Daily Archives: July 23, 2008

With the trade deadline looming and a lot of silly rumors floating around, I have a few things to say:

1) The Yankees don’t need a relief pitcher, left-handed or otherwise. Brian Bruney should return from his rehab assignment soon to force LaTroy Hawkins off the roster, and if he’s not as good as he was in April, there’s more in triple-A where he came from. The Yankees trading for a relief pitcher would be like heating a house in the desert, a total waste of resources.

2) Getting Jarod Washburn in a salary dump would be a coup. Washburn has a 2.65 ERA in his last eight starts and has strong career numbers at Yankee Stadium (2.82 ERA), Fenway Park (3.60 ERA), and the Trop (1.89 ERA, which is impressive no matter how bad the Rays have been during his career). More recent versions of this rumor have the Yankees forcing Kei Igawa on the Mariners and the M’s countering with Jose Vidro. A great as it would be to be rid of Igawa, Vidro’s not worth it. His hitting rates this season are nearly an exact match for Jose Molina’s, except Vidro has had a hundred more at-bats. He’s as done as a player can be.

3) The Yankees biggest need is another bat. They’re a pitching-rich organization, and Cellophane Rasner and Groundhog Ponson can hold their own as fourth and fifth starters until the reinforcements are ready (which could include a healthy Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes). Next year’s rotation will be filled by Wang, Chamberlain, the free-agent market (possibly including one-year deals for Mussina and/or Pettitte), and emergent prospects (Hughes, Kennedy, McCutchen, Aceves). Rather, the Yankees’ big holes this offseason will be right field and at first base, only one of which is likely to be filled by free agency. More urgently, even with Abreu and Giambi still in place, the bottom of the order is Betemit/Sexson, Cabrera, Molina, which just won’t do. The price on Matt Holliday, who nearly won the NL MVP award last year, is likely too high, but Jason Bay, who had an off-year in 2007 due to knee problems and didn’t even make the All-Star team this year (though he should have) could be more reasonably priced and could even be the better player (Bay is Holliday’s second most similar player on Baseball-Reference, followed by Hideki Matsui who also makes Bay’s list, and is easily the better hitter on the road). Buying high on Xavier Nady, however, seems like a bad move. Nady is 29 and a career .281/.336/.455 hitter in the National League. That’s not nothing, but it’s not much more than league-average, and his career line in inter-league play is .224/.290/.388. Stay away.

4) Jorge Posada should get over himself and have his surgery now. Yes, the Yankees’ biggest need is a bat, even if it’s one that can only DH, but it seems doubtful that Posada will be able to hit for power without the surgery. Even more than that, the Yankees need Posada to be healthy, productive, and behind the plate five days a week starting on Opening Day 2009, so that they don’t find themselves in this position again next year. Any further delay on Jorge’s part is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and Peter’s gonna be pissed when he finds out about it. Let Hideki Matsui be the guy playing Hamlet over his MRIs and get Posada under the knife pronto.

Glad I could get all that off my chest.

The Yankees opened the second-half of the 2008 season by sweeping the Oakland A’s, passing them in the Wild Card standings as a result. With their 5-1 win over the Twins this afternoon, they’ve swept Minnesota and passed them in the Wild Card standings as well.

Today’s game was scoreless through four and a half innings and none of the five baserunners to that point got past first base. Robinson Cano became the first man to reach second in the bottom of the fifth when he and Melky Cabrera both singled with one out. Jose Molina then hit into what looked like an inning-ending double play ball to third base, but second baseman Alexi Casilla thought there already were two outs in the inning and, rather than making the pivot to double up the sluggish Molina, took Brendan Harris’s throw while running across the bag and started to head into the dugout. Casilla realized his mistake when Twins starter Glen Perkins started cursing him out through clenched teeth, but it was too late; The Yankees had an extra out and they made the most of it when Justin Christian, starting against the lefty Perkins, shot a low and inside pitch down the third base line for a two-run double into the left-field coerner that plated Molina all the way from first base.

That was all Mike Mussina needed as he turned in his best start of the season by pitching eight shutout innings while striking out seven and allowing just six baserunners (all on hits). The Yankees added a three-spot against Perkins in the sixth and LaTroy Hawkins coughed one up while attempting to wrap things up in the ninth (“forcing” Joe Girardi to call in Mariano Rivera for the final out).

The Yanks have scored 6.3 runs per game since the break while allowing just two runs per game. They are now a game ahead of the Twins, four ahead of the A’s, and are headed to Boston for a three-game series trailing the Red Sox for the Wild Card lead by just three games (with the division-leading Rays just another half game ahead of them).

Robbie:

Joe: 

Thunderstorms are in the forecast…could be a long, damp one for the Yanks and Twins.

According to Ken Rosenthal, Jarrod Washburn isn’t likely to land in the Bronx.

Whew.

Over at the Times, Harvey Araton has a blog post on former Yankee announcer, Tony Kubek, who talks about why he walked away from broadcasting in 1994:

“I had two years remaining on my contract with MSG at the time,” Kubek said. “But it struck me that day that I just didn’t want to be in or around baseball anymore. I remember that I called Bob Gutkowski, who was my boss, and I told him that I wasn’t going to finish the contract. He said, `Wait a minute, that’s pretty good money you’re going to walk away from,’ but I had made up my mind and that was it.

“Part of it was that I didn’t like what was happening in the game, or what was going to happen. But part of it was that I had been around baseball my whole life. Everyone around me had been in baseball. I decided I didn’t want to be in it anymore, to go home and spend time with my family. I said goodbye, and that was it. I haven’t seen a major league game since I retired, even on television. I’ve never seen Derek Jeter play, though I do recall seeing him work out when he was very young and still in the minor leagues.”

Kind of hard to imagine never having watched Jeter isn’t it? Good stuff from Araton.

Jeez, tough loss for the Mets last night, huh?