t never ceases to amaze me how quickly the tone, and narrative, can change in sports. A week ago, today, New York Yankee brass, especially GM Brian Cashman, were fawning over now-Phillie pitcher Cliff Lee like a love-sick 13-year old girl hanging boy-band pictures on her wall. Did you ever think you would hear a grown man say things like “he's worth the wait,” when talking about a free agent? I mean, come on Cash-man. Have some dignity. He might as well have said “Lee completes me.”
The fanbase was little better. Lee was a forgone conclusion to most, and a quick check of the blogs and message boards would have found most fans lining up exactly how the rotation should look on opening day, and who the fifth starter should be on the off-chance Andy Pettitte did not return.
Seven days ago, Cliff Lee was the answer, the antidote to AJ Burnett's rollecoaster ride of a career, to Phil Hughes' stunted growth, to the possible retirement of Pettitte, and so on.
Now, on Dec. 15? Ahhh, who needed the bum, anyway.
One can hardly blame Cashman for moving on as quickly as Sarah Palin when a question about geography comes up. He's the General Manager, not a fan, and he has to refocus quickly because there suddenly aint a tremendous amount of time to get things done. But, the fans, and mouthpiece media personalities, have been more enjoyable since Tuesday morning.
Here is the new narrative:
*Lee is 32, and a 7-year contract would have been outrageous (it amazes me how many Yankee fans have suddenly taken an interest in Yankee budgetology)
*Lee didn't want to come here anyway, so fine (a legitimate point, probably the only one that's been brought up in the last 36 hours)
*Lee isn't that good, anyway (might as well be followed by “and he's ugly, and smells like cabbage”)
*Lee got blown up in the World Series, proving he isn't automatic in the big spot (and Michael Jordan missed plenty of last-second shots, does that mean you would have wanted Bill Worthington taking the shot?)
*Lee has a bad back (certainly something to be worried about, but it didn't seem to affect him in any way in the postseason when he was spanking the Yankees around)
*The Yankees have a good enough team without Lee (then why in the hell was everyone from Brian Cashman to the concession stand attendants at Yankee Stadium willing to wait until the Beatles reunited for Lee to make a decision?)
Let me expound a little on two points made above: the budgetology fixation by Yankee fans, and the idea that the Yankees are “just fine” without Lee.
First, I have never, and will never understand the interest some fans have in the Yankee payroll. There is no cap in baseball. The Yankees can spend whatever they want, and they usually do. The only time fans should care about contracts is when a.) there is a cap (see NFL, NBA) or, b.) when they root for a small market team. If I'm a fan of the Cleveland Indians and my team is looking to offer a 7-year, $138 million offer to ANYONE, I get interested. Why? Because I know my little team only has so much money with which to play. Spend too much money on one guy, and it might be him and eight minor leaguers running out there every summer day.
But, as a fan of the Yankees, or Red Sox, or, now, the Phillies, why worry? You don't know anything about their finances so you have no idea what their cutoff point would be to begin with. No one can gauge when their payroll becomes a burden because they change that number all the time. The Yankees say they won't go over $200 million, then skate by that when necessary. The Red Sox claim they won't go over the luxury tax number, but then speed by it when Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzelez come to play. The Phillies, as late as Friday of last week, were saying it would take a small miracle to work Lee into their budget. Hallelujah, heaven be praised cause that miracle came true.
See, those teams have A LOT of money. Are you really “concerned” as a fan about what kind of constraints a Cliff Lee deal was going to put on the Yankee budget in seven freaking years? Really?
“Well, Bob, Lee would help win the Yankees a championship next season, but I am really concerned about 2016.” Seriously? Who the hell cares? You don't think that, by that time, the Yankees will have figured out how to absorb that bad contract? They have every other time.
Budgetology, to me, is like sabermetrics: it focuses on things that don't really have to do with the sport. For some people, I guess, sitting down and trying to figure out what the long-term player personnel costs will be for the Yankees between 2015 and 2020 is fun. To me, it's a collossal waste of time.
The second point is that the Yankees are fine without Lee.
Let's just say that, if the Yankees honestly believed they were “fine” without Lee, they wouldn't have willingly bent over for the last three weeks hoping that he wouldn't jam anything up there (which, of course, he did). I'll say it again, Brian Cashman acted like a lovesick cheerleader with a crush on the quarterback. Do you think he would do that if he felt great about Ivan Nova and Sergio Mitre anchoring the final two spots in the rotation?
But, if you needed a little more indepth analysis as to why the Yanks are not better off without Lee, or even “just fine,” here you go:
*AJ Burnett is still a Yankee — That's your number two starter, folks. The Burnett train is in the station and ready for departure, prepare for the very real, all but certain chance that you'll be going off the rails on some point during your journey.
Look, the Yanks can say all the right things about Burnett having a “bounceback” year and recharging his career, and they can also try as they might to paint his first year with the Yankees as some sort of pitching clinic put on for the benefit of the baseball world. The truth is, Burnett has only had one year in his career (2008) that justifies him being thought of as anything other than a number 3 or 4 starter. Okay, want to say his 2009 season, with a 4.07 ERA and 13-9 record was more of a number 2 starter type of year, maybe, but that's pretty much the pinnacle for Mr. Face Cream Pie maker. Now, suddenly, at 34, our buddy AJ is gonna become a front-line starter? Again, let's review: AJ Burnett, in an 11-year career, has won more than 13 games just once. In his two years with the Yankees, his record is 23-24. Think about that for a second. AJ Burnett, playing for a team with one of the best offensives in baseball, has a below .500 record and found a way to lose 15 games last year. He's your number two starter.
*Phil Hughes is just OK — Look, I will readily admit that I have been down on Hughes for a long time. I just don't see the "greatness" that was predicted. Several of my buddies are big Hughes fans, and they will rightfully point out in these discussions that Hughes, in his first full year as a starter, won 18 games and had an ERA that was just over 4. I give him credit for that, I really do. However, is that all we can expect from The Franchise?
Forget the fact that the Yankees consistently refused to trade Hughes for better MLB-proven talent over the years (you don't hang onto the guy if you think his ceiling is Jon Garland), without Lee in the picture, and with an aged, perhaps less than excited Andy Pettitte maybe returning, you NEED Hughes to be better. Let's face it, you need him to be your second guy in the rotation, simple as that. Can he do it?
I won't string up Hughes the way I did Burnett, and tie his resume to his throat, because unlike Burnett who has more than a decade of futility to prove he isn't a front-line starter, Hughes has only one full year as a starter and a few other years of bouncing around between the rotation and the pen. However, I will say this: when your fastball tops out at 93 MPH and is straight as an arrow, when your curveball doesn't fool a stick ball player in the streets of Brooklyn, and when you can't throw a third pitch to save your life, well then, it's kinda hard to predict greatness, especially in year two. Instead, the best bet is that Hughes essentially is the pitcher in 2011 that he was in 2010. With Lee, that's just fine. Without Lee, that's a problem.
*Andy Pettitte is old and maybe not all that into baseball - We don't even know if Andy is gonna come back but, seriously, how much can you expect from the man? He's almost 40, dealt with two fairly significant injuries last year, and is having probably the most difficult time ever deciding whether to come back or not. It's a lot to expect that he is gonna go out there, pitch 200 innings, post 15+ wins, and record a 4 or lower ERA. And, at some point, a $200 million team can't continue to put the fate of the rotation on the shoulders of a 40-year old man, right?
*In-house options kinda suck - I like Ivan Nova a lot, I really do.I think he has some big-time stuff. But, he has had less than a month of experience at the major league level and, in that month, showed that, while the talent is there, the maturity isn't. In almost every game he pitched last year, Nova imploded after the fourth or fifth inning. Considering Burnett imploded after the third inning most days, that aint that bad of a record, but you can't send that kid out there over the course of the season.
Sergio Mitre? I don't think I need to explain why Sergio Mitre is not a viable solution for a championship-caliber rotation, right?
The Yankees have some really good young arms in the minors, including Manny Banuelos, who seems to have become somewhat of a superstar in the Yankee system, much heralded Andrew Brackman, and Dellin Betances are all top-quality arms, but none of them are ready for the big time right now.
*Trade for who? - Okay, Lee is gone, the chance to simply spend money is out the window, and the only thing left to do is trade for someone. So, who's out there?
We've already heard that King Felix Hernandez aint going no where, it's hard to imagine the Giants will be interested in giving away any of their arms, considering they just used them all to secure a championship for the first time in 50+ years, and unless I am very wrong, the Red Sox probably aren't proposing a Jon Lester for Brett Gardner deal in the near future. That means the Yanks either go into next season much like they ended the last one, or they trade for a low-grade option, considering the royalty they were just in the running to land.
Maybe the Indians are willing to part with Fausto Carmona for a collection of mid-level prospects. Maybe the Cubs need to part ways with Carlos Zambrano, and maybe Big Z would like a reunion with his old pitching coach. Maybe Ricky Nolasco is a lot better than his record, or talent, indicates. Maybe Freddy Garcia is more than a medical marvel whose arm might literally be made of jelly at this point.
You get the drift. There isn't one sure thing in the group. At this point, the Yankees, and their fans, would be THRILLED with high risk, high reward pitchers like Carmona and Zambrano, guys who would have had the fan base screaming on talk radio if they had been mentioned before Lee turned tail and ran for the City of Brotherly Love.
So, you see, signing Lee was kinda important. It was important because the Yankees spent their whole offseason waiting on his decision, an offseason that saw needed bullpen help pass them by as they sat by the phone like a jilted college coed. It was important because the Yankees now enter next year with a whole lot of question marks in the worst place in which to have them: the rotation and pen. It was also important because, now, even if that front-line starter does become available, it will probably require them to trade Jesus Montero, their prized prospect and the best hitting prospect in all the minors, to complete the deal.
This isn't just about next year, this is about the next five years, as the Yankees won't have the luxury to just throwing money at a pitcher to bring them in,
But, like so many Yankee fans have said the last few days, who needs him....
Maybe the Indians are willing to part with Fausto Carmona for a collection of mid-level prospects. Maybe the Cubs need to part ways with Carlos Zambrano, and maybe Big Z would like a reunion with his old pitching coach. Maybe Ricky Nolasco is a lot better than his record, or talent, indicates. Maybe Freddy Garcia is more than a medical marvel whose arm might literally be made of jelly at this point.
You get the drift. There isn't one sure thing in the group. At this point, the Yankees, and their fans, would be THRILLED with high risk, high reward pitchers like Carmona and Zambrano, guys who would have had the fan base screaming on talk radio if they had been mentioned before Lee turned tail and ran for the City of Brotherly Love.
So, you see, signing Lee was kinda important. It was important because the Yankees spent their whole offseason waiting on his decision, an offseason that saw needed bullpen help pass them by as they sat by the phone like a jilted college coed. It was important because the Yankees now enter next year with a whole lot of question marks in the worst place in which to have them: the rotation and pen. It was also important because, now, even if that front-line starter does become available, it will probably require them to trade Jesus Montero, their prized prospect and the best hitting prospect in all the minors, to complete the deal.
This isn't just about next year, this is about the next five years, as the Yankees won't have the luxury to just throwing money at a pitcher to bring them in,
But, like so many Yankee fans have said the last few days, who needs him....
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