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Tag: Robinson Cano

Blogs • Monday Mentions • Yankees

Sep 28, 2015

Monday Mentions: Bad Pitching, Hitting, Managing and Contracts

The good news is that the Yankees are going to the playoffs for the first time in three years. The bad news is they’re going to be in the one-game playoff.

Joe Girardi

The Yankees are going to be hosting the one-game playoff next Tuesday thanks to what happened last week in Toronto. The good news is that they’re going to the playoffs for the first time in three years. The bad news is they’re in the one-game playoff. The worse news is if they win the one-game playoff, they’re likely going to have to go to Toronto and not Kansas City for the first two games of the ALDS.

Here is another installment of “Monday Mentions” focused on questions and comments from Twitter about what happened over the last week to the Yankees.

I’m a Chasen Shreve fan, so it’s hard for me to talk badly about him, considering he was good for and only recently fell apart. I’m not sure if it’s fatigue or that the league has adjusted to him or a combination of the two, but something is certainly off with him. Look at these two pitching lines from him:

First 50 appearances: 53.1 IP, 33 H, 12 R, 11 ER, 27 BB, 60 K, 6 HR, 1.86 ERA, 1.125 WHIP.

Last seven appearances: 4.1 IP, 11 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 3 HR, 12.46 ERA, 3.695 WHIP.

The guy was lights out for nearly the entire season and helped save the bullpen and essentially the summer when Andrew Miller was on the disabled list. Outside of Shreve and Dellin Betances, and I guess Justin Wilson, there was no one and I mean no one else who could get an out in the bullpen. That’s when Esmil Rogers and David Carpenter were still being asked to pitch regularly. Here’s to hoping Shreve bounces back quickly and these last seven appearances goes down as nothing more than a bad stretch at a bad time.

https://twitter.com/Thereal_ktex/status/646513736316923905

After playing in the one-game playoff, the next scariest part of the postseason is that Joe Girardi will sit down and try to decide which pitchers not named Masahiro Tanaka, Luis Severino, Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia, Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances and Justin Wilson he is going to carry in the playoffs. After those seven, there really isn’t anyone worthy of a spot, but five or six more pitchers are going to make it.

If the Yankees win the one-game playoff and reach the ALDS and trail in any of those games are in any of the games in the postseason at all, Girardi needs to realize the game is not lost. You would think this would be obvious, but in the 2011 ALDS, he brought in Luis Ayala twice before bringing in David Robertson once, in games the Yankees started to mount comebacks in. In the 2009 World Series, he brought in Brian Bruney and Phil Coke into the ninth inning of Game 1 and they gave up two runs to increase their deficit from 4-0 to 6-0. In the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees had two on with no outs to start the inning. They only scored one run, but they were one swing away from being back in the game. Don’t bring B and C and D relievers into a playoff game. The division was already lost partly because of this.

https://twitter.com/MattyinMaine/status/646467891886452736

I never wanted Jacoby Ellsbury. I wrote about it the second Robinson Cano signed with the Mariners and the Yankees turned around and threw their Cano money at Ellsbury. It was the exact type of signing the Yankees preached about avoiding in the future because they were going through the effects from the contracts given to Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia and what they had previously endured with Jason Giambi. But that doesn’t mean I want to call Jacoby Ellsbury “The Thief”. I would much rather call him something that resembles him earning his $130,511.46 per game.

Outside of one great season in Boston, Ellsbury has been Brett Gardner. You could even say Gardner has been better than him. So why did the team give Gardner $13 million a season and give Ellsbury $21.1 million per season? They essentially bid against themselves since the Red Sox supposedly didn’t even make an offer to Ellsbury and none of the other big spenders were about to give that kind of money to a player whose entire game is based on speed and who is on the other side of 30.

It’s not out of the question that Ellsbury was given the worst contract in Yankees history. Everyone will always point to Carl Pavano, but he made his entire deal in less than two years of Ellsbury’s, and Ellsbury’s is a seven-year deal. If he’s this bad and this unproductive and this injury prone as a 32-year-old center fielder, what exactly is he going to be when he’s 36 and 37?

Hey, if me calling Ellsbury “The Thief” and Chase Headley “The Bum” could in any way turn around their seasons with a week to go and the one-game playoff waiting next Tuesday, I will gladly create a negative name for every player on the team. Though it will be hard to think of one for Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.

I gave Chase Headley the nickname “The Bum” recently because he perfectly fits the description of a “bum.” Well, so does Jacoby Ellsbury, but he’s already “The Thief,” so I have to spread the names around.

I remember the rumors that Headley’s agent started that he had an offer for five years and $65 million on the table. I know this was a rumor and never actually a real offer because his agent wouldn’t have had time to leak this number to the media because Headley would have been signing it as fast as humanly possible. Headley received four years and $52 million from the Yankees because they were desperate for a third baseman and there was nowhere else to turn on the free-agent market. If the team willing to spend the most money needed to fill a position and they gave you one year and $13 million less than you reportedly were offered, well, it never happened.

Headley has been horrible. He hasn’t hit for average, he hasn’t fit for power, he has played some of the worst defense in the league, he has no speed and his throws are wild. Is there an opposite of a five-tool player because that’s what Headley is.

https://twitter.com/Shane_Corey/status/646854052203102208

Joe Girardi definitely had a hand in the Yankees losing the division over the last week-plus when he turned to Triple-A relievers and made questionable decisions in the biggest games of the season. But for as bad as Girardi has been recently and for as much as I have crushed him, there are two real reasons why the Yankees lost the division:

Chris Capuano
The Yankees gave Capuano $5 million to return this season after he pitched to a 4.25 ERA in 65 2/3 innings last year for them (after he was released by the last-place Red Sox on July 1). You know who else got a one-year, $5 million deal? Stephen Drew. (We’ll get to him.) I guess a one-year, $5 million deal is the going rate for pitchers and players that aren’t good and that no one else wants. I’m pretty sure neither of those players was going to get that much money from any other team in baseball.

But it’s not about the money with Capuano. It’s about the fact that he was given three starts in May and lost all of them. And then he was brought into an extra-inning game against the Nationals on June 10 and lost that. And then in his next and what was his last start (to this point), he gave up five earned runs and got only two outs in the first inning in Texas, but luckily, the offense backed him with a 21-run game.

Second Base
All season we had to watch Stephen Drew and Brendan Ryan struggle to get base hits and at times struggle to field despite supposedly playing because of their defense. Everyone in the world had a theory as to why the two were being given unlimited chances to succeed while Rob Refsnyder kept on playing in Triple-A. Eventually, I gave up and just figured there was no chance Refsnyder would be given another chance, even after September call-ups, and had to settle for the idea he would have to win the job in spring training next year (though he should have won the job in spring training this year). Then, with a postseason berth on the line, Refsnyder started a game, and another one and another one and kept on starting. Between Refsnyder against left-handed pitchers (and sometimes against right-handed pitchers) and Dustin Ackley against right-handed pitchers, the Yankees suddenly had an unacceptable Major League platoon and weren’t giving up an out every time that spot came up in the order.

Now Ackley hadn’t been on the team all season and once he was traded to the Yankees at the deadline he instantly went on the disabled list after about 15 minutes. But Refsnyder has been with the organization and wasn’t allowed to play nearly the whole season until the stretch run with the team trying to clinch a playoff spot? How does that make any sense? If the Yankees really wanted him to wait until next season, they would be giving him at-bats here and there over these final weeks to continue to get his feet wet in the majors. But to make him the starting second baseman as part of a platoon with Ackley, while Drew and Ryan continue to sit goes against everything we have been led to believe by the Yankees this season.

Now that #GiveRobTheJob has worked and Capuano no longer hurts the team as a member of the rotation and barely a member of the bullpen, the Yankees are a better team. But they could have been this team all season and because they weren’t, they have to play in the one-game playoff.

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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.

Robinson Cano

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.

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Blogs • Yankees

Apr 22, 2015

When Does the Free Pass for Jacoby Ellsbury Expire?

Jacoby Ellsbury hasn’t received any criticism since he became a Yankee and it’s time the $153 million center fielder was treated according to his performance.

Jacoby Ellsbury

Jacoby Ellsbury became a Yankee in the same free-agency class as Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran. Five years after spending $423.5 million on Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett following a postseason-less season, the Yankees spent $438 million on Ellsbury, Tanaka, McCann and Beltran following another postseason-less season, which ended with a Red Sox championship.

The Yankees let Robinson Cano go to Seattle after lowballing their homegrown superstar and then used the money they should have used for a new deal to re-sign him to overpay for a 30-year-0ld center fielder, a 30-year-old catcher and a 37-year-old right fielder. And in the first season with the three new position players on the rosters, the Yankees went 84-78 and missed the playoffs for the second straight season.

Ellsbury hit .271/.328/.419 with 16 home runs and 70 RBIs in 149 games. McCann hit .232/.286/.406 with 23 home runs and 75 RBIs in 140 games. Beltran hit .233/.301/.402 with 15 home runs and 49 RBIs in 109 games. All three had bad seasons and that’s before you factor in their salaries and that they made $53.1 million combined. But in a year in which the Yankees finished only six games over .500 and missed the playoffs and somehow had a worse offensive team than the miserable 2013 Yankees, Ellsbury’s subpar season (in which he finished lower than his career averages in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage) was somehow considered “good”. Despite playing nowhere near that of a $21.1-million-per-season center fielder in his prime and posting a slash line nowhere near his 2013 season and nowhere even close to his 2011 season, Ellsbury was given a free pass for 2014, and apparently that free pass doesn’t expire because he’s been given one again to start 2015.

The Yankees didn’t need any of the three, but that didn’t stop them from signing them and putting more bad contracts on the books. (Thanks, Brian Cashman!) It’s still ridiculous that the Yankees were willing to give $153 million to an inferior player in Ellsbury while maintaining their stance and not willing to budge on their own Cano at $175 million. The Yankees didn’t and don’t need Ellsbury. They already had Brett Gardner, who is the cheaper version of Ellsbury. They did need Cano. And without signing a luxury, not a necessity, in Ellsbury, they would have been able to up their seven-year, $175 million offer to Cano (even though they’re the Yankees and they could have upped it anyway).

On Monday night, the Yankees trailed the Tigers 2-1 in the eighth inning with Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius on first and one out. Gregorius had just singled and chase Alfredo Simon from the game and Brad Ausmus went into his miserable bullpen and called on Joba Chamberlain to face Ellsbury. (Ellsbury has seen Chamberlain more than any other place in the majors since Joba’s 2007 debut.) After fouling off a first-pitch fastball, Ellsbury hit a second-pitch fastball into a 4-6-3 inning-ending double play. Rally over. Inning over. Game all but over as the Yankees would go on to lose 2-1.

It was the 13th game of the season for the Yankees and the 12th game of the season for Ellsbury. He finished the game 1-for-4 with his 15th hit of the season, 14 of which are singles with the other being a double, with zero home runs and zero RBIs.

On Tuesday night, Ellsbury went 0-for-4 with a walk, maintaining his one extra-base hit total for the season and once again failing to drive in a run. Even Gregorio Petit has one RBI this season and it’s shocking when he is able to make contact at the plate and a miracle when he puts the ball in play. But the Yankees won 5-1 on Tuesday thanks to contributions from players not named Jacoby Ellsbury, so he was able to get by for another night.

What if A-Rod, who is making $100,000 less than Ellsbury this season, was entering the 15th game of the season with one extra-base hit, no home runs and no RBIs? I’m sure Twitter and the Post and the Daily News and ESPN would leave him alone and let his performance go unnoticed and give him time to turn it around. But for some reason, no one is talking about Ellsbury’s lack of run production. It’s not like the Yankees are off to some impressive start and therefore no reason to complain about anything or be worried or concerned about the team. They’re a .500 team through 14 games and their second-highest paid position player (Mark Teixeira is first at $22.5 million this season … and next!) this season has been invisible offensively.

I didn’t want Jacoby Ellsbury on the Yankees. I didn’t want a 30-year-old center fielder on a seven-year, $153 million, who’s biggest part of his game is his speed, knowing that speed won’t last forever. I didn’t want to watch 37-year-old Ellsbury as a platoon player making $21.1 million in 2020. (The Yankees will have to pay him $5 million to not play for them in 2021.) But he’s here, and he’s for this year and at least the next five years after this one. And since he’s here, his performance needs to be treated accordingly.

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Blogs • Yankees

Apr 17, 2015

Thank You, Brian Cashman for Ruining the Yankees

Every time Brian Cashman talks I feel like Dunphy in Outside Providence when he says to Mr. Funderburk mid-sentence, “Oh will you just shut the f-ck up.” Everything that comes out Cashman’s mouth is just

Brian Cashman

Every time Brian Cashman talks I feel like Dunphy in Outside Providence when he says to Mr. Funderburk mid-sentence, “Oh will you just shut the f-ck up.”

Everything that comes out Cashman’s mouth is just a long way of making an excuse. Through nine horrific games this season, Cashman has wondered why the defense has been so bad or the offense hasn’t been there or the pitching has been inconsistent. He has cited small sample sizes rather than admitting that when you put enough baseball players together that suck at baseball, the team is going to suck.

At 3-6, the Yankees have lost all three of their series to open the season, are three games back already in the division, and if things don’t turn around this weekend in Tampa Bay before heading to Detroit for four games followed by the first part of the Subway Series and a series in Boston in two weeks, the 2015 Yankees might not make it to Cinco de Mayo let alone Memorial Day.

Before the season started Cashman said to his team, “Be a good enough team to get to the playoffs, allow me to tweak in-season to make it good enough to win a World Series.’’ He believed before the season that the team he constructed could be good enough to compete for a playoff spot, and if they were to, he could get them to the World Series, apparently with his magic trade powers. The same powers that have Didi Gregorius looking like he belongs playing in an Independent League while Shane Greene is 2-0 for the Tigers thanks to back-to-back starts of eight scoreless innings.

The season might be 5.6 percent old and maybe before this road trip is over the season will have turned around. But so far, every fear I had about the 2015 Yankees has come true and then some. Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. The offense comes and goes, the pitching is inconsistent, the defense is an embarrassment and on Thursday night, the bullpen joined the club with a sixth-inning implosion to cost the Yankees the game.

It didn’t have to be this way. The same bad lineup and shaky rotation you see every game and will see for the next five-plus months didn’t have to look like this. Let’s go back in time and look at what Brian Cashman could have done differently to not put the Yankees in this spot.

The Yankees missed the playoffs in 2013 because of devastating injuries to Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira. That led to the following players playing the most games at each position:

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

After years of fortunate health, the Yankees’ fortunes ran out in 2013 and the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and the second time since 1993.

Then came the 2013 offseason.

The Yankees’ missed postseason, coupled with the Red Sox winning the World Series set the front office into a panic, throwing out their plans of staying below the luxury-tax threshold they had talked about for so long. They decided to lowball Robinson Cano with a BS offer and instead gave Jacoby Ellsbury (a bigger-name Brett Gardner) a seven-year, $153 million deal. Despite catcher being the one position of depth in the organization, they gave Brian McCann a five-year, $85 million deal for his 30-, 31-, 32-, 33- and 34-year-old seasons. After watching Carlos Beltran’s postseason performance and after years of dealing with Nick Swisher’s postseaon failures, they gave Beltran a three-year, $15 million deal for his 37-, 38- and 39-year-old seasons, nine years after they should have signed Beltran.

The 2014 Yankees’ payroll was $197.2 million.

Let’s say they don’t sign Jacoby Ellsbury. The payroll drops to $176.1 million.

Let’s say they don’t sign Brian McCann. The payroll drops to $159.1 million.

Let’s say they don’t sign Carlos Beltran. The payroll drops to $144.1 million.

Let’s say they re-sign Robinson Cano and give him the contract the Mariners gave him (10 years, $24 million). The payroll increases to $168.1 million.

Without those three and with Cano, the payroll would have been $29.1 million less.

The 2014 Opening Day lineup would have been:

C – Francisco Cervelli/John Ryan Murphy
1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – Kelly Johnson
SS – Derek Jeter
LF – Alfonso Soriano
CF – Brett Gardner
RF – Ichiro Suzuki
DH – Someone else on the 25-man roster

That lineup isn’t exactly the offense we got used to over the last 15-plus seasons, but it’s also not that far removed from the actual 2014 offense.

The rotation stays the same as it was with CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Masahiro Tanaka, Ivan Nova and Michael Pineda.

I wanted Brian McCann on the Yankees because I had to sit through a lot of Chris Stewart and Austin Romine in 2013. But it didn’t make a lot of sense for the Yankees to pay a catcher $85 million for his 30-34 seasons when, once again, catcher was the one position of depth in the organization at the time.

Ichiro ended up playing in 143 games, so it was like he was an everyday player anyway.

Soriano only played in 67 games (238 plate appearances) and hit .221 with six home runs and 23 RBIs before he was released. Soriano was supposed to be the Yankees’ designated hitter. He was supposed to play in the outfield only to give others a day off. But because of the old, brittle signing of Carlos Beltran and having the softest player in all of baseball in Mark Teixeira, Soriano lost out on being the full-time DH and was relegated to infrequent at-bats as part of an outfield rotation. The Yankees put Soriano, a career everyday player, in a position to fail and when he did, they let him go. Beltran hit .223 with 15 home runs and 49 RBIs. Soriano could have those numbers or close to them if he played the full season.

The actual 2014 Yankees missed the playoffs, so if this team had missed it, nothing changes. The only thing that changes is that they are in a much better financial position for 2015 and beyond. Let’s look at this past offseason and this season had that Yankees roster been constructed.

The current 2015 Yankees payroll is $217.8 million.

Before we continue, remember the 2014 Yankees traded Johnson for Stephen Drew, traded Yangervis Solarte for Chase Headley and Vidal Nuno for Brandon McCarthy.

Let’s say they re-sign Headley, sign Andrew Miller, don’t trade Shane Greene for Didi Gregorius (their salaries cancel each other out) and don’t trade Martin Prado and David Phelps for Nathan Eovaldi. Add $11 million to the 2015 payroll for Prado (Side note: the Yankees are paying $3 million of Prado’s salary in 2015 and 2016 to play for Miami. No big deal.) and add $1.4 million for Phelps. That brings the payroll to $230.2 million. Then subtract $3.3 million for Eovaldi. That brings the total to $226.9 million.

Let’s say they re-sign David Robertson for the contract the White Sox gave him (four years, $46 million). Add $10 million to the payroll. The total is $236.9 million.

Let’s say they re-sign Brandon McCarthy for the contract the Dodgers gave him (four years, $48 million). Add $11 million to the payroll. The total is $247.9 million.

Add in Cano’s $24 million. The total is $271.9 million.

Now subtract McCann’s $17 million. The total is $254.9 million.

Subtract Ellsbury’s $21.1 million. The total is $233.8 million.

Subtract Beltran’s $15 million. The total is $218.8 million.

After all of that, the 2015 payroll is $1 million more than it is actually is in real life.

Here is the 2015 Opening Day lineup after that.

C – John Ryan Murphy
1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – Chase Headley
SS – Stephen Drew
LF – Martin Prado
CF – Brett Gardner
RF – Chris Young (or maybe Jose Pirela or Rob Refsnyder?)
DH – Alex Rodriguez

No, I still wouldn’t have wanted Drew on this team, but guess what, he’s already on it, so nothing changes. Except that the rest of the team is better around Drew.

And here’s the rotation (in no particular order):

Masahiro Tanaka
Michael Pineda
CC Sabathia
Brandon McCarthy
Shane Greene

For $1 million more, the Yankees could have Robinson Cano hitting third in their lineup instead of Carlos Beltran. Brandon McCarthy and Shane Greene at the back of their rotation rather than Nathan Eovaldi and Adam Warren. They could still have Martin Prado on the roster to play wherever he is needed. They could have a back-end of the bullpen of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and David Robertson. All for $1 million more.

Thank you, Brian Cashman. Thank you for ruining the Yankees.

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Blogs • Yankees

Apr 14, 2015

Joe Girardi Needs to Stop with the Days Off

The Yankees just had six months off, but that hasn’t stopped Joe Girardi from deciding to give all of his everyday players days off in the first week of the season.

Joe Girardi

Joe Girardi must be stopped. The Yankees manager is out of control with giving his players days off just one week into the season. You would think the Yankees were banged up or undefeated or even at .500 to this point for Girardi to put together a different lineup each game. But no, Girardi has decided that October, November, December, January, February and most of March (I say most because a good part of March consists of playing two innings and then playing golf for the rest of the day) wasn’t enough time off for his under-.500 team coming off back-to-back postseason-less seasons.

Brian McCann played the first game of the season on a Monday, Tuesday was an off day, he played on Wednesday, had Thursday off, played 18 innings on Friday, had Saturday off, played on Sunday and then had Monday off. McCann has played in four of seven games this season. It would be more of an issue if John Ryan Murphy hadn’t been one of the two or three best hitters on the team so far, but why is the $85 million catcher making $17 million playing so little to start the season?

Brett Gardner played the first two games of the season before getting the third game of the Blue Jays series off. Why? Most likely because the Yankees were facing a lefty and I guess Girardi thought it would make the most sense to have his best or second-best all-around player as part of a platoon. (On Monday night in Baltimore, Gardner was hit on the wrist, which eventually forced him out of the games and to have X-rays taken, but not before Girardi let him go to bat unable to swing and bunt in the sixth inning of a tie game at Camden Yards.)

Jacoby Ellsbury played all three games against the Blue Jays and then played all 19 innings on Friday, so he was given Saturday off. Ellsbury is 31 years old and in the second year of a seven-year, $153 million contract and will make $21.1 million this year and $130,511 per game. So why was the player who is making the money that should have gone to Robinson Cano getting the day off after Friday’s long game while older and more injury-prone players played on Saturday?

In the first five games of the season, Chase Headley was 3-for-22 (.136). On Sunday night, he went 3-for-5 with one home run and 3 RBIs. Aside from his game-tying solo home run in the bottom of the ninth on Friday night, it was the first time he has shown any life with the bat in the first week of the season. So why was he on the bench on Monday night?

I didn’t want Stephen Drew on the Yankees last year. I didn’t want the Yankees to sign him to a one-year, $5 million deal this year. I wanted Rob Refsnyder or Jose Pirela to be the second baseman for 2015. I wanted him designated for assignment before the season began and I still want him designated for assignment. In the first five games of the season, Drew was 2-for-17 (.118), including a disastrous 1-for-8 night in the 19-inning game on Friday night. But on Sunday night, he hit a home run and had 2 RBIs. So why was he on the bench on Monday night?

Carlos Beltran has played in every game this season and has started six of the games. In the six games he has started, he has hit third. Beltran is 38 years old and will be 39 next Friday and looks more done than Alfonso Soriano looked last year. I would actually rather have Soriano right now, nearly a year removed from baseball, playing instead of Beltran. I have nicknamed Beltran “Going Through the Motions” for this season as he has shown no signs of life in the field or at the plate where he’s 4-for-28 (.143). I wanted Beltran as much as anyone else after 2013, but his Yankees tenure started nine years too late and has been a disappointment. Maybe instead of giving productive players in their prime days off, it’s time Beltran sits? Or at least take him out of the 3-hole and put him no higher than seventh in the order.

Mark Teixeira got the day off after the 19-inning game most likely because the Yankees were scared of him getting “tired legs” for the second consecutive season for standing around for too long. So who played first base for Teixeira that day after the 19-inning game? Number 13.

A-Rod is 39. He will be 40 in July. He has two surgically repaired hips and since 2011 he has played more than 100 games once (122 in 2012). He has played every game this season. He was pulled in the 11th inning of Friday’s game for a pinch runner that didn’t work out and the Yankees lost their best hitter for the remainder of the game. On either Tuesday or Wednesday against the Orioles, A-Rod will get the day off because the last 18 months off apparently wasn’t enough time off.

The lineup has been improperly constructed for the first seven games and the wrong people have been getting days off. I’m not sure why I thought this season might be different for Girardi when it comes to his excessive resting of his players since it certainly didn’t work the last two seasons.

So who’s going to get the next game off? Whichever Yankee is hitting the best or whichever Yankee is the youngest or most important or making the most money.

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