Daily Archives: August 15, 2008

Let’s get right into it. The Yankees just made three roster moves. The first was obvious: Dan Giese, who left Wednesday’s game with shoulder tendonitis, has been placed on the DL and replaced with Chris Britton, who will reprise his role as roster filler until the Yankees are forced to call up a fifth starter, likely Phil Hughes, next weekend.

The second was somewhat overdue. Melky Cabrera, who has hit .226/.274/.293 since May 1, was optioned to triple-A and replaced by Brett Gardner. In fairness to the Yankees, they tried to motivate this exchange in early July by calling up Gardner and giving him 16 starts in an 18-game stretch (enabled by Johnny Damon’s shoulder injury), but Gardner made Melky look like Mickey Mantle by hitting .153/.227/.169. As I reported in my Farm Report this morning, Gardner got back in the grove after his late-July demotion, hitting .339/.429/.390* in his return engagement in Scranton. He also returns to the Bronx coming off a 3 for 4 day (with a triple) and on a seven-game hitting streak. After his July performance, it’s difficult to say Gardner couldn’t be worse than Melky, and there’s legitimate concern that his total lack of power will allow major league pitchers to challenge him and thus negate his ability to draw walks, which is a huge part of his game, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and this doesn’t even qualify as the latter.

Gardner will start in center tonight and bat eighth ahead of Andy Pettitte’s new personal catcher, Jose Molina. It remains to be seen if Joe Girardi will platoon the lefty-hitting Gardner with the right-handed Justin Christian, though one suspects he will. The way I see it, if they’re going to give Gardner a second chance, they might as well let him play full time, though certainly Gardner’s performance will play a large part in determining how much playing time he loses to Christian. As for Melky, he’ll be back when rosters expand in two weeks.

The third and final transaction saw the Yankees call up Cody Ransom, whom I also discussed in my Farm Report, and release Richie Sexson. I have to say, I’m confused about this one. Sexson was hitting .250/.371/.393 as a Yankee, which isn’t season-changing, but if nothing else, gave the Yankees a solid on-base performance from a bench player. Against lefties, Sexson hit .273/.393/.455 as a Yankee, which meant he was doing what the Yankees picked him up to do. Ransom, as I said in my Farm Report, is essentially a right-handed Wilson Betemit, but five years older and with a fraction of the big league experience. Originally a shortstop, Ransom can play all four infield positions and spot in the outfield. He transitioned to third base in 2006, but in the wake of the Alberto Gonzalez trade was moved back to short in Scranton a couple of weeks ago. He’s got some pop in his bat (22 homers in 116 games for Scranton this year, 49 in 257 games over his last two minor league seasons), but his plate discipline is ordinary at best and he strikes out a lot and hits for a low average.

Other than position flexibility, I’m not sure what Ransom offers that would be enough for the Yankees to pass on having Sexson on the bench earning the major league minimum. Derek Jeter’s in the lineup tonight at shortstop, so it doesn’t seem as though his bruised instep is enough of a problem to motivate a roster move that costs the team a productive player. The only thing I can think of is that having the extra infielder on hand will allow Joe Girardi to apply some pressure to Robinson Cano, whose play over the past two weeks has become downright problematic as he’s made numerous mental mistakes on the bases and in the field, enough so that his effort and concentration have been called into question (Cano’s also hitting .210/.279/.323 since the end of the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak coming out of the All-Star break). Still, I’m not sure it was necessary to release Sexson in order to give either Betemit or Ransom some starts at second base. Besides which, Cano’s in the lineup tonight in his usual spot.

Still, it seems to me that these last two moves are designed primarily to make the C + C Music Factory sweat, while giving Girardi some viable alternatives in the meantime. Sexson’s departure doesn’t represent a huge loss, particularly with Jason Giambi having heated back up (.288/.447/.515 since the day before the All-Star break, .364/.533/.773 on the just-completed road trip), but Cody Ransom, a career .236/.331/.364 hitter in 140 major league bats at age 31, is still a downgrade, no matter what positions he can play.

*the stats in my Farm Report don’t include Thursday’s games; these do

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Over at SI.com, John Rolfe revists a world without the Yankees in the post-season.  I consider the possibility of a silent October in the Bronx at The Hardball Times.

With the season on the brink of extinction and with one eye focused on next spring, there’s a lot of ground to cover in Yankeeland. What’s wrong with Robinson Cano? What’s right with Xavier Nady? And why do the Yankees have the most fragile young pitchers? Here’s a smattering of opinions coming from Cooperstown:

*Robinson Cano might not be the biggest individual disappointment in major league baseball this year, but he has to rank among the top five failures. On Wednesday afternoon, he hit rock bottom. Cano went hitless at the plate and committed three mental mistakes in the field as the Yankees fell to the Twins, 4-2, to close out a miserable 3-and-7 road trip. Without those mistakes, the outcome of the road trip finale could have been different.

The Yankees envisioned Cano having a breakout season in 2008, hitting .315-plus with power and playing Gold Glove defense at second base. Instead, they’ve watched Cano sink to his lowest major league levels, as he struggles to hit .265, shows no additional patience at the plate, and waltzes around the infield, playing the position without passion or hustle. The regression is so stunning that I have to believe Cano misses the influence of Larry Bowa, the Yankees’ former third base and infield coach. Bowa, with his relentlessly aggressive style, had a way of lighting a fuse under Cano; without Bowa, Cano plays too often as if he is sleepwalking.

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I got off work and headed downtown yesterday evening just as it started to pour.  By the time I reached Union Square, the stairwell leading the street was crammed with people.  Some were just waiting for the rain to let up, others were soaking wet.  At the top of the stairs an African woman chanted, "Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella."  I smiled at her and said, "How’s business?"  She titled her head at me, paused and then went back to her mantra. 

I braved the elements until I got to Fourth avenue and 12th street, where I stopped underneath an overhang, where several people were huddled.  I sat and watched the traffic pass.  It’s funny, the rain.  Some people are completely unfazed by it.  Others will wait it out cause they can’t stand getting wet.  A kid in his early twenties passed me, no umbrella, drenched, his t-shirt sticking to his long torso.  I remembered being in my early twenties seeing this kid and I smiled at his carefree manner as he strutted by.

Then a familiar face passed.  As I thought about who it was, I said, "J?"  The dude stopped and sure enough it was J-Live, the MC and record producer.  Back in the summer of ’01, the year before I started Bronx Banter, I conducted a long interview with J in the basement of The Sound Library, an upscale record shop, when it used to be on Avenue A.  This was just after J’s second full-length album, All of the Above was released.  Although it took some time to pin him down once we spoke, J was insightful and a thoroughly decent guy.

I’ve drifted from the music scene in recent years though I did hear that J put out a new record earlier this summer.  I congradulated him on the new joint (which I haven’t heard yet), told him what I’m up to, and then let him go.  If it hadn’t been raining, I would have never run into him.

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Fat and Skinny works in comedy partnerships: Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Siskel and Ebert. The Yankees didn’t get the memo when they hired Charlie Steiner to work with John Sterling–it was like Hardy and Hardy.

Mike and the Mad Dog have been the most successful fat and skinny radio duo in sports radio history and now, a few weeks shy of their 19th anniversary at WFAN, they are splitting up. Mike will stay at the FAN. Russo is reportedly going to Sirus.

Like them or not–I found them entertaining in measured doses–they were an institution in New York sports coverage and this is certainly the end of an era.

Here is one of the best Russo rants of them all:

The FAN won’t be the same without the Angry Puppy.