You don't trust Farns, but you might have to use him in the 6th or 7th inning. It's up to Torre to hope we see Good Farns, at if not, get him out quick.

That leaves Mo, Joba, and the Viz (if he can pull it together again).

Total: 243 PA .254/.335/.413
Last Month: 37 PA .214/.267/.429

Vs Left: 122 .239/.289/.372
Vs Right: 121 .270/.380/.460

2 Outs, RISP: 29 PA .125/.276/.125
Late & Close: 109 PA: .258/.333/.412
Margin >4 R: 58 PA: .208/.310/.333

0 Days Rest: 21 PA .381/.381/.524
1 Day Rest: 103 PA .270/.353/.506
2 Days Rest: 42 PA .270/.357/.378

Of the 8 homers he's given up, 6 have been solo, the other two were 2-run homers. He has 25 walks in 55 innings, a better ratio than Vizcaino (40 in 68), Bruney (34 in 47), and The Artist Formerly Known as Proctor (29 in 54). His walk rate actually goes down the closer the game is, down to 3 walks in 35 PA in tie games.

I'm not saying that Farnsworth is good, per se, but that he can still be an effective pitcher when used correctly. If we have the Joba Rules, why can't we have the Farnsworth Rules? Doesn't it make sense to have different teams of relievers who are all about the same effectiveness who are ready on different nights? Today is Joba and Viz, tomorrow is Farns and Edwar. Every reliever (other than Mo) should have a day off after the pitch an inning, two days if they pitch two innings. If the bullpen is constructed correctly, with guys who are all pretty good, there should be no appreciable difference between using the guy who is #2 and the guy who is #4.

As Alex recognizes, the guy really toughed it out yesterday, as he often does.

It's just such a revelation to see a guy who can go out there and figure it out when he needs to. Seems to me that for a kid his age, that's spectacular.

I know this will sound preposterous and premature and over the top, but what the hell: this guy can win 300 games if he stays healthy.

Meaning, to watch him pitch now, it seems a reasonable bet to presume that as he ages and his stuff deteriorates, he still might be able to scrap out enough wins to stay competitive on the major league level.

I don't know, I just love watching a pitcher who can win without his best stuff, who can fall apart in one inning and yet still rebound to keep the game in hand.

Duque, Pettitte, Wang, old Moose. Music to my ears, so to speak.

As you were...

I don't care how you slice it -- a 1.44 WHIP and 1.80 K/BB sucks for a late inning reliever. Especially when you consider that with 58 appearances, he is the only reliever who was on the opening day roster that can't blame it on being overused.

Don't get me wrong -- I would love him for to be a PS success. I just doubt it will happen.

And really, wouldn't that be the best possible outcome? It would make him all the easier to trade this offseason, when some foolish team will be looking for a "C"loser who throws really, really fast; they'll overlook his past and over-emphasize his postseason success..

I'm not saying that he is better, only that at this pijnt in teh season it is not relevant to talk about who is "good" in an absolute sense.

Edwar, FWIW, has walked 4 batters in his last 12 innings after the debacle against Tampa back in July. He's thrown 120 of his 180 pitches for strikes. In effect, he's had 12 big league appearances- three bad, two okay, and seven stellar apperances. One of his bad ones, against the Rays again on 9/2, he had a phenomenal inning and then was rocked in his second inning. And his 21:8 K:BB ratio is best on the team for anyone not named Mo or Joba. Give the kid a chance.

As for Farnsworth, I simply do not trust him in a big spot...I can only hope Joe feels the same way. After all, my biggest concern about the postseason isn't the quality of the team's relievers, but how Joe will use them.

Shame, huh?

27 already?

Nevertheless, he's a fine pitcher. :)

Why should I expect that NOW is going to be any different? NOW the teams are going to finally be baffled by his pinstraight fastball?

And I'm sorry, but I will no trust someone in late innings that gives up as many homeruns as Edwar Ramirez.

I'd kinda like to see him throw an inning against the Jays before inking him in for Boston.

Mostly true, except for:

2001, 77 INN, 2.74 ERA, 154 ERA+, 1.146 WHIP
2003, 76 INN, 3.30 ERA, 129 ERA+, 1.166 WHIP
2005, 70 INN, 2.19 ERA, 198 ERA+, 1.014 WHIP

As a reliever on his career he has a 1.40 WHIP and a 4.04 ERA.

*except on Nintendo

Wouldn't wait by the Banter for the definitive word on Rocket from me.

27 yeah, i think everyone did! the funny thing is that the "867" exchange was a main one at penn state, where i went to school. of course, every one and their brother called it. by my sophomore year, the # was taken out of service. it's been many years and i still think it's a non-working phone number. i'm surprised it even worked during my freshman year...

i believe clemens threw in Houston the other day, will be in Toronto tomorrow and will pitch at the Fens next weekened.

i'm just wondering if Cliff will be back from vacation by tomorrow to post his Blue Jays team preview before the series starts. man, do i love those things! : )

not saying I don't believe you, of course, just haven't seen anything.

Wait a minute, he is too smart for that, he probably went with something more like this one:
http://tinyurl.com/3a273l
(I also liked that one because it was on Alabama St ;-)

Even if you could get his number, would it really help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEd3pS1jXJ4

Whatver the case, the whole discussion is, I contend, not very relevant. If we assume that the team makes the post season, they will have to select the bullpen from an unsavory menu. And I am not convinced that right now Farnswhacker is not in the better half of the available options.

And that IS damning with faint praise.

31 It was even more impressive when he did it as a shortstop.

- Alan Greenspan

The thing that infuriates me more than anything about Farnsworth isn't that he's so mediocre. Its all the restrictions that come with this mediocrity. He can't pitch two days in a row. He can't come in in the middle of the inning. He can't pitch two innings in a row (Fuck, even Joba can do that)

If Kyle could reasonably expected to perform like Joba, you could sort of live with it.

But Kyle performs at the dime a dozen level for right handed relievers and is completely un versatile. We could find someone in ten seconds that can match Kyle's production while being a little flexible. Kyle's a hindrance to this team.

either way, i would expect roger to show up at the old rogers centre and then kick some major ass in beantown next weekend. with a great week this week, we can really make a push for the division and tie up the wild card, as a backup...

"Torre sent an e-mail to Roger Clemens before the game, asking how he was feeling and was still waiting to hear back from him. Clemens has been out of touch since going to Houston on Wednesday to get a cortisone shot in his right elbow."

Anyway, I hope you're right, thelarmis.

42 Again, no argument on the macro-level. But right now he is sadly one of the more viable options. And as restricting as his self-imposed rules are, they can be (indeed must be) worked around.

According to the standings on Yahoo, the Yanks are 4 up on Detroit and [b]5[/b] up on Seattle.

Really, your beef with the Yankees--if you look back at old posts--is that they didn't just release Farnsworth at the deadline when (if?) they were unable (unwilling?) to trade him. Since that is your starting assumption, there is no that he can be used that will satisfy you, since you calculated long ago that he such a detriment to the team that he was a candidate for addition by subtraction.

What other player in the system would you use? What other player who was released/traded would you have kept to face the Sox? Myers? Proctor?

Farnsy we've seen your numbers
We need to make a trade
Farnsy you can't change your numbers
4 point 7 5 E R A
4 point 7 5 E R A

To you point, his worst game over that span was vs Boston, but those were the only 2 runs he's given up in about a month.

I'm not going to back down on my feelings on Farnsworth because he's on a nice run. I think he's a mediocre who's self imposed restrictions make him worthless. I think the team is setting itself up for failure by trusting this goof, and I absolutely think he's going to bite us in the ass, and the fact that everyone would have seen it coming is infuriating.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3pPtrMH2ARM

What a fantastic show.

69 & 70 Not sure how that happened, sorry for the double posts... Carlton in stereo, perhaps?

I think he sucks, but I reject the notion that there a bunch of better right handed relievers than him falling out of the trees. Most right handed relievers who aren't absolute studs, have suckish tendencies.

And then in a shocking development, he did not.

The bullpen is a disaster, so we trade the moderately effective one and keep the mess. So he can build his value back up.

Someone actually wanted fucking Kei Igawa for Christ knows why. But he stayed. But Jaret Wright was traded for a guy the team apparently forgot they had until September.

Why does the "equal value in return" policy only apply to certain players? And frankly, only "New York" signed players? You can apparently get someone the "Tampa Faction" signed for a song.

I don't know what this "New York" vs "Tampa" distinction is. I just know that they got a ton of value for Wright (injured for the year) and Unit (injured for the year and probably forever). The Sheffield deal was heralded by nearly everyone here, including Jim Dean (RIP), but we'll have to wait to see how that turns out.

I just think you're being ridiculous when you demand that they get ripped off by trading a dollar for a dime. Farnsworth cleared waivers, remember? Nobody wanted him. SD apparently wanted Igawa, but apparently they were offering crap. Igawa is literally blocking nobody and has some upside, so why not wait to see if he can put something together? Seriously, what's the cost? Pavano- I'll give you that, huge mistake all around. I'm sure Cash would even admit that in private.

You're again forgetting how many "old vets" the organization has cut in favor of kids they have drafted. I would say that changing your entire god damn player acquisition strategy is admitting a huge mistake. I give them tons of credit for that. I bet you would never have guessed that the Yanks would have Kennedy in their rotation over a deadline deal like Buehrle.

Would you rather have him than Farnsworth?

Scot Kazmir has just over two years of ML service. When will he be a free agent? He made the Sox look silly tonight, seven innings no runs, only one Bostonian reached second base. Now the Sox are flailing against the D-Ray bullpen: 1-0 Rays through eight!

We should have Farnsworth pitch the sixth or seventh some night against TB when we have a five run lead. He'll be impressive, and they'll take him as part of a package for Kazmir. We'll pay most of Farns's salary.

And you are NEVER going to get anything close to fair value for the likes of Farnsworth and that contract. It was an awful, hair brained signing that didn't make any sense then and sure as shit hasn't made any sense since. If your top priority is winning, you bite the bullet and remove the problem from the team, regardless of cost. You can't use your own mistake as the basis for Farnsworth's current value. You unload his useless ass and offer to pay whatever it takes. We can pay him to hurt us or we can pay him to hurt someone else. I'll take B.

Of course, if you don't want to admit that it was a disaster signing, you can hold on to him til the end of time (Much like Carl Pavano) cross your fingers and hope against all reason for the best.

And for the love of Christ, someone wanted Kei Igawa! But we weren't happy with what was offered? Because maybe if we keep him around long enough he'll stop ignoring what the pitching coaches are telling him and live up to that 46 million? Maybe he'll reach the lofty standards of "long man" that all the experts were predicting to begin with? This signing was never a good idea. Unless he mysterious exceeds all expectations, its never going to be a good idea. Holding on to him, closing your eyes, plugging your ears and humming loudly will not make it look like good idea.

And they were well along the way to changing their player acquisition strategy. And then they plunked down 46 mil for a minor leaguer.

92 No one will ever match Carl Pavano. At least Worthless tries

He just sucks.

Carl sucks on the very rare occasions when he tries.

I want to hear on ESPN tonight. "The Toronto Blue Jays are a lousy team. They are lousy this year. They were lousy last year. We couldn't have possibly been more wrong when we named them a top contender. They are not a contender, nor will they be anytime soon.

Hey, so who's going to bean a Jay in this coming series? Bruney?

First, the Jays confidence will be at rock bottom going into our series.

Second, now that we're within 4 losses of the Sawx I'm smelling blood in the water. But what's the fun of winning the division if the Sawx make the playoffs anyway? We need the Tigers to start reeling in some games on the Sawx so they can take the wildcard from Bahston. That's one game for them tonight.

Maybe my sixth worst nightmare as a Yankee fan! He's coming for us!

97 I wasn't saying that Farnsworth could be traded for Gagne. I was just comparing the Red Sox's overpriced relievers who were hurting them vs our overpriced relievers who were hurting us. So of the two, I would rather have Gagne. Health would be a concern for him but you have a month to get him healthy. Farnsworth's problem is his head. That may never be resolved.

110 Let's hope they keep sucking. We still have six games against them.

Eccentricities of baseball: We are 3-6 against LA who in turn is 2-5 against KC who in turn is 1-9 against us.

Why do people still watch ESPN, if they say things like Lyle Overbay will carry the Jays to a division championship? I haven't voluntarily watched BBTN in over a year, so I have no idea if they actually do say things like that.

On another note, I think I hurt my hammy today. The Yankee epidemic spreads even to fans!

"Do nothing and hope it all works itself out on its own so you look good in the end"

Sox have a pretty easy schedule left: 5 vs Tampa, 3 vs NYY, 3 vs Tor, 2 vs Oak, 4 vs Minn. Expected wins: 10

Yanks: 7 vs Tor, 3 vs Bos, 6 vs Bal, 3 vs Tampa. Expected wins: 13. Warning Note: we can't beat Baltimore and Toronto has an awesome pitching staff.

Detroit: 3 vs Tex, 6 vs Minn, 3 vs Clev, 3 vs KC, 3 vs WSox. Expected Wins: 11

My prediction: Boston has 97 wins. Yanks have 94 and Detroit has 89 wins.

Still hoping for a Boston choke, though...

Feel free to respond, but I'm done.

124 You know about my hammy? I'm being stalked!

That's right folks, you heard it here first. Those stupid K rates, walk rates, hit rates, homer rates and runs given up are worthless.

Oh dear, and now Steve Phillips just said that Wang is less valuable because he tends to win games by a huge margin, whereas Beckett just barely wins. Ergo, the Yankee offense supports Wang more (which is true) so he's not as valuable. Seriously, they are penalizing Wang for winning by a lot of runs. Stupid CMW, you're supposed to see you're up by 5 runs, then walk the bases loaded, give up a homer so you can pitch an extra inning and only win by 1.

still, it's about the only place i can get and see highlights. it's unfortunate...

still, it's about the only place i can get and see highlights. it's unfortunate...

You can criticize the team for overrating Igawa, no doubt. But to say that the team saw Pavano as anything more than a stopgap this season is to deny the historical circumstances of his brief appearance this season.

We should handle most of the games and make Boston sweat a little while building the WC lead. But I'm not yet ready to put my complete faith in the team, since I still don't know on a given day which version of the Yankees is going to show up.

Putting him in IMMEDIATELY puts the Yankees in a hole where at some point in the season they're going to have to resort to stop gap measures when he fell to either injury or ineffectiveness, as his his specialties.

And I don't recall him being anything but the team's fourth starter . There were idiots raving about the possibility of having a "former 18 game winner!!!!!!" in the fourth spot of the rotation. The only question was whether Igawa would start in the pen or not.

I just don't understand how a pretty damn competent front office could turn around and build a team that expected Carl Pavano to take the ball every five days and do it effectively.

The only thing that makes sense to me is they were hoping against all reason that Carl could elevate this from "worst acquisition in franchise history" to "bad move"

Probably the same morons that looked at him, his history and his attitude and said "Lets give him 40 million!" but thats a horse of another color.

everybody KNEW Hughes was coming; everybody KNEW Clemens was a strong possibility. Hell, here is a website that intimated that anything the Yankees got from Pavano would be gravy--and this prediction was in february 2007: http://american-baseball-league.suite101.com/article.cfm/2007_mlb_preview_new_york_yankees

No sensible person, including the Yankees FO thought that Pavano would take the ball every five days this season. Best case scenario, he captured some pixie dust and was an effective starter. realistic scenario, he warmed the bench and ate a some starts until Clemens or Hughes or whoever took his spot. What heppned--he pitched in two games, won one, and then went away.

Keep raging against the machine if you want, but the historical circumstances deny your analysis.

Hughes wasn't supposed to come until close to the allstar break. And Clemens is a bold faced liar, who, at best, wasn't supposed to start pitching at the big league level until some time in the end of June.

They thought Pavano was going to last two and a half months/or being effective for two and a half months? They thought Rasner/Igawa were good enough to keep a team afloat for two and a half months in the best division in baseball?

Who the hell scouts for this team?

Who else was available, again? Some combination of Karstens/Rasner/Igawa/Pavano/other kids in the minors was the best available until Roger and Phil were ready. Unless you think they should have traded for Mark Buehrle.

I guess that logic makes sense considering you think that Cashman is a "fucking moron."

Wow, the rhetoric flies fast and easy at this late time of the night.

To suggest that a pitcher should be penalized for getting good run support and then say that wins are the only important start is simply asinine. On the one hand you are saying that wins are a function of a lot of things the pitcher can't control and are hence not a good stat. Then they decide to use that stat.

The only good point made all night was by Kruk of all people, who pointed out that all these other guys have a lot more starts than Wang because of his DL stint. Then he correctly pointed out that Wang has by far the highest percentage of decisions to starts among any of the top contenders. The "decisions" are irrelevant, but the overall point, that Wang pitches very deep into almost every game is salient.

This does not excuse the appallingly poor scouting that obviously misjudged Igawa badly, nor does it excuse the initials error in signing Pavano years ago to that ridiculous contract. But again, your contention that the team was planning to rely on Pavano this season, or expected him to assume a "prominent role" on the staff is bollocks. BTW, ESPN's 2007 preview (for all its idiocy) predicted Hughes would be the first "reinforcement" called up (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview07/team?team=nyy). No one but no one thought Pavano was anything more than a token piece this year.

If the quality of major league pitching coaches is represented by him (and GMs by Phillips) its a sad industry. To ever suggest that a pitcher just gives up a home run because his team is up by a lot. Wow Orel, great advice to give to your pitchers.

You've presented two alternate scenarios. One claims they thought Carl Pavano could last the two and a half months and pitch effectively, when there was no earthly reason to think he could.

The other is that Pavano would sit on the bench while Kei Igawa pitched effectively.

Either scenario is pretty damning of the decision makers in the front office, in my opinion. They either thought Pavano was effective durable, or Kei Igawa was effective enough to keep this team above water.

I don't even mind Rasner as the fifth starter for two and a half months if you have a halfway decent fourth starter.

But if their plan was to just trot out bad pitching in the fourth and fifth spots for half the season and hope Roger came into save the day, that could have ended in disaster.

I just don't know why they kept going back to the Carl Pavano well when they knew it was dry.

And I refuse to believe that you read and comprehended 145 .

So the plan was to put these men in the bottom end of the rotation, expect them to fail, and cross your fingers that Roger Clemens swooped in to bail them out? What if he didn't? I hope to Chris they didn't just take him at his word. And what if Phil Hughes pitched they way he has? It was sort of expected that he wouldn't be great out of the gate.

Unless they had Roger's signature on a piece of paper a lot earlier than we thought, that sounds dangerous.

Secondly, we were in a position of power in all three of the big trades. So rather than just dump Jaret Wright for a middle reliever we have no interest in, for example, I'd look for someone that could fill out the rotation, especially with no Roger guarantee.

Perhaps you think the Yankees should have held on to them? Because those guys would have totally helped the rotation. You know, in spirit, from the DL and all.

Until people who make comments like "This trade should have happened" start naming names and have a source saying that such a deal was ever even discussed, they carry no weight.

It's people like you that make the rest of the country hate Yankee fans. You have the most unrealistic demands and expect every other team to bend to our will. Not every GM is Dave Littlefield.

"Given his hijinx in 2006, it wouldn't surprise me if Pavano's plans for 2007 involve high heals, opera gloves, and his continuing quest for a Section 8. Hey, maybe the Yanks can trade him back home to the Mud Hens."

Does that sound like anyone has given him the #4 spot in the rotation?

On 2-12-2007, there was a post where Pavano was slotted at the 5 spot behind igawa.
"If Mr. Glass is able to pitch with any level of effectiveness during spring training and manages to make it to Opening Day without slamming his finger in a door or cutting himself shaving, he'll be the fifth starter. Not that the odds are very good of that happening, or that there's much chance of him finishing the season with that job. If Pavano pitches well through April and May it's almost a lock that he'll be traded in June."