fbpx

Tag: Ian Kennedy

Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Aug 3, 2015

Monday Mentions: The Post-Trade Deadline

The trade deadline has come and gone and it was uneventful for the Yankees unless you like adding former highly-touted prospects that turned into busts and now can’t hit and have no position.

The trade deadline has come and gone and it was uneventful for the Yankees and Yankees fans unless you like adding former highly-touted prospects that turned into busts and now can’t hit and have no position. If you like players like that then you must like the Yankees’ trade for Dustin Ackley.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about the Yankees now that the trade deadline is over.

The answer is three since that’s how many the Yankees have now.

I’m not sure why the trade for Ackley was made. Is it because he was the second overall pick in 2009 and the Yankees think he will now develop into that talent at age 27? Is it because he hit two home runs against Masahiro Tanaka after the All-Star break? Is it because he is a lifetime .296/.397/.481 hitter at Yankee Stadium?

The most puzzling part of the Ackley trade is that the Yankees don’t see him as a second baseman, but rather as a first baseman and outfielder. As long as Robinson Cano was sad when Ackley informed his teammates that he was being traded to the Yankees then I’m OK with the trade since I want Cano to feel the pain I have felt with him in Seattle and the Yankees starting Brian Roberts, Kelly Johnson, Stephen Drew, Gregorio Petit and Brendan Ryan at second base since he left.

Apparently, you’re not aware that Stephen Drew’s dad and Brian Cashman’s dad were roommates in college and Brendan Ryan is married to Brian Cashman’s cousin. That’s the only explanation I have for these two to still be on the team at the SAME TIME while everyone else around them gets designated for assignment. Here’s to hoping Stephen Drew never touches .200 this season.

The Yankees definitely had an odd trade deadline strategy. They weren’t willing to give up any of their top prospects, which is fine, but then they were targeting Craig Kimbrel rather than a starting pitcher. Unless their plan was to pitch Kimbrel, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller for three innings each every fifth day, I’m not sure how not going after a starting pitcher helped improve their shaky rotation.

If Kimbrel had been traded to the Yankees, it would have been intereting to see how the Yankees handled the ninth inning. Kimberl has always been a closer and has led the National League in saves the last four years, which were his first four full seasons in the league, but Miller has been a perfect 23-for-23 in save opportunities this season and dominant in the role. It’s an impossible decision and I’m happy it’s one that doesn’t need to be made now.

That’s a good way to make me cry. The Yankees could have had Johan Santana for three pitchers that are no longer with the organization.

Santana won 16 games in 2008 for the Mets with a 2.53 ERA. The Yankees went 89-73 and missed the playoffs by six games. Darrell Rasner made 20 starts for the Yankees, Sidney Ponson made 15, Joba Chamberlain made 12, Ian Kennedy made nine and Phil Hughes made eight. Those five pitchers won 12 games combined with Kennedy and Hughes winning none.

Santana gave the Mets three great years from 2008-2010 before missing 2011 and then making 21 starts in 2012, and he hasn’t pitched since. I would have gladly paid Santana to not pitch in 2011, 2013 and 2014 if it meant having him for 2008-2010.

On another trade note, remember when Brian Cashman wouldn’t include Eduardo Nunez in a deal for Cliff Lee in July 2010, so the Rangers got Cliff Lee, beat the Yankees in the ALCS and then Lee signed with the Phillies in December 2010? I don’t remember it either.

CC makes about $700,000 per start. That’s a seven followed by five zeroes. Here is what he has done in his last two starts:

5.2 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR

5.0 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 3 HR

In years past, it would be an automatic loss with Sabathia facing the Red Sox at the Stadium like he is on Thursday, but it’s actually a blessing. The Yankees play the Blue Jays on Friday at the Stadium and the new-look Blue Jays missed out on facing Sabathia by one day. On Monday, the first four hitters for the Blue Jays were Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Incarnation. However, the Yankees and Blue Jays have 13 games left this season, so while the Yankees might be able to hide Sabthia from the Blue Jays this weekend and next weekend, it’s going to be hard to hide him forever against the Blue Jays unless they remove him from the rotation.

Mets fans are always so quick to go from a laughingstock to the most overconfident irrational fans in the world. I was at Citi Field on July 23 for Clayton Kershaw’s near perfect game against the Mets and the team was an embarrassment and the fans couldn’t have been more quiet and Citi Field couldn’t have been less full with the best pitcher in the world pitching. Fast forward to Sunday Night Baseball with the Mets looking to sweep the Nationals and the Citi Field crowd chanting “OVER-RATED” at Bryce Harper, who is hitting .330/.454/.667 with 29 home runs and 68 RBIs, which are as bad and ill-timed as the “Yankees suck” chants that will be coming at the end of the month at Fenway Park with the Red Sox a million games behind the Yankees.

I remember the good old days of “Reyes is better than Jeter” debates, which were equally as funny as the “Nomar is better than Jeter” debates I had to listen to growing up. Reyes is 32 years old, now playing for his fourth team in five years and is owed $22 million in 2016 and 2017 with a $22 million team option of $4 million buyout in 2018. There’s a 100 percent chance that option gets bought out when Reyes is 35. When Jeter was 35, he won his fifth World Series. Good debate.

Read More

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 1, 2015

Brian Cashman and Yankees Know Nothing About Pitching

The Yankees’ putting Adam Warren in the bullpen and skipping a Michael Pineda start are the latest moves on a long list of ridiculous decisions.

nyy

Maybe it doesn’t seem like the best time to complain about the Yankees’ handling of their pitching because the offense scored one run on Tuesday night and one run on Monday night and one run on Sunday and two runs on Friday and no runs on Thursday. But there’s not a whole lot that can be done when it comes to the offense except hope someone other than Brett Gardner, Alex Rodriguez or Mark Teixeira gets contributes, hope that Didi Gregarious and Stephen Drew hit like Major Leaguers and hope that Carlos Beltran retires. When it comes to pitching there is plenty that can be done and the Yankees seem to be doing it all wrong.

After CC Sabathia got embarrassed by the Phillies last week, I wrote that he is done. He followed it up with another ugly performance (7.1 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 2 HR) that actually lowered his ERA from 5.65 to 5.59. And on the same night that Sabathia made another $700,000 to lose for the Yankees in what has become the easiest and best job in the world (I will gladly pitch in the majors and lose games for $23 million), the Yankees announced Adam Warren had been removed from the rotation and put in the bullpen. The same Adam Warren who boasts the lowest ERA in the Yankees’ rotation.

Twenty-four hours after Warren was put in the bullpen to supposedly give the Yankees the right-handed reliever they lacked, he entered a game the Yankees were losing and got the last eight outs of a loss. The Yankees’ ERA leader among starting pitchers wasn’t even setting up for Dellin Betanaces in his new role, he was holding a one-run deficit that was never overcome. That role makes a lot of sense and seems like the best use of his abilities.

The Yankees had their PR statement ready for reporters by citing Warren’s inning limits as the reason for the decision. With 82 2/3 innings as a starter, Warren had exceeded his innings totals for the last two seasons, but as a starter in the minors in 2012, he threw 155 innings between Triple-A and the Yankees, and in 2011, he threw 152 1/3 innings. This isn’t really unchartered territory for Warren, it’s just unchartered enough that the Yankees think they can get away with their reasoning.

Maybe the fans who believe the Yankees can do no wrong (the fans that believe Didi Gregarious was worth trading for and that Stephen Drew was worth giving $5 million to and that Esmil Rogers will turn his career around after 454 career innings) might have bought the Yankees’ answer to Warren going to the bullpen if Joe Girardi hadn’t said last week that Sabathia would remain in the rotation because of money. But Girardi gave away their not-so-secret secret last week: this isn’t about innings limits, it’s about money and money owed.

Money is the reason Sabathia was on the mound to lose to the Phillies last Tuesday and it’s the reason he was on the mound to lose to the Angels on Monday. It’s why he will get to start against the Rays on Sunday at the Stadium and likely lose that game too. The Yankees pretend that winning is everything, but when they owe a 35-year-old left-hander more per start (around $700,000) than they are paying a much better starter in Warren for the entire season ($572,600), well, it’s obvious why they chose to let Sabathia continue his campaign to allow 40-plus home runs this season.

But let’s pretend for a second that the decision to remove Warren from the rotation is about innings limits and that the Yankees think everyone is stupid enough to believe their lie. In order to even pretend, we need the answer to two questions: 1.) When was the last time the Yankees successfully handled a starting pitcher when it comes to injuries? and 2.) How do the Yankees think they can protect pitchers from injury? Recent Yankees history can answer these questions for us.

Eight years ago, Joba Chamberlain was called up to the Yankees and the “Joba Rules” were set in place to protect him. Joe Torre would have to give Chamberlain one day off for each inning pitched. And if Chamberlain were to pitch two innings, he would have had to have been rested two days beforehand.

“That’s in stone,” Joe Torre said about the rules in July 2008. “That’s basically to protect the future of the kid.”

The Yankees stuck with that version of the rules through 2007 and Joba’s dominating rookie season, and then in 2008, with his transformation from reliever to starter, they created new rules for him based on innings and pitch counts as if he were an 11-year-old in the Little League World Series. After his 12th start in the majors, Joba went on the disabled list with a shoulder injury, and in 2011, Brian Cashman said, “(Joba) hasn’t been the same since that episode in Texas.” But weren’t the rules Cashman created supposed to prevent that episode in Texas from happening?

In 2009, Joba remained a starter, though not a very good one (9-6, 4.75 ERA in 31 starts) before being put back into the bullpen for the postseason. He never started another game, but he did pitch to a 4.40 ERA out of the bullpen in 2010 and after 28 2/3 innings in 2012, he needed Tommy John surgery. Since returning from the surgery, he has a 4.01 ERA in 146 innings.

Since the 2003 offseason, the Yankees replaced the loss of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and David Wells with Kevin Brown, Jon Lieber and Javier Vazquez; gave Jaret Wright a three-year, $21 million deal; traded away Tyler Clippard for Jonathan Albaladejo; relied on Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa in 2007 and because of it were forced to pay Roger Clemens $17.1 million for 17 mediocre starts; overhyped and rushed Phil Hughes to the majors; gave Ian Kennedy a starting job he hadn’t earned; replaced Hughes and Kennedy with Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson; gave A.J. Burnett a five-year, $82.5 million contract and then traded him to Pittsburgh and paid him to pitch for the Pirates. At this point, I feel like Lenny Koufax telling the judge in Big Daddy all of the reasons why his son, Sonny (Adam Sandler), shouldn’t have custody of Julian. Except there isn’t a happy ending here.

Three weeks ago, the Yankees skipped Michael Pineda’s start to supposedly protect his innings limit. Pineda at the time was 7-2 with a 3.33 ERA and coming off back-to-back wins with 17 strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings. With 10 days rest, he was rocked by the Orioles (4.1 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR). In the four starts since he was skipped, he is 1-3 with a 6.45 ERA, 1.478 WHIP and .311 batting average against. The Yankees interrupted and derailed Pineda’s ace-like season for no reason other than some made-up innings limit idea in order to protect a pitcher who already missed the entire 2012 and 2013 seasons and most of 2014.

Pitchers get hurt. That’s what they do. And the only real way to protect a pitcher from getting hurt is to not let them pitch. The idea that the Yankees have some formula or science to protecting pitchers is a bigger joke than calling Jacoby Ellsbury “tough”. They have no idea what they’re doing, no one does, and even though no one does, the Yankees have even less of an idea than anyone else.

The Yankees’ unnecessarily tinkered with their best starting pitcher’s season and he hasn’t been the same, their $155 million free agent pitcher with a torn elbow has been inconsistent, their former ace wouldn’t be picked up off waivers and their best starter in the last week has made two starts since returning Tommy John surgery. And now their most consistent starter all season is pitching out of the bullpen in games the Yankees are losing.

The Brian Cashman Yankees don’t know pitching. They don’t know how to develop them consistently and they certainly don’t know how to keep them healthy. The only thing the Yankees know when it comes to pitching is how to give a free-agent pitcher a blank check and from there they just hope they stay healthy. Even then, they don’t know what they’re doing.

Read More

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jun 3, 2014

The A’s Have a Team Built for the Bronx

The A’s have been rolling along all season with the combination of starting pitching and power hitting the Yankees have always had and will need to contend this season.

Detroit Tigers v Oakland Athletics

After the Yankees finished their nine-game road trip with four wins in their final five games, it looked like they might finally be ready to go on a run as the calendar turned to June with a seven-game homestand. But after losing two of three to the Twins and then their makeup game against the Mariners, that run never happened. And things don’t get easier with the A’s, the best all-around team in the American League coming to the Bronx for three games.

With the Yankees and A’s meeting at the Stadium this week, Alex Hall of Athletics Nation joined me to talk about how the A’s keep producing front-end starting pitchers, if A’s fans are tired of just making the playoffs and what it’s been like over the years to see star players forced to leave due to finances.

Keefe: Right now the Yankees’ rotation is Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Vidal Nuno, David Phelps and Chase Whitley. That’s the New York Yankees. With Ivan Nova lost for the season, Michael Pineda suspended and then injured and CC Sabathia on the disabled list, the Yankees are trotting out a rotation that has me longing for the days of the 2008 when Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson were 40 percent of the rotation after Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were injured. Or the days of 2007 when Brian Cashman opened the season relying on Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa in the rotation. On the days that Tanaka doesn’t pitch, I have treated any Yankees win like a division-clinching win in September.

Why am I venting about my team’s rotation problems to you, an A’s fan, who is enjoying first place in the AL West? Because it seems like whenever the A’s have a pitching problem they just call up someone who suddenly becomes ace-worthy as if pitching injuries don’t even matter to the organization. What’s it like knowing that if someone in the rotation goes down, there is someone else ready to seamlessly fill in? Let me know so I can live vicariously through A’s fans.

Hall: It is a very liberating feeling, I must say! Billy Beane and his staff seem to press all the right buttons when it comes to pitching, both by turning unknown or undervalued players into stars and by knowing when to quickly pull the plug on experiments that aren’t working out. They also put themselves into a position to succeed by stocking extra depth — you never know when injuries will happen, but you can prepare yourself with a backup plan for when they do.

That depth came in handy this year when Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin both went down in spring training. The A’s had Tommy Milone waiting in reserve, and Jesse Chavez fighting for a spot, and the two of them have been fantastic. When Dan Straily faltered, Drew Pomeranz stepped in; while his low ERA is unsustainable, he at least looks like a league-average starter and he still has upside as he re-adjusts to starting once again. The only thing that worries me with this rotation is its durability — outside of Milone, no one is a good bet to throw 200 innings without wearing down.

Keefe: Because the A’s are the A’s and play in an odd stadium in an odd location and don’t have much money and can’t retain free agents, it’s astonishing to me when they have the type of success they are having now or had last year or the year before, the way it was at the beginning of the 2000s. But I’m guessing for A’s fan the success isn’t so surprising and would like to be met with postseason success.

Here in New York, I grew up in the 90s in the height of the Yankees’ dynasty and since I was nine years old all I have known is October baseball and winning. Yes, I have been spoiled and have seen enough success over the last 18 years to last a lifetime, but now it’s expected every year and when it doesn’t happen it’s disappointing.

When it comes to the A’s, what are the year-end expectations, especially after the team’s resurgence the last few years? Is just making the postseason enough for you, or are you tired of “just” making the postseason?

Hall: In 2012, it was cool just to make the playoffs. The team hadn’t been good for awhile and wasn’t supposed to compete entering the season, so it was exciting to be alive in October. In 2013, repeating the postseason berth and proving it wasn’t a fluke was still satisfying, but it stung a little more when the team was eliminated in uncannily similar fashion to the previous year. This time around, nothing short of a trip to the World Series will feel like a successful season to me, and I think a lot of A’s fans would echo that sentiment. This team is built to win right now and has actually mortgaged a little bit of its future to do so, and a failure to bring home a title, much less a league pennant, would be severely disappointing.

Keefe: I really have no idea how the A’s have been able to put together the run they have over the last few years even with great starting pitching. When I look at the roster and I see former Red Sox like Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss and Jed Lowrie playing important roles for not only a first-place team, but maybe the best team in all of baseball, it hurts my head to think about. How do the A’s win with a questionable lineup on paper aside from really only Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Donaldson? And can you please forward your answer to Brian Cashman. One second and I will get you his email address.

Rather than sink too many resources into a couple of star players, the A’s prefer to find a good, solid player for every position so that there are no weaknesses in the lineup. In addition, manager Bob Melvin is a master at putting his players in the best possible positions to succeed, most notably with his aggressive use of platoons. In that way, the whole can come out greater than the sum of the parts — each player fits into the greater scheme of things and complements his teammates well.

Hall: Of course, it helps to have Josh Donaldson in your lineup. Donaldson has been the hands-down MVP of the American League so far — he leads the league in both versions of WAR, he’s a top-five hitter, and he might be the best defender in the AL at any position. The rest of the lineup has a ton of power, gets on base more than any team in baseball (read: makes outs at a lower rate), and gets into bullpens quickly by running up opponents’ pitch counts with patient at-bats. There aren’t a lot of big-name hitters, but the Big Green Machine leads MLB in scoring.

Keefe: This offseason when Robinson Cano left via free agency for Seattle and $240 million it was the first time I watched the Yankees get outbid by another team and lose a star player to the system they helped create and then dominate. I didn’t like the idea of lowballing Cano and then using the additional money he could have been offered on Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran since the Yankees didn’t need Ellsbury and Beltran seemed like a luxury and throw-in by the front office to give the fans a “new toy” for the season before the Masahiro Tanaka signing happened.

You have had to deal with superstars on the A’s leaving through free agency for more money over the years and have had to watch impending free agents get traded off before they hit the market for prospects and lesser names to stay under budget. Has it been frustrating to watch the team continually build for the future and be forced to lose star players, or was it all worth it now that the A’s are back to competing for a championship each year?

Hall: On the contrary, it’s kind of exciting. Every year is different, and you never know what to expect other than the fact that Billy Beane will be trying his hardest to win. He never punts a season, evidenced by the fact that he’s never had a team lose 90 games, which means that any year could be the year that everything clicks and the club rises back to contention. In this case, that year was 2012, and we’re still riding the wave. Of course, the flip side of that is that everything can come crashing down in an instant. A couple of key injuries, a bit of regression, and suddenly the team is on the outside looking in. I do sometimes envy big-market teams who can afford to keep fan favorites around for 10 or 15 years and truly have them as their own, but being an A’s fan feels like being on the cutting edge of baseball history. Where Oakland goes, the sport tends to follow.

Keefe: Before the season, I’m sure you expected the A’s to compete for the West again and return to the postseason after the last two seasons, and why wouldn’t you? But what were your preseason expectations? And after watching the team now for two months, have your preseason expectations changed now that you have seen what the team is capable of?

Hall: Certainly, I expected the A’s to win the West again. However, I was expecting another tough battle with Texas and the Angels, and that expectation hasn’t changed. The A’s have gone nuts so far and built themselves a nice cushion, but fortunes can change quickly and you can never take anything for granted in this sport. The Rangers have watched half their team get injured, and the Angels have watched some key stars begin their declines earlier than expected. But Texas isn’t out of it and the Angels have fully bounced back from last year’s disaster. The A’s are the hot team right now, but this race isn’t over.

Read More

Blogs • Yankees

Mar 25, 2013

Welcome Back, Chien-Ming Wang

Once upon a time Chien-Ming Wang saved the Yankees and now he’s back with the organization.

Since I was seven years old, the Yankees have missed the playoffs once: 2008. I refer to that year as the Year Without October the way I refer to the 2004 baseball season as the Season That Never Happened. (There was a strike that season and no games were played. Don’t you remember?)

I remember the 2008 Yankees for being miserable and making my summer miserable. And because I relate specific years to how that Yankees season went, when I hear “2008,” I think, “That’s the year I graduated from college and the year the Yankees ruined my summer” and sometimes I think of those two things in reverse order. (OK, I always think of them in reverse order, but I didn’t think it would be a good look to put the Yankees ahead of college graduation.) The truth is that the 2008 Yankees didn’t suck and weren’t even bad. And given their circumstances they were actually pretty good.

That Yankees team went 89-73, which would have been enough to play in a one-game playoff if they were in the AL Central and would have been enough to win the NL West by five games. Their 89 wins were the fourth most in the AL and more than the 2000 Yankees had (87-75) and that team won the AL East by 2 ½ games and won the World Series. But the 2008 Yankees ended the run of 13 straight playoff appearances and because of that I remember them as a failure even if they really weren’t.

That season the rotation featured Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson for 35 combined starts. Andy Pettitte posted career worsts in losses (14) and ERA (4.54) pitching through injuries the entire year in the only .500 season of his 17-year career. Jorge Posada didn’t play in one game in May and played in his last game of the year on July 19. Jose Molina had 297 plate appearances, Chad Moeller had 103 and Ivan Rodriguez had 101. Pettitte, Posada, Jonathan Albaladejo, Wilson Betemit, Chris Britton, Brian Bruney, Joba Chamberlain, Johnny Damon, Dan Giese, Phil Hughes, Jeff Karstens, Ian Kennedy, Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez all landed on the disabled list at least once. LaTroy Hawkins was in the bullpen and so were Billy Traber, Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez. Richie Sexson got to put on pinstripes. So like I said, “Given their circumstances, they were actually pretty good.”

Even during the Murphy’s Law season with all of those things happening during the same year in which the Yankees cared more about Jobamania and his transformation from the best setup man since 1996 Mariano Rivera to starter (which became a circus), the season really ended on June 15 in the sixth inning at Minute Maid Park.

The season ended when Chien-Ming Wang and his .000 career on-base percentage reached base on a fielder’s choice after a failed sacrifice bunt attempt and suffered a lisfranc injury running home on his way to scoring his first career run. The Yankees won that game 13-0 and Wang earned his second-to-last win as a Yankee to this day (the other coming on June 28, 2009 against the Mets), improving to 8-2 on the year with a 4.07 ERA.

To that point in the season, Wang had averaged 6 1/3 innings per start in 15 starts and the Yankees were 12-3 in games he started.  He had won 19 games in both 2006 and 2007 and looked to be a lock for that number again in 2008. With the win over the Astros he improved to 54-20 in five seasons with the Yankees and had become the “ace” of their staff even if Chris Russo strongly believed otherwise.

(To me, Wang was an “ace” during the regular season where his heavy sinker worked the majority of the time over 33 starts. But come postseason time when you didn’t know if Wang’s sinker would sink or not, he was a disaster when it didn’t. He didn’t have strong enough secondary pitches to get outs and would be stubborn on the mound trying to find the sinker because he had to be stubborn about it. He couldn’t really grind his way through starts without his pitch and because of it I consider him a “regular-season ace.” His playoff numbers would consider him that too: 4 GS, 1-3, 7.58 ERA, 19 IP, 28 H, 19 R, 16 ER, 5 HR, 5 BB, 7 K, 1.737 WHIP. The same pitcher who allowed nine home runs in 116 1/3 innings in 2005, 12 home runs in 218 innings in 2006 and nine home runs in 199 1/3 innings in 2007 somehow allowed five in just 19 postseason innings. “Regular-season ace.”)

The Yankees missed the playoffs by six games in 2008 with Rasner and Ponson starting 22 percent of the season and with Dan Giese, Brian Bruney, Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa also getting starts. Six games ended up separating the Yankees from the Red Sox for the wild card (and eight games separated the Yankees from the Rays for the division). You can’t tell me Chien-Ming Wang wouldn’t have made up that difference if he hadn’t been injured. He would have.

Wang saved the 2005 season (along with Robinson Cano’s emergence, Tino Martinez emptying the tank and Jason Giambi turning back the clock or possibly reverting to undetectable performance-enhancing drugs). Wang picked up the only win in the 2006 ALDS against the Tigers (Game 1) and from April 30, 2005 until June 15, 2008 (minus the two months he missed in 2005), he was the closest thing the Yankees had to a guaranteed win every five days before CC Sabathia came to town.

I eventually got used to Wang’s painfully slow windup and let the way he curved his hat go because when you win those things become trademarks and cool and mimicked by others. There isn’t any young baseball player trying to mirror A.J. Burnett’s herky-jerky, inconsistent windup. At least I hope there isn’t. (If A.J. Burnett used Wang’s windup or curved his hat the way Wang did, I would have had enough material for at least three or four more columns from 2009-2011. That’s the difference between winning and losing.)

But if I’m going to mention his 55 wins with the Yankees and his calm and collected demeanor and his victory in Game 1 of the 2006 ALDS then I’m afraid I’m going to have to mention how he single-handedly lost the 2007 ALDS with this majestic pitching line for two games: 5.2 IP, 14 H, 12 R, 12 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 HR, 3.174 WHIP. With that WHIP, Wang essentially loaded the bases every inning he was on the mound in Games 1 and 4 on his way to a 19.06 ERA for the series, which I thought would never be touched, but Phil Hughes made a run at those numbers with his 2010 ALCS performance against the Rangers. (I won’t put his numbers here for fear of having a nervous breakdown remembering that series, knowing it could have ended differently if Hughes had just been atrocious and not disastrous.) And also 2009 when Wang was supposed to be the Yankees’ No. 2 start, but instead was the worst statistical pitcher in Yankees history.

During the last half of the aughts, when Brian Cashman was trading for a 41-year-old Randy Johnson, giving $39.95 million contract to Carl Pavano and $21 million to Jaret Wright, begging a 45-year-old Roger Clemens to unretire and make 17 starts for the Yankees for $28 million and paying $26 million for the rights to give $20 million to Kei Igawa, Chien-Ming Wang was busy winning 68 percent of his starts for the Yankees while being grossly underpaid.

Wang is back where it all began on a minor-league deal with the Yankees that will have him start the season in Triple-A, a place that five years ago you never thought he would never have to pitch again unless it was a rehab start. When asked about Wang’s return to the team, Joe Girardi said, “He was a very good pitcher for the New York Yankees.” But he’s wrong. For four seasons, he was the best pitcher for the New York Yankees.

So welcome back, Chien-Ming Wang. You were never thanked for what you did. Here’s to hoping you get the chance to do some more.

Read More

Blogs • MLB

Dec 7, 2011

Mets Make Moves To Salvage Mess

The Mets responded to the departure of Jose Reyes with a busy Tuesday night in which they traded Angel Pagan and signed a pair of free agents. Rich Coutinho joined me for an epic email discussion to talk about the moves.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Dec. 7, 2011.

The Mets delivered their fans a dagger on Sunday night when they failed to meet or exceed the Marlins’ offer for Jose Reyes, and on Wednesday, Reyes was introduced as a member of the Mets’ division rival.

Right after the Mets watched their franchise shortstop, who has been with the organization for 12 years, leave through free agency, Sandy Alderson spoke with the media and made the Mets’ finances known and what people could expect from the team in the near future as they play with the payroll of a small-market team in the country’s biggest market. Then on Tuesday night, Alderson went on a spending spree and changed the look of the 2012 Mets with a pair of free agents and a trade with the Giants.

With all of the madness of the Winter Meetings, Mets beat reporter and WFAN.com Mets blogger Rich Coutino joined me for an epic email discussion to talk about the Mets’ early offseason moves and the impacts of the series of deals they made on Tuesday night at the Winter Meetings in Dallas.

Keefe: I told Sweeny Murti on Monday (in an epic email discussion for Friday on WFAN.com) that I made sure I called my dad to thank him for being a Yankees fan and for raising me as a Yankees fan following the latest Mets debacle with Jose Reyes signing with the Miami Marlins (typing Miami Marlins is going to take some getting used to).

All season Mets fans were dragged along like a gullible group chasing a $20 bill in a parking lot that’s attached to a fishing line. They figured that the Mets refusal to turn Reyes into a few pieces for the future meant that they would be re-signing their franchise shortstop, who they originally signed in 1999. Now Mets fan are left with nothing, and while watching Mets fans agonize over the state of their team never gets old and being obnoxious to my friends who are Mets fan, even this is a little much.

Back in May I wrote about Yankees fans being fortunate that the Steinbrenners are the owners of the Yankees and not the Wilpons, and on Monday you wrote about Sandy Alderson doing the best job he can under this Mets ownership. But now, just two months removed from another disastrous season in Queens, the Mets are likely headed for another one in 2012 with the other four teams in the NL East in a much better position than them.

So what is going through the minds of Mets fans right now and those that cover the team?

Coutinho: I honestly thought once they did not trade Reyes at the deadline, they would make every effort to sign him. Sure, letting the market set itself was a risky strategy, but when you really think about it, the market on Reyes for whatever reason did come down from the “Carl Crawford” plateau. And then came the Marlins, who I honestly never thought would top $100 million, but they did. I do believe the Mets had a dollar amount in mind and it was five years for $85 million. The reps for Reyes always felt he would get a $100-million deal and given the fact the Marlins and Mets were the only suitors, I give them so much credit for getting this done for Jose.

Reyes is a superstar worthy of this money when you consider guys like Adrian Gonzalez, Jayson Werth, Carl Crawford and Matt Kemp have all signed bigger contracts recently. I think the thing that upsets Mets fans is that they had Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Francisco Rodriguez and now they don’t have any of them, even though most had accepted the fact they would lose two of the three. They understood K-Rod was a money issue and Beltran did return them a big-time prospect in Zach Wheeler. But losing all three is too much to swallow and that is why Mets fans are so upset.

Keefe: Sandy Alderson addressed the media and gave the public an idea as to what kind of financial situation the Mets are dealing with as they move forward. And even after all of this, Bud Selig is still allowing the Wilpons to own the Mets and to continue to destroy the franchise. Now the Mets will be playing in the country’s biggest market with a small market payroll.

I guess the next most logical thing to ask is what do the Mets do with David Wright? The Mets are sort of in this weird place where they need to be in complete rebuilding mode, but they really aren’t. They still have Wright and Jason Bay and Johan Santana on the payroll, and there isn’t much they can do regarding the latter two right now.

Wright is probably the last thing keeping Mets fans from completely losing hope and from the Mets ticket offices from being overtaken and the front office being held hostage. But is there really any point for the Mets to hold on to Wright any longer? The Mets aren’t exactly in a position to win right now and don’t look like they will be in one within the next few years. The Phillies are already a contender, as are the Braves and the Nationals and Marlins are on the rise.

Should the Mets just say, “Eff it!” and move Wright and rebuild this entire thing?

Coutinho: I would say no. Coming off an injury season, David Wright is severely undervalued now and will not get the prospects back that he would in the middle of the season when teams are in desperate need and David has produced his customary numbers.

The other reason is the Mets are in a tough situation, but not a hopeless on. Look at the Diamondbacks, who lost 90 games in 2010 and won their division with over 90 wins in 2011, and they did it with the same cast of offensive players (maybe less if you consider Stephen Drew was hurt most of the year). How did they do it then? They got Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson to pitch at an All-Star level and had a great closer in J.J. Putz, who was finally healthy for them. Nobody and I mean nobody picked them to win the NL West. It is a good blueprint for the Mets to follow but certain things must happen.

Johan Santana must return to the form of being a pitcher with a 3.00 ERA or lower and they must have a second pitcher to give them a solid 3.30 ERA season. R.A. Dickey did that last year while Jonathan Niese, though inconsistent, has the stuff to be that type of pitcher. Clearly, there are a lot of ifs and quite frankly, they’ll also need a reliable closer. My feeling is you start the season hoping this could work and if it doesn’t, you look at Plan B and around the break you try to pry prospects from teams and in the process, shed more payroll.

There’s also the additional wild card team in 2012, which can put additional teams in the playoff picture. That could mean the Mets might have more available trading partners at midseason than they normally would. In regards to the Mets’ payroll, $100 million, to me, is the minimum it should be at in this market. The chances are it will be a tad lower than that on Opening Day, but a good start could entice the Mets to add on if the situation presents itself. I try to compare the Mets’ situation to other companies that might have lost $70 million last year. Do you think any of them would add employees or would they cut payroll? Now it is fair to concede with a cut payroll, but expectations should be lowered as well in regards to both wins on the field and ticket sales.

The Mets are in a tough spot here and granted much of it is self-inflicted, but Sandy is playing this correctly. He can’t just do things because the fans demand it with the way things change in a hurry in this sport. Who ever thought that Texas would be in back-to-back World Series in a league that houses the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays? Who thought a Cardinals team with a payroll less than $100 million could win it all when most left them for dead in late August? Sandy can’t afford to make a move now because he lost Reyes. He must resist the temptation to overreact to the reaction.

Keefe: I’m sure Mets fans appreciate your optimism.

If Santana does come back and pitch the way he has in the past and you couple that with R.A. Dickey’s 2011 season, then you have something working at the top of the rotation. No, it won’t be easy for the Mets to score runs, but if they can build a stable rotation and one that has a true ace then maybe, just maybe they can hang around during the summer.

At the same time, I’m hoping Johan comes back and is healthy and dominant and the Mets decide that paying him to play for a non-contender isn’t worth it, and the Yankees take him off their hands and relieve them of some payroll. A healthy Santana behind CC Sabathia? Yes, please. But I know that many people are skeptical about what kind of pitcher Santana will be when he returns to the mound, and if he will be anywhere near the pitcher he once was with the stuff he once had, or if he will become the left-handed version of Freddy Garcia.

There were reports on Tuesday that the Mets were part of Mark Buehrle’s list of the final five teams he would sign with, and then there were reports and direct quotes from Sandy Alderson that disputed those claims with Alderson saying that the Mets would not be in contention to sign Buehrle. So maybe this is just Buehrle’s agent (who Alderson didn’t know the name of) using the New York market to drive up the price for his client?

This is good news for me since I’m still holding out hope that he joins the Yankees rotation, but it’s not good news for Mets fans, who might have been expecting the ownership to treat them to one solid free agent this offseason.

Last season the Mets rotation was pretty healthy with five starters making 26-plus starts, and Dillon Gee and Jonathon Niese combining for 53 starts and proving to be viable young arms for the Mets’ future. Aside from Gee, Niese, Dickey, Pelfrey and Capuano, the Mets only used four other starters (Chris Young, D.J. Carrasco, Chris Schwinden and Miguel Batista).

And in the bullpen, after trading Francisco Rodriguez, the Mets juggled the closer role between Bobby Parnell and Jason Isringhausen in an effort to transition Parnell into the role as the closer of the future, but it didn’t really go according to plan.

What do you think the Mets rotation will look like heading into spring training and the season? Who is the next Chris Young or Chris Capuano for them in a low-risk, high-reward arm? And how do they rebuild the back end of the bullpen?

Coutinho: From what I understand, the Mets inquired about Buehrle, but the price was too high. I think he is an absolute horse and would be a great NL pitcher and no worse than a No. 2. If I were the Marlins I’d go with him over C.J. Wilson or Albert Pujols if I could only sign one more free agent. As far as the Mets rotation, I see Santana, Niese, Dickey, Gee, and possibly Pelfrey as No. 5 starter if they tender him.

As far as a reach with starters, why not Rich Harden? I love his stuff and with last year’s high ERA he might come cheap. His K/IP ratio was over one per inning, so I think he might be a low-cost, high-reward type of pitcher the Mets could snare.

I do think the Mets will get a closer, but do not think it will be one of the big three left (K-Rod, Francisco Cordero or Ryan Madson). I think their hope is to stockpile guys relievers like Octavio Dotel, Jon Rauch, Frank Francisco, Chad Qualls or Todd Coffey and develop the back end that way. I thought Jonathan Broxton would have been a good gamble for them, but I agree the Royals overpaid for him at $4 million.

Aside from the relievers they obtain, I think Tim Brydak, Manny Acosta, Pedro Beato, and Bobby Parnell are in the mix as well. Beato and Parnell were spotty at best, but both have live arms and are worth another look. Brydak was solid vs. lefties all year and Acosta turned heads in the season’s final two months by finally realizing you have to throw a breaking pitch even if you possess a plus fastball. (Take note, Bobby Parnell).

The thing I noticed in second half last year after K-Rod left, is that the Mets crashed and burned in so many games from the seventh inning on, and you know what I say about a bullpen, Neil: a good one can cover up weaknesses, whether they be light hitting or starters not going deep in games. On the other hand, a bad bullpen can make every blemish an eyesore and I firmly believe in today’s game, the bullpen can make or break a team no matter how much hitting you possess.

The Cardinals refurbished their bullpen at the deadline, and so did Texas and not coincidentally, both teams made it to the Fall Classic.

Keefe: The Mets were busy on Tuesday night. First they signed Jon Rauch to a two-year deal worth $12 million and they followed that up by trading Angel Pagan to the Giants for Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez. Then they went on and signed Frank Francisco to a two-year deal. And just after hours after you gave me your take on what the Mets’ game plan should be to bolster their pitching staff, your theory on the Mets’ plan to rebuild the bullpen by stockpiling arms couldn’t have ended up being more accurate.

I think the trade of Pagan was a great move since both teams traded guys off down years in hopes of rejuvenating them with a chance of scenery. I don’t think Pagan is actually as good as he was two years ago, and I’m a big fan of Torres’ even if he’s getting up there in age. I haven’t seen as much of Ramon Ramirez since his departure from Boston and the AL East a couple years ago, but I know he has the ability to be dominant in the back of the bullpen and was for long stretches of time in the best division in baseball. Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco also have the ability to be lights out, but they both have had their fair share of struggles the last few years.

Coutinho: I think the Mets got better on Tuesday night. Don’t get me wrong I would rather have Jose Reyes, but Sandy Alderson really improved the team with these deals.

Rauch and Francisco have ability and pitching late innings in the AL East does test your ability. The trade of Pagan was necessary because there were rumblings in the Mets clubhouse that Pagan’s attitude changed dramatically in the second half of the year after the exodus of his mentor, Carlos Beltran. Torres is not the athletic specimen that Pagan is, but he is a much better defensive centerfielder and a great off-the-field guy. He has speed and could bat leadoff although the Mets may have other ideas about the leadoff spot.

The crown jewel though could be Ramirez who has a nasty slider and good heat. More importantly, the Mets have rebuilt their bullpen with three guys that could be penciled into the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Add in Tim Brydak as a lefty specialist and Manny Acosta, who impressed in August and September, and you might have something here. It also affords the Mets the luxury of swing-and-miss guys in the ‘pen and I think not having a solid ‘pen cost the Mets at least 10 games in 2011.

Clearly, there is still a lot of work to do, but Sandy Alderson gets rave reviews from me on a night in which he both reshaped and strengthened the Mets.

Read More