Yankees – Page 192 – Keefe To The City

Apr 25, 2014

The Angels No Longer Own the Yankees

The Angels are in the Bronx for the first time this season and not so long ago that would have been worrisome, but the Angels’ days of owning the Yankees are over.

The last three seasons the Yankees have had a winning record each year against the Angels. That might not seem like a big deal, but before 2011, the Yankees’ last winning season against the Angels was in 2003. The Angels not only beat up on the Yankees in the regular season for the entire Joe Torre era, but they knocked them out in the ALDS in 2002 and 2005. But since the 2009 ALCS, everything has changed between the two teams.

With the Yankees and Angels meeting for the first time this season, I did an email exchange with Mat Gleason of Halos Heaven to talk about the contracts for Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, if Mike Scioscia’s time with the Angels is running out and what’s happened to the Angels since Yankees beat them in six games in the 2009 ALCS.

Keefe: The stories about the Yankees supposedly expecting to draft Mike Trout in 2009 draft, but losing the pick to the Angels, who drafted him, because of the Mark Teixeira signing will forever make me sick. Mark Teixeira has turned into Jason Giambi 2.0 because of the short porch at the Stadium, making him a pull-only hitter who won’t under any circumstances go the other way as a left-handed hitter. Good thing he’s only making $22.5 million this year as an average first baseman … and next year … and the year after.

Meanwhile, Trout has gone on to become Mickey Mantle 2.0. His numbers are ridiculous and he won’t turn 23 until this August. 23! That’s 23! I was hoping the Angels would somehow screw up any chance to sign him to a long-term deal and he would want to return back to the Tri-state area and play for the team he grew up rooting for: the Yankees. But Trout got his six-year, $144.5 million deal, so I guess I’m going to have to wait until 2021 for him to become a Yankee.

What has it been like watching the best young player in baseball develop as an Angel? What were your thoughts on his contract?

Gleason: The contract was a huge relief. Angels fans have been losing faith in this franchise after many many boneheaded moves so it was just a huge relief. Watching Trout every night has been the most entertaining thing in decades for me as an Angels fan. No matter where you are in the game you count the lineup to see how many at-bats away he is before you decide to make dinner or go to the bathroom, one of those “must-see” moments.

Keefe: After playing in just 99 games last year, Albert Pujols looks to be back to his usual ways, leading the league in home runs early with eight at age 34. And after hitting .250/.307/.432 in his first season with the Angels last year, Josh Hamilton looked to be back on track through eight games this year before tearing a ligament in his thumb, which could keep him out for two months.

I pair these two together because the Angels gave Pujols a 10-year, $240 million deal before the 2012 season and then gave Hamilton a five-year, $125 million deal before the 2013 season. At the time, it looked like the Angels stole the franchise player from the Cardinals and then stole the franchise player from the Rangers, but after 2013, it just looked like they spent $365 million on two aging, broken-down players.

What were your thoughts on the contracts when they were signed compared to now? What are the expectations now for these two?

Gleason: I had faith that Pujols would be great once he got healthy. I have no faith in Josh Hamilton. Sometimes it is not a good thing to be right all the time, you know what I mean?

Hamilton actually might come around this year. The contracts don’t bother me at all, in fact Seattle offered Hamilton more money and I believe Albert will be worth the dough. If inflation takes off in hte larger economy he might be a bargain in six years!

Keefe: Mike Scioscia has been called “the best manager in baseball” in the past and this seemed like a generally agreed upon rhetoric through the 2009 season. But after the last few years, Scioscia’s abilities and whether his time has run its course with the Angels has been called into question.

Scioscia is signed through the 2018 season, but does have an opt-out clause after the 2015 season as part of his 10-year deal. Is Scioscia on the hot seat this season with the Angels? Are you a Scioscia fan, or would a postseason-less season mean it’s time to move on?

Gleason: There are managers who are managing at a higher level than Mike. When he came into the league he was the chessmaster but he is now playing checkers compared to younger managers who have read and understood basic Bill James.

His biggest weaknesses are the rigid roles he assigns relievers, his willingness to stick to veterans in the lineup over rookies who might benefit from playing time, his assertion that the major league level is not a teaching level, which deprives young pitchers of developing new pitches, among other things. He has been bunting less than ever, runs players less than ever and seems overmatched by simple concepts of high leverage and on-base percentage. Fifteen years is a long time and he really is a testament to how the game has changed radically in that time. He just hasn’t kept up. But I have no faith in the front office to keep up. A new hire is no guarantee that things would be any different so in that regard a manager is a manager is a manager, why not have the guy who will generate the least controversy?

Keefe: The Angels haven’t been in the playoffs since 2009 when they lost to the Yankees in the ALCS. Since then, they have 80-82, 86-76, 89-73 and 78-84. Five years it felt like the Angels would just keep on making the playoffs and winning the AL West forever before the Rangers and then A’s became relevant again. Despite their free-agent signings and spending, the Angels haven’t been able to rekindle the winning ways of the 2000s when they were the one team to have a winning record against the Yankees and knocked them out of the playoffs in 2002 and 2005. But then it seems like there was a shift in power between the Yankees and Angels after the 2009 ALCS.

What has made the Angels so hard for the Yankees to beat? After years of beating up on both the Joe Torre and Joe Girardi Yankees, and two postseason series wins, are Angels fans still confident when they play the Yankees?

Gleason: 2009 was a big punch to our gut. Our nemesis has really been the Red Sox and we finally beat them in the playoffs after losing to them in 1986, 2004, 2007 and 2008 and then the Yankees knocked us down in the 2009 ALCS, so the decade where we dominated the Yankees is over, psychologically, for us. Maybe it left with Joe Torre. Don’t get me wrong, we always get up the hate for the Bronx Bombers and there is a lingering confidence that we can win in New York that other tams and their fans might not have (you don’t intimidate us), but we carried much more swagger last decade than this one.

Keefe: When you look at the Angels lineup and the front-end of their rotation, you can’t help but think that this should be a playoff team. But after these recent postseason-less seasons for the Angels, what have your expectations become for the Angels?

Gleason: The mob is ready with pre-lit torches. Attendance and season ticket sales have taken a huge hit. I expect the team to make the playoffs this year and I am way more confident in them than I have been in recent years, but as Pee Wee Herman said, “There is always a big but …” there is no depth and there is no chance of a big trade/acquisition due to the luxury tax concerns. So a few bumps and bruises and I can put my hope for October on the shelf for 2014. This organization will have to earn back the buzz that fans had for them. There is no buzz these days. Its like O’Douls in Anaheim: no buzz.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Jacoby Ellsbury Doesn’t Get the Johnny Damon Treatment

It’s the first Yankees-Red Sox series of the season in Boston and the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will play in Fenway Park for another team and that means it’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

After this week in Boston, the Yankees and Red Sox won’t meet again for two months and they won’t meet again in Boston until the first weekend in August. (Never change, Major League Baseball schedule, never change.) But this week in Boston is not only the first meeting between the two teams at Fenway Park this season, it’s the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will be in the third-base dugout at Fenway Park.

With Ellsbury making his Yankees debut in Boston and the teams playing a three-game series before a two-month break, you know what that means. An email exchange with Mike Hurley.

Keefe: It’s been only 12 days since we last talked and after this it will be over two months until the Yankees and Red Sox meet again. There’s nothing quite like seven Yankees-Red Sox games in April and then none for basically half the summer. It makes sense though, right? I mean it makes more sense than Major League Baseball’s replay/review/challenge system, doesn’t it?

Last week you sent me a series of videos showing how the transfer play is no longer being called in baseball the way it has been since the invention of the game. I laughed watching umpires and the umpires in the New York offices decide games on balls being dropped “during the transfer” but I wasn’t laughing anymore when the Yankees nearly lost on Sunday to the Rays because of a transfer call involving Brian Roberts at second base.

I was all for replay in baseball and I didn’t and still don’t care about the length of review time or extending games because of replays as long as the calls are made correctly. But that’s clearly not what’s happening right now with no one knowing what a catch in baseball is anymore, the umpires in New York not having the same views and angles as those watching at home and ancient baseball rules being changed overnight.

Hurley: Replay in baseball is utterly useless.

I was never strongly for or against it. I’ve always been able to live with a missed call on a bang-bang play, the same way you have to live with a bad strike call. But I also watched disasters like the Jim Joyce botching of Armando Galarraga’s perfect game or Phil Cuzzi blowing his only job of calling balls fair or foul in the 11th inning of a playoff game at Yankee Stadium, and mistakes like that were just so egregious that I supported a system that could easily correct those obvious screw-ups.

As it turns out, we got a system that neither fixes the obvious mistakes or fine-tunes the close plays. We just got a stupid, stupid, stupid system that has tried to change the sport for absolutely no reason.

The new emphasis on the transfer rule is not only nonsensical (a catch and a throw are two different actions; how a bobble on the throw negates a catch that has already been completed is beyond me) but also far more common than I think anyone anticipated it would be. It reminds me of the NHL’s crackdown on toes in the crease in the late ’90s, a rule that may be the worst in sports history. I remember the Bruins losing a playoff game because Tim Taylor’s toe was just barely touching the blue paint on the opposite side of Olaf Kolzig’s crease.

After that season and after the Brett Hull/Dominik Hasek controversy, the NHL came out and were like, “Oh, well, yeah, you see … that is a terrible rule and we will get rid of it. Because it’s stupid.”

If MLB doesn’t have the same sense as a league led by Gary Bettman, then baseball is in bigger trouble than I thought.

Keefe: I’m not sure that Bud Selig has more sense than Gary Bettman. We’re talking about a guy who allowed performance-enhancing drugs to revitalize his sport after a strike and then a decade later started to pretend that players who use performance-enhancing drugs are the worst people in the world, and he got the beat nerds to buy into it the way he got them to buy into the idea that having at least player a year hit 60 home runs (after two people had ever done it) was no big deal. He also still allows the All-Star Game — an exhibition game — to determine home-field advantage in the World Series after a six-month, 162-game daily grind. I like to think that the commissioners of the four leagues get together once a year and talk about their increased revenues and think about new ways to ruin their respective leagues while laughing at the expense of the fans. Then before they leave, they play credit card roulette to see which commissioner will have to impose the next lockout and Gary Bettman always loses.

In the last Yankees-Red Sox series, Dean Anna (I’m sure you’re aware by now that he is a real person) doubled and then when he slid into second base, he came off the base for a split second while the tag was still being applied to him. He was called safe on the field and then safe again after the umpires at the New York office apparently didn’t have the same views as those watching at home. I don’t think when expanded reply was instituted it was meant to make such ridiculous calls, but if it’s going to be used for those (and it shoudn’t be), how is it possible that fans watching at home have better information than the paid umpires and officials at the league’s headquarters? Real life?

Hurley: Yeah, precisely. We don’t need replay to break down every split-second of these plays. The Francisco Cervelli play at first base last Sunday night ended up being correctly made after a replay review, but we were all subjected to watching frame-by-frame breakdowns of the ball entering Mike Napoli’s glove, and we had to hear John Kruk blabber on about whether it’s a catch when the ball goes into the glove or when the glove is closed around the baseball. What are we really doing?

Replay should fix the aforementioned obvious mistakes, but on Friday night at Fenway, John Farrell challenged a Nick Markakis double, claiming the ball landed foul. Farrell believed this to be the case because the ball did in fact land foul. We all saw it on our televisions. There was a dirt mark where the ball landed in foul territory. It was a no-brainer.

Yet after review, the double stood. For some reason.

There is no point. It’s a disaster.

But not according to Selig, who said, “We’ve had really very little controversy overall” and “you’ll hear about the one or two controversies, but look at all the calls that have been overturned.”

The guy is an idiot.

The scenario you created got me thinking, I’d like to see a Celebrity Jeopardy! episode with Gary Bettman, Bud Selig and Kim Kardashian as the contestants. They would all obviously finish with negative money, and then Alex Trebek could spend the time normally reserved for Final Jeopardy to just berate them for being dopes.

Keefe: Speaking of “idiots,” let’s talk about Johnny Damon’s return to Fenway Park in 2006 because on Tuesday night, Jacoby Ellsbury will return to Fenway Park for the first time as a Yankee.

I was at Damon’s return and was actually surprised by the amount of cheers he received from Boston fans. He had been the face of the Red Sox’ culture change and the symbol of their change from losers to winners and there he was wearing a Yankees uniform and tipping his helmet to Red Sox fans before his first at-bat. Sure, there were people throwing fake money at him once he took his position in center field, but for the most part, Johnny got about as many cheers as anyone could get in his position.

When it comes to Ellsbury, I think he will receive a better ovation than Damon because he wasn’t as iconic of a figure in Boston, even if helped them win two World Series, and it felt like during his entire time with the Red Sox, everyone knew once he became a free agent that he would bolt for the highest bidder. People will boo on Tuesday night in the first inning just to boo and they will continue to for every Ellsbury at-bat for the rest of his career, but are Red Sox fans upset that he signed with the Yankees as a free agent?

Hurley: It’s a weird thing. I don’t think many people, aside from maybe the folks who think Fever Pitch is a good movie, are actually “upset” with him for going to the Yankees. I think if anyone knows Ellsbury, it’s those of us in Boston who have seen him come up and develop over the past seven years. And I don’t think anyone here thought Ellsbury would be worth the money he’d be getting on the free-agent market. And knowing he was going to the free-agent market, and knowing the Angels had already spent a billion dollars, how many realistic suitors were really in play for him?

So obviously, there was a good chance he’d be going to New York, and obviously, players on the Yankees get booed at Fenway Park. He’s going to get booed, and for a lot of people, just the sight of a former Red Sox player in a Yankees uniform is enough to boil up some rage. But in terms of people being really mad, I don’t think that’s the common feeling.

At the same time, the Red Sox leadoff situation is so dire this season, there might be some extra boos rained down that are coming from a place of frustration.

Keefe: I thought the Red Sox would survive fine without Ellsbury at the top of the lineup and they likely will once they sort it out, but I don’t think I realized how important he was to the top of their order and extending the lineup until now. Seeing just about everyone except for David Ortiz and Mike Napoli get a chance to hit leadoff for the Red Sox has shown how important Ellsbury was for them. John Farrell hasn’t been afraid to try anything and has even gone with Jonny Gomes in that spot and Jonny Gomes as a leadoff hitter in a lineup that wasn’t picked out of a hat is pretty comical.

Right now the Red Sox seem to be having the same problems the Yankees had last year with injuries and an inability to score runs. There were long stretches of time where I knew the Yankees would be lucky to score just two runs in a given game and that meant the pitching staff would have to be perfect to win. (Granted they had Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay hitting in the heart of their order and not Ortiz and Napoli.)

It’s never good to have several hitters slumping at the same time, especially your best hitters, but that seems to be the Red Sox’ problem early this season.

Hurley: Yeah it’s pretty bizarre how a team that has averaged 860 runs per season since 2002 is on pace to score just 616 runs this season. They’re hitting .209 with RISP, which ranks 25th in MLB, just two points ahead of the Cubs, so that gives you a good indication of where they’re at.

Overall, they’re hitting just .238, which ranks 23rd. It’s largely the same roster as last year, save for A.J. Pierzynski taking Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s place (kind of a wash), Shane Victorino being injured and Daniel Nava looking like Neil Keefe if he was asked to play Major League Baseball. So it should all come around at some point.

I think Clay Buchholz is a much bigger problem. He took the mound on Marathon Monday and looked like he was throwing knuckleballs with a Wiffle Ball. He allowed five straight hits in the third and ended up leaving after allowing 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings. For as much time as he missed last year, he was a major reason why the Red Sox won 97 games. If they don’t have even that half-season of a contribution from him this year, they’re in serious trouble.

Keefe: I have never been a Clay Buchholz believer, even for as good as he has looked when he is healthy, mainly because he is never healthy. He’s going to be 30 in August and the most starts he has ever made in a season is 29, after that 28 and after that just 16. So I would say banking on just a half-season from him is a good bet since that is all the Red Sox are likely to get.

I’m headed to Boston for the series and when I looked at tickets, I was surprised at how cheap they are. In the past, I would be looking at spending at least $100 just to sit in the right-field grandstand, which are the worst seats in any stadium in the entire league. You might as well sit on your couch or in a bar somewhere and get 1,000 times the viewing experience than sit in a low-number section in Fenway. I thought that winning the World Series after a few disastrous seasons and the one-year Bobby Valentine era would bring Red Sox ticket prices back to what they were from 2003-2011, but that hasn’t happened. Maybe it’s because the Bruins’ Stanley Cup run just started or maybe it’s because the Red Sox aren’t what they were to the city of Boston a decade ago?

Either way, I can’t complain since I’m saving money. Maybe we’ll run into each other at Fenway this week and can finally settle these email exchange debates with our fists.

Hurley: You’ve been challenging me to a Lansdowne Street throwdown for years. Given how dormant the rivalry is right now, I don’t think it’s the best time to actually throw fists outside Fenway. If Ellsbury goes into second spikes up and takes out Dustin Pedroia, then maybe we can circle back and meet up outside Gate E.

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Podcast: Danny Picard

Danny Picard of “I’m Just Sayin’” and WEEI joined me to talk about if the Bruins have taken over Boston from the Red Sox and how to fix the replay system in baseball.

The Yankees and Red Sox met just 12 days ago in New York for four games and now they are meeting again before what will be a two-month hiatus from the rivalry. On Wednesday, the Yankees and Red Sox open a three-game series at Fenway Park and won’t return to Boston until the first weekend in August.

Danny Picard, host of I’m Just Sayin‘ and host of The Danny Picard Show on WEEI, joined me to talk about if the Bruins have taken over Boston from the Red Sox, the rotations of the Yankees and Red Sox this season and how to fix the replay system in baseball.

Blogs • The Joe Girardi Show • Yankees

Apr 21, 2014

The Joe Girardi Show: Season 5, Episode 1

The Yankees avoided leaving Tampa Bay on a three-game losing streak, but Joe Girardi couldn’t avoid me starting up a fifth season of The Joe Girardi Show to question his decisions.

I wanted the Yankees to go 4-2 in their six games against the Cubs and Rays this past week. After winning the four-game series against the Red Sox at the Stadium the weekend before, I thought 4-2 was very doable between a two-game series and four-game series and I didn’t care how the Yankees won their four games, I just wanted them to win them.

The Yankees did end up going 4-2 in the six games, so I shouldn’t have anything to question. But I do. And I do because Joe Girardi made some very questionable decisions over the weekend in Tampa Bay that nearly cost the Yankees my 4-2 goal and could have sent them to Boston this week reeling from a three-game losing streak. The Yankees prevented the losing streak to happen and Girardi’s decision making worked out, but that doesn’t mean over the course of the season his choices won’t cost the Yankees.

I was hoping to make it through April without having to do this, but after this weekend, I thought it was necessary to fill in for Michael Kay on my version of The Joe Girardi Show. After only 19 games, it’s time for the fifth season premiere.

Why don’t you trust Dellin Betances?
Right now the bullpen pecking order (with David Robertson), according to Joe Girardi is:

1. David Robertson
2. Shawn Kelley
3. Adam Warren
4. David Phelps/Matt Thornton
5. Dellin Betances

The problem here is that after Robertson, Betances is the best reliever the Yankees have and actually has the best stuff and velocity of the entire bullpen. In eight innings, he has has allowed ONE hit, that’s ONE hit, while walking six and striking out 14.

The bullpen pecking order should be:

1. David Robertson
2. Dellin Betances
3. Shawn Kelley
4. Matt Thornton
5. David Phelps
6. Adam Warren

Over the weekend, Betances entered a game the Yankees were winning 8-2 in the eight inning and pitched the last two innings of the eventual 10-2 win. Then two days later, Betances entered a game the Yankees were losing 12-1 and was asked to get five outs. Is it possible the best non-closer reliever on the Yankees is viewed by his manager as an innings eater?

According to the way he was used this weekend, it is, but in reality, Betances has been used inconsistently because Joe Girardi likely doesn’t “trust” him yet. And the only reason he doesn’t “trust” him yet is because Betances has pitched enough under Girardi for him to. He hasn’t blow enough games the way Kelley and Warren and Phelps have last season and this season to gain the trust of Girardi and earn a spot in high leverage situations.

So for now, Betances will be asked to throw 41 pitches in a game the Yankees lose by 15 runs and will be unavailable to pitch in a 12-inning game, leaving Girardi to ask just-called-up Preston Claiborne for two scoreless innings, the same Preston Claiborne, who wasn’t good enough in spring training to make the Yankees three weeks ago, because his only other option to close out the game was just-called-up Bryan Mitchell from Double-A, who has a 5.14 ERA and 1.571 WHIP for the Trenton Thunder this year.

Who is going to take Ivan Nova’s rotation spot?
The answer should be Vidal Nuno. Here is what Nuno has done in four career starts:

5/13/13 at CLE: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

5/25/13 at TB: 6 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

5/30/13 vs. NYM: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K

4/20/14 @ TB: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

It’s devastating that Ivan Nova isn’t going to get a full season to either build on what he had become last year or at least show the Yankees what they would be getting for the future, whether it’s a potential front-end starter or the new poster boy for inconsistency now that Phil Hughes is with the Twins.

Now that Nova won’t be back until next year, Nuno should be the one to fill the rotation spot. He has earned the right to and has proven he can win as a starting pitcher in the league. I trust Nuno more than I trust David Phelps and more than I trust Alfredo Aceves or Shane Greene if the Yankees decide to dip into the minors to make a move.

The job should be Nuno’s until he proves he can’t and so far he hasn’t.

Do you know what year it is when it comes to Mark Teixeira?
Mark Teixeira hit fifth on Sunday because his name is Mark Teixeira and because Joe Girardi apparently thinks it’s 2009 still. Because five years ago, the name “Mark Teixeira” held enough stock to get someone in the heart of the order on name alone, but in 2014 it should take a little more than that. But it’s not surprising when you realize that Girardi used to hit Teixeira third and Alex Rodriguez fourth and Robinson Cano fifth long after Cano had proved himself as the best hitter on the team. I’m not shocked that Teixeira hit fifth on Sunday because part of me thought Girardi would hit him fourth as if it were April 20, 2009.

All along the if Teixeira can hit his home runs and drive in his runs and be Jason Giambi 2.0 and play his Gold Glove defense that I wouldn’t matter if he hits .240 or still can’t hit a changeup or pops up to short with runners on third and less than two outs and is the last person you would want up on a big spot despite making $23 million per yaer. But not only is Teixeira not even Giambi 2.0 at the plate, he apparently can’t even play defense anymore as shown by his three errors in not even five full games this year.I ranked Teixeira fourth in The 2014 Yankees’ Order of Importance before the season and said the Yankees couldn’t handle losing him for a significant amount of time, but the Yankees went 8-6 in 14 games without him using Kelly Johnson, Francisco Cervelli, Carlos Beltran and Scott Sizemore at first base, none of which have any real experience at the position. Teixeira is never going to be the player the Yankees signed five years ago again and he has made that clear, but please Teixeira, at least be average.

Can you please stop being overly cautious with the lineup since it hasn’t gotten you anywhere in the past?
Joe Girardi has been out of control since becoming Yankees manager with the way he handles lineup decisions and the amount of rest he gives players. It might be unrealistic to think Derek Jeter can play all 162 games at shortstop in the season in which he will turn 40 after missing essentially a year and a half. But Jeter is still the Yankees’ everyday shortstop and not a catcher who needs day games after night games off or a day off every four games for necessary rest. And he should already be well rested after missing that year and a half I mentioned. There is a countdown clock on Jeter’s baseball life and for a guy who has spent a lot of time avoiding days off since 1996 despite injury, I’m sure he doesn’t want to watch games he won’t get back after 2014 pass him by because Girardi doesn’t believe in a Farewell Tour. But does Girardi know that sacrificing games in April could be the difference between the Farewell Tour ending in September or October or the difference in playing in a one-game playoff or getting into the ALDS without having to play in Bud Selig’s gimmick? Injuries can happen at any time and they are going to happen or not happen whether or not Girardi believes he can control.

And Jeter hasn’t been the only guy with unnecessary rest early in the season, he has just been the one with the most. Girardi gave Jacoby Ellsbury a day of in the third game of the season in Houston and gave Carlos Beltran a day off in Tampa after falling over the outfield wall (though that might say more about Beltran’s toughness after he sat out a World Series game last year after spending his whole career trying to reach the World Series). I don’t expect this kind of managing to end from Girardi, I only wish it would.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 15, 2014

Theo Epstein Back in the Bronx with Rebuilding Cubs

The Yankees and Cubs meet for the first of two short two-games series this year and that calls for an email exchange with Al Yellon of Bleed Cubbie Blue.

The last time the Yankees and Cubs met was August 2011, but that was at Wrigley Field. On Tuesday, the Yankees and Cubs meet for the first time ever in new Yankee Stadium (since their Stadium opening exhibition games didn’t count) for a two-game series, which will be the first of a pair of two-game series this season between the teams.

With the Yankees and Cubs playing for the first time in three years and the first time this year, I did an email exchange with Al Yellon of Bleed Cubbie Blue to talk about what has happened to the Cubs since their last postseason appearance in 2008, the job Theo Epstein has done since taking over before the 2012 season and how long Cubs fans expect the rebuilding process in Chicago to take.

Keefe: I have never been to Wrigley Field though I expect that to change this summer. I went by it for the first time in January when I was in Chicago for Rangers-Blackhawks and tried to envision what it would be like to watch a game inside there and soon enough I will have that chance. It’s hard not to think of the heartache and the devastation that has taken place there and for the teams that have played there and the fans that have watched games there. And the most recent of that heartache and devastating came five-plus years ago.

The last time the Cubs were in the playoffs in 2008, many people predicted them to go to the World Series and even win it all after winning 97 games in the regular season. But then they ran into the wild-card Dodgers and three games later, the Cubs’ season was over. A year after getting swept by the Diamondbacks, they were swept by the Dodgers and they haven’t been back to the playoffs since.

I know it’s not exactly the most positive note to start his email exchange by bringing up the Cubs’ postseason failures of 2007 and 2008 or their playoff drought since, but I thought it was a good place to start to set the tone of where your Cubs have been recently and where they are doing.

Going into the 2008 postseason, how confident were you as a Cubs fan (I’m guessing as confident as a Cubs fan can be) coming off that regular season? Did you think the team was built to make annual October appearances or was there a sense of what would eventually come?

Yellon: This is a question few Cubs fans care to revisit. More than five years gone, it feels as if 2008 was another lifetime. Ownership and management have completely changed since then, and it’s almost as if we’re now rooting for an expansion team.

Oh, 2008. Best regular season I’ve seen in my lifetime, probably the best Cubs regular season since the 1930s. No Cubs fan anticipated a three-game sweep. 20/20 hindsight says that team was built to “win now,” in the vernacular, because it made the playoffs mostly on the strength of veteran hitting.

Cubs fans didn’t look toward “annual October appearances” at that time. We took what came and felt grateful for it — in some ways, always anticipating something going wrong. There’s an old joke: Optimists think the glass is half full. Pessimists think the glass is half empty. Cubs fans ask, “When’s the glass going to get knocked over and spill?”

Keefe: I have always felt that Theo Epstein got too much credit in Boston. Yes, he pulled off a miracle during Thanksgiving dinner in 2003 at Curt Schilling’s house to get the right-hander to sign with the Red Sox and he had the balls to trade the face of the franchise in Nomar Garciaparra in the middle of the 2004 season. But he also won the 2004 World Series thanks to a team whose key players were from prior management. And then when the Red Sox won again in 2007, it was because Josh Beckett saved them in the ALCS and because of Mike Lowell in the World Series, as he won MVP against the Rockies. Those two players were traded to the Red Sox from the Marlins during Epstein’s time away from the team, and he admitted then he wouldn’t have made that deal. No deal, no World Series that year.

I loved what Theo did by signing bad deal after bad deal to put the Red Sox in a bind through the 2012 season before he left Boston for Chicago and before Ben Cherington cleaned up his mess. But I couldn’t believe how ecstatic Cubs fans seemed to be with the news he was headed for Wrigley as if they had just landed A-Rod in a pre-2004 trade.

What were your feelings about the decisions to bring Theo to Chicago?

Yellon At the time Theo was hired, I was all for it. It was clear the team’s direction wasn’t working and they needed a change.

In the two-plus years (three offseasons, now) that Theo & Co. have been in charge, they have produced what is seen by many analysts as the top farm system in the major leagues, stockpiling draft picks and acquiring prospects by trade.

Many think this is great, and that the Cubs will magically burst into contention starting in 2015 with prospects such as Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Albert Almora and Jorge Soler (known as the “Core Four”). In general, it doesn’t work that way; those four might become All-Stars, but it could take time. It could be 2018 or later before the Cubs return to contention; they are hamstrung by poor TV deals and some other financial constraints put on the team as a condition of the sale to the Ricketts family, that might not get them the big money they need to compete with the likes of the Dodgers and Yankees until after 2019.

Some Cubs fans are OK with this, thinking that the “waves of talent” Theo is supposedly producing will provide perennial contention. Others are starting to get a bit impatient with the 95-plus loss seasons that are piling up; 2014 is likely going to be another such season.

Keefe: There aren’t many non-Yankees I like, but I like Starlin Castro. Now I don’t watch him every day like you, and I haven’t followed his career as closely as you, but his first few seasons are puzzling when you look just at the stats.

The last time the Yankees and Cubs played (and the only time Castro has played against the Yankees) was June 17-19, 2011. In those three games, Castro went 5-for-13 with two doubles and three runs, but it felt like he couldn’t be stopped. He went on to hit .307/.341/.432 and led the league in hits that year in what was his second season. But since then, his average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage have declined each season. However, early on this year, Castro looks to be back on track and he just turned 24 on March 24.

I know he’s still very young, but what has kept Castro from building off his 2010 and 2011 seasons over the last two years?

Yellon: To be quite blunt, Castro’s struggles can almost completely be attributed to the manager and coaching staff that was dismissed at the end of 2013. Dale Sveum (a former hitting coach) and his staff had Castro change his approach. Castro came to the big leagues as (mostly) a hacker — note the .341 OBP with the .307 BA, not many walks in there — and Castro got all messed up, trying to please the coaches, taking too many pitches and not getting good swings at the pitches he did offer at.

There were also some personal issues in his life (a sexual assault charge that proved baseless, among other things) that could have affected his play on the field.

New manager Rick Renteria and batting coach Bill Mueller have let Castro be Castro, to go back to the style that got him to the big leagues and have two All-Star seasons. He’s done quite well so far in 2014 despite missing almost all of spring training with a hamstring injury. He looks more confident at the plate and has also played better in the field (it’s always been noted that Castro has had some issues with concentration in the field, but this appears to no longer be a problem).

As you note, he’s just 24. He’s had very good years in the past and now it looks like he could be in line for a real breakout year.

Keefe: It was always rough to watch Carlos Marmol try to get through games as the Cubs closer (especially if you had a wager on them), but when he was on and could locate, his pitches were electrifying and unhittable. Now it seems like the Cubs have Carlos Marmol 2.0 in Jose Veras.

I couldn’t wait for the Yankees to part ways with Jose Veras, which they did in June 2009, and had they not, the Yankees probably would be in their 14th year of a World Series drought if he had gotten into playoff games that year. Veras defined inconsistent during his time with the Yankees and when I knew he would be an important part of the Tigers’ bullpen in the ALCS last October, I feared that the Red Sox would reach the World Series and eventually win it.

The numbers haven’t been pretty for Veras through four appearances this season, so I’m not sure if the right thing to ask is what are your feelings on him, so I’ll go with how long will the Jose Veras experiment work with the Cubs?

Yellon: I think the Veras experiment might be over already; he’s been replaced as closer (for now), and if his replacement (whoever it is; the dreaded “committee” is now closing) does well, what’s the point of giving him the closing job back?

Well, here’s the point. Veras was signed as a flip candidate; he has very little “proven closer” experience (half of 2013 is about it), and there isn’t much point to having a 33-year-old closer on a bad team unless he can bring a prospect or two in return. So I’d expect the Cubs to try it again.

Keefe: The year before Theo arrived the Cubs were 71-91. In his first year running the team, they finished 61-101 and then went 66-96 last season. This year they are off to a 4-8 start.

They are still considered to be in rebuilding mode, but when you look around the league at other teams who were also rebuilding, they have seemed to do it much quicker than it’s taken the Cubs, who haven’t reached the playoffs since 2008 and haven’t won a playoff game since Game 4 of the 2003 NLCS.

What are your expectations for this season and how long will the rebuilding plan take?

Yellon: Personally, I have no expectations for this season. This Cubs team was clearly not built to contend, especially in the NL Central where it appears we now have four contending teams. The Cubs’ two “big” offseason signings — Veras and Jason Hammel — were clearly made to flip them for prospects, not to provide any victories. The Cubs will likely lose 95 games again, even if they play well through July 31; trades after that (which could include Jeff Samardzija) could produce another 18-42 or 17-40 August and September (those are the actual records from those months in 2012 and 2013, respectively).

I don’t expect the Cubs to have any real serious contending year until 2018… at least.

But hey, we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of Wrigley Field this year. There will be some cool giveaways. As Cubs fans, we better enjoy that, because it’s about all we’ve got.