I was there, the game didn't look much better in person, I tell ya.

I saw Damon pull up in the last inning, it sucks that he's hurt again.

With the state of the pen, I thought that Igawa would go deeper, maybe TOFTT. He and Baek were doing a pretty good job of matching each other's performances. Couldn't really see from the upper deck, were these fat pitches the M's were teeing off? Igawa still pitching high in the zone?

The fateful 5th, leading off that was an easy ground ball that should've been fielded. Didn't seem so big at the time.

When was the last time Bean pitched before last night? He had no command at all.

Props and nice work for Mike Meyers. When does he get a start? j/k. Funny to see a lot of his pitches coming in at under 80mph.

But, believe it or not... The Yanks only used four pitchers last night, thanks to a strong four-inning performance by lefty specialist, Mike Myers.

The BoSox take on Johan Santana, and we get Jeff Weaver.

I begin to fear for this season!

1 To say Quest's pitches were "fat" doesn't even come close to describing them. They were absolutely set on a friggin' tee. Belt high, die-straight 91 mph fastballs from a lefty pitcher to righty hitters. No one who has played any baseball, including decent high schoolers, could miss absolutely crushing those cookies. If this guy can't learn to keep his fastball off the plate he'll be back in Japan quick like a bunny.

Yikes, thanks for the simile, Mike Hargrove.

4 Given his walk totals, I'd say he has no problem keeping his fastball off the plate ;)

3 I'm not there yet, but I really would like the rotation to stabilize. I don't think the Yanks have made through a complete turn yet.

Hmm, Alex's most repeated word is fast becoming "horsesh**" and I can't blame you, but reading last night's thread brought a sobering realization to me. I was about to turn on Cashman myself, but I remember telling myself that this was bound to happen sooner or later with the players we do have; positive or constructive change doesn't necessarily happen overnight. Yes, teams can collapse quick fast and in a hurry, but the type of changes that Cash is trying to make while maintaining playoff-level competitiveness is extreme for anyone you put in his place. That said, he has a wide reputation for being a shark; someone who knows how to make a good deal and could easily get one over you if you don't watch yourself. Let's assume for a minute that some GM's are not only heeding that warning, but are also pretty sharp themselves. That's not what makes them better GMs, in my opinion. You're only about as good as the system you have in place, and my bet is that the team has been getting some very poor advice from people in important positions (i.e. those who had George's ear at the last minute) for quite some time before Cash streamlined his process.

Remember, (and this is not supposed to be a lecture) the young guys that Cash traded for and stocked the system with are NOT supposed to be here right now. Yet, the order from the very top is to win it all. How do you do that with the type of talent that is available (available in terms of competing with other smart men to get for your team) and with what you have (older players breaking down, a couple of or a few players in their prime, filler folk and flotsam, and maybe a couple of overachievers)? Is it fair to say that it's normal to expect a team to maintain two distinct missions as though they're simple goals to grander and realistically relevant scheme? During the Championship Years as they were, the Yanks made some pretty lame choices in the draft while making moves to maintain their big-league dominance. Those choices have been brought to bear in recent years as the big league team has made hasty and in hind-sight unfruitful decisions as a result of not having much of anything productive of their own. Compound that with misjudging talent that they did have and did acquire, and here we are. The Yankees as constructed are competitive for the most part, and I do believe the team will make a good show of it this year under the circumstances, but I can't help but feel that even if they do win it all it will be at a big cost to our future. As I said last year, I would prefer to have a run of championships like before starting in the next few years rather than win now and "run a Boston" after that.

Just a thought. Relax good people, this is a good team having a bad start, and I'd stick with them even if they have a bad year. I do see an effort to turn things around; there are teams that remain consistent in their non-competitiveness, whether it's because they don't have enough money to operate with in a competitive market or they're just bad baseball people. My suggestion (like a million others, I guess...) is that Cash re-evaluate the system he has in place and buy some good baseball people on the coaching and development level. If he can do it on the big league level, they should do that on the farm too. There are some very bad baseball people floating around the system, but I don't think either Cash or Torre are one of them.

How can someone dominate the Sox but suck against a much worse team? Head case?

6 All that to say this: I agree with Raf >;) Should have kept it simple this morning...

8 From what Mike P. and others have said, he's just very inconsistent.

Maybe he is a bit of a head case. You could kind of see him losing it when he gave up that homer, then getting back into it after they came out and talked to him.

I'd still rather have kept him in. He was better than Beancaino.

7 You compete by signing free agents... And the cycle begins. I agree that the Yanks'll be fine this season if the pitching ever stabilizes. I really wish Pavano was moved after the 2005 season. Even if the Yanks would have had to eaten a chunk of his salary, they still could've gotten either a CF'er or a bullpen arm for him. Given Cashman's rep, I wonder if other GM's tried to lowball him?

8 Not necessarily, sometimes you have your good days, sometimes you have your bad days. Case in point last year's postseason, where Oliver Perez, Jeff Weaver & Kenny Rogers had dominating starts. Doesn't mean they'll be able to maintain that level of performance.

So, to the "fire" "heart" & "desire" crowd, what did you think of Igawa knocking Ichiro! down?

I see the Cards are banning alcohol from the clubhouse in the wake of Josh Hancock's death. Apparently, they used to serve it after every game.

That kind of surprised me. Do the Yankees do that? I know they have beer and champagne in the clubhouse to celebrate WS wins and the like, but do they have it after every game?

13 It wouldn't suprise me if they did. Why would it suprise you? It really isn't much different from having an onsite "happy hour" (which Diageo had when I temped for them).

14 IME, most employers don't do that kind of thing any more. The liability is simply too great these days. Alcohol is completely banned from my large office. Even for parties and the like. If we want to have beer at a Christmas or retirement party, it has to be off-site.

7 Well said.

13 I wouldn't be surprised about alcohol. Mike Myers said in an interview that the best food in a clubhouse was in Tampa, where amongst other things there were lobster tails.

15 We've had alcohol on-site for special occasions, at the company where I currently work. With regards to the Cardinals, with their brewery ties, I am even less suprised that they serve alcohol after games. With Hancock, I don't know if he was coming from a bar, or if he was three sheets to the wind when he was coming from Busch.

According to the reports, he was drunk, he was speeding, he was on his cellphone, and he may have smoked weed. Not a good combination, even if you eliminate alcohol from the equation.

No baseball until 4pm... Thanks Fox!

11 That's not that simple. Signing free agents is part of it, yet considering what was available, would any of them have made a big difference? I agree with JD that better trades would have made a bigger impact (but then the argument about what he could have gotten without knowing what the true circumstances is long and pointless) Also consider that sometimes a free agent will back out of a deal that has not become binding; i.e. Rod Barajas or Greg Zaun (who said he would have come to the Yanks if Barajas had not backed out, thus giving him the opportunity to start.) The Yanks would have been better suited by choosing Ted Lilly over Igawa perhaps, but that was a toss-up decision at the time, and I don't blame a guy who wants to lower payroll for not overspending just because others do, even if you can afford it. Overspend for the best, not for cut rate. And as I speculated, Cash is perhaps not getting the best advice from his support system, which would mean that no matter whether it's free agents or draft, you're more likely to make bad choices (hell, George is known for that, but no one's calling for his head because he has all the money!)...

I know the food in the clubhouse is good. Every time the Yankees play in Texas, Paul O'Neill waxes eloquent about how much he misses the post-game Mexican food spread.

And that Free Colter Bean site mentioned that the Triple-A training staff was worried that Bean would find the temptations of the big club buffet irresistible, and put on even more weight.

Heck, I saw the breakfast buffet in the Yankees clubhouse on an episode of "Kids on Deck." It was incredible. Huge mountains of food: pancakes, waffles, bagels, ham, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, hot and cold cereal, donuts, etc. I couldn't believe how much food there was. It looked like enough to feed three or four teams.

17 Good point. The Cards play in a stadium named after beer.

Hancock had reportedly spent several hours drinking at a restaurant, then had gone to a bar, and was on his way to yet another bar to meet some of his teammates when he crashed.

Even worse, he had wrecked another car three days earlier. He was so hungover the next day he couldn't play, so apparently, he was driving drunk then, too. He was fined $500.

But I guess La Russa was in no shape to lay down the law about drinking, since he got caught driving under the influence when he fell asleep at a stop light.

17 That sounds so ludicrous, like a Simpsons version of one of those cheesy DMV defensive driving films (but not funny).

Yet I don't know what a team could have done if a man chooses to do that on his own time, besides discourage it somehow. If he wasn't drinking and smoking weed on their premises, what could they legally do to stop him? Not to say I'm against a team stepping in when a player develops habits like that (support beyond letter-of-law or lip-service would be nice), but honestly people are responsible for their own behavior, and if all of that's true, the high odds for what happened came up and should be no surprise. Terrible in any respect. I feel bad for his family.

18 Maybe, maybe not, but I agree that a team has to be smart about the FA's they sign. Pavano, Womack, and Wright were bad deals at the time. Igawa isn't looking good so far, but I would make that deal again.

I'm not blaming Cashman, I am glad that he's reducing payroll, while re-stocking the farm. I've been saying for the longest time that a team with the resources of the Yanks should have a "1998"-caliber season every year. A team with their resources should have a pipeline of players coming through the minor leages. A team that will never rebuild, but reload. And we saw a little bit of that; Lowell could have filled in for Brosius, Johnson could have filled in for Martinez. Soriano was moved to 2b, Cano, Wang, so on and so forth.

The Yanks will be fine

The Yanks could put Igawa in the pen in Proctor's spot and try Proctor as SP. Igawa could fill the Ramiro Mendoza role and get plenty of work with this rotation. I know it wasn't his role in Japan but maybe it's easier to make an adjustment to pitching out of the pen - it makes you a lot more part of the team and you are involved in every game mentally (and physically with Torre managing).

Chris Britton used to start in A-ball as well. He's tearing it up as a reliever at Scranton. Maybe the Yanks should just give him the ball and a start and see what happens. It happened in reverse for Papelbon. Maybe Britton can pull a reverse Righetti and fill one of the five spots. I hate thinking of this crazy stuff but what can you do with the team losing by beer league softball scores again and again.

19 When I freelance on a film project, if it's got a decent budget then the breakfast spread for crew and SAG extras is indeed tempting. I never worry about being hungry while those shoots are happening, which also saves me a lot of money during the week. But somehow I always feel bad for all that food while we're in the middle of a neighborhood where people obviously go without more often than not. Sometimes I make a big plate and sneak off to give it to a homeless person or group nearby. Not to encourage them to hang around, but hey, I know how it is.

19 "...the Triple-A training staff was worried that Bean would find the temptations of the big club buffet irresistible, and put on even more weight."

Heh-HAH! That sounds like the LEAST of the problems to worry about with Bean when he found the buffet. Do you suppose they should, yunnow, just as a subtle reminder, play the Evil Empire theme when he asks for extra bacon? And how does this effect world hunger? (Oh wait, that's his new nickname, sorry...)

I don't usually make fat jokes, so if you want me to stop I will...

21 I don't think there is anything we can do about drunk driving. Quite a few people do it, and it seems the behavior is condoned. Some get away with it, some don't, and even people who get caught doing it, keep doing it.

23 I like that idea in principle, but why does it seem like relievers converted to starters just don't have the stamina to stay more than four innings for a long period of time? I'm sure there are some exceptions, but it seems the reverse trick on this team doesn't pan out well and they pull the plug before it could naturally set in.

For all the free agent signings, I'm SO happy that the yanks didn't give Ted Lilly 56 million. I'd have shot myself.

25 Yep, there was an article about a certain overly posterized socialite who was shocked, shocked that she has to spend a month and a half in jail for DUI, even though she was already on probation for the same thing. You can't do a thing when someone gets it in their head that they're entitled to do something that is otherwise illegal or dangerous to themselves and (more importantly) others. I'm not trying to judge Hancock in this situation, but nevertheless it's a shame that such poor judgment on his own part came into play if that's all true.

And the sad thing is, this probably won't change a thing across the board for fans. Did you read about the Mets fan who was landed on by some big and drunken guy in the stands and she was hurt badly? They still haven't found the guy, and none of the people who witnessed it are saying anything. What does that say, actually? The need for alcohol overrides self-responsibility and safety to others? It shouldn't say that all of those fans are drunken idiots themselves (but...)

28 You know, there's something to that. Jim Edmonds said himself the day after the accident that ballplayers are groomed to think that they're invincible...add celebrity status...

An interesting aside on Bean and maybe Pavs, check this out from SI.com:

"V. Jose Lopez's weight: This is a down in the literal sense of the word, as in Jose Lopez's weight is about to drop. The Mariners pudgy second baseman signed a lucrative contract this week that could keep him in Seattle through 2011, and the deal contained a rare provision that could net him a large chunk of change for staying in shape. Over the next five seasons, the 23-year-old will annually take four tests: body-fat percentage, a 60-yard sprint, a 20-yard shuttle run and a vertical jump. Lopez will receive $25,000 for each test he passes and an extra $25,000 if it's a clean sweep. This could add up to $625,000.

Somewhere, Jack LaLanne is smiling ..."

26 There's also the logic that there's a reason a pitcher was moved out of the rotation, be it stamina, stuff, health, or better options.

Former Marlins/Mets closer Braden Looper has been moved to the rotation, and he's averaging 6 innings per outing so far. He hasn't started on a consistent basis since A-ball back in 1997.

24 Reminds me of a story I heard about the filming of "Star Trek: Voyager." Robert Duncan McNeill struggled with his weight throughout the series, and by the last two or three years, had become extremely, er, Shatner-like. He was even wearing a girdle under his costume.

So every time he approached the craft services table, the entire cast and crew would chant in unison, "Robbie, get away from the table!"

27 Who do you spend big bucks on next year (besides Johan)?

31 Ouch, do you think if they had done that for Shatner then he's career path would have been effected? (Though Denny Crane is certainly a guilty pleasure...)

30 I don't know if Looper is an exception or not, but thanks for pulling a name I couldn't think of at the moment. Was Armando Benitez a starter before converting him to closer, or was he always like that? Reversing him seems like an idea, but not a good one...

David Wells had weigh-ins with the Blue Jays his first time around and I think might have had a weight clause in his first contract with the Yankees (not sure about that one).

Meanwhile, maybe you guys covered this in the game thread as it was happening, but it seems to me that, as ugly as last night was, if Joe Torre had pulled Colter Bean quicker (it was obvious that he was having one of those "got nothing" outings) and replaced him with just about anyone other than Vizcaino, who's the most overworked pitcher in the Yankees' overworked pen, the Yankees could have won last night despite getting the Bad Igawa and Bean.

33 I think it was Arthur Rhodes who was the starter (both came up with the O's around the same time).

32 Johan is a no-brainer, for sure (he's under contract till end of '08, so I'm thinkin' a trade during that year). Uehara of the Nippon League is another Japanese guy, supposedly second only to DiceK in ability. Not sure if he's posted or a free agent. They also got a young guy, forget his name but he's half Japanese and half Iranian. I think he's still too far off to be posted or a free agent. Both are pitchers.

In MLB, Hafner and Sabathia come to mind. I'd love to have Ichiro (and keep him off the Sox) but the Yanks don't have room really in the lineup. Andruw is a good righty bat (and clutch too) to compliment our non-opt out Arod, but that makes for a complicated OF situation.
Not sure when Lackey is a FA. Dontrelle is another guy, perhaps a trade for him, since he'll soon be too expensive. Miguel Cabrera is a real talent, but he deserves to be a DH. Such a poor fielder, and no hustle, so it remains to be seen if he doesn't go the way of the lazy youngster and crash. I think Peavy is a FA after '08 too.

How's that for starters?

34 I think Viz's role is shrinking every day, and last night was part of his new 6th inning-type/mopup role.

32 Oh, and Buehrle could be a good pickup.

32 Jon Garland would be sweet, too, and I'm hearing whispers of a ChiSox firesale....

Just read this article by Klapisch. Interpretation please?

"There's no reason for the Yankees not to sever their ties with Pavano. There's no financial incentive to keep him around; his money is guaranteed and the Bombers will collect their insurance payout. Buying out Pavano will allow the Yankees to at least regain their dignity after two years of humiliation within the industry"

How much can the Yanks save? I'm confused.

I was over baseball after the Yanks finished last season. I told my lady as much. But every now and then she finds me checking out a game on the radio. I watched one of the early games and I got to watch last night cause it was on television - just making sure that I'm officially over the game.

Well, I'm officially not over it. I want to see the Yanks play like a team. I've missed the team spirit since 2001. And I don't believe it is something that Joe or Brian can help ... it's these individual players that need to learn what it means to be a team player.

I don't have much patience for the game right now it just seems to matter less and less. But what I'll never be able to give up is the banter at Bronx Banter.

Peace.

Thanks Cliff, I knew it was someone from the O's. Boy, that didn't really work, either >;)

Who I like:
Hafner
Sabathia
Ichiro

Toss-up:
Andruw (a more sophisticated Johnny Damon skillwise, but bridging another gap?)
Lackey (maybe above-line, but I dunno)
Peavy (How does he do with pinstripe pressure?)
Dontrelle (I don't think he wants to give up his bat yet.)

No:
Cabrera (Danny Tartabull Jr.)

Not that I don't think their good, but how would they compliment the core of the team in 2008? (although the pitching options certainly outdo what we have at the moment.)

40 Translation:

"Even though I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I do feel bad for the Yankees for being stuck with a player that ends up on the 15-day DL every time he clips his nails too short. Hey, he'd probably look good in a Tampa Bay or Boston uniform, so why don't they be generous and gently place him on the waiver wire, (because dumping would probably break what's left of his exoskeleton and end his career)?

41 Nice seeing you again, Michael Corleone >;)

The crickets are here again. And I'm hungry, so I'll see you guys later >;)

42

Yes: Sabathia
Hafner OR Ichiro (Hafner to 1B or Damon to 1B and Ichiro to CF)
Peavy
Lackey

No: Andruw Jones (Crowds the OF and I don't like him as much as Ichiro)
Dontrelle
Cabrera (Where would he play as a 3B/LF?)

46 Hafner can't really play first (throwing causes him arm problems), so he'd have to replace Giambi. Damon would make a fine LF, as he was in KC with Beltran in center, but Matsui can't really play right with his arm. Andruw also strikes out a lot.

I thought it was ridiculous how the media was comparing Cabrera to Pujols a while back. It's not even close. Pujols is far and away the best hitter in baseball. He's the Johan of hitters (which means not exactly Babe Ruth/Koufax, but best of what's there). The Tartabull comp., now there might be somthing to that.

Anyway, if Cabrera was on my team, I'd keep him far away from the field and lock him into the DH slot.