this is gonna sound lame, but i am wanted to get first comment to say the following:

some of us (me) access this page from work and aer behind firewalls that detect certain dirty words and keep users from viewing those pages. i am not here to come off as prudish or to try to come down on anyone's free speech rights, but i amd (and have been) a faithful reader and occasional commentor. i wasn't able to read all of the last thread from school cos someone used a dirty word, so could you guys (and gals) watch it in the future and think of your fellow yankee fans who work in school?

thanks.

Murphy, I hear ya. So I gotta be careful with I want to say about Pavano.

I'll just say it's ironic that Carl got sidelined with brusied behind. Because it's us Yankee fans who have had a sore butt since he got here!

1 sorry bout that, murph. my bad.

Anyone want to help me with the analogy? I don't get it. . .

I can't help but notice, but when the Yanks win there seems to be a lot less cursing in these parts. A 5-gamer should keep things clean. RJ, take care of business and then warm those bats up in TEX.

Yes, Jeter is to Mattingly as they are/were both captains of their teams, and the most popular Yankees of their time.

But I think Winfield had it much harder than Rodriguez.
Some Yankee fans question A-Rod's ability to deliver when the game is on the line -- but everybody roots for him to succeed.

Winfield was subjected to more than just scrutiny. Some Yankee fans openly rooted against him in his pursuit of the batting title against Mattingly. I don't think any Yankee fans are rooting against A-Rod.

I agree with the Verducci piece. I know people like Rob Gee have questioned "CASH-man" about getting Pavano - since that was Cashman's signing - but Cashman was duped just like a lot of teams were duped into thinking Pavano was the real deal.

On the ARod thing. I was really happy he wasn't celebrating too hard on first or pumping his fist. He really feels he should succeed everytime, so he goes up there expecting success. I don't think ARod is a problem for the Yanks. I actually feel really good about this team right now and ARod. The loss on Monday was compounded because it came at the hands of the Sawx. I wasn't worried. I actually watched last night's game and I didn't worry because I thought the Yankees were playing well.

It's funny, when I see them making mistakes and not having good at-bats then that's when I worry. But if they do everything right and still lose, I find it much easier to take. Kinda like that 14 walk game. They played well but had a couple of base running blunders and you chalk it up as one of those games that you just can't explain.

In Defense Of Tanyon Sturtze

After the other day's disparaging remarks about Tanyon Sturtze, I brought his record up and noted that for about 7 of the 8.1 innings he has been called on to pitch, he has not given up a hit or run. For 3 of his 11 appearances he was belted around pretty good.

Yes, I'm on edge when he walks to the mound in a close game but to say Torre should never use the guy seems a bit extreme. On the whole his record hasn't been that bad when compared to say Josh Becket...

Imagine if Becket pitched for the Yankees and gave up 16 runs in his last nine innings...

Murphy, the word that I used in my question to Tom Verducci was "buttocks" hardly a dirty word, but next time I ask a question about Pavano's buttocks I'll use the word "tushy" instead so every one can read it!

6 It would be interesting to see the dynamics of the press and fan blogs if Jeter and A-Rod were to battle for the batting crown (and possibly MVP voting).

It's not impossible for that to happen someday, ala Winfield and Mattingly.

BP

8 Small sample size, dude. If you pick out the few innings where Tanyon gave up neither a hit nor a run, of course Sturtze looks good. But you can do the same for anybody. Those few innings do not change Sturtze's track record, which is hideously awful. It is his track record that leads me to call for his removal from the team.

Sturtze, who turns 36 in October, has a 5.19 career ERA (not adjusted), 479 K, 328 BB, and 110 HR allowed in 792.1 IP - which works out to 5.44 K/9, 3.73 BB/9, 1.46 K/BB, and 1 HR every 7.1 IP. That's horrible, and that's why he should never be allowed to pitch in a close game.

I just read the link Alex provided on Pavano, the Pavano stuff was interesting but this was even more interesting because I have long suspected Trawt and V-Tek:
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In your Red Sox column, I couldn't help but stutter when I got to the part about Jason Varitek and Trot Nixon ("noticeably trimmer and with less pop"). Short of saying "Jason and Trot sure miss that flaxseed oil and the clear," what are you insinuating? I'm not from Egypt, and don't know about da' Nile.
-- John, Windsor, Conn.

Ah, yes, this is the shadowy age we live in, the one owners and players created by giving us the Steroid Era. Scouts take note all the time of players who look smaller and show less pop. They use the line "Congress got him" to explain some guys' declines. If you've been watching the past two seasons, you know what I mean. That said, I do think both players got very big, and at their age, and in Nixon's case, with his injury history, they're probably better off being a bit lighter. The question is not what happened -- everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt -- but will they suffer any decline? Pudge Rodriguez, Bobby Higginson, Scott Spiezio, Ryan Klesko, Nomar Garciaparra ... all suffered declines when they weren't as bulked.

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In the beginning of Ron Shandler's "Baseball Forecaster" he uses V-Tek's numbers as a sign that he might have done "something". He correlates a spike in homeruns and a spike of 20 lbs or more in weight gained, as a way to question the legitimacy of some of the power numbers. He uses this information to develop some level of confidence and see if a player's homerun and power number spike is fo' real. Or it might've been helped by using PED.

I have long said that I don't care about PED and their usage by players to get an edge, but if this were to be true then it would be a big slap in the face of Red Sux Nation. They love to sit inside their little glass houses and go off on Sheff and Giambi, and if one of their own were ever to get caught then I'd hope they'd treat them the same way they've treated Giambi and Sheff.

Was Winfield not embraced by Yankee fans? I know Steinbrenner didn't like him and called him Mr. May but I never hear that from fans. Admittedly I was just a kid but I always loved Winfield's game. Winfield's wall climbing and screaming line drives were awe inspiring.

13 For the most part, Winfield was embraced by NY, but I remember seeing/hearing fans booing him at the games, clapping if he grounded out when he and Mattingly were competing for the title. It was a sickening sight.
I never boo anybody at the ballpark - and was stunned that fans would root against a hometown player.

Dimelo, if Canseco was right about the prevalence of PEDs in baseball circa the 90s thru 2004 (when the tests became actionable)then it goes without saying that every team in MLB had several if not a majority of its players doing something verboten. That said, it's just symptomatic of how the national media coddles the Red Sox and, conversely, despises the Yankees that Trot Nixon, Jason Varitek, Nomar Garciaparra, Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe, Gabe Kapler, and, yes, David Ortiz went underneath the radar. It was fashionable in the national press to vaguely question Clemens' possible PED use during his Yankees years but to drop the subject entirely when he pitched for the Astros...despite compiling an ERA under 2.00 at the age of 42. Anyway, didya really think Trot got that dreamy-looking without the use of PEDs? And Derek Lowe didn't exactly eat Milky Way bars to gain 35 pounds of muscle mass over a 90 day period in one off-season.

13 Winfield was definitely fun to watch when he played here - very reminiscent of Sheffield when he would foul a pitch off and fans down the line ducking for cover. Never mind when the actual bat would go into the stands.

Had the unfortunate experience of playing under Steinbrenner in the height of his 'meddling' - traded (for Mike Witt- ugh) at the low point for the team (in recent memory, that is) in 1990.

Speaking of Winfield.. did u guys notice today's NYPost "ICE-Breaker" has a photo of ARod and his hit.. and right below the image u can see "Mr May".. RUDE!!

And i wanted to listen to Steve SUmmers of WFAN.. that good for nothing yankee hater err Met Broadcaster.. had said that Wagner was better than Mo during his Winter Musings and he played audio of "Tom Gordon" blowing a save to rile some Philly fans..

ironical.. Wagner has blown more saves than Braden Looper at this point of time last year..

BTW Tommy Gordon has 9 saves.. Funny how that worked huh?

Alex,
W/regards to Sheff, I totally miss that guy in the lineup. Being a Yankfan here on the Leftcoast I have gone, and do go to a lot of Dodger games. When Sheff was here in LA I loved watching him(especially during BP). He was a mean surly SOB when he was out here too. He's a fierce competitor who puts a nice spark in the lineup on a daily basis.

The big difference with Rodriguez/Jeter vs. Mattingly/Winfield is the race issue. Even though Rodriguez is Dominican and Jeter is mulato, they're both tall, lean, mocha-colored dudes with light eyes and nappy hair. Meanwhile, Mattingly was a scrawny white kid from Indiana with a mullet and a bushy stash and Winnie was a big, bad, black buck with a serious strut in his step. That's why this contrast won't get as ulgy as that one did.

That said, there are some excellent parallels there. Jeter and Mattingly were home grown captains (though Mattingly didn't become captain until, I believe, after Winfield was traded). Winfield and Rodriguez were both imports who sported record-breaking contracts, though the Yankees weren't the ones who drew up Rodriguez's and are getting a break on his salary everyone continues to forget about. Meanwhile, Winfield's deal was for ten years at a total amount equal to one year of Rodriguez's salary. Oh how times have changed.

Another way things have changed is that Rodriguez will get plenty of opportunities to prove himself in the postseason. Winfield got one in his first season in the Bronx and had to hear about it for the remainder of his contract without ever getting a second chance. When he finally got back to the Series with Toronto in '92, he got the Series-winning hit. Winfield was my favorite player back in the day and I have that double on tape somewhere in my basement. How sweet it was.

"mulato"?

Cliff - did you move to 704 Houser Street?

What about "bi-racial"?

I guess the gateway to "True Yankee" if you are traded to the team is a championship. Or something.

21 is correct Cliff, you should probably edit that as that term can be seen as offensive.

21 Why, was Meathead a bad speller? Should have read mulatto, with two-Ts. Bi-racial is a larger category of ethnicity. Mulatto is specifically African and European. Johnny Damon is bi-racial (European and Asian), Derek Jeter is mulatto, like Halle Berry, Alicia Keys, Jason Kidd, Lenny Kravitz, Thandie Newton or Vin Diesel.

21 23 My apologies if that term offends you. I've seen it used in many places in the very recent past by progressive thinking authors of different races. It was intended to be descriptive, not disrespectful.

Back to Sturtze. He had a nice stretch in the second half of 2004. His starts were uniformly awful (bloating his ERA), but in his 1-2 inning relief stints, he was surprisingly successful, eventually wrestling the alternate-setup-man job from Paul Quantril. Even Steve Goldman eventually offered an "I wuz wrong" appology. By 2005, Sturtze had lost his consistency, though he was still more reliable than Stanton, Quantril, Franklin, et al.

Now Sturtze sits in a funny position. He is certainly the logical man to go when Dotel joins the squad, and at 1.5 million he should be tradeable, but only if he gets a couple of solid outings under his belt. So it is clearly in the Yankees' interest to send him out there and hope he doesn't screw up.