention to him and ask questions to the Yankees about A-Rod rather than ask why they are suddenly poor and operating the way that they are. (Now playing: “The Flame” by Cheap Trick.)

“Andy Bernard. Pros: he’s classy. He gets me. He went to Cornell. I trust him. Cons: I don’t really trust him.”

I’m supposed to like Brian Cashman, but I don’t. It’s not because of this or that he told No. 2 to test the market if he didn’t like the Yankees’ offer, but they are just the icing on the cake of a mountain of problems in the last decade. I have no idea what Brian Cashman is going to do now. No one does. I don’t even know if Brian Cashman knows what he’s going to do.

I wrote that in the Cliff Lee column. Maybe this decision is on Cashman or on ownership or a combination of both, but it now applies to the entire untrustworthy front office.

There are Yankees fans that like to use the “If George were still alive …” rhetoric when things don’t go way they might have in different time, and those who don’t use that rhetoric make fun of those who do. But today, there’s nothing to make fun of. When George Steinbrenner was alive, the Yankees got the players they wanted. They didn’t always work out, but he was willing to pay to find out if they would. He was willing to make exuberant and at times reckless financial decisions to get the possible players for his team to give the Yankees the best possible chance to win. If a player or pitcher didn’t perform or live up to expectations, it didn’t deter him from investing in future players. He made sure the Yankees were the Yankees and every free agent and every team knew it. Now under his son (or sons), the Yankees are just another team.

If Moncada had signed with the Dodgers, it would have sucked, but at least he would be out of the league, out of the division, out of the rivalry and out of my life. But no, he signed in Boston. He signed with the one team he couldn’t sign and now if he is the player every scout and team seems to think he will be, I will be reminded of this day every time the Yankees play the Red Sox.

Opening Day • Podcasts • Yankees

Feb 20, 2015

Podcast: JJ Barstool Sports New York

Pitchers and catchers report for the Yankees and the entire 2015 season hinges mainly on the health and right elbow of Masahiro Tanaka.

Baseball is finally here! Well, sort of. Pitchers and catchers reported today in Tampa for the Yankees with the first workout scheduled for Saturday with the rest of the team reporting on Wednesday. While we hopefully wait for A-Rod’s apology letter to leave the headlines for news of Yoan Moncada signing with the Yankees, it made sense to do a two-part spring training podcast to talk about the state of the Yankees with the start of the 2015 season.

JJ of Barstool Sports New York joined me for Part I to talk about the Yankees’ latest retired numbers, A-Rod’s apology letter, how worried Yankees fans should be about the rotation and who should be the closer.

Blogs • Opening Day • Yankees

Feb 18, 2015

Mike Lupica Takes the Easy Way Out on Alex Rodriguez

Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News picked apart A-Rod’s apology letter, so it’s time to pick apart Mike Lupica’s column.

Last week, when I wrote The Latest Alex Rodriguez Apology, I thought I was done talking about A-Rod’s suspension and off-the-field issues when it comes to A-Rod. But then Mike Lupica got all worked up about A-Rod’s hand-written apology and decided to write about it and tell Yankees fans how they feel and should feel when it comes to the guy who single-handedly carried them in the 2009 playoffs to the World Series and a championship.

So let’s look at Lupica’s “Alex Rodriguez Takes Easy Way Out” and pick it apart the way he picked apart A-Rod’s hand-written apology.

To the end with Alex Rodriguez you wouldn’t believe the guy if he told you water was wet, even if he wrote that out in the schoolboy cursive handwriting he used on Tuesday when he apologized to the fans for being a very bad boy.

I’m not sure if A-Rod actually wrote the letter, but if he did, he certainly has some nice penmanship. Easily “S+”- or “O”-worthy penmanship if we’re talking elementary school report cards. And we all know you can’t teach neat handwriting, it’s a gift, so A-Rod’s gifts clearly extend outside baseball.

I know A-Rod didn’t come up with the idea to write the letter or what the letter should say, but who cares? He doesn’t owe anyone an apology and I don’t think anyone would take any apology he gives sincerely, especially after he gave one six years ago and did the same exact thing he said he no longer does and would never do again. But clearly, some people feel they personally need A-Rod to say sorry to them. Mike Lupica is one of those people.

Maybe his handlers, the ones who have always done such a bang-up job for Rodriguez, thought he would look more sincere making it a handwritten note. Most fans reading it probably wanted to write one back: Shut up and get out.

Who are these “most fans” Lupica talks about? Actually, who are the “fans” he ever talks about? Lupica wants to pretend that he is so in touch with the common man and the fan, as if he were one himself, and not just a cynical sportswriter, who walks around the Yankee Stadium press box eating soft serve ice cream in jeans and a blazer while a game is going on.

As a Yankees fan, the last thing I wanted to do when I read A-Rod’s hand-written apology was to write one back to him that says: Shut up and get out. If anything, I would have written back and said: “No need to apologize. Just please hit 30 home runs with 125 RBIs this year because no one else is going to do it. If you do that, no one will boo you.”

So this is the way Rodriguez decides to play it, deciding not to hold some kind of press conference before spring training, opting out of the visual of his lawyer sitting next to him and telling him which questions he could answer, and which ones would require him to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights, so as not to face self-incrimination. But then DEA informants — it is exactly what Rodriguez is — rarely want to tell their stories in public.

What good would have come from an A-Rod press conference? What good has come from his hand-written apology? What good would have come if he went door-to-door apologizing to all of these “most fans” that supposedly want to tell him to “Shut up and get out”? A-Rod isn’t going to “get out” for three very basic reasons:

1. The Yankees owe Alex Rodriguez $61 million over the next three years and that’s not including his bonuses.

2. The Yankees have decided to cut back on spending and need a drawing card to sell tickets. A-Rod is that drawing card.

3. The Yankees don’t have a reliable power option for their offense and A-Rod is now one of many options (like Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann) that the Yankees are hoping they can possibly get lucky with.

The Yankees are a business and A-Rod helps their business.

He somehow never managed to tell a version of his relationship with a now-convicted drug dealer like Anthony Bosch at his own arbitration hearing, which means under oath.

Now he tries to control his own cockeyed narrative about his drug use — is he really going to try to convince us once again that he didn’t know what he was buying from Bosch and using? — with a written apology that is like a nuanced legal brief, one in which the only thing he really admits is that he did an historic amount of time.

If he is trying to “convince you once again” then that must mean that he convinced you once before? Did A-Rod actually convince you that he never knew what he was taking or buying or putting into his body? If he did convince you and you believed him then what else are you going around living your life believing that isn’t true?

It is one thing to tell his story to a writer or to the new commissioner, Rob Manfred, behind closed doors. Or to do the same thing, again behind closed doors to Hal Steinbrenner of the Yankees and his team president, Randy Levine, and his general manager, Brian Cashman. It would have been quite another thing for Rodriguez to have answered questions out in the open without a lawyer present.

Poor, Mike Lupica. A-Rod didn’t hold a press conference, so Lupica is going to have to do some work and brainstorm and think of something to write in February in the worst month for sports. Without A-Rod, where is he going to get a few free 500-word columns from?

And that really wasn’t the visual he wanted, taking questions from the New York media and the national media, then having to stop for whispered conversations with his current attorney, Jim Sharp, before he might say something contradictory to what he has already told the feds; and what he might eventually say as a witness in upcoming Biogenesis-related trials for (Cousin) Yuri Sucart and a former Miami coach named Lazer Collazo.

“I served the longest suspension in the history of the League for PED use,” he writes.

Notice the language here. Rodriguez never uses the word steroids, the way he never used that word back in 2009 when he begged everybody for his first second chance. He doesn’t say “my” PED use. Just PED use. Alex Rodriguez remains as cute as his handwriting, and slicker than spit.

Does Mike Lupica know what A-Rod used exactly? Not all PEDs are steroids, just like not all rectangles are squares.

“I accept the fact that many of you will not believe my apology or anything I say at this point,” he writes. “I understand and that’s on me.”

There you have it, Rodriguez’s own weird version of accountability. He really is a beauty, a dream character, mostly in his own mind. Even as he asks the fans to believe how sorry he is for everything he’s done, he admits that the same fans to whom he is speaking probably don’t believe he’s really sorry. It will come out in the ESPN piece written by J.R. Moehringer that Alex is in therapy these days. Of course he is. It is about time, and better late than never, for somebody who really could be the buffet at a psychiatrist’s convention.

Maybe his idea of a confessional is whatever he has been saying to Moehringer who, and you can bank on this, surely will be as skeptical about Rodriguez’s ability to tell the truth, about everything except snowfall amounts, as anybody else who has spent significant time with him during his time on the stage.

But nobody gets Rodriguez’s Oprah moment now in some big room or hall or under some circus tent somewhere, with a roomful of Oprah Winfreys firing questions at him the way Oprah fired them at Alex’s patron saint, Lance Armstrong. He takes his message to his fans, whoever the hell they are at this point in what is left of his career.

Last year, I wrote Ryan Braun Deserves the A-Rod Treatment for Fake Apology and J.R. Moehringer wrote for ESPN, Ryan Braun “Won an MVP, got busted for steroids, twice, called the tester an anti-Semite, lied his testes off, made chumps of his best friends, including Aaron Rodgers, and still doesn’t inspire a scintilla of the ill will that follows Rodriguez around like a nuclear cloud.” So why is it that A-Rod is still the face of PEDs and this era? Why is he such a horrible person for using PEDs, but players like Braun can return to normalcy and someone like Andy Pettitte can have his number retired by the Yankees?

I haven’t come across any Yankees fans who don’t want A-Rod back. I’m sure they are out there, but they can easily be swayed by a few early-season “A-Bomb from A-Rod” drops from John Sterling. If A-Rod is productive and helps the Yankees win, there won’t be a fan who won’t root for him if it means Ws and there won’t be a fan who won’t be happy with the Yankees winning if it involves an admitted PED user. There isn’t a fan of any team who is willing to trade wins for losses because of a PED user.

“I’m ready to put this chapter behind me,” Rodriguez writes, in script, stopping himself from putting it into verse the way Amar’e Stoudemire did on his way out of town.

Most of the fans to whom Rodriguez spoke on Tuesday — and from the heart! — are probably wishing that there was some way for Stoudemire to take Alex Rodriguez back to Texas with him.

“Most of the fans” who Lupica is making up are probably not relating Alex Rodriguez to Amar’e Stoudemire.

A-Rod and the Knicks. That’s all Mike Lupica has. Well, that and trying to be a political writer over the last few years as well. And also the Yankee Stadium press ice cream. Those four things. (I think he might still have a radio show too? So maybe five?)

He writes an open letter the way Ray Rice wrote an open letter in the Baltimore Sun. Rice did it because he needs a job. Rodriguez has one, a real good one with the New York Yankees, at least $61 million still coming to him over the next few years. Bosch, his drug dealer? He goes to jail now for 48 months, three months shy of the maximum sentence he could have gotten for operating the kind of drug ring he was operating.

Alex Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs. Ray Rice punched a woman in the face. As you can see, we have two very similar people here.

A-Rod broke the rules to stay healthy and gain a competitive advantage. The same rules that were broken and the same competitive advantage gained by the stars of Mike Lupica’s book Summer of ’98. Ah, good old, 1998. The tag line on Lupica’s book is “When Homers Flew, Records Fell, and Baseball Reclaimed America.” We all remember that magical season when baseball was pure and clean and stand-up guys like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased down Roger Maris’ 37-year-old record. I can’t believe A-Rod would try to tarnish a game and completely disrespect fellow players like McGwire and Sosa by choosing to use performance-enhancing drugs.

The star of that ring, still batting cleanup there, still a big name at Biogenesis, was Alex Rodriguez. He doesn’t go to jail. He goes to spring training. Is this a great country or what?

Alex Rodriguez is a baseball player, who used performance-enhancing drugs and because he tarnished records he should go to jail. That’s what Mike Lupica wants. He wants A-Rod in jail and not in Tampa at spring training. Do not pass GO, A-Rod, and do not collect $200.

Does Lupica think all performance-enhancing drug or steroid users should go to jail? They must have illegally bought steroids or drugs or supplements and who do you buy them from? Drug dealers, of course. Forget people like Chris Davis who was suspended for taking Adderall, that he was once allowed to take and is now allowed to take again. Like Lupica said about A-Rod, notice the language Davis used when he admitted to using Adderall. He said Adderall instead of steroids and all PEDs are steroids, so that tells us that Chris Davis used steroids, which he must have bought from a drug dealer. But Chris Davis doesn’t go to jail. He gets to go to spring training in Sarasota. Is this a great country or what?

He was going to be baseball’s all-time home run champ. Even after he admitted to being a drug user, he managed to have his best baseball October and lead the Yankees to a World Series. Judge me on what I do going forward, he said back in 2009. That is exactly what everybody has done.

Andddddd there it is. Mike Lupica, like every old-school baseball nerd is still heartbroken that Alex Rodriguez didn’t turn out to be who they thought he would be and could be or who they thought he should be. He was supposed to be the star of this generation and maybe the best player ever. He was supposed to save the game and the home-run record from Barry Bonds, but instead he ended be just like Bonds. How dare a baseball player who once signed a 10-year, $252 million contract and opted out of it to sign a 10-year, $275 million contract let everyone down. We should all expect more out of someone who made $197,530.86 per game for two years (2009 and 2010) to play baseball.

Now he is back, panhandling for redemption and another second chance, trying to make one last first impression, the richest drug informant in all of baseball history. One more record for Alex Rodriguez.

Now he is back, with there years left on his contract, and a chance to do what he did six years ago when this happened: help the Yankees win the World Series. And if he does that, no one will care what he wrote in his letter or that he didn’t hold a press conference that Lupica wouldn’t have even attended, all so he could mail in another “column”.

Winning cures everything and the last time A-Rod was in this spot, he won.

Blogs • Opening Day • Yankees

Feb 10, 2015

The State of the Yankees’ Rotation

Here was the Yankees’ 2014 Opening Day rotation: 1. CC Sabathia 2. Hiroki Kuroda 3. Masahiro Tanaka 4. Ivan Nova 5. Michael Pineda And here is how many starts each of those pitchers made in

Here was the Yankees’ 2014 Opening Day rotation:

1. CC Sabathia
2. Hiroki Kuroda
3. Masahiro Tanaka
4. Ivan Nova
5. Michael Pineda

And here is how many starts each of those pitchers made in 2014:

1. CC Sabathia: 8
2. Hiroki Kuroda: 32
3. Masahiro Tanaka: 20
4. Ivan Nova: 4
5. Michael Pineda: 13

And here are the other pitchers who made at least one start for the Yankees in 2014:

David Phelps: 17
Brandon McCarthy: 14
Shane Greene: 14
Vidal Nuno: 14
Chase Whitley: 12
Chris Capuano: 12
Esmil Rogers: 1
Bryan Mitchell: 1

What does all of this mean? It means the 2014 Yankees got 85 starts from pitchers who weren’t in the Opening Day rotation and 53 percent of the season was started by pitchers who weren’t in the Opening Day rotation.

Despite 60 percent of the rotation missing nearly the entire season and 80 percent of it missing a lot of the season and despite the offense somehow being worse than 2013’s, which featured Travis Hafner, Vernon Wells, Kevin Youkilis and Lyle Overbay, the Yankees missed the playoffs by four games. With the five-team, two wild-card playoff format, the Yankees are always going to be in the mix for a playoff spot and over the last two years they have proved that if they can just stay afloat and even barely over .500, they will be in the playoff picture down the stretch.

For the last two years I would have done a lot of unimaginable things for the Yankees to have clinched one of the two wild-card berths. (That’s depressing to think about and write about considering the team went to the playoffs in 17 of 18 years from 1995-2012.) The same playoff format I vehemently spoke out against had become my best friend and the second wild card that I hated more than the idea of a pitch clock had become the Yankees’ entrance to the playoffs. Back in 2012, had I known the Yankees would be decimated by injuries for two straight years, I probably would have been leading the campaign to add a playoff team and turn a six-month, 162-game grind for two teams into a one-game playoff for a trip to the division series.

The problem is no one wants to be in the one-game playoff (especially the team that clinched the first wild card and wouldn’t have to play a one-game playoff if it were still 2012). If it’s a last resort, that’s one thing. But on Opening Day, no Yankees fan is saying, “I hope we get a wild-card berth this year!” That thought process is saved for Mets, Cubs, Blue Jays, Mariners and Twins fans. It’s all about winning the division and guaranteeing yourself a five-game series in October and not one game where anything can happen (Hello, Oakland) even if both World Series teams last year were wild-card winners.

This year the Yankees are using the same slogan they have for the last two years. I’m not talking about their “Our history. Your tradition.” I’m talking about the “Hope and If” mentality they have settled on, which is equivalent to “We hope we hit a 16-team parlay!” It’s the same strategy the 2013 Red Sox used and it worked out for them, so the Yankees have decided to bank on the idea that it can work for them by hoping that a combination of health and low-risk, high-reward players pay off and the big-name players play to their career numbers. “We hope this thing will go in our favor” and “If this happens we will be good”.

Right now, the Yankees’ infield is Mark Teixeira (.216/.313/.398), Stephen Drew (.162/.237/.299), Didi Gregorius (.226/.290/.363) and Chase Headley (.262/.371/.398). Their outfield is Brett Gardner (.256/.327/.422), Jacoby Ellsbury (.271/.328/.419) and Carlos Beltran (.233/.301/.402). There’s a good chance by Memorial Day I could be longing for the days of Overbay, Wells and Hafner. With an offense as unpredictable since … ever … the Yankees are going to have to heavily rely on their rotation to win low-scoring games. The issue there is that on paper the names in the rotation are attractive, but hearing about a devastating injury to the rotation that could destroy the rotation and derail the season could once again happy at any second.

I have never really liked James Shields and I never wanted the Yankees to sign him. I would have much rather had Jon Lester or Max Scherzer. But over the last week, as his signing somewhere became more imminent, I started to join the “Get me James Shields” movement for the sole reason that the Yankees’ rotation (and therefore season) hinges on the health of Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda, who made a combined 33 starts last season. So when Shields signed with the Padres for a not-so-ridiculous four years and $75 million, I wondered why the Yankees didn’t sign up the pitcher who hasn’t pitched less than 203 1/3 innings in any of his eight full seasons in the league and who is a reliable front-end starter.

Brian Cashman talked with Mike Francesa on WFAN on Friday about the overall state of the franchise heading into spring training next week, so I did the only thing I know how to do when Cashman speaks and that is to comment on his comments. This time I focused on his comments on the rotation.

On if he’s worried about Masahiro Tanaka.

“You have to be cautious, you have to be honest. There is risk, nonetheless, no matter what. Tanaka had a great winter. He finished the season as a healthy player. He wasn’t prescribed any different regimen because of what happened last year. He went back to his normal throwing routine, rest routine, all that stuff … We hope he can be Tanaka.”

Last year in my 2014 Yankees’ Order of Importance, Masahiro Tanaka was No. 5. (CC Sabathia was No. 1.) This year, Tanaka is going to be No. 1. When healthy, he is in the elite tier of starting pitchers in baseball. I wouldn’t take him over Clayton Kershaw or Felix Hernandez, but he is right there, right after them.

The problem is his health and the problem is that his elbow may or may not be one pitch away from putting him on the shelf for a calendar year and possibly destroying his career. That pitch could come on Feb. 21. It could come on April 6. It could come sometime in July. It could come in September. It may never come. Every time I sign on Twitter or hear Tanaka has a bullpen session or during any of his starts, there could be news that he is going to have to undergo Tommy John surgery, so I will have to live on the edge of my seat.

But like Cashman said, “There is risk, nonetheless, no matter what,” and that’s true of any pitcher.

On the durability of Michael Pineda.

“In terms of the shoulder, he had a healthy season. What we saw was very exciting, very promising and again, if he can maintain health and stay on the field we believe we’re going to have a very quality arm every five days to take the that position.”

I like to believe that Michael Pineda is going to pitch a full season for the Yankees at some point. Then again, I also believe that March 1 is the start of spring.

When Pineda pitched last season, he was great. He was as good as advertised when the Yankees traded for him three years ago and as good if not better than he was in the first half of 2011 with the Mariners. Watching a young starter consistently deliver front-end performances was refreshing after watching Phil Hughes do the exact opposite for seven years.

But the key with Pineda has always been health (or a total disregard for wear he places his pine tar). If he can finally pitch a full season for the Yankees for the first time in his four years with the team, they have a top No. 2 starter or even a No. 1-A. Another “if”.

On what he’s expecting from CC Sabathia and if he needs to reinvent himself.

“He’ll be a cautious guy for us in the spring just because of the surgery he came off on the knee. He’s working hard. I saw CC at the Stadium last week … There might be some tweaks here and there. Again, as these guys become older they make some adjustments. We saw Pettitte go through that. He’s an amazing pitcher. We believe he’s going to be a healthy player. We know pitchability is there. I don’t know if we’re going to see the No. 1 or 2, but we do expect to get the 200 innings and the high-end pitchability.”

(My computer knows “pitchability” is a word because of these Brian Cashman “State of the Yankees” addresses.)

Here’s what I wrote about CC Sabathia in the 2014 Yankees’ Order of Importance when I ranked him No. 1:

He’s still No. 1 on the list and has been since he got here in 2009. The only way it will change is if Sabathia really hasn’t figured out how to pitch with less velocity like his former teammate Andy Pettitte and his so-called best friend Cliff Lee (who he couldn’t convince to come here after the 2010 seas0n). If Sabathia tries to pitch with a power-pitcher mentality and tries to pitch the way he did pre-2013 then he won’t be No. 1 on this list a year from now. If he isn’t No. 1 on this list a year from now then the 2014 season will end the same way the 2013 season did.

Apparently, Cashman and I are on the same page when it comes to CC needing to learn how to pitch and realizing that he can’t just blow people away when he needs to get out of a jam anymore.

The thing to notice here is how confident Cashman is that CC is healthy and that he will give the Yankees 200 innings. Usually, Cashman uses words like “hope” to project his players’ seasons, but his word choice of “believe” and “expect” make me think that Sabathia will be a full-season pitcher. What kind of full-season pitcher?

It would be nice if CC could be 2009-2012 CC, but there’s a better chance it’s going to be 60 degrees here in New York tomorrow than there is of that happening. But 2013-2014 CC isn’t going to cut it. We need something between 2012 (15-6, 3.38) and 2013 (14-13, 4.78). Somewhere between that would be 14.5 wins, 9.5 losses and a 4.08 ERA. Sign me up right now for 15-10, 4.08. Please sign me up for that right now.

On what he likes about Nathan Eovaldi.

“He’s not a finished product. He’s got a big arm. I know every time I talk to Larry, he’s excited about the player’s makeup, work ethic … The player is motivated. He hit 200 innings last year and 24 years old. So again we have someone with that type of ability, you connect him with Larry, it gives you a chance to dream a little bit more.”

Clearly, Cashman thinks highly of Larry Rothschild.

I was devastated when the Yankees traded Martin Prado. He was the most reliable hitter in the 36 games he played for the Yankees last year. He was supposed to be the most important piece of Joe Girardi’s lineup for the next two years since he has played first base, second base, third base, shortstop, left field and right field in his career. But now he is a Marlin.

If Eovaldi can put it all together as a hard-throwing, 24-year-old starting pitcher he will be much more valuable than the 31-year-old Prado. But like most of the Yankees, he’s an unknown, with one full season of starts in his career (2014) and in that season he allowed the most hits (223) in the league.

For a third straight year, the offense is full of question marks that the Yankees hope go their way, and because the offense is full of overpaid underachievers, the Yankees will again rely on the rotation to carry them. The 2015 Yankees: Hope and If.