Stitzer's Take: The Bronx Bombers, a Look Back & Ahead

Stitzer's anticipated Yankee column is here. I think it is well written and pretty on point, although my preference would have bee to see a bt more emotion and dagger throwing, perhaps the day after they bowed out. But, alas, cooler heads have prevailed.
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It is funny to me how the Media is once again focusing on the Yankees “collapse.” The 97-win Yankees lost 3 out of 4 to a team that won 95 games, and had been the best team in baseball through 75% of the season. Where are the stories about the Twins collapse? The 96-win Twins were SWEPT by a team that won only 93 games. The 88-win Padres lost 3 out of 4 to the 83-win Cardinals – 83 WINS MADE THE PLAYOFFS!! Who are these people that love the 3-division/8-team post-season? It is bad enough 48% of the population has this “reward mediocrity” attitude when it comes to politics, but to ruin the sacred sport that is baseball is preposterous.

It does not matter how much you pay someone; their skills are what they are. You think that Randy Johnson should pitch like the Johnson in his prime because you are paying him $16MM a season? If that were the case, how do you explain CM Wang winning 19 games with his $350K salary? Shouldn’t Johnson out-produce Wang by over a 40:1 ratio? The purpose of this column is to analyze what went wrong with the 2006 Yankees, and to lend an opinion to what needs to be done to tweak this team for 2007.

Right off the bat, with all things being equal, having to go through 3 rounds of playoffs gives all 8 teams a 12.5% chance to win the Series. And, with the ridiculous amount of off-days in the post-season, all things are equal as the #5 & sometimes the #4 starters do not get to pitch – that can put a 90-win team on par with a 100-win team in a hurry. The Yankees unprecedented run of reaching the post-season 12 straight years should have produced 1.5 titles – it produced 4. Part of the recent 6-year drought is the law of averages. Plus, people have short memories. The 1996 Yankees were huge underdogs vs. the Braves (and would have been vs. Cleveland in the ALCS had the O’s not upset them). The 2000 Yankees only won 87 games. Those 2 years, the Yankees were not favorites to win, and yet they won. Look at the Braves – after 14 straight division titles, they have only 1 ring to show for it – AND they were favored to come out of the NL in many of those seasons. When I look at 4 titles in 12 years, with this data, I realize how lucky the Yankees are to have won 4 times – twice as much as any other team during that time span.

The #1 reason why the Bombers are playing golf is the decline of the starting rotation. Everyone can romanticize about the Tinos, O’Neils, Brosiuses, etc…being gone because those were the guys who were “clutch.” But in order to be clutch, your pitching has to keep you in games. The hitting has been to blame as well, and we’ll get to that, but by far, the decline of the caliber of the starting rotation is the main culprit. You do not even have to go back to 2000, the last year the Yankees won to see this decline; you only have to go back to 2003, the last year they won the pennant, to see the vast difference. 2003 staff: Clemens (17-9 3.91); Pettitte (21-8 4.02); Mussina (17-8 3.40); Wells (15-7 4.14) and Jeff Weaver (7-9 5.99). Weaver is the poster boy for just how superior the AL is to the NL as he is now a front-line NL starter. 2006: Wang (19-6 3.63); Mussina (15-7 3.51); Johnson (17-11 5.00) Jaret Wright (11-7 4.49); a myriad of failures in the #5 spot (RIP Corey Lidle, kids never deserves to lose their father). The thing that sticks out my mind is this: with the season on the line in 2003, Andy Pettitte started game 6 of the World Series. With the season on the line in 2006, Jaret Wright started game 4 of the 1st round. How did this Staff decline so quickly? 1) Trading Ted Lily for Jeff Weaver – this 2002 trade was the equivalent of Archduke Ferdinand being assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914 – things just snowballed from there. Weaver was the same age as Lily (26), and improved every year from 1999-2002. His ERA was 3.18 pitching with zero pressure on the pathetic Tigers (how ironic is that?). Since that trade, his ERA is well over 5.00 – with most of that time spent in the NL, where an ERA of 5.00 is the AL equivalent of 14.87. 2) Giving up too soon on Jose Contreras and trading him for Esteban Loaiza. 3) the Kevin Brown debacle – Weaver could have sucked as bad as Brown, and giving away Yhency Brazoban, who was great in 2004 out of the LA bullpen, was a horrible trade – think maybe he could have lightened Tom Gordon’s load in 2004 & 2005? 4) The ridiculous trade of Javy Vazquez & Brad Halsey for the shell of his former self Randy Johnson – just a horrible future killing trade. 5) The awful Carl Pavano signing. How to fix the Staff? 1) Give young prospect Phillip Hughes a chance to join the rotation out of Spring Training; there is no doubt this youngster will be called up by June when one of the geezers gets hurt, so why not let him start the year in the rotation? 2) Do NOT sign Barry Zito – he is overrated and past his prime. He racks up wins against the bad teams – see his 8.00+ ERA vs. the Yankees since 2004. 3) Trade or sign a legitimate #1 starter. Plenty of hitting that can be dealt – although any team that trades pitching for hitting is foolish, but there are plenty of dumb GM’s out there. 4) Count on Moose & Johnson to be the #4 & #5 starters – let the TBA #1, Wang, & Hughes be the anchors of the staff. Do not count on the way past their primes as any of your top 2 starters.

Bullpen fix: very simple – get a lefty to complement Proctor & Farnsworth’s as set-up guys. Villone is not the answer – he wore down too easily. Limit Mariano’s workload during regular season – even if it means Farnsworth is your closer 15-20 times. However, DO NOT ANNOUNCE “MO IS NOT AVAILABLE TONIGHT.” Just as the Don said to Santino “never let anybody outside the family know what you’re thinking.” When the Yankees do this it pisses me off as some CNN bimbo who gives away our troop movement to the enemy with traitorious words such as “the USS Bunker Hill is scheduled to sail from San Diego to the Persian Gulf…”

Catcher: Posada seemed to get better with age this season. He had a great defensive year and was the best offensive catcher in the AL after Joe Mauer. Hopefully his replacement for 2008 is being groomed on the farm. Sal Fasano is an ample back-up.

1st Base: Defensively, the team is screwed. Giambi has to play the field. While he is not as bad as people think, he is below average. Offensively, his .425+ OBP is hard to keep out of the lineup. Expect him to get some days off against LHP when either Craig Wilson or Andy Phillips.
2nd Base: Cano is the best 2nd sacker in the AL. He will win a few batting titles before all is said and done.

Shortstop: No Yankee will ever wear #2 after about 2012. I’ll take my sons to the game the day the # is retired and explain to them – that is how you play the game.

3rd Base: The best player in the AL needs to get his head of his rear-end in the field – 24 errors are unacceptable. Not getting runners in from 3rd with less than 2 outs is also unacceptable if it happens more than 25% - which it did in 2006. I would love to drive in 121 runs and have people boo me and say I had a bad year – the Yankee fans that boo him, to quote the Don again, “can never truly be Yankee fans.” If Cashman trades him, he best get back in their primes Steve Carlton & Jim Palmer. Getting a hit every now & then in October will also go along way to helping the 3rd baseman’s cause.

Left Field: Melky Cabrera, in my opinion, has earned the right to play every day in left field. He led all AL leftfielders in assists. He brings speed to the bottom of the lineup.

Center Field: Damon had a pretty good year. Would like to see him swing for the fences less, work counts, get on base more and run. By the end of next season, it may require 2 cut-off throws for him to get the ball in – his arm is that weak.

Right Field: Have to believe Sheffield will not be brought back. Abreu provided a real spark to this team, and despite what bitter Phillies fans think of him, he can play on my team any day. (Editor's note: As I have said in this space many times, Abreu is a great fit for the Yankees where he can blend in and not be THE guy. He was horrible in the role of supposed leader in Philadelphia, where his propensity for coming up small in big situations and lack of hustle were not a good fit for Alpha Dog status in a town that expects a blue collar work ethic)

DH: Hideki Godzilla Matsui. An average fielder at best, he needs to move to DH to let Melky play every day. A healthy Matsui should get on base 38% of the time and knock in 100+ runs.

Manager: Was very glad to see Torre retained – even with 6 ringless years, his post-season winning % is still above .600.

In conclusion, do you think that my take is everything is fine except the Starting Pitching? I thought so.