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Tag: Dustin Pedroia

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Podcast: Danny Picard

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

John Farrell

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

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

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Aug 16, 2013

Yankees-Red Sox Means Something in August Once Again

The Yankees are back in Boston for a three-game series with the Red Sox and that means an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

It’s been almost a month since the Yankees and Red Sox met in the first series after the All-Star break. The Yankees opened the “second half” by going 6-12, but 5-2 since. The Red Sox started the “second half” strong, going 11-7 , but they have dropped four of their last six.

Here are the AL East standings entering the series:

And here are the AL Wild Card standings entering the series:

The Yankees can’t afford to a lose a series the rest of the way unless they plan on going on a Dodgers-like run to end the season. And as we stand now, it’s probably going to take a Dodgers-like run anyway for this team to make the postseason. Hopefully we look back at the end of the season and say that run started last weekend against the Tigers, which means it would have continued this weekend in Boston.

With the Yankees and Red Sox playing meaningful games in August for the first time since 2011, it means a mandatory email exchange with Mike Hurley from CBS Boston.

Keefe: Hey Michael F. Hurley, I’m writing to you for the first time since July 19 because the Yankees are back in Boston this weekend for a three-game series. I’m not sure if you’re still at the candlelight vigil you held last night for Tom Brady in the Boston Common, or if you’re sleeping because you got back from the vigil late, but don’t worry Tom Brady is going to make it. He might even play in a meaningless preseason game on Friday because that’s a really good idea. Before we get into it, I have one question for you: That was you offering the shocked and stunning, “OH NO!” in the Brady practice video, wasn’t it?

Right now the Yankees actually look like the Yankees. The Makeshift Yankees have slowly dwindled away and now real, actual baseball players are playing for the most storied franchise in major sports. Alfonso Soriano, Curtis Granderson and Alex Rodriguez have replaced the likes of Thomas Neal, Luis Cruz, Alberto Gonzalez, Corban Joseph and David Adams and thankfully Lyle Overbay is hitting eighth in a lineup that he used to hit cleanup in and for some reason the Yankees have won five of their last seven games. It’s really weird how you can win games when household names are playing for your team and not a handful of guys who are going to have to get 9-5 jobs in the very near future. The problem is you can’t have the future 9-5 players in the lineup for the first 113 games of the season and think you’re going to make the playoffs unless you plan on going on Dodgers-like run over the last six weeks of the season.

So with a team that very closely resembles the 95-win Yankees of a year ago and not the Makeshift Yankees of the first 113 games of the season, are you at all nervous about this series, the nine games the two teams have left against each other or the final six weeks of the season?

Hurley: If I had been within 15 feet of that video of Brady going down, it would not have been usable for the local news programs, because the words that would have come out of my mouth would have been much worse than “Oh no.” The bleep man in the edit bay would have had to work overtime to get that thing on TV.

I am personally glad that the Yankees are the Yankees again, because I’m telling you, Corban Joseph is the best pizza delivery man I’ve ever had. Always on time, pizza’s always hot. Love it.

To answer your question, no, I’m not nervous. I never get nervous. I’m not a psychopath like you, for one, and second, no season has ever been decided by a Fenway series in August. Well, except the 2006 season. But that never happened as far as I’m concerned.

As far as the Yankees go, I feel comfortable saying the division is out of reach for them, but thanks to Bud Selig’s Big Top Circus rules, the wild card is absolutely in play. Do I think the Yankees can outplay the Royals, Indians and Orioles from now until Sept. 29? Absolutely. The Yankees have some soft opponents on the schedule, and they’re destined by a higher power to always split their season series with the Red Sox, so it won’t take an otherworldly effort for them to gain 5 1/2 games in a month and a half.

Pretty bold, by the way, to brazenly joke around with Tom Brady’s career like that, while your captain is still hobbling around on one leg. You’re pretty much daring the karma gods with talk like that.

Keefe: I’m not joking around with Tom Brady. I want Tom Brady to be healthy and playing football because football is better when Tom Brady is playing, which is also why you should want Derek Jeter to be healthy because baseball is better when he is playing. If Tom Brady doesn’t play then which team am I stupidly going to put into my parlays and teasers to ruin my Sunday if I don’t pick the Patriots?

I was pretty down on the Yankees, and rightfully so, after their three-game sweep at the hands of the last-place White Sox and their 2-6 road trip that left looking at a mathematical impossibility to make the playoffs. But with this recent four-game winning streak and you sending me links to 1999 ALCS games, it has me longing for postseason baseball and I can’t be without it again the way I was in 2008.

You mentioned Bud Selig’s great invention of the second wild card, which I was strongly against and the only person more against it than me was you. But if the Yankees can sneak in the playoffs thanks to Major League Baseball’s ridiculous postseason format after this disastrous and injury-plagued season then I’m all for a second wild card! Maybe in 2014 we will see a third and fourth wild card since it looks like we are going to get a challenge system in baseball. Where do you think Joe Girardi is going to keep his challenge flags?

Hurley: I’m hoping that MLB does expand to three and four wild-card teams, but instead of a one-game playoff, they all fly to Omaha and play three-inning high stakes games at Rosenblatt Stadium. If they’re tied after three innings, the pitchers have to sumo wrestle on the mound before the second basemen have to compete in a two-pitch home run derby. If it’s still tied, the managers compete to see how much dip they can fit in their mouths. First one to puke loses. Winner moves on to face the regular wild-card winner. Does Bud read your site? If so, I expect this to be put in place in time for October.

Don’t get me wrong, I watch the one-game playoff, and it’ll be “exciting!” and all of that, but it just completely destroys the regular season. A team plays for 162 games and might have the second-best record in the American League, but because it’s not based in California, it has to put its entire season on the line in a nine-inning showdown with a team that might be nine games worse. It’s absolutely ridiculous. This year, the two NL wild cards could come out of the Central, and both could end up with better records than the eventual NL East-champion Braves. But hey, just win your division!

I won’t crush the proposed replay changes like everyone else seems to be, though. As you know, my dream job in life is to work in NHL headquarters, eating a dozen donuts and fielding calls from NHL arenas, with referees asking me, “Hey, Mikey, how’zitgoin up there, eh? Yeah well ahh, look it dere ahh, is that a goal?” Then I’d say, “Ahh, Billy that’s no goal.” And then the ref would say “Allllrighty, Mikey, thanks a lot dere have a good night.” And then I’ll say “OK dere, Billy, will do now.” Then I’d wolf down three glazed donuts and a cruller.

Well, if MLB institutes the same concept, that doubles my chances of one day landing my dream job, albeit one without the great Canadian accents and Tim Horton’s. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. Bring on the replay system.

Keefe: My favorite thing about the new replay system is that managers get one challenge in the first six innings and then two from the seventh inning on because as you know, the first six innings of the game aren’t as important as the last three innings, just like MLB games in April don’t count the same as games in September.

But as we embark on a stretch run in which the Yankees will have to make a serious push to avoid missing the postseason for the first time since 2008 and the Red Sox will have to hold their ground to reach the postseason for the first time since 2009, our previous discussions about the 1999 ALCS made me think: Is the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry dead or just in a coma? Sure, I hate the Red Sox as much as I did 14 years ago and I’m sure you don’t like the Yankees anymore than you did when Roger Clemens became one, but it just feels so blah lately when it comes to the overall perception of the rivalry.

Obviously the difference in records of the teams over the last four years and their lack of a postseason series in nine years is also part of it, but I think the main thing is the difference in the rosters. Once Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and David Ortiz retire, what are we supposed to do? Should we just pretend that Robinson Cano and Dustin Pedroia hate each other? Johnny Gomes and Mike Napoli have no history in the rivalry other than their disgusting beards and overall lack of hygiene and being slobs, I don’t fear John Lackey or Ryan Dempster and actually enjoy when they pitch against the Yankees and Jon Lester hasn’t been good since 2011 and hasn’t been really good since 2010. Who am I supposed to get angry about?!?! I guess I can manufacture some anger toward Stephen Drew for being related to J.D. Drew the same way I have for Jered Weaver, but that’s all I got. Any suggestions?

Hurley: Yeah, no, things are bleak in the rivalry department. You make good points about the slobbery of some Red Sox, but gone too are the days of absolute jerks like Gary Sheffield or Raul Mondesi or that psycho Tanyon Sturtze or Roger Clemens in his, um, bigger and stronger days but according to the government not his steroid days. It was just so easy back then. You had old men charging professional athletes and getting tossed aside and bouncing around like a Weeble who has somehow managed to fall down. Those were good days.

Now? Everyone in Boston came around on Jeter probably after 2007, when enough Red Sox fans were satisfied with two championships to finally accept Jeter’s greatness. A-Rod is a stooge but even New York doesn’t like him anymore. Cano hits bombs, drops his bat so that it lands flat without bouncing, and then moonwalks his way to first base. If that upsets you, you’re a strange fellow. Curtis Granderson is baseball’s good guy. Brett Gardner is like a faster, less, um, big, version of Trot Nixon. CC is fading away, Phil Hughes is terrible, and if you’re rooting against Mariano this year, you should be checked into an institution.

So yeah, the rivalry is dormant, but it’s not dead. You must know this about me by now, but when I was a kid, like maybe 8 or 9 years old, I bought a Yankees hat for $5 on the street outside Fenway. I don’t know why. I didn’t like the Yankees. But it was somehow acceptable to not just sell a Yankees hat outside Fenway, but to wear it too, and nobody seemed to care. That would have been unfathomable from 1999-2009. So it’s just a down period. It will be back. I hope. It’s hard to have a real rivalry with Tampa Bay, when half of the Rays’ stadium is full of Red Sox fans.

Keefe: The last time these two teams met the Yankees lost two of three games right after the All-Star break, including the Sunday Night Baseball disaster, which they had plenty of opportunities to win. This is the last time the teams will meet until after Labor Day and on the same day of the first game of the NFL season, which I’m sure you have a countdown calendar or clock somewhere on your desk or in your house. And if I know you, you have spent a good 30-40 hours on fantasy football draft preparation.

Starting on Friday, the Yankees and Red Sox will meet nine more times this season and six of those games will be at Fenway Park. I think it’s going to take at least six wins from the Yankees in those nine games to have a chance at coming back in the division or to make a run at the wild card. And with Phil Hughes having pitched on Sunday in the Bronx, and losing his 12th game of the season in the process, he won’t be starting during the weekend series, so we’re already off to a good start.

I’m going to take the Yankees for two out of three this weekend because they have to if they want to play a 163rd game this season. The next time we do an email exchange it will be September. Let’s hope the games mean something, so the exchange means something.

Hurley: I hate it. It’s the worst. I like real football.

With regard to this series, I won’t pretend to know what’s going to happen. From a Yankees perspective, you have to like getting Doubront, Dempster and Lackey … but do you really? They might all be better than Peavy and Lester this year, so who knows. I do know the Yankees are due to pick up some wins, considering they’re 3-6 vs. Boston this year and, as previously mentioned, they are preternaturally controlled by a higher power to split the season series. So you’re probably right about that.

From a Red Sox perspective, well, it’s a good thing Adrian Gonzalez isn’t around anymore. The Sox and Yankees play on Sunday Night Baseball. Last time that happened, it was midnight at the end of nine innings and it was something like 1:15 a.m. when Napoli hit that walk-off homer (somehow the place was still full, which was incredible), so you know this one’s going late again. Then the Red Sox have to fly all the way to San Francisco to play on Monday. Adrian would be getting cold sweats just thinking about that schedule, but that’s the difference between the Red Sox of old and the Red Sox of this year.

And to your last statement, if you think these exchanges ever mean anything, then you’re crazier than I ever thought.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jul 19, 2013

Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry Back in Boston

The first meaningful Yankees-Red Sox series in Boston in over a year calls for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

It’s July 19 and the Yankees are in Boston for the first time this season for Games 96, 97 and 98. So good job, MLB schedulers! You nailed this one!

But it’s not only the first time the Yankees are in Boston for the first time this season, it’s all the first time a Yankees-Red Sox series in Boston has meant something since July 2012 and you can argue it’s been longer than that. And with a Yankees-Red Sox series comes the mandatory email exchange with Mike Hurley from CBS Boston.

Keefe: Is that you? Is that really you, Mike Hurley? (Or Michael F. Hurley as your Twitter handle suggests.) It’s been a while. Actually it’s been a really long time. It’s been two months to the day since we last did one of these. Back then the Rangers and Bruins were about to start their Eastern Conference semifinals series, the Knicks were about to play Game 5 against the Pacers and the Yankees had a one-game lead in the AL East. Since then, the Rangers were embarrassed by the Bruins in five games, the Knicks were eliminated two nights later and the Yankees are now six games out of first place in the AL East. So things have been going great over the last 61 days! Thanks for asking!

But I’m not emailing you to rehash what happened to the Rangers against the Bruins and I’m certainly not emailing you to talk about basketball. That leaves us with baseball where the Makeshift Yankees have put together a run to be proud of when you consider Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner, Luis Cruz, Alberto Gonzalez, Chris Stewart, Austin Romine, Zoilo Almonte.

This winter, even without A-Rod, it looked like the Yankees lineup would look something like this:

Derek Jeter, SS
Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Robinson Cano, 2B
Mark Teixeira, 1B
Curtis Granderson, LF
Kevin Youkilis, 3B
Travis Hafner, DH
Francisco Cervelli,
Brett Gardner, CF

But that has been the lineup for zero games this season. Instead here is a list of the players that have the most plate appearances for each position:

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

And here are the other players that have gotten at least one at-bat with the Yankees:

Brennan Boesch, Ben Francisco, Luis Cruz, Reid Brignac, Chris Nelson, Alberto Gonzalez, Thomas Neal, Corban Joseph and Travis Ishikawa.

I didn’t even put Eduardo Nunez, Zoilo Almonte or Austin Romine on that list because they represent the top-tier of Makeshift Yankees.

But don’t worry, I’m doing fine! Everything’s going well!

How’s your summer?

Hurley: Hey, Thomas Neal is a friend of mine, good guy, we used to work the Saturday night shift at the liquor store down the street. I’m glad to see he made the Yankees this year. Good for him.

My summer? My summer is confusing. I didn’t think the Red Sox were going to be terrible this year, but I definitely didn’t expect them to sit 58-39 at the all-star break, looking like a legitimate playoff team. In April, I hardly gave it much attention, figuring they’d level out at some point. Yet they rebounded from a .500 May to maintain their spot in first place for months. It makes no sense, really.

Consider that through 97 games, the Red Sox have 58 wins. Through the same number of games in 2007, when they were the best team in baseball, they had the exact same record — 58-39. Um, huh?

It’s been pretty impressive, and frankly it’s giving this summer an unexpected boost. I was sort of anticipating a mediocre Red Sox team playing out the string, waiting for a decent but not great Patriots team to kick off their season in September. Instead, thinking about the playoffs is something that non-crazy people are allowed to do. And, the general population still hasn’t caught on, so tickets are still easy to come by for most games. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Hold on, I’ll be right back. Corban Joseph just showed up at my door with my pizza.

Keefe: I hope you tipped him well.

In the offseason, we laughed about the Red Sox rotation after Jon Lester citing Ryan Dempster pitching in the AL, Clay Buchholz’s constant injuries and decline in results over the last few seasons, John Lackey’s awfulness and Felix Doubront being in experienced.

Despite the Red Sox’ record, we weren’t that far off.

Jon Lester hasn’t been good (and hasn’t been since pre-2011 collapse). Ryan Dempster has pitched the way everyone thought “Ryan Dempster in the AL” would pitch. Clay Buchholz got off to an All-Star start, but hasn’t started since June 8. That leaves us with John Lackey, who is having his best season since 2007 and has actually been better than that and Felix Doubront, who has been much better than last year, but hasn’t been anything special.

So if we weren’t that far off, how are the Red Sox in first place in the best division in baseball?

Hurley: Despite you saying so (based on nothing except for your desire to just say it), we actually were pretty far off.

If you can have just five guys make most of your starts, it means you’re in a pretty good spot. And the Red Sox have gotten 86 percent of their starts from those five guys. Buchholz was exceptional for two months, and John Lackey has defied all odds by losing 300 pounds and pitching well, but the rotation as a whole has just simply been consistent and better than you want to give them credit for. The starters’ 3.82 ERA is the second-best mark in the AL, and they’ve gotten 582.1 innings out of their starters, just 3.1 innings fewer than league-leading Detroit. Boston’s starters are second in the AL in strikeouts, too, with Dempster — Dempster! — leading the way with 104 and Lester just behind with 103.

I get your confusion, because when you look at the guys individually, it doesn’t look good. Lester is 8-6 with a 4.58 ERA, Dempster is 5-8 with a 4.24, and Buchholz has joined the witness protection program because — 🙁 — his neck is sore. But collectively, they’ve done the work necessary to keep the Red Sox in just about every game they play. And when you lead all of baseball in runs scored by a huge margin, it always makes the pitching staff look a little bit better.

Keefe: I know that hockey season in Boston just ended like 15 minutes ago and you have a terrible memory anyway, so we’ll let it go, but we did talk about it.

After the magical month that was September 2011, I was treated to the hire of Bobby Valentine and everything that came with the 2012 Boston Red Sox and hoped it would last a lifetime. But here we are at the All-Star break and the Red Sox are right back to where they were in August 2011 thanks to being able to dump their trash on the Dodgers by throwing Snickers wrappers and newspapers and spray painting “The Red Sox were here.” If that trade in August 2012 doesn’t happen, we’re probably still talking about Josh Beckett’s off days and Adrian Gonzalez’s lack of accountability for anything. Instead the Red Sox are in first place and it’s like they got a mulligan for all of their bad decisions and were freed of their clubhouse cancers. It’s bullshit.

Did that trade change the Red Sox back to their pre-September 2011 ways or are guys just performing better after the atrocity that was last season?

Hurley: Are you saying that the Red Sox f’d the Dodgers’ whole a-hole up? That’s a bold call, Larry.

That ridiculously lopsided trade was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. Everyone — locally in L.A. and nationally in places like SportsCenter and Sports Illustrated — rushed to praise the Dodgers for “proving they were committed to winning!” Meanwhile, everyone in Boston was just like, “Wait, for real? What’s the catch? Don’t those people know that Josh Beckett is just the worrrrssssttt???”

But that’s not the only reason the Red Sox are playing so much better. It cannot be overstated how much of a poison Bobby Valentine was to this team. From everything I’ve heard from behind the scenes, the guy was every bit the clown he looked to be publicly and then some. Publicly, we got little snippets of it, like the time he didn’t know whether the opposing starter was a righty or lefty and had to be told by Jarrod Saltalamacchia that the lineup was wrong. Stuff like that was a common occurrence with that goober in charge, and frankly I’m a little surprised the athletic department of Sacred Heart hasn’t completely crumbled yet.

So getting rid of him was huge in that players’ spirits weren’t completely broken down upon their arrival at the ballpark every night. Ben Cherington, who’s still hard to really read or evaluate to this point, also made a few small but key additions. Shane Victorino, much to my surprise, has been pretty awesome filling a spot in the top of the lineup that’s been vacant for years. Mike Napoli signed on for $39 million, only to be told his hip was so bad that he’d only be getting $5 million, and he’s been a pretty solid, reliable addition to the middle of the order, despite all the strikeouts.

Add in Ortiz, Pedroia and Ellsbury all pretty much playing like you’d expect them to, and it’s easy enough to see how it’s all working. The Dodgers, committed to winning, are one game under .500 since taking on all of the Red Sox’ dead weight. Thanks, L.A., you’re the best!

Keefe: Shane Victorino’s playing? And Mike Napoli? And David Ortiz? And Dustin Pedroia? And Jacoby Ellsbury? Wow, that must be nice. I guess you’re feeling the way I would feel if Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Youkilis and Francisco Cervelli (yes, Francisco Cervelli) were playing. But they’re not and we’re stuck with the names I gave you earlier.

Things aren’t getting any better either as Derek Jeter will start the second half on the disabled list retroactive to when he injured his quad in his first game back since the Game 1 of the ALCS. But A-Rod is coming back on Monday night in Texas, if he isn’t given a 150-game suspension or banned from the game Pete Rose style, so at least we’re getting back our 38-year-old $29 million singles hitter!

The weird thing is I still believe in the Yankees. Not the Makeshift Yankees. But the real Yankees, when and if they ever come back. I think it’s a miracle this team has the record it does and is in the position its in despite having everyone short of you playing for them this season.

If I believe in the 51-44 Yankees who are six games back in the division then you must really believe in the Red Sox for the first time in 23 months. Do you believe in the Red Sox or do you miss the days of 2012 when Bobby Valentine was being praised for building a fence, fans were wearing paper bags over their heads and tickets to Fenway Park cost less than a single T Fare?

Hurley: It’s weird here. On the one hand, seeing this team compete like this has been a pretty fun, refreshing change of pace. Don’t get me wrong, last year was hilarious, and it was fun to watch, but only in the way watching awful reality television is entertaining. (Speaking of which, I can’t believe Bob Valentine doesn’t have his own reality show.) This year’s team has done enough to prove to me that they’re for real.

The problem with the Red Sox is, like you, I’m not counting out the Yankees, and you can’t count out the Orioles or the Rays. All of this positivity for the Red Sox could end up leaving them at the end of the season with the same playoff prospects as last year. It’s a pretty ridiculous race in the AL East right now, but hey, thank goodness some crappy team from the NL West will by default be given a free pass to the divisional round while a much more qualified team in the AL East (or perhaps two teams) will be forced to put its season on the line in a three-hour exhibition that will wipe out the work done over the previous six months! Wahoo!

With the reality of a one-game playoff, how can you ever feel good about your team’s chances when it’s involved in a tight divisional race? An idiot umpire could botch an infield-fly call and allow a team that won six fewer games than you to advance to the divisional round while you go home for the winter.

I guess my point is that baseball is stupid.

Keefe: You still haven’t come around on the one-game playoff? OK, good because I haven’t either and I never will. But don’t forget what everyone says: Just win your division! It’s that easy!

I guess my optimism for the Yankees comes from the fact they still play the Red Sox 12 times, the Rays nine times and the Orioles seven times. And let’s not forget the Yankees have three games with the Padres and close the season with a three-game series in Houston. So if the season comes down to the final weekend, I will feel good knowing that the Yankees will play the Astros, but I will be worried about my emotional state if the Astros keep the Yankees out of the playoffs. Let’s hope the season doesn’t come down to the final three games.

As for this weekend, we get Andy Pettitte-Felix Doubront, Hiroki Kuroda-John Lackey and CC Sabathia-Jon Lester. So that means the Pettitte-Doubront game will be the 2-1 pitching duel and the Sunday Night Baseball matchup will be the 14-12, six-hour affair that leaves you owing all of next weekend to your wife for staying up until 2 a.m. to watch baseball on Sunday night and being too tired to do anything on Monday after work.

The Yankees are still very much alive, but they need to start putting together series wins like they did in April and May. What better place to start doing that than this weekend in Boston?

Hurley: D will be asleep before first pitch, because she’s better at life than you and I.

This is a fun series, though. For the first time in a while, I’m really excited about a series in Boston. I kind of feel like baseball’s back, though I do have this sort of guarded position. When things were as bad as they were last year, it still feels like this whole “winning” thing is a mirage. At the same time, if the Red Sox sweep the Yankees this weekend and crush your soul, I might be fully on board.

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Blogs • MLB

Jun 26, 2013

The 2013 All-Animosity Team

It’s time for the Fourth Annual All-Animosity Team, which consists of one player at each position, along with a starting pitcher, a closer and a manager from around the league.

It’s time for the Fourth Annual All-Animosity Team. Once again the team consists of one player at each position, along with a starting pitcher, a closer and a manager from around the league. The standards to be considered for the team are simple and only one of the following three requirements needs to be met.

1. The person is a Yankee killer.

2. The person plays for the Red Sox.

3. I don’t like the person. (When I say, “I don’t like the person” or if I say, “I hate someone” I mean I don’t like the person who wears a uniform and plays or manages for a Major League Baseball team and not the actual person away from the game. I’m sure some of the people on this list are nice people. I’m glad we got that out of the way since I can already see Player X’s fan base in an uproar about me hating someone who does so much for the community.)

So, here is the 2013 All-Animosity Team with the winners from the previous years also listed.

C – Jarrod Saltalamacchia (2012 – Matt Wieters, 2011 – Jarrod Saltalamacchia, 2010 – Jason Varitek)
Matt Wieters has been so bad this year (even against the Yankees) that I couldn’t justify putting him in the lineup. So I gave the nod to the one they call “Salty” in Boston even if I don’t have any real animosity toward him since I welcome his at-bats against the Yankees.

Congratulations on making the team, Salty! Even if you don’t deserve to be here. We’ll just consider it the same as when Jason Varitek made the 2008 All-Star Team because Terry Francona was the manager despite Varitek hitting .218 with seven home runs and 28 RBIs at the break.

1B – Chris Davis (2012 – Adrian Gonzalez, 2011 – Adrian Gonzalez, 2010 – Kevin Youkilis)
You have to be good to make this list and Chris Davis isn’t finally good, he’s unbelievable. Not unbelievable in the sense that he is getting help like Melky Cabrera did, but unbelievable like Jose Bautista became between his age 28 season and his age 29 season.

Davis has 28 home runs and 72 RBIs in 77 games this season and is hitting .333/.409/.716. If Miguel Cabrera didn’t exist, Davis would be a potential Triple Crown winner, but Cabrera does exist and has him beat in RBIs (77) and average (.368).

Last season he hit only .220 with three home runs and nine RBIs against the Yankees in 15 games. But this season Davis is hitting .409 with two home runs and three RBIs in just six games against the Yankees with 13 still left to be played.

2B – Dustin Pedroia (2012 – Dustin Pedroia, 2011 – Dustin Pedroia, 2010 – Dustin Pedroia)
There isn’t much left to be said about Dustin Pedroia that I haven’t already said about him over the last three years here. So I will just put down what I put for him the last two years.

Pedroia is like Tom Brady for me. He has that winning instinct that you just don’t see all the time these days, he plays hard and he’s the type of guy you want on your team. But if I didn’t put him here again it would just be weird.

3B – David Wright (2012 – Robert Andino, 2011 – Kevin Youkilis, 2010 – Chone Figgins)
Another change at third base where we have had a different player each season. This year I’m going with David Wright and the only reason I didn’t go with him in the past was because he plays in the National League and only sees the Yankees in the Subway Series. But it’s David Wright: the face of the Mets. He deserves to be on this team. He has deserved it all along. Sorry for the delay, David.

SS – Jose Reyes – (2012 – Jose Reyes, 2011 – Jose Reyes, 2010 – Jose Reyes)
Is anyone still debating whether Derek Jeter or Jose Reyes is the better shortstop? No? I didn’t think so.

It’s no surprise that the Blue Jays tied a franchise record with 11 straight wins and briefly climbed over .500 and people are wondering if it’s a good idea to insert Reyes into the lineup when he returns from a high ankle sprain. If it were any other player of Reyes’ supposed caliber, it would be a no-brainer, but when you’re talking about a player like Reyes, who brings with him nine years of Mets stink and a year of miserable failure with the Marlins, well it’s a little more complicated.

Obviously the Blue Jays are going to put the guy they owe at least $96 million between this season and 2017 back at shortstop since chemistry in baseball is overrated and unnecessary. But hopefully Reyes’ return sends the Blue Jays back to where they were two weeks ago.

LF – Carl Crawford (2012 – Delmon Young, 2011 – Delmon Young, 2010 – Manny Ramirez)
It’s unusual for me to put a National League player on the team if they aren’t a Met, but Crawford is a former Red Sox. However it’s surprising for me to put Crawford on the team because prior to joining the Red Sox, he was (along with Ichiro) my favorite non-Yankee in the league.

Crawford signed his seven-year, $142 million deal with the Red Sox and then hit .255/.289/.405 in 2011 before playing just 31 games for the Red Sox in 2012 prior to being traded to the Dodgers. He complained about the media coverage in Boston while still playing there and whined even more about it after leaving. He didn’t like the fact that he was criticized for hitting 41 points below his career average in his first season as a newly-signed free agent. So Crawford made sure everyone knew his feelings were hurt on his blog on ESPN Boston and then with reporters because it’s no fun playing baseball when you’re due $142 million over the next seven years and people are mean to you.

CF – Ben Zobrist (2012 – Josh Hamilton, 2011 – B.J. Upton, 2010 – Vernon Wells)
With Dustin Pedroia having a stranglehold on second base for as long as this team exists, I needed to find a way to get Ben Zobrist into the lineup. And the only way to do that was to put him in left field or move Crawford to center and put Zobrist in left, but that would mean putting two people out of position. And I don’t want to take Crawford out of his comfort zone since we all know how much he doesn’t like hitting leadoff or playing center field.

Why is Zobrist on this list when he’s a career .261 hitter and the most overrated fantasy baseball player ever because he has played every position in his career other than pitcher and catcher? Because he’s the most feared hitter against Mariano Rivera since Edgar Martinez. Zobrist is 3-for-3 lifetime against Number 42. Those hits? Two doubles and a triple.

RF – Nick Swisher (2012 – Jose Bautista, 2011 – Magglio Ordonez, 2010 – Magglio Ordonez)
I started doing the All-Animosity Team in 2010 and I have waited since then to put Nick Swisher in right field, but because he was on the Yankees, I couldn’t. (The same way I couldn’t include Nick Johnson in 2010 or A.J. Burnett in 2010 or 2011.)

My feelings on Swisher are well documented (especially here) about his time as Yankee and how badly I wanted him out of New York. I’m happy with the way he went out by turning his back on the fans, who put up with his nonsense and clown act for four seasons, but I’m unhappy about the way he was greeted like he had something while playing here when he returned with the Indians.

SP – Josh Beckett (2012 – Josh Beckett, 2011 – Josh Beckett, 2010 – Josh Beckett)
The face of the franchise keeps his spot as the ace of the All-Animosity rotation despite moving to Los Angeles. And if you haven’t kept track of Beckett now that he is in the NL West, let me fill you in.

Beckett is 0-5 with a 5.19 ERA in eight starts. He has a 1.500 WHIP and has made it past the sixth inning once. He’s been on the disabled list with a groin strain, but is also experiencing numbness in his pitching hand and hasn’t started a game since May 13.

Back in December before his first full season with the Dodgers (or what would have been his first full season with the Dodgers if he hadn’t landed on the DL again), this picture surfaced from TMZ showing Beckett riding a surf board that his wife was paddling. I want to know if he had to use one of his 18 off days to enjoy this activity? Oh, no, that’s right. I forgot that he doesn’t just get 18 days off between April and September. He also gets the six months off when he isn’t “working” or pitching 33 times a year. Then again, he hasn’t made 33 starts since 2006.

Can someone remind me again why the Dodgers bailed the Red Sox out?

CL – Fernando Rodney (2012 – Jose Valverde, 2011 – Jonathan Papelbon, 2010 – Jonathan Papelbon)
Rodney earned himself this spot on Sunday after his theatrics following the Rays’ 3-1 at Yankee Stadium as his charades rivaled Jose Valverde’s (a former All-Animosity Team member).

Rodney wears his hat to the side in a way that hasn’t been seen since Abe Alvarez did so for the Red Sox in four games between 2004 and 2006 and on top of it all, people think Rodney is good to great when he really isn’t.

Last season at the age of 35, Rodney saved 48 games for the Rays with a 0.60 ERA and 0.777 WHIP in 74 2/3 innings. But prior to 2012, Rodney had a 4.29 career ERA and 1.367 WHIP with the Tigers (2002-09) and Angels (2010-11). This season, Rodney is back to being his old self with a 4.83 ERA and 1.453 WHIP and I’m happy to have the old Rodney back even if he did embarrass the bottom of the Yankees order on Sunday.

Manager – Mike Scioscia (2012 – Bobby Valentine, 2011 – Mike Scioscia, 2010 – Joe Maddon)
With Valentine out of the league and serving as the athletic director at Scared Heart University in Connecticut (how is he qualified for that job?), the managerial job goes back to Mike Scoiscia.

Scioscia is widely regarded as a baseball genius, and to some the best manager in baseball, who teaches the game the right way and has the most fundamentally sound team in the league. (What? You didn’t know that they go first to third better than any team in the league?). As of Wednesday, the Angels are 34-43 (.442) and 10 games back in the AL West. The only team with less wins than them in the American League is the Houston Astros, a team with a payroll of $26,105,600, which is $1,894,400 less than A-Rod is making this season and he has played zero games and written one newsworthy tweet this season to earn his paycheck.

The Angels haven’t been to the playoffs since 2009 when they lost in six games to the Yankees in the ALCS. In 2010, they went 80-82 to finish 10 games back and in third place in the AL West and 14 games out of a playoff spot. In 2011, they went 86-76 to finish 10 games back and in second place in the AL West and five games out of a playoff spot. In 2012, they went 89-73 to finish five games back and in third place in the AL West and four games out of a playoff spot.

Scioscia’s teams have one postseason series win (2009 ALDS vs. Boston) since reaching the 2005 ALCS and have five postseason appearances in the 10 years since winning the 2002 World Series. It might be time for Mike Scioscia to stop being given unnecessary praise.

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Blogs • Yankees

Apr 2, 2013

Opening Day Debacle

The Yankees were embarrassed at home on Opening Day with a makeshift lineup and CC Sabathia on the mound.

Opening Day never really feels like Opening Day. Monday didn’t feel like it would be the first day of baseball nearly every day for the next six months (and hopefully for a seventh month). Even as I rode a packed 4 train to 161st Street, bouncing around between strangers like Cheri Oteri in a Roxbury Brothers skit on Saturday Night Live, it didn’t feel like I was going to a real game. And it especially didn’t feel like I was going to a real game because this is what I woke up to on Monday morning.

Gardner 8
Nunez 6
Cano 4
Youkilis 3
Wells 7
Francisco 0
Suzuki 9
Nix 5
Cervelli 2

Given the names, that’s about the worst Opening Day lineup you could imagine as a Yankee fan, but it was even worse when you realize the way Joe Girardi decided to organize those names.

It’s hard to argue with Vernon Wells hitting fifth in the lineup since there weren’t many options even if Wells hasn’t hit like a No. 5 hitter in three years. And it’s hard to argue against Ben Francisco being in the lineup since there were no other right-handed bats available on the bench and Girardi would give up eating before he would he would give in to inserting a left-handed bat against a left-handed pitcher if he didn’t have to. But Ichiro hitting seventh on Opening Day against a left-handed pitcher in the worst regular-season Yankees lineup in two decades is the most Joe Girardi thing Joe Girardi could have done. Girardi’s need to go lefty-righty down the entire order is appalling, disgusting and disturbing and his overmanaging in Game 1 of 2013 was just as bad as his overmanaging in Game 1 of 2012 when he had Sabathia intentionally walk Sean Rodriguez. (He had Sabathia intentionally walk Jonny Gomes on Monday, so at least he’s consistent). The idea that Eduardo Nunez should be hitting second in this lineup or any lineup ever is more unfathomable to me than New York City just now extending subway service on the East Side. And the only thing Girardi’s creation was missing was Steve Pearce hitting cleanup.

I will commend Girardi for finally hitting Robinson Cano third after all these years. All it took was A-Rod suffering a possible career-ending injury and needing surgery and Mark Teixeira enduring a “strained” wrist for Girardi to put Cano into the 3-hole in the lineup since he hasn’t been the best player on the team for three-plus years now or anything.

The lineup really didn’t matter on Opening Day because when your starter puts 12 men on base in five innings, and gives up four runs, it’s hard to win, even if the opponent is last year’s last-place team. If CC Sabathia is going to lay an A.J. Burnett-like egg while being backed by a lineup that features the Ghost of Vernon Wells and the recycled Ben Francisco in power spots then the Yankees are going to have even more problems than wondering about the health of Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, A-Rod and Teixeira.

Here’s what CC Sabathia has now done in five Opening Days with the Yankees.

April 6, 2009 @ BAL: 4.1 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 0 K

April 4, 2010 @ BOS: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

March 31, 2011 vs. DET: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

April 6, 2012 @ TB: 6 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 7 K

April 1, 2013 vs. BOS: 5 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 R, 4 BB, 5 K

I want the “CC Sabathia isn’t good on Opening Day or in March and April” narrative to stop. (He’s 20-15 with a 4.18 ERA in March and April.) Sabathia gets paid the same amount in March and April that he does in May, June, July, August and September. That means that over 34 starts per year, the amount is $676,470.59 and Sabathia’s problems shouldn’t be written off the same way Mark Teixeira’s problems are (when he’s playing) in the same months. Yesterday while I was battling the elements of April weather in New York in the right field bleachers, battling the sore sight that is the 2013 New York Yankees lineup and battling the $11 Coors Light prices, CC Sabathia was making almost $700,000 and then having excuses made for him by beat writers because he’s a “slow starter” as the Yankees lost for the first time at home on Opening Day since 1982.

Sabathia fell apart in the second inning after he walked the fearsome Jarrod Saltalamacchia, gave up a single to the vaunted Jonny Gomes, walked Hall-of-Fame bound Jackie Bradley Jr., despite getting ahead of him 0-2, and then gave up an RBI single to the heavy-hitting Jose Iglesias. It was the 6-7-8-9 hitters that started the second-inning downfall for Sabathia and it was Shane Victorino and Dustin Pedroia who did the damage as Sabathia was forced to throw 34 pitches to nine hitters in the inning.

Sabathia is the most important Yankee in 2013 just like he has been every year since 2009. It’s his job to carry the rotation and for now carry the team every fifth day until the lineup resembles something that’s not only worthy of wearing pinstripes, but of being in Major League Baseball. On Monday, he failed to his job and was outpitched by a starter and hit around by a lineup that’s failed their team for the last two years. Sabathia lost in his typical Opening Day fashion to a team coming off a 93-loss season and sent Yankee fans into the first off day of the season counting down the minutes until Hiroki Kuroda’s first pitch on Wednesday.

Yankee Stadium looked empty on TV in the ninth inning of Opening Day as I watched from Billy’s Sports Bar on River Ave. to the point that I thought the game had ended and an entire inning had been played in my two-minute walk from the bleachers to the bar. And on Tuesday, everyone wanted to talk about how Yankee fans should feel embarrassed and ashamed for leaving early and not sticking around in the rain and freezing temperature to watch the Yankees try to erase a five-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning with Lyle Overbay, who was released by the Red Sox a week ago leading off. I don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed for leaving early. I feel embarrassed and ashamed for staying as long as I did.

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