Yankees – Page 221 – Keefe To The City

Feb 18, 2012

Goodbye to A.J. Burnett and His ‘Great Stuff’

The Season 4 finale of The Office has one of my favorite scenes in the show’s history. That scene is when Toby leaves the office for Costa Rica and Michael’s bids him farewell by singing

The Season 4 finale of The Office has one of my favorite scenes in the show’s history. That scene is when Toby leaves the office for Costa Rica and Michael’s bids him farewell by singing Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger” with the new title “Goodbye Toby” and new lyrics tailored to Toby.

I have always envisioned myself singing the song with the title changed to “Goodbye A.J.” on the steps of Babe Ruth Plaza before a night game at the Stadium with Yankees fans crowded around singing and celebrating the trade or release of A.J. Burnett. Burnett is no longer a Yankee, but it’s the middle of February and there are no games to be played at the Stadium until April, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to rent a backup band and belt out my own rendition of Supertramp’s hit in the Bronx.

I have written for WFAN.com since Feb. 1, 2010 and I have written more words about A.J. Burnett than anyone other sports figure. (Type “Neil Keefe A.J. Burnett” into Google if you think I’m kidding.) I have dedicated entire columns to him, made a system for measuring his starts and grading his performances, referenced him in columns about the Rangers and joked about him in columns about the Giants. I have used his name in every possible way and want to thank him for the countless material and also for Game 2 of the 2009 World Series. Since there won’t be a performance in Babe Ruth Plaza, I decided the next best thing was to go back through all of my columns about A.J. Burnett over the last two years and share some of my favorite moments from my columns about him.

April 7, 2010
Watching A.J. Burnett pitch is harder to watch than the scene in Casino where Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) and his brother Dominick are beaten within an inch of their lives by baseball bats and then buried alive. Sure it’s only one start, but it’s not like we didn’t also see this last year. Burnett is either going to come within reach of a no-no or have a start that includes that one letdown inning. On Tuesday, he had the latter and the letdown inning was the fifth.

June 22, 2010
This time I decided to take what I have learned about A.J. Burnett since he became a Yankee and take it out a step further. I think its necessary that we have a unit of measurement for Burnett’s starts and a way to categorize his many meltdowns and losses. So like the Richter scale, here is a way to measure another type of natural disaster: A.J. Burnett meltdowns.

Grade 1
Example: June 10 vs. Baltimore

Getting through the first inning with A.J. Burnett is key. If you can get through the first, there’s a chance he will be able to get you through a lot more. A.J. is usually good for allowing at least one run before the Yankees have time to get on the board, but if he can hold the opposition scoreless so the Yankees can take an early lead, you’re in good shape. The problem is you aren’t out of the water yet since there isn’t a lead that is safe with A.J. on the hill.

The meltdown usually starts once the Yankees have given him a lead and he feels it necessary to give it right back. Andy Pettitte did a lot of this in the second half of 2008 before we later found out that he was injured. A.J. Burnett might be the only pitcher that I don’t feel confident with getting out of an inning unscathed with two outs and no one on. Once he gets those first two outs, things can unfold pretty quickly. And when they do, you can no longer control a Grade 1 implosion from becoming …

Grade 2
Example: April 23 vs. Angels

If AJ doesn’t come with his best stuff (which he never does anymore), then there is without a doubt going to be an inning where he allows at least a three spot.

Most starters prepare for games with the mindset that they are going to go out and win the game for their team. A.J. goes out with the idea that he is going to throw a perfect game. The only problem is that after that first walk, he starts to think, “OK, the no-hitter is still intact.” Then after that first hit, he thinks “Well, now I am just going to strike out every hitter.” It’s this mentality that gets A.J. Burnett in trouble. Instead of pitching the way he finally learned how to under Roy Halladay at the end of his Toronto days, A.J. becomes the oft-injured pitcher he was in Florida, trying to knock down the catcher with his fastball like Steve Nebraska.

A.J. Burnett isn’t capable of limiting damage and working through men on base the way Andy Pettitte has made a career of doing, and he isn’t capable of working through a game without his best stuff the way CC Sabathia can grind through a start. It’s all or nothing with A.J. Burnett and when it’s nothing, it turns into this …

Grade 3
Examples: May 9 vs. Red Sox and June 21 vs. Diamondbacks

This is what we saw on Monday and what we have seen for most of June. It’s like an uncontrollable California forest fire. You think A.J. has had his bad inning for the night and that he will enter cruise control, only to have the game unravel in a matter of pitches (on Monday night it took 15) and once that second crooked number starts to take shape, there is no stopping it until he is removed from the game. The only problem with that is that the game is out of hand by this point and likely out of reach for the offense, so the “loser” relievers (I call them this because they only pitch when the Yankees are losing and also happens to be prime examples of the word) like Chad Gaudin and Boone Logan and Chan Ho Park start to get loose in the ‘pen.

The entire scene is enough to make you think about picking up your remote control and throwing a two-seamer right through the TV screen, or at the very least it’s enough to make you make yourself a strong cocktail.

September 1, 2010
“Great stuff” is a tag that has become synonymous with hard throwing pitchers that have no control and really just throw since they don’t know how to actually pitch. If some recent call-up is facing the Yankees and is throwing in the high 90s, but walks the first two hitters he faces, you can bet your life that John Flaherty will talk about the pitcher’s “great stuff” when he breaks down the pitch-by-pitch sequence. That’s right, the pitcher that just walked the first two hitters of the inning on eight pitches has “great stuff!”

How many times have you heard someone say A.J. Burnett has “great stuff?” Listen to Michael Kay or John Sterling call a game, or listen to sports radio or talk to a random Yankees fan about Burnett and the phrase will come up. And when A.J. starts an uncontrollable forest fire in the third of fourth inning of one of his starts when it seems like he might never record another out, Kay or whoever has the play-by-play duties for the game (or John Sterling if you are listening on the radio) will start to wonder out loud what is wrong with A.J.

“He throws so hard and has such great stuff — some of the best stuff in the league. It just doesn’t make any sense why he struggles the way he does.”

It actually makes perfect sense as to why A.J. Burnett has the problems he has. It’s because he doesn’t have “great stuff.” Roy Halladay has great stuff. Felix Hernandez has great stuff. CC Sabathia has great stuff. Josh Johnson has great stuff. A.J. Burnett has average stuff.

Yes, A.J. Burnett throws hard and yes, he has a breaking ball that can buckle someone’s knees like a Ronnie one-punch, but that doesn’t make his stuff “great.” Being able to control your stuff and being able to dominate on a consistent basis and grind through a start when you aren’t at your best is what makes someone’s stuff “great.” Leaving the game in the fourth inning with the bases loaded and one out and burning the bullpen in the first game of a three-game series with your team not having an off-day for another 12 days for some reason to me just shouldn’t be classified as having “great stuff.”

October 1, 2010
I thought A.J Burnett could be good down the stretch (well, maybe it was more of hope). I thought he could turn around what has been the worst season of any Yankee pitcher since David Cone when 4-14 in 2000. I said I wouldn’t say anything negative about him for the rest of the season. I gave him a chance, but he took the mound in Toronto with his ALDS roster spot on the line and gave the Blue Jays a chance to pad their 2010 stats in the final week of the season. So like Stevie Janowski once said, “I have tried to be your friend, but you will not listen to me, so you invited this monster.”

It’s obvious at this point that A.J. Burnett is in denial about his abilities. Maybe it’s because everyone around him tells him he has “great stuff” like delusional parents telling their kid that they are the best despite the truth. Since June 1, Burnett has made 21 starts and has won four of them. He’s 4-13 over that time with a 6.67 ERA, and is now 23-24 with a 4.64 ERA in 65 starts as a Yankee. If I’m Joe Girardi and I’m managing for a championship and for a hefty contract this offseason, the last person I want deciding my salary for the next few years is a pitcher who found a way to lose at least 15 games for a 94-plus win team.

Here is Burnett’s line from Monday night’s loss:

2.1 IP, 7 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 1K, 2 HR

Now, here is a quote from Burnett following that pitching line:

“Joe’s going to make a decision on his own. I don’t have anything to prove. He saw what I did last year in the postseason. Everybody always says that the season doesn’t matter here and the postseason does. He makes the decisions and I want the ball whenever he gives it to me.”

Does that sound like a pitcher who lost for the seventh time in 11 starts and who has just one win since September 28th? That’s right, one win in 65 days. Give him the ball, Joe!

What’s even more puzzling than Burnett thinking that losing in the regular season at $500,000 a start, are the words he chose to describe his current state of mind.

“I don’t have anything to prove. He saw what I did last year in the postseason.”

Yes, A.J. Burnett won Game 2 of the World Series, and it was a must-win game for the Yankees. But let’s not forget he started four other games in the postseason and either lost or earned no decisions. Not to mention his meltdowns in two potential clinchers (Game 5 of the ALCS and Game 5 of the World Series).

Here is Burnett’s line from Game 5 of the ALCS:

6 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

And here is his line from Game 5 of the World Series, a game in which the first four Phillies reached base and had a 3-0 lead before Burnett recorded an out:

2 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 2K, 1 HR

And in case you forgot, here is how Game 5 went down for Burnett, batter by batter:

First inning: Single, hit by pitch, home run, walk, strikeout, groundout, groundout

Second inning: Strikeout, groundout, walk, pop-out

Fourth inning: Walk, walk, single, single

So, yeah we all saw what you did in the postseason last year.

October 19, 2010
Let’s forget the No. 1 reason why A.J. Burnett shouldn’t start Game 4, which is because he isn’t consistent, trustworthy or reliable (that’s the nice way of saying he isn’t a good pitcher). If those miserable qualities aren’t enough to make you change your mind about who should start Game 4, consider the elephant in the room that not one person ever mentions or talks about: Joe Girardi has no idea how to handle A.J. Burnett.

I’m not saying Girardi doesn’t know how to make Burnett a good pitcher because after 12 years and three teams in the majors, it’s clear that no one does. Let’s not pretend like Burnett has only been bad as a Yankee because, truthfully, he was never very good. The Yankees paid $82.5 million for an 87-76 pitcher because they missed the playoffs the year before and because Burnett was 3-1 with a 1.64 ERA against the Yankees in 2008. They didn’t get him for his postseason pedigree and October experience since he had never pitched in the postseason before 2009, and they certainly didn’t get him for his résumé, which aside from a nine-walk no hitter in 2001, included nothing worth giving him $16.5 million a year.

So, no I’m not saying it’s Girardi’s fault that Burnett lost 15 games on a 95-win team, what I’m saying is that the problem with Girardi and his utilization of Burnett is that he has no idea when to pull the plug on him or when to keep him plugged in. Take for instance what Girardi did on Monday night in Game 3: Trailing 2-0 and with Cliff Lee close to being finished for the night, it looked like Joe Girardi wanted to keep the Rangers right there hoping that the Yankees could come back against the Rangers bullpen. So, Joe had Kerry Wood pitch the eighth, which would only mean that Mariano Rivera would pitch the ninth (since Joe was using his primary setup man) since he had pitched just one inning in nine days. But to start the ninth, Girardi went with Boone Logan who allowed a leadoff single to Josh Hamilton. Then he brought in David Robertson who faced seven batters and retired just one of them. Sergio Mitre relived Robertson and at the end of the inning the Rangers’ lead went from 2-0 to 8-0, and the game was over. Why did Girardi save Mariano Rivera? He saved him because he managed for Game 4 during Game 3. The same manager who told the media following Game 2 that, “If we worry about Game 4 before Game 3, we are going to be in trouble.” And that’s exactly what he did and now the Yankees are in trouble.

What does Girardi’s handling of the bullpen in Game 3 have to do with Girardi’s handling of A.J. Burnett? Everything! Because if Girardi doesn’t know the leash of each of his relievers in the bullpen (a strength of the team), then how is he going to handle Burnett in Game 4 when the game begins to unravel? In case you aren’t aware, when A.J. Burnett begins to go south, it happens in seconds not minutes. Following a walk, in three pitches, you could have three consecutive doubles and if you don’t see Burnett entering his famous “Eff It” mode quick enough, the game could be out of hand before you have even called down to the bullpen. Girardi has no idea how to judge when Burnett is about to begin an epic meltdown, and aside from Burnett being the worst pitcher on the team and my least favorite player, Girardi’s inability to understand his momentum swings on the mound is the unnerving part of him staring Game 4.

There are the fans, the ones who watched A.J. Burnett’s 2010 season and watched him lose all five of his starts in June and record just 14 quality starts in 33 starts. The fans that watched a 95-67 team get 22 percent of their losses from one pitcher making the equivalent of 30 percent of the 2010 Rangers’ payroll. These are the fans like me. These are the fans that are realists and know that even though Tommy Hunter might be as bad as Burnett, the Yankees are going to likely need to hang a six-spot on the Rangers in Game 4, and even then it might not be enough.

Then there are the fans that have started the AJ Burnett movement. These are the fans who even though deep down they know Burnett has about as good of a chance of winning Game 4 as Don Larsen would at 81 years of age, they have proclaimed they “believe in Burnett.” These are the fans that don’t get worried when the Yankees trail by five runs in an ALCS game because the night before the Yankees erased the same deficit as if the chance that the same result might happen again has any relevance to the current game. These are the fans that will say, “I told you so” when Burnett pitches well, but I don’t need someone to tell me when a guy who makes $16.5 million finally does his job.

and more from this same column…

No, the Yankees won’t be eliminated with a loss in Game 4 on Tuesday, but they might as well be. The five-game series against the Rangers I was worried about in the ALDS ended up happening in the ALCS after the Yankees split the first two games. Cliff Lee started Game 1 of the best-of-five series on Monday and now he is waiting to start Game 5 of the series, if the Yankees can get it there. I don’t know if I can physically and emotionally handle the Yankees coming back to force a Game 7 only to have Lee strike out another dozen Yankees and sprint off the mound after seven-pitches innings knowing that the Yankees were so close to acquiring him three months ago.

I want nothing more than the Burnett enthusiasts to tell me after Game 4 that I was wrong. I want to be wrong. I want A.J. Burnett to pitch well and I want the Yankees to win Game 4, the ALCS and the World Series. But like Winnie Gecko warns her fiancé Jacob about her father, Gordon, in Wall Street 2, “He’s not who you think he is Jake. He’ll hurt us,” I am reminding you of who A.J. Burnett is and what he is capable of.

I was hoping for a couple of Yankees fans to kidnap Burnett last night the way Mike O’Hara and Jimmy Flaherty kidnap Lewis Scott before the Celtics play the Jazz in the NBA Finals in Celtic Pride, but it looks like that didn’t happen. So now I have to believe in A.J. Burnett. I have no other choice.

July 19, 2011
The thing about Burnett is that I can’t blame him for his contract. If Cashman wanted to give him the fifth year that no one else would at $16.5 million per year, you can’t blame him for accepting it. Why wouldn’t he take that deal? And I understand that he stands there and takes his losses like he should in front of the media and in front of the cameras, and that he seems to be an important clubhouse presence and someone who genuinely cares about winning and wants to succeed. All of those things are nice, but at the end of the day it’s his performance on the field that matters and only that.

A.J. Burnett doesn’t suck. Well, not completely. He’s not as bad as Jaret Wright was or as much of a bust as Carl Pavano was or as crazy as Kevin Brown. He is what he is. He’s a .500 pitcher with a 4.00 ERA who sometimes will be lights out and sometimes be lights on. He doesn’t suck. He’s just inconsistent.

August 11, 2011
So, knowing that the Cashman and Girardi ONLY care about winning and will do WHATEVER it takes to win, this decision seems like a rather easy one to me: A.J. Burnett is out of the rotation.

It’s not like this is a decision made hastily or without a large sample size. This is a decision based on lots of results. But to be onboard with taking the Yankees’ most ineffective starter and putting him in the bullpen (for now), you first have to identify and understand the two common misconceptions about him.

1. He has “great stuff.” Every time I hear this is it’s like someone pulling their nails from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of a chalkboard. It makes me cringe and hate baseball. Am I watching a different game than everyone else when Burnett pitches? Am I really taking crazy pills like Mugatu? What’s so great about an 8-9 record and 4.60 ERA? Is it because he throws hard? Is it because he has a curveball that drops off the table that has led to a league-leading 15 wild pitches, or basically the equivalent of throwing an entire inning of wild pitches?

Sabathia and Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander have GREAT stuff. A.J. Burnett has the type of “great stuff” that Jeff Weaver had. The only reason Weaver isn’t pitching in the league anymore is because no team was stupid enough to give him $82.5 million.

2. He has the ability to throw a shutout. I LOVE this one. I LOVE IT! I LOVE that people think because once in a while when the night is right and the temperature is perfect and the lineup is just bad enough and the stars align, A.J. Burnett pitches a great game.

I understand that you need swing-and-miss stuff in the postseason, but you also don’t need free-pass stuff in the postseason and under .500 stuff and 4.60 stuff. So, if you’re going to tell me Burnett has the ability (which I don’t think he does) to shut down the Red Sox, Rangers, Angels, Tigers or Indians in a must-win game, you better be able to tell me he also has the ability to put the Yankees in an inescapable hole before they even hit for the first time in the game.

and more from this same column…

Let’s look at and dissect some of the answers that Burnett gave after his start on Tuesday:

“Before the sixth, I kept my team in it the best I could. And that’s what I’m going to continue to keep doing.”

It’s always something with Burnett and everyone is always making excuses for him. He’s always talking about if he “could have one pitch back” or that he “only made one mistake” or that “he left it all on the field.” You know who uses the line “I left it all on the field?” People who lose.

Burnett pinpoints the place where he stopped pitching well and started pitching like a guy who makes $500,000 per start whether he’s good or not. But hey, EFF IT! Only the first six inning matter and if you did “the best you could” well, I can’t argue you with that. Except there’s no place for who did their “best” on the scoreboard. Just runs, hits and errors.

“I wouldn’t change a lot.”

Oh, OK! You wouldn’t change the double you gave up to Hall of Famer Jeff Mathis. Or how about the 50-foot curveball you threw to Erick Aybar with a runner on third? Well, if you wouldn’t change them, I can’t argue with that.

“I haven’t won in a long time. I think I’ve pitched a lot of games that I could have won. I think a lot of things are out of my hands and are out of my control. I’ve given [up] three runs in [14] of my starts. If that is not good enough to win, I don’t know what is.”

When I went out to eat for my dad’s birthday on June 29, I kept looking over my sister’s head to try and see the TV at the bar at the restaurant to check the Yankees-Brewers score. A.J. Burnett was pitching. I didn’t think that when he won that game that night I would still be waiting for him to win another one 43 days later.

This is my favorite part. Burnett says the way he has pitched should be good enough to be undefeated or at least close to undefeated and then tries to sneaky throw his offense (currently the 2nd best offense in baseball) under the bus. The Yankees have scored more runs than 28 other teams, so yeah, it must be the offense’s fault!

He’s right, he’s give up three runs or less in 14 starts (it’s actually 15). But did you notice that he didn’t say that in those 15 starts he failed to go six innings in or that he didn’t mention the three times he has given up six or more earned runs? Why did he forget to mention that just last Wednesday he had a 13-1 lead to work with in Chicago and couldn’t even get through five innings and qualify for the win? 13 hits in 4 1/3 innings to the White Sox? If that is not enough to get you kicked out of the rotation, I don’t know what is.

“I’m going to stay positive. I threw the ball well tonight, I kept my team in it.”

If that is throwing the ball well, I don’t want to know what throwing the ball poorly is. OK, that was the last one of those.

August 22, 2011
At the end of Good Will Hunting, Ben Affleck’s character (Chuckie Sullivan) tells Matt Damon’s character (Will Hunting), “You know what the best part of my day is? The ten seconds before I knock on the door ’cause I let myself think I might get there, and you’d be gone. I’d knock on the door and you just wouldn’t be there. You just left.”

I live this every day. You know what the best part of my day is? Every day when I sign online, or go on Twitter, or turn on the TV or the radio ‘cause I let myself think that I will see the headline or hear the phrase, “A.J. Burnett removed from Yankees rotation.” I’m not foolish enough to think that I might hear, “Yankees release A.J. Burnett” because of the money he is owed this season and the $33 million for the next two years. But I let myself think that maybe, just maybe he will be sent to the bullpen and given the Jorge Posada treatment in that he doesn’t fit the team’s plan in putting the best team on the field. I think we’re getting there.

Burnett faced 12 batters. Eight of them reached base. Five of them were named Ben Revere, Trevor Plouffe, Danny Valencia Rene Tosoni and Luke Hughes (they are still named those names too). This isn’t the Red Sox, Rangers or Tigers or a team that has postseason aspirations. This is a team that outside of Burnett’s start scored five runs total in the other three games of the series. It’s a team that is 16 games under .500 and 13 games out of it in the weak Central. Let’s face it: The Twins suck.

But no one sucks when A.J. Burnett is pitching. Here’s how Burnett’s night went on Saturday:

Groundout
Double
Double
Sacrifice Fly
Strikeout
Home run
Walk
Double
Groundout
Single
Walk
Walk

One last time … Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Burnett!

Blogs • Yankees

Jan 18, 2012

Goodbye, Jorge Posada

The closest I have ever come to meeting Jorge Posada was on Oct. 17, 2004. How do I remember the date? Because it was the night the Yankees lost Game 4 of the ALCS. I

The closest I have ever come to meeting Jorge Posada was on Oct. 17, 2004. How do I remember the date? Because it was the night the Yankees lost Game 4 of the ALCS.

I was a freshman in college in Boston and my friend Scanlon and I were walking down the street from our Beacon Hill dorm recapping what had just unfolded in the ninth inning and then the 12th inning. The Yankees were staying at a hotel in Downtown Crossing right down the street from our dorm and we were standing on a corner recapping the events of the loss, knowing that it hurt, but that a 3-1 lead was insurmountable for the Red Sox.

The Red Sox tied Game 4 on a stolen base by Dave Roberts, but that night it was just another stolen base among the many other stolen bases in postseason history. It hadn’t become a play that haunts my life or a scene that’s enshrined as you walk down the hall to the Fenway Park press box. Dave Roberts was still just some 32-year-old veteran the Red Sox acquired at the deadline. Sure, he stole second and scored the tying run in an elimination game, but who cared? The Red Sox’ win in Game 4 was just prolonging the inevitable.

Scanlon and I stood on a street corner in Downtown Crossing while he smoked a cigarette realizing that the Red Sox had Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling lined up for Games 5 and 6 and possibly Derek Lowe on short rest in Game 7 if the series had to go that far. But I reassured a nervous Scanlon that the Yankees just had to win one game before the Red Sox won three.

As we stood on the corner and talked, I remember Scanlon’s face growing with shock as he looked over my shoulder and then at me before giving me one nod to let me know someone was behind me on the sidewalk we were partially blocking. I turned around and standing in front of us was Jorge Posada, who had just gotten out of a cab and was trying to walk down the middle of the sidewalk we were occupying. We moved aside and Posada walked past us without saying a word. He didn’t look mad, but he didn’t look happy. He looked serious and determined, but also worried. Or maybe I only remember him as looking worried since I now know what happened over the next three nights. At the time no one could have known what would happen in Games 5, 6 and 7, but that night after Game 4 with Jorge standing dead quiet right in front of us and waiting for us to move, it was almost like he knew the Yankees were on the ropes, the same way Joe Torre described the feeling of nowhere to turn in The Yankee Years.

I knew I would eventually have to write this. And I know I will eventually have to write about the end of Derek Jeter’s career and the end of Mariano Rivera’s career. (I’m holding out hope that they both find a way to play until they’re at least 65. It’s not that unrealistic for Rivera at this point.)

There aren’t any other franchises or fan bases that have ever had the chance to experience what the trio of Jeter, Rivera and Posada meant to Yankees fans for the last 20 years. The three of them first played together in the minors in 1992, and now two decades and five championships later, the first of the three says goodbye to Yankees fans. So, this is my chance to say goodbye to Jorge Posada.

I was eight years old when Jorge Posada played his first game as a Yankee, 17 Septembers ago. I will be 25 for the start of the 2012 season, the first season without Jorge Posada on the roster since I was in fourth grade.

“The only thing that matters is when the team wins.”

Jorge Posada was the pulse of the Yankees during the 15 of 17 years he played a significant amount of games. He wore the team’s recent result on his sleeve and in his postgame remarks. You didn’t need to see the game to know if the Yankees were riding a seven-game winning streak or if they had just dropped a series at home by watching Posada during the postgame or reading his quotes the following day. He wouldn’t give the vanilla and automated answers that Derek Jeter gives or sugarcoat things like Joe Torre did or Joe Girardi does. Posada was in many ways the voice of the fan, and if things were going bad, he let everyone know almost as if he were the most prominent sports radio caller.

That’s what I loved about Posada. He would tell it like is. A win was satisfying, but that feeling would only last until the next game. A loss was devastating and that feeling would last until the next win. Posada always carried the personality of the fans, or at least the fans that give the Yankees 162 days and nights of their attention and then October, and those that live and die with each win and each loss throughout the season.

“Growing up, I kind of liked the way he (Thurman Munson) played. I didn’t see much of him, but I remember him being a leader. I remember him really standing up for his teammates, and that really caught my eye.”

“If I see a problem (in the clubhouse), I say something right away. I don’t wait two or three days.”

Even though he was part of the Core Four, it always seemed like he took a backseat to No. 2 and No. 42 and Andy Pettitte.

Jeter’s the “Captain” and the face of the franchise, the homegrown wonder and the universal symbol of a winner.

Rivera is the greatest closer of all time, as close of a lock and guarantee that there is in baseball and the king of cool with no emotions and no signs of fading even in his 40s.

Pettitte was the homegrown lefty that won more postseason games than anyone else in the history of baseball, along with Rivera produced the most wins-saves combination for any starter-closer duo in history and was always there for Game 2 of any postseason series.

Posada was the starting catcher for all this time, loved by the fans, showered with “Hip, Hip” chants and the visual leader on the field and in the clubhouse. But outside of the tri-state area it always seemed like he didn’t receive the credit and attention that the other three garnered.

You could make the case that Posada was the most important Yankee of the dynasty since reaching the majors. Think about this: The Yankees have made the postseason every season since 1995 except 2008 when Posada’s season was cut short in July for shoulder surgery.

“I’m a lot older. I’m wiser. I know what to do now, and hopefully, I don’t get in (anybody’s) way.”

“Some of the guys don’t like to come out of the lineup. I’m one of them.”

Eventually people won’t talk or care about Posada’s 2011. Yes, it happened and there were some low points, but it did nothing to impact his legacy with the Yankees or change what he accomplished in his career with the team. His 2011 started great, got bad, got worse, got better, got worse, got better and finished great.

We watched Posada start the year with six home runs in his first 16 games. We watched him go 9-for-72 (.125) in April and 14-for-64 (.219) in May. On June 7 he was hitting .195 before going 22-for-63 (.349) from June 9 to July 5 to raise his average to .241. In August he lost his full-time designated hitter job and became part of a platoon before being benched indefinitely. He returned to the lineup on Aug. 13 against Tampa Bay after a week off and went 3-for-5 with a grand slam and six RBIs in the Yankees’ 9-2 win at the Stadium. He finished the year by clinching a postseason berth for the Yankees on Sept. 21 in the eighth inning of one of the most emotional moments in the early three-year history of the new Stadium (where he also hit the first home run in the new place in 2009.) He finished his last season by 6-for-14 with four walks in the ALDS, battling every pitch and grinding out every at-bat the way he had so many times before.

No one wants to come to the realization that their abilities are no longer what they once were, especially someone as proud as Posada, who will watch Jeter and Rivera continue to matter for the Yankees along with a new generation. It would be one thing if the Core Four all left at the same time, but for Posada (three years older than Jeter and two years younger than Rivera) to watch his teammates dating back to 1992 in the minors continue to play without him is a lot harder than any of us can imagine coping with.

I’m happy that Jorge Posada took the $117,458,500 or so he made in his career and decided that the only hat he would put on is a Yankees hat. It would have been disappointing to see him with the Indians or the Mariners or the A’s (I’m just naming teams and I’m not sure if any of these teams were actual options), and it would have hurt to see him return to the Stadium to a “Welcome back” ovation before hitting a straight A.J. Burnett fastball into the Yankees’ bullpen.

“I don’t want to be gone. I don’t want to be somewhere else. I consider myself a Yankee.”

I will remember Jorge Posada for his bloop double against the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS that tied it all at 5 and gave me the type of sports high that you only get a handful of times in your life, if you’re lucky.

I will remember Jorge Posada for laying the tag on Jeremy Giambi on the “Flip Play” to save the 2001 season and give Yankees fans an unbelievable memory.

I will remember Jorge Posada for the 293 times in the regular season that he walked to the mound to shake Mariano Rivera’s hand after a save. And I will remember him for taking that same walk and doing that same handshake following all the postseason saves as well.

I will remember Jorge Posada for the two emotional games in 2011. The grand slam game in his return to the lineup on Aug. 13, and the game-winning hit in the postseason clinching game on Sept. 21.

I will remember Jorge Posada for standing in the Fenway dugout during Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS and letting Pedro Martinez he wasn’t going to stand for his antics. I will also remember him for the bench-clearing brawl he started at the Stadium against the Blue Jays on Sept. 15, 2009.

I will remember Jorge Posada for the go-ahead solo home run he hit against the Twins in Game 3 of the 2009 ALDS just four pitches after Alex Rodriguez tied the game with a solo shot of his own as the Yankees tried to end the World Series drought.

I will remember Jorge Posada for his .429 batting average and .571 on-base percentage in the five-game loss to the Tigers when it seemed like he was the only guy who didn’t want to go home while those who have guaranteed contracts in 2012 and beyond failed in big spots.

I will remember Jorge Posada for being part of five championships, for building the team into what it is today and for being a major reason why I enjoy baseball and like the Yankees as much as I do today.

I’m going to miss, “Number 20 … Jorge Posada … Number 20.”

Blogs • Yankees

Jan 13, 2012

2011 Feeling Like 2007 For Giants

Are the Giants the team that lost to Washington (twice), Seattle and Philadelphia? Or are they the team that’s currently the hottest in the league, getting healthy and peaking at the right time? Let’s figure it out with some help from Coach Eric Taylor.

Last Sunday was easy. Too easy. That isn’t the way Giants games are supposed to be, let alone playoff games. Or maybe they are supposed to be like that? You think they would be like that given their roster and its talent, and the coaching staff and its experience. But at this point I don’t know who the Giants are. I don’t think anyone really knows and that’s why this game on Sunday is so intriguing.

Are the Giants the team that lost to Rex Grossman (twice!), Charvaris Whiteson, Alex Smith (this one is a little more acceptable now) and Vince Young? Or are they the team that’s currently the hottest in the league, getting healthy and peaking at the right time?

This weekend and this game feels eerily similar to the third weekend in January in 2008, even if that game was for so much more than this one is. The difference between playing for a trip to go to the Super Bowl and a trip to play another game in either San Francisco (please) or New Orleans (please, no) is enormous. But I think this game has the feel of that Jan. 20, 2008 game because if the Giants can beat the 15-1, defending-champion Packers, and if they can win their fourth straight, then they can prove that they can beat anyone. (Except for maybe the Saints in the Superdome, but we’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it.)

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is 2007, but I’m not certain that it’s not either. And how can anyone definitively say it isn’t? No one thought 2007 was 2007 when it was happening. You don’t see those types of things happening and you can’t predict that they will while they are. All you can do is sit back and let them unfold and reflect on them later. All you can do is hope that 2011 is 2007.

The Giants are playing their biggest game since Super Bowl XLII on Sunday. I don’t know what Tom Coughlin will tell his team, and I don’t know what I would tell them if I were in his position. I don’t think you need to tell this Giants team anything at this point or to remind them of what’s at stake. But if I had to, maybe I would steal a Coach Eric Taylor quote from Friday Night Lights in hopes that no one on the team watched the show or remembers lines from it. Actually, that’s exactly what I would do. There has never been a better fictitious leader or motivator than Coach Taylor (I still don’t want to believe that Kyle Chandler isn’t a high school football in Texas), so let’s dip into his long list of perfect quotes to look at this Giants-Packers playoff game and what it means.

“What the hell? You want a hug or something? Get out of here.”

This just seems like something Tom Coughlin would say.

“6 a.m. sharp means a quarter to six.”

Again, just something Tom Coughlin would say. I think he really has said this. OK, let’s get serious.

“A few will never give up on you. When you go back out on the field, those are the people I want in your minds. Those are the people I want in your hearts.”

Nearly everyone gave up on the season with five minutes and 41 seconds left in Dallas. I had started to let the end-of-season shock take over, but I kept the TV on the game for that one-in-a-million Lloyd Christmas/Mary Swanson chance that maybe, just maybe the Giants could somehow pull out the kind of dagger that they have been handed so many times in the nearly four seasons since XLII.

Last week I said…

This season had everything Giants fans have come to expect from their team, and why I constantly refer to Matt Damon’s character Mike McDermott’s explanation of No-Limit ‘Hold Em in Rounders as the perfect description of what Giants fans endure.

“There’s no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand. A brilliant player can get a strong hand cracked, go on tilt … and lose his mind along with every single chip in front of him … Some people, pros even, won’t play No-Limit. They can’t handle the swings.”

You have to be a certain type of sports fan to deal with the Giants and the way they play differently each Sunday as if the previous Sunday never happened. I’m not saying you have to be insane or our of your mind the way you have to be to attach your life to the Jets, but you can’t help which team you are raised as a fan of.

“Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle. He is going to fight, and he is going to lose. But what makes him a man is at the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself. This game is not over, this battle is not over.”

The Giants might lose on Sunday. Las Vegas is banking on the idea that they will lose. They are 7.5-point underdogs (opened at 9) and are 3-to-1 to win the game. The most important thing about this game is that the Giants can’t lose confidence or stray away from their game plan because of what the Packers can do. The Packers are going to score. They might score in bunches. They might receive the opening kickoff and march down the field and put up seven in a few minutes. I’m prepared for them to do so. The Giants have to understand that the shutout they pitched last weekend against the Falcons isn’t going to happen this weekend. They need to withstand the Packers’ inevitable scoring and pressure and make sure that they can match the Packers’ offense punch for punch and contain the fire rather than pour gasoline on it like Rafael Soriano and Boone Logan would do for an opposing rally.

There isn’t that much of a difference between the two offenses. They boast two of the top tier quarterbacks and the two best receiving corps in the league. But the key for the Giants is to not get off to a slow start. If you’re down two or three possessions in Green Bay, you might as well catch the early flight home.

This is how the Giants opened their game against the Falcons: Punt. Punt. Punt. Safety.

They were able to get away with it because the Falcons were worse, and the Giants defense was dominant. But you’re not going to get away with opening the game in Green Bay with zero offense, a series of punts and giving away points.

(Also, Tom Coughlin if you’re reading this and if you have the chance: DEFER! TAKE THE BALL IN THE SECOND HALF!)

“We’re not playing this game in the stands, understand? Forget about that crap. This game happens on the field.”

The Lambeau crowd is going to be insane on Sunday (as it always is). They have the best team in football playing at home and trying to protect the Lombardi Trophy. And with Ryan Braun’s bizarre failed PED test, the fact that Prince Fielder won’t be playing in Milwaukee again unless his team has the Brewers on the schedule and the fact that the Bucks are still the Bucks, the Packers are Wisconsin. Like my friend Tim, a Packers fan, told me this week, a loss to the Giants will be “high on the devastation” scale.

Very few people are giving the Giants a chance that aren’t form the tri-state area, and rightfully so. The Giants are the 9-7 team and the No. 6 seed. The Packers were the best team in the league all season and have lost ONCE since Nov. 28, 2010 with Aaron Rodgers as their starting quarterback. But I’m glad that the Giants’ recent play isn’t changing the minds of many people. We don’t need the majority of people believing in the Giants and pumping their tires like Roberto Luongo would do for Tim Thomas.

Like I have said a million times, the Giants don’t perform well with expectations. As long as they can fly under the radar and go about their business without many people taking significant notice or hyping them to win, they are fine. The second they are told that they’re good, it all changes.

“Right here, right now, god has placed you to do what you do best. Go all the way.”

It’s crazy to think of what had to happen for the Giants to get to where they are and to still be playing. If Miles Austin doesn’t lose the ball in the Cowboys Stadium lights or if Tony Romo doesn’t just overthrow him (or whatever happened on that play), the Giants aren’t playing this weekend. If Tom Coughlin doesn’t call timeout to ice Dan Bailey and then Jason Pierre-Paul doesn’t block the field goal, the Giants and Cowboys go to overtime and the Giants possibly lose. Go back even further and think about the drive against the Patriots or the Victor Cruz fumble against the Cardinals or the comeback against the Dolphins or the Corey Webster interception against the Bills.

It took an insane series of events over 17 weeks for the Giants to finish at 9-7 and win the division and then win a home playoff game against the Falcons. Things like this happen for teams that go on improbable runs. It happened for the Packers last year. If the Giants don’t blow a 21-point lead in the final 7:18 and DeSean Jackson doesn’t return that punt as time expires, the Packers are eliminated from the playoffs, and there’s no Super Bowl and Aaron Rodgers is a great quarterback with no playoff wins, but not in the same conversation as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”

I said last Friday that “the Giants are playing with house money from here on out” and they are. I don’t expect them to win on Sunday, but that’s only because I know how they perform with expectations and I’m trying to keep things quiet over here.

The Giants weren’t supposed to have a winning record or win their division. They weren’t supposed to have a home playoff game. They weren’t supposed to win that home playoff game against the more “consistent” Falcons. They weren’t supposed to be playing the Packers in the second round of the playoffs for a chance to extend the season another week, and no one would thought they would be with five minutes and 41 seconds left in Dallas. But here they are. Still alive and still playing. And now just one more January win in Green Bay from making 2011 feel even more like 2007.

Blogs • KTTC Archive • Yankees

Dec 10, 2010

Sudden-Lee, Yankees Are Without A Plan

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

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.

On Friday, I told Sweeny Murti that I had made a playlist of sad songs in the event that Cliff Lee didn’t choose the Yankees. I asked Sweeny what the Yankees’ Plan B was if he didn’t sign, and he said it wouldn’t be to make a sad songs playlist, but I’m not so sure it isn’t. (Now playing: “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.)

Cliff Lee wasn’t Plan A. He was The Plan. There isn’t another free agent pitcher even close to his abilities; in fact there isn’t even another free agent pitcher I would want on the Yankees. And according to Joel Sherman, Felix Hernandez, Josh Johnson and John Danks aren’t available. So I’m not exactly sure where the Yankees go from here. All I know is it’s never a good thing when you are googling “Sidney Ponson” to see if he is available knowing that he is probably somewhere on Cashman’s list of backup plans. And yes, he is. He was placed on the Atlantic League’s retired list on June 18. Ponson Part III, anyone?

I’m scared. I’m scared of what Brian Cashman might do now. I’m scared of what will happen to the Yankees in 2011. I’m scared that CC Sabathia might opt out after this season and sign with the Phillies. I’m scared that the Yankees are banking on the idea that Larry Rothschild thinks he can fix A.J. Burnett.

Last week on Twitter I joked that this offseason Brian Cashman publicly bashed the face of the franchise, forced the best relief pitcher in the history of baseball to talk to Red Sox, scaled a building in Stamford, Conn., had dinner with Carl Crawford and then hours later Crawford signed with the Red Sox and now you can add letting a pitcher turn down seven years and $154 million to that list. His offseason has been as bad as Tim Redding’s only start with the Yankees on July 15, 2005 against the Red Sox in a 17-1 loss at Fenway Park (1 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 2K). I was joking with that tweet, but now I’m not really joking because my 2011 summer hinges on whether or not Cashman can trade for a pitcher worth getting excited about. (Now playing: “All Out Of Love” by Air Supply).

I know people are sensitive about just about everything when it comes to the Yankees and there are those that get easily offended when Cashman’s decision making is questioned. But on a day like today after a night like last night, I think it would be unfair not to question Cashman and his decision to leave next season in the hands of a lefty willing to leave two years and $28 million on the table. This isn’t so much to blame Cashman for failing to land Lee since, according to Jon Heyman, Lee is the one that initiated talks with Philly and probably never wanted to come to New York. This is more to blame Cashman for putting the Yankees in a position in which they absolutely had to have Lee.

So, here’s a look at just how much of an impact Cliff Lee’s decision has on the Yankees. And to take us through all the aspects of Lee’s choice to pitch for the Phillies and not the Yankees are quotes from Michael Scott of The Office because right now that is the person who most resembles our trusty GM, who is one non-move from ruining the 2011 summer the same way that Cliff Lee just ruined Christmas.

“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.”

When Derek Jeter was still not signed, I kept thinking, “What if he goes somewhere else? What if I have to write my ‘Tribute to Derek Jeter’ story at least four years before I’m supposed to?” I never really thought that Jeter would leave, but there was that chance that he might.

I always thought there was a slight chance I might have to write the story you are currently reading. I thought I might have to write about being devastated that Cliff Lee didn’t choose the Yankees, but really, I didn’t think I would because I just figured that the Yankees would give him whatever he wanted to make sure that they would never have to face him again. And when everyone tells you he is going to be a Yankee and that they will pay whatever it takes, you believe it. So much for that. (Now playing: “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” by The Smashing Pumpkins.)

“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.”

This is bad for Brian Cashman. This is as bad as giving $82.5 million to A.J. Burnett or giving Javier Vazquez and Nick Johnson second chances or letting Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui go. Maybe Cliff Lee was never going to come to New York, but Cashman put the Yankees in a position in which they had to have Lee because there was no other option and now they don’t have him.

“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.”

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), only one ace turned down the Yankees’ money (to my knowledge) and that was Greg Maddux. Steinbrenner has been dead for five months, and the number of pitchers to turn down the Yankees’ money has already matched the total number during Steinbrenner’s 37 ½ years as The Boss.

Aside from Maddux, I never really thought anyone would turn down less money or not accept the Yankees’ eagerness to overpay for someone. But at the end of the day, it turns out the Yankees didn’t even offer Lee the highest contract in terms of average annual salary. Here were the offers to Lee, according to Jon Heyman:

Yankees: Six years, $148 million plus player option for seventh year at $16 million.

Phillies: Five years, $120 million.

Rangers: Six years, $138 million.

In the end, Lee left $28 million on the table, but did end up getting a higher average annual salary. (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.”

Before the winter meetings, it was expected that Cliff Lee would be a Yankee, and once the Red Sox got Carl Crawford and the Yankees improved their six-year offer to seven years, it was basically a guarantee that Lee would sign with the Yankees.

And before the winter meetings, the Yankees rotation was CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova and Sergio Mitre, but it was expected to improve over the next week. Guess what? That’s still the rotation right now. So before the winter meetings the thought of that rotation was a joke, and now it’s still our rotation. Do I expect the rotation to stay the same? No. But I also don’t know how Lee’s decision will impact Pettitte’s.

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

Brian Cashman and the front office will have to speak to the media about what went wrong in trying to entice Cliff Lee to the Bronx, and I fully expect them to spin in a way that make it sound like it’s no big deal. I’m sure they will tell Yankees fans how they are focused on the bullpen and the bench, and they will eventually believe their own lie that this is somehow for the better.

After the Red Sox traded for Adrian Gonzalez for prospects and not a single current major leaguer (I wonder if Jed Hoyer is still technically a Red Sox employee) and signed Carl Crawford the same night that Cashman had dinner with him, Cashman said you just have to “tip your hat” to the Red Sox for making great movies. I wonder if he will tip his hat to the Phillies too? Why not? Seems like the polite thing to do. (Now playing: “With Or Without You” by U2.)

“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?”

Brian Cashman was embarrassed in July when the Mariners used the Yankees to get the Rangers involved in a deal for Cliff Lee. The Mariners got the Rangers to offer Justin Smoak, and once they did, they cited David Adams’ ankle injury as a way to cancel the deal on the Yankees.

At the time I was crushed. The Yankees missed out on the chance to add Lee even if it came at the cost of Jesus Montero. Here is what I said to Sweeny following the deal that didn’t happen:

“Many people thought that Lee to the Yankees would be too much or even “overkill” given the already star-studded roster. I was clearly not one of those people and even though I have been anxiously awaiting the debut of Jesus Montero, I could deal with the Yankees losing him given the depth of catchers in the minors. The Yankees would have gone from favorites to win the World Series to heavy favorites, and would have had a real chance to run away and hide in the AL East.”

And here is Sweeny’s response:

“I don’t think it was a necessary move to make, but I’ll repeat what one GM said to me last week when I told him the Yankees didn’t need Cliff Lee. He said to me, “Everybody needs a Cliff Lee!”

If Lee gets traded to the Yankees, they probably would have beaten the Rangers and might have won the World Series. Lee would have had a half season under his belt in New York and been reunited with his so-called “best friend” CC Sabathia (maybe they aren’t exactly best friends after all) and fellow Arkansas native A.J. Burnett, and would have never had a taste of the Rangers, so they wouldn’t have had much of a say in the sweepstakes. The Yankees could have signed him to an extension after trading for him or waiting until right after the season, and just like that there would be no problems.

Then again, what if the Yankees had traded Montero for Lee, and then Lee still left for Philly the way that the Rangers traded Smoak for a half-year rental? I’m just glad Chuck Greenberg made it impossible for me to feel sorry for Rangers fans. (Now playing: “How’s It Going To Be” by Third Eye Blind.)

“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.”

Here is the Yankees rotation as of today:

CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova, Sergio Mitre.

One second, I need to grab a tissue.

Here is the Red Sox rotation as of today:

Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Am I the only one that sees a problem here?

Let’s not forget that the Red Sox were without Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis for a large portion of the year and still caused me to hyperventilate as late in the season as September 26 when there were only seven games left. A healthy Red Sox team in 2011 with the additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford has kept me awake for nearly a week and will probably cause a great deal of stress this winter and eventually ruin my summer. Merry Christmas, Cliff Lee!

“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.”

Two years ago, Brian Cashman ended the World Series drought by unloading the Yankees’ checking account on CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira, and the Yankees won the World Series. Then, instead of doing all he knows how to do (spend money), he tried to be a real general manager and get creative. So he traded for Javier Vazquez and signed Nick Johnson. He let the No. 2 hitter and the World Series MVP both leave via free agency and essentially ripped apart two of the Yankees’ most important offensive weapons and two players essential with winning and big-game pedigrees. He did trade for Curtis Granderson, so it wasn’t all bad.

Now, Cashman is going to need to get creative again. The problem is being creative doesn’t win in baseball. You either have a lot of money to spend or you have enough homegrown starting pitching that you don’t need to spend money. Look at the Red Sox. After trying to save some pennies on Mark Teixeira and trying to get creative with reclamation projects like John Smoltz and Brad Penny and Mike Cameron, and winning zero postseason games since all of this, the Red Sox went to the winter meetings with Adrian Gonzalez already in hand and left with Carl Crawford. Lots of money. Zero creativity.

I can’t wait for the creativity era to begin. (Now playing: “The Heart Of The Matter” by Don Henley.)

“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.

Cashman’s biggest flaw has always been that he doesn’t know pitching and to think that he is now being asked to make a move regarding pitching to save the 2011 season before it even starts is as bad as it gets.

Now playing until the Yankees bring back Andy Pettitte and trade for a front-end starter: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day. September 2011 that is.

Blogs • The Joe Girardi Show • Yankees

Aug 3, 2010

The Joe Girardi Show

The Yankees no longer sit atop the AL East alone, but it didn’t have to be this way. It didn’t have to be this way if Joe Girardi didn’t want it to be.

I guess it was only fitting that on the night the Yankees lost sole possession of first place in the AL East for the first time in 42 days, the two losing pitchers to cause this happened to be the Carl Pavano and A.J. Burnett.

From June 20 to August 1, the Yankees sat alone on top of the AL East Mountain. Now they don’t. But it didn’t have to be this way. It didn’t have to be this way if Joe Girardi didn’t want it to be.

Somewhere between going to Tampa Bay with a two-game lead and losing to the Blue Jays on Monday night at home, Girardi decided to shake up a good thing. He decided that cruising through July was too easy, and he decided he needed to fix something that wasn’t broken.

Back in May, I wrote a piece as if I got to host The Joe Girardi Show instead of Michael Kay. With the Yankees enduring their first slump in over a month, I think it’s time for another episode of My Joe Girardi Show. Here are my questions for Joe:

What were you doing that was so important during the fifth inning on Monday that it took you as long as it did to take out A.J. Burnett?

Note: If you don’t know the three grades of A.J. Burnett meltdowns, then please inform yourself for the purpose of this section.

A.J. Burnett is 33 years old. He is 109-94 in his career. It’s safe to say we know who he is and what he is going to be for the rest of his career at this point. And no matter how hard Michael Kay tried to get Al Leiter to admit that Burnett sucks during Monday’s broadcast, Al wouldn’t succumb to the pressure. Al wouldn’t throw a fellow pitcher and former teammate under the bus, so I will do it for him.

Burnett scares the crap out me. He scares the crap out of me in the way that it would be unhealthy for me to watch him start a postseason game right now. And he scares the crap out of me in the way that we are only in the second year of his five-year deal, and I’m wishing I had the remote control from the movie Click so I could fast forward through the next three-plus years of his career with the Yankees.

On Monday night, A.J. Burnett started off on fire, and then quickly entered the early stages of a Grade 1 meltdown before being downgraded to a tropical storm. But after putting up zeroes in the third and fourth, the night quickly escalated to a Grade 3 meltdown. It all happened so fast in typical A.J. Burnett meltdown fashion: from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds.

In June, when A.J. was going as bad as you can go in the majors leagues as a starting pitching without getting traded, sent down or designated for assignment, I created a system of measurement to determine which Burnett would show up on any given fifth day.

Here is my definition of a Grade 3 A.J. meltdown from that June piece:

“You think A.J. has had his bad inning for the night and that he will enter cruise control, only to have the game unravel in a matter of pitches – and once that second crooked number starts to take shape, there is no stopping it until he is removed from the game.”

Why isn’t Girardi aware of this? How does he not know that there is no fixing Burnett mid-game? He either has it or he doesn’t, and he isn’t about to make an adjustment in the middle of a start or try to battle through without his best stuff. On Monday, he clearly didn’t have it in the fifth inning, but Joe stood in the dugout and watched a bonfire turn into a forest fire before he decided to put it out. The following happened in the fifth inning before Joe pulled A.J. …

Double
Home run
Walk
Double
Fielder’s choice
Double
Double
Strikeout
Double

It took six runs, six hits (all extra-base hits) and seven base runners for Girardi to say to step in and say, “Enough is enough.” By this point, the Yankees trailed 7-2, and it became 8-2 when Sergio Mitre came in and allowed a double in the gap. Burnett and Mitre made MLB history in the frame by becoming the third team ever to allow six doubles in an inning.

The Yankees are never out of any game with their offense, let alone a game at home, where they have won at an outrageous clip since the beginning of 2009. Does Girardi not know this? How does he not? The only logical explanation is that he bet the over last night, and he just wanted to make sure it clinched before he pulled A.J. from the game.

Why move Nick Swisher down in the order in Tampa Bay?

When Nick Swisher hit that second home run on Monday night – the mammoth blast that nearly grazed the top deck at Yankee Stadium – I desperately wanted him to turn around and give Girardi the middle finger or at least point in the dugout and scream, “That one’s for you, Joe!” to let Girardi know what was up.

The Yankees traded for Lance Berkman on Friday and on Saturday he was in the Yankees lineup. But the Yankees weren’t getting the Berkman that hit 45 home runs in 2006 or the Berkman that drove in 106 runs in 2008. This wasn’t even the Berkman that hit 25 home runs in 2009. Instead the Yankees got the Lance Berkman that was hitting .245 in the NL this year and the Berkman that had missed spring training because of knee surgery missed spring training.

Before we go any further, yes, I was and still am a fan of the trade for Berkman. If he can find what he has been missing all year, then the Yankees have a legitimate No. 3 major league hitter batting in the bottom of the order. But the part that gets me is that the Yankees have now had to use and pay Nick Johnson and Berkman and trade away Mark Melancon for a job that Hideki Matsui could have been doing for less money. But forget Johnson’s injured past, the guy is an on-base machine.

Back to my point … Where would you hit Berkman in the Yankees order in his first game with the team? Girardi decided he should hit second, where Nick Swisher is hitting .296 in 51 games this year with 14 home runs 38 RBIs. Joe thought it would be best to move his All-Star right fielder down to the bottom half of the order in favor of the ghost of Lance Berkman.

Berkman went 1-for-8 in his first two games with the Yankees. On Monday night in the Bronx, Swisher was back in the No. 2 spot and delivered an Eff You performance to Girardi by drilling two more home runs.

Why did you play the JV team against the Rays on Sunday?

You have a two-game lead in the division. You are playing against the team that is trailing you by two games at their stadium with a three-game series coming up against the fourth place team the following day. Which game makes sense to rest starters? According to Girardi, the most important game seemed like the best time.

No A-Rod. Mark Teixeira at DH. Berkman at first, hitting second. Ramiro Pena and Austin Kearns starting. Brett Gardner sitting. I would like to know what Derek Jeter’s mental reaction when he walked into Tropicana Field on Monday and saw the lineup that Girardi posted with the Yankees barely hanging onto first place.

My favorite thing about Joe Girardi is how he always seems to find the most inopportune times to try new stuff, and no one on his coaching staff talks him out of it. “Tony, Rob, Mick, Dave … we have a big game against the Rays. Let’s change the whole lineup. Let’s start the reserves and the reserves’ reserves. This is a good idea.”

Obviously players need their rest over the course of the season, and especially A-Rod who is just a little over a year removed from hip surgery. But how does it make the most sense to give every player that needs a day off, the same day off? Why not give Tex “Game A” off, and A-Rod “Game B” and Gardner “Game C?” Why would you dismantle your lineup as much as possible in the rubber game of the most significant series of the season to date?

I need a drink.