Lyle Overbay – Keefe To The City

Jul 27, 2015

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Pre-2013

When things are going well for the Yankees, I tend to look at the standings a lot. During 2013 and 2014, I tried my best to avoid the standings, especially in August and September after each season-crushing loss.

When things are going well for the Yankees, I tend to look at the standings a lot. From when I was eight years old during the 1995 season through when I was 25 years old during the 2012 season, I looked at the standings A LOT (with the exception of 2008). During 2013 and 2014, I tried my best to avoid the standings each day, especially in August and September after each season-crushing loss.

But ever since the Yankees went to Fenway Park for the last three games of the first half, I have spent an exorbitant amount of time looking at studying the standings as if it were pre-2013 once again. And after the Yankees’ sixth straight series win on Sunday to improve to 14-5 in July, here is how the AL East standings look:

A 6 1/2-game lead in the division with the Orioles being the closest in the loss column at seven back has the Yankees sitting incredibly well for the final 67 of the season. Let’s say the Yankees went 34-33 in the final 67 games, playing .507 baseball for the rest of the season. They would finish 89-73. Here is what the rest of the AL East would have to do just to tie them.

Toronto, 39-23 (.629)
Baltimore, 41-24 (.631)
Tampa Bay, 40-22 (.645)
Boston, 45-18 (.714)

But the Yankees aren’t going to play just .507 baseball the rest of the way and those four teams, none of which are above .500, aren’t going to play as well as those numbers say they need to, which would have only tied them with the Yankees choking away the season. The Yankees are on their way to where they haven’t been in three years and it’s all because everything that went wrong in 2013 and 2014 is going right in 2015.

After two years of everything and I mean everything going wrong for the Yankees, everything is going right for them in 2015. Well, maybe not everything since Stephen Drew is still playing second base and Brendan Ryan is still on the team, but even those two examples prove how fortunate the Yankees have been this season. If it were 2013 or 2014, not only would Drew be starting, but so would Ryan, in the same infield every day and likely hitting in the middle of the order the way that Ichiro, Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells were asked to nearly every day in 2013. Instead, the Yankees have managed to have the second-best record in the AL as of today with their everyday second baseman hitting .188.

The team was able to overcome an embarrassing 3-6 start to the season and a frustrating 1-10 stretch in May, which is when the 2013 and 2014 Yankees fell apart and never recovered. They have won games started by Jacob deGrom, David Price, Max Scherzer, Chris Archer, Scott Kazmir and two games started by Felix Hernandez. They have kept on winning even with Joe Girardi constantly giving unnecessary days off to his best players like how he sat Brett Gardner against a lefty on Saturday or how he sat A-Rod on Sunday after he hit three home runs on Saturday (fortunately the Yankees won both games). And they have overcome having two reliable starting pitchers (both of which are frequently given extra rest between starts), having two starters (CC Sabathia and Nathan Eovaldi) who are coin flips every five days and having their most consistent first-half starter put in the bullpen because of money (Sabathia) and “stuff” (Eovaldi) instead of results. The Yankees have overcome injuries, underachieving, questionable signings and irresponsible roster and lineup decisions to get to where they are.

To think that the Yankees could be where they are right now with arguably their best three players in the rotation, field and bullpen in Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury and Andrew Miller not having all been healthy at the same time from April 24 to July 7 isn’t remarkable or impressive, it’s flat-out ridiculous. And they are where they are even with those three extended absences because Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira have turned back the clock to 2009-2011 when it was Teixeira who would hit third and A-Rod who would hit fourth as the most feared 3-4 combination in the majors; and because Brett Gardner went on the hottest of his patented hot streaks imaginable; and because Dellin Betances, Chasen Shreve and Justin Wilson got everyone out. The performances of A-Rod and Teixeira and Gardner and the bullpen overshadowed Chase Headley’s abyssmal first full season with the Yankees, Didi Gregorius’ New York growing pains, Carlos Beltran’s inability to produce and stay healthy and the constant struggle for Sabathia and Eovaldi to pitch six innings.

Now there are 10 weeks left in the season and the Yankees are as healthy as they can be without any regular position player, starter or reliever on the DL (knock on all of the wood around you) and they are another stretch like they have had the last two weeks from running away and hiding with the AL East.

Some Yankees fans just wanted a return to the postseason in any form in 2015 and that meant accepting a spot in the wild-card game. Me? I wanted the Yankees to win the AL East when the season began the same way I do every season. I wanted to know that the Yankees would be playing past Game 162 and Opening Day wouldn’t be the only day with bunting draped over the second and upper decks at the Stadium. I wanted everything to be the way it used to be and now it looks like it will be.

It feels good to have the Yankees back where they’re supposed to be. It feels good to have the baseball world right again.

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 2, 2015

I Still Miss Robinson Cano

Despite his early-season struggles and the eight-plus years and money left on his deal, I still miss want Robinson Cano and wish he were a Yankee.

I never wanted Robinson Cano to leave. I said as much on Dec. 7, 2013 when his signing a 10-year deal with the Mariners became real. Coming off an 85-win postseason-less year, the Yankees let the best player on the team, in his prime, leave for money. Just money. The one thing that is supposed to separate the Yankees from every other team.

Cano left the Yankees after a .314/.383/.516 season in which he hit 27 home runs and 107 RBIs when his protection varied between Travis Hafner, Vernon Wells, Ichiro Suzuki and Lyle Overbay. He left for a 10-year, $240 million offer the Yankees were never going to give him, left the New York City life for the Seattle life and left behind Yankee Stadium for Safeco Field. But what he really left was a big gaping hole at second base and in the middle of the Yankees’ lineup.

Despite missing 14 games total over the previous seven seasons, being a career .309 hitter with four consecutive Silver Sluggers, two Gold Gloves and finishing in the Top 6 in MVP voting in the last four years, the Yankees decided to lowball their homegrown star with a $175 million offer while gladly overpaying Jacoby Ellsbury with $153 million. So instead of Cano continuing to hit third for the Yankees for the next decade, the Yankees turned a Top 5 hitter in the game, the best all-around second baseman in baseball and a Hall of Fame candidate into Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran.

Since Cano’s departure, second base has been played by Brian Roberts, Brendan Ryan, Yangervis Solarte, Dean Anna, Kelly Johnson, Stephen Drew and Gregorio Petit, a revolving door of reclamation projects and career bench players that have all failed and failed miserably. Roberts was designated for assignment after half a season; Ryan has been hurt and an offensive disaster; Solarte was traded for Brandon McCarthy; Anna may or may not be in baseball anymore (just kidding, he’s playing Triple-A for the Cardinals); Johnson was traded to the Red Sox in a garbage for garbage deal for Drew; Drew hit .150 for the Yankees last year and hasn’t seen .200 this year and hasn’t seen .190 since April 27; Petit was about as good as a 30-year-old with 62 career games entering this season could be. The Yankees remain too scared to permanently put Drew on the bench or move Drew to short and put Didi Gregorius on the bench and let either Jose Pirela or Rob Refsnyder become the full-time second baseman. This is due to stubbornness and also being worried that Drew might find his .253 career average stroke one of these days even if there’s a better chance of finding a section of seats between the bases at the Stadium completely filled.

The Yankees needed and still need Robinson Cano and Robinson Cano needed and still needs the Yankees. Unfortunately, both were too stupid to recognize this with the Yankees worried about pinching their pennies for their superstar and Cano worried about getting every last penny he could in free agency. Financially, both are better off in their current state, with the Yankees continuning to up the price of everything at the Stadium even without Cano at second and Cano making $24 million per year last year, this year and for the next eight years. But from an on-the-field product perspective and from a wins perspective, which is what every decision should be based upon, the Yankees are without their homegrown talent who was born to hit in the Bronx and their homegrown star is struggling for a second year to find his power stroke for a once-again underachieving team which is closer to last place than first place in the AL West.

In a perfect world, the Yankees would all go back to the beginning of the 2013 season and never let Cano hit free agency. They would never offer him a disrespectful $175 million, while gladly opening up the bank and handing a blank check to Jacoby Ellsbury based off one of his six-plus seasons in the league. Cano would be a Yankee right now, would have been one last year, and would continue to be one for the remainder of his career. Brett Gardner and either Martin Prado or Chase Headley could hit in front of him, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira behind him and either Stephen Drew or Didi Gregorius wouldn’t be on the team. (Just writing it out brought a smile to my face.)

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in one where the Steinbrenners and Brian Cashman have made a series of bad decisions based off finances and incorrect talent and scouting evaluations. As a result, we’re left with a Yankees team that is currently first place in a division that will likely be won by a team with a mid-80s win total. It’s not a great Yankees team and compared to other teams in recent years, it’s not even that good, but it’s good enough to win the AL East in a down year, something that AL East hasn’t experienced in forever.

Maybe one day Cano will be back in the Bronx the way Alfonso Soriano made his way back when the Cubs no longer wanted to pay him and the Yankees need a power presence. There will come a day when the Mariners no longer want to pay Cano and with him hitting .246/.290/.337 with two home runs and 16 RBIs, they probably don’t want to pay him now. Maybe that day will come soon when the Mariners need salary relief and the Yankees can do what they should have done all along and pay Cano for the rest of his career.

This week, Cano said, “I would never regret my decision,” but he must and the Yankees must regret theirs. They needed each other and still do. Cano must miss hitting at the Stadium for half the season and the Yankees must miss having the best second baseman in baseball in the middle of their infield and the middle of their lineup. I know I still miss him.

Blogs • Opening Day • Yankees

Mar 26, 2015

The Most Ridiculous Yankees Memorabilia

A Mark Teixeira-signed baseball for $199.99 seems overpriced until you realize what other Yankees memorabilia is for sale.

Everyone knows that Steiner Sports will sell everything and anything they can. Whether it’s Yankee Stadium dirt, a piece of gum chewed during the seventh inning of a home game by Andy Pettitte, a cardboard box that Bernie Williams’ bats were delivered in or a toenail that Derek Jeter clipped in the Yankees clubhouse during his final season, they will stop at nothing to try obtain and sell memorabilia, which you would think no one would actually buy.

On Wednesday, Steiner Sports tweeted the following:

If this tweet gets 80 RTs we will release a code to buy this @teixeiramark25 signed baseball for $80! (reg $199.99) pic.twitter.com/AB0e8taqyQ

— Steiner Sports (@steinersports) March 25, 2015

I wasn’t sure if it was more ridiculous that Steiner Sports thought 80 people might want a Mark Teixeira-signed baseball enough to retweet it, that Steiner Sports thinks that $80 for a Mark Teixeira-signed baseball is a good deal or that Steiner Sports normally sells Mark Teixeira-signed baseballs for $199.99. But what I did know was that it was the best unintentionally funny tweet of all time.

If Steiner Sports could sell a Mark Teixeira-signed baseball for $199.99, what else could they sell at insane prices and think that people might want to buy? Well, I went to the Steiner Sports site to find out, and it only got worse.

Vidal Nuno spent parts of two seasons (2013 and 2014) with the Yankees trying to get through five innings before he was traded to the Diamondbacks for Brandon McCarthy in what will go down as an all-time low-risk, high-reward trade for the Yankees that panned out. Now you can remember Vidal Nuno’s 25-pitch innings with this 2014 Opening Day Game-Used Locker Room Nameplate for just $39.99, which is 75 percent off the valued price of $160.00!

Hey, remember when Brian Cashman decided to let reigning World Series MVP Hideki Matsui walk in free agency because he wanted to sign Nick Johnson for a second go-around? Matsui signed with the Angels for one year and $6 million and the Yankees got Johnson for one year and $5.5 million. Matsui played in 145 games for the Angels and hit .274/.361/.459 with 21 home runs and 84 home runs. Johnson played in 24 games for the Yankees and hit .167/.388/.306 with two home runs and eight RBIs. Now you can commemorate Cashman’s decision to try and justify Johnson as a baseball player by replacing Matusi with him with this Nick Johnson Certified Authentic Dirt Collage for just $69.99!

David Adams has played 43 games in the majors, all coming with the 2013 Yankees, and hit .193/.252/.286. Adams is best known for being the reason the July 2010 trade with the Mariners for Cliff Lee fell through because of his ankle injury and instead of the Yankees acquiring Cliff Lee, the Rangers did, and Lee shut out the Yankees in Game 3 of the 2010 ALCS to swing the series. Never forget the trade that fell through and cost the Yankees a trip to the 2010 World Series by purchasing this David Adams Autographed MLB Baseball for $89.99!

The last memory of Nick Swisher as a Yankee is him turning on the Bleacher Creatures and going 5-for-30 (.167) with 10 strikeouts in the 2012 postseason. You can be reminded of Swisher’s time in New York by adding this Nick Swisher Action Photo to your collection for the cheap price of $99.99!

After the 2007 season, Brian Cashman traded 21-year-old starter Tyler Clippard to the Nationals for 25-year-old reliever Jonathan Albaladejo. Clippard went on to become one of the elite relievers in the league with 2.68 ERA and 530 strikeouts in 464 innings in seven years with the Nationals. Albaladejo pitched 59 1/3 innings with a 1.601 WHIP over three seasons with the Yankees before signing with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan after the 2010 season. You can feel exactly the way Albaldejo did when he was pitching to contact if you buy this Jonathan Albaldejo 2008 Game-Used Home Batting Practice Jersey on sale for only $119.99!

Between 2009 and 2010, Sergio Mitre appeared in 39 games (12 starts) for the Yankees and pitched to a 5.03 ERA. The Yankees traded him to the Brewers at the end of spring training in 2011 and purchased his contract from the Brewers on June 29 to bring him back for four more appearances. Mitre did get into three of the six games against the Rangers in the 2010 ALCS because Joe Girardi always makes sure to get everyone into games in the playoffs and posted this memorable line: 2.2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 2 HR. Cherish every one of Mitre’s 42 apperances with the Yankees with this Sergio Mitre 2011 Team Issued Hat for $135.00!
Want to relive the 2013 season? Have all of your stuff smell like Travis Hafner, hit .202 and land on the disabled list just like the former 82-game Yankee by bringing home this Travis Hafner 2013 Game-Used Equipment Bag for $260.00!

Most of the players I have used here were members of the Everybody Gets to Be a Yankee Once Team and those who didn’t make it were just barely left off of it. It was difficult to not pick Kelly Johnson to be on the team after he gave us 77 games and 227 miserable plate appearances in 2014 before being traded to the Red Sox for Stephen Drew and then ending up in the postseason with the Orioles. I’m not sure if I dislike Johnson more for how poorly he hit as a Yankee or for bringing Drew to the Yankees. But with this 6/23/14 Game-Used Lineup Card, you can always be reminded of Kelly Johnson’s 200th career double for $360.00!I’m pretty sure I have written more about A.J. Burnett than any other person in my life. He gave me three roller-coaster seasons with the Yankees and was only traded once the Yankees were willing to pay him to pitch for the Pirates. But now you can look back on his three tumultuous seasons and his five-year, $82.5 million contract with this A.J. Burnett Autographed Replica Jersey for $384.99!Stephen Drew is going to be the 2015 Opening Day second baseman for the Yankees, but at some point he will be designated for assignment. Why wouldn’t the Yankees just go into the season with either Rob Refsnyder or Jose Pirela as their second baseman instead of wasting $5 million on Drew ($5 million that could have been used to better their chances at winning the bid for Yoan Moncada)? I guess the answer is that the same person making that decision also once signed Nick Johnson instead of Hideki Matsui. Before Drew’s inevitable release, cherish his 2015 spring training, in which he’s hitting .167, and make sure you purchase this Stephen Drew 2015 Spring Training Opening Day Game-Used Jersey for $449.99!

I try to forget that the 2013 season happened and that after Robinson Cano, Lyle Overbay was the Yankees’ next best hitter. Yes, the Yankees second-best hitter in 2013 hit .240/.295/.393 with 14 home runs and 59 RBIs. Go on an all-inclusive vacation with airfare, hotel, food and drinks in a tropical place or buy this Lyle Overbay Game-Used Batting Helmet for $1,010.00!

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Jacoby Ellsbury Doesn’t Get the Johnny Damon Treatment

It’s the first Yankees-Red Sox series of the season in Boston and the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will play in Fenway Park for another team and that means it’s time for an email exchange with Mike Hurley.

After this week in Boston, the Yankees and Red Sox won’t meet again for two months and they won’t meet again in Boston until the first weekend in August. (Never change, Major League Baseball schedule, never change.) But this week in Boston is not only the first meeting between the two teams at Fenway Park this season, it’s the first time Jacoby Ellsbury will be in the third-base dugout at Fenway Park.

With Ellsbury making his Yankees debut in Boston and the teams playing a three-game series before a two-month break, you know what that means. An email exchange with Mike Hurley.

Keefe: It’s been only 12 days since we last talked and after this it will be over two months until the Yankees and Red Sox meet again. There’s nothing quite like seven Yankees-Red Sox games in April and then none for basically half the summer. It makes sense though, right? I mean it makes more sense than Major League Baseball’s replay/review/challenge system, doesn’t it?

Last week you sent me a series of videos showing how the transfer play is no longer being called in baseball the way it has been since the invention of the game. I laughed watching umpires and the umpires in the New York offices decide games on balls being dropped “during the transfer” but I wasn’t laughing anymore when the Yankees nearly lost on Sunday to the Rays because of a transfer call involving Brian Roberts at second base.

I was all for replay in baseball and I didn’t and still don’t care about the length of review time or extending games because of replays as long as the calls are made correctly. But that’s clearly not what’s happening right now with no one knowing what a catch in baseball is anymore, the umpires in New York not having the same views and angles as those watching at home and ancient baseball rules being changed overnight.

Hurley: Replay in baseball is utterly useless.

I was never strongly for or against it. I’ve always been able to live with a missed call on a bang-bang play, the same way you have to live with a bad strike call. But I also watched disasters like the Jim Joyce botching of Armando Galarraga’s perfect game or Phil Cuzzi blowing his only job of calling balls fair or foul in the 11th inning of a playoff game at Yankee Stadium, and mistakes like that were just so egregious that I supported a system that could easily correct those obvious screw-ups.

As it turns out, we got a system that neither fixes the obvious mistakes or fine-tunes the close plays. We just got a stupid, stupid, stupid system that has tried to change the sport for absolutely no reason.

The new emphasis on the transfer rule is not only nonsensical (a catch and a throw are two different actions; how a bobble on the throw negates a catch that has already been completed is beyond me) but also far more common than I think anyone anticipated it would be. It reminds me of the NHL’s crackdown on toes in the crease in the late ’90s, a rule that may be the worst in sports history. I remember the Bruins losing a playoff game because Tim Taylor’s toe was just barely touching the blue paint on the opposite side of Olaf Kolzig’s crease.

After that season and after the Brett Hull/Dominik Hasek controversy, the NHL came out and were like, “Oh, well, yeah, you see … that is a terrible rule and we will get rid of it. Because it’s stupid.”

If MLB doesn’t have the same sense as a league led by Gary Bettman, then baseball is in bigger trouble than I thought.

Keefe: I’m not sure that Bud Selig has more sense than Gary Bettman. We’re talking about a guy who allowed performance-enhancing drugs to revitalize his sport after a strike and then a decade later started to pretend that players who use performance-enhancing drugs are the worst people in the world, and he got the beat nerds to buy into it the way he got them to buy into the idea that having at least player a year hit 60 home runs (after two people had ever done it) was no big deal. He also still allows the All-Star Game — an exhibition game — to determine home-field advantage in the World Series after a six-month, 162-game daily grind. I like to think that the commissioners of the four leagues get together once a year and talk about their increased revenues and think about new ways to ruin their respective leagues while laughing at the expense of the fans. Then before they leave, they play credit card roulette to see which commissioner will have to impose the next lockout and Gary Bettman always loses.

In the last Yankees-Red Sox series, Dean Anna (I’m sure you’re aware by now that he is a real person) doubled and then when he slid into second base, he came off the base for a split second while the tag was still being applied to him. He was called safe on the field and then safe again after the umpires at the New York office apparently didn’t have the same views as those watching at home. I don’t think when expanded reply was instituted it was meant to make such ridiculous calls, but if it’s going to be used for those (and it shoudn’t be), how is it possible that fans watching at home have better information than the paid umpires and officials at the league’s headquarters? Real life?

Hurley: Yeah, precisely. We don’t need replay to break down every split-second of these plays. The Francisco Cervelli play at first base last Sunday night ended up being correctly made after a replay review, but we were all subjected to watching frame-by-frame breakdowns of the ball entering Mike Napoli’s glove, and we had to hear John Kruk blabber on about whether it’s a catch when the ball goes into the glove or when the glove is closed around the baseball. What are we really doing?

Replay should fix the aforementioned obvious mistakes, but on Friday night at Fenway, John Farrell challenged a Nick Markakis double, claiming the ball landed foul. Farrell believed this to be the case because the ball did in fact land foul. We all saw it on our televisions. There was a dirt mark where the ball landed in foul territory. It was a no-brainer.

Yet after review, the double stood. For some reason.

There is no point. It’s a disaster.

But not according to Selig, who said, “We’ve had really very little controversy overall” and “you’ll hear about the one or two controversies, but look at all the calls that have been overturned.”

The guy is an idiot.

The scenario you created got me thinking, I’d like to see a Celebrity Jeopardy! episode with Gary Bettman, Bud Selig and Kim Kardashian as the contestants. They would all obviously finish with negative money, and then Alex Trebek could spend the time normally reserved for Final Jeopardy to just berate them for being dopes.

Keefe: Speaking of “idiots,” let’s talk about Johnny Damon’s return to Fenway Park in 2006 because on Tuesday night, Jacoby Ellsbury will return to Fenway Park for the first time as a Yankee.

I was at Damon’s return and was actually surprised by the amount of cheers he received from Boston fans. He had been the face of the Red Sox’ culture change and the symbol of their change from losers to winners and there he was wearing a Yankees uniform and tipping his helmet to Red Sox fans before his first at-bat. Sure, there were people throwing fake money at him once he took his position in center field, but for the most part, Johnny got about as many cheers as anyone could get in his position.

When it comes to Ellsbury, I think he will receive a better ovation than Damon because he wasn’t as iconic of a figure in Boston, even if helped them win two World Series, and it felt like during his entire time with the Red Sox, everyone knew once he became a free agent that he would bolt for the highest bidder. People will boo on Tuesday night in the first inning just to boo and they will continue to for every Ellsbury at-bat for the rest of his career, but are Red Sox fans upset that he signed with the Yankees as a free agent?

Hurley: It’s a weird thing. I don’t think many people, aside from maybe the folks who think Fever Pitch is a good movie, are actually “upset” with him for going to the Yankees. I think if anyone knows Ellsbury, it’s those of us in Boston who have seen him come up and develop over the past seven years. And I don’t think anyone here thought Ellsbury would be worth the money he’d be getting on the free-agent market. And knowing he was going to the free-agent market, and knowing the Angels had already spent a billion dollars, how many realistic suitors were really in play for him?

So obviously, there was a good chance he’d be going to New York, and obviously, players on the Yankees get booed at Fenway Park. He’s going to get booed, and for a lot of people, just the sight of a former Red Sox player in a Yankees uniform is enough to boil up some rage. But in terms of people being really mad, I don’t think that’s the common feeling.

At the same time, the Red Sox leadoff situation is so dire this season, there might be some extra boos rained down that are coming from a place of frustration.

Keefe: I thought the Red Sox would survive fine without Ellsbury at the top of the lineup and they likely will once they sort it out, but I don’t think I realized how important he was to the top of their order and extending the lineup until now. Seeing just about everyone except for David Ortiz and Mike Napoli get a chance to hit leadoff for the Red Sox has shown how important Ellsbury was for them. John Farrell hasn’t been afraid to try anything and has even gone with Jonny Gomes in that spot and Jonny Gomes as a leadoff hitter in a lineup that wasn’t picked out of a hat is pretty comical.

Right now the Red Sox seem to be having the same problems the Yankees had last year with injuries and an inability to score runs. There were long stretches of time where I knew the Yankees would be lucky to score just two runs in a given game and that meant the pitching staff would have to be perfect to win. (Granted they had Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay hitting in the heart of their order and not Ortiz and Napoli.)

It’s never good to have several hitters slumping at the same time, especially your best hitters, but that seems to be the Red Sox’ problem early this season.

Hurley: Yeah it’s pretty bizarre how a team that has averaged 860 runs per season since 2002 is on pace to score just 616 runs this season. They’re hitting .209 with RISP, which ranks 25th in MLB, just two points ahead of the Cubs, so that gives you a good indication of where they’re at.

Overall, they’re hitting just .238, which ranks 23rd. It’s largely the same roster as last year, save for A.J. Pierzynski taking Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s place (kind of a wash), Shane Victorino being injured and Daniel Nava looking like Neil Keefe if he was asked to play Major League Baseball. So it should all come around at some point.

I think Clay Buchholz is a much bigger problem. He took the mound on Marathon Monday and looked like he was throwing knuckleballs with a Wiffle Ball. He allowed five straight hits in the third and ended up leaving after allowing 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings. For as much time as he missed last year, he was a major reason why the Red Sox won 97 games. If they don’t have even that half-season of a contribution from him this year, they’re in serious trouble.

Keefe: I have never been a Clay Buchholz believer, even for as good as he has looked when he is healthy, mainly because he is never healthy. He’s going to be 30 in August and the most starts he has ever made in a season is 29, after that 28 and after that just 16. So I would say banking on just a half-season from him is a good bet since that is all the Red Sox are likely to get.

I’m headed to Boston for the series and when I looked at tickets, I was surprised at how cheap they are. In the past, I would be looking at spending at least $100 just to sit in the right-field grandstand, which are the worst seats in any stadium in the entire league. You might as well sit on your couch or in a bar somewhere and get 1,000 times the viewing experience than sit in a low-number section in Fenway. I thought that winning the World Series after a few disastrous seasons and the one-year Bobby Valentine era would bring Red Sox ticket prices back to what they were from 2003-2011, but that hasn’t happened. Maybe it’s because the Bruins’ Stanley Cup run just started or maybe it’s because the Red Sox aren’t what they were to the city of Boston a decade ago?

Either way, I can’t complain since I’m saving money. Maybe we’ll run into each other at Fenway this week and can finally settle these email exchange debates with our fists.

Hurley: You’ve been challenging me to a Lansdowne Street throwdown for years. Given how dormant the rivalry is right now, I don’t think it’s the best time to actually throw fists outside Fenway. If Ellsbury goes into second spikes up and takes out Dustin Pedroia, then maybe we can circle back and meet up outside Gate E.

Blogs • Yankees

Feb 20, 2014

Brian Cashman Crushed My Confidence

Brian Cashman gave his Spring Training State of the Yankees to Mike Francesa and it wasn’t as optimistic as I had planned for.

The last time I listened to what Brian Cashman had to say was almost five months ago. It was Oct. 2 when I analyzed Cashman’s end-of-the-year press conference and it had been three days since the end of the season. There was still 180 days until Opening Day and the 2014 season and a chance for the Yankees to make right on everything that went wrong in 2013. Now there are just 40 days until Yankees-Astros on April 1 in Houston and once again it means something when Brian Cashman talks.

On Wednesday, Cashman talked with Mike Francesa on WFAN about spring training and the outlook for the season. After personally spending the last four-plus months talking myself into a turnaround year for the Yankees, thanks to free agency and hopefully avoiding the injury bug, Cashman did his best to destroy my dreams with his answers.

On Derek Jeter’s announcement.

“Besides catching us all off guard, it wasn’t something any of us expected.”

Join the club, Cashman. I’m the founder, CEO and president of it.

On if it bothered him he didn’t know in advance.

“My first reaction was I didn’t think it was accurate. I thought it was maybe somebody hacked his Facebook account because it’s just not something you ever expect Derek in advance to announce going forward that this is it.”

I first learned of Jeter’s retirement on Twitter and I also thought it was a joke and couldn’t believe it was real, mainly because it isn’t. Derek Jeter isn’t retiring. He isn’t! (I’m sure you can guess which of the five Stages of Grief I’m currently in.)

On the unknowns in the infield.

“I think third base and second base and our infield overall is just going to be a developing story.”

I wouldn’t have thought so much about Cashman’s answer here if he didn’t use “developing story” again later on to describe another aspect of the team. And I fully understand Cashman is going to want to downplay expectations in spring training for a team coming off just it’s second postseasonless season since 1993. But like I have said, I compare the 2014 Yankees to the 2013 Red Sox. I’m not guaranteeing a World Series win, but the 2013 Red Sox were coming off arguably the worst season in the history of their franchise, needed their entire rotation to bounce back and pitch to their career averages (you’re welcome for me not saying “pitch to the back of their baseball cards” there like Michael Kay would have) and have their free agents all produce. The Red Sox ended up hitting a 12-team parlay to have the … no wait a minute … The Red Sox ended up basically filling out a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket to have everything fall in place for them last year to win the World Series a year after they lost 93 games.

In the five-team playoff format, it’s hard to not be in the mix for the postseason unless you have a miserable season. The 2013 Yankees had to use Ichiro in the middle of their lineup and when he wasn’t there, Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells were and that team wasn’t eliminated until the fourth-to-last game of the season. This Yankees roster will certainly contend for a playoff spot if last years’ team was able to. Now that I have instilled that confidence in you for 2014, let’s move along as Cashman does his best to erase that confidence with his answers.

On how the infield is going to work out.

“The infield is going to be a little bit more like the 2013 situation where we’re going to be continuing to monitor the scenario all year long and if there’s better players outside the organization, waiver claims or guys get released or can cheaply be acquired then we’ll look at that situation too if it’s better than what we got.”

No one wants to hear anything is going to be like 2013 with the exception of Alfonso Soriano’s production. Think about it: What good came out of the 2013 season?

Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira were hurt for the entire season. A-Rod created his biggest circus yet. Robinson Cano was streakier than ever and faded when the Yankees needed him most. CC Sabathia had the worst season of his career. Ivan Nova was an atrocity until he was sent down and then recalled in June. Hiroki Kuroda was amazing, but ran out of gas, pitched to a 6.56 ERA over his last eight starts and didn’t win a game after Aug. 12. Number 42 was better than any 43-year-old closer should be, but he even blew seven saves. For as good as he was after coming to the Yankees in 2012, Ichiro was that bad in 2013. Brett Gardner posted career highs in home runs and RBIs, but got hurt and missed the final weeks of the season. Phil Hughes pitched himself out of the organization. The catching situation was an actual nightmare. And Andy Pettitte was so inconsistent he decided he would retire again. If the Yankees hadn’t traded for Soriano, not only would they have been eliminated well before Game 158, but they wouldn’t have had a single positive storyline from an entire season unless you were that much of a fan of Number 42’s farewell tour.

So please, Cashman, don’t advertise anything about the 2014 season as being similar to the 2013 season.

On where a backup first baseman will come from.

“Well, Kelly Johnson is a possibility. We’ve got some other things that we had some meetings about today in camp that we’re discussing, but we need to talk to players first that we might play around with there too. So that is also something that’s an emerging situation.”

The one thing I like about Brian Cashman is that he tells it like it is. He doesn’t sugarcoat things or fabricate things for the fans. He isn’t always right (far from it), but he sticks with his judgment and opinion on players and decisions and admits when he is or was wrong. But for as honest as Cashman is, he really had no answer for this question. He tried to BS his way through it like a high school freshman trying to meet a word or page requirement on a paper. Not only did he try to downplay the fact that if Mark Teixeira gets hurt the Yankees are screwed at first base, but he sounded unsure of himself and uncomfortable answering the question.

On if Ichiro could be an option at first base.

“His name was not someone that we discussed.”

Ah, a question like this makes me nostalgic for the 2006 season when the Yankees had too many star players and not enough positions. Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu all needed to play, so the Yankees had to let someone who wasn’t really a first baseman play first base. That someone became Gary Sheffield, who played first base as well as Eduardo Nunez played the outfield.

I actually like Francesa’s idea of giving Ichiro a chance to play first base even if he has only ever played the outfield. He did win 10 consecutive Gold Gloves and has an extraordinary baseball IQ and would be someone you could trust at the position. I would certainly be willing to find a way to get Ichiro into the lineup if Teixeira were to go down, but it doesn’t seem like Cashman and the Yankees are ready to think that outside of the box yet.

On how they handled having a backup first baseman in the past.

“When we had Swisher here it was great because if Tex needed a blow or had an injury, you had Swisher who you could move right in there. We’re not in that scenario right now. Not even close.”

When Nick Swisher was here it was great! Everything was better when Nick Swisher was a Yankee! Except for his own decisions to bunt or bunt with one out and a runner on second, or his shaky defense and lollipop throws, or his postseason failures or when he turned on the fans because he didn’t like that they were upset that he couldn’t get a hit in the ALCS. I miss Nick Swisher.

On if Jeter’s decision takes the pressure off him to deal with his status in the future.

“I don’t think that where we are today that would have been an issue. Obviously if it was a contract negotiation in the winter time, that might have presented itself if that occurred, but we weren’t in that scenario.”

Come on, Cashman. You know you are relieved that Jeter is going out on his own terms in the last year of a contract. If 2014 Jeter performed like 2012 Jeter or if he struggled to stay on the field like 2013 Jeter and wanted to return for 2015 it would have created a bad situation for Jeter, Cashman, the front office and the fans and it would have played out publicly just like it did after the 2010 season.

On how Michael Pineda has looked in spring training.

“You want everyone to be free and easy right now. That’s all you can ask for and he’s free and easy, but I don’t think anybody here can predict yet.”

Of all the question marks and unknowns about the 2014 Yankees, Michael Pineda has to be the most underrated of them all. He hasn’t pitched in the majors since Sept. 21, 2011, but was traded to the Yankees and viewed as a front-of-the-rotation guy for the foreseeable future at just 23 years of age. Now he is two years removed from pitching in a game after having shoulder surgery, but he is still just 25.

It’s easy to say if Sabathia returns to his old self and Kuroda doesn’t burn out and Nova is consistent and Tanaka is the real deal then everything will be fine. But I feel like a lot of people are forgetting just how good Pineda was in 2011 and if (and I know coming back from shoulder surgery is a big if) he can be that guy again, then the Yankees will have a No. 1 or No. 2 guy pitching in their No. 5 spot.

On expectations for CC Sabathia.

“I don’t see the velocity jumping back … If he can limit the home run damage that occurred last year because his strikeouts-per-nine and walks-per-nine were right in line with all his previous years, even his Cy Young Award contending years, that will be awesome.”

If CC Sabathia doesn’t allow 28 home runs in 32 starts this year, that will be awesome. CC looks weird as Skinny CC, but if his new look means he won’t pitch to a 4.78 ERA and lead the league in earned runs then I’m all for it. Sabathia has $23 million coming to him this year, or roughly $700,000 per start if you remember from last year, so if his velocity isn’t going to return then he better have Cliff Lee-esque location. I can’t take watching another season of late-game blown leads from Sabathia because of the long ball and because Joe Girardi still treats him like it’s 2011 and like an actual ace.

On how he would classify the bullpen situation.

“It’s also like our infield. Those are two areas that we all need to call an emerging story, a developing story.”

If the bullpen is “also like our infield” that means the 2014 bullpen is going to be like the 2013 bullpen since you said the 2014 infield situation is going to be like the 2013 infield situation. I’m not exactly sure you want to transition from the Mariano Rivera Yankees Bullpen to the Non-Mariano Rivera Yankees Bullpen by classifying the new-look bullpen as an emerging or developing story as if it’s the opening segment on the 11:00 news, but hey, who needs a reliable bullpen?

On if he feels old having watched Derek Jeter’s entire career.

“Unfortunately, like when I was going to the press conference today, I said to myself, ‘I’ve been here before,’ which was just last year with Mo. We’re so fortunate to have these guys for as long as we have had them and they’ve made all of our carers and made Yankee baseball so special to watch for such a long time. But yeah, you do some reflection as you’re walking into that. Time moves fast. It really moves fast. There’s a lot of things that have happened, and mostly positive, since Derek Jeter got drafted back in ’92. Again, I was caught off guard when he announced this and it just makes this season that much more important and interesting to follow because he’s one of the rare special ones you’ll ever see.”

Let’s end this before I cry.

40 days to go.

Tag: Lyle Overbay

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Pre-2013

I Still Miss Robinson Cano

The Most Ridiculous Yankees Memorabilia

Jacoby Ellsbury Doesn’t Get the Johnny Damon Treatment

Brian Cashman Crushed My Confidence