Brian McCann – Page 2 – Keefe To The City

Apr 23, 2015

Podcast: JJ Barstool Sports New York

After starting the season 1-4, the Yankees have won eight of their last 11 and are tied for first in the AL East with the first half of the Subway Series up next.

After the six-game homestand to open the season, it looked like the Yankees’ season could unravel before it really even began with a 10-game road trip to Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Detroit. But after starting the season 1-4 and being 3-6 after the first three games of the road trip, the Yankees have won six of their last seven and are tied for first in the AL East with the first half of the Subway Series up next.

JJ of Barstool Sports New York joined me to talk about the state of the Yankees after the first weeks of the season, the problems with the Yankees’ lineup, the hype surrounding the Subway Series and why the Yankees need to put an end to the Mets fans’ happiness this weekend.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 22, 2015

When Does the Free Pass for Jacoby Ellsbury Expire?

Jacoby Ellsbury hasn’t received any criticism since he became a Yankee and it’s time the $153 million center fielder was treated according to his performance.

Jacoby Ellsbury became a Yankee in the same free-agency class as Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran. Five years after spending $423.5 million on Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett following a postseason-less season, the Yankees spent $438 million on Ellsbury, Tanaka, McCann and Beltran following another postseason-less season, which ended with a Red Sox championship.

The Yankees let Robinson Cano go to Seattle after lowballing their homegrown superstar and then used the money they should have used for a new deal to re-sign him to overpay for a 30-year-0ld center fielder, a 30-year-old catcher and a 37-year-old right fielder. And in the first season with the three new position players on the rosters, the Yankees went 84-78 and missed the playoffs for the second straight season.

Ellsbury hit .271/.328/.419 with 16 home runs and 70 RBIs in 149 games. McCann hit .232/.286/.406 with 23 home runs and 75 RBIs in 140 games. Beltran hit .233/.301/.402 with 15 home runs and 49 RBIs in 109 games. All three had bad seasons and that’s before you factor in their salaries and that they made $53.1 million combined. But in a year in which the Yankees finished only six games over .500 and missed the playoffs and somehow had a worse offensive team than the miserable 2013 Yankees, Ellsbury’s subpar season (in which he finished lower than his career averages in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage) was somehow considered “good”. Despite playing nowhere near that of a $21.1-million-per-season center fielder in his prime and posting a slash line nowhere near his 2013 season and nowhere even close to his 2011 season, Ellsbury was given a free pass for 2014, and apparently that free pass doesn’t expire because he’s been given one again to start 2015.

The Yankees didn’t need any of the three, but that didn’t stop them from signing them and putting more bad contracts on the books. (Thanks, Brian Cashman!) It’s still ridiculous that the Yankees were willing to give $153 million to an inferior player in Ellsbury while maintaining their stance and not willing to budge on their own Cano at $175 million. The Yankees didn’t and don’t need Ellsbury. They already had Brett Gardner, who is the cheaper version of Ellsbury. They did need Cano. And without signing a luxury, not a necessity, in Ellsbury, they would have been able to up their seven-year, $175 million offer to Cano (even though they’re the Yankees and they could have upped it anyway).

On Monday night, the Yankees trailed the Tigers 2-1 in the eighth inning with Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius on first and one out. Gregorius had just singled and chase Alfredo Simon from the game and Brad Ausmus went into his miserable bullpen and called on Joba Chamberlain to face Ellsbury. (Ellsbury has seen Chamberlain more than any other place in the majors since Joba’s 2007 debut.) After fouling off a first-pitch fastball, Ellsbury hit a second-pitch fastball into a 4-6-3 inning-ending double play. Rally over. Inning over. Game all but over as the Yankees would go on to lose 2-1.

It was the 13th game of the season for the Yankees and the 12th game of the season for Ellsbury. He finished the game 1-for-4 with his 15th hit of the season, 14 of which are singles with the other being a double, with zero home runs and zero RBIs.

On Tuesday night, Ellsbury went 0-for-4 with a walk, maintaining his one extra-base hit total for the season and once again failing to drive in a run. Even Gregorio Petit has one RBI this season and it’s shocking when he is able to make contact at the plate and a miracle when he puts the ball in play. But the Yankees won 5-1 on Tuesday thanks to contributions from players not named Jacoby Ellsbury, so he was able to get by for another night.

What if A-Rod, who is making $100,000 less than Ellsbury this season, was entering the 15th game of the season with one extra-base hit, no home runs and no RBIs? I’m sure Twitter and the Post and the Daily News and ESPN would leave him alone and let his performance go unnoticed and give him time to turn it around. But for some reason, no one is talking about Ellsbury’s lack of run production. It’s not like the Yankees are off to some impressive start and therefore no reason to complain about anything or be worried or concerned about the team. They’re a .500 team through 14 games and their second-highest paid position player (Mark Teixeira is first at $22.5 million this season … and next!) this season has been invisible offensively.

I didn’t want Jacoby Ellsbury on the Yankees. I didn’t want a 30-year-old center fielder on a seven-year, $153 million, who’s biggest part of his game is his speed, knowing that speed won’t last forever. I didn’t want to watch 37-year-old Ellsbury as a platoon player making $21.1 million in 2020. (The Yankees will have to pay him $5 million to not play for them in 2021.) But he’s here, and he’s for this year and at least the next five years after this one. And since he’s here, his performance needs to be treated accordingly.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 17, 2015

Thank You, Brian Cashman for Ruining the Yankees

Every time Brian Cashman talks I feel like Dunphy in Outside Providence when he says to Mr. Funderburk mid-sentence, “Oh will you just shut the f-ck up.” Everything that comes out Cashman’s mouth is just

Every time Brian Cashman talks I feel like Dunphy in Outside Providence when he says to Mr. Funderburk mid-sentence, “Oh will you just shut the f-ck up.”

Everything that comes out Cashman’s mouth is just a long way of making an excuse. Through nine horrific games this season, Cashman has wondered why the defense has been so bad or the offense hasn’t been there or the pitching has been inconsistent. He has cited small sample sizes rather than admitting that when you put enough baseball players together that suck at baseball, the team is going to suck.

At 3-6, the Yankees have lost all three of their series to open the season, are three games back already in the division, and if things don’t turn around this weekend in Tampa Bay before heading to Detroit for four games followed by the first part of the Subway Series and a series in Boston in two weeks, the 2015 Yankees might not make it to Cinco de Mayo let alone Memorial Day.

Before the season started Cashman said to his team, “Be a good enough team to get to the playoffs, allow me to tweak in-season to make it good enough to win a World Series.’’ He believed before the season that the team he constructed could be good enough to compete for a playoff spot, and if they were to, he could get them to the World Series, apparently with his magic trade powers. The same powers that have Didi Gregorius looking like he belongs playing in an Independent League while Shane Greene is 2-0 for the Tigers thanks to back-to-back starts of eight scoreless innings.

The season might be 5.6 percent old and maybe before this road trip is over the season will have turned around. But so far, every fear I had about the 2015 Yankees has come true and then some. Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. The offense comes and goes, the pitching is inconsistent, the defense is an embarrassment and on Thursday night, the bullpen joined the club with a sixth-inning implosion to cost the Yankees the game.

It didn’t have to be this way. The same bad lineup and shaky rotation you see every game and will see for the next five-plus months didn’t have to look like this. Let’s go back in time and look at what Brian Cashman could have done differently to not put the Yankees in this spot.

The Yankees missed the playoffs in 2013 because of devastating injuries to Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira. That led to the following players playing the most games at each position:

C – Chris Stewart
1B – Lyle Overbay
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – Eduardo Nunez
SS – Jayson Nix
LF – Vernon Wells
CF – Brett Gardner
RF – Ichiro Suzuki
DH – Travis Hafner

After years of fortunate health, the Yankees’ fortunes ran out in 2013 and the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and the second time since 1993.

Then came the 2013 offseason.

The Yankees’ missed postseason, coupled with the Red Sox winning the World Series set the front office into a panic, throwing out their plans of staying below the luxury-tax threshold they had talked about for so long. They decided to lowball Robinson Cano with a BS offer and instead gave Jacoby Ellsbury (a bigger-name Brett Gardner) a seven-year, $153 million deal. Despite catcher being the one position of depth in the organization, they gave Brian McCann a five-year, $85 million deal for his 30-, 31-, 32-, 33- and 34-year-old seasons. After watching Carlos Beltran’s postseason performance and after years of dealing with Nick Swisher’s postseaon failures, they gave Beltran a three-year, $15 million deal for his 37-, 38- and 39-year-old seasons, nine years after they should have signed Beltran.

The 2014 Yankees’ payroll was $197.2 million.

Let’s say they don’t sign Jacoby Ellsbury. The payroll drops to $176.1 million.

Let’s say they don’t sign Brian McCann. The payroll drops to $159.1 million.

Let’s say they don’t sign Carlos Beltran. The payroll drops to $144.1 million.

Let’s say they re-sign Robinson Cano and give him the contract the Mariners gave him (10 years, $24 million). The payroll increases to $168.1 million.

Without those three and with Cano, the payroll would have been $29.1 million less.

The 2014 Opening Day lineup would have been:

C – Francisco Cervelli/John Ryan Murphy
1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – Kelly Johnson
SS – Derek Jeter
LF – Alfonso Soriano
CF – Brett Gardner
RF – Ichiro Suzuki
DH – Someone else on the 25-man roster

That lineup isn’t exactly the offense we got used to over the last 15-plus seasons, but it’s also not that far removed from the actual 2014 offense.

The rotation stays the same as it was with CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Masahiro Tanaka, Ivan Nova and Michael Pineda.

I wanted Brian McCann on the Yankees because I had to sit through a lot of Chris Stewart and Austin Romine in 2013. But it didn’t make a lot of sense for the Yankees to pay a catcher $85 million for his 30-34 seasons when, once again, catcher was the one position of depth in the organization at the time.

Ichiro ended up playing in 143 games, so it was like he was an everyday player anyway.

Soriano only played in 67 games (238 plate appearances) and hit .221 with six home runs and 23 RBIs before he was released. Soriano was supposed to be the Yankees’ designated hitter. He was supposed to play in the outfield only to give others a day off. But because of the old, brittle signing of Carlos Beltran and having the softest player in all of baseball in Mark Teixeira, Soriano lost out on being the full-time DH and was relegated to infrequent at-bats as part of an outfield rotation. The Yankees put Soriano, a career everyday player, in a position to fail and when he did, they let him go. Beltran hit .223 with 15 home runs and 49 RBIs. Soriano could have those numbers or close to them if he played the full season.

The actual 2014 Yankees missed the playoffs, so if this team had missed it, nothing changes. The only thing that changes is that they are in a much better financial position for 2015 and beyond. Let’s look at this past offseason and this season had that Yankees roster been constructed.

The current 2015 Yankees payroll is $217.8 million.

Before we continue, remember the 2014 Yankees traded Johnson for Stephen Drew, traded Yangervis Solarte for Chase Headley and Vidal Nuno for Brandon McCarthy.

Let’s say they re-sign Headley, sign Andrew Miller, don’t trade Shane Greene for Didi Gregorius (their salaries cancel each other out) and don’t trade Martin Prado and David Phelps for Nathan Eovaldi. Add $11 million to the 2015 payroll for Prado (Side note: the Yankees are paying $3 million of Prado’s salary in 2015 and 2016 to play for Miami. No big deal.) and add $1.4 million for Phelps. That brings the payroll to $230.2 million. Then subtract $3.3 million for Eovaldi. That brings the total to $226.9 million.

Let’s say they re-sign David Robertson for the contract the White Sox gave him (four years, $46 million). Add $10 million to the payroll. The total is $236.9 million.

Let’s say they re-sign Brandon McCarthy for the contract the Dodgers gave him (four years, $48 million). Add $11 million to the payroll. The total is $247.9 million.

Add in Cano’s $24 million. The total is $271.9 million.

Now subtract McCann’s $17 million. The total is $254.9 million.

Subtract Ellsbury’s $21.1 million. The total is $233.8 million.

Subtract Beltran’s $15 million. The total is $218.8 million.

After all of that, the 2015 payroll is $1 million more than it is actually is in real life.

Here is the 2015 Opening Day lineup after that.

C – John Ryan Murphy
1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – Chase Headley
SS – Stephen Drew
LF – Martin Prado
CF – Brett Gardner
RF – Chris Young (or maybe Jose Pirela or Rob Refsnyder?)
DH – Alex Rodriguez

No, I still wouldn’t have wanted Drew on this team, but guess what, he’s already on it, so nothing changes. Except that the rest of the team is better around Drew.

And here’s the rotation (in no particular order):

Masahiro Tanaka
Michael Pineda
CC Sabathia
Brandon McCarthy
Shane Greene

For $1 million more, the Yankees could have Robinson Cano hitting third in their lineup instead of Carlos Beltran. Brandon McCarthy and Shane Greene at the back of their rotation rather than Nathan Eovaldi and Adam Warren. They could still have Martin Prado on the roster to play wherever he is needed. They could have a back-end of the bullpen of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and David Robertson. All for $1 million more.

Thank you, Brian Cashman. Thank you for ruining the Yankees.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 14, 2015

Joe Girardi Needs to Stop with the Days Off

The Yankees just had six months off, but that hasn’t stopped Joe Girardi from deciding to give all of his everyday players days off in the first week of the season.

Joe Girardi must be stopped. The Yankees manager is out of control with giving his players days off just one week into the season. You would think the Yankees were banged up or undefeated or even at .500 to this point for Girardi to put together a different lineup each game. But no, Girardi has decided that October, November, December, January, February and most of March (I say most because a good part of March consists of playing two innings and then playing golf for the rest of the day) wasn’t enough time off for his under-.500 team coming off back-to-back postseason-less seasons.

Brian McCann played the first game of the season on a Monday, Tuesday was an off day, he played on Wednesday, had Thursday off, played 18 innings on Friday, had Saturday off, played on Sunday and then had Monday off. McCann has played in four of seven games this season. It would be more of an issue if John Ryan Murphy hadn’t been one of the two or three best hitters on the team so far, but why is the $85 million catcher making $17 million playing so little to start the season?

Brett Gardner played the first two games of the season before getting the third game of the Blue Jays series off. Why? Most likely because the Yankees were facing a lefty and I guess Girardi thought it would make the most sense to have his best or second-best all-around player as part of a platoon. (On Monday night in Baltimore, Gardner was hit on the wrist, which eventually forced him out of the games and to have X-rays taken, but not before Girardi let him go to bat unable to swing and bunt in the sixth inning of a tie game at Camden Yards.)

Jacoby Ellsbury played all three games against the Blue Jays and then played all 19 innings on Friday, so he was given Saturday off. Ellsbury is 31 years old and in the second year of a seven-year, $153 million contract and will make $21.1 million this year and $130,511 per game. So why was the player who is making the money that should have gone to Robinson Cano getting the day off after Friday’s long game while older and more injury-prone players played on Saturday?

In the first five games of the season, Chase Headley was 3-for-22 (.136). On Sunday night, he went 3-for-5 with one home run and 3 RBIs. Aside from his game-tying solo home run in the bottom of the ninth on Friday night, it was the first time he has shown any life with the bat in the first week of the season. So why was he on the bench on Monday night?

I didn’t want Stephen Drew on the Yankees last year. I didn’t want the Yankees to sign him to a one-year, $5 million deal this year. I wanted Rob Refsnyder or Jose Pirela to be the second baseman for 2015. I wanted him designated for assignment before the season began and I still want him designated for assignment. In the first five games of the season, Drew was 2-for-17 (.118), including a disastrous 1-for-8 night in the 19-inning game on Friday night. But on Sunday night, he hit a home run and had 2 RBIs. So why was he on the bench on Monday night?

Carlos Beltran has played in every game this season and has started six of the games. In the six games he has started, he has hit third. Beltran is 38 years old and will be 39 next Friday and looks more done than Alfonso Soriano looked last year. I would actually rather have Soriano right now, nearly a year removed from baseball, playing instead of Beltran. I have nicknamed Beltran “Going Through the Motions” for this season as he has shown no signs of life in the field or at the plate where he’s 4-for-28 (.143). I wanted Beltran as much as anyone else after 2013, but his Yankees tenure started nine years too late and has been a disappointment. Maybe instead of giving productive players in their prime days off, it’s time Beltran sits? Or at least take him out of the 3-hole and put him no higher than seventh in the order.

Mark Teixeira got the day off after the 19-inning game most likely because the Yankees were scared of him getting “tired legs” for the second consecutive season for standing around for too long. So who played first base for Teixeira that day after the 19-inning game? Number 13.

A-Rod is 39. He will be 40 in July. He has two surgically repaired hips and since 2011 he has played more than 100 games once (122 in 2012). He has played every game this season. He was pulled in the 11th inning of Friday’s game for a pinch runner that didn’t work out and the Yankees lost their best hitter for the remainder of the game. On either Tuesday or Wednesday against the Orioles, A-Rod will get the day off because the last 18 months off apparently wasn’t enough time off.

The lineup has been improperly constructed for the first seven games and the wrong people have been getting days off. I’m not sure why I thought this season might be different for Girardi when it comes to his excessive resting of his players since it certainly didn’t work the last two seasons.

So who’s going to get the next game off? Whichever Yankee is hitting the best or whichever Yankee is the youngest or most important or making the most money.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 13, 2015

Yankees-Red Sox Weekend Diary

This weekend we got 37 innings and 13 hours and 26 minutes of baseball and also a 16-minute delay for a power outage and some sloppy and embarrassing play from the Yankees.

There’s nothing like a Yankees-Red Sox series. Even if that series comes in Games 4, 5 and 6 of the season and even if that series features pitching matchups of Nathan Eovaldi-Wade Miley, Adam Warren-Joe Kelly and Mashahiro Tanaka-Clay Buchholz.

The rivalry isn’t what it once was and the current rosters reflect that, but even when the seasons and personnel change, the games remain the same. This weekend we got 37 innings and 13 hours and 26 minutes of baseball and also a 16-minute delay for a power outage.

I decided to go to the diary format that I used for a Yankees-Red Sox series back in July 2012 and a Yankees-Red Sox series back in July 2013 for this past weekend. Just pretend like you’re reading this in one of those black-and-white Mead composition notebooks.

FRIDAY
The Yankees’ Twitter account jumped the gun a little by calling Nathan Eovaldi “Nasty Nate” before ever throwing a pitch on Friday night, and therefore, never having thrown a pitch for the Yankees to that point. Eovaldi ended up lasting 5 1/3 innings, allowed eight hits and three earned runs and striking out just one despite hitting a reported 101 mph on the radar gun, according to YES. A Mets fan friend of mine told me to be nervous that Eovaldi might be the next Mike Pelfrey as a hard-throwing righty that can’t strike anyone out and I dismissed that claim, but now I’m nervous it could be true.

The Yankees once again had one hit through five innings, so I think Joe Girardi made the right decision giving some regulars a day off after an off day on Tuesday and after having October, November, December, January, February and most of March off.

The Red Sox’ might have the best lineup in the AL East and the entire league, but their starting pitching is mediocre and their bullpen is terrible. I’m not sure how so many people can be sold on a team that doesn’t have a pitching staff looking for bounceback seasons or a pitching staff looking to stay healthy, but rather just a pitching staff that is really bad. Red Sox closer Edward Mujica proved he isn’t exactly Koji Uehara, or at least 2013 Koji Uehara, after allowing a two-out home run to Chase Headley in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game before 10 more innings of hard-to-watch baseball. Michael Kay had to go and ruin the moment by saying, “Holy Cow!” as a tribute to Phil Rizzuto in the Yankees’ return to PIX11 and it was as bad as Melissa McCarthy doing Matt Foley on the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Show.

The game lasted 19 innings and there were 578 of pitches thrown and up until the last pitch I still had no idea what home-plate umpire Marty Foster was going to call on each pitch. Throughout extra innings, I kept offering Stephen Drew “Ladies and gentlemen” immunity if he could hit a walk-off home run or even just get a hit, but those thing never came. David Cone described a Stephen Drew foul ball as “probably one of the better swings we’ve seen Drew take.” A foul ball.

All Brian Cashman did this offseason (aside from berate the Yankees’ best player in A-Rod) is tell us how good of a defensive shortshop Didi Gregorius is. And so far, Gregorius has yet to make a play that Derek Jeter wouldn’t have made at 40 and hasn’t done anything with his glove to justify his embarrassing offensive start.

If the Yankees hadn’t decided that it would be a good idea to play second baseman Jose Pirela in center field in a spring training game, in which he got a concussion, then he would be on the Yankees right now and not Gregorio Petit. But playing a future everyday player for your team out of position makes a lot of sense, especially when Reggie Jackson called that player the best hitter in the organization. In 2013, Travis Ishikawa played one game for the Yankees and had two at-bats: a four-pitch strikeout and a three-pitch strikeout. The following year, he won the World Series with the Giants as their starting left fielder. I fully expect Petit to win the World Series somewhere next year.

I’m not sure why Brett Gardner can’t steal bases and I’m not sure how he got picked off by a right-handed knuckleball pitcher or why he was unable to steal against a knuckeball pitcher two different times. I’m also not sure why Jacoby Ellsbury was unable to steal against a knuckleball pitcher.

I don’t get the Yankees’ infatuation with Esmil Rogers. He’s 29 (will be 30 this season) and entered the game with a 5.52 career ERA. Who cares that he throws hard? You know who else throws hard? Nearly every pitcher in the majors and the minors. Find someone else to do his job because he can’t do it.

SATURDAY
This time it was one hit through seven innings for the Yankees. One hit against Joe Kelly. Cone said the Yankees “could tip their hat” to Kelly, which was an awful cop-out for a team that is full of excuses and doesn’t need any more opportunities to give them.

A three-error game for the Yankees to keep their games-with-an-error streak alive at five straight to open the season and bring the season total to 8. Brian Cashman told Mike Francesa on Friday that Rob Refsnyder could play in the majors right now, but that his defense isn’t there yet. If Refsnyder can give this team any additional offense, who cares about his defense? The rest of the team’s defense isn’t good, so why are we worried about the defense of someone who can actually hit?

Brock Holt getting credited with a three-run double that Garrett Jones dropped is an atrocity. Between Brett Gardner falling down in the second inning in left field and Jones not being able to catch a fly ball as a major leaguer is the 2015 Yankees. Forget “Our history. Your tradition.” or “Pride. Power. Pinstripes.” or whatever ridiculous slogan the Yankees try to sell. Let’s go with “Strikeouts. Errors. Pickoffs. Left on base.” for 2015.

SUNDAY
A must-win game in the sixth game of the season. The Yankees couldn’t afford to fall to 1-5 and head to Baltimore where they could easily lose another series or possibly be swept and be starting at a 2-7 or 1-8 record with trips to Tampa Bay and Detroit still go.

When I saw the lineup posted with A-Rod hitting sixth behind Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann I almost threw up. How is the best hitter on the team, entering the game 5-for-18, hitting behind three hitters who have gone 2-for-20, 3-for-16 and 3-for-13?

A-Rod proved once again he is the best hitter on the team and should be the No. 3 hitter with a three-run double in the first inning to break the game open. But Joe Girardi should keep hitting him sixth because that makes a lot of sense.

Of course Beltran went 2-for-4 against the Red Sox’ embarrassing bullpen to bring his average up to .167 (.167! Woo!) since that will be good enough for Girardi to think 38-year-old Carlos “Going Through the Motions” Beltran should continue to be the team’s No. 3 hitter.

Even Stephen Drew hit a home run in the Yankees’ seven-run first inning for the fastest Yankees win over the Red Sox. It doesn’t change the fact that I want him off the team as soon as possible, but it was nice to see that his best swings don’t just result in foul balls.

It was a bad week, actually it was the worst possible week, but it ended well. The bad news is the Yankees are 2-4 and about to start a 10-game road trip. The good news is the hitting and defense can’t get any worse than it has been. At least I don’t think it can.

Tag: Brian McCann

Podcast: JJ Barstool Sports New York

When Does the Free Pass for Jacoby Ellsbury Expire?

Thank You, Brian Cashman for Ruining the Yankees

Joe Girardi Needs to Stop with the Days Off

Yankees-Red Sox Weekend Diary