IT'S A NEW LOW; NOW CAN WE
fire Joe. He doesn't know how to play small ball anymore, but he knows how to be victimized.
The giants stole 5 bases, scored on a squeeze (which the Yankees seem to think is beneath them) and benefited from an error on Nieves. Since the latter nonentity may be the single worst offensive player in the league, his performance with the glove today really begs the question, what the fuck is he still doing on the team. Mussina turns in a Jared Wright-like performance, 5 mediocre innings, further straining the bullpen. And with the game effectively over anyway, the big F... commtted the baseball equivalent of shitting his pants in public--he gave up three runs without getting through a full inning.
A 7-2 loss to drop the series to one of the worst teams in baseball, after getting swept by another weak team. This is worse than anything that happened before the winning streak, not least because they have pissed away most everything they gained in the streak. They are once again a laughingstock and not just in chowderheadnation. This season is now almost half over (73 games) and they are still under 500, probably the most talented team to be this bad in the modern era.
What is to be done, Tolstoy might ask were he a Yankee fan, other than satisfying the desire for a purge by releasing the incompetent GM/manager team. So far as salvaging this season is concerned, the strategies for doing so now have all the credibility of strategies for salvaging victory in Iraq. They are comparatively easy to formulate and all but impossible to believe in. The one thing I would suggest on this score: instead of simply firing slow Joe, make it clear to the players, who always profess their love and respect for him, that they are costing him the job. Win 20 of their next 25 or he's gone and I'll bring in someone whose only task will be to make your lives miserable for the remainder of the season.
If on the other hand, George is prepared to face reality and give up on the season, he should really try to get rid of some of these players for prospects, beginning with AROD, whose market value has never been higher. I know he has a no trade, but I'm sure he is sick of being a career long loser and there are teams in the national league, like the Padres, who would likely be playing in the world series if they acquired him.
What George should know is that his fan base now requires some dramatic move on his part, if only to make it clear that he feels as aggrieved as they do with a management team, a line-up, a a bullpen and a bench that have gone beyond disappointing all reasonable expectations to disgracing the uniform they wear and the legacy carry forward.
The giants stole 5 bases, scored on a squeeze (which the Yankees seem to think is beneath them) and benefited from an error on Nieves. Since the latter nonentity may be the single worst offensive player in the league, his performance with the glove today really begs the question, what the fuck is he still doing on the team. Mussina turns in a Jared Wright-like performance, 5 mediocre innings, further straining the bullpen. And with the game effectively over anyway, the big F... commtted the baseball equivalent of shitting his pants in public--he gave up three runs without getting through a full inning.
A 7-2 loss to drop the series to one of the worst teams in baseball, after getting swept by another weak team. This is worse than anything that happened before the winning streak, not least because they have pissed away most everything they gained in the streak. They are once again a laughingstock and not just in chowderheadnation. This season is now almost half over (73 games) and they are still under 500, probably the most talented team to be this bad in the modern era.
What is to be done, Tolstoy might ask were he a Yankee fan, other than satisfying the desire for a purge by releasing the incompetent GM/manager team. So far as salvaging this season is concerned, the strategies for doing so now have all the credibility of strategies for salvaging victory in Iraq. They are comparatively easy to formulate and all but impossible to believe in. The one thing I would suggest on this score: instead of simply firing slow Joe, make it clear to the players, who always profess their love and respect for him, that they are costing him the job. Win 20 of their next 25 or he's gone and I'll bring in someone whose only task will be to make your lives miserable for the remainder of the season.
If on the other hand, George is prepared to face reality and give up on the season, he should really try to get rid of some of these players for prospects, beginning with AROD, whose market value has never been higher. I know he has a no trade, but I'm sure he is sick of being a career long loser and there are teams in the national league, like the Padres, who would likely be playing in the world series if they acquired him.
What George should know is that his fan base now requires some dramatic move on his part, if only to make it clear that he feels as aggrieved as they do with a management team, a line-up, a a bullpen and a bench that have gone beyond disappointing all reasonable expectations to disgracing the uniform they wear and the legacy carry forward.
posted by joe valente | 6:29 PM
2 Comments:
I am convinced. Whatever hope the team engendered with the win streak has been crushed by this road trip. Bring in Joe Girardi and be done with it. He may not be the answer, but this team needs a shake-up and that is the only way to do it. He certainly knows how to scratch for runs, and that is a good beginning.
Interesting take on A-Rod, Joe. True, his value is at a peak right now, but why give up on him just when it seems he has finally become the player we expected all along?
-- MUNSON
I take your point, but I don't see myself giving up on him. Indeed, trading AROD at this point isn't a comment on AROD at all. It's just that with Boras, he is likely to opt out after this season is over, and while I would keep him to win this year and deal with that when the time comes, it is now pretty clear that they can't win this year. And I'm doubtful about next. If they can purchase a brighter future by trading him, I think that's what they have to do. If they can't get true value though, they shouldn't do it.
Now I'll say something truly heretical: if they can get value for Rivera, I would trade him as well. I doubt he has more than a year or two left at an elite level, if that, and I don't think the yanks will be an elite team for the next year or two. More importantly, I don't think they can stay with the same strategy of trying to scrape together an old, deeply flawed team that can still make the playoffs. They've been doing that for 5 years now and they haven't made anyone happy--except the Red Sox.
It's time to rebuild. Revenue sharing, luxury taxes, and free agency have combined to make the model that got the Yanks to the series 14 years out of 16-from 1949-1964-utterly impossible. You can get to the playoffs every year without winning, like the Braves and noe the Yanks, but I'd rather win it all once in 5 years, get a pennant once, and finish in last the other three than make the playoffs every year and bow out in the first round. The wild card has only served to debase the accomplishment of playing in October. Now more than ever it's win a ring, at least a league ring, or nothing.
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