Masahiro Tanaka – Page 8 – Keefe To The City

Jul 9, 2014

The State of Brian Cashman

Brian Cashman gave his most recent State of the Yankees to Mike Francesa, so it’s time to look at the State of Brian Cashman with the “first half” of the season almost over.

We are almost at the “halfway point” of the season. But when the “first half” of the MLB season ends, the Yankees will only have 68 games or 42 percent of their season left. Time is ticking for the Yankees to start playing like the Yankees or at least start playing the way they were two weeks ago. Luckily, the AL East has become what the AL Central and NL West were for so long and even at 45-44, the Yankees are a strong finish in Cleveland and Baltimore this weekend from possibly being in first place.

Brian Cashman talked with Mike Francesa on WFAN and gave a sort of First Half State of the Yankees, so of course it’s time to give a State of Brian Cashman for the first time since Feb. 20. Back in February, Cashman crushed my confidence about the 2014 Yankees a full 40 days before the season started, but rightfully so apparently since they are one game over .500 after 89 games. However, it’s a little odd that the person responsible for building this team and this roster is the person who entered the season admitting that they weren’t going to be that good, and his feelings haven’t really changed.

On the big picture for the 2014 Yankees.

“Frustrating so far. We’ve had underperformance; we’ve had injuries, inconsistency. It’s been a frustrating first part and it’s obviously my job to find ways to improve on what we’ve got and to make some adjustments and we feel we have to do that. I feel I have to do that.”

I’m glad that Brian Cashman feels he has to make some adjustments to the one-game-over-.500 team he built coming off an win and postseason-less season. That’s very nice of him. What’s also nice is using the word “frustrating” to describe the 2014 Yankees. I would have gone a different route in my choice of word, but “frustrating” is a very nice way to put. It’s kind of like when the Yankees get seven hits in a game, all singles of course, and Joe Girardi claims they swung the bats “well.” So yes, the 2014 Yankees have been “frustrating.” How frustrating? Let’s look at the Yankees’ season by month.

April: 15-11
May: 14-14
June: 12-15
July: 4-4

The Yankees are one game over .500 right now. When they were six games over .500 at 39-33 two weeks ago, Suzyn Waldman was telling John Sterling how Joe Torre used to like to say you need to move above .500 in increments of five and how the Yankees’ next stop was 10 games over .500. Since then, the Yankees have gone 6-12, so about that 10 games over .500 …

On why he chose to designate Alfonso Soriano for assignment.

He struggled poorly against left handed and right handed pitching. We got him because we were struggling so badly last year against left-handed pitchers and that’s something he’s always been good at .. this year the defense hasn’t been there clearly, the offense against righties and lefties hasn’t been there and this is a bad defensive club already … We’re at the halfway point. I can’t keep waiting. I have to all of a sudden make some changes if we feel there might be some better options and so the play kind of played the way off the club I guess.”

We’re not at the halfway point. We’re at the “halfway point.” The halfway point was last week when the Yankees were busy losing 4-3 in 12 innings at home to the Rays, which was the third loss in a five-game HOME losing streak. Two nights before that during Game 79 of the season, Cashman was (to steal a line from Tim Wattley in The Campaign) “playing hee-haw with the eff-around gang” in a private booth, canoodling with Kenny Chesney while his half-billion offseason dollars went a combined 2-for-12 with four strikeouts and made one terrible pitch to Mike Napoli. (That was the most I will ever get on Masahiro Tanaka and I felt bad even typing that sentence, but it went with the whole half-billion dollars thing, so I had to bring Tanaka into it. Sorry, Masahiro. Please don’t let your MRI come back with bad news.)

I said everything I had to say about Alfonso Soriano on Wednesday and Cashman only helped my argument by saying that Soriano believed he needed to be a full-time player to get on track, which he clearly did need. And Soriano was supposed to be an everyday player on Opening Day when he was going to be the full-time DH for the 2014 Yankees before Mr. The Knees Beltran needed to become a DH and Soriano became an outfield platoon with Ichiro.

On CC Sabathia.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

CC Sabathia needs to see Dr. James Andrews, but according to Cashman, Andrews is at a convention in Seattle with every other big-time surgeon where I imagine they are all getting absolutely hammered and watching the ticker on ESPN hoping to see news about athletes that were injured and will need to undergo season-ending surgery. “Bronson Arroyo needs Tommy John! Next round’s on Jim!”

There are rumors that Sabathia might never pitch again because of the possibility of microfracture surgery, but until then, I can only hope that Sabathia does come back this year to bolster the back of the rotation. (That’s right, I said back of the rotation for the $700,000-per-start “ace.” No big deal.)

On the trade between the A’s and Cubs.

“We had a lot of conversations clearly with the Cubs about Samardzija as well as Hammel as well as both at the same time and I think that the Cubs liked a lot of the pieces that we had. I think we were certainly in the arena. The fact that Theo was engaging me as much as he was, I know he likes our players. I know that there were packages that had interest to him for one or both combined that could have worked.”

I had to really hold back the tears when I heard this because what Cashman basically said was,” Hey Yankees fans, I was right there to completely fix the rotation, get us two frontend starters and make us the favorite in the division, but I didn’t! But I was close! I was really close!”

I’m not sure what the Yankees would have had to give up to get the duo, considering what the A’s gave up to get them, but if the Yankees had gotten both of them, this would have been their rotation:

Masahiro Tanaka
Jeff Samardzija
Jason Hammel
Hiroki Kuroda
Brandon McCarthy

Instead it’s:

Masahiro Tanaka
Hiroki Kuroda
Brandon McCarthy
David Phelps
Shane Greene

I’m guessing if Cashman was looking to get both then that’s not good news for hoping that Michael Pineda will be back soon or in 2014, but now with the starting pitching market as thin as it is and the Top 2 starting pitchers on the market both gone, Pineda has to come back in August and be as good as he was in April.

I would have rather had Cashman tell Francesa he didn’t even know Samardzija and Hammel were available or that Theo Epstein recently got a new cell number and he only had his old number. But hearing him say the Yankees “were in the arena” makes me feel the way I did when Cliff Lee was about to become a Yankee before the Phillies ruined everything. (Cue the Cliff Lee Sad Songs Playlist.) I’m just going to pretend that Theo was stringing him along with his buddy Jed Hoyer and they were sitting in a room talking to Cashman on speaker phone all seven times, pressing the “mute” button anytime Cashman was talking and screaming with laughter like Larry David and Jeff Garlin looking at the “Freak Book” at Ted Danson’s birthday party making Cashman think he really had a chance to land either or both of the starters.

On Carlos Beltran.

“I think Beltran looks like he’s starting to come through it a little bit on the elbow. I think his swings definitely look healthier, but obviously we have to deal with the knees too that he’s had now for a number of years … We have to deal with protecting Carlos.”

I love that Cashman says Beltran has been dealing with “the knees” (not one knee, but both) for a number of years now. There’s nothing like signing a 37-year-old outfielder to a three-year deal (he currently can’t actually play in the outfield) when you know he’s been dealing with “the knees” for a number of years and then needing to “protect him” in the first one-sixth of his deal.

Beltran is hitting .216/.271/.401 and the whole idea of getting Beltran was because of his postseason success (51 games, 16 home runs, 40 RBIs, .333/.445/.683), but you have to get to the postseason to get Postseason Beltran. So far his regular season has been more Postseason Nick Swisher and his health and ability to play through injury has been Regular-Season Mark Teixeira. So far the Yankees have been like Beltran: an underachieving disappointment.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jun 27, 2014

The Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry Is Missing Its Summer Significance

The Yankees and Red Sox haven’t played in over two months, but they are this weekend in the Bronx and that means another email exchange with Mike Hurley.

A Yankees-Red Sox series at the end of June used to feel like a summer playoff series. But here we are on June 27 and the Yankees are 40-37 and three games out of first place and the Red Sox are 36-43 and eight games out of first place. Sure, we have Masahiro Tanaka against Jon Lester on national TV on Saturday at the Stadium, but we also have Vidal Nuno against Brandon Workman on Friday night.

With the Yankees and Red Sox both battling to make up ground on the Blue Jays and get back to the top of the AL East, I emailed Mike Hurley of CBS Boston because that’s what I do whenever the Yankees and Red Sox play each other.

Keefe: The last time we talked was April 22. That was 65 days ago. But there’s nothing like Major League Baseball scheduling two Yankees-Red Sox series in the freezing cold before April 22 and then not having the two teams play for more than nine weeks. Why is it so hard for baseball to get their scheduling right? But I guess if we’re going to sit here and trade emails about what’s wrong with the way Major League Baseball operates, the problems with their scheduling would likely be item No. 297 on the list and that might even be high.

Since we last talked, the AL East has been filled with mediocrity between the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Orioles (we won’t mention the Rays because they are already counting down the days until Game 162 and a six-month vacation). The Yankees won that three-game series that started in Boston on April 22, but since then they have gone 27-28. The Red Sox have gone 26-30. There’s nothing quite like the Yankees and Red Sox both playing under-.500 baseball for two months and being featured on Sunday Night Baseball this weekend!

When the Red Sox won the division and then the American League and then the World Series last year after the one-year Bobby Valentine era, I was infuriated. The Dodgers had let them off the hook from their financial crisis that would have ruined them for at least six or seven years and then every player they picked up in the offseason performed exactly how a Red Sox fan would have hoped in an ideal world. What the Red Sox experienced last season and in the postseason would be like you correctly picking every NFL game against the spread for the first five weeks of the season. That’s how insane their success was. And what infuriates me more is that this year we are seeing what the Red Sox should have been in 2013. The 2013 Red Sox should have been the 2014 Red Sox! They are the same team! Doesn’t anyone notice this? Or is it just Mugatu and me?

Hurley: You’re not taking crazy pills. Well, you might be taking crazy pills, but you’re right about this.

You look at the 2014 Red Sox and ask yourself what are the differences from the 2013 Red Sox?

Jarrod Saltalamacchia is now A.J. Pierzysnki. A downgrade, but Saltalmacchia was not Saltalmaggio.

Will Middlebrooks is now Xander Bogaerts. That’s a minor upgrade or a wash.

Jacoby Ellsbury is now Jackie Bradley Jr. Huge downgrade.

Shane Victorino is now The Ghost of Shane Victorino. He’s currently on the disabled list due to having a sore body. I feel like he spent the offseason the Mike Hurley diet, aka eating Burger King for lunch and Wendy’s for dinner. He was on the road to recovery this year at the same time that Louis C.K. and Robert Kelly introduced the idea of a “bang-bang” on Louie, and then boom, Victorino took a step back in his rehab. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

You also see guys like Daniel Nava go from .303/.385/.445 to .227/.317/.313. Mike Carp’s .885 OPS from 2013 is now .603 in 2014. Jonny Gomes, the guy want to go to war with, is crushing it with a .232 batting average and .693 OPS.

Even David Ortiz is doing poorly. You wouldn’t know it just by looking at his 18 homers and 49 RBIs, but he’s hitting just .256 with an .841 OPS. Just once since his Minnesota days has he posted an OPS lower than that. For some perspective, Brock Holt has three more doubles than Ortiz in 95 fewer at-bats. Brock Holt.

And Dustin Pedroia has a .715 OPS. His worst-ever OPS in a full season was .787 last year. His second-worst OPS was .797 … in 2012. Dustin’s trending the wrong way.

All of that is to say yes, it’s mostly the same team. The difference is last year, you saw everyone performing at their highest possible level. This year it’s the complete opposite.

Keefe: Thank you for agreeing with me. That is the first time ever. I will be recording the date and time. But you agreeing me only makes me sadder that the 2013 Red Sox should have won 72 games and been a laughingstock for the second straight year and Ben Cherington wouldn’t be viewed in the same light as Theo Epstein in Boston and John Henry and his hated ownership group would have probably sold the team. If I didn’t have a degree in journalism, maybe I would have enough money to fund a start-up to build a time machine and go back in time to August 2012 and tell the MLB front office not to allow the Red Sox-Dodgers trade. That way Josh Beckett would still be fat, lazy and on the disabled list playing golf in Boston, Adrian Gonzalez would be striking out against position player pitchers in extra innings and getting his empty calorie stat, Carl Crawford would be writing blogs about how unfairly he is treated despite getting $142 million to play baseball at a below-average rate and Nick Punto … well , who effing cares about what Nick Punto would be doing.

Your point about Dustin Pedroia is interesting because if you told me right now the Yankees could have any position player from any team right now, I would pick Mike Trout first because he’s Mike Trout then I would pick Troy Tulowitzki because the Yankees don’t know who their 2015 shortstop is going to be and then I would pick Dustin Pedroia. He is everything that baseball and baseball players should be about, he’s impossible to get out (though if he’s hitting .265/.338/.377 someone is gettimg him out) and he’s best friends with Derek Jeter (or at least I like to pretend they are best friends every since the 2009 World Baseball Classic). I hate Dustin Pedroia, but I don’t. It’s the Tom Brady conundrum all over again.

But back to your point that he’s trending downward … that’s eye opening because he’s only 30. He has a team-friendly contract, so it’s not like the Red Sox will be screwed if he turns into Jason Bay, but are Dustin Pedroia’s best days really truly behind him? Is he going to become Kevin Youkilis 2012-13 and end up playing in Japan at some point? Please tell me this is going to happen.

Hurley: I do not believe his best days are behind him. Honestly, he’s kind of a psycho, so the more people start talking about how bad his numbers are, and the more people start publicly asking questions like that, the more likely it is that his psycho genes kick in and inspire him to go on some sort of tear, hit .480 with a 1.080 OPS in the month of July, and then tell him to start swearing at the media for ever questioning him.

At the very least, he’s a Gold Glove second baseman. I’m not entirely too concerned that he’s in full decline. He is a guy who tore a ligament in his thumb on opening day in the Bronx last year but still played all season and won the World Series, so if I were to be concerned about anything, it’s that his style of play lends itself to getting hurt more often. Banged-up wrists, busted fingers and the like make it hard to hit, and I think that’s something he’s always going to be dealing with, based on the way he plays the game.

If you could take any position player from the Red Sox though, please take Xander Bogaerts. I feel bad for the kid. His swing looks like that of a young Manny Ramirez, and he’s going to mash in this league. And you could solve your shortsop problem, too. Granted, Bogaerts isn’t an elite defensive shortstop, but he’d be replacing Old Man Jeter, who is essentially playing shortstop at the level of a trash can with a Rawlings duct-taped to its side. Bogaerts would look exceptional by comparison.

Keefe: I will pretend like you didn’t just say those things about Derek Jeter, who turned 40 yesterday. 40! Forty! F-O-R-T-Y! Is this real life? He was the Opening Day shortstop for the Yankees when we were in fourth grade! I was in Miss Ryan’s class playing freeze tag in Mr. Fonicello’s gym class. You were somewhere in Massachusetts probably visiting the nurse after pulling your hamstring in gym class. But Derek Jeter is 40, we graduated high school 10 years ago and your first child is on the way. Now I’m going to put on some 90s alternative rock and cry.

I’m still not convinced that Derek Jeter won’t be the Yankees shortstop next season, but then again, I’m still waiting for Don Mattingly to start at first base and hit third in the Yankees lineup and it’s been 19 years since his last played. The baseball season always feels long, and it is, but when you think that there’s only half a season and three months of Derek Jeter left, it’s devastating. But I’m also aware that I’m more upset and distraught about this than he is, and I shouldn’t be since I got to watch him play for nearly two decades and the Yankees won’t have a shortshop slugging .327 next season (let’s hope) and he is going to go live his life and spend the $265,159,364 he has made in his career and travel the world and have children with super models half his age. I think he will be fine once he has played his last game.

On the flip side, David Ortiz, who will be 39 years old this November and is still crying about official scorer’s and will soon be crying about his contract, has ho-hummed his way to 18 home runs in 77 games this year. Sure, he’s hitting just .256, but Ortiz having 18 home runs before the end of June after hitting .997 in the World Series last year at the age of 38? Is Ortiz on the Barry Bonds workout regimen and diet? Actually, I already know he is. I’m just looking for you to agree with me about something else.

Hurley: I don’t know. Do you look at David Ortiz and go, “Yeah, there’s a guy who’s unnaturally muscular”? I think he’s just a huge dude who’s an exceptional hitter. I’m not naive enough to think he’s not taking something, I just don’t think that something is the same kind of something that leads Melky Cabrera to become a webmaster or Manny Ramirez to start growing C cups.

Ortiz is just an exceptional power hitter. I don’t like most of the things about him — he may have outdone himself with the hissy fit he threw at the official scorer — but he’s really been something to watch. He’s a big dude with a lot of power, and naturally people are going to assume he’s cheating when he succeeds into his late 30s. But I don’t think he’s on the Ryan Braun workout regimen.

I know this is your website and all, but can we talk about John Lackey? Please? The guy signed a contract that specifically said, “If you miss significant time due to your right elbow, we will tack on one more year that major league minimum salary.” He signed on the dotted line. And now that he doesn’t suck at pitching, he’s running to Ken Rosenthal — Ken Rosenthal!! — to not-so-slyly leak out the news that he’ll retire before ever playing for $500,000. This is the same guy who happily collected $15.25 million in 2012 to lightly jog in the morning and then double-fist Bud Lights at night. Now that his contract is coming around, he’s ready to stomp his feet, take his ball and go home. Baseball players never cease to amaze me.

Keefe: Is there time to talk about John Lackey? Is that a serious question? There is ALWAYS time talk about John Lackey! ALWAYS!

John Lackey is the worst, and if Josh Beckett didn’t exist, Lackey would be the easy choice for my annual All-Animosity Team. He is pure scum on top of scum and I’m not sure how he has a single fan. He signed a five-year, $82.5 million A.J. Burnett deal before 2010 and in the first two years he went 26-23 with a 5.26 ERA. Then he missed the entire 2012 season. Last year he went 10-13 with a 3.52 on a division-winning and World Series-winning team and now he’s 8-5 with a 3.45. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he is upset that he would only make $500,000 next year, but it’s a little ironic that he didn’t think he should only be making $500,000 when he had a 1.619 WHIP in 2011.

You’re right about baseball players and they never cease to amaze me either. The other day the Mets’ Josh Thole was on with Mike Francesa, and I didn’t listen to it, but after I saw someone tweet that Thole sounds like the nicest guy in the world. And after reading that I thought, yeah maybe he is, but chances are he isn’t because he’s a baseball player. Give me an NHL player any day.

And since I was able to seamlessly throw the NHL into the mix, how depressed are you that there isn’t hockey to watch every night right now?

Hurley: It sucks hockey ended. People around here are talking about Bruins draft prospects for No. 25. Oh my God. Is there anything less exciting than talking about who the hockey team is going to draft with the 25th pick? Holy smokes. It’s just that, and then Jarome Iginla speculation. That’s hockey life here in Boston. What a thrill.

How depressed are you knowing that the Rangers’ making the Cup Final is a complete random fluke, like the Devils two years ago, and they’ll probably stink for a while and waste more years of the game’s best goalie?

Keefe: Speculating about the 25th overall draft pick is impressive because that not only means you are worried about which 18-year-old kid the Bruins are going to draft, who likely will never have an impact on the franchise, but it also means you have to speculate about the 24 picks before the Bruins’ pick to figure out who is going to be available. And if you’re taking time to do that, go outside, it’s June. Or find a hobby. Or go meet some actual people and interact with other humans. Do something.

The Rangers’ run to the Cup was a product of a lot of luck and bounces (that ran out in the Final) and having the path to the Cup cleared for them by the Canadiens. It was reminiscent of the Giants’ runs in 2011 when they beat the Packers and then the 49ers beat the Saints, preventing the Giants from having to play in New Orleans, which would have resulted in a 63-17 loss. Then the Saints would have played the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and if that happens, maybe the Patriots aren’t Super Bowl-less for what will now be a decade this year. But yes, I’m upset that this one Final appearance might be all Henrik Lundqvist gets because he has Dan Girardi preventing scoring opportunities for more than one-third of every Rangers game.

Now that you have made me sad, when I was getting happy about the Red Sox’ awful season, the decline of Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz being a bad person and John Lackey being scum, it’s time to end this email exchange. The next time we talk will be in August when the Yankees go to Fenway for a three-game weekend series. Maybe then we can finally have our fistfight on Lansdowne Street?

Hurley: As you’ve already mentioned, we’re getting older, and as I get older, my rage cools considerably. Let’s just have 100 beers and call it even.

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.

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.

Blogs • Yankees

May 14, 2014

Subway Series 2014 Diary: Yankee Stadium

The Yankees lost the first two games of the 2014 Subway Series and have now lost six straight to the Mets, so let’s look at what went wrong in the Bronx.

The Rangers overcame a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Penguins and advance to the Eastern Conference finals and the Yankees lost two games in a row at home to the Mets and have now lost six in a row to the Mets going back to last year. Is it 2014? Is this real life?

Two years ago I did a Subway Series Diary for the Yankee Stadium portion of the rivalry to recap what I watched over the three-game series and I said:

I feel weird calling this a diary since I have never had a diary before. I remember in elementary school when we were forced to have a “journal” in one of those black-and-white Mead notebooks.

Well, here we go again.

MONDAY
With the Mets losing eight of their last nine and looking ripe for their annual free fall, I didn’t think there was a chance the 2014 Subway Series could go the way the 2013 Subway Series went. But when Monday started off with Mark Teixeira not being in the lineup due to “fatigue” and “tired legs” and the $23.5 million-per-year and $138,888-per game first baseman said, “I was on the bases a lot this week. Just a little tired. I’ll be fine,” doubt started to creep in. When the Mets took a 1-0 first inning lead and held that lead into the second and the Yankees loaded the bases with no one out only for Kelly Johnson and Brian Roberts to fail to drive a run in, the doubt grew larger. Then Brett Gardner saved Johnson and Roberts by hitting a grand slam to give the Yankees a 4-1 lead and I was relieved that order had been restored in the Subway Series. I thought “The Mets are the Mets” and started to think about winning three of four in the series, if not sweeping the series. And then the seventh inning started.

Alfredo Aceves’ second tour with the Yankees is going about as well as Javier Vazquez’s second tour with the Yankees went. Sure, Alfredo Aceves 2.0 is averaging 9.3 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9, but he’s ruined the last two games he pitched in (he blew Saturday’s game in Milwaukee and Monday’s game) and he’s only pitched in four games (he did pitch 5 1/3 scoreless innings against Tampa Bay on May 4 and maybe that’s the sign the Yankees need to put him in the rotation). But Aceves wasn’t the only wrong button that Joe Girardi pushed with a 7-5 lead and nine outs to go in the game. Here are the lines for the bullpen:

Alfredo Aceves: 0.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Matt Thornton: 0.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

Preston Claiborne: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3K

Everyone loves to praise Girardi for how he uses his relievers and how he manages their workloads (he did a great job giving Mariano Rivera extended rest in his final season last year, so he could throw pitches to WFAN’s Craig Carton this week at Yankee Stadium), but Girardi’s biggest bullpen problem this season hasn’t necessarily been managing workloads as much as it has been determining who should pitch when. It’s not completely his fault since the entire league has dictated the idea of set bullpen roles, so that someone like David Robertson can no longer be the escape artist he once was when it comes to escaping jams for others. Because Robertson is the closer, he can now only escape his own jams. And that’s why Robertson was standing in the bullpen on Monday night ready to enter the game, but because it wasn’t the ninth inning and because the Yankees weren’t winning or the game wasn’t tied, he stayed in the bullpen watching the 2014 version of The Goof Troop light the game on fire like my great grandmother burning her trash in the backyard as if it were no big deal. If there are going to be set bullpen roles (and there are), then David Robertson pitches the ninth, Dellin Betances pitches the eighth and Girardi can mix and match the other innings and outs with his binder. That is the only acceptable pecking order after six weeks.

Even after watching the bullpen punch out early and after giving up nine runs, the Yankees had a chance to tie the game in the ninth with Derek Jeter on first with one out for pinch hitter … Mark Teixeira!

“All year long, they looked to him to light the fire, and all year long, he answered the demands, until he was physically unable to start tonight — with two bad legs.”

That’s how Vin Scully started his famous call of Kirk Gibson’s 1988 World Series home run and I thought Michael Kay might start to rattle something similar off, not because Kay likes to overdo it with drama more than any other baseball play-by-play man (which he does), but because it was nearly a miracle that hours after taking a seat on the bench due to tired legs, Mark Teixeira was hitting in the ninth.

And Teixeira got the job done with a single to right to put the tying run on base and the winning run at the plate in Brian McCann. But then McCann hit into the predictable game-ending double play and the Subway Series picked up right where it left off last May.

TUESDAY
For someone fighting for their job, Vidal Nuno basically did the equivalent of showing up to work an hour late wearing shorts and a T-shirt, streaming Netflix in your cube, taking a two-hour lunch, scrolling through Facebook pictures for the remainder of the post-lunch day and then accidentally forwarding an email containing a pornographic link to a company-wide list at 4:02 p.m. before leaving for the day. Nuno was given a golden opportunity to make a case that he could be a reliable starter in the rotation and replace Ivan Nova this year and also to throw his name in the mix for a spot in the rotation next year when Hiroki Kuroda leaves or if Nova still isn’t health. But Nuno has followed up every promising start with an A.J. Burnett-like egg and if it weren’t for CC Sabathia also landing on the disabled list, Nuno would probably be getting his seat back in the bullpen. Here is how Nuno has done over the last three weeks since joining the rotation:

April 20 at TB: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

April 26 vs. LAA: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

May 2 vs. TB: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K

May 7 at LAA: 6.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K

May 13 vs. NYM: 3.1 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 1 K

Sean Henn would have been proud of Nuno’s performance on Tuesday night, letting the Mets hang a 4-spot before the Yankees could even bat for the first time and then continuing to let the Mets add on to their lead with the offense trying to erase the deficit. The problem isn’t just Nuno, it’s that the Yankees needed two starters to replace Nova and Michael Pineda and Nuno and David Phelps have proven to be coin flips in their short stints in the rotation. And now the problem is even bigger with Yankees asking Chase Whitley to take CC Sabathia’s spot in the rotation on Thursday. The last time someone named Chase started a game for the Yankees, I was sitting at Fenway Park wondering if I wanted to watch baseball ever again.

After watching Aceves blow Saturday’s game and then Monday’s game, there he was again on Tuesday being called upon to stop the bleeding and give the offense a chance to get back in the game and there he was again ruining a game. Aceves gave up four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings before handing off the ball to Matt Daley, who actually did his job this time after taking part in the April 19 disaster in Tampa Bay.

Standing between a four-game losing streak and a seven-game Subway Series losing streak is Masahiro Tanaka and I’m happy he’s standing there. Right now, Tanaka’s not only the one Yankees’ starter who can be trusted, he’s the only Yankees’ starter who can win.

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 22, 2014

Podcast: Danny Picard

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

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

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

Tag: Masahiro Tanaka

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Subway Series 2014 Diary: Yankee Stadium

Podcast: Danny Picard