Yankees – Page 214 – Keefe To The City

Feb 17, 2010

Some Questions Still Unanswered

Five questions surrounding the Yankees as spring training begins.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com Feb. 17, 2010.

The first day of pitchers and catchers is the first official day of the season. It’s a day that represents the closing days of winter and the excitement for spring and summer. It grants new life to the 29 teams that didn’t finish the previous season with a win, and gives hope to clubs looking to be this season’s dark horse. Today is that day.

Coming off a world championship, Tampa should be relaxed for the first time in a decade. New York’s real baseball problems are in Port St. Lucie at Mets camp where Omar Minaya is trying to build a rotation on the fly and trying to figure out exactly who is going catch that rotation. No one in Queens is satisfied with the situation at first base or in right field, and the team’s center fielder isn’t going to be ready for Opening Day. It’s a good time to be a Yankees fan.

But even with the Yankees boasting a team as good if not better than their 103-win club of a year ago, there are still a handful of minor housekeeping matters to be taken care of over the next six weeks. Here’s five questions surrounding the Bombers at the beginning of spring:

1. Can the veterans stay healthy?
The difference between the 2008 and 2009 Yankees was 14 regular season wins and another 11 wins in October. A serious rash of injuries created this difference. Aside from Alex Rodriguez missing the first month of the season, the Yankees were remarkably healthy in 2009. In 2008, they weren’t as lucky.

The injury bug wreaked havoc on the ‘08 Yankees, landing the following players on the disabled list at least once: Jonathan Albaladejo, Wilson Betemit, Chris Britton, Brian Bruney, Joba Chamberlain, Johnny Damon, Dan Giese, Phil Hughes, Jeff Karstens, Ian Kennedy, Hideki Matsui, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez and Chien-Ming Wang. Starters landed on the DL, as did their replacements, and their replacements’ replacements. It was a disaster from Opening Day through Game 162 in what was the worst season in the Bronx since 1993.

This season, the Yankees are somewhat younger than they were a year ago after trimming Johnny Damon (36) and Hideki Matsui (35) from the roster. However, there is still cause for concern as the team’s superstars get up there in age.

Here are the current ages for the starting lineup: 26, 27, 28, 29, 29, 31, 34, 35 and 38.

Here are the current ages for the starting rotation and closer (Hughes and Chamberlain included): 23, 24, 29, 33, 33, 37 and 40.

There are a lot of 30s listed there, and they are all very significant players on the roster. The Yankees are going to need good fortune and a bill of health similar to 2009 to make another October run, and they are going to need to leave camp healthy.

2. Who’s going to play center field?
When the Yankees traded for Curtis Granderson, I thought they finally had a long-term solution in center field. I was also thinking that Johnny Damon was going to be back in left, but that is clearly not the case. As of now, it looks like Granderson will be in left and Brett Gardner in center, and maybe that is for the better.

The Yankees lost 24 home runs and 82 RBIs from Damon, and 28 home runs and 90 RBIs from Hideki Matsui. Granderson is going to be asked to make up for the offensive production lost with Damon. Nick Johnson will be an upgrade in the on-base department over Matsui, but he isn’t going to be able to provide the power that Godzilla gave the Yankees at DH – unless he becomes a product of the short porch.

With Granderson in left, there will be less wear and tear on his body than there would be in center, allowing him to be stronger offensively. No one is counting on Gardner’s bat anyways and any offense he can provide the team is a plus, but not needed.

If the Yankees feel that Granderson’s game has diminished in center like it appeared to be during the final weeks of last season, then Gardner is the right man for the job. It’s safe to say whatever decision is made at the end of spring training will be changed more than once throughout the year.

3. Who’s going to be the long reliever?
Joe Girardi didn’t think it was necessary to have a long reliever on the Opening Day roster last season. It didn’t take him long to change his mind.

Early on, the bullpen was overtaxed and it didn’t help that the team was asking Edwar Ramirez, Phil Coke, Jose Veras and Brian Bruney to get important outs. Chien-Ming Wang pretty much caused the bullpen fatigue for the first couple of weeks of the season, and the relievers didn’t recover until the Yankees finally made wholesale changes. The same thing can’t happen this season.

Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre will be the long reliever candidates since no matter what the Yankees say, the competition for the fifth spot in the rotation doesn’t include them.

When it comes down to it, Gaudin is the better option. He is more reliable (3.43 ERA in 42 innings with the Yankees) and has had previous success in the majors. Gaudin’s high pitch counts forced Girardi to have a short leash with him in most of his starts, but the ability to help the team is certainly there. I don’t know if you can say the same for Mitre.

Mitre might only be a little over a year removed from Tommy John surgery, but it’s not like he was some stud before his injury. Mitre allowed 71 hits in 51 1/3 innings with the Yankees last season, and posted a 1.63 WHIP, which was only worse than the pitcher formerly known as Chien-Ming Wang’s 2.02 and the always-exciting Edwar Ramirez’s 1.96. I would like to think that the best team in baseball would have someone more reliable than Mitre in the bullpen and serving as the long reliever. Give it to Gaudin.

4. Which A.J. Burnett will show up?
The difference between winning 95 games this season and 105 games depends on which A.J. Burnett comes to pitch.

There’s no doubt that Burnett has No. 1 stuff, but many times, he pitches like a No. 5. His potential no-hitters can quickly turn into four-run deficits, and when his game begins to south, there is no way to right the ship until five days later.

Burnett proved himself in the postseason after finishing the regular season with just 13 wins in 33 starts. His performance in Game 2 of the World Series made up for all the eggs he laid throughout the summer, but it wasn’t enough to fully gain his trust.

When Burnett takes the mound, you hope that you get the guy who allowed one hit to the Red Sox over 7 2/3 innings in August and not the guy who allowed a grand slam to Jason Varitek in April. The season won’t be won or lost because of Burnett, but he has the ability to make the Yankees untouchable in the division and the league.

5. How will the Yankees handle Derek Jeter’s contract situation?
A lot of newspapers will need to fill space between now and the end of the season, and they will argue about the contract status of Derek Jeter to do so.

When Jeter, Casey Close, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner sit down to hammer out a new deal for the face of the franchise and the face of the game, they are going to give Jeter what he deserves: whatever he wants.

Jeter isn’t going to be given a low-ball offer filled with incentives like Joe Torre was, and he isn’t going to be left hanging in the balance like Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada were. Jeter is going to be given a multiyear deal for a lucrative amount of money, and there is no other way it will happen and there is no other way it should.

Speculation can be justified when it comes to the contract statuses of Mariano and Girardi, or with Posada at the end of next season, and that’s because they are not Derek Jeter. There is only one Derek Jeter, and because of that, he ‘s going to get treated and taken care of in a way that no other player will or should. End of story.

Plenty of Relief In Sight

No bullpen is perfect and no bullpen is unbeatable, but for the first time in a while, the Yankees might have one close to those things.

Every season I like to believe the Yankees bullpen is going to be better than it was the season before. For the first time since Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson were building the bridge to ninth inning, it looks like the bullpen in the Bronx will be the best it’s been in quite some time.

I won’t have to convince myself this spring that the Yankees can catch lightning in a bottle four times in one season with four different relievers. There’s no more Brian Bruney. No more Phil Coke. No more watching late leads disappear into the right field bleachers. No more needing to worry about how the day’s bridge to Mariano will be constructed, or if it will be sturdy enough to reach the ninth inning.

The acquisitions of Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez this offseason will overshadow Brian Cashman’s decision to ship away Bruney and Coke, but I think these moves deserve just as much recognition. Cashman was able to take away two of Joe Girardi’s most used relievers, two pitchers who inspired zero confidence among fans, and whose only roles in the major leagues should be serving as mop-up men. Bruney and Coke combined for 116 appearances last season, and not once in any of those 116 pitching changes was there a feeling that the opposition wouldn’t add to their run total.

The obvious problem with the Yankees during the beginning of last season was behind the outfield wall in their bullpen. The absence of A-Rod from the lineup and Mark Teixeira’s early offseason woes didn’t help matters, but the real dilemmas began when Girardi went to the mound to pull his starter. The Yankees were a $200 million team with a $200 bullpen. On Opening Day, the bullpen consisted of Rivera, Bruney, Coke, Damaso Marte, Edwar Ramirez and Jose Veras. Outside of Rivera, there wasn’t one pitcher capable of getting important outs on a consistent basis. (Marte only remembered how to pitch in the postseason, and thankfully he did then).

All of the books and DVD specials about the 2009 championship season will focus on a number of elements: the return of A-Rod; Mark Teixeira turning it around offensively; the walk-off wins against the Twins; and Joe Girardi’s Billy Martin impression in Atlanta. All were notable turning points in the quest for No. 27, however, three dates that won’t be recognized when it comes to the club’s remarkable turnaround are May 18, June 8 and June 13.

May 18 was Edwar Ramirez’s final game with the team before being sent down until September call-ups. June 8 was Phil Hughes first appearance out of the bullpen – the most significant decision the team made all season. June 13 was Jose Veras’ last game as a Yankee before being traded to the Cleveland for three pouches of Red Man and two daily passes to the Rock and Hall of Fame.

The destruction and rebuilding of the bullpen midseason was more necessary than any walk-off home run or come-from-behind win. The reconstruction of the bullpen allowed for the late-inning heroics to take place, and turned the Yankees from postseason hopefuls into postseason favorites.

The decision to make Hughes the setup man and the emergence of David Robertson changed the late innings for the Yankees, by shortening games and allowing starters to know their winning decision wouldn’t vanish at the hands of Bruney, Coke, Ramirez or Veras.

This season, the Yankees enter spring training with Rivera, Robertson, Marte and Alfredo Aceves as sure things in the bullpen. Chad Gaudin will likely join them as the long reliever as will someone from the Mark Melancon-Jonathan Albaladejo-Boone Logan group. That leaves one spot for either Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes.

Even when the Yankees have finally decided on a set role for Joba, the debate as to whether he belongs in the rotation or bullpen will never end. The discussion is not going away anytime soon and will likely control the baseball talk once the Yankees make their decision on him for 2010.

I have been an advocate of Joba being a starter since the transition was made in 2008. More importantly, I am an advocate of the Yankees winning games and right now, putting him in the bullpen gives the Yankees the best chance to win.

It would have been satisfying to see Joba mature as a front-end starter and be a staple of the rotation for years to come, but it doesn’t look like he is going to get that chance. In this market on this team, there isn’t time for Joba to gain experience as a starter by failing at first. There just isn’t room in the rotation for a 4 1/3 inning pitcher, especially when that pitcher has had immediate and exceptional success as a reliever.

After Joba’s postseason dominance – aside from one fastball to Pedro Feliz – and the return of his high-90s velocity, it doesn’t seem possible that he will begin 2010 in the rotation, and it doesn’t appear likely that he will ever return there.

There will be enough words written in the city between now and Opening Day about Joba’s role on the team, but common sense has him beginning the year as a reliever. With Joba in the bullpen, Phil Hughes will slide into the No. 5 spot in the rotation, in what is currently the best rotation in baseball. Sorry, Boston.

Someone will take the fall as the mop-up man this season, but at least there won’t be several people deserving of that role. On paper, this bullpen has the potential to be the best in baseball, and the best in the Bronx since the last time Yankees went back-to-back and belly-to-belly in October.

No bullpen is perfect and no bullpen is unbeatable. There is usually a Kyle Farnsworth or a Scott Proctor on every club. There will always be a game where a three-run lead turns into a two-run deficit, but as currently constructed it’s hard to pick out who will be this season’s LaTroy Hawkins. For the first time in a while, there might not be one.

I’m Going to Miss Johnny Damon

I can’t believe I’m going to miss Johnny Damon.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Feb. 1, 2010.

There was a time when the thought of ever being a fan of Johnny Damon’s was laughable. Of course that was when he was patrolling center field for the Red Sox. But after watching Johnny Damon for four seasons in the Bronx, it’s going to be tough to see him go.

Damon – with some help from postseason hero Kevin Brown – played the lead role in the most devastating defeat I will ever endure in my lifetime as a sports fan. When the self-proclaimed “idiot” turned around a first-pitch fastball from Javier Vazquez in Game 7, he ended the deciding game of the ALCS in the second inning. By doing so, he silenced the “1918” chants forever, and kicked off the beginning of my college career in Boston in the worst possible way.

In October 2004, there were few, if any, athletes I despised more than Johnny Damon. I didn’t think I could ever forgive Damon for his Game 7 granny and the deep depression that his one-handed swing drove me into. That all changed prior to the 2006 season when Brian Cashman realized he couldn’t possibly justify having the highest payroll in the league with Bubba Crosby as his Opening Day center fielder. I had spent the last four years using every ounce of my body to dislike Johnny Damon and now I was being asked to do a complete 180 on my feelings toward him.

The thought of Derek Jeter laughing uncontrollably at Damon recapping his Saturday night in Manhattan, or Damon watching Everybody Loves Raymond re-runs with Mariano Rivera in the clubhouse or creating a special handshake with Jorge Posada was too much to bear. I pictured his Eephus-like relays dying in the outfield. It made me want to puke.

Eventually I came to accept the fact that Damon was going to be a Yankee whether I liked it or not. Once I was able to put aside my emotions from Oct. 20, 2004 and think rationally, there were two immediate positives to Damon becoming a Yankee:

1. The Yankees would finally have a real incumbent in center field to Bernie Williams. Cashman had been trying for the previous two seasons to replace Williams in center. His Kenny Lofton experiment in 2004 worked out as well as Jay Leno at 10:00. In 2005, he brought Tony Womack in to play second base, but Robinson Cano’s emergence relegated Womack to the outfield where he was ineffective. That same season Cashman called a 20-year-old Melky Cabrera from Triple-A too early and his short stint ended with an inside-the-park home run in Fenway at the rookie’s expense. Cashman’s lack of roster depth kept Bubba Crosby on the team long enough that his collision with Gary Sheffield in Game 5 of the ALDS cost the Yankees the series. With the signing of Damon, Cashman was bringing in a proven center fielder who could still play the position (or so we thought), and was still capable of producing offensively.

2. There is really nothing that can erase Oct. 17-20 of 2004, the four darkest days in the history of the Yankees. But if anything could put even the slightest blemish on a week that made me light-headed to look up on Baseball Reference, prying Damon away from the Red Sox could. David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling will always be the most recognized players when it comes to the run that reversed the 86-year curse in Boston, but it was Damon who was the center of attention of the 2004 Red Sox. Damon was the founding father and ring leader of the “Idiot” culture the 2004 Red Sox lived by, and along with Kevin Millar, the duo turned the Red Sox clubhouse into Delta Tau Chi. It was Damon’s appeal that helped turn Red Sox home games into social events, attracting pink hats and a crowd whose primary concern seems to be what inning beers sales end. Johnny Damon had become the face of the Red Sox, personifying the change the franchise had undergone by erasing the losing mentality from the team and the city. By stealing Damon away from the atmosphere and environment he helped create in Boston, the Yankees did more than just acquire their rival’s leadoff hitter and center fielder. They acquired the heart and soul of their rival, and at the time it was the only possible remedy – outside of winning another championship – that made 2004 hurt a little less.

Damon’s career in New York went according to plan. He used the short porch in both stadiums to his advantage, served as a run producer at the top of the lineup and was eventually forced out of center field after years of crashing into walls began to take a toll on his body. The Yankees got exactly what they paid for with Damon, as he was as good, if not better than he was in Boston. There were few surprises when it came to his performance.

After four entertaining seasons, a brilliant base-running decision that will make for a nice “Classic Moment” commercial on YES and a world championship, it doesn’t look like Damon will be returning to the Yankees. However, it seemed unlikely that Damon would be a Yankee when he was sporting a Christ-like beard, so never say never.

Damon is still playing the same free-agent poker game he chose to play with the Red Sox during the holiday season in 2005. Except this time no one is calling his or Scott Boras’ bluff. Some Yankees fans are offended that Damon has decided to hold out for every last penny this offseason, but if you have followed Damon’s previous contract negotiations, his decisions this winter should come as no surprise.

If being a fan favorite in Boston and part of a championship-caliber team couldn’t keep him with the Red Sox at their price, why would Damon sing a different tune under the same circumstances with the Yankees?

Damon has always cared about winning; he has just cared about money more. To his credit, he has never tried to hide the fact that he will go wherever the most money is, even if that means taking offers from non-contenders in baseball Siberia. Damon remains a true reminder that Major League Baseball is a business, and that hometown discounts and loyalty are no longer a part of the game. Then again, it’s hard to blame a player trying to get every last penny he can on what is likely the last multiyear contract of his career.

Cashman and Joe Girardi have preached about getting younger across the board for the last two years, and it just so happens that Damon is being used as the example for their newly instituted philosophy. Locking up a 36-year-old defensive liability with a well below average arm doesn’t really fit their long-term plan. The Yankees never met Damon’s minimum of two years, $22 million to stay in New York, and now it’s Feb. 1 and he is still a free agent.

It took the Yankees eight years of coming up short to spend $423 million on the top three free agents in one offseason. It took the first championship in nine years for the Yankees to decide they needed to work under a budget.

Damon will end up in Oakland or Tampa Bay or San Francisco – somewhere that isn’t the Bronx or Boston. No matter where he goes, it won’t compare to the two cities he has spent the last eight years in.

It will be odd to see Damon return to Yankee Stadium in another uniform, though I won’t miss his unorthodox routes to fly balls or throws that roll to the feet of the cut-off man. But I will miss the clutch at-bats and his patented “point” during roll call.

I thought I’d never say this, but I’m going to miss Johnny Damon.