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Tag: Johnny Damon

Blogs • Yankees

Aug 20, 2013

Alex Rodriguez vs. Ryan Dempster

Ryan Dempster wanted to leave the game a hero on Sunday night in Boston, but he left the game a loser, who helped the Yankees’ playoff chances and made A-Rod out to be the good guy.

The last time the Yankees and Red Sox started a regular-season gongshow I was playing in a Wiffle ball tournament on my friend’s front lawn. I remember hearing the news and being devastated that I missed it, but not as devastated as I was a few hours later when I found out the Yankees had lost the game on a Bill Mueller walk-off home run.

I never believed that brawl turned the Red Sox season around. The Red Sox had a rotation led by Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, the best 3-4 lineup combination in the world with David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez (two performance-enhancing drug users that the city of Boston has conveniently forgot about), a .304/.380/.477 guy leading off in Johnny Damon and a strong mix-and-match bullpen. They made a key deadline trade and won 98 games. They weren’t an underdog story and were never supposed to be one. They were built to be a juggernaut and a bench-clearing brawl didn’t make them one.

I don’t think the near-brawl on Sunday night will turn the Yankees season around. If the Yankees make the playoffs it will be because they are finally healthy for the first time this season and their lineup finally has actual Major League players in it. They will make the playoffs if CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte stop sucking. And they will make the playoffs if Phil Hughes only sucks a little. They won’t make the playoffs because Ryan Dempster wanted a picture of him and A-Rod in every bar in Boston the way the picture of A-Rod and Varitek is.

After Ryan Dempster’s first fastball sailed behind A-Rod’s legs on Sunday night, I thought it just got away from Dempster and the Fenway crowd’s cheers were an attempt to relive what happened nine years ago and make something of a nothing moment. Then the second fastball came inside on A-Rod, but not enough for him to move out of the way and I thought Dempster was just going to pitch A-Rod inside and try to get him to ground out to short or pop one up in the infield. The third fastball was more inside than the second pitch and A-Rod jumped back, but it wasn’t as much inside as the first pitch and a reason to think anything. And then there was the fourth fastball, which drilled A-Rod in the side.

Immediately following the fourth fastball, I didn’t think Ryan Dempster was trying to hit A-Rod. Why would he? Up until that hit by pitch, A-Rod had been 2-for-2 (two singles) with a walk against Dempster in his career, but that certainly wasn’t enough for Dempster to want to hit him unless A-Rod showboated on one of those two singles. And here were the Red Sox, leading the Yankees 2-0 with a chance to win the game and the series and bury the Yankees’ division chances, so why would Dempster hit him? It couldn’t possibly be because A-Rod had been suspended 211 games by Major League Baseball for performance-enhancing drugs and that he was still playing after appealing his suspension? Ryan Dempster, who has been a player rep, couldn’t possibly be against the rules that he helped create as part of the union, could he?

I didn’t immediately think that Ryan Dempster could think he is Mr. Baseball and the protector of the game. I didn’t think that the failed starter turned failed reliever turned failed closer turned average NL starter turned awful AL starter would think that it’s his duty to take a stand against PEDs and back the sport that cared less about PEDs 15 years ago than they do terrible umpiring now. But for that at-bat and I’m sure the time leading up to that at-bat when he found out he would pitch against the Yankees and A-Rod in the series, Dempster thought he was a first-ballot Hall of Famer and the face of the good guy’s in baseball and forgot that he’s the career under-.500 pitcher with the 4.87 ERA since coming to the AL last season and the only thing he’s ever led the league in is walks (2001) and earned runs (2002).

Going into Sunday night and into that first at-bat with A-Rod, Dempster undoubtedly thought he would leave Sunday night’s game as someone who did baseball a favor, a hero in Red Sox Nation, a role model for the sport and the first guy to stand up to PED users on the field. But when he left Sunday night’s game with one out in the sixth inning to the most embarrassing of Fenway Park standing ovations (and there have been plenty of them over the years) after giving up an absolute A-Bomb to A-Rod and loading the bases, Dempster hadn’t accomplished any of his goals. And when Brett Gardner smoked a three-run triple, which cleared the bases that Dempster had loaded up for Drake Britton and gave the Yankees the lead, the only thing Dempster had accomplished was opening the door for the Yankees’ division and playoff chances a little more and turning A-Rod into somewhat of a likeable figure for those who have no reason to like him.

The difference between Ryan Dempster and I is that I don’t care that A-Rod used PEDs. (This is also the difference between beat writers and I. Well, it’s not the only difference. Excessive eating, giving unnecessary stats, asking bad questions, telling corny jokes and tweeting the play-by-play of spring training games are also some differences.) I don’t care that A-Rod used PEDs, admitted to using them, said he would never use them again and then used them again. I don’t care that he might have thrown other players under the bus or that every day there’s another story connecting A-Rod to shady characters in South Florida or doctors with sketchy pasts or to lawyers better suited for a Lifetime movie or that Brian Cashman is “uncomfortable” talking to him or that his lawyers are planning to sue the Yankees. I care about the Yankees winning games and A-Rod helps them do that.

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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.

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Blogs • Yankees

Aug 14, 2012

I Forgive Derek Lowe

Now that Derek Lowe is a Yankee it’s time to forgive him for his time with the Red Sox and Oct. 20, 2004.

In October 2004, I hated Johnny Damon more than any other athlete. If I had made an All-Animosity Team back then, Johnny Damon would have been the team captain the way Josh Beckett has been for the last three years.

Damon was the founding father of the “Idiot” culture of the 2004 Red Sox and he stood for everything that wasn’t the New York Yankees. Aside from Red Sox ownership he played the biggest role as a player in turning Fenway Park into a social scene, attracting pink hats and a crowd whose primary concern seems to be making sure they use the bathroom before “Sweet Caroline” so they can be at their seat to sing along and sway back and forth. Damon became the face of the Red Sox, personifying the change the franchise underwent by transforming the losing mentality the team and its fans exemplified. I hated Johnny Damon.

By stealing Johnny Damon away from the atmosphere and environment he helped create, in the winter of 2005, the Yankees did more than just acquire their rival’s leadoff hitter and center fielder. They acquired the heart and soul of their rival and at that time – outside of winning another championship – it was the next best thing to making the pain 2004 hurt a little less.

I didn’t think I could ever forgive Johnny Damon for Game 7, but I did. And I’m prepared to forgive Derek Lowe too after already doing the same for Doug Mientkiewicz, Mark Bellhorn, Alan Embree and Mike Myers on much smaller scales.

For someone I have hated for the last 15 years of my life and hated a great deal for nearly the last eight, I feel weird rooting for Lowe, who was the bad guy. It’s almost like I’m rooting for Coach Dan Devine to not put Rudy in for the final seconds of the Georgia Tech game or for the puck to roll on end for Charlie Conway and for him to lose control of it during his triple deke on the penalty shot against the Hawks.

Some Yankees fans don’t like Derek Lowe on the team or anyone from that 2004 Red Sox team, and they will like him less if he gets lit up while with the Yankees. But if he pitches the way he pitched on Monday night and he turns into the guy he was from April 8 to June 1 (7-3, 3.06) and not the guy he was from June 7 to July 31 (1-7, 8.77), those fans will like him too. Then again, if the Rangers had rocked Lowe at the Stadium on Monday night, maybe I wouldn’t be forgiving him. Actually I know I wouldn’t be forgiving him.

There’s nothing that will ever erase those four consecutive October nights from my memory even though I have tried. I have never re-watched any of the games from that series, and aside from each game’s starters throughout the series, I have tried to black out what happened from the ninth inning of Game 4 until the final out of Game 7. When I think back to that series now it certainly doesn’t feel like it could have all unfolded over four consecutive nights. Those four nights felt like 40 while they were happening and the months leading up to Opening Day in 2005 (really Opening Night for the Yankees and Red Sox) felt like an eternity.

I watched Games 1, 2, 3 and 4 from my dorm room in downtown Boston, and I remember the hysteria and chaos following the Red Sox’ Game 4 win that felt like a minor speed bump on the way to the World Series. I actually took the Game 4 loss surprisingly well and shrugged it off because no one blows a 3-0 series lead.

For Game 5, I went to the then-Fleet Bank ATM across from the Park Street T stop on the Boston Commons, and withdrew nearly all of the money I had worked for over the summer to use for spending money that semester. I folded it up and put it in the left chest pocket of my fleece and rode a packed T to Kenmore with my hand over the pocket and the money. I had called my friend, Jim, just a couple hours earlier and told him about some guy I found online who was selling tickets to Game 5. Jim was training for hockey at the time and didn’t think he would be able to get to Boston in time, but I sold him on the idea of watching the Yankees win the pennant at Fenway Park. He got off the ice early, skipped taking a shower (there is nothing in the world that can compare to the stench of a post-hockey skipped shower), loaded up on the deodorant and Axe spray in his glove compartment and turned I-95 North into the Brickyard.

With Jim en route to Fenway, I went from the five-stop T ride to meeting a stranger in his Ford Explorer down a side street near Fenway Park. I was 18 years old and knew Boston as well as I know what Eddie Vedder is saying in “Yellow Ledbetter.” It was 2-to-1 that I would have the money in my left chest pocket taken without receiving tickets and 5-to-1 that the Channel 7 news in Boston was going to lead their broadcast that night with a story about a college freshman wearing a Yankees hat who was last seen trying to buy tickets from a scalper in a Ford Explorer down a Fenway side street rather than the result of Game 5. Actually what am I thinking? A college freshman wearing a Yankees hat in Boston pre-2004 World Series? The Boston Police would have helped cover it up. I probably would have been held captive by a Boston Police Captain like Amanda in Gone Baby Gone.

Jim made it to Boston in record time, but we didn’t get into Fenway until we heard the crowd roaring as Pedro Martinez retired Hideki Matsui to end the top of the first. The Red Sox scored twice off Mike Mussina in the first, but Bernie Williams answered with a solo shot in the second. It remained 2-1 Boston until Derek Jeter hit a two-out, bases-clearing double in the sixth. We were sitting right next to the Pesky Pole in right field (where the Yankees should have won, but Fenway’s short fenced caused a ground-rule double later in the game) and we watched the ball roll into the corner as the Yankees took a 4-2 lead and Jeter ended up on third on the throw. We all know what happened over the next eight innings.

I spent five hours and 49 minutes and 14 innings at Fenway Park that afternoon into night. I spent nearly all of my spending money (who am I kidding with “spending?” … it was for beer and Domino’s, which I still know the number to by heart) on the chance to see the Yankees win the pennant at Fenway Park and for the chance to see the monumental look of devastation on the face of Red Sox fans in their home. I think we can chalk that one up as a bad investment and maybe my worst investment unless we’re counting when I bought the Chumbawamba album “Tubthumper” in sixth grade just for the song “Tubthumping.” We’ll call it a tie.

The next night the Yankees let Curt Schilling shut them down on one ankle and failed to make him move off the mound with bunt attempts. I remember one time in the game when Schilling had to become part of a play at first and he ran like Chien-Ming Wang running home in Houston on the day that changed his career. For all of the great decisions Joe Torre made in his 12 years with the Yankees, not having the team drop downs bunts in Game 6 was one of the Top 5 worst decisions of his Yankees tenure. The other four would be starting Kevin Brown in Game 7 of that series, brining the infield in in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, bringing Jeff Weaver in in Game 4 of the 2003 World Series with Mariano Rivera sitting in the bullpen and not removing the team from the field while the midges attacked Joba Chamberlain in Game 2 of the 2007 ALDS.

The night after that, Kevin Brown took the Yankees out of the game before Tim McCarver could say anything nonsensical (yup, it happened that quickly). Torre called on Javier Vazquez to put out the fire and instead he brought gasoline and matches with him by ending the game on his first pitch. Derek Lowe shut down the Yankees and won the game on three days rest, and I have hated him since. Well, until Monday night.

To me, Derek Lowe on the Yankees puts a little dent into what happened on those four nights. No, it doesn’t erase it because nothing ever will, but it helps to cope with what happened. Johnny Damon shaving his head and pointing during Roll Call and becoming a Red Sox killer and stealing third base against the Phillies and getting doused in champagne in the Yankees clubhouse put a massive dent in it.

The only key pieces left of that Red Sox team still in the league are Lowe and David Ortiz, and I don’t think Ortiz will ever put on pinstripes and take a sledgehammer to the 2004 legacy, but I wouldn’t want him to anyway (though it would be a nice way to get some closure). And with those two being the only remaining active key members of that team, I can say my body is filled with joy knowing that Red Sox fans have to watch the guy who clinched all three 2004 postseason series for them pitch for the postseason-bound Yankees while they watch a losing Boston team playing out the string like the Royals, Twins and Mets.

Derek Lowe is 39 years old and might be at the cul-de-sac of his career, but he wants another chance to win. He proved on Monday night for four innings against the best offense in baseball that he still knows how to.

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Blogs • Yankees

Feb 17, 2010

Some Questions Still Unanswered

Five questions surrounding the Yankees as spring training begins.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com Feb. 17, 2010.

The first day of pitchers and catchers is the first official day of the season. It’s a day that represents the closing days of winter and the excitement for spring and summer. It grants new life to the 29 teams that didn’t finish the previous season with a win, and gives hope to clubs looking to be this season’s dark horse. Today is that day.

Coming off a world championship, Tampa should be relaxed for the first time in a decade. New York’s real baseball problems are in Port St. Lucie at Mets camp where Omar Minaya is trying to build a rotation on the fly and trying to figure out exactly who is going catch that rotation. No one in Queens is satisfied with the situation at first base or in right field, and the team’s center fielder isn’t going to be ready for Opening Day. It’s a good time to be a Yankees fan.

But even with the Yankees boasting a team as good if not better than their 103-win club of a year ago, there are still a handful of minor housekeeping matters to be taken care of over the next six weeks. Here’s five questions surrounding the Bombers at the beginning of spring:

1. Can the veterans stay healthy?
The difference between the 2008 and 2009 Yankees was 14 regular season wins and another 11 wins in October. A serious rash of injuries created this difference. Aside from Alex Rodriguez missing the first month of the season, the Yankees were remarkably healthy in 2009. In 2008, they weren’t as lucky.

The injury bug wreaked havoc on the ‘08 Yankees, landing the following players on the disabled list at least once: Jonathan Albaladejo, Wilson Betemit, Chris Britton, Brian Bruney, Joba Chamberlain, Johnny Damon, Dan Giese, Phil Hughes, Jeff Karstens, Ian Kennedy, Hideki Matsui, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez and Chien-Ming Wang. Starters landed on the DL, as did their replacements, and their replacements’ replacements. It was a disaster from Opening Day through Game 162 in what was the worst season in the Bronx since 1993.

This season, the Yankees are somewhat younger than they were a year ago after trimming Johnny Damon (36) and Hideki Matsui (35) from the roster. However, there is still cause for concern as the team’s superstars get up there in age.

Here are the current ages for the starting lineup: 26, 27, 28, 29, 29, 31, 34, 35 and 38.

Here are the current ages for the starting rotation and closer (Hughes and Chamberlain included): 23, 24, 29, 33, 33, 37 and 40.

There are a lot of 30s listed there, and they are all very significant players on the roster. The Yankees are going to need good fortune and a bill of health similar to 2009 to make another October run, and they are going to need to leave camp healthy.

2. Who’s going to play center field?
When the Yankees traded for Curtis Granderson, I thought they finally had a long-term solution in center field. I was also thinking that Johnny Damon was going to be back in left, but that is clearly not the case. As of now, it looks like Granderson will be in left and Brett Gardner in center, and maybe that is for the better.

The Yankees lost 24 home runs and 82 RBIs from Damon, and 28 home runs and 90 RBIs from Hideki Matsui. Granderson is going to be asked to make up for the offensive production lost with Damon. Nick Johnson will be an upgrade in the on-base department over Matsui, but he isn’t going to be able to provide the power that Godzilla gave the Yankees at DH – unless he becomes a product of the short porch.

With Granderson in left, there will be less wear and tear on his body than there would be in center, allowing him to be stronger offensively. No one is counting on Gardner’s bat anyways and any offense he can provide the team is a plus, but not needed.

If the Yankees feel that Granderson’s game has diminished in center like it appeared to be during the final weeks of last season, then Gardner is the right man for the job. It’s safe to say whatever decision is made at the end of spring training will be changed more than once throughout the year.

3. Who’s going to be the long reliever?
Joe Girardi didn’t think it was necessary to have a long reliever on the Opening Day roster last season. It didn’t take him long to change his mind.

Early on, the bullpen was overtaxed and it didn’t help that the team was asking Edwar Ramirez, Phil Coke, Jose Veras and Brian Bruney to get important outs. Chien-Ming Wang pretty much caused the bullpen fatigue for the first couple of weeks of the season, and the relievers didn’t recover until the Yankees finally made wholesale changes. The same thing can’t happen this season.

Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre will be the long reliever candidates since no matter what the Yankees say, the competition for the fifth spot in the rotation doesn’t include them.

When it comes down to it, Gaudin is the better option. He is more reliable (3.43 ERA in 42 innings with the Yankees) and has had previous success in the majors. Gaudin’s high pitch counts forced Girardi to have a short leash with him in most of his starts, but the ability to help the team is certainly there. I don’t know if you can say the same for Mitre.

Mitre might only be a little over a year removed from Tommy John surgery, but it’s not like he was some stud before his injury. Mitre allowed 71 hits in 51 1/3 innings with the Yankees last season, and posted a 1.63 WHIP, which was only worse than the pitcher formerly known as Chien-Ming Wang’s 2.02 and the always-exciting Edwar Ramirez’s 1.96. I would like to think that the best team in baseball would have someone more reliable than Mitre in the bullpen and serving as the long reliever. Give it to Gaudin.

4. Which A.J. Burnett will show up?
The difference between winning 95 games this season and 105 games depends on which A.J. Burnett comes to pitch.

There’s no doubt that Burnett has No. 1 stuff, but many times, he pitches like a No. 5. His potential no-hitters can quickly turn into four-run deficits, and when his game begins to south, there is no way to right the ship until five days later.

Burnett proved himself in the postseason after finishing the regular season with just 13 wins in 33 starts. His performance in Game 2 of the World Series made up for all the eggs he laid throughout the summer, but it wasn’t enough to fully gain his trust.

When Burnett takes the mound, you hope that you get the guy who allowed one hit to the Red Sox over 7 2/3 innings in August and not the guy who allowed a grand slam to Jason Varitek in April. The season won’t be won or lost because of Burnett, but he has the ability to make the Yankees untouchable in the division and the league.

5. How will the Yankees handle Derek Jeter’s contract situation?
A lot of newspapers will need to fill space between now and the end of the season, and they will argue about the contract status of Derek Jeter to do so.

When Jeter, Casey Close, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner sit down to hammer out a new deal for the face of the franchise and the face of the game, they are going to give Jeter what he deserves: whatever he wants.

Jeter isn’t going to be given a low-ball offer filled with incentives like Joe Torre was, and he isn’t going to be left hanging in the balance like Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada were. Jeter is going to be given a multiyear deal for a lucrative amount of money, and there is no other way it will happen and there is no other way it should.

Speculation can be justified when it comes to the contract statuses of Mariano and Girardi, or with Posada at the end of next season, and that’s because they are not Derek Jeter. There is only one Derek Jeter, and because of that, he ‘s going to get treated and taken care of in a way that no other player will or should. End of story.

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Blogs • Yankees

Feb 1, 2010

I’m Going to Miss Johnny Damon

I can’t believe I’m going to miss Johnny Damon.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on Feb. 1, 2010.

There was a time when the thought of ever being a fan of Johnny Damon’s was laughable. Of course that was when he was patrolling center field for the Red Sox. But after watching Johnny Damon for four seasons in the Bronx, it’s going to be tough to see him go.

Damon – with some help from postseason hero Kevin Brown – played the lead role in the most devastating defeat I will ever endure in my lifetime as a sports fan. When the self-proclaimed “idiot” turned around a first-pitch fastball from Javier Vazquez in Game 7, he ended the deciding game of the ALCS in the second inning. By doing so, he silenced the “1918” chants forever, and kicked off the beginning of my college career in Boston in the worst possible way.

In October 2004, there were few, if any, athletes I despised more than Johnny Damon. I didn’t think I could ever forgive Damon for his Game 7 granny and the deep depression that his one-handed swing drove me into. That all changed prior to the 2006 season when Brian Cashman realized he couldn’t possibly justify having the highest payroll in the league with Bubba Crosby as his Opening Day center fielder. I had spent the last four years using every ounce of my body to dislike Johnny Damon and now I was being asked to do a complete 180 on my feelings toward him.

The thought of Derek Jeter laughing uncontrollably at Damon recapping his Saturday night in Manhattan, or Damon watching Everybody Loves Raymond re-runs with Mariano Rivera in the clubhouse or creating a special handshake with Jorge Posada was too much to bear. I pictured his Eephus-like relays dying in the outfield. It made me want to puke.

Eventually I came to accept the fact that Damon was going to be a Yankee whether I liked it or not. Once I was able to put aside my emotions from Oct. 20, 2004 and think rationally, there were two immediate positives to Damon becoming a Yankee:

1. The Yankees would finally have a real incumbent in center field to Bernie Williams. Cashman had been trying for the previous two seasons to replace Williams in center. His Kenny Lofton experiment in 2004 worked out as well as Jay Leno at 10:00. In 2005, he brought Tony Womack in to play second base, but Robinson Cano’s emergence relegated Womack to the outfield where he was ineffective. That same season Cashman called a 20-year-old Melky Cabrera from Triple-A too early and his short stint ended with an inside-the-park home run in Fenway at the rookie’s expense. Cashman’s lack of roster depth kept Bubba Crosby on the team long enough that his collision with Gary Sheffield in Game 5 of the ALDS cost the Yankees the series. With the signing of Damon, Cashman was bringing in a proven center fielder who could still play the position (or so we thought), and was still capable of producing offensively.

2. There is really nothing that can erase Oct. 17-20 of 2004, the four darkest days in the history of the Yankees. But if anything could put even the slightest blemish on a week that made me light-headed to look up on Baseball Reference, prying Damon away from the Red Sox could. David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling will always be the most recognized players when it comes to the run that reversed the 86-year curse in Boston, but it was Damon who was the center of attention of the 2004 Red Sox. Damon was the founding father and ring leader of the “Idiot” culture the 2004 Red Sox lived by, and along with Kevin Millar, the duo turned the Red Sox clubhouse into Delta Tau Chi. It was Damon’s appeal that helped turn Red Sox home games into social events, attracting pink hats and a crowd whose primary concern seems to be what inning beers sales end. Johnny Damon had become the face of the Red Sox, personifying the change the franchise had undergone by erasing the losing mentality from the team and the city. By stealing Damon away from the atmosphere and environment he helped create in Boston, the Yankees did more than just acquire their rival’s leadoff hitter and center fielder. They acquired the heart and soul of their rival, and at the time it was the only possible remedy – outside of winning another championship – that made 2004 hurt a little less.

Damon’s career in New York went according to plan. He used the short porch in both stadiums to his advantage, served as a run producer at the top of the lineup and was eventually forced out of center field after years of crashing into walls began to take a toll on his body. The Yankees got exactly what they paid for with Damon, as he was as good, if not better than he was in Boston. There were few surprises when it came to his performance.

After four entertaining seasons, a brilliant base-running decision that will make for a nice “Classic Moment” commercial on YES and a world championship, it doesn’t look like Damon will be returning to the Yankees. However, it seemed unlikely that Damon would be a Yankee when he was sporting a Christ-like beard, so never say never.

Damon is still playing the same free-agent poker game he chose to play with the Red Sox during the holiday season in 2005. Except this time no one is calling his or Scott Boras’ bluff. Some Yankees fans are offended that Damon has decided to hold out for every last penny this offseason, but if you have followed Damon’s previous contract negotiations, his decisions this winter should come as no surprise.

If being a fan favorite in Boston and part of a championship-caliber team couldn’t keep him with the Red Sox at their price, why would Damon sing a different tune under the same circumstances with the Yankees?

Damon has always cared about winning; he has just cared about money more. To his credit, he has never tried to hide the fact that he will go wherever the most money is, even if that means taking offers from non-contenders in baseball Siberia. Damon remains a true reminder that Major League Baseball is a business, and that hometown discounts and loyalty are no longer a part of the game. Then again, it’s hard to blame a player trying to get every last penny he can on what is likely the last multiyear contract of his career.

Cashman and Joe Girardi have preached about getting younger across the board for the last two years, and it just so happens that Damon is being used as the example for their newly instituted philosophy. Locking up a 36-year-old defensive liability with a well below average arm doesn’t really fit their long-term plan. The Yankees never met Damon’s minimum of two years, $22 million to stay in New York, and now it’s Feb. 1 and he is still a free agent.

It took the Yankees eight years of coming up short to spend $423 million on the top three free agents in one offseason. It took the first championship in nine years for the Yankees to decide they needed to work under a budget.

Damon will end up in Oakland or Tampa Bay or San Francisco – somewhere that isn’t the Bronx or Boston. No matter where he goes, it won’t compare to the two cities he has spent the last eight years in.

It will be odd to see Damon return to Yankee Stadium in another uniform, though I won’t miss his unorthodox routes to fly balls or throws that roll to the feet of the cut-off man. But I will miss the clutch at-bats and his patented “point” during roll call.

I thought I’d never say this, but I’m going to miss Johnny Damon.

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