Here’s your morning Yankee round-up:

At River Ave Blues, Mike Axisa covers the Joe Girardi deal while Ben Kabak notes that Leo Mazzone has interest in being the Yankees’ next pitching coach.

Over at Yankeeist, Mark Warden asks: Should they stay or should they go?

Jay Jaffe has a good, long post on Joba Chamberlain at the Pinstriped Bible, and Steve Goldman cautions to leave Cliff Lee alone (I’m with Steve on this one):

Even before last night’s Game 1 disappointment, I have been firmly convinced that the Yankees should not do what everyone expects them to do, and throw the gross domestic product of Luxembourg at the left-hander. In the last few years, Lee has become one of the great control artists of all time. And yet, he is also 31. He is at that same dangerous stage of life that so many other Yankees have reached, where the minor aches and pains of one’s 20s become the surgeries of one’s 30s. As with the A.J. Burnett contract, a Lee who is not in peak form will tie the team’s hands for years to come, soaking up dollars and a roster spot that would be better spent on the young.

…As in any casino game, when you bet on a pitcher, the odds are slanted in favor of the house. For teams with no other options, or a team geared up to win it all now and then sink back into the second division, giving a veteran starter a lot of money for too many years is a reasonable plan. That’s what the Mets did with Pedro Martinez, paying for four years when there was only a reasonable expectation that they might get two. In the event, they got one. Cliff Lee is younger than Martinez, and perhaps he’s a better bet health-wise, but there is no way to know for certain. The Yankees have choices, some of whom will be viable big leaguers three years from now, when whichever team signs Lee is trying to figure out the best way to get rid of him. The Yankees aren’t in that position. They have alternatives, choices they’ve spent good money on. Now is the time to test them and find the next Cliff Lee, or even the next Andy Pettitte. He could be lurking somewhere in the pile, and he won’t cost a fraction of what Lee does. If the Yankees leave Lee to others, they might even get to find out who he is.

And it’s up the Rangers to stop the party. Dudes smoking the reefers in the bleachers, the entire city poppin’.

Giants look to make more memories while the Texans aim to go home even.

I’m still blacked out but I’ve got it on the radio, so forget the Fat Cat Schmucks and:

Let’s Go Base-Ball.

Okay, show of hands: How many of you starting singing “Start Spreading the News” when Cliff Lee got pounded last night?

I’m just sayin’…

Looks like Joe Girardi is set to sign a 3-year, $9 million contract to manage the Yankees (Joel Sherman and George King have the scoop in the Post). I can only imagine that this news will be met by mixed reviews from the Banter Crew.

So…have at it.

Thanks to these two pussycats:

Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Dolan…

…looks like I will be one of many who won’t be watching the Whirled Serious.

[Drawing by Larry Roibal]

According to the New York Post:

CC Sabathia was diagnosed with a minor meniscus tear of the right knee that will require surgery, The Post has learned.

Sabathia was diagnosed yesterday at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and is expected to undergo surgery in the coming days. The Yankees do not consider the procedure significant and expect Sabathia to recover within three weeks and be fully ready for spring training.

Therapists usually say that there’s some kind of reason for just about any behavior, however seemingly irrational; even if you end up hurting yourself, it probably served a psychological purpose. I’ve been thinking about this recently in light of the Yanks’ ALCS loss, and the accompanying customary wave of blame from fans that fell on various members of the team and front office. I think the  tendency of fans — and certainly not just Yankee fans, but perhaps especially Yankee fans — to instinctively blame their own team after a loss, rather than crediting the opponent, is pretty interesting. Obviously not everyone does this, but as an overall fanbase mood I think it rings true, unless maybe some undisputed whiz like Cliff Lee is directly involved. 

Setting aside for the moment whether or not it’s accurate or fair in a specific instance, what’s the psychological gain here? The outcome of any game depends on the combination of one team’s strength and another’s weakness, of course, and it’s often hard to disentangle a hitter’s success from a pitcher’s failure, or vice versa. How much of Colby Lewis’s kickass performance on Friday night was due to variables he controlled directly, and how much was due to the Yankees’ inadequate approach or execution at the plate? It’s not possible to tell precisely, although a lot of the newer baseball stats our SABR-inclined friends come up with are designed to help sort this out. And my first instinct, like many people in the bar where I was watching, was to yell “C’mon you useless #$&*s, it’s Colby Lewis” at the little pinstriped men on the TV. 

I think in the end, it’s mostly about control: the idea that your team mostly controls its fate (like the idea that you yourself mostly control your fate) is generally preferable to the alternative. No one likes feeling helpless to change their situation. Everyone wants to believe that we’re in charge of how our lives turn out, not larger forces we can’t affect. And hey, if the Yankees lost because they failed, well then, they’re still better. They just didn’t show it. There must be something they could have done differently.

I’m not entirely sure whether the blaming-your-team tendency is more prevalent in New York City, and specifically among Yankee fans, but I suspect as much. It seems clear that fans everywhere do this to a certain extent, but I think that like just about everything else, it’s louder in New York. And while Mets fans do it too — as Alex pointed out yesterday, the moaning about A-Rod and Ryan Howard ending their respective Championship Series with called third strikes brought back vivid memories of the hysteria over Carlos Beltran’s taken curveball in 2006 — I believe you can make an argument that Yankee fans do it most of all: this is part of the wide-ranging legacy of George M. Steinbrenner.

This is the flipside to all that winning, and the result of the idea, now internalized by seemingly the entire Yankee organization even in The Boss’s absence, that any year that doesn’t end in a World Series victory is a failure. Not anybody else’s succes: your team’s failure. We’ve heard this view expressed in different ways by many people for many years now — by George himself, by Brian Cashman, by Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, even by scrubs passing through in August and September. This year, Cashman and Joe Girardi both made a point of saying that Texas had just flat out-played the Yankees, which I personally felt was good to hear; I think many fans share that point of view, too, but outside of our cozy corner of the blogosphere, it hasn’t been the dominant tone.  

Believing that they can and should win the World Series every single year is, from one angle, one of the most admirable things about the Yankees. The organization is never content with a few years of mediocrity; never holds back from a signing or trade that could help, damn the financial consequences; never coasts on a new Stadium or a star signing. And that is great for their fans. But that kind of ambition, by necessity, comes with a big heaping stench of failure. I think George Steinbrenner, in his prime, felt that having his employees live in terror of that failure was an important motivational tool; and the Boss will certainly be missed, but I hope his vision of win-it-all-or-else gets to rest with him. Other teams are gonna get that trophy sometimes, and not just because you messed up or didn’t get it done. Just because they’re better.

Here’s Mike Vaccaro, writing in today’s Post:

He is not a blood relative, so this wasn’t an inherited trait. And Brian Cashman is neither the bully nor the greedy back-page raconteur George Steinbrenner was in the prime of his career, a man willing to say and do just about anything to land that prime acreage of New York journalistic real estate.

But in some very real, and very important ways, Cashman has become the living legacy of the Best of the Boss.

Off with their Heads!

Kid Gleeman on Joe Girardi, sabermetrics and the mainstream press.

Back on my blog Eephus Pitch I used to have a Baseball Player Name of the Week feature, which I think it is past time to revive. Previous honorees include Ossee Schreckengost, Slim Love, Bill Wambsganss (and Braggo “The Globetrotter” Roth),  Buttercup Dickerson, Mutz and Jewel Ens, The Wild Elk of the Wasatch, Freuny Parra, Cletus Elwood “Boots” Poffenberger, and of course Bristol “Bris” Robotham Lord, aka “the Human Eyeball,” among many other luminaries.  Today’s pick:

Putsy Caballero.

Putsy, né Ralph, joined the Phillies in 1944  at age 16 – making, him to this day, the youngest Phillie ever. 1948 was his only season as the team’s regular third baseman, and he “retired” at 24, heading home to New Orleans to work as an exterminator and eventually open his own pest-control business. According to BR Bullpen, he stayed there until 2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed his house, though not his Phillies uniform. Wikipedia has him living now in Lake View, LA.

There’s nothing as helpless as watching. The great American Male neurosis–though it isn’t restricted to men–is believing that if you sit in the same position on the couch or wear your lucky jersey you have the power to alter the outcome of a ball game.

Television doesn’t help. Watch enough games on TV and you’ll probably find yourself saying–or thinking–I could have caught that ball, I could have hit that pitch. It’s a natural reaction. It also happens to be horses***.

When Carlos Beltran struck-out looking to end the 2006 NLCS, fans wailed–How could he not swing? I heard a couple of Yankee fans say the same thing about Alex Rodriguez’s final at bat on Friday night (would it have been better if, completely fooled, he waved at the pitch like Derek Jeter did when the Yankee captain whiffed to end the eighth inning?). And this morning, I read a newspaper article where the writer said that Ryan Howard had to go down swinging when he too ended the game looking at a devastating breaking ball on Saturday night.

Can you imagine how difficult it is to adjust from a mid-90s fastball to a perfectly placed breaking ball? Even if you are a professional hitter?

You’ve got to swing at that pitch!

It might be frustrating to watch but how about giving credit to the pitcher?

Baseball is hard. Being an expert is easy.

It’s Wait ‘Til Next Year for the Yanks.

They were a good team in 2010, but they didn’t play well down the stretch and got hammered by the Rangers in the 2010 ALCS.

Were they too old? Did they play tight–a reflection of their manager according to Joel Sherman? Did they just not have heart or character or those championship intangibles?

Nah, they just got their asses kicked, that’s all. Happens, man, even to the best of them.

Is it too soon to miss the Yanks, yet?

Well, go figure that. It’s gunna be the San Francisco Giants against the Texas Rangers for all the marbles as 2010 becomes the year of the unexpected.

Say, Hey!

[Photo Credit: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images]

Call it a mercy killing. That’s what it felt like. At least it wasn’t traumatic like Game Four. Not for me, anyway. Game Four took years off my life. I woke up the next morning and first thing I see in my mind’s eye is Molina rounding the bases. “The Chubby Man,” as my friend’s kid, Ian calls him. The Chubby Man ripping a pitch he knew was coming. All day long, people came up to me at work, asking if I felt okay.

Last night was different. When Hughes hung that curve ball to Vladi, followed by the inevitable Nellie Cruz homer, it was all over. The Yankees hit the ball hard but nothing went their way—other than their lone run, which they got as a gift from the umpires. Alex Rodriguez hit the ball hard twice with nothing to show for it and struck out looking at a filthy breaking ball to end the game and the Yankee season.

The inning before, Derek Jeter’s final swing of the year was a late, emergency hack against Colby Lewis. Wait—there was something galling about this game—Colby fuggin Lewis?!?!. I don’t remember the last time I saw Jeter strike out looking so ugly in October.

Second-best. That feels about right on merit. Rangers beat the Rays and the Yanks to get to the Serious? That’s impressive. They did a great job and I’ll be hard-pressed to root against them.

The Yankees were really good this year but they didn’t feel great. They were great in spots but were not consistently great. Still, they defended their title admirably and if this season gets lost in the non-title-bin, I think it was agreeable enough. We had a lot of laughs and a lot to admire—CC Sabathia winning 20 for the first time; Robinson Cano answering the bell after the depature of Godzilla Matsui, putting up an MVP caliber year; Swisher with a good season; the development of Phil Hughes, to name few a few. I liked this team, even the screw-ups like A.J. Burnett don’t seem like bad guys. Felt terrible for Javey Vazquez. Loved having the Big Puma around and man, I thought he was really locked-in at the plate against Texas. Didn’t miss Damon or Matsui, liked Granderson.

This season will also be easy to remember because it’s one of the last years for the Core Four, if not the last. Will those guys all make the playoffs again, together? Pettitte could well retire. Posada is in the final year of his contract and it’s likely he’ll be asked to take on a reduced roll and become a mentor to Jesus Montero.

I figure Mariano will come back, though you never know when he’s just going to walk off and leave us forever…forever the worse. He’ll probably go year-by-year at this point. And then there’s Jeter, the big soap opera of the off-season, Mr. Headline. Going to be fascinating how it plays out, if Jeter keeps up his Gehrig-like streak of “Doing the Right Thing.” He’s dangerously close to Ripken territory. How’s he going to play this?

And that’s how the 2010 comes to an end. With some disappointment? Sure. But with juicy questions about what’s going to happen next. Do they re-sign Swisher? Go after Carl Crawford? Cliff Lee? Which one of these?

This is the 8th season I’ve covered here on the Banter and it’s been as much fun as any of them. Thanks so much for falling through and being a part of it, whether you’re part of the comments section or just a regular reader. Really appreciate it, you guys.

Course we’re not going anywhere. The Banter is open 365, living and breathing like the city we represent.

“90% of life is showing up,” said Woody Allen. We’ll keep the treats coming.

Thanks to the Yanks for another winning year. Thanks for Jetes and the crew, and especially to Mariano who is the Precious.

R.I.P. to the Boss and Bob Sheppard.

Word to our man Cliff, and peace to Todd Drew.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

[Pictures by Bags, Pathum and me]

The 2010 season ended for the New York Yankees tonight as they lost Game Six of the American League Championship to the Texas Rangers 6-1. The Rangers pounded out the big, two-out, run-scoring hits that win pennants, and the Yankees put forth a display of offensive futility against Colby Lewis that will leave a gag-inducing aftertaste long into the winter.

Light rain fell on the first inning. Curtis Granderson walked and was eager to get into position to draw first blood. He tried to steal second as Cano popped out, and then doubled down and ran again as Alex Rodriguez was working his count. Granderson beat the throw, but his foot hiccuped on the damp dirt and delayed touching the bag for a split second. It was enough time for Ian Kinsler to snatch the ball and slap a tag, and enough of an incongruity to confuse the umpire into a blown call. As the replay clearly showed otherwise, the announcers congratulated the umpire for getting it right. That was it for the sound.

The Rangers jumped onto the scoreboard in the first inning, again. This was the fourth time in the series they scored in the first inning. The Yankees have put nothing on the board in the first inning all postseason. With two-strikes on the leadoff hitter, Phil Hughes couldn’t sneak a fastball up and in. Elvis Andrus shot it through an heavily shifted outfield and pulled into second with an easy double. Josh Hamilton singled when Hughes again tried to go up and in, but missed badly up and out over the plate. Washington, fearing the double play, put Hamilton in motion and when Vlad grounded to second and the Yankees needed two outs to prevent the run from scoring, they could only muster one.

Lewis held the Yankees hitless through four. Curtis Granderson worked two walks, but was erased on the bases both times. In the fifth inning, Alex Rodriguez doubled, his second hard-hit ball of the game. He moved to third as Lance Berkman flew out to the warning track.

That brief instant, when Berkman’s shot flew into the night was the only happy moment of the game for the Yankees. It looked like a 2-1 lead was in reach, but Josh Hamilton tracked it down. Alex scored on a ball that hit Nick Swisher and bounced away, but the umpires missed it. That’s the second time they’ve missed Nick Swisher getting hit in the leg. Both times it cost the Yankees an out, as Swisher couldn’t do anything as the at bat continued.

In the fifth inning, the game fell apart. Much like the sixth inning of Game Four, the Yankees faced a relatively benign one-on, one-out situation. An intentional walk to a left-handed batter to gain a platoon advantage raised the stakes and the Rangers held the trump. Vlad Guerrero ripped the game-changing double on the hangy-i-est of curve balls. After Robertson replaced Hughes, Nelson Cruz ripped the season-ending homer on the flattest of fastballs. (more…)

Season is on the line once again tonight for the Yanks. Win, and they force a Game 7, lose, and they go home.

Here’s the line up:

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Lance Berkman 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada C
Marcus Thames DH
Brett Gardner LF

I say Berkman is the hero should the Yanks win.

Nothing else to add but the usual (this time with feeling):

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Is it 8 o’clock yet? Long and coherent doesn’t seem to be happening today, so instead, here’s some scattered thoughts from a scattered mind.

*You guys been watching the NLCS? Some excellent games, and I’ve gone from rooting for the Giants because they aren’t the Phillies to genuinely liking them. Lincecum, Kung Fu Panda, Buster Posey, even Brian Wilson who is douchey but at least in an entertaining way. The entire series makes me wish the Yankees would ditch their uptight facial hair regulations already, though. Everything is more fun with beards!

*There’s plenty of time to think about this later and it’s not a surprise anyway, but according to Jon Heyman, the Yanks plan to bring back Joe Girardi. I’m okay with this. Girardi has definitely made his share of mistakes this postseason, but so has every manager. I don’t think there’s been anything fireable. He won the World Series last year and made the ALCS this year (…as of this writing), and although the ghost of George Streinbrenner would disagree, to me, you don’t fire a guy coming off that kind of success unless he does something really crazy/egregious/criminal. Despite what I might end up yelling at the TV during the 8th inning tonight, I think Joe’s been solid.

I wish he’d eat something though. Dude looks gaunt.

*Via LoHud, Robbie Cano hopes Melky Cabrera can rejoin the Yanks next year. I… don’t hope that, but I still have warm feelings for the Melkman and I hope he lands on his feet. He was fun to watch for a while, had some big plays and big hits for the Yanks over the years (remember that catch on a would-be Manny Ramirez homer  just over the left field wall? I do, and I bet Manny does), and I think he could still help some team, at least from the bench.

*It’s easy to overlook in the heat of a white-knuckle eighth-inning playoff relief appearance, but Kerry Wood’s got a pretty great story. Tragic, redemptive, all that stuff.

*It is genuinely kinda depressing how many fans left Yankee Stadium early in Games 3 and 4. I mean, in the ninth of a blowout, I get it. But while it’s still close? In the ALCS? I don’t generally go the fan-police route: I stay til the better end because I’m an obsessive and hate the idea of missing anything — but it’s supposed to be fun, and if you need to leave for work or school or sleep or whatever, you do what you have to do. But the streams of people fleeing before the end warlier this week were pretty embarassing. It’s easy enough for most of the country to hate Yankee fans, no need to load the gun for them.

*Nick Swisher, according to ESPN NY: “If one more guy asks me about Cliff Lee, I’m gonna punch him right in the (bleeping) mouth.” Heh.

Here’s hoping the baseball goes well enough tonight to get us baseball tomorrow night, and cause for Swisher to spaz out some more.

Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories is out. Check, check it out.

Meanwhile, dig Richard Ben Cramer’s essay from the book. It’s priceless:

By Richard Ben Cramer

My grandfather took me to my first game at The Stadium. Not baseball: the Cleveland Browns against the New York Football Giants. I lived in Rochester and, as a consequence, I was a Browns fan. As to whether this was right and proper, I thought not at all. I knew nothing about sports marketing and could not have cared less if small-market Rochester had been gerrymandered into the Browns’ TV-turf as a sop to get the Modells’ vote for the television package. I was 14, and I loved Jim Brown.

By modern standards, I was still a casual fan. Football was more fun to play than to watch, and I lived in a neighborhood with wall-to-wall kids. There was a backyard game every Sunday, so I probably missed more Browns’ games than I saw. But even I knew that this would be a big game: December football; the Browns had to win it to get to the championship. It was also a revenge game: the Giants had beaten the Browns two-straight (the final game of the season and a special playoff) to get to the ‘58 championship, said to be the greatest ever played. I knew the Browns would have beaten the Colts, and, dutifully, I reviled the Giants.

I was stunned by the ballpark. My notion of a stadium was Red Wing Stadium, where the Rochester AAA ballteam played. But this was something else—vast and powerful, filled with sixty thousand fans, and the tangy scent of smoke mixed with alcohol (which I wouldn’t smell again till I could go into bars), and noise like I’d never heard in my life. I couldn’t even describe the noise—a wailing screech?—ebbing and then rising as loud as a jet plane. I fell silent. I felt tiny.

But the Browns gave me courage. As I remember, the game was tight, with the Browns clinging to a nervous lead by the half—at which point some kind of miracle transpired. Suddenly, the Browns could do no wrong, and for the Giants, nothing went right. Title was intercepted for a score. Jim Brown caught a pass and waltzed into the end zone. The Giants fumbled, the Browns scored…and again…and again…and I was whooping and cutting up just as loud as I could, just like the (suddenly silent) New York fans…or so I imagined—it only showed how little I understood.

When the Browns’ back-ups scored again, and their score climbed to more than 50 points, I asked my grandfather (rather too loudly) if that big Longines scoreboard could show three digits for the visiting team. A couple of New York fans turned around and gave me the look that was my real introduction to Yankee Stadium. I had known for about the last quarter that they probably wanted me to shut up. But their look now didn’t say, “shut up.” What it said was they wanted to kill me. What is said was this was the worst moment of their lives and if I didn’t shut up they might forget how unutterably sad they were, and have another drink, and kill me for sure.

I shut up. I feared them. But I also respected them. No one I knew felt that way about their team. And they taught me something important, which was the dire seriousness of New York sports—which is what the old Stadium was about.

Amen.

I find myself torn on the issue of Joe Girardi returning to manage the Yankees in 2011. If the Yankees can complete a comeback over the next two days and make it back to the World Series, then I suppose that the Yankees will make every effort to re-sign him. Two Series appearances in two years, along with a general approval rating from his players, should be enough for Girardi to begin his fourth season as Yankee manager. Then again, for all of his intelligence and attention to preparation, Girardi continues to show an alarming lack of feel for in-game managing, a trait that could cost the Yankees dearly during the string of short series that make up the postseason.

Girardi’s dubious strategies took center stage in Game Four of the ALCS, when the Yankees coughed up a 3-2 lead on their way to a disastrous 10-3 loss. Mark Teixeira’s strained hamstring forced Girardi into making an unwanted move–replacing his star first baseman with a pinch-runner during a budding rally. Girardi had several choices. He could have summoned his fastest runner, Greg Golson, who could have taken over in right field, with Nick Swisher moving to first base. Or he could have tapped Austin Kearns, a decent runner and capable right fielder. Instead, Girardi called on Marcus Thames, a relatively slow runner (who hasn’t stolen a base since 2007) and a brutal defender in the outfield.

So what was Girardi thinking? He probably wanted to maintain a good hitter in Teixeira’s spot in the batting order, hence the decision to summon Thames. Unfortunately, that left Thames, the team’s worst fielding outfielder, having to play right field in the sixth inning of a one-run game. Lo and behold, Vlad Guerrero led off the sixth with a single to right on a ball that conceivably could have been caught by the swifter Golson or the more agile Kearns.

The better move would have been to play Golson or Kearns in right field through the next turn in the batting order. At that point, Girardi could have used Thames, or even Jorge Posada, as a pinch-hitter. Or he could have used Thames to pinch-hit for Lance Berkman when the Rangers brought in lefty Derek Holland. Bottom line, Girardi needed to think quickly in pinch-running for the injured Teixeira, and he chose the worst available option. It was as if Girardi was worried about running out of players, even with three backup outfielders at his disposal.

(more…)