THE YANKEES SUCK! THEEEE

YANKEES SUCK! Red Sox fans always said this and I never understood why. They would say it when the Yanks were champions, when they won the division year after year, when they were in the post-season. I mean it was stupid. They not only didn't suck, Chowderheads hated them because they didn't suck. But now the cry rings all too true.

This is a bad team folks, I mean a really bad team. The Sox provide an easy measure. They are not as good as they were last year: Beckett's no ace so far, Lester and Bucholz are not very good, Matsuzaka never gets out of the sixth inning (he's a rich man's Jared White), their bullpen is increasingly stressed, Okee-Dokee is nowhere near as dominant, Papelbon's going through a bad patch, Papi misses the roids, Drew is still nothing special, Varitek's another year older and that much easier to run on, Lugo looks like Renteria in the field (but not at bat), and for all that the distance between them and the Yankees is much greater than it was last year. The Sox can still hit their way through a bad pitching performance and pitch their way around anemic offense. But the Yankees have to have both working well to be competitive. Outside of Wang, the pitchers need significant run support and this offense can never get more than 6 runs and usually scores less than 4. What is more, and perhaps more important, the pitchers get no help in the field (3 errors tonight alone) and the hitters get no help on the bases (still as timid as they are slow). They can't lock down in the field and they can't play small ball. They can only seem to win when they homer multiple times, which makes for generally passive, tedious and above all losing baseball. It also leads to damaging habits when it comes to getting men home. The Yankees remain one of the worst teams with RISP and they left another 17 on the pond tonight.
I'm sorry to have to say this but Giardi has thus far changed nothing in the culture of this team.

But with all of this, there is a still bigger problem, and that problem is not Giardi's fault. This is a bad team, a bad collection of 25 guys, with too many players who do the same thing (poorly) and the worst, I mean the worst, reserves in all of baseball. And that my friends is the fault of Brian Cashman, who manages to spend over 200 million a year on a team that, in May, still has three regulars below 200 and another three at 200. When the Red sox lost Lowell and Ortiz at the same time, I didn't hear them whining about injuries; when they lost Drew, they remained quiet. But when the Yankees lost Jorge and AROD oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth. And for good reason. While Epstein was picking up the always solid O'Casey for peanuts this off-season, Cashman was sticking with Betemit, auditioning Ensburg, relying on Duncan etc. Boston has a bench: Crisp, Cora, Moss, Cash, O'Casey. The Yankees do not. The same lack of depth afflicts the pitching staff, which is why we were treated tonight to the return of Kei Igawa (3IP, 6 runs, 0 KO's), despite the knowledge everywhere in baseball that thos guy is not a major league pitcher. When this is your reserve of choice, you are committing yourslef to surrendering games before they begin. Now that the team Stick Michael put together and molded into a dynasty is all but gone, we can see just how lousy a GM Brian Cashman is. Torre was a good manager who went to seed. Cashman was a seedy GM basking in the sunshine of another man's work. I would fire him yesterday.

These then are the general problems the Yankees face, problems which may leave them not only out of the playoffs but below 500. Let's look at some specific areas of concern.


WHAT'S WRONG WITH ROBBY?

Cano has had a couple of decent games, but his habits uncorrected spell trouble. I have said before there has to be a technical solution and forwarded Vina's analysis of Cano's footwork. I think there is a psychological underpinning to the slump that will help explain this and other symptoms. Late last year, when Cano started to show some serious pop, the Yankees organization let it be known that they felt they could expect 25-30 homers a year out of him. Why does everyone on this fucking team have to hit home runs? Everybody celebrated Damon's 20+ in 2006 and look how bad he stunk last year. In any event, Robby was listening because this year he has been trying to pull almost everything, presumably in an effort to reach the fences as they expect. I myself have been marvelling at how poorly he has been going while displaying the kind of patience I always wished for him in the past. Since coming up, he has been prone to chase high-outside fastballs and low and away sliders. This year I have applauded his willingness to take those pitches. Yet for some reason he has been seeing fewer pitches than ever. Then I realized he was laying off the outside stuff because he couldn't imagine pulling it. But other teams quickly adjusted and fed him alot of hard stuff off the inside corner. He has been jumping at these apparently pullable pitches to no effect. Last year his characteristic outs were KO's and pop flies to left, this year it's the slow roller to second. He is just rolling over on pitches. If they get him back into the Rod Carew slap hit mode, he'll be fine.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH GIAMBI?

Whether he homers or not, he's an idiot (and not in the honorific sense).

WHAT IF WE HAD SANTANA?

The Yanks would be no better off and maybe worse. When pundits and people reflect on that non-deal, they tend to wonder, Should the Yankees have traded Hughes for Santana? I don't pretend to know the answer to that question and I don't give it any thought--mainly because the Twins were not willing to trade Santan for Hughes. That wasn't the option. They turned down Hughes and Cabrera for Santana and in Cabrera you have the Yankees single best fielder and single best arm playing a key position and hitting the ball pretty well. But what the Twins wanted, and there was no indication they would accept less, was Hughes and Kennedy and Cabrera for Santana. So right away, because of all the Yankees depth issues, major difficulties emerge. You have to put Damon back in center where he's not catching up to balls in the gap, where runners are scoring from first on a deep single, where he's getting minor injuries (and then who do you run out there) and where the stress is taking a toll on his offensive production. Not only that, you are down to a four man rotation plus Rasner and you are probably seeing alot more of Mr. Igawa. Plus, Mussina and Pettite will be gone next year, which leaves you with Wang, Santana and a list of question marks and ciphers. But the main reasons for not giving up the store for Santana: 1, he'd be wasted here; this team isn't good enough to go anywhere even if they had him. He's not good enough to take them there anyway; he's not the ace he used to be. Santana is currently 3-2 in New York, with a nice ERA (2.91) which would certainly be significantly higher in the AL East. He's averaging 6.5 innings perstart, which makes him dependent on the middle as well as the late relievers. I don't see that he would be as good as Wang at this point and maybe not that much better that Pettite. Remember on the Mets he has some decent gloves behind him (Wright, Beltran Reyes) on the Yankees he'd have Jeter, who really can't play SS anymore, Cano, who is still just adequate, and at first base Giambi, need I say more. Finally, at no point in his fine career has Santana ever been a stone cold postseason killer. That's why he's never won a ring, even when he had Radke, the brilliant Loriano and Joe Nathan on the staff with him. One thing I'll say for Hughes, his performance against Cleveland last year suggests that if he does pan out he'll be at his best when it counts.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH JETER?

We have crossed an age boundary with both his legs--he now gets to nothing not hit right at him--and his arm, which is increasingly responsible for unforced errors. This has to be his last year at that position. Damon will probably retire after this season and I'd put Jeter in left.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH AROD?

His quad supposedly, but I think the delivery room story is far more telling, as is his wife's eagerness to tell it.

LASTLY (FOR NOW) WHAT'S WRONG WITH GIARDI?

In addition to managing almost as cautiously as slow Joe, he leaves his pitchers in too long. When does Joba ever walk the first 2 batters? Never! Joe should have known something was wrong. If he takes Igawa out tonight as soon as he began collapsing, they could have won the game. Certainly he should have been yanked when the score went 4-1 in the third.

Every time Damon gets hot and puts together three nice games in a row, Giardi sits him, and so far he has always come back cold.

He keeps trotting Duncan out there and batting him cleanup even though there are still no signs of productivity to be found. If he must be played he should bat eighth.

He won't give Gonzalez a decent chance despite the solid play he has delivered so far.