The Wife’s favorite comment this season is, “Who?!?!” Cause she can’t keep track of all these dudes. Over at SI.com, Joe Lemire on trading places nature of the 2013 Yankees:
Every so often, Yankees traveling secretary Ben Tuliebitz will pick up the P.R. department’s game notes, scan the list of all the players who have participated for the club this season and stumble across a name he hadn’t considered for a while. Cody Eppley? Ben Francisco? It’s easy to forget those players were 2013 Yankees, but both were on the Opening Day roster, an ancient document of little present-day use.
“This has been the craziest year for me,” said Tuliebitz, who is in his seventh season as traveling secretary. “I have a checklist of all the things I need to do, and it seems like every time I start crossing something off my list, I have to add something because we’re going to call this guy up and send this guy down.”
…It’s Cashman’s job to choose the players and Tuliebitz’s job to get them there, no matter the logistics. Veteran first baseman Travis Ishikawa, for instance, was home with his family in the Bay Area when the Yankees plucked him off the waiver wire, so Tuliebitz said he arranged for Ishikawa, the player’s wife and their two young children to fly cross-country. Ishikawa arrived a day earlier than his family in order to play on July 8. His family made the game, but they weren’t around much longer — Ishikawa played just the one game before being designated for assignment on July 11.
Adams arrived at the ballpark at first pitch on Monday night after his flight landed two hours before the 7:10 p.m. CDT start and rush hour traffic impeded his progress from there. That’s still better than his return to Triple A two weeks ago. The team was playing in Louisville, but all New York-area flights there were canceled because of storms, so Adams instead was booked on a flight to Cincinnati. The bad weather delayed that flight five hours, so he was bunkered down in Newark airport until 1 a.m., landing in Cincinnati at 3 and then taking a car service the last hour and a half to Louisville.
We saw about as good a job as you could have expected this year both in terms of selecting personnel and using them. I was as anti-Wells as anybody, and definitely skeptical of things like Overbay, etc. But realistically, who else could they have gotten? And how could you have possibly done better with what they had? I just hope they don't slip too far below 500 because they've played hard and deserve that level of respect.
Seeing Sori again just fuels my obsession with the alternate history of no trade. He and Jete would have become great buddies and spotted around town hanging out together. ARod would be off roiding in Texass. I am working on this obsession with my therapist.
And adios to Andy? Heartbreaking.
Sori would have been booed viciously and become a scapgeoat for hitting .240 and striking out 180 times a year.
On the other hand, Alex, he was cheered pretty well whebn he went 40/40 with the Nats
Usually when I leave the country I wake up in the middle of the night to check on the Yanks and run up roaming charges. No problem this year. Arrivederci.
[1] If Soriano was never traded, where would Cano be now?
2) some Yankees fans like my father were already sick of Soriano's strikeouts before he was traded away, but others (including me) were more tolerant mostly because of his "homegrown" status. and also because he often came up with big hits.
5) It's a good question, but I like to think the Yankees would have moved him from 2b even before Cano looked like an option. Sori was not a good fit there.
If we were in a bar I'd have sworn Soriano began his OF transition before he left the Bronx. But ze Retrosheet, she say non. Manufactured memory is weird.
He did have a handful of starts at SS and 3B, which is also weird to contemplate.
[5] I've wondered that myself. I'm guessing he'd be playing for some other team. The only reason he got a chance at 2B was because the Yankees didn't have any alternatives. And because no one wanted him when they tried to trade him in his prospect days. No one thought he'd be what he is today.