Season Of Discontent

Maybe it's Winter, Maybe it's Summer
It's winter down here as the summer baseball season progresses in the Northern hemispehere. The Yankees squeezed out a 9-8 win against the Texas Rangers Yesterday. Captain 'Clutch' Jeter hit a game breaking solo homer, though an 8-8 tie at the bottom of the 8th indicates that the game was somewhat broken by then. Anyway, I'll take that homer.
After I posted up my Yankee grumblings I noticed that Larry Mahnken at the 'Replaement Level Yankee Weblog' had posted up the following:

Let's not call 5½ games back the end of contention. It's not. 5½ games can be made up, it can be made up quickly. It's not over.

But this team has lost games it shouldn't have lost. They lost 2 of 3 to the White Sox, which may sound acceptable. But the Yankees faced the soft underbelly of the White Sox rotation, and gave up 2 runs in each of the three games. But they managed to score only 1 run in the last two games. This lineup, the best in baseball, could only scratch 2 runs.

That's pathetic, that's inexcusable.

The Yankees have lost games they had no business losing since coming out of Boston in a practical tie for first. They blew a game in Texas when Joe Torre left Wayne Franklin (career ERA 5.49 in over 300 innings) in the game with the tying run on third base. Result: home run, Yankees lose. They blew a game when Randy Johnson had to leave early leading 5-2, so Torre brought in Scott Proctor and Buddy Groom -- result: bases loaded, 1 out. Tom Gordon comes in and gives up a Grand Slam to Vlad, Yankees lose. If Torre was willing to use Gordon in the seventh, he should have used Gordon to start the seventh. Stop futzing around.

But even if they'd won those games, they'd still be in trouble. Chien-Ming Wang is likely done for the season, as is Kevin Brown, as is Carl Pavano. Randy Johnson is going to miss at least one start. Their rotation is now Mike Mussina, Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small, Al Leiter, and mystery meat.

They might not have enough offense to overcome that -- and when you're starting Tony Womack in right field, you probably don't. This is their own fault, of course, they should have seen this coming when they signed Womack and Wright, when they traded for a 41-year-old pitcher, when they decided in the offseason that Bernie Williams was OK in center. This is entirely their own fault.

But that doesn't make it any easier. I don't want to say, "I told you so." I want to say, "Woohoo! World Champions!" I criticize, but only because I'm a small man attempting to compensate for my deficiencies in the size of my genitalia. What I really want is for the Yankees to win.

It doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Of course Larry Mahnken declares he's a pessimist on his site, so there's no big surprise there. The funniest moment this season on his weblog was when Larry organised a public petition to be sent to the Yankee Brass demanding that Womack be DFA-ed outright on account of his utter uselessness. On-ya, Larry! Needless to say I signed.
Then, I find Mr. Goldman at the Pinstriped Bible saying:

THE WORLD AIN'T SLOWING DOWN FOR NO ONE
The Paths of Glory travel through Oakland. While the Yankees have been idling along, winning one, losing one, the Red Sox have been winning consistently, running out the clock. The Yankees are 4 1/2 games out, with six games between the two. Despite the opportunities presented by those contests, it's not going to be easy; assuming the Red Sox maintain their current winning percentage over the rest of the schedule, they would finish with a record of 93-69. For the Yankees to beat the Red Sox by one game, they would need to go 34-17, a .667 pace. This is equivalent to a 109-win pace over a full season. It's possible, but not likely, that the Yankees can get this hot, not with the many flaws the Yankees have. Tony Womack is playing center field. Tanyon Sturtze is still not himself, or more frighteningly, he's back to being himself after a yearlong holiday from futility.

That leaves New York looking to its second chance at entry, the wild card, which is a problem. The Oakland A's are the biggest (non-steroid) story of the baseball season, and they stand between the Yankees and October. The A's went 12-12 in April, then were left for dead after going 7-20 (.259) in May. The "Moneyball" doubters all came crawling back out of the woodwork. The A's showed patience, though, resisting calls for them to trade the few veterans on the team, especially Barry Zito and Mark Kotsay. In June the A's rebounded to 19-8 and went 20-6 in July. They show no signs of stopping, going 6-2 with a 2.76 team ERA in August. Since their month of doubt and pain the A's have won 45 games and lost 16. That's .738 baseball. As a point of comparison, from June 1 through August 3, 1927, the Yankees went 45-15 (.750). This is the baseball equivalent of coming back after going towards the light.

At this writing, the A's have risen from Davy Beane's locker to the top of the division, tying the Los Angeles of Erewhon Angels for the American League West lead. At the moment, then, the Yankees trail two teams for the wild card, lagging behind both California contenders by four games. However, the A's and Angels have a great many meetings left. The two teams will meet another nine times before the end of the season, including the remainder of the series presently going on in Oakland. Presuming one beats the other decisively in those nine contests — and momentum and pitching depth mean the smart money is going with the A's — there might be a chance for the Yankees to slip into the postseason by stepping over Mike Scioscia's body.

The lesson of the A's revival is threefold:

(1) Cultivate minor league depth.
(2) Cultivate minor league depth.
(3) Cultivate minor league depth.

The corollary to Nos. 1-3 is:
(a) Believe in your minor leaguers.

A few weeks ago, I asked David Justice if he was surprised that his Braves were succeeding with so many rookies in the lineup. "Nooooo. Doesn't surprise me at all," he said. "The Braves are maybe the best at drafting and developing young players and getting them to the big leagues. Once the Braves draft 'em, they train 'em." Justice was then asked what lesson the Yankees could learn from the Braves. Justice answered matter of factly: "Maybe that it's okay to bring those guys that are ready to play to the big leagues."

This is the same lesson that the Yankees can derive from the A's completed turnaround — "completed" as in "U-Turn" — versus what the Yankees have done, which is to move in the general direction of a turnaround without decisively reversing themselves in the manner of a rower with only one oar. The Yankees were never as bad as the A's were in May, but they've never been as good either.

The key here is that Billy Beane and the A's, apparently unhampered by ownership, have been free to trust their minor league statistics and scouting reports. The A's thought 24-year-old Joe Blanton was ready for the majors. Because of this, they were not shaken by his 0-3, 13.25 May. Nick Swisher batted .212 through the end of May. The A's didn't trade for Marquis Grissom or some other more established but diminished vet. They waited. In June, Swisher hit a respectable .266/.324/.489. In July he batted .278/.364/.588, and through the first week of August has hit .368/.520/.632. The A's would not have gotten to see him blossom had they not waited. When Erubiel Durazo went down, Dan Johnson, a strangely unhyped power-hitting first baseman, was called up from Triple-A Sacramento. He struggled upon reaching the majors, not hitting his first home run until his 22nd game. The A's stuck with him. Johnson is now batting .326/.410/.554 with 10 home runs and has been a major force behind the team's historic run. The Oakland staff has patience and the faith to believe what they see. This patience bought them time to overcome early injuries and uncharacteristic slow starts by veterans like Eric Chavez.

This is not true for the Yankees, who would always rather Enrique Womack themselves to death than try to work with an unproven player. Robinson Cano was a rare exception, while Chien-Ming Wang, no matter how well he pitched, was ticketed for the bullpen or the minors until every other starting pitcher caught the Plague.

Mr. G then goes on to dissect how badly the Yankees drafted in previous years. It seems to me that while Minor League depth has been a huge problem; but as Mr. G notes, it's also been true that the utter lack of faith in their own minor leaguers has been equally ridiculous. The positives I'm drawing out of this season are simply that they managed to get Robinson Cano and Chine-Ming Wang playing regularly, and contributing. They even tried out Melky Cabrera, which didn't quite work out; but they can still try Kevin Thompson down in AAA Clippers. Why they haven't yet, and why Tony Womack is in the outfield mix boggles the mind.


In the absence of solid pitching, the Yankees are committed to playing what Brian Cashman calls 'Caveman Baseball' where the offense must bludgeon the opponents into submission. Hideki Matsui hit his 18th homer last night so at least he's on the right track. .