We are now on pace to win 91. Many people thought we would win around 91 when our team was whole. A lot of heavy lifing has been done but our elders: Moose, Andy, Mo and Giambi. But the BP and Joba and Raz have really pulled us through. Cashman's kids. Low cost, no name players (aside from Joba).

And all this with zero contributions from IPK and Phil. There's a lot of season left, and we have plenty of time to fall, but this has been pretty exciting. The Mets can have Santana. I like what we got going on.

Remember a couple years back when Jason was just hopeless, totally overmatched by average fastballs and went up looking to walk? That was a player playing with no confidence.

Jason's performance was terrible at the time. Now he's performing better, so we assume he's more confident. It is just a case of players don't have confidence when they're not performing and they do when they are. If so, then confidence is just a by-product of the results on the field. In which case, it's largely irrelevant. Or does being confident help a player sustain good results? Again, I'm just curious.

No just don't bring in Washburn.

The Yankees still appear to prefer Washburn, an 11-year veteran who is 4-9 with a 4.75 ERA in 20 games, but the Mariners rejected an offer of Cabrera and pitcher Kei Igawa. Seattle is thought to want a prospect, possibly minor-league outfielder Brett Gardner, in addition to the Yankees' picking up the remaining $14 million-plus on Washburn's contract through next season.

The Yankees, like several teams, previously contacted the Royals regarding pitcher Zack Greinke. One major-league source said New York had offered Cabrera and second baseman Robinson Cano in exchange for Greinke and a position player thought to be outfielder Mark Teahen.
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I'm a big Cashman supporter, but anytime I see Robbie's name mentioned in a trade. for anyone but Pujols, I throw up in my mouth a little.

A Bannister/Melky deal makes sense, as Bannister is young, cheap and having a bad year. He actually appeaers to be a better then average pitcher. It seems to me he is more valuable then Melky (career 87 OPS+) and I would think there would be another Yankee player/prospect in that deal.

It also seems like the Yanks have little intention of keeping Hughes or IPK up once they are healthy... or why go after a guy like Washburn... older, average, no upside.

And how could Seattle TURN DOWN Melky AND Iggy for what is really a salary dump? And why would the Yankees make this offer?

Is all this stuff just made up?

The fact that Melky Cabrera is irreplaceable is appalling.

13 Why can't you just play Damon in CF? Sure, he's a bad fielder, but I bet you could gain almost all of that back in extra hitting with Sexson DHing against lefties. If you just replace Melky straight up with Christian or Gardner, I bet you only lose maybe five runs over the rest of the year. Melky isn't irreplaceable.

(murphy hopes someone finds a way to numerically justify his claims) ;)

I'm (still) with 15 ... it kind of depresses me that people continue to focus so much on the bat side of a player's role. I posted 2 nights ago in the 1-0 game how much PLEASURE it gives me to see the Yanks play good D and pitch well (and pitching well comes with good D and we all know it, or should). I would far rather chase bats for power positions, such as RF if we can't keep Abreu for one season, or 1st base if we decide Giambino's a wonderful fluke this year and that's all she'll write.

Melky will only get better in CF, surely everyone can agree that he's so young that the skills will increase there even if he is not baseball smart (Bernie wasn't either, remember?). Is it too easy to ignore how he's hitting very well sicne the break, too. Overshadowed by Robbie going insane, but ...

He gets more exposed at the plate when catcher is a black hole and it was added to when Gardner (ain't cutting it) was in left. If we have 7 bats doing pretty well, take the D at C and CF and count batting as a bonus. The team can win that way.

And is this Yahoo thing going to be a regular?

So, as expected, radio in RSN today is all about Manny. They want him out. And they're sadly resigning themselves to the fact that he will not, cannot be traded this year. (He'd veto almost any trade and has that power, not because of his contract but by his 10-5 rights.)

On the other hand, Sean McAdam just pointed out some good news for Sox fans: tonight is the last time (this season) you have to suffer through Joe Morgan.

17 when you come down off your bummer Tricky Dick flashback, you may notice how his outfit perfectly matches the wallpaper, and how his bowling ball is the same color as the chair in the corner. Richard really ties the room togehter, no? Remarkable symetry in that shot.

I was 8 when he resigned. I'll never forget watching it with my family. My mom's documenting the history on her tape recorder, and my dad is cracking us up adjusting the color on the set to make Dick look green, yellow, orange. You can hear me and my sister giggling in the background on the tape. Resignation: a game the whole family can play.

16 i agree fully on your melky assessment hoss.

i am not sure what to make of bannister either. was last year's era + of 121 and 1.21 whip the outlier or is this year's era+ of 80 and 1.41 whip it - or is he something in between? he is a tough guy to get a handle on.

No, hoss, I don't necessarily think he'll get much better as a center fielder. He's already good. And he's not Bernie Williams, never will be.

The problem with Melky's offense isn't that Molina was overexposed, it's that Melky was overexposed. Before this year, there were plenty of us who felt that his ceiling was as a fourth outfielder because of his offense. We were told, he's young, he'll develop. He's gotten worse, considerably worse.

I still think he's a nice little fourth outfielder, a good role player. I don't think he should be an everyday player. If he ever develops, I'll revisit that. But he's been out there every day for three years, and that shouldn't continue unless he starts getting better.

That said, the team probably does not have an option to replace him this year, so they have to hope his hitting comes up to competence levels.

He's just keeping the position warm until A-Jax takes over in a year or two.

I have ad-blocker. Does that mean I'm costing Bronx Banter money? Or do the advertisers only count hits on the site?

Hey, Cool Standings now gives the Yankees a 45% chance of making the play-offs. Before the break it was around 16%. The Cool Standings methodology is pretty crude, but the increase does reflect the Bombers' meteoric recent performance.

Nice story Alex, and I love how you're a total ham and your wife seems to tolerate it. They think we're cute, yes?!

He's also no kind of fielder. He's called "Pat the Bat" for a reason.

Also, hearing trade rumors for all these aneragish pitchers bothers me. Pontoons has been better then we could have expected, Rasner is a solid #5 (ERA 0.6 below avg), IPK ready to pitch here if the Yanks want it, Hughes 4 weeks away.

To get an impact starter is fine. But what is the upgrade between Washburn and Rasner? Are IPK and Hughes both MiLBers for the rest of this year?

And remember last night when JD cramped up and we thought it might be a hammy? The guys seems pretty fragile now and still there's talk about shipping him out? When the very best OFer we could get was Nady?

I don't get any of it. Nady/Marte was a fine/reasonable trade, but this stuff is baffling me.

And it ain't much, but now that Cano has decided to hit, since the ASB, Melky is: .333 .353 .394 .747.

He's not exactly stinging the ball. He's hit some more singles, some of which has looked like better luck to me. (Seriously. I'm not just denigrating him.) Yesterday's double was a weak fly ball anywhere else; it still counts, but it shouldn't be confused with hitting better. Aside from that he's had one double and one walk.

It's a step in the right direction, but I think it's a much smaller step than it looks at first glance.

you want a cautionary example? check out rick manning (who's on melky's comp list)... he came up at the age of 20 and posted seasons of 101 and 116 OPS+ his first 2 years. then he reeled off 9 years of sub 90 seasons.

melky's OPS + by year since 2005 is 95, 89 and 76.

his defense has been good enough to take back about half of the worth that his bat has given away, but that puts him in the bottom quarter of AL CFs overall.

http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/direct/al_cf_sorted_by_total_offensive_and_defensive_runs_above_average_july_10_20

i'm not really keen on trading him just to trade him for washburn or bannister, but he's looking more and more like a 4th OF and a placeholder in CF (at best) until jackson is ready (which is hopefully mid 2009).

http://tinyurl.com/6x4gxg

last year, he slipped, but it was matter of having hot streaks and cold streaks. when he was cold he was ice, but he was a good hitter when he was on a hot streak, showing power and enough patience. it was not inconceivable to think that he might smooth out his production and trend towards the production he displayed when hot.

this year, we haven't even gotten that. apart from the 1st month, melky's showing very, very little power and has just fluctuated between being mediocre and being one of the worst hitting regulars in the AL. it's not a very comforting trendline.

Nor do I get requests or desires for 'guarantee' I admit. Who offers guarantees in sport? You play likelihoods, going forward. A very good CF at 23 should, on LIKELIHOOD simply get better as they gain experience of fields, batters, and maturity. And someone in this thread said he's good but not great but based on the fielding stats that surfaced here 2 weeks ago they are dead-wrong ... he's annihilating a touted guy like Torii Hunter, and Ichiro was NOT good in CF ... who's a stellar AL CF better than Melky by much right now?

I honestly think people are missing the point. One needn't love him (though I'll allow Sliced to love him; I feel more like Murphy, appreciating what he brings) to see how a #8 or #9 seriously good D CF can work for a team otherwise solid at the plate.

I asked this awhile ago, would you rather have an aging Hunter at $18 million a year? He's had a vg 5 days, Torii, but ... what will that 18 mill look like in 2-3 years?

therefore, he's an overall negative for the team. now, i'm not sure if the defensive downgrade to an nady,damon, abreu OF would be balanced by the resulting upgrade on offense. as someone suggested above, i think it might be a much better swap to put nady in RF and send abreu to DH, because abreu's been epically bad in the field this year.

if you want to believe that melky's gonna get better and better in CF and that his bat's gonna come around to be merely mediocre (and i'd take merely mediocre from melky after how bad may and june and most of july were) that's certainly your prerogative, but sometimes WYSIWYG. if gardner had hit, i'd have been in favor of using him instead of melky. as it is, unless the team wants to bite the bullet on the nady,damon,abreu OF, there's little to do except let melky play, at least until the offseason, when it might be possible to make a move (at the very least, we ought to know more about austin jackson's likely timetable for 2009)

I wouldn't necessarily say that a 23-year-old should on likelihood get better, just that he might. He's good defensively now; why does that mean he'll get better? I'm not convinced that his defense is quite as super-elite as some think - but if it is, then how much better is he likely to get? When a guy is already near the best, the limit to his development is a lot closer.

His room for improvement defensively really isn't the issue, anyway. However good his defense gets, it won't really matter unless his offense improves. Yes, he's only 23 - but he's now had 1500 PA in the majors, and that should have counted for something. Not only has he failed to improve, he's gotten steadily worse. You don't have to have a superstar bat at the bottom of the order, but there's a limit to how bad it can be. The days of playing Dal Maxvill for his defense are long gone, and good riddance.

I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have Torii Hunter, but that's arguable. I'd certaily rather have Melky than Gary Matthews or Andruw Jones or Corey Patterson. He's definitely a better option than anyone who's worse. That doesn't mean he's good, or even acceptable.

However, he is not exactly a speedster now, and he's a bit, well, pear-shaped. As a somewhat bulky guy myself, I would not be surprised if Melky gets huskier as his body develops, and ends up losing a step or two along the way.

I agree that there is no real option to replace Melky this season: Gardner was simply not ready (if he hit at all, Melky would have been gone, I think); Johnny is not much of a CF any more, and his shoulder was obviously hurt worse than anyone admitted; Nady has played 40 or 50 games in CF, but his Range Factor at the position was absolutely brutal.

That said, Melky is right now a place holder for A-Jax or an FA. He has been given three years to develop--remarkable patience for a notoriously impatient organization like the Yankees-and he has not made the most of his time.

But I have NO problem treating Leche as warming the pasture till Jackson II arrives. Do hope everyone's a bit willing to accept that Austintacious may not be instantly glorious. And that he may not even be great.

I think it is simply obvious that D improves in the early-mid 20's with experience. And agree it doesn't HAVE to improve a lot as it is already top 10-20%.

But you all make valid, thoughtful comments, I'm not trying to make Melky into Dimaggio. I am arguing that for THIS team he's fine, he adds a fair bit with his D, and a LOT of teams in this sport (including ours, guys, over the years) have carried good glove weak hitters at positions where the D is significant ... SS, CF, C. I'm just a bit puzzled by the Melk-bashing ... I attribute it partly to expecting a 9-deep murderer's row of a batting order and a chronic undervaluing of defense.

Come on now, that's misleading. The problem is not that he is not 'hitting a ton' at age 22. It's that he is getting progressively worse each season.

So yes, I would say watching a position player fail to progress for three years--actually, to get worse for three years--IS a sign of patience.

Good heavens, for how long should a young player be given? We're not talking 50 or 60 ABs. It has been 1400 ABs. Over those three years his K rate has increased, his walk rate has declined, his BA has declined, his OBP has declined, his slugging ave has declined. HIS GDP rate has increased.

He is on pace for the same number of SBs (about 12), though his CS is on pace to decline slightly (from 5 to about 3).

By just about every measure possible measure his offense has steadily declined for three consecutive seasons. Heck, he's not even that good of a bunter.

1500 PA, at any age, isn't trivial. If he's too young to expect him to be adequate after three years, then they shouldn't keep him in the majors.

I'm not asking him to hit a ton, or to be part of a murderer's row. I'm asking that he be, at worst, a little below average, and that he show some improvement in some part of his game. At this point, merely being young isn't enough to make me think he'll develop much beyond this; he needs to show at least a little capacity for it as well.

I'm really not bashing him. I think he's a good kid, extremely likable, and a useful player - as a fourth outfielder. But at this point, I'm not really expecting much improvement - not until I see some.

Bernie
Age AB BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
22, 320, .238, .336, .350, .686, 91
23, 261, .280, .354, .406, .760, 113
24, 567, .268, .333, .400, .733, 100
25, 408, .289, .384, .453, .827, 119

Melky
Age AB BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
21, 460, .280, .360, .391, .751, 95
22, 545, .273, .327, .391, .718, 89
23, 356, .250, .306, .351, .657, 76

Melky is a good 4th OFer, as he is an excellent LIDR and can PR for Giambi and Molina. So if we can put together a measurably better OF without Melky, Melky becomes a 4th... and you can consider him a trade chip.

Also, we all know defensive stats have a lot of room for error. We can easily measure what Pujol's bat brings, but it's harder to qualify a good glove and a great arm. Runners who don't advance... runners who don't score... runner who get thrown out.

My issue is hearing rumors about trades NOW. With as banged up as we are, unable to trade for a better OFer then Nady, JD seemingly on the verge of another injury at any moment, ya gotta keep the Melk man.

He SHOULD get better, but he has gotten worse in two progressive years. And, it seems, he has also gotten dopier. He was never Einstein, but I don't remember thinking he was stupid his first year up. But he is young enough that he MIGHT still improve.

By the by, while this really means absolutely nothing, one of the few CFers that was LESS productive was Coco. So at least we know it's possible to carry a defense only CFer and still win a WS. The difference between Melky and a guy that (O & D) who is a bit better... that difference won't carry us to the PS.

And lastly, it is one thing to include Melky as a trade chip for someone we really need. But Washburn? That's one step above a DFA.

Bernie wasn't in the majors at age 20, but he was showing progress in the minors each year from then on. There was some sort of learning curve there.

Bernie was a much toolsier player, more that he could use to improve with. Most important, he had speed, which could help him grow both as a fielder and as a hitter. Melky's one great tool is his arm, which doesn't really help with much of anything else.

It was a little easier to project increases in walks and power with Bernie. He always got plenty of walks in the minors, so that gave some hope. He also had a body that he could grow into, so there was more power potential. Melky doesn't look like he will - or should - fill out much more.

So beyond those early ML statistics, there were plenty of reasons to think he would develop. Melky really just has age.

45 I completely agree. I don't think they can afford to trade him at all in the foreseeable future. And for Washburn? That's got to be made up, it's just too ridiculous.

Mary Jo and I spent some time shopping in that place. Man, is it huge. I think I saw the USS Nimitz tucked behind a stack of Persians upstairs.

And a pain to get to. On a rainy day, of course. And yeah, we came away with a carpet too. If you ever go back, recommend a stop at the Bruckner Bar, right under the Bronx end of the 3rd Ave. Bridge.