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Tag: Daisuke Matsuzaka

Blogs • Yankees

Jan 23, 2014

The Mystery of Masahiro Tanaka

I got my wish: Masahiro Tanaka is a Yankee.

The last time the Yankees missed the playoffs they signed CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett, spent $423.5 million, won 103 regular-season games and won the 2009 World Series.

So when the Yankees missed the playoffs for the second time since 2008 in 2013, watched Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells fill out the heart of their order for the majority of the season and then watched the Red Sox win the World Series, I didn’t think the goal of staying under a $189 million payroll would be met. Instead of worrying about the $189 million goal, the Yankees signed Brian McCann ($85 million) and Jacoby Ellsbury ($153 million) and after losing Robinson Cano to the Mariners, they signed Carlos Beltran ($45 million).

On Christmas Eve, I wrote My Christmas Wish List. In it, I asked for four things: Something That Resembles A Starting Rotation That Can Compete In the AL East, Masahiro Tanaka, 2013-14 Henrik Lundqvist To Be 2011-12 Henrik Lundqvist and A New Rangers Defense.

Since Christmas Eve, Henrik Lundqvist is 7-2-1 with a 1.97 goals against average and .937 save percentage. In 2011-12, Lundqvist finished the year with a 1.97 goals against average and .929 save percentage. 2013-14 Henrik Lundqvist To Be 2011-12 Henrik Lundqvist? Check.

On Wednesday, the Rangers traded Michael Del Zotto to the Predators for defensive defenseman Kevin Klein. And there are still reports and rumors that Dan Girardi could be traded by the deadline. A New Rangers Defense? Check.

The only things missing from My Christmas Wish List were Something That Resembles A Starting Rotation That Can Compete In the AL East and Masahiro Tanaka and those things would go hand in hand. On Wednesday, prior to the Rangers trading Del Zotto, my list was completed.

The last time the Yankees signed a free-agent Japanese pitcher it was in response to the Red Sox signing Daisuke Matsuzaka, whose gyroball was going to be more effective in the majors than Roy Halladay’s palmball was in MVP Baseball. The decision cost the Yankees $26,000,194 (good thing they threw that extra $194 in there) just for the right to negotiate with Kei Igawa. It then cost them $20 million to sign the left-hander to a five-year deal. And for five years, we got to see Igawa appear in 16 games, make 13 starts and pitch to this magnificent line: 2-4, 71.2 IP, 89 H, 54 R, 53 ER, 15 HR, 37 BB, 53 K, 6.66 ERA, 1.758 WHIP. That’s $213,954.39 per out that Igawa made for the Yankees. But the pitcher my friend Scanlon would refer to as “The Key Master” did pitch 533 innings for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, so at least the Yankees were giving the employees at Dunder Mifflin a marquee name to call their own.

After the Igawa debacle and the fall of Matsuzaka, the Yankees stayed away from Yu Darvish. Sure, they were in on the bidding, but they only offered a reported posting bid of $15 million ($11,000,194 less than they bid for Igawa) and the Rangers went on to win the rights to Darvish with a bid of $51,703,411. The Yankees’ bid showed that they were doing their work, so they could cite that they made an effort once they inevitably lost out. It was a bid made with no intention of ever wanting to sign Darvish, but a security blanket to pretend like they were involved with Darvish to avoid being second-guessed if Darvish were to work out. He did.

Darvish is 29-18 with a 3.34 ERA in two season with the Rangers, was the AL strikeout king in 2013, allowed the fewest hits per nine innings (6.2) in the AL and finished second in the Cy Young voting. He has been everything that Matsuzaka and Igawa weren’t and everything the Yankees need and want and because of that, Masahiro Tanaka is a Yankee. Darvish’s success led to the much anticipated posting of Tanaka and the abundance of teams being interested in bidding on him that followed (even the Astros though they had a chance). If Darvish had failed with the Rangers, it’s more likely that the Yankees would have used the $22 million annual average salary for Tanaka on Ubaldo Jimenez or Matt Garza.

I’m all for the Tanaka signing and haven’t been this excited about a Yankees offseason in four years when they were coming off the 2009 championship and looking to repeat. But with question marks surrounding Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and the bullpen, I’m the most nervous about a Yankees offseason that I have been since 2008. The only question mark that isn’t being mentioned when it comes to analyzing the 2014 Yankees is Tanaka, who has $155 million coming to him despite having never thrown a pitch in the majors.

Everything I know about how Masahiro Tanaka pitches I learned from YouTube. I know as much about his “stuff” and “ability” as I do about The Scarlet Pimpernel (I read the Sparknotes for it freshman year of high school). I have read as much as I can about Tanaka and watched as many highlight videos as I could find of him, including one set to “What I Like About You” by The Romantics, but I have no idea how his 24-0, 1.27 season will translate to the majors. No one does. Everyone who has seen him pitch or has scouted Japanese baseball or has played in Japan or has been to Japan has an opinion on how he will do in the majors, but it doesn’t mean anything. Six years ago someone (someone I want to find and heckle) convinced the Yankees front office that it was a good idea to invest $46,000,194 in the first pitcher I have ever seen wear sunglasses on the mound. Tanaka won’t be Kei Igawa because no one can be that bad for that much money. (Please sit down, Carl Pavano.)

On Wednesday, on Mike Francesa’s show, Brian Cashman said, “Tanaka was arguably the best free agent available pitcher on the marketplace, so securing him creates a great deal of excitement as well as hope to land with Nova and Sabathia.”

Cashman is right. All we have right now is “excitement” and “hope” when it comes to the $155 million man who’s not being asked to slot into the Yankees rotation, but to keep it upright. I’m not ready to give Tanaka the potential “ace” status that so many other people are willing to even without knowing what will happen when he pitches in the majors.

For now, I’ll have to spend the next 10 weeks imagining how Tanaka will pitch for the Yankees because for now, it’s the best anyone can do.

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Dec 24, 2013

My Christmas Wish List

I won’t be getting playoff football this year, so that means I will have to ask for some other things this Christmas.

When I put together my Christmas list for this year, I didn’t bother to ask for anything to do with the New York Football Giants. At 6-9, their season has been lost since their Week 12 loss to the Cowboys and this season marks the fourth time in five years the Giants won’t play in the postseason.

After reaching the playoffs in each of the first four years of Eli Manning’s career as the full-time starting quarterback (2005-08), the Giants’ lone playoff trip since their loss in the 2008 divisional round as the No. 1 seed was in 2011 when they won the Super Bowl. I’m very grateful for the two Super Bowls since 2007 and that Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin prevented Tom Brady and Bill Belichick from being 5-0 in the Super Bowl and football immortality as the best quarterback-coach combination in history. But at this time of the year with the Cowboys and Eagles playing for the NFC East title and the Bears, Packers, Panthers, Saints, Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Patriots, Dolphins, Bengals, Ravens, Steelers, Colts, Broncos, Chiefs and Chargers all playing for something this Sunday, it’s not fun being on the outside looking in.

Yes, it’s another Week 17 of wondering what could have been, but I’m not going to let the Giants ruin Christmas since they already ruined October and November (the Yankees ruined September). And if I can’t have playoff football this year, which I can’t, then this is what I want.

Something That Resembles A Starting Rotation That Can Compete In the AL East
If it seems like I have asked for that before, it’s because I have. Back in 2010, I asked for the same exact thing after the Yankees lost out on Cliff Lee and I was staring at a potential rotation of CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, Ivan Nova and at the time no one else. (That’s right, Phil Hughes, coming off an 18-win season, was going to be the Yankees’ No. 2 starter.) Thankfully Bartolo Colon decided to get some “help” and Freddy Garcia reinvented himself and the Yankees won 97 games and the AL East before the heart of the order went missing in a five-game series loss to the Tigers in the ALDS.

So far this offseason the Yankees have signed Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran and Brian Roberts and lost Robinson Cano to the Mariners. The November 2013 Yankees are better than the September 2013 Yankees were and are better in theory than the 2013 Yankees were ever going to be at their healthiest point. But the rotation is still a problem just like it was at this time last year and the year before that.

The best free-agent options for the rotation are Matt Garza, Ervin Santana, Ubaldo Jimenez, Bronson Arroyo, Paul Maholm and …. wait for it …. wait for it …. wait for it … A.J. Burnett! The only one of these six options I would be OK with would be Garza, but even then he’s going to command (and receive) a ridiculous contract in this market for someone who has a career .500 record (67-67), a 3.84 ERA and has started only 42 games over the last two years.

Brian Cashman said going into this winter that he was going to have to find 400 innings from somewhere and I don’t think the Yankees are going to sign one of the “top” free agents just because they are the best available right now like they would have in the past with Carl Pavano or Jaret Wright or Burnett. That means that “somewhere” will likely be from within the organization and some combination of the current favorites Michael Pineda, David Phelps and Adam Warren. Unless, the Yankees can give me the next thing on my list …

Cliff Lee
Yes, three years later I’m still asking for Cliff Lee. I don’t need to explain it. Just read this. But since Lee isn’t exactly realistic, I will ask for someone who is …

Masahiro Tanaka
I know nothing about Masahiro Tanaka other than from searching “Masahiro Tanaka” on YouTube and watching a video titled “Best of Mashahiro Tanaka” that is synced to what sounds like nearly four minutes of an instrumental version of a song by The Offspring. But I’m going to guess that the only knowledge most North American “experts” who talk about how good Tanaka is happens to be this same exact video. No one knows for sure how Tanaka’s Japanese success will translate to the majors and given the history of highly coveted Japanese pitchers coming to North America, there’s a better chance that Tanaka will be more like Daisuke Matsuzaka than Yu Darvish. But as long as he’s not Kei Igawa (I haven’t typed that name in so long), I’ll take him.

2013-14 Henrik Lundqvist To Be 2011-12 Henrik Lundqvist
Since signing his seven-year extension, Henrik Lundqvist is 2-4-2. I’m not sure if you want your franchise player, who you recently locked up through 2020-21 to be saying he “kind of expected” that a rookie backup would be starting in place of him for the second consecutive game and night. And after recording two wins and allowing just two goals combined in 48 hours, I’m not sure that Alain Vigneault is necessarily going to go back to Lundqvist over Cam Talbot on Friday night in Washington.

Lundqvist has admitted to over-anticipating plays and being jumpy and it has shown this season. While it’s hard to fault him for a five-goal loss to the Islanders on Friday night when you consider they were getting shorthanded breakaways and odd-man rushes left and right, he isn’t bailing out the team that way he used to. And because Lundqvist isn’t bailing out his team the way he used to, it brings me to the next thing I’m asking for …

A New Rangers Defense
I asked for this last because this is going to be the most unrealistic of them all. It would be like asking for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this year.

Since 2008-09, the Rangers’ problem has been scoring goals, but now with Lundvist struggling and having a down year so far, preventing goals is even more of a problem. And if Lundqvist is going to be more human-like than King-like this season, the Rangers aren’t going anywhere because they don’t have the defense (especially with Marc Staal injured) many thought they did. Through the first 46 percent of the season, Lundqvist hasn’t been bailing out the incompetence of the Rangers defense the way he has through his entire career. But rather than focus on his entire career, let’s focus on since 2011-12 when the current Rangers defensive core started to become the foundation of the defense.

We all know that I don’t think the 2011-12 Rangers were worthy of the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed or as close as “two wins away from the Stanley Cup Final” as they technically were. They earned the top seed and won two series in Game 7 before losing the Devils in six because of Henrik Lundqvist. Not because of their offense and certainly not because of their defense. Lundqvist made everyone believe Dan Girardi was an All-Star and that Michael Del Zotto could be trusted in his own zone the same way Sidney Crosby has made everyone believe Chris Kunitz is some kind of superstar despite his career season-high in goals being 26 and now as a linemate of Number 87, he has 20 goals in just 39 games.

Prior to Lundqvist signing an extension, there was a worrying sense that overpaying Lundqvist would cost the Rangers a chance at re-signing Girardi this offseason. But right now I’m not sure anyone would want to sign Girardi. When he’s not falling down or giving the puck away, he’s busy scoring goals against his team, a stat which he must lead the league in by at least 15.

As for Del Zotto, it’s pretty obvious his time with the Rangers is dwindling. When the Rangers beat the Maple Leafs on Monday night at the Garden, I watched Del Zotto intently as the Rangers saluted from center ice and wondered if Del Zotto was thinking it could be one of the last times he would salute the MSG crowd. If it is, the Rangers will be a better team.

Merry Christmas!

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Oct 14, 2012

ALCS Game 1 Thoughts: The Emotional Swings of the Postseason

Game 1 of the ALCS was full of emotional swings that ended with the loss of Derek Jeter and a loss to the Tigers.

“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 with every single chip in front of him. This is why the World Series of Poker is decided over a No-Limit Hold ‘Em table. Some people, pros even, won’t play No-Limit. They can’t handle the swings.” – Mike McDermott, Rounders

Welcome to Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS.

Sometimes the highs and lows of a postseason game are too much to handle. Every Yankees baserunner feels like an accomplishment and every opposing baserunner feels like an inevitable pitch. When you factor in the Yankees’ offensive struggles, these two feelings are taken to another level.

I sat in the right field bleachers with Keefe To The City contributor Dave Heck and watched the Yankees load the bases and fail to score. Then load the bases again and fail to score again. And then fail to score again and again and again. For eight innings the Yankees couldn’t score against Doug Fister or Phil Coke or Joaquin Benoit. I’m not sure they would have been able to score against Daisuke Matsuzaka or the former Zales Fan Marquee guy.

In the ninth inning I was wishing I spent my Saturday night going out in the city and getting drunk at a bar and ordering Domino’s at 3:15 a.m. I would have even settled for wasting a Saturday night and just being in my bed sleeping. I had been at the Stadium for three hours and 31 minutes and 12 innings on Wednesday and four hours and 31 minutes and 13 innings on Thursday night. I was exhausted and went to Game 1 with a sleep-deprived, alcohol-driven headache hoping that the Yankees would take a 1-0 series lead and instead I had watched them endure another offensive postseason slump.

Russell Martin singled to center to lead off the ninth off Jose Valverde and moved to second on defensive indifference. Derek Jeter struck out for the first out and then Ichiro hit his first career postseason home run an 0-1 count to make it 4-2.

“Get it to Ibanez,” I told Dave.

Robinson Cano continued his hot October by striking out for the second out on seven pitches. Mark Teixeira fought for seven pitches, bringing the count full and before the eighth pitch of the at-bat, I turned to Dave again.

“A walk and then Ibanez,” I said.

“He can’t do it again,” Dave replied.

The eighth pitch was ball four and I did the Derek Jeter fist pump mixed with a little Joba Chamberlain 360-fist pump for good measure as Raul Ibanez walked to the plate.

With an 0-1 count, Jose Valverde threw his 28th pitch of the inning to Ibanez and he rocked it. Everyone in Section 203 was already standing, but now people were jockeying for position by standing on the actual bleachers to watch it arrive. Everyone in the Stadium knew by the swing and the sound of the bat that the ball was headed for the seats, but those in right field knew because when you’re in the path of a home run, the ball just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger like you’re waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s before the mayhem ensues.

For the third time following a Raul Ibanez at-bat in four nights I looked like Theo Fleury following his goal againt the Oilers in the 1990-91 playoffs. I was yelling and screaming in a shower of beer and high-fiving and hugging strangers. The Yankees had a postseason hero for the first time since A-Rod in 2009 and it was the unlikely source of the 40-year-old Ibanez on a one-year, $1.1 million deal making less than Boone Logan, Andruw Jones, Freddy Garcia and Pedro Feliciano. And for the second time in four nights, Raul Ibanez had kept the Yankees alive with a ninth-inning home run turning to depression into jubilation.

Up until that 0-1 pitch, the Stadium was quiet (though it would get a lot quieter). The moat seats were empty and the upper deck looked like a scene from the Stadium in the 80s. The Bronx reeked of devastation, but in one swing the ultimate high replaced the ultimate low. But then Derek Jeter broke his ankle and the ultimate low found a new low.

I have never heard Yankee Stadium that quiet. I have never heard any stadium or arena that quiet. I have never heard a library that quiet. When Jeter was carried off the field I quickly entered Phase 1 of the Yankees elimination process that I endure any October that doesn’t end with them winning their last game. The Tigers took a two-run lead and didn’t give it back. Another four hours and 54 minutes at the Stadium.

This train carries Hiroki Kuroda in Game 2.

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Jun 21, 2012

Henrik Lundqvist Has Been Validated and Other Thoughts

Thoughts on Henrik Lundqvist finally getting the recognition and credit he deserves and the glorious disaster that is the 2012 Red Sox.

There were 204 names called before Henrik Lundqvist’s in the 2000 NHL Draft. The Rangers took an 18-year-old Lundqvist in the seventh round with the 205th of the 293 total picks in the draft.

Here are the goalies selected before Lundqvist with the round they were selected in, their overall pick number and the amount of NHL games they played in parentheses.

1/1. New York Islanders – Rick DiPietro (315)

1/9. Calgary – Brent Krahn (1)

2/44. Anaheim – Ilya Bryzgalov (385)

2/45. Ottawa – Matthieu Chouinard (1)

2/60. Dallas – Dan Ellis (165)

3/70. Toronto – Mikael Tellqvist (114)

3/84. Pittsburgh -Peter Hamerlik (0)

3/90. Toronto – Jean-Francois Racine (0)

4/102. Detroit – Stefan Liv (0)

4/111. Buffalo – Ghyslain Rousseau (0)

4/116. Calgary – Levente Szuper (0)

4/120. Florida – Davis Parley (0)

5/143. New York Rangers – Brandon Snee (0)

5/164. New Jersey – Matus Kostur (0)

5/165.  Los Angeles – Nathan Marsters (0)

5/166. San Jose – Nolan Schaefer (7)

6/168. Atlanta – Zdenek Smid (0)

6/169. Columbus – Shane Bendera (0)

6/177. Chicago – Mike Ayers (0)

7/203. Nashville – Jure Penko (0)

The amazing thing about this list isn’t that Lundqvist was the 21st goalie selected in his class or that 15 of the goalies picked before him played either one or no games in the NHL. The amazing thing is that the Rangers picked a goalie before Lundqvist in the draft with Brandon Snee at the 143rd pick. Snee had just finished his sophomore season at Union College where he was 8-22-1 with a 3.82 GAA and .892 save percentage after a freshman season in which he went 1-12-3 with a 3.50 GAA and .892 save percentage (and he’s 22 months older than Lundqvist.) Snee ended up playing 12 games in the UHL, 13 games in the ECHL and 12 in the WHA2.

There really isn’t a silver lining to a season that ends two wins short of a trip to the Stanley Cup Final at the hands of your rival in overtime, but I really do think watching Lundqvist win the Vezina on Wednesday night is one for Rangers fans.

I have been telling non-Rangers fans who don’t get to see Lundqvist on a regular basis how talented he is since the 2005-06 season, and it wasn’t really until this season and this postseason that he started to get the recognition and credit he has deserved for seven years. Even though Lundqvist had a better GAA this season (1.97) than last season (2.28) and a better save percentage this season (.929) than last season (.923), I think his performance over 68 games last year was better than his performance in 62 games this year. Yes, the Rangers were the best team in the Eastern Conference in 2011-12 because of him, but he kept the Rangers alive until Game 82 in 2010-11 playing every game from Feb. 7 through the playoffs, and posting three more shutouts (11) than he did this year (8).

Unintelligent people would use Lundqvist’s postseason record entering this spring and his postseason overtime record as a flaw in his abilities. They would cite the Rangers’ three first-round exits and two second-round exits with him as a reason for him to be just “hype.” No one cared to mention his surrounding cast, the Rangers’ lack of scoring during his career or the team’s young and inexperienced defense. On Wednesday night it felt like all of these misconceptions were finally erased.

Lundqvist thanked his teammates and said he wouldn’t be standing up there accepting the award without them. He thanked the entire Rangers organization and even Mr. Dolan for the last seven years. But really it would have made more sense to the have the rest of the Rangers, the front office and Mr. Dolan on the stage thanking Lundqvist because without him they wouldn’t be relevant again.

***

After what happened to the Red Sox in September I didn’t think things could get better as a Yankees fan. And by “better” I mean watching my arch-nemesis continue to be an embarrassment.

First it was Buster Olney reporting that the clubhouse was toxic on ESPN.com and now it’s Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com saying the same thing. Olney’s report was refuted by Josh Beckett, and I’m sure that McAdam’s will be too.

Beckett said Olney’s report is “completely fabricated” and said he doesn’t know where people get their information, and that the 2012 Red Sox are “one of the tightest-knit groups” he’s ever seen. But Beckett can tell me about the team’s family outings together like he told reporters on Tuesday, and he can even show me pictures of his family and the Valentines and the Lesters and the Pedroias on a joint vacation to Disney World if he wants, and I still won’t believe him. There’s a reason everyone is talking about the Red Sox’ internal problems and that’s because they exist. And I love every second of it.

When the Red Sox blew Game 162 and missed the playoffs for the second straight year, and Terry Francona and Theo Epstein left, and Larry Lucchino tightened his marionette strings on John Henry and Ben Cherington to bring in Bobby Valentine, I hoped the recipe for disaster that the Red Sox front office was creating would turn out to be just that. But I never thought it would be this much of a disaster.

We’re 42 percent of the way through the season and the Red Sox are two games over .500 and six games back of the Yankees. Most Red Sox fans have chalked this season up as lost and are counting down the days until the Patriots’ season opener. Those who haven’t given up are holding out hope for the Red Sox to appear in the one-game playoff and are citing the return of the Carl Crawford as a positive sign. The same Carl Crawford who posted a .255/.289/.405 line last year and apologized to fans midseason in his personal blog on ESPNBoston.com.

Aside from the clubhouse issues, Daniel Nava has the second-best OPS on the team, and Scott Podsednik is getting starts, while Jason Repko, Che-Hsuan Lin, Nate Spears and Mauro Gomez have all made appearances. Beckett is injured again, Jon Lester hasn’t been close to the pitcher that Dennis Eckersley has picked to win the Cy Young every year since 2008, Clay Buchholz has five quality starts in 14 games and Daisuke Matsuzaka doesn’t look like the best No. 5 starter in the history of baseball like NESN proclaimed he was last year. The best Red Sox starting pitcher has been Felix Doubront (8-3, 4.31) and one of their original rotation members, Daniel Bard, is blowing two-run save opportunities in Triple-A as he tries to transition back to the bullpen.

I never thought things could get this good for me and this bad for the Red Sox even when anonymous sources were snitching on the Red Sox’ chicken and beer problems and John Henry was making a public fool of himself on afternoon drive radio in Boston. I realize that all good things must come to an end at some point, but I hope this good thing can last the rest of the season.

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