River & Sunset

Yankees news: Coffee's for closers

2011-09-10T09:53:00.003-04:00

Years before Alec Baldwin earned loads of money playing a slightly amped-up version of himself on 30 Rock, he delivered one of the great monologues in movie history in 1992's Glengarry Glen Ross.

In the role of bastard sales strategist Blake, Baldwin completely destroys a roomful of salesman in an attempt to "motivate" the crew. When Jack Lemmon's character gets up during the beginning of Blake's rant to pour himself a cup of coffee, Blake barks, "Put that coffee down. Coffee's for closers only."

Great movie and I implore you to watch the scene here. As for the Yankees, there should be no coffee-drinking in their clubhouse today. Because the Yankees can't seem to close of late.

Three days. Three cities. Three wins for the opposition in their final at-bat. There's a special place in hell for a stretch of losses like this, made all the more regrettable as the Red Sox continue to stumble.

The comment section last night featured a lot of chatter about Joe Girardi blowing the game with his use of Aaron Laffey and Luis Ayala in the ninth, but I don't get that. Girardi knows the playoffs are less than a month away and he knows the Yankees will be in them.

Pitching David Robertson a second inning there simply isn't worth it. The team continues to tread lightly with Rafael Soriano. Boone Logan says he has dead arm. Bringing in Mariano Rivera? They haven't gone off script in 15 years, no reason to start now.

The Yankees blew the 2004 ALCS for a lot of reasons, but right near the top of that list was a gassed bullpen that Joe Torre murdered by overuse. Girardi, a YES broadcaster that doomed season, probably took note.

Onto the links ...

The Yanks went down last night, but don't blame Bartolo Colon. Russell Martin said Colon "looked as good as he has all year." Fine news with October creeping up.

Jesus Montero continues to impress. He homered again last night, this time off a name brand in Jered Weaver.

The Yankees are hoping an MRI can pinpoint the nature of Nick Swisher's elbow pain.

Hot prospect Dellin Betances is with the Yankees and ready if called upon.

Francisco Cervelli doesn't even want to know if he suffered a concussion on Thursday.

CC Sabathia gets his first crack at 20 wins tonight.

Until next time, hang on to the roof ...

Dan Hanzus is a regular contributor to Pinstripe Alley. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees can't help Colon in Angels opener

2011-09-09T23:59:00.000-04:00

Bartolo Colon deserved a better fate on Friday night, but then again, we've said that about Colon many times this season.

The right-hander allowed just one-run over seven innings against his former club, but the Yankees' offense couldn't solve Jered Weaver in a 2-1 loss at Angel Stadium.

It marked the third straight loss for New York, with the opponent scoring the game-winning run in the final frame of each game. This has happened over three consecutive days in three different cities, by the way. The Red Sox lost again — limiting the damage here — but something tells me the Yankees might kick themselves for how the last few days played out.

Colon wasn't the only Yankees bright spot. Jesus Montero flashed his considerable power again, giving New York its only lead with a solo shot off Weaver in the third inning. It's a small sample, but you can't help but get excited with what Montero has shown thus far: .350 average, three homers and six RBI in just 20 at-bats. That's a nice start.

Nice start for Montero, poor finish for the Yankees bullpen on Friday. The game was decided in the ninth when two Yankees relievers couldn't get the job done. First up was Aaron Laffey, who opened the inning by allowing a single to Alberto Callaspo. Exit Laffey, enter Luis Ayala. The right-hander suffered the indignity of giving up a single to Vernon Wells (.216 heading into the at-bat), putting runners on the corners with no outs. Ayala then hit Peter Bourjos with a pitch, setting the stage for Maicer Izturis, who skied out to center, picking up an easy sacrifice fly in the process. Ballgame over, Yankees lose.

Weaver was his typical ace self, allowing just one run on three hits over eight innings, striking out 11. The Yankees only stayed in the game because Colon nearly matched Weaver out for out. Colon's only real mistake came in the fifth, when he surrendered a two-out opposite field RBI single to Howie Kendrick.

The game's other big play came in the top of the ninth. With one out, Alex Rodriguez worked a walk off Angels closer Jordan Walden, fighting back after falling behind in the count, 1-2. A-Rod exited for pinch-runner Eduardo Nunez. Baserunners had been successful stealing on Walden in 12 of 13 attempts this year, but Mike Scioscia called a pitch-out at the right time, the end result an inning-busting caught-stealing.

The Yankees turn to CC Sabathia to end their losing streak on Saturday night. Things won't get any easier for the offense, which must next deal with Dan Haren.

Stray observations

The Yankees are reportedly concerned with the status of Nick Swisher's elbow. Swishalicious is feeling a sharp pain in the area. Obviously, losing Swisher for an extended amount of time will hurt this team badly. I just have my fingers crossed that we're not talking about a "TJ" situation here.
Curtis Granderson went 0-for-4 and is now hitting .268. He's going to have to hike up that average 10 points or so to stay in MVP contention. Batting average ain't dead for everybody.
Bobby Abreu is aging worse than the homecoming queen at your 10-year high school reunion.
Colon hasn't won on the road since July 2.
Is it just me, or does every Yankees pitcher wearing No. 22 remind you of Jimmy Key? The man left his mark, no doubt.
Ayala didn't get the job done tonight, but I'm going to give him a pass. He entered the game with a 1.48 ERA in 48 2/3 innings pitched. Who could've seen that coming?

Dan Hanzus is a regular contributor to Pinstripe Alley. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Derek Jeter's last laugh

2011-09-07T10:56:00.003-04:00

In the fading twilight of Don Mattingly's career, every contribution by the erstwhile Hit Man was cause for celebration in the Bronx.

Mattingly was adored by Yankees fans in a way that was almost familial. He wasn't just loved, he was protected. A bad back had robbed the captain of the torque necessary to be a productive offensive player, but on the days Mattingly did find the short porch in right, a standing ovation was always in order.

There was no getting around the fact that Mattingly had no business being an everyday player by the end of his run in New York. In his last two seasons, Mattingly hit 13 homers in 830 at-bats. His OPS was a Joey Cora-like .754 in 1995, his final year before retirement.

Mattingly took heat for his lack of production, but the old media model was still in place, limiting the vitriol. WFAN's Chris Russo was outspoken in his criticism, and George Steinbrenner was accused by Mattingly himself of planting negative stories with the help of Bill Madden, columnist for the Daily News.

But with no Internet and the nasty snark streak that it helped create, Mattingly's final years played out with an air of dignity that could never happen today.

Just ask Derek Jeter. The current Yankees captain rivals Mattingly in fan adoration levels, but Jeter has faced scrutiny that Mattingly never could've imagined. Even when Jeter was in his prime, he was described by some as grossly overrated. As he's grown older, the sniping has increased considerably — first about his range at shortstop and later about his ability at the plate.

Last winter was open season on Jeter, as his ugly contract situation combined with an underwhelming 2010 campaign made for a turkey shoot. Things didn't get better as he staggered toward 3,000 hits this spring. Kevin Long's new swing model was unceremoniously scrapped (a black mark for the venerable "Cage Rat") and Jeter scuffled in April, May and June, hitting .250, .274 and .239, respectively.

In June, a calf injury sent him to the disabled list on the precipice of 3,000 and suddenly Jeter was literally limping toward the milestone. Jokes about the big hit being a misplayed infield chopper were commonplace. Derek Jeter, the great and dignified Yankee, was washed up ... and a lot of people seemed to be enjoying it.

Of course, Jeter has since altered that narrative. The shortstop put his swing back together, and is hitting .343 with three homers, 34 RBIs, 33 runs and eight stolen bases in the 51 games since his return to the lineup. His breakup with Minka Kelly may be the only blemish on an otherwise sterling summer.

Predictably, you've heard less about Jeter's revival than his supposed downfall. I suspect this bothers me more than him, however. Jeter's unflappable nature was on full display in the HBO documentary about his quest for 3,000. This was a guy with his career at a crossroads, who was being questioned on a near-daily basis about whether he was still a player, and he never blinked.

The doc was a fascinating look into Jeter's life while also distilling the core brilliance of his mastery of the media. Even when you think you're in, you're not. Jeter never lets us see him sweat. The emperor always keeps his clothes.

And that's why we can only speculate this morning about Jeter's satisfaction with how this 2011 season has played out. He won't gloat now, just as he wouldn't pout then. He is the finest example of how a professional athlete in New York — or any market — should carry himself. Just as Mattingly was a generation before.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

It's good to have a Frankie

2011-08-31T10:56:00.004-04:00

If you've followed the career arc of Francisco Cervelli even a little, you knew hitting a ball over the Green Monster during a pennant race was going to conjure up emotions he'd have zero ability to harness.

Cervelli, the Yankees' fiery Venezuelan reserve catcher, is like the unpredictable cousin you reluctantly bring to a work friend's party. You spend the next four hours praying he doesn't say or do something to put someone off, and when he inevitably does, you can't even get mad at him. It's just Frankie being Frankie.

Cervelli is a fringe player in every respect, and with Jesus Montero knocking loudly at the door, he may not be long for Yankee Universe. Hell, the team nearly traded him to the Pirates last month in a deal that would've brought back Brad Lincoln, a young right-handed reliever with a career ERA of 5.66. This tells you a lot in terms of where the catcher stands in his own organization.

But Cervelli has value to this Yankees team that goes beyond his middling talent level. When Cervelli steps on the field, he brings with him an attitude that's downright refreshing after two decades of buttoned-up Yankees baseball. It's always good to have that one guy who has the innate ability to piss off the opposing team and its fanbase. It makes rooting for your team more fun.

David Ortiz has made a career of taunting the Yankees and their fans with slow trots, pointing, bat flips, and all the general buffoonery that's come to define the Big Papi Experience. When he finally got drilled by a fastball following a particularly egregious home run celebration in July, Ortiz himself pointed out that the plunking was the direct result of a media blitz designed to put him in his place.

Ortiz is a pest, which coincidentally is the term NESN announcer Jerry Remy uses to describe Cervelli. He lived up to that name Tuesday night after an exaggerated slap of his hands as he touched home plate following his homer.

The slap was right under the nose of Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and it didn't go unnoticed by the always-personable John Lackey, who drilled Cervelli in the back his next time up. The benches cleared and both sides were warned.

"I don’t remember (what was said)," Cervelli said about the fallout of his HBP, according to LoHud. "A lot of Spanish. At that moment, I forgot my English. But it’s part of the game, I’ve got a lot of energy."

That he does, and it seems to be infectious. When Saltalamacchia reached on a disputed hit by pitch in the ninth inning, Girardi nearly blew the third-base umpire away with an angry tirade that got him tossed. It's good to see these things, and you wonder how much our crazy cousin has to do with it.

When asked about his signature fist pumps after Boone Logan's huge strikeout of Darnell McDonald in the seventh inning, Cervelli provided a brief answer that seemed to sum up his entire existence in four syllables.

"That’s Cervelli."

That's a third-person reference, people! He may not play like Rickey Henderson, but Cervelli's value is greater than the sum of his parts.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Allan James brings the pain

2011-08-27T13:23:00.005-04:00

A.J. Burnett has been so terrible for so long that it's easy to lose perspective on how wretched things have become.

If you recall, Burnett had perhaps the worst statistical season for a pitcher in the history of the franchise in 2010 (certainly the worst for a pitcher in his tax bracket). His 10-15, 5.26 abortion essentially assassinated New York's hopes of defending its title. This was supposed to be the No. 2 starter, an ace to handcuff with CC Sabathia. It can't be overstated how unacceptable his performance was.

This year — almost impossibly — he's been worse. After Friday night's wipeout by the awful Orioles, Burnett's record is 9-11 with a 5.31 ERA. To track down Burnett's last quality start (at least six innings, three or less earned runs), you have to trek all the way back to June 29 against the Brewers.

Burnett has just seven quality starts in 27 attempts this season, meaning he's been paid $2.36 million for every quality start if you choose to twist stats and money like a jerk (which, of course, I will). I'll remember this stat for rage purposes today when I'm robbing my local convenience store to pay rent.

This isn't Moneyball. This is Money-bawl-your-eyes-out.

By spring training, we were told to expect a new Allan James Burnett. As the story goes, A.J. had bought into the philosophies of new pitching coach Larry Rothschild, and was attacking the zone in a way he could not or would not do the previous season.

"There's still one out of every handful, but the difference is that I'm not thinking about it," Burnett said after a strong spring training outing against the Phillies on March 8. "I'm not wondering why that one out of every five or one out of every three happens. It's just, 'Get the ball and go.' Get the ball, trust yourself and make a pitch. I missed, so get up there and do it again."

It seems ridiculous that beat writers could hold a recording device in front of Burnett's face without cracking up now, but they weren't the only ones with a straight face. Joe Girardi was all in on the new A.J.

"Maybe in a way, A.J. feels like it's a fresh start," the manager said after that March start. "He's got a different pitching coach and a different catcher, so it's almost like going to a new team even though he knows it's not. The important thing is building those relationships."

Ah yes, the new catcher. In case you forgot, many of Burnett's past struggles were laid at the feet of Jorge Posada, the cranky old backstop who wasn't worth a damn anymore. Seems pretty silly, and more than a tad unfair now, doesn't it?

Girardi has developed a patience in Burnett that's not unlike the father who refuses to accept the fact that his son is a mess-up. He may be 34, still living on the couch, and unable to hold a job or girlfriend, but the old man sees the promise buried within.

I suppose this can be seen as a positive trait in a manager, especially in a town as reactionary as New York. But just like the dad who repeatedly defends the loser son, you can only stick your neck out so long before it's you who looks like a fool.

I thought about that during Girardi's postgame presser on Friday night.

"I’m frustrated for him," Girardi said. "You don’t want to see anyone struggle in this game. This game is hard. It’s tough to go through months like this, whether you’re a pitcher or a position player and you’re struggling and hitting .150 for the month. It’s tough; you’re frustrated for him. You want him to turn it around."

Due to Michael Bay-movie weather conditions that will necessitate doubleheaders, Girardi said the Yankees will stick to a six-man rotation that has Burnett scheduled to be on the hill Friday at Fenway Park. There's always the chance the Burnett the Yankees thought they were signing in 2008 shows up, the same Burnett who set the Yankees on the course for a championship with his clutch performance in Game 2 of the World Series in 2009.

But what's far more likely is another turkey shoot in Boston. Burnett will weave through an inning, perhaps two, maybe even three, before the combination of faulty temperament and an inability to harness his physical ability leads to a meltdown. Dustin Pedroia ill cap a five-run inning with a three-run homer over the Green Monster and Girardi will take the ball from Burnett, who will stalk off the mound with that mix of dejection and anger that we've become so accustomed to.

After the game, Burnett will say he has to get things right and Girardi will say he feels for his pitcher and believes he will get through this. Lather and wash. Rinse and repeat.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Burnett benefiting from lowered expectations

2011-08-04T11:09:00.004-04:00

The Yankees did what the Yankees do on Wednesday night — they hit homers, scored a ton of runs and covered up whatever shortcomings stood between the team and victory.

In a game where the lineup crossed the plate 18 times and the bullpen allowed one hit in 4 2/3 innings, it doesn't take a genius to figure out whose slack needed to picked up at U.S. Cellular Field.

A.J. Burnett has spent the 2011 season living under the radar. This is hard for any supposed No. 2 pitcher to do, let alone a No. 2 pitcher who gets paid by the New York Yankees. I guess this happens when you're coming off one of the worst statistical seasons in franchise history. In 2010, Burnett lost 15 games with an ERA well north of 5.00. His meatball to Bengie Molina in Game 4 of the ALCS all but sealed New York's hopes of a repeat.

Saying Burnett merely struggled is like saying the Ryan Reynolds-Jason Bateman body-switch movie only slightly lowered the artistic bar in Hollywood.

The result of such suckitude has been a serious temperance in expectations. Gone is the hope that a pitcher being paid $82 million could be a second ace. Yankees fans just hope he can get through a season without one of those 0-5 months that beat up bullpens and obliterate momentum.

Of course, Burnett doesn't deserve the slack he gets. Wednesday night provided us the perfect summation of everything that's wrong with the right-hander. From the first White Sox batter, it was clear Burnett had no stuff. He couldn't located his fastball and every curve amounted to a cement mixer. As CC Sabathia proves often, lacking your full artillery is no excuse for a bad night. Sabathia routinely pitches deep into games without his best stuff, as evident by his start that opened this series.

This is a concept that Burnett cannot or will not wrap his head around. To Burnett, bad stuff equals bad start and the hope things are better in five days. Burnett seemed resigned to this Wednesday, not showing an ounce of competitiveness until there was one out in the fifth.

That's when Joe Girardi came to get the pitcher who couldn't find a way to qualify for a win despite a 13-1 lead. It was 13-7 when he exited with runners on second and third. Burnett pushed the ball into Girardi's hand and stalked off the mound before the manager could even get to him. The YES camera followed him to the dugout, catching him as he ripped off his jersey and disappeared from view.

His final line told the story: 4.1 IP, 13 H, 7 ER, 3 K, 0 BB.

Despite all the chatter about six starters for five spots and Phil Hughes pitching for his job, Burnett remains teflon, completely safe despite subpar production. Burnett's job security was evident in a postgame presser where he seemed completely at ease despite the storm cloud that should be overhead.

“I get to go in five days,” Burnett said. “That’s about it. It was one of them days, man.”

Girardi defended his starter after the game, brushing off Burnett's aggro walk from the mound while pumping up the right-hander's body of work this season.

“He’s starting on Wednesday,” Girardi said. “His numbers aren’t that bad. If you look at the numbers of Hughes, I mean, Hughesy made one good start. We look at the whole year, and A.J.’s been decent for us.”

That's where we're at. The Yankees manager is covering for his No. 2 pitcher by pointing out the failures of his No. 3. It turns out that Burnett's 2010 season didn't stay there. The ripples of those 35 starts have carried over. The bar is near the ground now, warping the perspective of what should be expected from the "ace" behind the ace.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees news: The CC's a Beast edition

2011-07-27T10:51:00.003-04:00

The buzz following last night's game was all about CC Sabathia, who took a perfect game into the seventh inning in the Yankees' 4-1 win over the hapless Mariners. Carsten Charles finished with 14 strikeouts, setting a career high.

Sabathia was the hot topic in both clubhouses after the game.

"He's always got Sabathia stuff. But today, that was by far the best I've ever seen him pitch," said Brendan Ryan, who broke up the perfecto with a single in the seventh. "I almost feel disrespectful saying that, because we all know what he's capable of. But when you're locating the fastball and the way he's throwing that slider, stealing strikes with curveballs here and there, he's absolutely filthy."

Some Yankees feel the rain delays kept Sabathia from immortality.

Sabathia said there was no way he was coming out of the game.

Joe Girardi spoke about his decision to bring Sabathia back out after two separate rain delays.

Perfect game or not, the Yankees still made history on the mound on Tuesday.

Lost in the CC mix, Eric Chavez made his return to the lineup after missing 71 games.

The Mariners, losers of 17 straight, are free fallin' out into nothin'.

Rafael Soriano's return is imminent. Um, cool?

It's back to the farm for Brandon Laird.

The Mariners could lose 30 in a row, King Felix isn't going anywhere.

Tom Verducci reminisced about the 1998 Yankees in SI.com's "The Best Team I Ever Covered" series. A choice snippet from the piece says it all:
"The '98 Yankees had such great chemistry that when Dale Sveum was released in August, he volunteered to stick around as a bullpen catcher rather than go home to his wife and kids."

To be fair, Dale could've really disliked his family. Just sayin'.

With each dominant Sabathia outing, his price tag goes up, up,up. The opt-out is a formality now.

Until next time, hang onto the roof ...

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

CC flirts with perfection, M's drop 17th straight

2011-07-27T10:48:00.001-04:00

In 1978, Ron Guidry went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA. It's widely regarded as the greatest year a Yankees pitcher ever had, a once-in-a-generation accomplishment.

A generation later, CC Sabathia is putting together a season that has evoked memories of Louisiana Lightning. That was more apparent than ever on Tuesday night, with the big left-hander taking a perfect game into the seventh inning in a 4-1 win over the woeful Mariners, who lost their club-record 17th-straight.

Sabathia is now 15-5 with a 2.56 ERA. He's won eight of his last nine starts.

Brendan Ryan broke up the bid with a clean single with one out in the seventh, but Mother Nature can take just as much credit for throwing a wrench in history. The game was halted by a 30-minute rain delay with one out in the sixth, especially painful because Sabathia was literally untouchable at that point. He struck out seven consecutive batters before the tarp was rolled out.

Sabathia wasn't quite as sharp after the delay, hanging a breaking ball that Ichiro swung through in the seventh, then falling behind Ryan 2-0 before grooving a fastball. He did recover, striking out the final two batters of the inning to set a career high with 14 Ks.

A second rain delay figured to end Sabathia's night after 84 pitches, but the left-hander made a surprising return to the mound. It turned out to be a bad decision. Sabathia walked three consecutive batters, ending his night on a sour note. David Robertson came on and limited the damage, striking out Ryan, getting a fielder's choice RBI groundout by Chone Figgins before freezing Ichiro (.266) with a fastball to end the threat.

My personal opinion: Hindsight is 20/20, but there was really no reason to bring Sabathia back into the game after the second rain delay, unless you were cognizant of the Yankees strikeout record (Guidry struck out 18 in a game in '78). The counter-argument is that the second rain delay was brief (just 14 minutes). That said, I'm sure a pitcher's mindset is completely different than when he's sitting on the bench during an extended half inning. Factoring in injury-risk, it just didn't make sense. End of rant.

Curtis Granderson's 28th homer in the third opened the scoring, an opposite-field shot that snuck over the left-field wall. Mark Teixeira capped the scoring with his 28th homer, which doubled as his 100th homer as a Yankee. Doug Fister was the hard-luck loser — he's now lost his last seven decisions despite a 3.33 ERA. That's just not fair.

Mariano Rivera closed it out with a scoreless ninth, keeping Seattle winless since July 5. The G.O.A.T. picked up his 26th save of the season and 585th overall.

The Red Sox blew out the Royals at Fenway, maintaining a two-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East. New York leads the LA Angels of Anaheim of Los Angeles of California by 6.5 games in the wild card standings.

Stray Observations:

Ron Guidry was actually in the house tonight, according to Sweeny Murti.
A couple of depressing shots of Yankee playoff hero and current Seattle hitting coach Chris Chambliss. Can't imagine how depressing it must be being around that team.
Chone Figgins went 0-for-3 and is down to .180. 180!!! What possibly does the man have to do to get DFA'd? Kidnap somebody's daughter? Light the clubhouse on fire? Amazing to think that not long ago he was a certified Yankee Killer.
Sad watching Ichiro waste away on such a bad team. Get the feeling he would be revitalized by moving to a contender. Hasn't been back to the playoffs since his rookie year.
Granderson is just two homers shy of his career high. According to YES, it was the first of his 28 homers to go to left field.
Eric Chavez returned to the lineup after missing 71 games. He went 1-for-3. It goes without saying that the former Gold Glover is a huge defensive upgrade at third over Eduardo Nuneeeeeeeeeeeeeez.
"I'd love to see what Robbie hits if he only swings at strikes." -- Paul O'Neill after a classic Cano giveaway at-bat in the second.
Courtesy of Mark Feinsand: "Sabathia's streak of seven straight strikeouts is over, one shy of the AL record. (Nolan Ryan 2X, Ron Davis, Roger Clemens and Blake Stein)"
If home-plate umpire Bob Davidson doesn't give Robertson a very-generous 3-1 strike call in the eighth against Ryan, it's a two-run game with nobody out and the bases loaded. The Mariners are awful, and they probably would've found a way to blow it anyway, but the Yankees caught a break, especially when Ryan chased ball four to strikeout.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Tracking the Cash: Yankees at the Deadline, Part 2

2011-07-26T05:47:00.013-04:00

Yesterday, we took a look at Brian Cashman's July trade history spanning his first year as Yankees GM in 1998 through the fateful 2004 season. Today, we take it to the present.

2005

July 2: Traded Paul Quantrill to the San Diego Padres. Received Darrell May, Tim Redding, and cash.

July 16: Received Al Leiter from the Florida Marlins as part of a conditional deal.

July 28: Traded Eduardo Sierra (minors) and Ramon Ramirez to the Colorado Rockies. Received Shawn Chacon.

July 29: Received Joe Thurston from the Los Angeles Dodgers as part of a conditional deal.

July 31: Sent Buddy Groom to the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of a conditional deal.

The Yankees scrambled their way to the postseason in 2005, winning the AL East despite an unusually sluggish start. One notable Cashman deal was a big reason for that.

Shawn Chacon was a relative unknown when the Yankees acquired him from the Rockies in exchange for two minor leaguers on July 28. Chacon had gone 2-16 over the past two seasons in Colorado, yet Cashman saw something in the right-hander.

Chacon, using a bowling ball sinker, was a revelation out of the starting rotation, going 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA in 12 appearances (10 starts) for the Yankees. Chacon, along with journeyman Aaron Small, formed an unlikely dynamic duo in the back of the rotation, combining to go 17-3 for a team in desperate need of pitching.

2006

July 30: Traded C.J. Henry (minors), Carlos Monasterios (minors), Jesus Sanchez (minors), and Matt Smith to the Philadelphia Phillies. Received Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle.

July 31: Traded Shawn Chacon to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Received Craig Wilson.

Much as David Justice revitalized the Yankees offense upon his arrival in 2000, Bobby Abreu brought similar results to the team six years later.

Abreu was the perfect fit for the Yankee lineup. A left-handed batter with pop and patience, he was an ideal player to be hitting in front of Alex Rodriguez.

Phobia of outfield walls aside, Abreu was everything the Yankees could have hoped him to be, batting .330 with seven homers, 42 RBI, 37 runs, 10 steals, and a gaudy .419 on-base percentage in 58 regular-season games.

Abreu went on to play two more full seasons in the Bronx, quietly producing all the way through his tenure before leaving for the Angels via free agency in 2009.

Chacon was quietly dealt away, injuries and inconsistency robbing him of the ability to match the success of a season earlier.

Lidle appeared in relief in Game 4 of the ALDS against the Tigers, getting hit hard in the game that eliminated the Yankees. He died in a Manhattan plane crash in a week later.

2007

July 21: Traded Jeff Kennard (minors) to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Received Jose Molina.

July 31: Traded Scott Proctor to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Received Wilson Betemit.

The acquisition of Molina was a particularly deft one by Cashman. Molina was known as a defensive standout who worked with pitchers well. He possessed qualities that Jorge Posada lacked and vice versa, making them a good combination behind the plate.

Proctor was once a contributor out of the bullpen, but overuse by Joe Torre and a secret struggle with alcoholism led to his exit.

Betemit was of very little use to the Yankees, though they would later flip the strikeout-prone switch hitter for Nick Swisher, which has turned into one of Cashman's greatest deals.

The Yankees cut ties with Molina after the '09 season, handing his backup role to the emerging Francisco Cervelli.

2008

July 26: Traded Daniel McCutchen (minors), Jose Tabata (minors), Jeff Karstens, and Ross Ohlendorf to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Received Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady.

July 30: Traded LaTroy Hawkins to the Houston Astros. Received Matt Cusick (minors).

Traded Kyle Farnsworth to the Detroit Tigers. Received Ivan Rodriguez.

July 31: Traded Alberto Gonzalez to the Washington Nationals. Received Jhonny Nunez (minors).

2008 was the first year the Yankees failed to qualify for the postseason in Cashman's tenure as general manager. It wasn't for lack of effort, as the GM attempted to repair a team loaded with holes at the deadline.

The big move involved the acquisition that brought Nady and Marte from the Pirates for prospects. Nady did give the team another presence in the lineup, but he blew out his elbow in April '09 and never played for the Yankees again.

Marte was a revelation in the 2009 postseason, stringing together eight scoreless appearances. Unfortunately, he now has a left shoulder only in theory. It's unlikely we'll see him again.

Tabata made headlines shortly after the trade for a kidnapping case involving his daughter and insane cougar wife. He's now a regular for the Pirates.

Ohlendorf had a promising 2009 campaign with the Pirates, but has since dropped off the grid.

The disposal of Farnsworth was a necessary move; the erratic right-hander had long since worn out his welcome. Fourteen-time All-Star Rodriguez was supposed to help offset the loss of an injured Posada, but Pudge was a shell of his former self in pinstripes, batting just .219 with three RBI in 33 games.

2009

July 31: Traded Chase Weems (minors) to the Cincinnati Reds. Received Jerry Hairston Jr.

June 30: Traded Judsan Golson (minors) to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Received Eric Hinske

The Yankees were thought to be smack in the middle of the Roy Halladay trade talks that swirled around baseball leading up to the '09 deadline, but Halladay eventually stayed in Toronto.

Cashman was smart enough to know he had a loaded team that needed more of a tweak than an overhaul.

Enter Hairston, a versatile player who could spell A-Rod at third base and also provide depth in the outfield.

Hairston batted .237 (with a .352 OBP) in 93 plate appearances during the regular season, but he earned a small place in Yankee lore in the playoffs, when he singled and eventually scored on a throwing error to end Game 2 of the ALCS against the Angels.

Cashman elected not to re-sign Hairston in the offseason, inserting the younger, cheaper Ramiro Pena into the same role.

Hinske was picked up to add depth and some pop off the bench, and he did that, smacking seven homers in 74 regular season at-bats. He was used sparingly in the postseason and signed with the Braves in the offseason.

2010

July 31: Traded Zach McAllister (minors) to Cleveland Indians. Received Austin Kearns.

Traded Jimmy Paredes (minors) and Mark Melancon to Houston Astros. Received Lance Berkman and cash.

Traded Andrew Shive (minors) and Matt Cusick (minors) to Cleveland Indians. Received Kerry Wood.

Cashman pulled the trigger on multiple deals on deadline day, attempting to fortify a Yankees team looking to repeat.

The results were mixed. Kearns was largely invisible, hitting .235 with two homers and seven RBI in 106 at-bats. The Yankees had no problem cutting ties when the season was done.

Wood was brought aboard to do what Joba Chamberlain could not -- build a stable bridge to Mariano Rivera. The one-time Cubs phenom seemed like a risky play at the time, but he quickly became a trusted piece of Joe Girardi's bullpen.

Wood struck out 31 over 26 innings and allowed just two runs in 24 appearances, a stunning turnaround from the 6.30 ERA he pitched to as closer for the Indians. He wasn't quite as untouchable in the postseason (two runs over eight innings), but on balance ranks among Cashman's best deadline acquisitions.

Berkman is an MVP candidate in St. Louis this season, which is hard to believe if you remember his time as a bumbling, overweight 1B/DH during his three-month stay in the Bronx.

Acquired to add pop to the lineup, Berkman hit exactly one home run in 123 plate appearances in the regular season. To his credit, Berkman came alive somewhat in the playoffs, going deep in the ALDS against the Twins and driving in four runs in 16 at-bats.

It gave Yankees fans a fleeting glimpse of what Fat Elvis once was, and improbably, what he would soon be again.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Tracking the Cash: Yankees at the Deadline

2011-07-25T03:59:00.010-04:00

Brian Cashman was a lowly intern when he joined the Yankees organization in 1986, but he proved skillful at climbing the most slippery corporate ladder in professional sports.

Cashman was named general manager of the club in 1998, and on his watch the Yankees have captured six American League pennants and four World Series titles. The 44-year-old New York native has been something of a lightning rod in his time as GM.

Supporters say he's a smart, hard-working executive that has earned the respect of colleagues around the game. Detractors believe Cashman was simply along for the ride during the dynasty run, is a poor talent evaluator, and was directly responsible for the team's title drought last decade.

Whatever your opinion, the man has staying power. With the trade deadline upon us, let's take a look at the Yankees' July trading activity under Cash.

1998

The Yankees were a staggering 76-27 at the end of play on July 31 in 1998, so it's likely the young GM was warned like a kid standing next to grandma's china closet.

Don't. Touch. Anything.

Cashman made the right decision, standing pat with a juggernaut team on his hands. The Yankees would go on to win 125 games and the first of three consecutive World Series titles.

One note of interest came during Cashman's first draft a month earlier. He selected, but was unable to sign, a talented San Diego high school kid by the name of Mark Prior. This likely led to daily cane lashings from George Steinbrenner for the next five years or so.

I'm sure Cash really misses answering to the Boss.

1999

July 31: Traded Geraldo Padua to the San Diego Padres. Received Jim Leyritz

Before Jim Leyritz became the tragic drunk he's known as today, he was a Yankee hero, hitting the three-run homer off Mark Wohlers that swung the 1996 World Series.

The King, as the loquacious Leyritz was known, was brought back to the Bronx on July 31 for an unheralded minor leaguer.

This was the '99 season, in which Andy Pettitte struggled mightily in the initial months, leading George Steinbrenner to demand his trade. Cashman wisely convinced the Boss otherwise and, perhaps to placate him, reacquired Pettitte's one-time personal catcher.

Leyritz played sparingly in his Bronx return engagement, though he did hit a home run in the World Series against Atlanta that year. Though an inconsequential homer in the context of that Fall Classic wipeout, Steinbrenner rewarded Leyritz with an unnecessary contract for the 2000 season.

According to Buster Olney's excellent Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, Leyritz referred to the blast as his "one-million-dollar home run."

2000

June 29: Traded Zach Day, Ricky Ledee, and Jake Westbrook to the Cleveland Indians. Received David Justice

July 12: Traded Jackson Melian, Drew Henson, Brian Reith, and Ed Yarnall to the Cincinnati Reds. Received Mike Frank and Denny Neagle

July 21: Traded Ben Ford and Oswaldo Mairena to the Chicago Cubs. Received Glenallen Hill

The Yankees were a flawed team in 2000, playing nothing like the dominating clubs of the past two seasons. Substantial work needed to be done to buoy the team. Cashman would hit pay dirt.

But not without a little luck. Cashman had been foiled in attempts to acquire Moises Alou and Juan Gonzalez when the veterans each rejected the idea of playing in New York.

Not to be denied, Cashman plowed ahead and eventually acquired Justice. The deal is widely considered to be Cash's greatest trade.

Justice hit .305 with 20 homers, 60 RBI, and 39 walks in 78 regular-season games. After lifting the Yankees into the playoffs, he had the defining hit of that postseason, blasting a late three-run homer off the Mariners' Arthur Rhodes in Game 6 of the ALCS to put the Yankees into the World Series.

Ledee never realized his promise, while Westbrook fizzled out after a promising start to his career in Cleveland. Day had a nondescript career, throwing his last pitch for the Nationals in 2006.

Justice was the primary score, but Cashman acquired two other known big league entities with mixed results.

The trade for Glenallen Hill further aided the sagging offense, as the veteran slugger hit .333 with 16 homers and 29 RBI in just 132 at-bats. A deal to add depth to the starting rotation was less successful, as Denny Neagle pitched to a 5.81 ERA in 15 starts.

2001

July 1: Traded Ricardo Aramboles to the Cincinnati Reds. Received Mark Wohlers.

July 4: Traded Brian Boehringer to the San Francisco Giants. Received Joe Smith and Bobby Estalella.

July 31: Traded Darren Blakely and Brett Jodie to the San Diego Padres. Received Sterling Hitchcock.

Cashman was busy again in 2001 but was ultimately unable to match the impact of the deadline deals a year earlier.

Wohlers was on the wrong side of Yankee history in the 1996 World Series. Five years later, the right-hander was brought in to fortify the bullpen under Joe Torre.

Wohlers appeared in 31 games and battled command issues, finishing with a 4.54 ERA in pinstripes. He pitched one more season with the Indians before calling it quits.

Hitchcock was the NLCS MVP for the Padres in 1998, but he was a disappointment in his second go-around in the Bronx, going 4-4 with a 6.81 ERA. His season in New York wasn't a complete loss, however. He was the winning pitcher out of the bullpen in Game 5 of the World Series against the Diamondbacks, the Yankees' final win of that memorable season.

2002

July 2: Traded Scott Wiggins to the Toronto Blue Jays. Received Raul Mondesi.

July 5: As part of a three-team trade, traded Jason Arnold (minors), John-Ford Griffin, and Ted Lilly to the Oakland Athletics. Received Jeff Weaver from the Detroit Tigers.

In addition, the Oakland Athletics sent a player to be named later, Franklyn German, and Carlos Pena to the Detroit Tigers, and the Detroit Tigers sent cash to the Oakland Athletics. The Oakland Athletics sent Jeremy Bonderman to the Detroit Tigers to complete the trade.

This was a deadline that Cashman would like to forget, even if all the damage wasn't his doing.

The trade for Mondesi was a disgrace, a direct product of George Steinbrenner's petulance.

Mondesi was a player in decline in 2002, a hard-living, undisciplined, expensive slugger whom the Blue Jays believed they had no chance to rid themselves of. J.P. Ricciardi was so sure that he was stuck with Mondesi that the Jays GM nearly drove off the Mass Pike when he learned the Yankees were interested.

Sure enough, Mondesi was a slug in New York, the antithesis of the kind of player that helped build the recent dynasty. Can't really blame Cash here. Sometimes the Boss was just going to be the Boss.

The Jeff Weaver debacle was on Cash, however. The Yankees gave up left-handed prospect Ted Lilly to acquire the Tigers' Weaver, a talented right-hander who had yet to live up to his potential playing for a bad Detroit team.

The deal blew up in Cashman's face.

Weaver didn't have the temperament to pitch in New York, looking eternally uncomfortable and unhappy on the mound. His lasting legacy is the game-winning homer he allowed to Alex Gonzalez in Game 4 of the World Series against the Marlins in 2003.

The walk-off blast turned the tide in the series, and as Lilly went on to flourish, it ensured the trade would be remembered as among Cash's worst.

2003

July 16: Traded Ryan Bicondoa (minors), Jason Anderson, and Anderson Garcia to the New York Mets. Received Armando Benitez.

July 22: Received Jesse Orosco from the San Diego Padres as part of a conditional deal.

July 29: Sent Dan Miceli to the Houston Astros as part of a conditional deal.

Traded Raul Mondesi and cash to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Received John Prowl (minors), David Dellucci, and Bret Prinz.

July 31: Received Gabe White from the Cincinnati Reds as part of a conditional deal.

Traded Robin Ventura to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Received Bubba Crosby and Scott Proctor.

Traded Brandon Claussen, Charlie Manning, and cash to the Cincinnati Reds. Received Aaron Boone.

Cashman officially cemented himself as one of baseball's premier deadline movers and shakers in 2003, orchestrating several deals for the eventual American League champion Yankees.

Of course, of all the above names, only one truly stands out: Aaron Bleepin' Boone.

Boone was acquired to replace a fading Robin Ventura, but things didn't get off to the best of starts. Boone batted just .254 in 189 regular-season at-bats and had been in a deep funk when he stepped into the box against Boston's Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the ALCS.

One flat knuckler changed all that, making Boone a folk hero in the process.

Boone went on to blow out his knee playing basketball in the offseason, paving the way for a move that would change the face of the franchise: the acquisition of one Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez.

2004

July 31: Traded Jose Contreras and cash to the Chicago White Sox. Received Esteban Loaiza.

The season that will forever live in infamy for Yankees fans, 2004 was a relatively quiet year on the deadline front for Cashman.

Dealing away Jose Contreras was a white-flag maneuver; the Yanks had fought hard to acquire the rights to the Cuban defector only to see him struggle both on the mound and off in his two seasons in New York.

Esteban Loizia was thought to be a potential wild card, having won 21 games a season before with the White Sox. But Loaiza looked nothing like the All-Star he had been in Chicago and was banished to the bullpen after a succession of poor starts.

Had Cashman been able to flip Contreras for a more usable part, maybe it wouldn't have been a broken down Kevin Brown starting Game 7 of the ALCS against Boston that season.

Ah, the power of regret.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 ...

Big lessons to take from Small memories

2011-07-14T01:52:00.004-04:00

A few weeks back, I was watching coverage of Old-Timers Day at work when Michael Kay introduced Aaron Small to a generous ovation. My colleague — a Red Sox fan and staunch Yankee hater — started cackling wildly then made a condescending remark about Old-Timers Day not being what it used to be in the Bronx.

In a way, he was right. With the exception of Reggie, Yogi and Whitey, all the team's icons of yesteryear have joined The Boss at that big ballyard in the sky. (The only other living Yankee great who can electrify the Stadium happens to be trapped in baseball Siberia as manager of the Dodgers. Ugh.)

This has created a transitional period for Old-Timers Day, a period that will abruptly end when Andy Pettitte's Core Four pals join him in retirement, grow out the necessary guts and double chins and begin attending the event themselves.

As for my Red Sox fan colleague, I gently reminded him that Ted Williams has been turned into a RoboCop security guard in Scottsdale, Ariz. We didn't talk much the rest of that day.

But back to Small.

Before my Teddy Ballgame frozen-head riff, I explained that Small is one of those guys that Yankees fans will always remember fondly. For whatever reason, we love referencing mediocre players from the past — the likes of Andy Stankiewicz, Horace Clark, and Homer Bush get brought up in bars and around T.V. sets far more than logic would dictate.

Small, of course, was a savior of the 2005 Yankees in much the same way Bartolo Colon has rescued the current Yankees. Calling Small a journeyman is a slight to journeymen: The right-hander played for more than 20 teams at various levels before getting called up to the Yankees in July 2005. Incredibly, he proceeded to go 10-0 in 15 games (nine starts), helping to dig New York out of a deep early hole to win the American League East.

That Yankees team entered the postseason riding high ... only to be eliminated in five games by the Anaheim California Angels of Los Angeles County Angels in the ALDS. Small entered Game 3 in relief and took his only loss of the season.

There could be a lesson to be learned there for this year's Yankees, as the '05 and '11 teams share similar DNA strands. If Colon is Small, then Freddy Garcia is Shawn Chacon, another drifter who became a stalwart in the back end of the rotation. Both team's had a veteran offensive core with most key players in their 30s. Both leaned on their aces (CC Sabathia and Randy Johnson) in an excessive way. Both had veteran No. 2 guys (Mike Mussina and A.J. Burnett) who struggled to be consistent on a start-by-start basis.

The great Sabathia over a decaying Big Unit is the biggest advantage the current Yankees enjoy, though this team also has substantially inferior versions of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada ... not to mention a less-sturdy edition of Mariano Rivera.

Brian Cashman should remember that 2005 team as the trade deadline approaches this season. Given the landscape of the AL this season, it's likely the Yankees will win the 93 or so games necessary to advance. But are they built for the postseason?

There are certainly question marks: Can Rafael Soriano be counted on to be productive once he returns? Is Boone Logan really going to be depended on in big spots? Should we assume Phil Hughes can get back to being Phil Hughes? How about that veteran Yankee lineup? Is A-Rod expected to be good-as-new once he returns from knee surgery? Is Derek Jeter going to be suddenly rejuvenated by 3,000 as so many people seem to think?

The Yankees have put together a half-season worthy of our respect, especially in light of the injury issues they've managed to overcome. That said, it's hard to shake the feeling that this is merely a very good team masquerading as a great one. Cashman shouldn't let a cushion in July dictate whether the team should be improved for October.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Jeter gets closer, Yanks sleepwalk into second place

2011-07-08T11:50:00.003-04:00

During Casey Kotchman's at-bat in the top of the seventh on Thursday, Yankee Stadium fell so silent, I wondered if 47,787 people had simultaneously dozed off.

I'm (almost) serious about this. If you have this game on your DVR, listen for yourself. It was so strangely calm I was surprised when Michael Kay or John Flaherty didn't make reference to it.

There are a few possible explanations for this. We'll start with the game itself, a 5-1 stinker in which the Yankees seemed only marginally invested. Then there were the paid customers, who likely featured many more parachute fans than usual with the Derek Jeter hoopla surrounding the team.

Ah yes ... the Derek Jeter hoopla. The captain had another hit tonight, going 1-for-5 to move within two of 3,000. That march toward the milestone has certainly altered the fan experience of watching the team, which begs the question: Is it also having an effect on the Yankees as a unit?

Regardless of who or what's to blame, the Yankees' sudden funk — they've followed seven straight wins with four losses in five games — has dropped them out of first place after the Red Sox beat up on Baltimore.

Just as Justin Masterson had silenced their bats in the finale in Cleveland on Wednesday, the Yankees had no answers for Rays right-hander Jeff Niemann on Thursday. He allowed just one run on six hits over 7 1/3 innings, escaping early trouble before locking into cruise control.

Bartolo Colon, meanwhile, looked much more like the pitcher most Yankees fans expected him to be when he was signed off the scrap heap in January. After a stellar four-start run in which he compiled four wins and an ERA of 1.00, Colon's two-seamer deserted him against the Rays in a bad way. Stripped of his most effective pitch, Colon had to lean on his less-than-stellar off-speed assortment.

It was not a recipe for success, as the 38-year-old's final line told the story: 5.2 IP, 5 ER, 10 H, 4 BB, 1 K, 2 HR.

Colon certainly deserves a pass here, considering his immense contribution this season. But after every clunker, there's always the lingering concern that big Bartolo is ready to turn back into a big pumpkin.

Stray observations:

Hector Noesi is alive! Someone call his family and deliver the incredible news!

Johnny Damon is 37 years old. I love the guy, but at some point the mohawk hairstyle needs to be put to rest. C'mon, Dad.

We had both a Tino Martinez and a Gerald "Ice" Williams sighting in the Derek Jeter Box.

Quick rant: I know some people say that batting average is dead, but to me, Mark Teixeira's .241 average accurately reflects that he's no longer a complete hitter. The monster run production is great, but are we all comfortable with his transformation into a rich man's Jessie Barfield? Not me.

Alex Rodriguez (0-for-4) continues his career-worst home run drought. As Flaherty alluded to after A-Rod hobbled to first during a groundout, wouldn't it make some sense for him to rest his knee (and hips and shoulder) during the All-Star break?

Robinson Cano had two hits, including his 15th homer, to extend his hitting streak to 11 games. He's up to .297.

Kyle Farnsworth is one of the best closers in baseball. We're in the Twilight Zone.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

With CC as foundation, Yanks on good footing

2011-07-06T14:10:00.001-04:00

The Yankees are on pace to win 100 games this season. If you're a student of the game, and looked at what was on paper on March 31, this is fairly remarkable.

(OK, this is the Yankees, an organization that spends more freely than 1992 MC Hammer at a gold-plated bathroom fixture convention. Just play along.)

Several things had to go right for the Yankees to be in this position a week before the All-Star break, and nearly all of them resided in the starting pitching department:

1) Back end of rotation: After Andy Pettitte walked, Cliff Lee got cold feet, and Phil Hughes broke down, Brian Cashman had to hit on some bargain basement alternatives to fill out the rotation. He did just that with the troika of veterans Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia along with newbie Ivan Nova, who have combined to go 21-13 with a 3.37 ERA over 270 innings. I don't care if you're Buster Olney, Bill James, or a sports almanac-toting Biff in Back To The Future II, there's no way anybody could've predicted this.

2) Burnett bounce back: If the rotation had any chance of forming a cohesive unit, A.J. Burnett needed to rebound from a disasterous 2010 in which he may have single-handedly cost the Yankees from returning to the World Series. Burnett has hardly been great (8-7, 4.12 ERA over 113 2/3 innings), but he's far from the trainwreck liability he was last year ... at least for now. If nothing else, he's been consistent, posting ERAs of 3.93, 4.06, and 4.15 in the first three months of the season. He's on pace for right around 15 wins, which is basically the most you could ask from him.

And last but certainly not least ...

3) The Big Man had to be The Big Man

Given all the obstacles the Yankees faced, CC Sabathia had to deliver a season that bordered on the best of his career. Of course, he's done just that. After throwing seven more scoreless innings in a win over the Indians last night, Carsten Charles now stands at 12-4 with a 2.90 ERA over 136 2/3 innings. He might not be an All-Star (dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb), but Sabathia is the closest you can get to a sure thing in baseball right now.

The standard-bearer for all Yankee pitching seasons is Ron Guidry in 1978. The Gator went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA over a whopping 273 2/3 innings that year, winning the Cy Young unanimously and leading the Yankees to their 22nd title. He finished with nine shutouts and struck out 248. I had less dominating seasons playing MVP Baseball 2005 on my old PS2. Aces such as Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez have posted similarly impressive seasons in subsequent years, but I'll take Guidry's '78 campaign as the best of the past 35 years.

Sabathia won't match the dizzying heights Guidry reached in the disco days, but he's every bit as important to this Yankees team as Guidry was to his. Translation? Cashman might as well rip up CC's contract right now. The Big Man has earned a raise.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

The cruel nature of Citi Field

2011-07-02T10:21:00.002-04:00

If Alex Rodriguez finishes with 699 homers , or 713, or 761, I will always remember the majestic drive he hit on July 1, 2011.

Though I wasn't listening to the radio broadcast, I'm assuming John Sterling informed his listeners that the ball was high ... it was far ... it was gone. And dear old John would be right ... mostly. Because while the blast was indeed high, and quite far, it was not gone, not at cavernous Citi Field.

The ball traveled roughly 400 feet before striking about 13-feet up a 16-foot wall in left-center field. A glamorous home run was relegated to unsexy double status. And back in Miami, A-Rod's centaur portrait shed an oily tear.

You can always tell when A-Rod knows he got all of a pitch. He pauses his follow through and tracks the flight, opening up his hips so that he's almost completely facing the pitcher he just beat. If he's in a particularly dick-ish mood — and let's admit it, this is often — he'll take a quick glance into his own dugout as he flips the bat and starts his trot.

Rodriguez did these things in his final at-bat last night. And yet we wake up this beautiful morning and A-Rod is still sitting on 13 homers. Huh?

I suppose these are things you get worked up about when your team is on a winning streak. And we can't go on without mentioning that A-Rod's home field, Yankee Stadium III, has been very kind to the third baseman and many of his teammates.

But Friday's double. I mean, wow.

I mentioned in yesterday's recap that the Mets will perennially struggle to sign elite power hitters if they don't alter their dimensions at some point. If they were to ask me what I would do — which would be weird, but if they did — the first thing I'd say was to cut the height of the 16-foot wall that runs from left to center in half.

This move wouldn't be unprecedented. Amazingly, the center-field wall also used to be 16-feet before they mercifully lowered it prior to last season (likely following a particularly commendable David Wright hunger strike.)

It's kind of funny when you think about it. Two hugely expensive big-league ballparks open in the same year, one many say is too big, and one many say is too small. Makes you wonder if there's a field somewhere in the tri-state area that got it just right, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" style.

If it's out there, I'm guessing Kevin Costner owns it. If you build it, Jason Bay will come.

Onto the links ...

A-Rod is being linked to the high-stakes poker ring that included Spider-Man, the "I'm the king of the world!" Titanic guy, and Will Hunting. This makes sense.
Derek Jeter is getting closer.
Eduardo Nunez had a night to remember in the Subway Series opener.
The Yankees are rolling, but are they vulnerable?
In case you missed it, A-Rod called Jose Reyes the "world's greatest player." Brian Cashman said it's actually Robbie Cano, don't you know?
Nearly a year after his death, The Boss is gone but not forgotten.

Until next time, hang onto the roof ...

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yanks Keep Rolling in Subway Opener, Top Mets 5-1

2011-07-01T22:57:00.000-04:00

When you're playing good baseball, this is how you build winning streaks.

It's not always going to be flashy, there won't always be tape-measure blasts or 13-strikeout efforts. Sometimes you just grind it out, which is exactly what the Yankees did in a 5-1 win over the Mets in the opener at Citi Field on Friday night.

The Yankees have now won six straight. They are 15-4 since being swept at home by the Red Sox last month.

It might not go down as the most memorable game in Subway Series history, but that doesn't matter to the Yankees, who maintain their 2.5-game lead in the AL East.

The Yankees jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning and stayed ahead the rest of the way. Mark Teixeira continued to be a monster run-producer, driving in two runs with a double of losing pitcher Jonathan Niese. Robinson Cano drove in Teixeira with another double.

Ivan Nova wasn't particularly sharp, but he pitched effectively with men on base to pick up his eighth win of the season. He allowed one run on seven hits in five innings, throwing 89 pitches.

He could've went deeper, but Joe Girardi lifted the right-hander for pinch-hitter Jorge Posada in a bases-loaded situation in the top of the sixth (Posada struck out). Girardi then used six different pitchers to take the Yankees home, including the downright baffling decision to summon Mariano Rivera in a non-save situation in the ninth.

(You cannot tell me The Binder said that was the right move.)

The most memorable moment in the game occurred in the seventh inning. With the Yankees leading 3-1, Jose Reyes (2-for-5, .352) led off the frame with a single off Cory Wade. Justin Turner followed with a flyball to deep center that was caught by Curtis Granderson. Reyes tagged and slid safely into second, and when Eduardo Nunez didn't field the relay cleanly, Reyes took off for third. Nunez's strong throw beat Reyes to the bag and Rodriguez tagged out Reyes to complete a double play.

At least according to home-plate umpire Jerry Layne, who had rotated over to the bag to make the call. Replays were inconclusive, though the SNY crew were absolutely certain Reyes had evaded the tag. (I think Keith Hernandez's head exploded at one point.) It would be the last time the Mets threatened in the game.

The seven Yankees pitchers allowed 10 hits, but the Mets were never able to get a big hit when it counted, dropping their record back to .500 at 41-41 in the process. The Yankees are now 49-31, which trails only the Philadelphia Phillies for the best record in baseball.

Stray observations:

That high wall in left-center field at Citi Field is a joke. A-Rod hit an absolute bomb in the ninth inning that would've been a homer in any other park in the league. Instead, he had to settle for an RBI double. The Mets will have difficulty signing power hitters for generations unless they make changes to the dimensions.
Nunez might be a mess defensively, but the young man can hit. The shortstop had his best day as a pro, going 4-for-4 to bump his average from .234 to .261.
The game marked the largest crowd in Citi Field history with 42,020 paid customers. This is why interleague play will never disappear.
Speaking of attendance, according to an unscientific estimate by WFAN mid-day guy and Met die hard Evan Roberts, the crowd was only 55/45 in favor of the Mets.
"That's three." -- A-Rod to Teixeira after the game. Tex saved A-Rod three errors on low throws tonight. To A-Rod's credit, he made a couple of great throws as well. Busy night at the hot corner.
Just for fun, here are the Yankees' record through July 1 the past five years — 2010: 48-30; 2009: 45-32; 2008: 44-40; 2007: 38-41; 2006: 45-33.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

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2011-06-29T14:52:00.002-04:00

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Why Brian Cashman should walk

2011-06-28T14:02:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend, Buster Olney wrote a blog titled, "Why Cashman Could Walk," which included industry chatter about the general manager's uncertain future with the Yankees.

"I think maybe he's finally had it," said one GM. "That's a job that will take a lot out of you."

If this all sounds familiar, it's because we've been down this road before. Every three years, Cashman's contract runs out and every three years the 43-year-old ultimately returns to the only baseball home he's ever known. Cyclically-speaking, it's like the Olympics of Yankee beat reporting.

Quoted by Olney, Cashman didn't sound like a man itching to skip town, either.

"I'm not looking to leave. I'm not looking to go anywhere. I firmly believe this will be the best job I'll ever have."

There will always be the debate in Yankees Universe of how good Cashman actually is at his job. Is he the ultimate company man, a hard-working, well-connected executive responsible for New York's annual postseason appearances? Or is he a below-average talent evaluator who can sweep his many mistakes under the rug thanks to the Yankees' largess?

Carl Pavano aside, I tend to fall in the former camp, though I can certainly understand the other end of the argument.

And that's really the problem with Cashman's job, isn't it? No matter how well he does — and let's not get it twisted, the signings and subsequent success of Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia have saved this Yankees season — there will always be the detractors who say he's just a privileged rich kid who gets to use daddy's credit card.

Cashman has both the hardest and easiest job of any general manager in sports. It just depends on who you ask.

You have to wonder if the murkiness that surrounds his professional reputation gnaws at Cashman. The man certainly has an ego, no longer the wallflower who stayed in the distance during clubhouse controversies of the past. From the messy Derek Jeter negotiations to the fallout from the Rafael Soriano press conference to his blunt honesty when Jorge Posada benched himself, Cashman has become the unlikely source of some of the juiciest back-page headlines in New York.

Taking that healthy sense of self-worth into account, wouldn't it make sense for him to try to prove himself in a new market?

Think about it. Say Cashman walks after this year and catches on somewhere like Kansas City or Seattle or San Diego. If he built any of those franchises into winners, wouldn't he be completely vindicated? All those GM rankings lists you see will finally have to bump him to the top of the list, right?

Meanwhile, the bill is coming due on this veteran Yankees team, as the next five years will be the most difficult in terms of transition since Mickey and Whitey got old in the mid-60s. Does Cashman want any part of that dirty work?

"I don't think he has any idea how different his life would be if he wasn't general manager of the Yankees," one high-ranking executive said.

High-ranking executive guy is right. Cashman doesn't know anything about anything other than the Yankees. Still young, and undoubtedly in demand, the time might be right for Cash to go on a new adventure.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees notes: Life's a popularity contest

2011-06-24T19:36:00.003-04:00

If nothing else, the latest round of interleague play reminded the baseball world what the New York Yankees mean to the sport.I know I sound like the Yankees version of Dillon Panthers booster Buddy Garrity when I say that, but the numbers don't lie.

The three-game set at Wrigley Field drew 126,283 fans, a new three-game series record at the iconic park in Chicago. The Great American Ball Park — seriously, they still call it that — drew sellouts for all three games, including a full house for a weekday game after a rainout.

The Yankees make money — and not just for themselves.

Speaking of the Yankees and popularity, the LoHud folk had a nice breakd own of the All-Star vote standings. Expect to see a lot of New York gray at Chase Field.

Here's an interesting ESPN Insider piece (subscription required) that focuses on New York's apparent unwillingness to pull the trigger on talented prospects, even at a time when the parent club needs them. One scout described Jesus Montero's lackluster season at Triple-A Scranton like this:

"He looks like a player who knows he's stuck in Pennsylvania."

- Nick Swisher would like you to know that there ain't nothing better than an off day in New York. Of course, Swishalicious could be trapped in Siberia and tweet with frost-bitten fingers that he was having the time of his life.

- Not Yankee related, but I'm pretty fascinated by the case of Nats manager Jim Riggleman, who resigned Thursday despite Washington's status as the NL's hottest team. I guess he figured a hot stretch was a good time for a power play. He figured wrong.

- File this under trying to get back in the good graces of the captain: Brian Cashman told the Daily News on Thursday that Jose Reyes coming to the Bronx is "not going to happen."

- Speaking of Derek Jeter, don't expect to see him back in the lineup before July 1. Remember what Jimmy Rollins said about the lingering nature of calf injuries? Just sayin' ...

- Ken Shpigel of The New York Times notes that no team has won more games than the Yankees since Jeter exited the lineup on June 14. He then poses a complicated question: Is there a correlation?

- Until next time, hang onto the roof ...

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Inexorable march of time taking toll on A-Rod

2011-06-23T13:36:00.004-04:00

I've always found it fascinating how one offseason can completely change a player.

Take Derek Jeter, for example. In 2009, he was the engine of a Yankees team that won 103 games in the regular season and a World Series title. He batted .334, had 212 hits, 18 homers, 107 runs, and a .406 on-base percentage. Then he disappeared for a few months, broke ground on St. Jetersburg, shot a couple of Ford commercials, and (probably) hung out a lot with Minka Kelly in a bikini.

The captain came back in April, just five months after finishing third in MVP voting and still 35 years old, and was never close to the same player again. Did his offseason workout schedule change? Unlikely, given what we know about him. Did he suffer a physical setback? Not that we heard of, and given the hyper-kinetic nature of today's media, it's unlikely it could've been hidden.

All signs point back to one undeniable truth: Derek Jeter got old.

It almost seems unfair, but I guess this is one of those things where baseball mirrors life. Mickey Mantle woke up one day in 1965 and couldn't hit a fastball anymore. Kirby Puckett opened his eyes one morning in 1996 only to realize one of those eyes no longer worked. There's a reason carnies on the Wildwood boardwalk keep making money off those "Life's A Bitch" t-shirts. The saying has truth ... and people have horrible fashion sense.

One of the greatest Onion pieces ever is titled "Inexorable March Of Time Brings TV's Jerry Mathers One Step Closer To Death." It's hilarious, oddly poignant, and completely interchangeable. You can swap in Jeter's name and the story doesn't lose any of its meaning (though all the Leave It To Beaver references may convolute it somewhat). Everything ends.

Alex Rodriguez hasn't followed the same trajectory as his partner on the left side of the Yankees infield, even if he'll reach the same conclusion. While Jeter's fall from elite player to JAG status was sudden and preciptious, the decline of our pinstriped centaur has been more like a slow burn.

A-Rod's dip from superduperstar status has a more obvious root cause, of course, that being the hip surgery that cost him part of the 2009 season. Rodriguez has intermittently flashed his old form — including, thankfully, during the 2009 postseason — but he's never been that immortal player of 2005 and 2007 again.

This year, his body seems to be in the midst of a measured breakdown, following a trajectory not unlike my 1988 Chevrolet Celebrity (R.I.P.). He suffered an oblique injury in April that took him weeks to bounce back from. He's had an issue with his non-surgically repaired hip and this week we learned about a banged up left shoulder that both he and the Yankees tried to keep quiet.

A-Rod's maladies have started to manifest right on your TV. Once a 40/40 talent, Rodriguez now runs like a lumbering power hitter. Watching him round the bases makes me cringe — I feel like every step is groin pull, hip twinge or Chien-Ming-Wang-foot-explosion waiting to happen.

Rodriguez turns 36 next month, so this shouldn't be too much of a surprise. That he's signed through his 42nd birthday is a surprise, no matter how many times I remind myself (thanks Hank!).

The good news in all of this? Rodriguez is still a productive player and a worthy cleanup hitter despite his advanced age. His contract will never be viewed as anything but a disaster, but as long as the slow burn isn't overtaken by the cliff dive, the Yankees will survive.

The Leave It To Beaver guy, however? That dude is screwed.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Jeter's limp to 3,000 takes on new meaning

2011-06-14T13:09:00.002-04:00

In case you hadn't heard — and if you DVR'd the game, SPOILER ALERT — Derek Jeter strained his calf last night.

This was obviously bad news for the Yankees shortstop, his legions of fans, Minka Kelly, ticket scalpers, Steiner Sports, Joe Buck, Wrigleyville, Jeter's Taco Hole, Jeter's Ford Challenge, you name it. Derek Jeter's compromised calf is a karate chop to the groin of America.

The fact that the 11-time All-Star pulled himself out of a 1-0 game told us this was more than a minor ache, or as Mark Teixeira put it, "He’s not one to come out of the game unless it’s something serious."

An MRI revealed a Grade 1 strain, which like first-degree burns, sounds like a worst-case scenario but actually isn't.

By his nature, Jeter doesn't sit. Unless you Huckaby the man (for the uneducated, this entails piledriving your protective shinguard into an adversary's shoulder for the purpose of mass destruction), he's going to find his way back in the lineup.

The numbers back that up. Jeter hasn't been on the DL since he was Huckaby'd on opening night 2003, a span of nine seasons and 1,603 hits.

Back in 2003, Jeter was a 29-year-old superstar at the apex of his physical abilities. An injury that some speculated would cost him the season ended up putting him on the shelf for just a month and a half. He knocked the rust off real quick, too, finishing the regular season at .324 with 156 hits in 482 at-bats.

It remains to be seen how the modern-day Jeter bounces back. Monday's injury was just another human moment in a very human season for the Yankees icon who will turn 37 (37!) in less than two weeks. If anything, his chase for 3,000 has put his limitations in even greater focus, every weak groundout to second magnifying the reality that the greatest shortstop to ever wear pinstripes isn't so great anymore.

But the diminished skills will never hurt his relationship with the fans, just as a diminished Don Mattingly only grew more popular as his career approached its nadir. Jeter's on Yankee Mount Rushmore, .260 average or occassional trip to the infirmary be damned.

Take your time, captain. You've earned our patience.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees notes: So long for now, sweet Joba

2011-06-11T12:06:00.001-04:00

I know I was in the minority on this one, but I was holding out hope for good news on Joba Chamberlain.

Granted, this was mostly denial at play here. The initial diagnosis had been a torn ligament, but Joe Girardi also said the right-hander was completely asymptomatic. Could it be possible that Chamberlain would visit with Dr. James Andrews and get a different prognosis?

Um, no.

Andrews backed up the initial findings, and Chamberlain is officially set to undergo Tommy John surgery on his damaged right elbow next Thursday This is typically a year injury, which means we probably won't see Hoss on the mound again until next summer. There's a chance he's not back until 2013.

It's a crappy end to what had looked like a bounce-back year for Joba, who finishes the season with a 2.83 ERA in 28 2/3 innings. I, like a lot of Yankees fans, have a soft spot for the big galoot and hopefully this is just a bump in the road in a long career.

Chamberlain might have cried when he learned about the injury, but he's been quite upbeat in his interactions with the press.

"It’s easy to deal with," Chamberlain told The New York Times. "I know I’m going to get better. It’s not life and death. I’m just happy that I can fix it and come back and be stronger for it and hopefully have a long career."

Chamberlain knows he's in good hands with Andrews, probably the most renowned sports surgeon in the business.

"Obviously the guy doing it has done it a few times," he told LoHud. "I’m pretty confident that he’ll do a good job, and the rest relies on me and making sure I get back to where I can be and even stronger."

It's still extremely early in the season, but Friday's win was still important for a Yankees team that had its guts spilled by its biggest rival all week. Of course, the series-opening win over the Indians will best be remembered for the fastball Mark Teixeira got drilled with and the heat that followed.

It sounds like the Yankees, and especially manager Joe Girardi, are pretty sick of all this HBP business. He made it clear after the game that Fausto Carmona's intentions seemed rather clear according to LoHud.

"We’ve had (seven) guys hit in the past four days. I can’t tell you 100 percent, but if I was to say one was intentional, that was tonight."

Teixeira agreed that it wasn't hard to figure out what was going on in the head of Carmona, a once promising pitcher who seems to have lost his way in Cleveland.

"I was just telling him that it’s a coincidence that he throws every pitch to me in the last five years down and away. Changeups down and away. He must have really missed his spot on that one."

As for that juicy toe-to-toe showdown with Indians manager Manny Acta, both managers wrote off as heat-of-the-moment baseball stuff. This is kind of a bummer since a fight to the death between the two would probably be more entertaining than UFC 383.

"Manny told my guy to stop," Girardi said. "Take care of your own guy. I’ll take care of my guy, you take care of your own guy. I have respect for Manny. I actually had a nice exchange with Manny at 3 o’clock today, but that doesn’t mean there’s not some feistiness in me, and when my guys are getting plunked, I’m going to protect them."

In case you missed it, and really, I don't think that's possible, but in case you did, Derek Jeter doubled in the seventh inning on Friday. It was his only hit of the night, leaving him nine hits shy of 3,000.
Tony Gwynn wants Jeter to know that the last 10 hits are the toughest. Thanks, Tone.
Darren Rovell reports the Yankees could actually lose money on DJ3K.
Jorge Posada is on a roll. The designated hitter — and not the catcher, you hear me? — singled in his first three trips to the plate Friday, making it four straight starts with multiple hits. He's bumped his average up 49 points in six games and leads the Yankees in hits this month.
The Yankees' current starting catcher, Russell Martin, has been slow in his return from a back problem. He's missed the last three games, and he'll probably make it four on Saturday. After that, look for a possible return.

"There’s a good chance I’ll be ready to play on Sunday," he said. "That’s what I’m hoping for."

Were you one of the brave souls who stuck it out through Thursday's interminable rain delay? Well, even if you were there and left early (like a quitter), you get free tickets to an upcoming game.
Until next time, hang onto the roof ...

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees show Indians who's Boss in opener

2011-06-10T23:57:00.002-04:00

My MTV uncle, Bruce Springsteen, once taught me you can't start a fire without a spark.

I thought about that in the moments after Fausto Carmona buried a fastball into Mark Teixeira's shoulder blade early in the Yankees' 11-7 win over the Indians on Friday night.

Teixeira, not known for showing human emotion, was justifiably upset. Curtis Granderson had just put Carmona's previous pitch into the second deck in right field to extend the Yankees' lead to 4-0 in the second inning. Before Teixeira even hit the dirt, the entire ballpark knew it was no accident.

That included Joe Girardi. The Yankees manager can be frustrating at times due to a passive nature that can feel contagious. But he let Manny Acta know he wasn't pleased in a pretty awesome face-to-face showdown between the two field managers. The benches emptied; we even got an endearingly awkward double bullpen run-in.

Since Darryl Strawberry wasn't on the field, no punches were thrown and cooler heads prevailed. (My hopes for a Shelley Duncan forearm shiver on A.J. Burnett were sadly unrealized.)

But back to The Boss — Springsteen, not Steinbrenner. For a team desperately in need of a spark after the pride-swallowing sweep by the Red Sox, Teixeira's plunking and the blowout victory that followed is the type of game that can kickstart winning streaks. The Indians have all the looks of a team ready to free fall, meaning the stage is set for a redemptive weekend in the Bronx.

Kudos are in store for Ivan Nova, who produced one of his best starts of the season. He allowed two runs on four hits over seven crisp innings, striking six and walking three. He improved to 5-4 on the season while dropping his ERA to 4.30. As I eluded to in the preview post today, the bar isn't set particularly high for a No. 5 starter. On balance, Nova has held up his end of the bargain.

The Yankees' 11 runs came on 15 hits. Derek Jeter had one of them, lining a double to right in the seventh to move to 2,991 for his career. He now has six games to get nine hits if he wants to achieve the milestone at Yankee Stadium.

Alex Rodriguez hit his 12th homer of the year, a long solo blast into the left-center field bleachers. The home run was measured at — actually, I have no idea because YES didn't find it necessary to mention it despite multiple replays and discussion about the drive.

The only real downside of the night for the Yankees was young Kevin Whelan, who made his Major League debut and walked four of the six batters he faced. Joe Girardi went to get him after walking in a run, which led to a nice moment with Whelan's new teammates and the manager getting the rookie to crack a smile before he walked back to the dugout.

With the win, the Yankees improved to 34-27 and remained two games behind the Red Sox. At this time last year, New York was 37-23 and two games behind the Rays. Tomorrow, the Yankees send Bartolo Colon to the mound opposite Mitch Talbot. First pitch is at 1:05 p.m. ET.

Stray observations:

Teixeira's seventh-inning double marked his first two-base hit in 29 games. That doesn't seem possible.

On Jorge Posada figurine night, Jorge Posada had his ~~first~~ second three-hit game of the season. To put a truly Georgie stamp on the night, he also committed an egregious baserunning error. Good times.

I set the fourth inning as the over/under for when Michael Kay would mention Indians catcher Carlos Santana's name and either Paul O'Neill or Ken Singleton would make a uber-obvious reference to the 70s rock god of the same name. It happened in the third inning.

Kim Jones reported early in the game that since Joba Chamberlain is a one-inning pitcher and not a starter, he feels he could be ready for the start of spring training. This struck me as one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard. Take your time, hoss. Update: As "long time listener" pointed out below, it was Harlan, not Joba, who spoke of an accelerated timetable. I'm sure he didn't just pull that out of thin air, though.

Teixeira, asked after the game if Granderson's long home run was the reason he was plunked: "Oh yeah, Curtis hit that thing to Harlem. I guess on the next pitch he wanted to send some type of message."

Whelan? Sanit? Pendleton? To quote the construction worker in Major League: "Who are these f***in' guys?"

That said, I cannot believe Rivera pitched in this game.

And just to tie it all together, here's the "Dancing In The Dark" video, complete with a fetching young Courtney Cox cameo and some of the worst dancing ever captured on film. The 80s were outrageous on almost every level.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or via Twitter @danhanzus.

Red Sox drubbing makes you wonder WWFD?

2011-06-10T16:31:00.003-04:00

What would Mike Francesa do?

That's the question I often ask myself when a Yankees slump pushes me to the brink of madness. I take peace in turning on WFAN and listening to the Sports Pope comfort/berate panic-stricken Yankees fans, many of which sound like they're standing on the mid-span of the Macombs Dam Bridge.

The unintentional comedy alone that comes with each show is like chicken soup for a wounded Yankees fan soul:

"I would nevah see Madonner or Lady Gager."

"We awl know Buhnett isn't good at gettin outs. But man can he make a pie. Maybe he should be a bake-ah."

"Don't tell me how to intahview Georgia Roddy!! GET YOUAH OWN SHOW!"

(all translations via the endlessly-entertaining fake @MikeFrancesaNY Twitter feed)

But even Francesa won't cheer me up today, not when the Yankees gave a performance as weak in spirit as they did against Boston these past three nights.

Give the Red Sox credit, they took advantage of a passive Yankees team that displayed none of the killer instinct required to win games like these.

On a day we learned Joba Chamberlain was likely lost for the season and then some, salvaging the finale of this series seemed even more important than usual. And that's what made CC Sabathia's let down in the seventh inning all the more difficult to swallow.

Sabathia needed to carry this Yankee team to Mariano on Thursday, and he simply could not do it. It was a fitting end to a disastrous three days that leads to a lot of scary questions going forward.

The bullpen is essentially shot, and it's hard to come up with a way to fix it. Phil Hughes supposedly has his fastball back, but to use a well-worn Francesa-ism, converting him from starter back to reliever would be like "robbin' Petah to pay Pawwl."

Seriously, if there's one aspect of the team that needs more help than the bullpen, it's the rotation, especially with the annual Burnett meltdown on the way. Good times!

The one silver lining as the Yankees set to open a four-game series with the reeling Cleveland Indians is that the American League is not very good this season. We have to concede Boston as the best team right now, but who else would you put ahead of the Yankees?

The Rays? The Tigers? The Blue Jays? The Angels?

None of those teams scare me, and we could be heading toward a scenario where a 88-91 win team could earn a postseason spot. This is good news for the Yankees, of course, who we can still realistically circle a win total in that realm with the current roster in place.

We can, right? Please tell me we can. I need to go lie down. "We'll be back aftah dis."

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Making sense of Freddy Garcia's Eddie Harris act

2011-06-08T13:14:00.002-04:00

It's hard not to root for a guy like Freddy Garcia.

Everyone loves the underdog, and besides, when you have a stellar old-time baseball nickname like The Chief, you'll always get some extra rope in my book.

He's also a big reason the Yankees have hung around first place for so long this season. Six of his 10 starts have been of the quality variety, the type of percentage that's acceptable when you're talking about a back-of-the-rotation guy.

But while Bartolo Colon's re-emergence can be traced back to a (doctor-aided) revitalization of his stuff, and Ivan Nova's high points can be pointed to the benefits of a live arm with promise, Garcia's success is almost entirely indebted to the two things that all pitchers come to rely on when their abilities dim to a flicker.

Smoke and mirrors.

He doesn't throw hard. His breaking balls don't have much snap. Garcia pitches to contact and hopes for the best. He's essentially Eddie Harris from Major League without the vat's-worth of vasoline slathered across his chest.

As he walks off the mound after a strong outing, you can't help but wonder if players in the opposite dugout say to themselves, "Did we really just let him get away with that crap?" I imagine they feel the way I do in a family wiffleball game when I pop up a meatball thrown by an overmatched cousin on jack and coke No. 6.

(Remember that no matter what problems I perceive Garcia to be facing, I'm the 31-year-old dude making candidly serious wiffleball analogies.)

Watching his start yesterday against the Red Sox, you knew almost immediately that Garcia's night would be a short one (if you didn't count Jacoby Ellsbury's tee shot into the right-center field seats as conclusive enough evidence). Garcia was throwing slop, the ball more desperate for contact than a pimply-faced teenager at junior prom.

When Joe Girardi lifted Garcia with the bases loaded in the second, it seemed like an act of compassion facilitated by the ERA Gods. Garcia's stuff was so monumentally crappy I remarked on Twitter how Luis Ayala's first pitch to Kevin Youkilis looked Pedro '99 filthy. Luis Ayala, people!

Such is the state of the Yankees' rotation in 2011. Band-aids, spit, gauze, and the hope that by 4 p.m. ET July 31 it will all be fine.

Garcia won't lose his spot in the rotation after Tuesday's wipeout, and nor should he. Replacement options at the minor league level are limited anyway, unless Carlos Silva's bloated corpse or an unproven farmhand does something for you. This is more like a cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the-best scenario.

Freddy Garcia is no longer a very good pitcher. How long the Yankees can hide that reality will go a long way in determining how long they can remain relevant in the AL East.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Is This The Man Who Will Save The Yankees?

2011-05-31T00:56:00.000-04:00

It started off as an amusing footnote, the type of spring training filler copy that beat writers must churn out over a long month in Tampa.

Tony Pena, we learned, had seen Bartolo Colon pitch in winter ball and was impressed by the 37-year-old's still-there stuff. Sure, Colon was careening into Rich Garces territory physically, and hadn't put together a decent big-league season in five years, but he was also pitching with purpose again. Pena, so the legend goes, reported this back to Yankee generals who reached out to the former Cy Young award winner with an invite to camp.

The rest is history. After a few impressive long-relief outings, Colon was moved into rotation and has responded with six quality starts in his first eight tries. There have been a couple of clunkers along the way, but on balance Colon has been a revelation, giving New York pitching depth when its needed it most.

On Tuesday, Colon threw the first shutout by a Yankee since last September. It felt so much like 2005, I blasted Arctic Monkeys on my iPod and yelled out the window that George Bush doesn't care about black people.

Seriously, though. A 3.26 ERA in 66.1 innings? An 8.4 K/9 ratio? A 1.10 WHIP? For Bartolo Colon? Bartolo freaking Colon! This is why Red Sox fans hate us.

Once Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies and Andy Pettitte traded in standing ovations for a honey-do list, this Yankees season became all about July 31. The offseason was an unmitigated disaster, leaving the Bombers more vulnerable than they've been in years. Their only chance was to hang in the race until the trade deadline, with the hope Brian Cashman could bring in reinforcements at the right price.

Only problem was, there was more bad news to come on the pitching front. Phil Hughes — who you could argue the Yankees needed to improve on his 18-win 2010 season — came to camp with a right shoulder that didn't work. Uh oh.

Full disclosure: I thought this was the death blow of the 2011 season. Hell, it might still be. But removing Hughes from the equation — only an eternal optimist thinks he can contribute at this point — put the Yankees in a near impossible situation. CC, Hughes, and a Whole Lotta Bad News was suddenly CC, Loss, Loss, No-Decision and Loss.

It wasn't even catchy anymore, damn it!

And yet here's Colon, turning back the clock and effectively filling Hughes' spot in the Yankees rotation. The team still needs serious help, but Colon is at least giving them a chance every five days. The wait 'til July 31 is back on in earnest.

How much of this we owe to the marvels of modern medicine is debatable, but all we do know is that Colon's re-birth has probably saved this Yankees team from dying. A sincere tip of the cap is in order to Tony Pena, who was already cooler than Fonzie to me by virtue of his ability to throw out baserunners from his knees back in the day.

Obviously, the man has outdone himself.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Posey's injury makes us wonder what would Jesus do?

2011-05-28T16:31:00.003-04:00

Buster Posey stepped on the field Wednesday as the wonderboy of the San Francisco Giants. He was helped off it as the subject of his very own "Faces of Death" video.

It wasn't pretty to watch: Marlins outfielder Scott Cousins — the new Ken Huckaby by the bay — crashing into the star catcher, Posey's leg getting caught underneath. X-rays revealed a break and ligament damage in his ankle. The hope is Posey returns to help the Giants defend their title in two months, but there are no guarantees.

Somewhat surprisingly, the incident stirred up a debate about the rules of the game. Many columnists and media pundits — I'm guessing at least one "Around The Horn" panelist's head exploded — are calling for home-plate collisions to be banned from the sport.

It all makes for good conversation, but I'm not buying it. There are ways to avoid injuries at the plate, it's just about learning the craft. Ask Jorge Posada, who suffered a similarly ghastly leg injury in a home-plate incident in the minors but later became an expert at avoiding collisions, turning his back shoulder away from the baserunner and sweeping a tag through the zone. Sixteen years into a Hall of Fame-level career, can you ever remember Posada being truly creamed at the plate?

Indians uber-prospect Carlos Santana tore up his knee in a collision at Fenway Park last summer, an injury that looked just as ugly as Posey's (actually worse). I'm hoping Cleveland management showed the 25-year-old a Posada reel. This is likely the only time baseball people would show a young catcher tapes of Posada's work behind the dish, but it might be the most important lesson a player can learn.

Which brings us, of course, to Jesus Montero. The Yankees' No. 1 prospect, Montero is being groomed as the next big thing in a long tradition of great backstops in the Bronx. I'm sure as the 24-hour news cycle rolled highlights of Posey's injury on loop, at least one Yankee front office official broached the subject of whether their phenom should be playing the most dangerous position on the field.

In Montero's case, you can make the argument a move off catcher makes sense. There's depth in the system, meaning Montero could be shifted to a different position while another player — let's say Austin Romine — slides into his place. Montero's not supposed to be particularly gifted defensively, either — some scouts peg his best position as DH — so it's not like the team would be wrestling with the idea of uprooting a young Pudge Rodriguez.

Of course, the bloat on the Yankees' parent club makes even the idea of shifting Montero difficult. Mark Teixeira and his $180 million contract is anchored at first until 2016. Many of us won't be around to see the day A-Rod's contract comes off the books. And that's not even getting into the messy Derek Jeter business, a player who might already be best suited for a corner infield home, depending on who you ask.

Factoring in financial and roster issues, it makes sense to keep Montero at the position he's been groomed at. If his ego will allow it, maybe Posada can give the 21-year-old lessons on how to avoid the collisions that Posey, Santana, and Posada himself have endured.

Montero is the future of the franchise, making incidents like Wednesday scary stuff. But to quote the bad guy from re-watchable cable classic Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (and, I guess, famed scientist Louis Pasteur) — "Chance favors the prepared mind."

Words to live by, kid.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees notes: Soriano, The G.O.A.T. and Mr. Jones

2011-05-26T15:06:00.001-04:00

He'll never say it of course, but there had to be an evil part of Brain Cashman's heart that was pretty amped about the news about Rafael Soriano on Wednesday.

The man that was supposed to be the bridge to Mariano can finally scowl with good reason after Dr. James Andrews – the grim reaper of pitchers – diagnosed Soriano with an inflamed elbow ligament. The injury will cost the right-hander 6-8 weeks.

Intentionally or not, Cashman put himself in a no-lose situation after his mouthy performance at Soriano's press conference in January. If the signing blows up, it's irrefutable evidence that ownership shouldn't override the veteran GM in matters of roster construction. If Soriano produces, Cashman can play the "Listen, nobody wants him to succeed more than me!" card.

We still have a long way to go, but it's certainly looking like Door No. 1 right now.

Cashman's comments on how the Yankees will get by without Soriano carried a whiff of why he didn't view the reliever as a necessity in the first place.

"I've got confidence. I think we have the personnel in place here as well as down below to get us through. Joba, Robertson, (Boone) Logan are well equipped to handle it, and we were trying to get Girardi other choices with the Ayalas of the world.

"I've got a lot of confidence in the guys we have — more confidence when we're at full strength, but I have confidence in the guys we have."

I'm pretty sure throwing Logan in there was a joke meant to bring levity to a serious situation, but who knows.

Bill Madden says Cash can give the Yankees a big, fat "I told you so."

Soriano's injury was one of two subplots for Thursday's win, the Yankees' seventh in nine games. They are now 27-21, percentage points ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East.

Andruw Jones homered twice and Mariano Rivera closed it out in a non-save situation, capping a 7-3 win. It was the G.O.A.T.'s 1,000th appearance, becoming the first pitcher to reach that milestone with one team.

Steve Politi says Rivera's durability is just as impressive as his dominance.

Cashman busted out his tried-and-true Panamanian Fishing Boy schtick:

"When you simplify it, he’s a one-pitch pitcher coming from a small fishermen village in Panama, and to have this type of success in one of the biggest cities in the world, it’s incredible. And he’s that great a guy at the same time. He’s the same person he was when he signed."

Jones told LoHud that the 1996 Mo and 2011 Mo are essentially the same pitcher, which might be the greatest praise an athlete can receive.

"He’s the same guy, same pitcher, still getting them out. I think he’s super human."

David Robertson is helping his Alabama hometown recover from last month's devastating twister.

Nick Swisher was back in the lineup Wednesday, but the slumping outfielder took another 0-fer, dropping his average to a ghastly .204. Swisher has been watching a lot of film from last year to get his swing and confidence back where it needs to be. It all sounds sort of depressing to me, like watching your wedding video on loop after your wife leaves you for the snow plow guy.

"I watch base hits, home runs, doubles – things that put positive things in my mind. When you're struggling sometimes it's tough to get out of it. You have to talk about it every day and you might not want to."

This is a couple days old, but interesting quote from Johnny Damon on the treatment of Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter by Yankee management. Hint: Somebody's probably going to turn down Old-Timer's Day a couple of times.

"I got to see it the year before. I always thought I was one of the fan favorites, but that's baseball. There's stuff you can't control."

For those interested, here's a look at Jesus Montero's numbers at Triple-A.

Until next time, hang onto the roof ...

Dan Hanzus is a regular contributor to Pinstripe Alley. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees notes: Subway Series derails early

2011-05-21T13:10:00.002-04:00

They say the world is going to end today, and by "they", I mean crazy people.

Fifteen years ago, Dave Mlicki shut down the Bombers at home in the first Subway Series game and it felt like the world was ending for Yankees fans. On Friday night, knuckleballer R.A. Dickey did the same thing, but the feeling was a lot less apocalyptic.

Perhaps that's because Yankees fans are starting to get used to the script of the 2011 season. Good starting pitching efforts wasted by an offense that can't get a hit when it matters.

The Yankees lead the league in runs scored, but a propensity to fail with runners in scoring position continues to haunt the club. It went just 1-for-10 in such situations on Friday, getting beat by a misfit Mets roster as a result.

The New York Times focused on the makeshift lineup used by the Mets, who fielded several players that were in Triple-A a month ago. The Yankees had eight All-Stars in the lineup, though it didn't feel like it.

"On paper we don’t look the same as the Yankees look," said Carlos Beltran. "But it’s not about how you look. It’s about how you take the field and win ball games."

Marc Carig notes that while the Yankees lead the league in runs and on-base percentage, they are just ninth in hits. This helps to explain the RISP woes.

After the game, the Yankees gave much of the credit to Dickey, according to LoHud. Nick Swisher described trying to hit Dickey's knuckler like trying to eat soup with a fork.

"That knuckleball was going everywhere, throwing it inside, throwing it outside, up and down," said Mark Teixeira, who plated the only Yankee run with a solo homer just over Carlos Beltran's glove in right field.

Jeff Bradley wrote about that Mlicki game in 1997, saying the Subway Series no longer has much shine.

Marc Carig writes that Yankees reliever Pedro Feliciano has turned to plasma therapy in his attempt to recover from the shoulder issues that have kept him sidelined this season. "Everything’s good," Feliciano said. "It’s just getting strong again."

Ebenezer Samuel — who I can only imagine is 178 years old — writes about the possibility of Beltran switching sides of this rivalry by the trade deadline.

All is well for the Red Sox, who passed the Yankees in the standings with their latest win. PeteAbe has the story here.

Some good news: A-Rod opted to skip a routine examination of his surgically-repaired hip, according to yankees.com. The third baseman said he feels no discomfort, making it unnecessary. I suppose every slump A-Rod goes into for the rest of his career will lead to questions about the hip.

Within that same notebook we learn Chris Dickerson is hoping to stay off the seven-day DL after getting beaned earlier this week.

In case you missed this from Friday, John Sterling spoke with the Wall Street Journal about his future. The radio play-by-play man's contract is up at the end of the season.

Until next time, hang onto the roof ...

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Time has come for Yankees to engage

2011-05-20T07:10:00.000-04:00

When attempting to contextualize this enigmatic Yankees season, I keep coming back to David Spade: short and generally unlikable.

Actually, no (though that's pretty accurate). I'm actually referring to the CBS sitcom Spade stars in, Rules of Engagement.

Full disclosure, I've never actually seen an episode of the Rules of Engagement (which already puts this analogy on shaky ground). To be honest, the last time I watched the Tiffany network for a non-sports event was probably Nick Swisher's wooden cameo on How I Met Your Mother a couple years back.

"Hey Neil Patrick Harris, that's a real home run of an idea you've got!" ***not actual dialogue

But I do have a general understanding of the existence of RoE, and the 2011 Yankees share some similar character traits:

Both feature a cast of seasoned veterans (Jeter, Mo, A-Rod = Spade, The Guy Who Played David Puddy from Seinfeld, the busty blonde from Reno 911)
Both have the backing of gazillionaires (Hal and Hank Steinbrenner = Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions)
Both have Penny Lane ties (RoE co-star Oliver Hudson is the brother of Kate Hudson, who A-Rod used to get it on with, ~~probably~~ definitely while staring at himself in the mirror.)
Both sit smack in the middle of the standings/ratings. The Yankees are 23-19, one game out of first and four games out of last. RoE has finished between 23rd and 47th in the ratings in its four seasons, the equivalent of an 85-77 record in baseball.

The best way to describe it is that both seem to just kind of exist out there in the ether, their presence on television proof that they exist, a cosmic placeholder created by the satellites. But do either really matter?

The Yankees took care of business in Baltimore, righting the ship with a sweep over an Orioles team that suddenly looks strikingly similar to the non-Showalter squads that came before it. Next come the Mets, perfect timing for a Yankees team struggling to get any sort of momentum going this season.

Can the Yankees can use the sellout crowds and New York stage to jump start a season curiously low on adrenaline?

Let's hope so, and let's face it, stranger things have happened. For instance, David Spade impregnated a Playmate of the Year.

If that doesn't tell you anything is possible, I don't know what will.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees complete Grand Slam of Fail in lost weekend

2011-05-16T14:51:00.002-04:00

You have to hand it to these Yankees. They really do know how to go down in flames. Some teams are about the slow burn, but not our beloved Bronx Bombers. They collapse in a fury, unloading all their demons for public consumption in the process.

Consider the following four things the team managed to accomplish/divulge in one weekend series. It was, in so many ways, The Grand Slam of Fail™.

1) They served as the defibrillator that resurrected their arch-rivals from the dead. The Red Sox entered the weekend three games under .500 and looking less comfortable than Thom Yorke in the Jersey Shore hot tub. Three road wins later and Boston has evened its record for the first time since opening day and emasculated its nemesis in the process. Awesome! Even worse, the Yankees have allowed the Sox to fall back on all the familiar jock tropes that athletes rely on to feel better about themselves. "We're back to 0-0 now," "It's a new season for us," "The only good hooker is a dead hooker." Hold up ...

2) They were enveloped by Posada-gate and all the hard questions that came with it. Listen, Georgie was wrong to ask out of the lineup on Saturday, something he admitted 24 hours later. On Sunday, he received a standing ovation from fans, drew a walk as a pinch-hitter and learned the team won't take any disciplinary action against him for his transgressions. Turn the page (hopefully). It was an unpleasant incident for everyone involved, however, and it provided a nauseating preview of the headaches the Yankees will face in the coming years. Sure, Posada's situation is uncomfortable, but at least his contract is up after this season. What about when Derek Jeter is hitting .220 next August while showing the range of a Pacific walrus at shortstop? Or in 2014 when a 38-year-old A-Rod needs a new hip and still has a presidential term left in pinstripes? Don't even get me started if CC Sabathia relapses back onto Cap'n Crunch. And if you and I are thinking ahead to these scenarios, you know Brian Cashman is, too. This might be why it appears the GM hasn't slept in 12 years.

3) Yankee Stadium doesn't scare anyone. Derek Jeter said on the closing night of the old Stadium that the Yankees were going to bring all the ghosts across the street to the new house. I will always believe in Derek Jeter — he's won five rings and watched Minka Kelly change out of a cocktail dress, after all — but I'm not so sure the supernatural stuff went down. The Yankees are just 13-11 at home this season, attendance has dropped, and on too many nights the crowd seems distracted, disinterested or both. The home of the Yankees has been demystified, and I can't foresee anyway to undo this without the use of a time machine. A theory: Maybe the ghosts crossed the street, saw the disgraceful Legends Seats and moat, turned around and pulled up some chairs at Stan The Man's. I can't blame them.

4.This team might not be any good as presently constituted. Ah yes, the most important revelation. Granted, we're catching these Yankees at a collective lowpoint. But there are some bona fide areas of concern here, and now approximately one quarter of the way through the season, the sample isn't so small anymore. Their defense stinks. The back end of their rotation is showing cracks. Sabathia hasn't been an ace. Phil Hughes has a mysterious shoulder injury. Nick Swisher has regressed to the 2008 version that got him shipped out of Chicago. Rafael Soriano could be channeling Carl Pavano on a Dominican Idle scale. Posada could be going through a mid-life crisis. Jeter has four extra-base hits (but still gets to watch Minka Kelly slink out of black dresses). Without proper reinforcements in both the rotation and lineup, it's hard to talk yourself into 90 wins right now.

Am I saying the Yankees are dead? Of course not, though I suspect some of you have them some where between bin Laden and Liberace on the pulse scale. The American League East is in a transition year, which I believe will allow a flawed team like the Yankees to hang in the race until reinforcements arrive. But there's no hiding the fact that this weekend was a damaging one in Yankee Universe, one that showed how close to the surface their vulnerabilities really are.

Buckle up, folks. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Dan Hanzus is a contributor to Pinstripe Alley. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Donnie Ballshame: Mattingly still can't catch break

2011-05-12T12:12:00.000-04:00

Don Mattingly is not a happy man right now.

He'll never admit it, because decades in the game have taught him better. Nothing good can come of it, especially when a primary job as manager is to separate your players from the chaos that can swirl around them. A 13-year career under George Steinbrenner will instill that lesson in you.

"Don’t let this become an excuse," has been the manager's mantra.

That's a good way to look at it, but it doesn't change the fact that Mattingly is the face of a team that might not have enough money to meet payroll by the end of the month. The Los Angeles Dodgers are a marquee franchise — perhaps second only to the Yankees in terms of prestige — and yet they've become a bad Jay Leno punchline five nights a week.

This can happen when two filthy rich middle-aged white people use divorce as a weapon to destroy each other. Mattingly, who knows a thing or two about crazy ex-wives, has been forced to watch the proceedings like a Titanic survivor watched the unsinkable ship go down: Mouth agape, eyes bulging, "Dude, this is not happening" expression etched across his face.

And make no mistake, this ship is going down. Joe Torre knew it, fleeing to a corner office on Park Avenue, potentially to focus his attention on destroying all remaining copies of Joe Torre: Curveballs Along The Way. Mattingly didn't have the advantage of such a backup plan — nor a wretched Paul Sorvino vehicle to call his own. This was his mess.

Mattingly saw the ship speeding toward the iceberg, but what was he going to do? After years of waiting to become a big-league manager, this was finally his turn. But as so often has been the case in Mattingly's star-crossed career, timing had worked against him.

Bud Selig did the right thing last month, jumping into the fray to seize control of the Dodgers. Frank McCourt is trying to fight the commissioner off, but this is believed to be a hopeless endeavor. If Mattingly and Dodgers fans are lucky, the transition back to secure ownership will be in place by next year.

Then again, that same incoming management might come to the conclusion that the Dodgers need a fresh start, one that doesn't involve the old regime's hand-picked field manager. While Joe Girardi signs extensions, does bad Subway commercials and tells heartwarming stories to Suzyn Waldman about father-daughter dental work, Mattingly scrapes by in sunny SoCal with a perpetual dark cloud hanging overhead.

Not cool, Baseball Gods. Not cool at all.

It's not fair, but fair has never really been part of the Mattingly mystique. If it was, he'd be in the Hall of Fame right now, owner of a few rings and probably the manager of the Yankees. Who knows, maybe a desperate Ray Liotta could've played him in a TV movie.

Instead, the Hitman soldiers on, a stranger in a strange town that keeps getting stranger. Mattingly's not going to feel sorry for himself — if that was his personality he would've went Ray Finkle on us a long time ago.

Maybe he can get this team to 81 wins ... but maybe not. Maybe he'll be the manager of the Dodgers next year ... but maybe not. All we do know is that Donnie Baseball deserved better than this. What else is new?

Motown malaise: Yankees blanked, Jeter hurt

2011-05-05T10:32:00.001-04:00

Max Scherzer is a very promising young pitcher. He's not 1999 Pedro Martinez, however, something the Yankees made him look like in a 4-0 loss at Comerica Park on Wednesday.

Scherzer toyed with the Yankees over eight shutout innings, striking out nine and allowing just four hits to improve to 5-0 on the season. Scherzer consistently got ahead of hitters, showcasing a lively fastball and good changeup to keep the Yankees clueless throughout.

Things got worse for the Bombers in the eighth, when Derek Jeter exited the game with a right hip injury. Joe Girardi said the shortstop is day-to-day, and with a day game tomorrow, it's likely we've seen the last of him in Detroit.

Freddy Garcia (1-2) kept the Yankees in the game with a respectable seven-plus inning effort, but his margin for error was non-existent. Mark Teixeira's fourth-inning double represented New York's lone extra-base hit.

"Freddy pitched a pretty good ballgame, he gave us a chance to win," Girardi said.

Magglio Ordonez had the biggest blow of the game, connecting on a two-run homer off Garcia that capped a three-run Detroit third.

After the inning, Garcia and Francisco Cervelli appeared to have words in the Yankee dugout, possibly over the pitch selection to Ordonez.

"I'm not sure, I didn't see that," Girardi said.

The Yankees mounted only one serious threat, putting runners on first and second against a tiring Scherzer to start the eighth. But Jeter popped out to right before Curtis Granderson wrapped into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Jeter grimaced as he exited the box, and was replaced by Eduardo Nunez in the bottom of the eighth.

"His right hip seemed to be grabbing at him," Girardi said. "He'll be day-to-day. He told me it was bothering him."

Jeter, as you could expect, downplayed the injury. Actually, he denied it was even an injury at all. Clearly, Derek Jeter is a liar.

"It's not the first time it's happened, it's really not an issue," Jeter said. "I didn't do it on a particular play. ... It's really not a big deal."

Jeter expects to be in the lineup in the finale.

The Yankees will attempt to split the series tomorrow when A.J. Burnett starts opposite Rick Porcello. First pitch is at 1:05 p.m. ET.

Stray observations:

* For those of you worried that the Yankees are leaning too heavily on the long ball, this series has built your argument. Playing in spacious Comerica Park, the homer-leaning Yankees have batted .237 with a .130 average with runners in scoring position. They've struck out 27 times, while drawing just six walks.

* New York has now dropped two straight to fall to 17-11 on the season.

* A-Rod, Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, Jorge Posada and Brett Gardner combined to go 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts.

* The Rays fell, 3-2, at home to the Blue Jays, keeping the Yankees two games ahead of the pack in the AL East.

* Rodriguez is struggling ... real bad. He's 5-for-43 (.118) since hitting his grand slam on April 23 in Baltimore. Curiously, he hasn't drawn a walk in nine games. He called his situation a "work in progress." Aren't we all, Alex. Aren't we all.

* Silver lining? Bin Laden: Still missing large portion of skull.

Dan Hanzus is a contributing writer to Pinstripe Alley. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Making sense of the Posada Conundrum

2011-05-05T10:30:00.002-04:00

Jorge Posada was locked in a staredown with Justin Verlander, the 39-year-old veteran on his way out facing the 28-year-old ace square in his prime.

It should have been a mismatch, but not on this night. On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Posada squared up a 100-mph fastball from the Tigers right-hander and sent it over Austin Jackson's head and one hop over the center-field fence. The DH loped into second with a booming two-run double.

Even for a fleeting moment, it was a welcome reminder of what once was.

This has been a season of surprises for the Yankees. From an overall perspective, the team's standing atop the AL East as the Red Sox languish near the bottom jumps out. But we've witnessed unexpected individual performances as well. Bartolo Colon's resurrection. Phil Hughes' breakdown. Eric Chavez' re-emergence. Rafael Soriano's struggles.

Jorge Posada, on the other hand, has followed a trajectory that many people — experts and fans alike — predicted. Even after an encouraging four hits in the opening two games in Detroit, Posada is a .167 hitter. Six April homers have only somewhat obscured the fact that he's been overmatched in too many at-bats this season.

The Yankees knew this bill was coming due. An outstanding performance in the walk-year of his previous contract (.338 BA, 20 HR, 90 RBI, .970 OPS) virtually guaranteed they would have to overpay in the subsequent deal if they were to keep the popular veteran. The two sides ultimately agreed to terms to a four-year, $52 million contract in November 2007, an unheard of deal for a catcher on the wrong side of 35.

On balance, the contract has been a bust, though in fairness to Posada, he's had his moments. A shoulder injury muddled his 2008 season, but he remained a dangerous hitter and somewhat capable defender on the 2009 World Series team. The cracks began to show in earnest last year, as Posada's production dipped and his defense became impossible to ignore.

The team wisely stripped him of his catching duties prior to this season, making him the full-time designated hitter. The decision made sense on two levels: The Yankees could now get younger and more defensive-minded behind the plate while at the same time giving Posada a better chance to stay healthy, something he had struggled to do in recent years.

Derek Jeter, Posada's longtime teammate and erstwhile Core Four compadre, has had his own problems this season and might have similar types of problems in the final year of his contract (or even as soon as the present day, if you really want to be pessimistic about it). But Jeter is team royalty, an equal of the Babe, Lou, Joe D., and The Mick in Yankee Universe. The Yankees' re-signing of Jeter was as much about protecting the brand as securing on-field production.

Posada — though unquestionably one of the best catchers in team history — doesn't have nearly the same cache as Jeter, and is therefore extremely vulnerable. His relationship with Joe Girardi has always been complicated — Posada took away Girardi's job once upon a time, after all — which adds another element of intrigue to the mix.

In recent years, Girardi and Brian Cashman often spoke of the preference to keep the DH slot open as a rotation spot to give veterans "half days off" as well as to spot-start bench players.

Behind closed doors, it wouldn't be a surprise if the Yankees' braintrust would like to restore the DH as a soft landing spot for the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Jeter, and yes, Posada, albeit in a less substantial role.

Other teams would rule out this option for financial reasons, citing the poor business sense to sit a man earning $13.1 million this season. These are the Yankees, however, which means that logic has little use here.

Posada is going to have to hit to keep from ending his career in the shadows. Fair or not, the Yankees are big business and nobody gets a free pass.

Well, unless your girlfriend is Minka Kelly.

Dan Hanzus is a contributing writer to Pinstripe Alley. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

Can Rafael Soriano hack it? We'll find out soon enough

2011-04-27T20:21:00.001-04:00

It's probably unfair to think of Mel Hall when I see Rafael Soriano, but I really can't help it.

Hall, a top run-producer for some awful early 90s Yankees teams, was known as a malcontent who was eventually shipped out of town when the Buck Showalter/"Stick" Michael regime took hold.

Despite his decent production (he had back-to-back 80-RBI seasons in '91 and '92), Hall was a selfish player with a mean streak, particularly toward a shy rookie by the name of Bernabe Williams, who was driven to tears by the outfielder's insults.

"You can afford to have one asshole if you surround him with 24 good guys," Showalter once said, summing up one of his 43,000 roster philosophies. "But if you have more than that, then the assholes are going to befriend those who might be good guys, and pretty soon it's a problem."

(Buck Showalter, everybody!)

Of course, it's not entirely fair to put Hall and Soriano on the same island of misfit toys. Soriano lies in bed at night thinking if he made a mistake coming to New York. Hall lies in a prison cot pondering whether it was wise to have sex with a 12-year-old girl.

But during the non-statutory rape phase of his life, Hall exuded the same whiff of negative energy we see from Soriano now. Watching the reliever scowl and sulk on the mound Tuesday night was maddening — as if throwing a batting-practice fastball to Paul Konerko was somehow home-plate umpire Greg Gibson's fault.

Soriano's numbers speak for themselves. He has a 7.84 ERA. He's allowed eight walks and nine earned runs through 11 appearances. He's had exactly one 1-2-3 inning. The bridge to Mariano has become the bridge to nowhere.

And then there's the attitude. Deadly serious, dour even. Soriano may be the anti-Swichalicious. To his credit, Soriano faced the music on Tuesday, a step in the right direction after his famous blow-off of reporters following a poor April 5 performance against the Twins.

The over-arching question, of course, is this: Does Soriano have the necessary mental makeup to survive here?

No one's ever going to feel sorry for the Yankees when it comes to free agency, and they shouldn't. New York has such wealth in its piggy bank that the system is basically rigged to allow the franchise to remain successful.

In NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, many of his comments about the perceived dangers of the labor battle seemed to be thinly-veiled potshots at what baseball has allowed to happen with financially-mighty teams like the Yankees.

That said, the Yankees do have to deal with a variable most teams don't, that being the risk of an incoming free agent not having the personality to handle the market and expectations brought upon by salary. What makes it doubly dangerous for Brian Cashman and Co. is that you don't find out until after a guaranteed check has been cut.

It'd be unfair to file Soriano into the "can't-hack-it-in-NY" category after one month. But it might not be a bad idea to walk over to the file cabinet and open up a nice space between Rogers, Kenny and Weaver, Jeff, either. You know, just in case.

"It’s not been easy for me," Soriano said after the game. "I’ve tried to figure out how to do the same that I did last year. I’ve been struggling right now, but I’ll take it, forget all that tonight, come back tomorrow and find out."

Let's hope so, 35 million times over.

Dan Hanzus can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com or on Twitter @danhanzus.

An open letter to Lance Berkman

2011-04-21T16:06:00.003-04:00

Dear Lance,

Hey bud, how are you? You don't know me, but I'm a Yankees fan who followed your three-month stay with the team last year.

I'm just checking in to say hi, and also to see what's been going on with you lately. I was at Dodger Stadium on Sunday, and I must tell you, I was shocked by your appearance. You looked like a new man — fit, muscular, a modern-day Thor in baseball pants. It made me wonder if you spent the entire winter on one of those Ivan Drago treadmills with the 87-degree incline. Do you have one of those machines? I bet LaRussa made you get it. That dude's such a commie!

Not to dwell on it, but I have to tell you pal, you don't look anything like the Lance I knew. That dude had the mobility of my 91-year-old grandfather. I remember one game last summer where you backpedaled to retrieve a pop up behind first base and tipped over like a 15-year-old girl at a keg party in the woods. I wondered if you'd ever be able to get up. You did. In a way, we all did. It was like a little snapshot of the human spirit.

Six months later, you're chasing down balls in the gap as the starting right fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. Imagine that!

Your marked improvement in appearance and agility isn't the only thing that's caught my eye. I notice you're raking at a prodigious rate, which is a lot different than your Bomber days! You have six homers and 15 RBI this month, which — impossible as it may seem — is already four homers and six RBIs more than you had in 42 games in New York.

If you keep up this pace, you'll finish with 54 homers, 135 RBIs and a 1.104 OPS. I definitely could have used that guy when my starting first baseman's hamstring exploded in the playoffs last year! Oh well!

Last thing: I'm supposed to let you know that, in addition to your probable berth on this year's NL All-Star team, you've also been named to the Carl Pavano Underachiever All-Stars, a team of MLB standouts who succeed everywhere but New York.

Pudge Rodriguez will speak at your induction dinner, an event at which you'll probably eat steamed vegetables and a protein shake before checking out early to get in some cage work. Hey, and if you see Rafael Soriano, can you tell him we've already extended an invitation for him to attend next year's event?

Good times!

Regards,

Dan

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Remember The Wolf when it comes to Burnett's fast start

2011-04-14T12:57:00.011-04:00

In the movie Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) run into a serious problem when Vega accidentally shoots a man in the face while the pair are transporting the poor bastard from one location to another.

To solve this messy quandary, they call on The Wolf, played by Harvey Keitel, a guy who plays this cleaner-type character in 12-15 other 90s movies. The Wolf assesses the situation, calmly sets a protocol, and puts the two criminals on the path to continued freedom.

After Vega and Winnfield finish "brain detail" in the garage of abetting homeowner Quentin Tarantino, the homeowner remarks how he can't believe it's even the same car.

The Wolf makes it clear there's still work to be done.

"Well, let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."

It's one of roughly four million classic throwaway lines in Pulp Fiction, and it reminds me of how a Yankee fan should feel about A.J. Burnett's 3-0 start.

Burnett was great for six innings of his seven innings on Wednesday, which was good enough for a 7-4 win over the Orioles. After last year's 10-15 disaster, Burnett's 3-for-3 start has been a blessing, even more so when you factor in the regression of Phil Hughes.

But as The Wolf intimated, we're not in the clear with Allan James. He's been a historically good April pitcher in his three seasons in New York — he's never had a losing decision — so really, we haven't learned much other than his ongoing love affair with crap weather in the South Bronx.

Burnett is 3-0 because Burnett has the stuff that most pitchers in baseball dream about. When he's able to harness it, he can be ace-like.

Of course, he's not good at the harness thing. His mechanics and mental headspace have a habit of going out of whack for months at a time. Last year it was June and August, when he went a combined 0-9 with an ERA close to 10.00.

Burnett will have a start when he struggles, just like every pitcher. It will probably come sooner rather than later. If he's able to put that behind him, and come back five days later with the same confidence he had in April, then we'll know we can count on Burnett in a season the Yankees have never had to count on him more.

Even then, I don't think we should do what The Wolf suggested. A high five will suffice, maybe one bro-hug, max. Good times.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

And now a message from your dutiful Yankee blogger

2011-04-12T13:16:00.003-04:00

A brief but important program note: I have joined the writing team of Pinstripe Alley, a popular Yankee blog that apparently decided alleys deserved decor like any other piece of architecture. You can find my introductory post right here.

Nothing will change here at River & Sunset, you'll get the same coverage as before. Part of my gig at PA will be posting some straight previews and game recaps, something that will be exclusive to their site. On those gamedays, I'll be sure to give a heads up so you can click over.

Ultimately, it's just another place for people to find my writing, which is always a good thing.

Thanks for reading,

DH

Yanks have date with rival drowning in sea of expectations

2011-04-08T03:07:00.008-04:00

With apologies to Tsuyoshi Nishioka's fibula, Thursday was a great day to be a baseball fan.

Well a Yankee fan, anyway.

The (possibly) revitalized A.J. Burnett picked up his second win in as many starts. The Three Amigos — Joba Chamberlain, Rafael Soriano, and Mariano Rivera — made it another six-inning game. I came up with bullpen nickname The Three Amigos. The Yankees and MTA reached a fragile accord, restoring the The Great City Subway Race to its roots.

Best of all, New York's two biggest rivals each fell to 0-6 on the season.

The plight of the Rays is understandable. They essentially cashed in their chips in the offseason, dismantled a legitimate contender then sold the fanbase on the whole, "We'll be fine, our farm system is loaded!" angle.

The bad news is that for every David Price there are 10 Delmon Youngs. Prospects typically need time to acclimate themselves at the big-league level. It's a process that can take seasons, not days.

I'm not saying the Rays are dead, but when you remove your best all-around player, your best right-handed starter, your biggest home run threat, and blow up your entire bullpen, you can't just hand out a bunch of new uniforms and expect the kids to save the day.

Sure, the financial limitations of the franchise played a big part in this, but that doesn't make it any better. The Rays built themselves into a bonafide powerhouse in the ultra-competitive AL East and now they're starting from scratch. You have to wonder if Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon understood what they were signing up for.

(Assuming Ramirez and Damon understand anything at all.)

As for the Red Sox ... wow. Back in January, I wrote a reaction piece to an article by NESN.com senior editor Eric Ortiz titled: "2011 Red Sox Will Challenge 1927 Yankees for Title of Greatest Team in Major League History."

The headline says it all, but it's well worth the read anyway, if only for the part where Branch Rickey looks down on Theo Epstein from heaven with proud, watery eyes. It was a shameless piece of work, even for a fanboy posting on a team's regional network. And while the content of that story was (and is) ridiculous, it did provide an accurate snapshot of the level of expectations this Red Sox team is dealing with.

After signing Carl Crawford and trading for Adrian Gonzalez, Boston is facing a World Series-or bust campaign. The Yankees dealt with the same expectations after bringing aboard Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia in 2009. That they backed up those expectations with a 103-win season and World Series title is admirable. Some may even be able to picture Casey Stengel looking down on Brian Cashman with ... well, you get the picture.

It's easy to be the underdog. Being the favorite is an extra helping of grind piled on a season that has plenty to start with.

The Red Sox are learning that now. Over a 162-game schedule, six losses in April won't make-or-break a season. But dropping a six-pack out of the gate is different. It's a bad-vibe monster that can infect a club.

That's what makes this weekend's Yankees-Red Sox series the most compelling early-season meeting between the rivals since 2005. The Red Sox aren't playing for their season, but if they were to lose two of three, or gasp, get swept and drop to 0-9, it will become a national story.

I don't see that happening. Boston gets the soft underbelly of the Yankees' rotation the next two days in the potentially-injured Phil Hughes and unproven Ivan Nova. Playing at home will surely boost their confidence level, too ... unless they get booed out of the building during player introductions. The fact that we're even discussing this is pretty remarkable.

Being the favorite is a good thing. But with great hype comes great responsibility. I don't think I'm alone in hoping the Saux will need at least three more days to sort it all out.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees let one slip away, Soriano has lesson to learn

2011-04-05T23:55:00.000-04:00

Tonight we learned once again that unless it's an injury, roster move, or knee-slappingly hilarious DUI arrest, everything you read in spring training means nothing.

Take Rafael Soriano for instance. When ~~Brian Cashman~~ the Yankees signed the reliever away from the Rays in January, he brought with him a dominant recent resume but also a reputation for being something of, well, a dick.

We heard the whispers. That he was sullen, withdrawn, unable or unwilling to buy into the idea of team — essentially the exact type of player the Yankees purged from their clubhouse during the rise of the dynasty.

"Hey Mel Hall, you like making Bernie Williams cry because he wears funny-looking glasses? Have fun in Japan, champ."

Don't let the crooked hat and country boy gimmick you see on Yankeeography fool you. Gene Michael was a stone cold assassin.

The Yankees denied the rumors Soriano was a poor character guy, and to make sure of it, they put the $35-million setup man's locker right next to Mariano Rivera. It was as if they believed Soriano would go from moody outcast to noble champion by process of osmosis.

It made for a lot of spring training copy for the beat guys, but what was dubious then is laughable now. After Soriano helped kick away a sure win for CC Sabathia and the Yankees on Tuesday night, he was nowhere to be found in the clubhouse afterward. That's right — the Yankees' multi-million dollar closer-in-wait couldn't bring himself to face the media ... on April 5.

If he's pulling this crap now, can you even imagine how he'll handle failure when the games mean something? (Must. Ignore. Terrible. Feeling. Of. Dread.)

It was a bad night for several Yankees. An uncomfortable-looking Derek Jeter was blown away by a fresh-off-Tommy-John Joe Nathan to end the game. Dave Robertson couldn't pick up Soriano, and Nick Swisher couldn't pick up Robertson, misplaying Delmon Young's blooper into a three-run double. Boone Logan pitched scared, hanging the Yankees in the process.

And then there was Joe Girardi. The manager stood by his decision to pull a cruising Sabathia after seven scoreless innings and 104 pitches, plugging in Soriano despite the Yankees holding a four-run lead at the time.

It was a curious decision to use Soriano in that spot, and a fairly clear sign Girardi isn't quite sure how to handle the most expensive non-closer in bullpen history just yet.

In a non-save, non-hold situation, the logical move would've been to let Robertson start the inning. After all, if you're not going to give Robertson the seventh-inning job, and you won't let him enter a 4-0 game in the eighth inning, then why exactly do you have David Robertson?

Girardi was nonplussed by the insinuation Soriano shouldn't have been in the game or isn't wired to enter non-save situations.

“Soriano is my eighth-inning guy,” the manager said, according to the LoHud Blog. “By no means is a four-run game in the bag, as we just saw.”

Well, you're kind of missing the point Joe ... but hell ... forget it. Better these losses happen now than September or later. Turn the page and move on. And if anyone sees a millionaire setup man moping around the city tonight, please tell him that facing the music is part of the job here.

You ain't at the Trop no more, kid.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Hughes, Subway Race open with thud in 2011

2011-04-03T22:10:00.011-04:00

You've crossed me, Yankee Stadium. You've gone and done it real good this time.

Jacking up parking rates to $35 per car was dastardly enough. But messing with the Great City Subway Race? Have you no decency?

Not even George Costanza would have green-lighted this during his days in your front office.

What's next? Getting rid of the pinstripes? Letting Bartolo Colon change his uniform number to 3? I bet you made Mariano hike up his socks, too.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about — and really, shame on you if that's the case — the Great City Subway Race is a video interlude that has been played in the middle of the fifth inning for decades in the Bronx, a battle between the B (formerly the C), D, and No. 4 train, all on a race to Yankee Stadium.

As a kid, this was always a highlight of trips to the Stadium. Now it's been raped and pillaged by Subway, the race's official sponsor. The B, D and 4 trains have been replaced by the — wait for it — Road Gray, Midnight Blue, and Pinstripes. Blerg.

River Avenue Blues first broke the story on opening day. It made me sick to my stomach, not unlike how I feel after drunkenly wolfing down a meatball hero from Subway. In case I didn't make this clear: Eff you, Subway.

Luckily, the Yankees' series win over the Tigers helped eased the pain. They set a franchise record with nine homers through three games, with Mark Teixeira's fast start (three homers, seven RBIs) a welcome sight after the .135 average that buried the Yankees and my fantasy team last April.

The biggest concern right now has to be Phil Hughes. The right-hander has an enormously important role on this team, so watching him try to sneak a 88-mph fastball by Miguel Cabrera on Sunday was obviously disconcerting. Cabrera enjoyed it of course; it's not often you get to take batting practice during live game action.

I was particularly uneasy after reading about pitching coach Larry Rothschild's postgame admission that the team is concerned.

“There’s going to be concern until you see it,” Rothschild told the LoHud Blog. “That’s just natural. … When you get going and you start to see the velocity, then you can relax a little bit. But until then, we’ll try to figure out if there’s any routine that works for him.”

Let's not sugarcoat this: If Hughes is attempting to pitch through some type of arm issue and ends up getting shut down, the Yankees will have a potentially season-busting situation on their hands.

Joe Girardi has a borderline rotation as it is. There's simply not enough depth here to sustain losing Hughes, an 18-game winner last year who is being counted on to take the next step.

What we saw Sunday was a pitcher with Javier Vazquez-type stuff, and we all know that won't get it done in the American League. (Poor Javy, his stuff may not be good enough for the NL anymore either.)

The Yankees last missed the playoffs in 2008, a team that this year's Yankees have been compared to. That '08 team saw its season go up in smoke on a June afternoon in Houston, when ace Chien-Ming Wang stepped on third base and blew up his foot ... and career.

That '08 team didn't have the depth to make up for Wang's absence. If the Yankees were to lose Hughes, I imagine a similar scenario playing out here.

Like the new Great City Subway Race, we can only hope Hughes' issues aren't here for the long-term.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

LIVE BLOG: Yankees vs. Tigers, 2011 season opener

2011-03-31T12:53:00.087-04:00

Hello from River & Sunset headquarters in sunny Hollywood, Calif., where we begin coverage of the 2011 season with opening day. I have a cold Bud Light (never too early) and the knowledge that the canned Joe Morgan won't handle ESPN's telecast (he left the company to start a moderately successful WWE tag team with Jon Miller).

So let's do this thing. I'll check back in in a couple of minutes to give my 2011 predictions and possibly a complaint about Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Good times.

1:05 - Tim Kurkjian: "Miguel Cabrera was arrested on a DUI charge early this spring but the rest of the spring has gone really well." Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

1:08 - Did you know that not one ESPN expert — a list of dozens — picked the Yankees to make the World Series? Even by their own RSN flag-waving standards, I find that ridiculous. Not one of those experts fathomed a scenario where the Yankees play well through July then make a big trade to fortify their rotation? Mark my words when that happens and 90 percent of those experts say the Yankees "are the team to beat."

1:10 - So yes, I think the Yankees have been undeservedly been thrust into the also-ran category, something a veteran team will surely be motivated by. Prediction: 92-70, AL Wild Card entry. Beat Braves in six in the World Series. A '96 vibe for sure.

1:14 - From commenter "the" - Can you talk about Barry Larkin on Baseball Tonight? The man was much smoother with his glove than his mouth. I'm really upset I missed this, since I love watching overmatched professional athletes on camera. I will tune in tonight.

1:15 - Cap'n Crunch ship-jumper CC Sabathia starts the season with an 89-MPH fastball for a strike. I like baseball.

1:16 - My goodness, Sabathia fanned Austin Jackson on a 94-MPH fastball in 42 degree conditions. Carsten Charles is ready.

1:17 - Curtis Granderson makes diving catch in center for second out. I predict big things from Grandy.

1:18 - I miss the Magglio Ordonez jheri-curl. I can't believe I know the correct spelling of jheri-curl.

1:19 - 1-2-3 inning for CC as Jheri Ordonez lines out to center. A good start.

1:21 - Brett Gardner, one of the Yankees' leadoff men, digs in against Justin Verlander. I give Gardner's 2010 a solid 'B'. Lots of promise, the speed we knew about, but a ton of strikeouts. Didn't expect that. Too many of them looking, too.

1:22 - On cue, Gardner chases a 96-MPH fastball out of the zone and heads back to the dugout.

1:24 - Derek Jeter steps in the box in his 15th opening day. Amazing. He falls behind 0-2 (an especially nasty Verlander curve ball was involved) and then flicks a soft liner to second. Verlander looks good early.

1:26 - Even though he's made up mostly of metal and other composite parts, Mark Teixeira shows very human mental weakness when it comes to April. If he could ever shake that, he could have an MVP season in him.

1:27 - Tex walks. ESPN notes that he's a .235 career hitter in April, which seems about 234 points too high.

1:28 - Alex Rodriguez steps in the box, entering a season suddenly huge on expectations. Anything less than 50 and 150 and you're a failure Mr. Diaz!

1:32 - If I was Robbie Cano, I'd be bummed I finished last season one point short of .320, one homer short of 30, and one RBI shy of 110. That's just me.

1:33 - You have to love how Yankees are making Verlander work here. Meanwhile, I'm really hoping they brought back the white nacho sauce at the Stadium this year. Biggest disappointment of 2010 by far...and I'm including Nick Johnson's corpse.

1:35 - Verlander needs 31 pitches, but he fans Cano on a 3-2 pitch to escape trouble. Scoreless after one.

1:41 - Jeter shows the range of a musk ox on a hot shot to his left. Runners on first and second, nobody out.

1:42 - So happy that Buster Olney is at the Stadium today. I love me some Buster. Meanwhile, the Yankees are in a heap of trouble. Bases loaded, nobody out.

1:46 - Rick Sutcliffe annoys me. There, I said it.

1:47 - Great comeback by CC, striking out Aviles to escape further damage. 1-0 DET heading into the bottom of the second.

1:48 - Really enjoying theis USAA retirement guide commercial attempting to lend nostalgia to the Vietnam War. Something tonally of there, can't figure it out.

1:50 - Oh right. 'Nam was an endless horror show in a jungle with land mines and Charlie hiding in trees with machine guns.

1:52 - And good ole Georgie Posada hits his first of roughly 250 lazy fly balls to left. Two outs, nobody on.

1:56 - If the shooting guard from the "Teamwork is Good" commercial told referees the ball was off him and gave up a crucial position, I'd be one super-pissed coach. Sportsmanship is overrated.

1:59 - Austin Jackson strikes out ... a lot. He led the league last year, and he's leading the league again right now with two.

2:01 - Will Rhymes seems like he has a particularly nasty Napoleon Complex.

2:03 - Funny how people always kill A-Rod, but we, as a sports populace, chose to overlook the fact that Ken Griffey Jr. was kind of a dick. Ironic he's now a spokesman for Dick's Sporting Goods.

2:06 - Man, is it crappy in New York today. What a horrible stretch of weather the last few months. (I will not mention my front door is wide open in L.A. right now.)

2:09 - Russell Martin singles sharply to left in his first Yankee at-bat and Gardner follows with a successful sac bunt that he nearly legs out for a hit. If Gardner can improve his bunting, it's the type of skill that can make him a .300 hitter in this league.

2:13 - Rick Sutcliffe calls three-run homers field goals, saying it so casually as if everyone uses the term.

2:14 - Wow. Teixeira obliterates a high fastball into the second deck and just like that it's 3-1. Like I said, if he could ever jump out to a fast start he's an MVP candidate. He currently leads the league in homers and RBIs.

2:19 - Always good to see Aaron Boone. It's amazing to think how one swing can change a person's life.

2:24 - Apparently add Brad Penny to the list of big leaguers who came into camp significantly slimmed down. I want to know who got fat ... well, other than Joba naturally.

2:26 - Reader the pointed out the struggles of ESPN analyst Barry Larkin earlier. Well, they just swung it back to the studio, and after a Brewers highlight, the former SS remarked that Ricky Weeks had a "monster offseason." Not quite sure what that means. If it means he drove Gravedigger at the Oklahoma Civic Center, hell yeah.

2:28 - Eternally scrappy Brandon Inge rips an RBI single down the line and it's 3-2. Sabathia is one bad pitch away from going 0-3 in quality opening day starts with Yankees.

2:30 - So let me get this straight: The Tigers broke camp and said, "We have our starter at catcher in Alex Avila." Dude has looked awful, fanning on three pitches here without coming near the ball. 3-2 Yankees after 3 1/2.

2:38 - Important inning for Verlander who needed just 11 pitches to get through the fourth. 3-2 heading into the fifth.

2:42 - CC in big trouble in the fifth. Jackson singles to left, then Cano muffs a flip from Teixeira on a bunt attempt. Runners on first and second nobody out with Jheri Ordonez and Miggy due up.

2:54 - Another 1-2-3 for Verlander. Tied at 3 entering the sixth. Good game. Meanwhile, Papa John commercial comes on. If you follow me on Twitter (@danhanzus !!!) you know I'm convinced the Papa John guy has a horrible secret in his past. We will know it one day.

2:57 - Anybody that doesn't think Sabathia is opting out isn't paying attention. Doesn't mean he's leaving Yankees, but the big man is going to get paid ... again.

2:59 - Fact: ESPN/NESN broadcaster Sean McDonough has a Red Sox tattoo on the small of his back.

3:00 - Just kidding about that last one. The tattoo is actually on his ankle. It's really cute.

3:01 - Another comment from "the": There is one person sitting in the third row behind home plate. On opening day. I don't care how bad the weather is, Yankee Stadium has GOT to do a better job filling those seats.

Good point. The Legends Seats are a disaster on almost every level. Knocks the Stadium down a full letter grade for me. I know the weather is crappy, but those seats should not be protected by an armed guard and moat. A literal moat. Ugh. Meanwhile, CC works through the sixth, still 3-3.

3:03 - I hope everyone is prepared to watch this A-Rod Direct TV ad roughly four million times this season.

3:07 - And if this is true, the Stadium grade drops another letter. @bkabak BREAKING NEWS: B, D, 4 trains out of subway race. Now just Pinstripes, Road Greys and Midnight Blue. Photos later. Shocking.

3:11 - A-Rod ropes a double off the wall in right-center. His body language tells us he thought it was gone, probably had a triple if he busted it out of the box. I thought it was gone, too.

3:13 - Swishalicious up with runners on first and second and one out in the sixth. Verlander over 100 pitches. Big moment in game here.

3:15 - Swisher gets robbed by home-plate umpire Jim Joyce, punched out on a pitch six inches outside according to K-Zone. Now it's up to Posada.

3:16 - This is probably Verlander's last batter regardless of outcome. Up to 110 pitches on a 42-degree rainy day in April.

3:19 - Verlander is good. Comes back to get Posada and we go to the seventh tied at 3.

3:21 - Wow, Joba looked, um, well-fed in that bullpen shot.

3:23 - Sutcliffe is driving me nuts. Basically rubber stamped Chamberlain's 2010 season as a success despite "a few hiccups." Why do you torture me so, ESPN?

3:25 - Joba Ks Austin Jackson, who's fanned three times today. The evolutionary Rob Deer has arrived!

3:27 - Big Punisher Joba and 5-foot-8 Will Rhymes should start a novelty hip hop group together.

3:28 - Excellent inning for Joba. As I wrote this offseason, Chamberlain is not dealing with much of expectations for the first time in his big league career. This may work to his advantage from a mental standpoint.

3:30 - Meant to mention this before — Sabathia's final line: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K (106 pitches, 70 strikes)

3:33 - Grandy! The Yankees centerfielder is making my prediction of a big season look good. His long solo homer off Phil Coke puts the Yankees ahead 4-3 in the seventh. Now we get to see this bullpen go into his shutdown mode. Soriano to the GOAT.

3:36 - Random memory: When Coke was called up to the majors with the Yankees in September 2008, I was sitting in the same section as his parents. His mother was wearing a Yankees jersey with "Phil's Mom" sewn on the back. I remember thinking how mortified I'd be if I were Phil.

3:39 - The second good bunt by Gardner today, matching his total from last year. Man on second, one out, Coke out of the game.

3:43 - Really impressed with Martin as a baserunner today. Surprised Detroit in swiping third earlier and now tags and scores on Jeter's line out to short center. Important insurance run there. Yanks lead 5-3.

3:47 - "MLB: Always Epic"??? That's what we're going with? To quote an old SNL sketch with Sandler and Farley: "I'd love to meet the ad wizards who came up with that one."

3:49 - Soriano makes his Yankees debut. You hear a bunch of questions about the guy's character issues, but the bottom line is that it was a great move. Gave team a lock-down setup man and a heir apparent/injury replacement for Mariano. Dirty little secret of baseball: Stopping opponents in the eighth inning is equally important as stopping them in the ninth.

3:50 - Soriano freezes Cabrera with a fastball on the corner. The bridge to the GOAT looks strong.

3:54 - OK, Sutcliffe needs to stop talking for awhile. "Ya know if the Texas Rangers could have afforded (Soriano), you have seen Neftali Feliz in that starting rotation." I seem to remember the Rangers offering $150 million to Cliff Lee this winter. Affordability wasn't the issue.

3:57 - 1-2-3 for Soriano. Everything going to script. The GOAT warming in Yankees bullpen. Always a beautiful sight.

3:59 - I don't like the high socks look for Rivera. If he fades this season — a huge "if" I realize — the socks will be seen as the clear delineation point between when Mo was great and when he was not. And yes, this kind of stuff worries me.

4:01 - I see Kenny Mayne's face way more than logic should dictate.

4:02 - Good shot of A-Rod and Cabrera yucking it up at first. I assume it was a debate, with Rodriguez defending the merits of pink cocktails and Cabrera protesting that blackout-inducing cheap tequila is the way to go.

4:04 - Oh A-Rod. Meanwhile, he moves to third and a slow groundout by Cano. Swisher with a chance to push the lead to three runs with a fly ball.

4:06 - Swisher bloops a single into right field and it's 6-3. He's thrown out after wandering off first too far, but he does his job.

4:10 - Rivera enters to the familiar helping hand of Lars Ulrich and friends. In a related note, Rivera has no idea who Lars Ulrich is.

4:12 - That's back-to-back outstanding opening days for Granderson as a Yankee. He makes a great running grab in center to get the Yankees within an out of win No. 1.

4:14 - Rivera strikes out Aliva, capping a 6-3 win over the Tigers on opening day. A great start for the Yankees, who got timely hitting and a lockdown performance from a potentially special bullpen. Thanks to those who read along today!

What was good (and not so good) about Yankees camp

2011-03-28T12:54:00.008-04:00

Spring training is mercifully reaching its conclusion.

Maybe it's just me, but Yankees camp felt especially long this year. I'm guessing many of the veterans feel the same way. Except Nick Swisher, that dude loved spring training. Then again, Swish could find something to love about an asteroid crashing into Wisconsin. Swishalicious loves life.

The team is heading up north on Tuesday, so here are few good (and not so good) things I took from Tampa.

THE GOOD

A-Rod looks like A-Rod - It's not just that Alex Rodriguez led the Yankees in home runs and RBIs this spring, it's how he did it. Last weekend, he drove a fastball over the Steinbrenner Field batter's eye in center field. The eye is more than 408-feet away from home plate and standing as high as the Green Monster. His hot spring has led to some unfair questions about whether he's about to return to to the 50-homer, 150-RBI form of his 2007 MVP season. That seems to be asking a lot, but a healthy A-Rod is a dangerous A-Rod.

Money quote: "There's just more explosion that I feel." -- Rodriguez on his swing (or possibly Cameron Diaz.)

THE NOT SO GOOD

Injury bug strikes - Don't underestimate the power of a spring training injury. If you're lucky, it's just a blip on the radar of a long season. But sometimes these things can have lasting effects. Entering last month, I thought Curtis Granderson was an under-the-radar guy to have a big bounce-back season.His oblique injury clouds that promise, however, and the Yankees' tight-lipped treatment of it makes you wonder if it's a more serious injury than initially believed. Meanwhile, Francisco Cervelli (broken foot) and Pedro Feliciano (sore elbow) will both begin the season on the DL. Veteran teams are going to have injuries. Let's just hope the Yankees don't become the 2011 version of the 2010 Red Sox.

Money quote: "I just think (injuries are) part of the rigors of spring training. Every year there seems to be one thing in one camp." -- Joe Girardi

THE GOOD

The Killer B's - The Yankees are desperately thin in their starting rotation, but that may not be a long-term problem for the franchise. Uber-prospects Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances had fans salivating this month with their huge potential. (The rabies outbreak in the Tampa area may explain this, but still). Banuelos, in particular, looked like a young version of Johan Santana in both style and delivery. They obviously won't break camp with the team, but the future appears bright.

Money quote: “He has as good stuff as I’ve seen. I compare it to [Clayton] Kershaw or even more polished than Kershaw, which is pretty good.” -- Russell Martin on Banuelos

THE NOT SO GOOD

Catching concerns - Remember the heady times of winter when the Yankees appeared to have an embarrassment of riches behind the plate? Well, that was before Francisco Cervelli busted his foot and Jesus Montero and Austine Romine crapped the bed in their audition for the backup job behind Russell Martin. Now it appears Gustavo Molina will break camp as backup. That's right, the league's fourth-best catcher named Molina will be at the Stadium on Thursday. This is like getting Frank Stallone to star in Cobra 2: Crime Remains A Disease And I'm Struggling To Find The Cure.

(Probably uttered) Money quote: "Gustavo freaking Molina? Somebody kill me." -- Jorge Posada

THE GOOD

The starting rotation - Brian Cashman properly played the months after the Cliff Lee and Andy Pettitte cold shoulders. He knew he was backed into a corner, but he also knew a panic trade would exacerbate an already big problem. So he played a more conservative card; collecting a cast of MLB misfit toys (Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon, Kevin Millwood) and banked that one of them could be halfway decent. Well, both Garcia and Colon pitched well enough to win a rotation spot (Garcia was given the role with Colon going to the 'pen) and no Yankees pitcher looked better than Ivan Nova this spring. There's room for some cautious optimism here.

Money quote: “I don’t know if he can help us or not, but I’m willing to put a no-risk, possible-reward option that’s been on the table the whole time." -- Cashman on the Millwood signing

THE NOT SO GOOD

The starting rotation - Yeah, I know. Kind of a cop out. Sue me. But as a diehard baseball fan for more than two decades, I know that teams don't win without quality starting pitching. What worries me the most is how easily Joe Girardi appears to have put his faith back in A.J. Burnett. He announced the erratic right-hander as the team's No. 2 starter on Sunday, this despite Burnett coming off the worst statistical season of a starter in franchise history. And don't even get me started on Nova, who I'm supposed to believe is going to step right into the No. 4 job. Isn't this the same guy who feared the fifth inning last year the way Charlie Sheen's publicist fears every ring of his cell phone?

Money quote (via translator): "Hey guys, remember me?" -- Kei Igawa

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Showalter goes after Jeter? That's just Buck being Buck

2011-03-24T13:32:00.009-04:00

In my years on this planet, I've concluded there's only thing I'm absolutely certain about, and I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt: When a person is described as someone who “will give you the shirt of his back,” this always means said person is terrible.

Example: "Tommy's got a really tough exterior, but he's got the biggest heart. He'll give you the shirt off his back if it's the last one he has."

Translation: "Tommy drinks a lot of Coors Light and starts many fights."

The “Shirt Off His Back” phenomena is an off-shoot of the “That’s Just (Name) Being (Name)” corollary.

Adam Corolla once mused that this is typically the route a person takes to explain the repeated polarizing behavior of a friend.

Man 1: "I'm going to kill Tommy, he tried to hook up with Emily at my wedding last night."

Man 2: "You know how it is, bro. That's just Tommy being Tommy."

Which brings us to Buck Showalter.

It was reported on Wednesday that the Orioles manager took shots at both Derek Jeter and Theo Epstein, ostensibly to remind America that Baltimore didn't shutter its baseball franchise after Cal Ripken retired.

"The first time we went to Yankee Stadium, I screamed at Derek Jeter from the dugout," Showalter told Men's Journal, which was probably interviewing Buck as their 14th choice for another story about abs. "Our guys are thinking, 'Wow, he's screaming at Derek Jeter.' Well, he's always jumping back from balls just off the plate. I know how many calls that team gets — and yes, he pisses me off."

Showalter also played the payroll card with Boston, saying people wouldn't think Theo Epstein was such a boy genius if he didn't have $200 million to play with. (As an aside, I'm sure Brian Cashman was giddy to finally see Epstein receive the same criticism he's been getting for 13 years.)

As for Showalter's comments about the Yankee captain, it was simply a case of "Buck being Buck."

There's a reason it took Showalter almost four years to get another manager job after the Rangers canned him, and it's the same reason every job he's had in the game ends with him being pushed out the door.

Buck Showalter is a very good manager...but he's also a pain in the ass.

This is the same guy who, while managing the Yankees, would watch video tapes to see how his players reacted to the success of teammates. He was always the last man off the team bus, partly to ensure no one was talking about him and partly so he could look struggling players in the eye to see how they handled adversity.

After he took over operations of the expansion Diamondbacks, he installed a yard-wide corridor of dirt that ran from the mound to home plate. He did so to gain a competitive advantage, and it is cited as one of the reasons Mariano Rivera made his crucial throwing error in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. "Fucking Buck's strip of dirt," former Padres GM Kevin Towers told Buster Olney in "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty."

While it's possible that Men's Journal was fortunate enough to catch the manager in a glib moment, it's more likely that the meticulous Showalter was using the platform to send a message about his own team standing up to the big brothers in the division.

I'm not exactly sure how this all translates when Jon Lester is facing Jake Arrieta in front of 11,000 fans at Camden Yards, but I suppose it couldn't hurt.

When you've been as bad as the Orioles have been for the past 15 years, you need someone to step up and try to change the culture. Showalter succeeded in doing that 20 years ago after taking over for the slovenly Stump Merrill in the Bronx.

You have to admire the guy for at least attempting to take a stand, and I'm sure Jeter chuckled when he read about it. After all, it's just Buck being Buck.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees handling rotation uncertainty the right way

2011-03-23T13:55:00.003-04:00

When Cliff Lee failed to recognize Philadelphia's inherent orphan brother status and Andy Pettitte decided to GTL his remaining days in Deer Park, the Yankees were left with something of a quandary.

Suddenly without out two-fifths of their projected starting rotation with just weeks before spring training was set to open, the panic button was pressed across the tri-state area.

Had old George been around, Brian Cashman's head would've been rolling down River Avenue at roughly 40 miles per hour. But this is the new Yankees, a multi-headed beast of a hierarchy where the general manager retains a margin for error that didn't exist in the days of Munson and Mattingly.

Cashman surveyed the post-snub market, and made what we may ultimately remember as the best move of his tenure. That move, of course, was to do nothing at all.

Cashman knows that the Yankees' rotation is CC, Hughes, a whole lot of bad news. But he also knows there's enough talent on the roster to stay in the hunt into the summer, opening him up to a brand new market ahead of the July 31 trade deadline.

Yes, there is the unsettling specter of banking on A.J. Burnett. And yes, asking the likes Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia — and to a lesser extent, Ivan Nova — to meaningfully contribute is a huge leap of faith.

But the alternative — trading away Jesus Montero to get Francisco Liriano, to cite one rumor — just doesn't make sense in the big picture.

The Yankees are now a global business giant, which means the idea of a "rebuilding year" doesn't exist in their vocabulary. But Cashman's non-action is as close to a rebuilding move as you'll get from the Bombers. They're dealing with age and depth issues, not to mention a Red Sox team that loaded up much the way the Yankees did heading into the 2009 season.

The Yankees are obviously in a highly vulnerable position as a new year approaches. But in a six-month season, patience will help win a lot of battles. Brian Cashman's head remains firmly affixed to his body. This will come in handy at the end of July.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Don't knock A-Rod from superstar perch just yet

2011-03-21T08:22:00.014-04:00

For the first time in almost a decade and a half, Alex Rodriguez is not being taken in the first round of fantasy drafts.

Think about that for a second. A-Rod has been a star Major League player for almost as long as he hasn't. His breakthrough season came in 1996, when he hit .358 with 36 homers and 123 RBIs ... as a 20-year-old.

He led the league in total bases at a time in his life when he couldn't even legally drink. He finished sixth in the league in RBIs that season; everyone else in the top 10 is retired.

Even through the admittedly dumb prism of rotisserie baseball, the sustained excellence of Rodriguez's career has been incredible.

Age and injury concerns have finally dimmed A-Rod's impeccable fantasy reputation, as the Yankees third baseman is going early in the third round of most drafts.

He missed significant time for the third consecutive season in 2010 and hasn't put together a truly great year since his magnificent 2007 MVP campaign. Meanwhile, his ability to steal bases -- the skill that separates good fantasy players from great ones -- is history. He's dropped from 18 to 14 to four in that category since 2008.

Despite that, Rodriguez is dropping hints that he may have one more big year in him, the type of season that will have people remembering how they "stole" one of the greatest players of all-time while others were taking the likes of Matt Kemp and Justin Upton.

He's played in 13 games this spring, and he has a hit in every one. And he's not just slapping singles to right, either. Cameron Diaz's love pillow has six doubles, five home runs, and leads the Yankees with 11 RBIs.

And since I brought it up, we can't discount the Diaz Effect in play here. A-Rod resurrected his postseason reputation back in 2009 with the foxy Kate Hudson dutifully cheering him on from the front row. Penny Lane has gone the way of Stillwater, but Diaz could prove to be a worthy replacement. She's even attending some games in Tampa, which is pretty good GF work when you consider how excruciating spring training games can be.

If A-Rod can stay healthy -- and admittedly big "if" -- the 35-year-old might have a huge "Nobody believed in me!" season in store. It's hard to expect him to deliver the type of 50-homer, 150-RBI season he produced during his pre-hip surgery, pre-PED admission days, but it wouldn't be wise to completely rule it out.

Remember this, fantasy friends: When it comes to Alex Rodriguez, we're talking about a man who thrives on infuriating the army of people who detest him. And what could anger the A-Rod haters more than a MVP-level season when most thought it was impossible?

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

The ongoing quest to know 'the real' Derek Jeter

2011-03-15T23:11:00.014-04:00

Every two years or so, a glossy men's magazine will profile Derek Jeter. Like death, taxes, and Adam Sandler comedies with melodramatic courtroom climaxes, it's inevitable.

I surmise the goal of these features is get to know the real Derek Jeter, misguided as that notion may be. As anyone who's followed the shortstop's career can attest, Jeter enjoys sharing intimate details about himself about as much as he likes sliding shoulder-first into Ken Huckaby's shin guard.

The captain's not going to start running his mouth A-Rod style just because some smooth-talking reporter strokes his ego while throwing a few big words his way. Jeter's a pro on so many levels, and that certainly goes for his interactions with the media.

Because of this, each profile inevitably becomes a rehash of the same stories and themes you've heard before. You'll typically come away from these features with the understanding that Jeter:

a) is a nice guy.
b) is a hard worker.
c) likes his privacy.

GQ profiled the 11-time All-Star for their April 2011 edition, sending a season-ticket-holding Red Sox fan (what?!?) to meet with the Yankees icon over two days in Florida.

The results were more or less what we've come to expect from this type of fare, though to the magazine's credit, they did get Jeter to pose with a Carrot Top-like prop. That was pretty cool.

Here are a few noteworthy nuggets from the piece:

In The Captain, his forthcoming biography of Jeter, Ian O'Connor writes about a small party Jeter hosted. When Jeter's then flame and one of her girlfriends arrived at his house, Jeter answered the door and politely asked his guests to remove any cell phones or cameras they were carrying and place them on a table, explaining that he wanted to protect his privacy.

First off, how did Ian O'Connor get this information? If I were him, I'd be be installing new security equipment at my house ... Jeter may be Out For Justice, Seagal-style. That's right Ian, we're talking compound wrist fractures and a possible screwdriver wound to the esophagus.

Can you imagine attending a dinner party and being asked to remove all electronic devices like you're going through security at LAX? In case it hasn't been made exceedingly clear by this point, Derek Jeter is not like you.

Here's another one ...

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.

The "I don't even know what you're talking about" gag! Glad to see this still has a place in 21st century discourse. And while we're here, what do you think Jeter and his teammates were being so "innocuous" about? I got 20 bucks saying they were ragging on Giambi for a particularly nasty fart. Any takers?

Moving on ...

Jeter didn't watch (Andy) Pettitte's (retirement) press conference—he was doing his weekday-morning workout—and he ignored my efforts to get him to talk about the implications for his own career. "It's something you won't even realize until you get to spring training," he said when I asked him whether Pettitte's decision made him think about his own future. "But the thing about Andy is, he left for three years to play in Houston. You don't want to say you're used to him not being there, but at least you have something to compare it to. There was a while there where he was gone."

There was something about that quote that makes me wonder if Jeter harbors any resentment toward Pettitte for his three-year sabbatical in Houston. We know Jeter is a loyalty guy that keeps a tight circle. Maybe I'm just reading into that the wrong way, but there was an edge to that answer. I mean, could you imagine Jeter using the same icy tone a year from now when Posada goes off into the sunset?

And one more ...

Before I left for the airport, I asked Jeter what he had planned for the rest of the day. "I'm probably going to go home and watch a movie," he said, grinning. "I'm going to watch The Roommate. It's a new one. Just came out today. Go check it out." It was a rare acknowledgment of his private life—his girlfriend, Minka Kelly, is one of the movie's stars. We exchanged some more pleasantries, and then, as he was climbing into his car, he shouted over one last time: "Remember: The Roommate. Seriously. Check it out. It's worth it."

Talented, handsome, hard-working ... and a sense of humor! That Derek Jeter is the whole package.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

A-Rod's new commercial eases spring training doldrums

2011-03-11T13:33:00.005-05:00

Does it make me a bad Yankees blogger that I'm already completely over spring training?

Wait, don't answer that question.

It's March 11 now, with means real baseball is less than three weeks away. When the Rangers eradicated the Yankees last October, all I could think about was pitchers and catchers reporting in February. Now, I think about March 31 and CC Sabathia on the mound in games that matter.

The spring still has its advantages. A-Rod stars in a so-bad-it's-good CGI-fest of a new commercial for Direct TV (watch here) in which he homers off Jonathan Papelbon then circles the bases, each stop serving as a different destination of our great country. If you haven't seen it, it's as cheesy as it sounds.

I personally enjoy him rounding second in front of a farming silo as two young Red Sox fans look on in despair. I know Boston fans travel well, but Kevin Costner's farm from Field of Dreams? That's impressive, Rem Dawg Nation.

A-Rod's acting performance in the commercial is tremendous, as he flashes the Matt Nokes Face throughout. What's the Matt Nokes Face, you ask? Way back when, my cousins and I used to play wiffleball every day during the summer. Nokes was a pretty awful catcher for the Yankees at that time, but he did have some pop (136 lifetime homers).

We began noticing that when Nokes rounded the bases after a homer, it appeared as though he was doing everything in his power to keep from bursting into joyful celebration. He kept a straight face, but you could a huge self-satisfied smile trying to break through the steely veneer.

Anyway, we still get together for wiffleball when we can, and when one of us homers, somebody will inevitably hiss, "Nice Matt Nokes Face, dude" as the home-run hitter rounds the bases.

A-Rod has a sick Matt Nokes Face. Hopefully you'll get about 40 chances to check it out this season.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Your New York Yankees Fantasy Survival Guide, 2011 Edition

2011-03-08T05:32:00.002-05:00

Is it really fantasy baseball season again?

I'm still exhausted from last year, when the struggles of Mark Teixeira had me acting like the over-stressed black police captain in every 1980s buddy cop movie you ever saw, popping Tums by the handful and saying things like, "I'm getting too ollllld for this crap."

But who am I kidding? I love it. Baseball is the thinking man's fantasy game. Football has long since lapped the national pastime in fantasy popularity, but any lunkhead can win it all in football so long as none of their top three picks blows an ACL or get concussed back to 1955.

Baseball requires knowledge of the game, patience, foresight, and actual managing skill. When video-game manufacturer 2K Sports hired Brian Cashman to consult on their 2009 game "MLB Front Office Manager," it was an unconscionably awful idea, but I could kind of see why they thought it would work.

Being a general manager is the fan's dream job, which makes fantasy baseball the closest 99.7 percent of us will ever get to it.

You likely have anywhere between one and 14 drafts coming up in the next three weeks, so River & Sunset is here to help you get a gauge on the fantasy value of your New York Yankees.

I won't tell you who to pick, because, to quote famed Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman, nobody knows anything. But I will give you my opinion on the value of this year's crop of Bombers.

Let's get to it, shall we?

YOU CAN'T GO WRONG

Robinson Cano: Gone are the days when you wonder if Cano can be a consistent Major Leaguer. You don't have to be concerned that a change in the batting order will send him into a funk. You don't even have to worry about those Friday night glow stick benders with Melky anymore. Cano's a certified stud, playing a position that doesn't have many of them. He averaged .320/30/110/100 the past two years, and at age 28, he's just now entering his prime. In a Yankee lineup loaded with aging stars, Cano stands out as a guy you can conceivably expect to get better.

CC Sabathia: Here's the type of guy you love to have on your fantasy team. Draft him, stick him in the front of your rotation and let him do his thing. You're going to get 33 starts, 220 innings, 20 wins, and close to 200 strikeouts. He's coming off knee surgery, which is a minor red flag, but it's nothing worth getting worked up over. Unless he drew his powers from salty tyrant of the breakfast table Capn' Crunch, Carsten Charles will remain studly.

SOLID VALUE AT LOW COST

Nick Swisher: Sure, it's likely that the .288 he hit last year was a bit of a fluke. He may drop down to the .255-.265 range in '11, but as long as he stays healthy you know you'll get 25-30 homers, 80-90 RBIs, and a OBP around .360. Even better, he's the type of guy who always drops a little further than he should, a rarity when it comes to a Yankee.

Brett Gardner: There are rumors that Gardner will get the leadoff spot this season, which bumps up his value for sure. A move from No. 9 to No. 1 in the order could give the left fielder close to 100 extra plate appearances. If he stays healthy and hits enough, he's a virtual lock for 115 runs and 50+ steals. Gardner won't help you anywhere else, but like Swisher, he could be a great value pick in the late rounds.

ZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZ (SLEEPERS)

Curtis Granderson: In retrospect, it was almost too obvious Granderson would struggle in his first year in New York. He got off to a brutal start, then blew up his groin, costing him a month. His second half numbers (18 homers after the break) make you think a 30/30-type season is well within reach.

Freddy Garcia: You may have to mark this down as the delusions of a Yankee fan still trying to figure out why Andy Pettitte chose Deer Park and a nagging wife over the Bronx and 50,000 adoring fans, but I have a good feeling about Garcia. Obviously, I'm not expecting 2001-Freddy, but if he can give the team 25-30 starts, I can see him getting 12-15 wins. Don't expect much in the way of strikeouts and WHIP, but he could become a somewhat dependable commodity, especially in two-start weeks.

YOU FEELING LUCKY, PUNK?

A.J. Burnett: I refuse to recommend you draft Burnett on account of the whole single-most-maddening-Yankee-of-his-generation thing. I will say, that yes, the raw skills are still there, and yes, it's probably more likely he has a season closer to 2009 (13-9, 4.04 ERA, 207 IP, 195 Ks) than the abortion of 2010 (10-15, 5.26 ERA, 186.2 IP, 145 Ks). Just don't read too much into all the spring chatter about the Larry Rothschild-aided mechanical improvements. The changes Burnett has to make are all in the cranium.

Russell Martin: You can make the case that Martin is in line for a rejuvenation season similar to the one Nick Swisher enjoyed in his first season in pinstripes, but the 28-year-old is also a catcher who has dealt with some health problems in recent years. He also must contend with the consequences of Francisco Cervelli's broken foot and how that opened the door for the arrival of uber-prospect Jesus Montero. The Yankees gave Martin a healthy one-year, $4 million deal, which means he'll get every opportunity to keep the starting gig. But just know there may be some Wally Pipp/Buster Posey machinations at play here.

Joba Chamberlain: Who knows what to make of Chamberlain at this point? He's like the once-promising son who dropped out of school one credit shy of graduating and now spends all day on the couch playing XBox. He's no longer the ace of the future, no longer the closer of the future, hell, he's not even the setup man of the future anymore. The only good news is that the pressure is largely off his (um, broadening) shoulders at this point. If your league counts holds as a category, Chamberlain could have a sneaky productive fantasy season in him. Just don't reach for him.

BUYER BEWARE

Alex Rodriguez: The biggest question that surrounds A-Rod as he enters his eighth (eighth!) season in pinstripes: Is he still a superduperstar? His 125 RBIs in 139 games last year prove he's still a ferocious run-producer, but his durability has become a concern as he's gotten deeper into his thirties. If he's still sitting there early in the third round, he's a good value. But don't go drafting him in the first or early-second round expecting 2007 A-Rod. The days of 50 homers and 150 RBIs are likely done.

Jorge Posada: Is anybody else vaguely weirded-out by how Posada's final season in pinstripes is unfolding? Obviously, we all know it was wise to bring an end to the catching-phase of his career, but it's kind of uncomfortable watching the team move on without him even though he's still here. Catcher or not, I find it hard to imagine Posada staying healthy for an entire season at this point. Expect around 400 at-bats, maybe 15 homers, possibly 60 RBIs ... and that's a best-case scenario. The only thing sexy about Georgie at this point is his wife.

Derek Jeter: I don't put anything past Jeter, who just went through an entire offseason of people saying he wasn't worth the paper his new contract was printed on (well that, and sex with Minka Kelly, but that's beside the point). You know he'll be more determined than ever, but at 36, we can't expect anything close to 2009, right? Let's split the difference between '09 and '10 and say .290/180 hits/105 runs/12 homers/65 RBIs. Knowing Jeter, he'd be disappointed. But could you really ask for much more at this point?

G.O.A.T.

Mariano Rivera: The man defies categorical grouping since he may not be a man at all. The days of six-out saves are over, even more so with $35 million setup man in front of him. But who are we as mere mortals to say 35-40 more saves and a sub-2.00 ERA isn't a realistic possibility, even at age 41?

POTENTIAL STEALS

Phil Hughes: His 18 victories hid the fact that Hughes still has a lot of room for improvement, and it's definitely possible he takes the next step to ace-level figure in his age 25 season. You don't have to worry about the Phil Rules anymore either, his 175 innings thrown last year sets him up nicely for the jump to 200+. Don't expect to see that elusive changeup though.

Mark Teixeira: Injured or not, Teixeira got into some bad habits last season, and it led to the worst numbers of his career. You have to decide if he's due for an MVP-bounce back season, or a slow-but-steady Giambino-like decline. Seeing that Teixeira is a robot made up almost entirely of metal and other composite parts, I'll go with the former. He may even slip to the third round in many leagues, making him a huge bargain.

Rafael Soriano: Don't take him too high, since there's some dude wearing Jackie Robinson's number ahead of him on the closer's depth chart. But the incumbent is 41, meaning a promotion to closer could come at any time. And if your league counts holds, Soriano has way more value than a crappy closer that will probably be picked around the same time.

DON'T GET TOO CUTE, HOT SHOT

Jesus Montero: As I stated earlier, Francisco Cervelli's broken foot means that an April roster spot is now Montero's to lose. But Brian Cashman gave Martin a multi-million dollar contract to be the starter this season, meaning it's going to take a serious slump or injury for Montero to get the at-bats necessary to make him a worthy fantasy player. If your league has developmental players, jump all over young Jesus, otherwise steer clear.

Dellin Betances/Manny Banuelos: Yes, the youngsters have turned some heads in Tampa, with Russell Martin even saying Banuelos' stuff reminds him of Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. Heady praise, but I'm going to have to hit 'em with a Deion Sanders-style H.O.P. (hold on player). The Yankees aren't about to rush either pitcher to the show, even if their fifth-starter is currently a cardboard cutout of the New York Lotto guy.

Bartolo Colon: Fact: Colon has won 14 games since 2005. Fact: Colon was out of baseball last season. Fact: No pitcher who bears a striking resemblance to deceased WWF legend Andre the Giant has ever had success in the Major Leagues. Fiction: Colon will be a key cog in the Yankees' 2011 starting rotation.

A DRAFT PICK IS A HORRIBLE THING TO WASTE

Mark Prior: Even his Steve Bartman voodoo doll has a sore shoulder at this point.

Eric Chavez: Sometimes I think the only reason Chavez is in camp is to fulfill Cashman's bizarre need to have at least one player each year who may spontaneously combust at any time. Nick Johnson leaves behind some very big (orthopedic) shoes to fill.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

A few helpful thoughts to guide you through spring training

2011-03-04T13:19:00.006-05:00

I've found in my two-plus decades of baseball fandom that the key to spring training coverage is to arm yourself with a ruthless filter.

The quicker you understand that 70 percent of news that comes out of camp is utter crap, the better off you'll be.

This isn't meant to be a dig on the beat writers on the scene — they're doing their job properly by and large, reporting on the minutiae of the day-to-day activities of each camp.

But ultimately, it is minutiae that they're reporting on. Much of it won't matter even a little bit by the time the Yankees open their season against the Tigers on March 31.

For example, this is the second straight camp we've read copy about Phil Hughes and the elusive changeup he's been attempting to perfect the way Walter White engineers a clear batch of crystal meth in Breaking Bad.

If you recall last spring, much was made about Hughes learning the same offspeed pitch, and he said at the time that he believed it would take his game to the next level. Hughes went on to win 18 games last season, but it'd be surprising if he threw that many changeups over six months.

Another example: One of the big stories in camp so far has been Larry Rothschild's work with A.J. Burnett, as the pitching coach attempts to wipe away the bad habits that undercut the right-hander's doomed 2010 campaign.

This makes for acceptable blog and newspaper material, allowing the beat guys to file their copy then hit up the approximate 42,000 "gentleman" clubs that line the streets of Tampa. But as anyone that's followed Burnett's career knows, the pitcher's struggles have always been much more a mental issue than where his front foot lands during his delivery.

Or as SI.com's Jon Heyman put it on Twitter yesterday: "dont want to hear about aj burnetts new pitching coach or new motion. his issues are all above the neck." #headcase

The stories I pay more attention to lie in the realm of the concrete. Francisco Cervelli fouled a ball off the arch of his foot on Wednesday — watching it live, it reminded me of poor Jimmy Caan in Misery (he Kathy Bates'd himself!) — and the team is awaiting a clearer report on his MRI. Now that's something I want to read more about.

It's all about your fan filter, my friends. Don't worry about the daily updates about Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter's batting cage work, do pay attention to Freddy Garcia's spring starts and Jesus Montero's push for the backup catcher job. Try not to get too caught up in Mark Prior's quest to be the mop-up man, instead follow prospect Dellin Betances' progress through the month or CC Sabathia's outings as he comes back from knee surgery.

Know where to look for your spring training news, and you'll leave brain hard drive space open for more important things, like coming up with a sweet fantasy team name that your friends will envy and your bosses will respect.

Just do yourself a favor and steer clear of The Winners, Tiger Blood, The Warlocks, or any other Charlie Sheen-related moniker. Be an original. Have some dignity, will you?

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Nick the Stick back in news, Cashman must relive folly

2011-03-02T02:34:00.013-05:00

We all have regrets. Some of us more than others.

Take your author for example. While I was in Miami for a bachelor party last weekend, my girlfriend was in Boston, visiting my friend's wife who recently had a baby. Right about the time my buddies and I were being seated at celebrated steakhouse Prime 112, I began receiving text messages with images of a familiar-looking teenage doofus dressed head-to-toe in Aeropostale.

Yep, not only was my darling two bottles deep into Skinny Girl Margarita, she had also happened across an old photo album filled with incriminating photos from my youth. A youth, for the record, that featured a lower scoring average than former Knicks center Herb Williams, who haplessly waited for a table at 112 as we devoured N.Y. Strip.

(See what I just did there? That was an explanabrag.)

Anyway, among the greatest hits in the glossy late-nineties collection was prom night, a forgettable evening in which I wore a tux brilliantly accessorized with a white scarf. In retrospect, the scarf looked ghastly and ridiculous, the saddest part being that I'm positive I paid extra so I could look like I was attending prom on the North Pole. I guess it could've been worse — my buddy Bob rocked a top hat and cane.

Like I said, we all have regrets.

Brian Cashman likely had a tux scarf moment of his own on Tuesday, when he looked at his Blackberry and saw that Nick Johnson signed a minor league deal with the Cleveland Indians.

Why the Tribe signed the injury-prone 1B/DH is anybody's guess (Insurance write-off purposes? Elaborate practical joke?), but my only advice is to keep sweet Nick away from Shelley Duncan. I can already picture Duncan homering this spring then vaporizing Johnson's radius bone with a celebratory forearm smash.

The Johnson misfire was a mistake that Cashman chased all season, like a football team that goes for two prematurely then spends the rest of the game trying to get back the points.

Of course, Hideki Matsui didn't exactly light it up in Anaheim last season, but it still feels like we got cheated out of one last season of Japan's shining son in the Bronx. Sorry Lance Berkman, but I'll take Godzilla over Fat Elvis any day of the week.

Cashman is going in-house at designated hitter this season, as Jorge Posada begrudgingly prepares to assume the role on a near full-time basis. As anyone who cringed during last year's playoffs can attest, Posada's best position on defense is the dugout at this point, making this decision for Cashman a no-brainer.

Cash has moved on from his error in judgment, just as I did when I erased every last image of prom night from my phone. Best of luck to you Nick the Stick, may Cleveland replace its LeBron mural with a rendering of you slapping a single to left in an impenetrable safety bubble.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees have no choice but to put faith in A.J. Burnett

2011-02-28T04:12:00.006-05:00

It was the snapshot that summed up a season: A.J. Burnett standing on the mound in disbelief, hands on top of his head, a pumped up Bengie Molina carrying his impressive gut around the basepaths at Yankee Stadium.

The Texas catcher's three-run homer in Game 4 of the ALCS neatly accomplished two feats — it effectively ended the Yankees' repeat hopes while also putting a bow on Burnett's miserable second season in the Bronx.

How awful was Burnett in 2010? He was Creed awful. He was 2001 Kobe Bryant rap single "K.O.B.E." awful. He was Dane Cook movie awful. You hear me? Dane Cook movie-awful, people! Have you ever seen My Best Friend's Girl?

Thirty-three starts, 186 2/3 innings, 204 hits, 5.26 ERA, a 10-15 record — and those numbers don't begin to do justice for how bad Burnett was for long stretches in 2010. When Dave Eiland mysteriously disappeared for six weeks last summer, perhaps we all missed the obvious explanation — Burnett had driven the beleaguered pitching coach into hiding.

Enter Larry Rothschild, whose principle job as Eiland's replacement is to somehow fix a very expensive broken piece of machinery. It's pretty much a sure thing that part of Rothschild's interview process involved a detailed battle plan for salvaging Burnett, who's entering the third-year of a getting-worse-by-the-minute five-year, $82.5 million deal signed in December 2008.

Rothschild has likely studied plenty of tape from Burnett's 2010 season, which I surmise was as pleasurable as watching The Human Centipede in 3D. What he saw was two pitchers — one very good (April, May, July) and one comically bad (June, August, September). After escaping the maniacal clutches of Carlos Zambrano in Chicago, Rothschild must be wondering what he did to deserve this.

Rothschild will quickly learn that when it comes to Burnett, it's all about taking the good with the bad. That's something Brian Cashman knew even before he brought the pitcher to New York. Sure, Burnett let Molina and the Rangers Molotov cocktail the 2010 postseason, but we can't forget starts like Game 2 of the 2009 World Series, when Burnett overwhelmed a loaded Phillies lineup over seven brilliant innings.

His performance that night was one of the best — and most important — in recent franchise playoff history. It makes it all the more frustrating when he goes through funks like last June, when he went 0-5 with a 11.35 ERA. It's hard to be that dreadful. It's almost as if there's an A.J. Burnett doppleganger out there pulling a Frank Drebin-Enrico Pallazzo move as the real Allan James lays hog-tied in the clubhouse.

Now the scary part. When Andy Pettitte decided to stay in Deer Park and Cliff Lee had his cheesesteak epiphany, Burnett suddenly, unbelievably, became the key to the Yankees' 2011 season. I peed myself a little just writing that last sentence. Seriously.

If Burnett can't figure out a way to turn it around, the Yankees have virtually no chance of going back to the postseason. As it stands, the team already needs something in the neighborhood of 40 wins between CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes, the former coming off knee surgery and the latter armed with just one full season of starting experience. The back end of the rotation is a well-chronicled work in progress, making Burnett the link between both sides of the rotation.

You know with Burnett we won't get much in the way of middle ground. He'll either be the glue that holds the rotation together ... or he'll be the one who flicks the match on a haystack soaked in kerosene. In other words, if Burnett didn't already have enough pressure on himself to get his career back on track, he also holds his team's fate in his hands.

I need to go lay down.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees will lean heavily on the power of the comeback in '11

2011-02-24T03:41:00.009-05:00

Considering how many Yankees had sub par seasons by their standards in 2010, it can be considered a minor miracle the team came within two games of returning to the World Series last fall.

Many of those slumping stars are back in 2011. Does having several key players with something to prove provide a perfect cocktail for success? Or are the Yankees closing in on a new season with a roster filled with soon-to-be has-beens?

River & Sunset is here to give you a list of the Yankees looking to improve on their season of a year ago.

GET BETTER OR GET GONE

A.J. Burnett: The tattooed one's ERA by month in 2010: 2.43, 4.03, 11.35, 2.00, 7.80, 5.60. There's a great pitcher locked away in there somewhere. Larry Rothschild, I present you baseball's Rubik's Cube.

Joba Chamberlain: There's a growing legion of doubters when it comes to Chamberlain — will he use that as motivation to improve or ignore it and continue to wallow in mediocrity? The overarching question with Joba: Does he get it?

FUNK SHAKERS

Curtis Granderson: Now here's a prime candidate for a comeback season. Some guys take a full year before they're comfortable and playing at their full capability in New York, and Granderson seems like the classic example. Fantasy owners be advised.

Mark Teixiera: Totally underrated subplot of the Yankees' failure to defend their championship last season was Teixeira's baffling fall from the ranks of superstardom. His numbers were hardly terrible (33 homers, 108 RBI, league-leading 113 runs), but his game sprung leaks that you'd ever expect from a T-800 cyborg. Perhaps the hand and foot injuries were more serious than he let on. I'm more of the feeling that (yet another) slow start led to some bad habits that snowballed on him. If Tex gets out of the gate fast this April, he's an MVP candidate.

FATHER TIME VS. THE ALL-STAR

Alex Rodriguez: He was still an epic run producer last season (125 RBIs in 137 games), but it's fair to ask if the superstar era of A-Rod's career is over. His OPS has declined in each of the past three years and he's missed 87 games since 2008 after missing just 19 in the seven years prior. The 35-year-old said he's feels like himself this spring, but you wonder if the hip condition is something that will prevent him from ever being that elite guy again.

Derek Jeter: Just to be clear, the captain doesn't need the insane ramblings of Hank Steinbrenner to get motivated. He's coming off the worst season of his career, and there's no way he didn't go nuts this offseason looking to wash out the taste of '10. The question is whether he has another classic Jeterian season (200 hits, 115 runs, 15 homers) in his 36-year-old bones. Count me as a believer.

Jorge Posada: I don't see much in the way of middle ground when it comes to Posada at this point. He'll either get 450-500 at-bats, hit 20-25 homers and drive 70-80 runs as the full-time DH/spot catcher, or he'll break down and enter the depressing late-period Jason Varitek phase of his career. I've made a lot of Jason Varitek jokes since 2008; I'm praying karma isn't going to take it out on poor Georgie.

THE DONNIE WAHLBERG AKA THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Jesus Montero: The Yankees seem committed to taking it slow with Montero, but they should also be cognizant not to keep a Buster Posey-type talent in the minors just because they don't want to rush the process. If the kid hits in spring training, there's no reason he shouldn't replace Cervelli as backup catcher. If he keeps hitting, there's no reason he shouldn't replace Russell Martin as starter. Yep, I'm drinking the Jesus Juice.

THE LAME DUCK

Brian Cashman: It's been pretty tough sledding for Cashman since the Yankees' World Series win, with some failed acquisitions and two whiffs on Cliff Lee. Now he enters the walk year of his contract. If the wheels fall off this season, it'd be very interesting to see if the front office believed a change in culture was necessary.

THE LOW EXPECTATION EXPRESS

No. 4 and 5 starters: The good news for the two guys that win these roles? Everyone already assumes you suck. So, yeah, the bar is pretty close to the pavement here. Whether you're Sergio Mitre, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, a Bronx garbage man, that guy with the riser in your Sunday morning softball league, Charlie Sheen, or one of Charlie Sheen escorts, understand that if you string a couple of quality starts together you'll get the Michael Kay equivalent of Al Michaels' "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Hank takes on Jeter, awaits word who fans will stand behind

2011-02-21T21:22:00.008-05:00

At this point in the game, we've learned three irrefutable truths about Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner.

1) His stance on recreational nicotine use stands in sharp contrast to the Surgeon General's.
2) No one takes him even remotely seriously.
3) He cannot be shut up.

Steinbrenner added to his greatest hits collection on Monday, sharing his thoughts on a number of issues that came off, in print at least, as the rantings of a Daniel Plainview-level madman.

His money quote was an obvious shot at shortstop Derek Jeter: "I think, maybe, they celebrated too much last year. Some of the players, too busy building mansions and doing other things, not concentrating on winning. I have no problem saying that."

Perhaps realizing the incendiary nature of his remarks, Steinbrenner backed off, insisting he wasn't singling anyone out. Call me crazy, but I doubt he was referring to the lakeside manor Ramiro Pena has sitting in escrow.

Normally when a high-level member of management puts his biggest star on blast for no apparent reason, it's a huge story. But in the case of Steinbrenner, it will serve primarily as blog and Twitter fodder for a day or so before disappearing into the ether.

Hank is kind of like the Asian dude who took over for Steve Perry in Journey in that respect: He may sound eerily similar to the famous man he replaced, but ultimately it's just irrelevant nonsense. Don't stop believin'? We never started.

I suppose I'm vaguely interested to see how Jeter will respond to the dig, but knowing the captain, the insult was too obtuse to warrant a serious response. Saying his sub-standard 2010 was tied to the construction of St. Jetersburg is like saying the people of Egypt revolted against their government because the pyramids are old. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. It's not like he was flying down to Tampa on off days to build the sucker himself.

You want to talk distractions? How about the period from 1996 to 2007 when Jeter nailed 87 percent of the hot chick population in Manhattan? Can you even imagine all the time he had to put into figuring out ways to get these women out of his bed in the morning? I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

El Capitan: All right -- (struggling to remember girl's name) -- sweetheart, I have to get to the Stadium for BP.
Hot chick: But it's December ...
El Capitan: Um, yeah, well they moved spring training up this year.
Hot chick: Isn't spring training in Florida?
El Capitan: (frazzled, searching for comeback) You're the one in Florida! (bolts out front door)

Steinbrenner did manage a few fleeting moments of clarity during his interview. He's unhappy with baseball's revenue sharing and luxury tax systems, and he thinks it's time Bud Selig did something about it. The Yankees were hit with an approximate $130 million tab in 2010 alone.

“At some point, if you don’t want to worry about teams in minor markets, don’t put teams in minor markets, or don’t leave teams in minor markets if they’re truly minor,” Steinbrenner said. “Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer.”

Can't really argue with him there. Teams like the Pirates, Padres, and Royals have reaped the financial benefits of baseball's ruling class for nearly a decade now, but their payrolls remain near the bottom of the league. Something doesn't smell right.

Wait a minute. What am I doing agreeing with Hank Steinbrenner? Brainwashing, Stockholm Syndrome, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

What Joba's gut says about Joba

2011-02-17T01:16:00.007-05:00

It started out innocently enough.

Last Wednesday, Joba Chamberlain was among several Yankees pitchers to report early to the team's spring complex in Tampa, and some beat writers on the scene remarked on Twitter that the reliever looked as though he'd put on weight.

Only, nothing is really innocent when it comes to Twitter and reporting anymore. The two have converged suddenly — you could argue recklessly — in the past year, turning off-the-cuff thoughts into BREAKING NEWS. Chamberlain and Chubgate was just the latest example.

On one hand, it was hardly a big deal. Baseball is the last bastion for the beer-gutted professional athlete. Basketball and football have long since become workplaces where even punters and third-string power forwards look like T-800 Terminator models.

The majority of baseball players are also more fit than ever, but it remains the one sport — not counting bowling and golf ... never count bowling and golf — where you can be overweight and still be elite. Look no further than the top of the Yankees' rotation, where CC Sabathia — even after swearing off the salty tyrant of the breakfast table, Cap'n Crunch — tips the scales at 290 pounds.

If Chamberlain is carrying a little more heat around the midsection, so be it. He's a middle reliever anyway, designed for short bursts of efficiency. When I was in college in Boston, the Red Sox's most reliable setup man was Rich Garces, a dude whose fitness level was so ghastly he earned the mocking nickname "El Guapo."

But on the other hand, you can't help but wonder if this is just the latest red flag for Chamberlain. Right now, he's using the husky frat guy excuse ("Been pumpin' iron, bro, addin' mass, bro, just gettin' big, bro"), but it's not exactly convincing. Brian Cashman appeared to bite his tongue when asked about Chubgate, remarking, "He is heavier. Leave it at that."

Joe Girardi, a classic my-body-is-my-temple type and the guy who banned sweets from the Yankees clubhouse, reserved judgment in his chat with the media, but it's clearly the 800-pound middle reliever in the room right now.

What's most disappointing is that Chamberlain entered the offseason fully aware that this is a make-or-break season in his Yankees career. He was passed over for a rotation spot last spring, and was then slowly fazed from the bullpen hierarchy during the summer and fall. The most telling move came in December, when New York spent millions and a draft pick to make Rafael Soriano the world's most expensive understudy.

The player who gets it comes into camp more determined than ever. He feels angry, disrespected even. The Revenge Factor is at Balboa-Drago levels. Roger Clemens once revitalized his career in Toronto with the help of a chip on his shoulder.

Chamberlain makes you worry that he's the type of guy who doesn't get it. Of course, it'd be unfair to pass judgment on the basis of a few tweets and a handful of AP photos. But when it comes to Chamberlain, the average Yankees fan has gone from dreaming big to expecting the worst.

What a fat waste that would be.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Pitchers and catchers report, Cap'n Crunch loses his innocence

2011-02-15T11:18:00.007-05:00

There are lessons to be learned from the first days of spring training, nuggets of information to be gleaned, processed and used to make your own life better.

For instance, I am now aware of the unspeakable evils perpetrated upon us by the salty tyrant of the breakfast table, Cap'n Crunch.

CC Sabathia reported to camp 25 pounds less of a hoss on Monday, and he attributed his svelte new figure to cutting out the Quaker Oats Company standard.

It was bittersweet revelation for me since a) I have a deep affinity for the Cap'n's treasure chest of sugary goodness and b) Sabathia's weight loss is a transparent precursor to his inevitable opt-out at the end of the season.

I won't ever be able to eat Cap'n Crunch ever again without the image of Sabathia's juicy man gut flashing through my synapses. As for the potential opt-out, it's not something a Yankee fan should get too worked up about. It's still (relatively) far down the line, and besides, there are enough problems with this year's rotation to waste time worrying about the next.

Other than that, it's been a relatively quiet first two days in camp thus far. A.J. Burnett threw 30 fastballs to Francisco Cervelli on Tuesday morning, then told the media his struggles in 2010 were all in his mind.

“Just mentally staying right,” Burnett said. “I think every time we talked last year, the good games, I was there. I was locked in. The bad games, I think mentally I wasn’t there. It’s a matter of staying on top of my game, paying attention to every pitch and doing what I did before last year, which was not letting anything bother me. Not worrying about a thing, going out there one pitch at a time until Skip takes me out. If I do that, I’ll be fine.”

If your eyeballs were rolling through the back of your head as you read that, you're not alone. I mean, he's really using the "mentally I wasn't there" excuse? This is a 33-year-old man who's been in the majors since 2001. Weak sauce, Allan James.

On the plus side, at least he can't passive aggressively blame Georgie Posada anymore. The veteran is also in camp, and he's referring to himself as the "third-string emergency catcher" now. I imagine on a pride-swallowing scale, this is akin to Kanye West labeling himself Jay-Z's third-string Courvoisier taster.

Georgie's a pro though, and he's trying to spin it positive. Just like me as I pour out a tasteless helping of Special K. Damn you, Cap'n Crunch. Damn you straight to a watery grave.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Cashman on uncertain ground as latest contract year begins

2011-02-11T10:56:00.001-05:00

Ed. note: This column ran on the LoHud Blog this week as part of their annual Pinch Hitter Series.

Sometimes I wonder if Brian Cashman woke up one morning and decided he just didn't care what you thought about him anymore.

In an offseason where Cliff Lee dissed him, ownership undercut him, and Andy Pettitte Brett Favre'd him, Cashman has remained unflappable, disconnected even. Some in his position would've developed a facial tick from the stress by now. Cashman? He dresses up like an elf and shimmies down a building. He serves pints of Guinness in a Corey Haim wig. He makes half-hearted contract offers to Carl Pavano just to see if the internet can explode from snark.

It reminds me of Office Space, when the restless and disgruntled Peter Gibbons decides the way to escape the monotony of his droll life is to revolt against the system that shackles him. He accomplishes this by barely showing up for work, defying his superiors, and occasionally gutting a trout in his cubicle. In the movie, Peter's blunt insubordination is rewarded with a promotion by corporate lunkheads who mistake his disobedience for leadership.

Could Cashman be banking on the same result?

If Cashman is restless, perhaps it's understandable. The 43-year-old has been the general manager of the Yankees for 13 years. That's a long time to be a manager at The Gap, let alone a chief cabinet member for the most successful sports franchise in America. With The Boss gone and the organization in a controlled state of flux, Cashman — consciously or not — may be testing the limits of how entrenched he really is.

The job he's done in that time continues to be a lightning rod of debate in Yankee Universe. Supporters say he's a smart, hard-working executive whose earned the respect of colleagues around the game. Detractors believe he was simply along for the ride during the dynasty run, is a poor talent evaluator, and was directly responsible for the team's title drought last decade.

Wherever you stand, most will agree that no GM works under the same level of expectations. The Boss may be dead, but the Steinbrenner Doctrine — anything short of a championship is considered failure — lives on. Yes, Cashman is armed with the golden checkbook, but he also has the smallest margin of error. Call it a wash.

Cashman is entering the final year of his contract. During his 2005 renegotiation, he demanded, and received, the power to restructure the baseball operations. He said that the dueling factions in New York and Tampa needed to disappear, and they did. For a five-year stretch Cashman was El Hombre, every bit as vital to the Yankees enterprise as A-Rod, Jeter, or Sabathia.

That's what made the Rafael Soriano signing such an eye-opener. For the first time since he threatened to walk in '05, Cashman was publicly undermined on a key personnel decision. If Hal Steinbrenner has decided to take a more active role, is there room for both men atop the food chain?

It all makes for great theater as the 2011 season unfolds. By this time next year, we'll likely know the true alpha dog when it comes to the construction of the Yankees.

(Cut to Hank in his shadowy lair, cigarette dangling, bourbon in hand, black cat on lap: "That's what you think.")

Gulp.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Alex Rodriguez: All-Star. Popcorn Aficionado. Accidental Genius.

2011-02-09T02:02:00.010-05:00

I've come to realize that the things that entertain me don't always jibe with the things that entertain the American public.

For example, Glee drew 26.8 million viewers for its post-Super Bowl special on Sunday night. The Nielsen Co. tells us that people love the show, yet the only way I'd watch Glee is if I was strapped into one of those torture chairs that had the metal tongs that hold your eyelids open.

Meanwhile, later that night I had no problem giving up two hours of my life to watch Disclosure, the tepid sexual-harassment-with-a-twist 1994 office drama starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Disclosure's combination of Douglas' ferocious mullet, Moore's post-boob job sex appeal, and the outstanding use of cutting edge fiber optic technology (Electronic mail! Dial-up video chats!) gets me every time.

Which leads me to Alex Rodriguez, naturally.

As you probably know, 111 million Super Bowl XLV viewers witnessed Cameron Diaz feed the Yankees third baseman popcorn on Sunday. This angered many people for the simple fact that many people deeply dislike Alex Rodriguez.

I'm guessing the groans that emitted from house parties across the country could be heard from outer space. My voice was not among the chorus, however. My reaction was one of instant jubilation, my hands shooting skyward like Aaron Boone after making contact with a flat knuckle ball.

You have to understand, A-Rod has become my bastion for unintentional comedy. I believe the man's an accidental genius of the modern media. It took time for me to warm up to him — things were a bit loosey-goosey for awhile there — but now I honestly couldn't imagine a world without him.

You remember the old cartoon Mr. Magoo, featuring the titular hero as a blind (senile? incontinent?) elderly gentleman who stumbled into one mess after another without ever knowing the madness he left in his wake?

That's A-Rod.

I've come to appreciate how effortlessly he causes a scene. Most public figures who thrive on controversy — your Kanye Wests, Bill O'Reillys, Dustin Diamonds, et al. — do so by manufacturing a shtick that keeps people talking. Their currency is relevance at the water cooler.

Rodriguez stays in the conversation without even trying. He somehow manages to be both painfully self-aware and completely aloof at all times. Whether it's giving friendship-busting Esquire interviews, being unable to choose a nationality for the World Baseball Classic, spooking infielders with loud noises, dating muscular strippers (that includes Madonna), celebrating World Series wins by exclaiming "Now we're gonna party!" you name it ... the kid stays in the picture.

Sunday he did it again. On the biggest sports day of the year, A-Rod became a national talking point without being anywhere near the playing field. His legion of detractors were reminded why they loathe him, and all he had to do was be fed a snack by a beautiful, hugely famous celebrity worth tens of millions of dollars.

Like I said, the man's a genius.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

To understand Yankee rotation woes, start at the roots

2011-02-07T03:32:00.008-05:00

If you're looking for a scapegoat as you stare at the Yankees' funny-if-it-wasn't-so-sad starting rotation, you might as well go with Joba Chamberlain. The man's already a human punching bag at this point, so I doubt he'll mind.

Had Chamberlain developed as the team expected, the departure of Andy Pettitte wouldn't feel like such a cataclysmic event. In an ideal world, the Yankees would have entered 2011 with Chamberlain and Hughes already entrenched as established talents to pair with CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. The only issue — other than getting Burnett back on the grid, of course — would be finding a fifth starter, a problem they'd share with approximately 85 percent of the teams in baseball.

Hughes has held up his end of the bargain, an 18-game winner in 2010 who appears on his way to a productive career. But Chamberlain's struggles have become emblematic of the organization's failure as a whole when it comes to developing starting rotation talent.

Think about it. Between the time Pettitte arrived on the scene in 1995 and now, how many productive starters has the minor league system churned out besides Hughes?

(I'll give you a minute ... or two ... or three.)

Here's what I came up with:

Ted Lilly was a young lefty with talent dealt away in exchange for Jeff Weaver in 2002. (Obviously, an awesome decision.)

Chien-Ming Wang wasn't exactly homegrown (he was an amateur free-agent signing in 2000), but he developed into a legitimate front-line starter before injuries derailed his career and wiped out the team's Taiwanese fanbase.

Chase Wright was pretty great, if you define great as an ability to give up four-consecutive homers at Fenway Park then drop off the face of the planet like Ray Finkle.

Ian Kennedy was a promising right-hander with attitude issues who was shipped out of town as part of the Curtis Granderson deal.

And then there's this sobering bit of perspective: My buddy Howie pointed out that when Hughes won his sixth career game, he set the club record for victories by a first-round pick.

How is that possible?

As history and World Series flags indicate, this obviously hasn't hurt the franchise all that much. But the business of the game has changed in recent years. Teams now put a far greater emphasis on homegrown pitching talent, and they're less apt to let a young ace get to the open market. Ten years ago, the Yankees would have been licking their chops as Felix Hernandez entered his walk season. Now they'd probably have to give up Jesus Montero, Granderson and a Derek Jeter DNA sample just to get the Mariners in the same room.

The fact that the Yankees were able to get their hands on Sabathia was an anomaly in that respect. And the whiff on Cliff Lee hurts double since those opportunities simply don't come around as often as they once did.

This isn't to say the Yankees have no way of acquiring premium pitching from an outside source, but we're learning you'll probably have to pay outrageously for it. Remember when the Yankees acquired David Cone from the Blue Jays for a bag of baseballs and a signed Alanis Morissette CD? Those days are over.

The Yankees seem to have 400 catchers ready for the Bronx, but it's unclear what kind of pitching talent they have in the pipeline. Potential No. 5 starter Ivan Nova is a mid-level prospect at best. Andrew Brackman, their 2007 first-round pick, is 25 and yet to make any impact. Manuel Banuelos and Dellin Betances are raw prospects with potential, but neither are likely to make a big-league contribution until 2012 at the earliest.

So why haven't the Yankees been able to develop their own starting pitching ... and what needs to be done to change that? These are questions best directed toward Damon Oppenheimer and Mark Newman, the brains behind the Yankees' draft and farm strategies.

Whoever is in charge, it needs to be fixed, or the Yankees are about to become dinosaurs in more ways than one.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Core no more: Andy Pettitte calls it a career

2011-02-04T12:57:00.012-05:00

If you're like me, watching Andy Pettitte sitting in front of the media to announce his retirement on Friday had the effect of your mind blowing out of the back of your skull.

Part of me will always see Pettitte and think of the 24-year-old kid who helped return the franchise to glory back in 1996. I'm 30 years old, which makes Pettitte the first great Yankee that I feel like I saw all the way through.

I grew up idolizing Don Mattingly, but he was already in his late-twenties and an established star by the time I truly started following baseball. With Pettitte, it was different. He entered the farm system in 1991, right around the time my parents got me a subscription to the team-published Yankees Magazine for Christmas.

I remember sifting through a relentless number of ads from Nobody Beats the Wiz, Citibank, and Hitachi to read about the prospects in the system, among them a left-hander who was dominating the minor leagues the way the franchise thought Brien Taylor would.

By the time Pettitte reached the Yankees in '95, he had run up an impressive 51-22 mark in various levels of the system. Pettitte knew how to win even when he didn't know what he was doing yet. He won 21 games in his first full season in 1996, and had he never played another year, he had already created a legacy with his unforgettable 8 1/3-inning performance in Game 5 of the World Series against the Braves.

Pettitte compiled some impressive numbers over 16 seasons, statistics worthy of Cooperstown consideration. He retires at 240-138 with a 3.88 ERA over 3,055.1 innings. He won 14 or more games 12 times and never posted a losing season. He has a Major League-record 19 victories in the postseason, including six wins in clinching scenarios, also a record. He owns five World Series rings, the most for a Yankee starter since Whitey Ford.

It's easy to forget parts of Pettitte's career that don't fit True Yankee™ criteria. He authored one of the worst starts in Yankees postseason history in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series. He left town for three years to pitch for the Houston Astros. And there was the HGH admission in 2007, a black mark that may ultimately keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

But we never held any of Pettitte's faults against him, mainly because he took ownership of his mistakes. He made no excuses following his disaster in Arizona, even as we learned he had been inadvertently tipping his pitches. He left for Houston in 2004 to be closer to his family, and his respectful exit from New York left the door open for his return three years later.

As for the PED admission? Pettitte provided the template for which all busted users should follow. Own up to it, explain why you did it ... and move on. His buddy Roger should have taken notes.

Pettitte said on Friday that Cliff Lee's decision to sign with the Phillies made him feel like he had "an obligation" to come back. Ultimately, he decided his time had come, however, and you have to respect a guy who retires one year too soon rather than one year too late.

Pettitte heads off into the sunset, reducing the Core Four to the decidedly less-catchy Core Three. Jorge Posada will probably be next to go, and maybe now he'll finally begin to receive the level of admiration he deserves. Pettitte's importance to the team has always been understood, which is why his exit already has fans trying to figure out what it means for the 2011 Yankees.

Not here, though. Today is all about No. 46, a player who always made following the Yankees better. I'm proud to say I got to see him all the way through.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Yankees hope quantity begets quality in back-end rotation hunt

2011-02-02T02:28:00.007-05:00

The Yankees agreed to terms with Freddy Garcia on Tuesday, the latest in a succession of bargain basement signings of once-great pitchers rendered ordinary (or worse) by age, injuries — or in the case of Bartolo Colon — the soft late-night glow of the refrigerator.

This strategy was last employed with success by the 1989 Cleveland Indians, which would be cause for encouragement if it didn't occur in the fictional world of the movie Major League.

(Seriously, this is the only example I can think of where this strategy was effective.)

Signing ostensibly "over-the-hill" players with the hope of a return to form is a very un-Yankee like move. These are the types of transactions usually reserved for luxury tax-pocketing bottom-feeders of baseball. Witnessing the Evil Empire pulling the same routine is jarring to say the least.

It gives you an idea of how thin the pitching market really is this offseason. As long as Andy Pettitte keeps up his Brett Favre routine, Brian Cashman has little choice but to throw crap against the wall and hope something sticks.

The Yankees had a similar dearth in rotation depth back in 2005 only to be miraculously bailed out by Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon, two men now remembered as one-hit wonders on the level of Hoobastank.

Cashman is hoping to catch lightning in a bottle again this season. If Pettitte stays gone, Garcia, Colon, Mark Prior, Sergio Mitre and Ivan Nova will all get their shot to claim the final two spots in the rotation.

There's no hiding that this is a huge gamble for the Yankees. This is a potentially season-wrecking problem for which there's no easy solution. If none of the pitchers prove up to the task — and let's face it, that's certainly possible — the Yankees will be staring down the barrel of a dark October.

They're going to need some luck. Like with Prior and Colon, the Garcia signing is an admission of that on some level. Cashman knows he doesn't have any ideal fits, but the more pitchers he involves in the process the better his odds that he hits on another Chacon or Small.

It's the same story, different day for the Yankees, who continue their scramble to create a rotation while simultaneously praying Pettitte decides Deer Park can wait another year.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

Posada shares his thoughts about shifting role, we translate

2011-01-31T01:48:00.008-05:00

Is anybody else convinced that Jorge Posada is not-so on board with this full-time DH thing?

Po's been the Yankees' resident lovable curmudgeon for 15 years. He's not exactly the personality type that embraces change. And nothing good can come from change when you're a 39-year-old catcher.

I wouldn't be surprised if Clint Eastwood modeled his character in Gran Torino after the salty Yankees veteran. Walt Kowalski was a gruff, stubborn old man who wouldn't hesitate to shoot you with a rifle if you messed with him or his car. The same probably applies to Posada and his catching position.

(That ringing you hear is Jesus Montero calling Brian Cashman to make sure he's staying in the minors in 2011.)

Posada spoke about the shift to DH for the first time on Sunday night at a Bernie Williams event where I presume the former center fielder busted out some soccer mom-approved guitar licks.

God love him, Po tried so hard to be the good soldier during his brief media chat, but what he said definitely didn't sound like what he meant. Luckily, River & Sunset has the gift for decoding jock speak.

All initial quotes come via the Daily News.

What Georgie said:

“I can’t complain. I always like to catch, I’m used to catching, but if they want me to DH to help out the team, you have to do that. It is what it is. I look forward to everything I do. I try to help out the team, and if that’s going to help out the team and that’s what they want, I’m OK with it.”

What Georgie meant:

"I can't complain. Literally, I can't complain. I'm a 39-year-old professional baseball player. Have you noticed what GMs think of guys my age now? We're dinosaurs staring down a fiery meteor. I'm used to catching, because I'm a man, and men don't DH. Jose Canseco is a DH. Jorge Posada is a man. I'm not OK with it."

What Georgie said:

“I’ll catch. I’ll catch. I’ll catch this year. I’ll DH and then they’re going to want me to catch one of those days. I’m keeping an open mind. I would love to catch. I’m training like I always do, and if I have to catch, I’ll catch.”

What Georgie meant:

"I'll catch. I'll catch. I'll catch this year. If I have to do Girardi's laundry, cook his lunch, pay his orthodontist bill, I'll do it. I'll do anything, you hear me? I'm keeping an open mind, and by "open mind", I mean a closed mind. I'm training like I always do, but that's mostly because I have to stay cut up for Laura, my insanely hot wife. I'll catch. I'll catch. I'll catch. I'll catch. I'll catch."

What Georgie said:

“Derek’s a shortstop and Derek’s not going to move to another position. He hasn’t even started playing this year and you’re talking about four years from now. You can’t see the future.”

What Georgie meant:

"Have you seen Jeter's new house? They're calling it Jetropolis. Well, no they're not, but I am. The place is insane. You can mark my words: If he invites me, I'll never leave. I'll show up with Laura and the kids and we'll just bunker down like Cousin Eddie from the Vacation movies. The place is so big he won't even know we're there. ... (deep sigh) ... But seriously, I don't want to be the DH."

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.

YES please: Cone to make return, Tino to kill a guy with trident

2011-01-27T02:49:00.006-05:00

One of the aspects of Yankees fandom that I'd like to delve into more in 2011 is the media coverage of the team, particularly on the television end.

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn into a crusty old curmudgeon like Phil Mushnick, yelling at Al Leiter to stop leaving bags of poop on my front porch. At least not yet.

The telecast is the filter by which most fans not attending the games experience the Yankees, and seeing how I enjoy making inappropriate inferences about both Ken Singleton's hairline and Kim Jones' personal life, I think it's time to bring these thoughts to a public forum.

Today, we'll take a look at some recent news out of the YES broadcast booth.

We learned from Joel Sherman on Tuesday that David Cone has either agreed or is in talks to return to YES for 25 games this season. Cone, if you recall, provided smart and candid analysis for the network from 2008-09. Perhaps too smart and candid it turned out, as his exit was tied to organizational discontent with opinions deemed to be too negative at times.

Let's try to glance over the disconcerting nature of that reality for a second, and instead celebrate the dual good news of Yankee brass coming to its senses as well as Cone's return likely coming at the expense of his overmatched replacement, Tino Martinez.

As a Donnie Baseball disciple, Tino will always hold an undeserved black place in my heart. But just to be clear here, said darkened valve has nothing to do with my satisfaction about his presumed ouster. That's actually more on account of Martinez having the on-camera savvy of Brick from Anchorman. "I don't know what we're yelling about!"

Anyway, I'm excited that Cone will be back. I quite like Michael Kay as play-by-play man, but Singleton is a bit dry and John Flaherty can be annoying with the incessant references to his middling playing career. Hey Flash, no offense, but you weren't Carlton Fisk.

Lastly, say this for Cone: Not many guys can have a "Sex scandals" sub-section in their Wikipedia profile and still come off as an affable and decent human being. Not bad, Coney. Not bad at all.

If you have thoughts on the YES guys or even the 400-year-old invincible behemoth of the transistor radio they call John Sterling, please share your feelings in the comment section or at riverandsunset@gmail.com.

Stray observations...

I'm not sure if the Yankees have thought this far ahead, but putting the beefy Bartolo Colon on the same team as fellow trans-fat enthusiast Andruw Jones probably isn't the best idea. This would be like asking a recovering coke addict to live in the studio with Oasis during the recording of Be Here Now. You're just begging for a relapse.

I'm starting to wonder if Brian Cashman is in the midst of some kind of WWF heel turn. First, he takes a few cheap shots at Derek Jeter during the shortstop's contract negotiations. Then he gets all passive-aggressive to the media regarding management at the Rafael Soriano press conference. Now he's tweaking the captain again, unnecessarily speculating the battle plan for booting Jeter from shortstop at a WFAN breakfast event. If this ends with Cashman super-kicking Hal Steinbrenner through the barber shop window I'm going to be very excited.

Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez are teammates again, having signed on with the Rays to entertain the dozens of die-hards in attendance at Tropicana Field in 2011. I was surprised the Yankees didn't take a closer look at Ramirez, until I remembered a) he's an aging doofus of a human and b) he might make Marcus Thames look like Ichiro in the outfield.

Some baseball people apparently still believe Andy Pettitte will pitch for the Yankees this season. "Why would he be working out if he's not playing?" I'm conflicted since I already purchased my official Mark Prior jersey.

Derek Jeter was reportedly working out in a batting cage on Wednesday. This may be the least newsworthy item of information you will ever come across.

Well, besides this. I'm telling you, Hank is going to bring down the Yankees. I'm thinking it will be a power-of-attorney type snafu, like how Paulie lost Stallone's fortune in Rocky V. Man, that movie sucked.

Dan Hanzus writes three columns a week on his New York Yankees site, River & Sunset. He can be reached at dhanzus@gmail.com. Follow Dan on Twitter @danhanzus.