Baseball

So, I have no one to talk to about baseball and I really wanna go off on a tangent so here we go.  First off, I am a Yankee fan, I’m born and raised in New York, I’m allowed to. I’ve watched or listened on the radio to almost every game since I was 10 years old, I’m not a bandwagon fan.  I’m very disappointed in the Yankees so far this offseason.  First off, they should have at least given Chien-Ming Wang a 1 year deal, see how he is after his surgery.  Here you have a guy, who is still fairly young, who was the best pitcher in the American League arguably for 2 years.  If he can pitch at even 50% of his former self you have a good pitcher.  The Yankees only have three legitimate starters right now:  Sabathia, Burnett, and Pettitte.  Thank God we signed Pettitte, that would be such a loss.  Burnett can’t pitch well in pressure situations, and Pettitte doesn’t seem to pitch very well unless it is a pressure situation, he also is fortunate enough to get a very high run support.  Other than that, who do the Yankees have to start for them?  Chamberlain, in my opinion, should be back in the bullpen, he hasn’t shown any promise as a starter.  Being able to pitch 3 innings is not a starters job, that’s a relief pitchers job, if that’s all he’s capable of then keep him in the bullpen; because hey, our bullpen is depleted now thanks to us getting rid of Bruney and Coke already.  Then you have Hughes, a guy who has shown brief spurts of talent as a starter, most notably the no hitter he had goin in Texas when he injured himself a few years back.  He was amazing in the bullpen though, not so much in the postseason, he is a very question mark.  I’d rather see the year start out with Hughes as a starter than Chamberlain, in my dream scenario they’d both be relievers though.  Other than that you have two mediocre starters at best in Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre.  My dream scenario with them would be to have them in AAA or on another team, maybe get some young pitchers for them.  Then in the bullpen all we have is Damaso Marte who is inconsistent at best and the only sure thing, Mariano Rivera.  Actually, the other bright spot in that bullpen is David Robertson who shows alot of promise and I’d be very upset with the Yankees if they got rid of him.  So you have 3 starters, and 3 guys for sure will be in the bullpen (Marte, Robertson, Rivera) then you have the questions of Chamberlain and Hughes.  Alright, so the obvious thing for the Yankees to do this offseason is to get at least one solid starting pitcher and perhaps 2, even 3 legitimate relievers.  So, what have the Yankees done so far?  Well, they’ve gotten rid of pitching and gotten us a, by all means, great guy, in Curtis Granderson, not too big on getting on base sadly.  I don’t see the logic in giving up Phil Coke, Ian Kennedy and one of our top prospects Austin Jackson for this guy.  In my mind, if we needed any outfielders at all, which we don’t, Austin Jackson would have filled that role.  The Yankees don’t need help with hitting, we got that more than covered.  It is true we haven’t had a serious outfielder since Bernie Williams, but we do have enough hitting outfielders.  Johnny Damon was a blessing last season, one of the only consistent on-base guys on the team, even when everyone else was slumping, he also had a resurgence in power, thanks in no small part to our home run friendly new stadium.  You also have the great defense and speed of Melky Cabrera, sure he’s not the best hitter, but he’s gotten more selective, drawing more walks and his defense more than makes up for his lack of offense.  Next, we have Brett Gardner, one of the fastest men in baseball; again, he doesn’t get on base as much as we’d like, but the speed is value enough.  Speed and the threat of speed on the bases has shown time and time again to really mess with the opposing pitcher; ie balls thrown away in botched pick off moves, distraction to pitching and so on.  Nick Swisher is the other viable outfielder, again not a very good batting average, but high on base percentage, he has a great eye and draws alot of walks,  he also, for some reason, hits a good amount of home runs, just not at home.  So, that brings us to Granderson…yes, he has a great personality and will be good for our chemistry, but was the cost worth it?  We need pitching, thats really all we need, we gave up two pitchers for this guy, who to me, doesn’t seem like an upgrade over the options we have already.  I’ve heard he’s a great home run hitter to right field, so yeah, maybe he’ll get 30 home runs, but other than that will he get on base?  He’s got a horrible batting average against left handed pitching and every year all of his stats seem to trend downward.  We’ll have to see how it plays out with him being on a better team with more protection in the lineup, but so far I am not a fan of this move.  The next thing that really bothers me, and I’m not even sure if I’ll really be that into baseball next season is the Yankees letting Hideki Matsui go.  I’ve always been a huge fan of Matsui, even before he was on the Yankees.  The mere fact alone that, in my opinion, he’s our teams most clutch hitter (just look at him perform at Fenway or in the postseason) and the fact he basically won the World Series for us is enough to give the man a measly one year contract.  Why don’t the Yankees ever want to reward the people that have helped them the most?  It makes me sick; forget the whole “buying all their talent” bullshit; this is so much worse.  Letting Bernie Williams go was disgusting how they did it, then how they treated Joe Torre was just abhorrent.  This could be the final straw for me, the team shows an absolute lack of gratitude and appreciation to those that have helped them the most and it is completely unacceptable.  I can only wish Matsui the best and honestly I wouldn’t mind if he went off and whatever team he went on won the World Series next year.  Same for Wang, I hope he has a great season next year and have the Yankees throwin him a huge trade to try to get him back a few years down the line.  They probably won’t bring back Damon, they’ll offer him some pittance which he probably won’t and shouldn’t accept.  The Yankees need pitching, every offseason since probably 1998 I have said the same thing, the Yankees need pitching.  They do not need to throw away all their young talent and prospects on some old big name player who won’t do anything but ruin our chemistry.  Pitching, pitching, pitching.  I don’t want to hear of another move the Yankees make unless it is to bring on pitchers.  What good would getting Jason Bay or Matt Holliday do if we have no pitching?  If the Yankees have proven anything, it is that you can have the craziest offensive lineup ever assembled, but without pitching it is absolutely useless.  Pitching and defense win baseball games.  I really wanted the Yankees to get John Lackey (I’d always prefer the Yankees go after Free Agents rather than havin to trade away the farm for Halladay), sadly he is now unavailable thanks to the Red Sox signing him.  Thankfully Roy Halladay got traded to the Phillies, so now we dont have to worry about the Red Sox getting him or the Yankees trading away our entire future for him.  I’m not even sure who is left for the Yankees to go after, perhaps Ben Sheets and he is definitely not a sure thing at all.  He is old and coming off surgery.  It’s going to be a tough road for the Yankees if they don’t find a starting pitcher and patch up their bullpen.  The last thing we need now is to make moves for more bats, WE HAVE THE BATS, GIVE US THE ARMS!!