Today the Mets finally released Oliver Perez, and there was much rejoicing.  Perez, who was heading into his third year of a horrid contract, and two and a half years as a punchline about the recent Mets administrations’ ineptitude, joins fellow scapegoat Luis Castillo, who was released Friday and promptly picked up by the Phillies (whose fantastic pitching staff will have to hope the grounders they induce avoid second base). Both Castillo and Perez were the targets of intense fan dislike, which was thoroughly earned from a baseball perspective though not from a personal one. Castillo was often accused of being sulky or half-assed when, in fact, he simply had no working knees. Neither he nor Perez can be blamed for taking the ludicrous contracts Omar Minaya offered them, but you also can’t blame Mets fans for their palpable relief at no longer having to watch those two.

Anyway, certain players on certain teams are destined to be the butt of jokes, the target of fans’ unhappiness. I bring this up because the Yankees are primed to have a few of those this year. Though there is obviously a major difference in that none of these new players have especially large or unreasonable contracts –and so shouldn’t garner the level of contempt that Perez of Castillo did — don’t wait too long to get your Colon jokes ready. When you have three real major league starters and are just hoping to get by in the last two rotations spots, you’re going to have some clunkers. Clunkers are an enjoyable part of the game too, though, if you can bring the right expectations and attitude to it. I know as someone writing about the games, I am grateful to Tony Womack and Sir Sidney Ponson for the material.

This has been coming since that fateful week Cliff Lee decided to head to Phillie and Andy Pettitte decided to saty in Texas. The Yankees haven’t named their 4 or 5 starters yet, less than two weeks before the season starts, but if I had to guess I’d say we’re looking at Ivan Nova and Bartolo Colon, who seem to have  the edge over Sergio Mitre and Freddy Garcia. And there’s no way those two will stay in those spots all season, so there’s more to come. Once in a while you get an Aaron Small or Gustavo Chacin – sometimes you even get both at once! – but mostly you don’t. And that’s okay. Even the Yankees have to make due with baseball’s scrap heap sometimes.

I’m reminded of a tale from some baseball book or other that I was reading, years ago, about minor league life. A coach was described who would always console struggling players with comforting words along the lines of, “Relax, kid, don’t blame yourself – blame the dopey scout who signed you”. Yes, it’s important not to make things unduly personal. The Yanks are going to deal with some clunkers this year, no way arund it. But if we approach this in the right spirit I think we can have some fun.

So, what do you think – who will we be making agonized jokes about come June?

Alex Rodriguez sure is having a productive spring, huh? But he’s not alone–Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira are swinging the bat well, too.

Man, the season is so close you can almost taste it. It’s raining again in New York today but it’s nice to know that the Yanks are geared up and ready to roll (knock on everything).

Harvey Araton has a long profile on Brian Cashman today in the Times.

[Photo Credit: Catholic University]

Leading off for the Yanks…Derek Jeter or Brett Gardner?

There is only one conclusion to draw from Ivan Nova’s performance on Wednesday night in Tampa: he is going to make the Opening Day roster, and most likely as the No. 4 starter. In bouncing back from his lone poor performance this spring, Nova pitched brilliantly by forging six hitless innings against the Orioles. He threw strikes, kept his fastball down, and even mixed in a slider, the latest addition to his repertoire. Nova recorded 11 of his 14 outs on ground balls, which is exactly the kind of ratio the Yankees would like to see this summer.

With Nova slotted in the fourth spot, that leaves only the No. 5 starter to be decided. The two right-handed veterans, Freddie Garcia and Bartolo Colon, will continue to fight for that honor, with the loser possibly heading to the bullpen, especially if the Yankees take the careful route and place Joba Chamberlain on the disabled list to start the season. (I don’t think Chamberlain’s oblique injury is all that serious, but the Yankees tend to be overly cautious when it comes to these things.) The Yankees could also open up a relief spot by releasing or trading Sergio Mitre, a possibility that has actually been rumored this spring despite Joe Girardi’s affinity for the former Marlin.

The other outside possibility for the bullpen is Romulo Sanchez, the ex-Pirate who is out of options. Sanchez has been wild this spring, but he has a live fastball that has impressed opposing scouts, and would almost certainly be claimed on waivers by someone. At 26, Sanchez is a lot younger than both Colon and Garcia, and more accustomed to pitching out of the pen.

Whatever happens with the 12-man staff, the Yankees at least appear to have some decent pitching options, more so than they appeared to have at the start of spring training…

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I’m working on an MLB season preview right now for one of my other gigs, and as part of that I need to have three “Reasons to Watch” for every team. For some, they’re easy to come up with (How will Albert Pujols do in his walk year? Can the Phillies rotation possibly meet epectations?), and in other cases more challenging (the Pirates. Can I say “masochism”?). But for me, it actually may have been trickiest coming up with reasons for the Yankees. It was sort of a forest-for-the-trees effect: I follow them closely enough that things like their 4th- and 5th-rotation slot battles are items of major interest, but I have to remember that the average baseball fan and even the casual yankee fan probably does not give much of a damn wither the 5th starter is Ivan Nova, Bartolo Colon or your aunt Sally. For me, just about everything is a reason to watch: I want to see if Robinson Cano can keept up last year’s torrid pace, if Mark Teixeira can avoid his usual lousy April, if A-Rod’s improved hip leads to another monster season from him, I want to see Mariano Rivera because few things in our imperfect world are so reliably lovely. In fact, I ended up picking for my list Derek Jeter’s upcoming 3,000th hit, which is probably one of the few things that is not really a reason to watch for me. Or, rather, I do want to see Jeter hit 3,000, but I’m dreading the accompanying media hype, which I’m afraid will make the whole run-up to the event itself more or less unbearable.

I think in the end I’ll go with Jeter’s 3,000th hit, Jesus Montero, and Mariano. But I was curious to see what other people would have gone with. If you had to pick three “Reasons to Watch” the Yanks this season, what would they be?

Tyler Kepner on a young flame-thrower…

Yup, the kid pitched well last night.

Yanks and O’s on YES tonight.

[Picture by Bags]

Mr. Greene, my 8th Grade Social Studies teacher, posted a message on the blackboard on the first day of classes:

If you don’t know the answer to a question, bluff by speaking the word, “economics.” More often than not, you’ll be right.

Heady stuff to tell a bunch of 12-14-year-old kids who had little idea how the world works. I mention Mr. Greene’s message because it was written in the context of the first unit that year: The Civil War, and the major causes of it. Slavery, the major cause of the War that began 150 years ago this year, is certainly a cultural issue. At its core, however, it is — and was — an economic issue.

The slavery analogy has been made to describe the economic, racial and cultural divide in professional sports since the late 19th Century and the immediate aftermath of Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson. Adrian Peterson’s use of the word, uttered in an interview to Yahoo! Sports, is news because, as Dave Zirin wrote, “he went there.” A black athlete making a slavery analogy, in a sport with white owners, is drawing heavy criticism from mostly white media media members. We’re still having this discussion? The cast is different but the colors are the same? The NFLPA, led by a dynamic black man in DeMaurice Smith, has hinted at exactly what Peterson said. He just didn’t use the word.

The three lead plaintiffs in the class-action suit against the NFL — Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning — may agree with the slavery analogy, but by virtue of their pigmentation, couldn’t dare use it. What level of criticism would they receive?

In my Sport Sociology studies in college, racism, along with gender equity, were the two most frequent issues discussed. The seminar my senior year was devoted to the topic, specifically in the sport of boxing.

I’m not of the mindset that someone making millions of dollars has no right to use the term “slave.” I am of the mindset that the rampant criticism for his word choice is undeserved. Peterson, like Brady, Brees and Manning is one of the most visible players in the NFL. Maybe not necessarily in that order, Peterson, Brady, Brees and Manning are the top four picks in most Fantasy drafts. Why shouldn’t he present his viewpoint?

Zirin’s full article can be found here. If you’re interested in sport history and culture, it’s a good read. His mentions of Curt Flood, whose struggles against the Reserve Clause were profiled by Alex Belth profiled in a 2006 biography, Stepping Up, are poignant and insightful.

As for the discussion of slavery, it still exists in this country; just not in the form that it once did. Context rules. Do you believe Peterson’s comment was taken out of context? Is the comment more socioeconomic or sociocultural?

One thing is certain: the debate is not going to end any time soon.

[Photo Credit: Zimbio.com]

Over at Cardboard Gods, our pal Josh Wilker previews the 2011 Yanks by harkening back to the good ol’ days:

In the Yankees’ 1970s dynasty, the most visible figure and self-appointed leader was Reggie Jackson, and the actual team leader was Thurman Munson, but Lou Piniella was, at least to me, the definitive Yankee. Consider his game-saving play in the bottom of the ninth of the one-game playoff in 1978. After a one-out single by Rick Burleson, Jerry Remy hit a fly to right that Piniella lost in the sun. Instead of panicking, he pretended that he was preparing to make a routine, nonchalant catch, then when the ball came down in front of him, he happened to be close enough to it to stick out his glove and snare it on one bounce. Burleson, fooled along with everyone into thinking that Piniella would make easy work of Remy’s fly ball, had stayed close to first and was only able to make it to second base, unable to score on the long fly out produced by the following batter, Jim Rice. The Bucky Dent home run from earlier in the game has always gotten far more attention as the pivotal moment in the game, but Piniella’s play was vital, too, and was more representative of the Yankees for its infuriating combination of smarts, skill, guts, and good luck (Dent’s improbable gust-lifted pop-up leaning much more heavily on the last of those elements).

How, sweet it was.

Man, it’s hard to believe but I’ve gone the past two seasons without a regular Yankee hat. Yeah, I wore one that I got a cap day last year but it doesn’t fit right so it didn’t become a regular piece of gear. I used to buy the cheap hats with the snaps on the back for five bucks on the street. I’d break ’em in with lots of love then eventually lose ’em (which is why I only bought the cheap ones). But I dig it when you see an old hat, one that someone has had for years like this one that I caught on the train today.

So, what about you guys? How old is your Yankee cap? Do you wear a fitted one? How many do you own?

Whadda ya hear, whadda ya say?

Seth Mnookin profiles Derek Jeter in this month’s GQ:

By all accounts, when Jeter has felt at risk of being exposed, he’s taken swift steps. About ten years ago, a freelancer working on a piece for The New York Times was in the Yankees locker room after batting practice. Jeter and some other players were joking around—”it was something totally innocuous,” the reporter says—when Jeter realized there was a tape recorder in the room. Later that night, the reporter was buttonholed by a Yankees PR staffer and one of the team’s security guards. When the reporter tried to apologize to Jeter for any misunderstanding, he says, Jeter refused to acknowledge that anything had happened in the first place.

Even those people whose job it is to dig up dirt on celebrities can only shake their heads in amazement. “Derek Jeter could be a guru,” says Richard Johnson, the Los Angeles bureau chief of The Daily and legendary former editor of the New York Post’s gossip column, Page Six. “There’s never been any kiss-and-tell stuff where a girl breaks up with Jeter and then says what a creep he is. I don’t know how he avoids it. He must have some sort of vetting process—maybe he makes them fill out a questionnaire or has a psychological profile done. He’s incredible.”

…Over the course of two days, I spent more than four hours talking to Jeter. I haven’t spent a lot of time talking to boldfaced names, but he was without question one of the nicest, most genuine celebrities I’ve interviewed. Perhaps that was because he no longer feels awkward providing answers that inevitably disappoint reporters looking for scooplets about the “real” Derek Jeter—and because I had no illusions about being the first person to succeed in getting Jeter to open up about his hopes and dreams. There were several times when I asked Jeter a question—about playing in the steroid era, or about players who preferred playing out of the spotlight of New York—and he’d slow down and grow more cautious. Eventually I realized he was worried I’d take what he was saying and make it sound like he was talking about a specific person or situation. When I called him on it, he readily acknowledged that had been exactly what he’d been thinking: “A lot of times, when you say things, people will try to turn it into [something else]. Sometimes someone asks you a question, and if you don’t comment or dispute what they say, they’ll take it as though you agree. I’ve always been very aware of what I’m saying, but I’m also aware of what you’re saying. I always want to make sure that my point is clear.”

Crystal.

[Photo Credit: Day Life]

The Yankee-Red Sox game was blacked out in most of the Metropolitan area last night, but Manny Banuelos didn’t pitch badly:

“That guy’s 20 years old?” Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia asked. “He’s really good, and he seems to have an idea. Shoot, when I was 20, I was swinging with an aluminum bat [in college].”

“I think for this young man’s future they should go slow with him, very slow,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said with a smile.
(Costello, New York Post)

Alfredo Aceves started for the Sox, who beat the Yanks, 2-1.

The clocks sprung forward yesterday which means we are inching closer to Opening Day.

Cliff recaps yesterday’s game over at PB:

Freddy Garcia hit 92 with his fastball and sat around 89, which is a lot of velocity for him, but it didn’t help as he gave up four runs on six hits, a pair of walks, and a hit-by-pitch in just 2 2/3 innings. Andrew Brackman, in just his second spring appearance, was all over the place, and lacked his best velocity. He broke off a few nice curve balls, but didn’t make it through his two innings at the tail end of the game before hitting his pitch count. A dropped ball in right field didn’t help, and he only gave up one unearned run, but beyond the two walks and two hits (one a double by Justin Huber), he just didn’t look right out there. Eric Wordekemper finished the third inning for Garcia and was about to strand runners on the corners in the fourth when Derek Jeter dropped a pop-up, which allowed one run to score. Then, the next batter, Dinkelman, cracked a three-run homer. All four runs were unearned, but a homer is a homer, and Dinkelman was all over what looked like a hanging slider from Wordekemper.

Over at River Ave Blues, Ben Kabak picks up on an ESPN rumor that the Yanks are scouting Carlos Silva.

Mariano Rivera pitched in an exhibition game for the first time this spring–he threw 12 pitches and struck out the side.

The peaceful, easy feeling continues, even when the score doesn’t count. Chad Jennings has the skinny.

Ben Shpigel has an excellent piece on Derek Jeter’s revamped swing this morning in the New York Times:

Through 24 spring training at-bats, Derek Jeter is hitting .333. Results are nice, but Jeter’s average is not what excites Kevin Long, the Yankees’ hitting coach. This does: On Friday, when Jeter was 1 for 3 with an infield single against Atlanta, he swung at the first pitch every time up. That he fouled them all off was irrelevant, at least to Long.

“Early on, he told me, ‘I’ll probably take a lot of pitches during spring training until I get comfortable,’” Long said of Jeter, who is known as a first-pitch hitter. “He’s not taking those pitches anymore. That tells me he’s getting comfortable with what he’s doing and where he’s at.”

…“He’s not smothering the ball anymore,” Long said. “He’s able to get to it. He’s created a path and a lane for the barrel to get to it a lot easier. Before, a ball might be on the corner and he’d have to fight it. Now, as long as it’s on the plate, he’ll get to it.”

Yanks are on YES this afternoon at 1 p.m.

Here’s Mark Feinsand writing about Ivan Nova today in the Daily News:

Nova’s confidence is unwavering, making it difficult to tell whether he’s just pitched a great game or a ghastly one. Some mistake his attitude as that of a cocky kid, but Joe Girardi sees something else.

“I don’t see him walk around here like, ‘I belong here, I’m the No. 1 guy here,'” Girardi said. “I don’t see him short-change his work. He works extremely hard. Those are things that tell me he knows what he needs to do to be good.”

Nova is one of the guys I am really looking forward to watching this season.

The Yankees made a bit of news on Thursday when they played Jorge Posada in the field for the first time this spring. It wasn’t at catcher, but at first base, where Posada actually looked good in catching a line drive and starting a double play.

I’m glad to see the Yankees use Posada at first base, giving them another option on days when Mark Teixeira needs a rest. (Ugh, there’s that word again.) But they have yet to use Posada as a catcher this Grapefruit League season, and have indicated they have no intention of doing so. I think that’s a mistake. By giving Posada just a few reps behind the plate, they could ensure his availability as a third-string, emergency catcher during the regular season. If Russell Martin were to miss a few games on a day-to-day basis, the Yankees would then have Posada available to back up Jesus Montero (or whoever the No. 2 catcher is). This would give the Yankees more flexibility, prevent an unnecessary call-up of someone like Austin Romine, and give the proud Posada the satisfaction of knowing that he might still do some catching in 2011.

The Yankees seem to think that Posada could get hurt if he catches at all this spring. That’s always a possibility, but it seems like an awfully negative way of thinking by which to operate a team. Imagining worst case scenarios at every turn can lead to some strange managerial decision-making. It’s also an odd way of thinking for a team that was willing to put Posada behind the plate in critical postseason games just five months ago…

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Yankee single-game tickets go on sale today at 10 AM.

Once again, I can’t afford to buy more than a few upper-deck or bleacher seats, and will be relying on the kindness of friends, StubHub, and occasionally press passes to get to games in person this year. There’s not much sense in complaining about the price of tickets, or anything else in New York City, really – it is what it is, which is expensive, and either you can afford it or you can’t; if the market couldn’t bear it, they’d go down, but apparently it can. And Yankees tickets have never been what I’d call reasonably priced in my adult life, so I’m used to it. Still, I always read books and articles where people talk about just walking up to the Stadium and paying a few bucks for a ticket and heading inside, back in the day, and feel a twinge. Leave it to baseball to succeed in making me nostalgic for things I never even lived through.

Mets tickets are, for obvious reasons, much more affordable these days on the whole (plus, they have Shake Shack. I wouldn’t argue that it’s one of the absolute best burgers in the city if only because they only offer American cheese, which is pathetic, but it’s better than anything I’ve gotten at Yankee Stadium, for sure). And truly affordable are Brooklyn Cyclones games, which are actually faster to get to from my Brooklyn apartment, cost $10 for perfectly nice seats, and are lovely and relaxed experiences even though the quality of play is far from major league-ready. I have a great picture of me and Sandy, their seagull mascot, from last season but after careful deliberation I’ve decided it’s too embarrassing to post. Anyway, the point is, I’ll still get my live baseball in one way or another.

Maybe this is the year I finally set foot on Staten Island for a Staten Island Yanks game. Amazingly, though I have spent nearly three decades living in New York or close outside it, and though I have been to Queens and the Bronx hundreds of times, I’ve never made the journey to the city’s 5th borough. Cue up your Staten Island jokes.

Meanwhile, Trenton is a place that I have set foot in, but only by accident, and I vowed never to make that mistake again. But should I make an exception for Manny Banuelos, who recently received the Mo Rivera seal of approval in a major way? Maybe, maybe.

What’s your ticket situation this year?