this team really is that bad. Despite Giambi improving his batting average by 100 points and Canoeimproving his by 65, despite Damon going from 250 to 320, and despite the return of AROD and Posada, this team still can't reach the 500 mark. Why is that? Two reasons.
1.There is no clutch in this team. The RISP number continues dreadful. They got 15 hits in a 6-5 loss to Minnesota and it took them 12 hits to get 5 runs the other night. No team does less with more than the Yankees offensively. A comparative sabremetric can pretty reliably tell you how clutch your team it is. It is the reverse of what we called the "differential" in past years. Take your BA, OBP and OPS with no RISP and with RISP and compare the numbers. This is the everday equivalent of hitting in May vs. hitting in September, or hitting in the regular season vs. hitting in the playoffs. When you look at how poorly the Yankees have fared in this comparison over the past three years, it is no wonder they can't advance in the playoffs. I used to think this was a function of having too few contact hitters. But at least 2/3 of this lineup would qualify. Tasking their cue, as teams usually do, from their reigning "MVP", they are simply awful clutch performers. It is interesting to note that the heart of this lineup has four stars and 2 sometime superstars (Abreu, Matsui, AROD, Giambi),who are all veterans past thirty, who have not a single ring among them, who are all likely to retire ringless in fact. That says something about the temper of this lineup. So when you hear the Yankee players interviewed after a loss, saying as they alway do, that they had their opportunities, please believe them. They did. And then do the necessary translation. "We choked--again."
Update proving my point. Last night the Yankees got 9 hits, three of them doubles and scored just one run, wasting a great outing from Rasner. They don't make productive outs, they don't move runners, they don't come through. Simple as that. They are talented, but they suck!
2. This team has perhaps the worst GM in baseball. The only time the Yanks look at all hopeful this year is when they are playing the Mariners at the Stadium, where the visitors are even more hapless than usual. the last time this happened the Yanks had a legitmate chance to build around that homestand and fashion a ten game winning streak, the kind of run that can't really kindle a season. They didn't, of course, and one man was the reason. That man was the latest addition to the Yankees bullpen, the latest free agent RP signing-disaster. I bring you, in the tradition of Felix Heredia, Kyle Farnsworth, Scott Proctor, the other guy from the Reds whose name I have repressed he was so fucking bad, Cris Britton, Luis Vizcaino, even Tom Gordon...yes its Latroy Hawkins. Rasner goes to the seventh giving up one run, Hawkins gives up three in one inning and they blow game one to the Orioles. The next night, Hawkins enters in the tenth with a one run lead, gives up to in a third of an inning, and they blow game 2 to the Orioles. Now allergic to Hawkins, Giardi leaves Pettite in an inng too long and he gives up the tying run to Minnesota, the 8th is now Farnsworth's and he gives up the winning run. This is the bullpen that the Cashboy built. This is his legacy.
Update proving my point. Giardi now has so little faith in his bullpen that in the 7th inning of a 6-6 game, with the bases loaded and Guillen, who has already homered at the plate, he leaves in Pettite, even though he's already thrown 110 pitches and hasn't been sharp at all. The 111th is a grand slam to make it a 10-6 game. The Yankees are about to lose their second in a row to the Royals at the Stadium--the Royals, mind you, who just finished losing 11 in a row on the road, including being swept at Fenway.
This team is fucking pathetic, and Giardi shouldn't wait for Hank to say so. He should rip them publically for the overproiced underachievers they are, he and do it now. He should make it clear we're not dealing with your father's Joe anymore.
And since Hank is making noise about re-signing Cashboy, Giardi should make it clear he won't stay on under the current General Managership. There's no reason he should have to fight his own pitching staff for the next three years. As a former catcher, I'm certain he recognizes just how inept Cashboy has always been in evaluating pitching talent.
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Moreover, over the past couple of years this time has started very slowly--three games under .500 this time last year, twelve games over in 2006, one game under in 2005--requiring them to play at a high winning percentage if they want to catch up to whoever is leading the division. That they are usually in or near first at the end of the season is irrelevant--the slow start puts enormous pressure on them to win win win, every day without fail. Whereas this year's Red Sox and Rays, starting well, can afford to play .500 for ten games and not worry over much about their place in the standings.
Not every team can do well, of course, but a slow start, repeated more than once, points toward something deeper-set in the organization than just a bad few months. And that's something that both coaches and GM should be held accountable for.
From BGW:
For mostly random reasons, I've had my head in the sand thus far this year, barely keeping up with the Yanekees fortunes beyond the first 15 games or so, so I can't speak to many specifics of why the team is so bad. I trust Joe V. has hit the nail on the head, as usual, though, re: the manifest failures of the bullpen especially (FYI, the name of the reliver you repressed is Gabe White. Why can I remember that? It's a curse...). I can say that after checking back in to follow the team closely this weekend I'm glad I've saved myself the frustration of the day to day fan thus far, especially after today's appalling loss. I don't particularly care that Mo again gave up a tie breaking 9th inning hr to Guillen; but having the bases loaded and not being able to push across a tying run? Last year, we used to say after just these types of games that if Girardi were the manager, they would find a way to manufacture a run in these situations. Clearly the team just really is that broken at a core level. The only consolation any of us can take is from a recent article in The Onion:
George Steinbrenner Dies While Telling Sons Secret To Running Yankees
TAMPA, FL—While on his deathbed in his Tampa home, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner ordered his hospice nurse out of the room, motioned for his sons Hal and Hank to come closer, and began whispering the generations-old secret to making the Yankees a winning ballclub before abruptly dying mid-speech. "He just said, 'All you have to do to ensure the continued success of the Yankee franchise is…is…yell... at…' and then he was gone," Hank Steinbrenner told reporters Monday morning. "I kept banging his chest and screaming 'Yell at who?! Who are we supposed to yell at? Wake up, you old bastard!' but it was too late. We did, however, find this mysterious golden amulet in his pocket…but that can't be it, can it? Can it?" He then announced plans to fire every employee in the company one by one until the Yankees return to first place.
What made the ninth inning so nauseating was that they had just blown a perfectly good opportunity to go up a run in the eighth. Giardi needs to confront the RISP issue and call these guys out. If they are going to continue to play like losers, their manager should have it on the record that that's what they are. Let them go around thinking of themselves in that light for awhile. For some, I'm sure it will be motivating.
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