Will Steinbrenner blow it up??

[jtownie]

Each time I hear someone say they'd love to have A-Rod, I think about all the years he's been playing in the league and still has no World Series trophies on his mantle. He got the money he wanted to play this game. He got the team he wanted to play for. What else could he need?

 

Would I rather have A-Rod, or would I rather have Brian Giles, Rafael Furcal and Kenny Lofton? I'd take the latter.

 

Would I rather have A-Rod, or would I rather have a combination of players focusing around Giles that added up to the money A-Rod makes? I'd take the latter.

 

No one player is worth what Jeter, Mussina, Giambi or A-Rod make. I'm fairly certain most everyone would have penciled the Yankees into the playoffs this year if Joe Randa was holding down 3rd base rather than A-Rod.

 

The only way the Cubs should even remotely consider A-Rod is if the Yankees eat enough of his contract to make him no more than 15m per season.

 

From what I've seen on-line the Yanks are paying A-Rod 20M per season with Texas picking up the difference. Add in that 1M per year is deferred until 2011. so the Yanks would have to pick up 25M basically unless the Cubs assume the deferred payments bringing NY's responsibility down to 20M.

 

Then there's the whole NO TRADE clause I believe he has that will need to be waived.

[Derwood]

Steinbrenner threatens to blow it all up every year, but never does. If not winning the WS is the criteria for firing all the front office and coches, we would have seen 4 different managers in 4 years. It's all hot air.

 

That said, Torre should get out while the gettin' is good.

[YearofDaCubs]

There's no doubting that ARod didn't do squat. What a choke artist.

 

Did you know:

 

Jeter is a lifetime .314/.386/.461 hitter. For his career he's hit almost exactly that in the postseason (just slightly lower in AVG/OBP), in the divisional series he's been much better than that, but in LCS he's been much worse, and in the WS he's been a little worse.

 

ARod is a lifetime .307/.385/.577 hitter. In the posteason overall he's .305/.401/.534 (less in the division series, better in the LCS).

 

Choke, clutch, choke, clutch.

 

They're fun words to use, but largely meaningless.

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

[goonys evil twin]

The only way the Cubs should even remotely consider A-Rod is if the Yankees eat enough of his contract to make him no more than 15m per season.

 

He only costs the Yanks about $16m per season. I could see them paying another $2m per in a byebye deal.

 

ARod at $25m is too much, but he wouldn't cost the Cubs $25m. ARod at $14-16m is incredibly valuable. Nomar would have made $11m this year if healthy, and he wouldn't have come close to ARod's production.

[goonys evil twin]

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

Yeah, his avg was bad this year. And so was the Big Unit's ERA. Some guys have huge series, some guys have bad series. It happens. From year to year that changes. And over time it tends to even out, which to me is why it's silly to say things like choke/clutch.

[K-Town]

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

Yeah, his avg was bad this year. And so was the Big Unit's ERA. Some guys have huge series, some guys have bad series. It happens. From year to year that changes. And over time it tends to even out, which to me is why it's silly to say things like choke/clutch.

 

A guy making $25 mil isn't allowed a "bad year", even if it's just a few post-season games, in my opinion. When you're making that kind of money, and your team is fortunate enough to make the playoffs, you'd better be a "money player".

[NewUserName]

Since the Yankees have gone from a home grown based team in the late 90s they havent won anything. They spend alot of coin each year to be competitive but they have lost their edge. Back in the late 90s when most of their players were either homegrown or TRADED for they had more balance.

 

Last night in the 9th inning when AROD was up I was thinking of about 4 or 5 players from the Yankees recent past who I would be more scared to face in that situation (Scott Brosius, Paul O'Neill, Ricky Ledee, Joe Girardi) I know all but one of these guys is out of baseball. These are the type of players that the Yankees are missing though. Do anything for the team, Do anything to win, all out players. This is what they are missing not another superstar but great role players. It would do them more good to look at the 4 teams that are left and understand what all 4 have in common. Good Pitching(starting and bullpen) solid defense, able to generate runs without HRs, alot of players who leave everything out on the field. Look at the best player on each team (Pujols, Berkman, Konerko, Vlad) these guys are all team first, hustle their butts off and widly considered good guys. Look at the Yankees superstars (Sheffeild, Giambi, Arod, Jeter) except for Jeter I have never heard of anyone of the other guys referred to as team first guys.

 

To sum up I think that the Yankees biggest problem is that they have been throwing to much money at the problem instead of letting younger players learn how to deal with the problems

[goonys evil twin]

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

Yeah, his avg was bad this year. And so was the Big Unit's ERA. Some guys have huge series, some guys have bad series. It happens. From year to year that changes. And over time it tends to even out, which to me is why it's silly to say things like choke/clutch.

 

A guy making $25 mil isn't allowed a "bad year", even if it's just a few post-season games, in my opinion. When you're making that kind of money, and your team is fortunate enough to make the playoffs, you'd better be a "money player".

 

Okay then. Unreasonable expectations are cool.

 

The more people badmouthing ARod the better, hopefully he gets traded and hopefully he comes to the Cubs. I'll take my chances on that "bad year" every time.

[K-Town]

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

Yeah, his avg was bad this year. And so was the Big Unit's ERA. Some guys have huge series, some guys have bad series. It happens. From year to year that changes. And over time it tends to even out, which to me is why it's silly to say things like choke/clutch.

 

A guy making $25 mil isn't allowed a "bad year", even if it's just a few post-season games, in my opinion. When you're making that kind of money, and your team is fortunate enough to make the playoffs, you'd better be a "money player".

 

Okay then. Unreasonable expectations are cool.

 

The more people badmouthing ARod the better, hopefully he gets traded and hopefully he comes to the Cubs. I'll take my chances on that "bad year" every time.

 

As far as I'm concerned, his salary is unreasonable, so the expectations should be unreasonable, also.

[YearofDaCubs]

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

Yeah, his avg was bad this year. And so was the Big Unit's ERA. Some guys have huge series, some guys have bad series. It happens. From year to year that changes. And over time it tends to even out, which to me is why it's silly to say things like choke/clutch.

 

A guy making $25 mil isn't allowed a "bad year", even if it's just a few post-season games, in my opinion. When you're making that kind of money, and your team is fortunate enough to make the playoffs, you'd better be a "money player".

 

Okay then. Unreasonable expectations are cool.

 

The more people badmouthing ARod the better, hopefully he gets traded and hopefully he comes to the Cubs. I'll take my chances on that "bad year" every time.

ARod would never come to the Cubs. That's a pipe dream.

[goonys evil twin]

As far as I'm concerned, his salary is unreasonable, so the expectations should be unreasonable, also.

 

I don't think it's more unreasonable than Jeter's salary, and he's had his down postseasons. His overall salary is ridiculous, but the amount his team actually pays isn't that bad, relatively speaking (less than Giambi, Mussina and Jeter).

[K-Town]

As far as I'm concerned, his salary is unreasonable, so the expectations should be unreasonable, also.

 

I don't think it's more unreasonable than Jeter's salary, and he's had his down postseasons. His overall salary is ridiculous, but the amount his team actually pays isn't that bad, relatively speaking (less than Giambi, Mussina and Jeter).

 

Considering his salary, I would expect Jeter to be consistently productive, also.

[Diffusion]

I don't pretend that I am qualified to run a baseball team, but if you gave me the Yankees payroll, I'm pretty confident I could build a team that would compete with Cashman's squad.

 

Well I like giving Cashman a good bashing more than anyone, so much so I've made "most ineffective GM in baseball" his new nickname, but I seriously doubt you'd be too much better. There's a reason why I've branded him the "most ineffective" rather than the "worst": he simply isn't allowed by an interfering Steinbrenner to operate like any other GM. Whereas with the vast majority of other franchises, there is a clear distinction between owner and GM, it's hard to tell where Steinbrenner stops and where Cashman begins when it comes to the decisions that the Yankees make, and I suspect also that the boundary shifts from time to time when it's convenient for Steinbrenner to protect his own image. Ultimately the net effect of it all is that Cashman probably looks both a lot more stupid and yet at the same time a lot more powerful than he actually is.

 

To surpass Cashman, you'd above all have to be able to talk Steinbrenner and the rest of the Yankee brass into actually letting you make the decisions. And while that's hard enough said, I bet it's ten times harder done. I'm not sure there are many people on the face of the planet, yet alone you, that are capable of even telling someone like George Steinbrenner that he's enough of an idiot when it comes to baseball that he should actually entrust his hundreds of millions of dollars to someone, you know, not called George Steinbrenner, never mind actually talking him into the whole thing.

[Diffusion]

Watching that game last night, I was wondering why that team doesn't score more runs. Jeter, ARod, Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada is just a killer lineup to work through.

 

They do have the best offence in baseball in terms of runs scored after adjustments for ballpark. However, Tony Womack is what you're wondering.

[Diffusion]

There's no doubting that ARod didn't do squat. What a choke artist.

Did you know:

 

Jeter is a lifetime .314/.386/.461 hitter. For his career he's hit almost exactly that in the postseason (just slightly lower in AVG/OBP), in the divisional series he's been much better than that, but in LCS he's been much worse, and in the WS he's been a little worse.

 

ARod is a lifetime .307/.385/.577 hitter. In the posteason overall he's .305/.401/.534 (less in the division series, better in the LCS).

 

Choke, clutch, choke, clutch.

 

They're fun words to use, but largely meaningless.

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

Yeah, his avg was bad this year. And so was the Big Unit's ERA. Some guys have huge series, some guys have bad series. It happens. From year to year that changes. And over time it tends to even out, which to me is why it's silly to say things like choke/clutch.

A guy making $25 mil isn't allowed a "bad year", even if it's just a few post-season games, in my opinion. When you're making that kind of money, and your team is fortunate enough to make the playoffs, you'd better be a "money player".

 

Yes, making a lot of money (something that A-Rod didn't actually have a huge amount to do with besides playing sensational baseball for years and signing his name when a stupid owner listened to Scott Boras) means that he really ought to be able to defy baseball's equivalent of the ineluctable laws of nature: the yo-yo effect.

 

Why can't A-Rod fly too? Why can't he run at 300mph? Why is he unable to touch his toes with his chin? For crying out loud, he earns $250m, he has no excuses!

[goonys evil twin]

I don't pretend that I am qualified to run a baseball team, but if you gave me the Yankees payroll, I'm pretty confident I could build a team that would compete with Cashman's squad.

 

Well I like giving Cashman a good bashing more than anyone, so much so I've made "most ineffective GM in baseball" his new nickname, but I seriously doubt you'd be too much better.

 

To surpass Cashman, you'd above all have to be able to talk Steinbrenner and the rest of the Yankee brass into actually letting you make the decisions.

 

Two things:

 

I didn't say I'd do much better. I didn't say I'd do any better. I said I could build a team that would compete with Cashman's

 

I didn't say I could run the Yankees better than he can, I said, "if you gave me the Yankees payroll". No doubt the best work Cashman has done in his tenure is by not going ballistic to the press yet, and getting fired. I have no idea how I'd handle working as George's GM.

[goonys evil twin]

Watching that game last night, I was wondering why that team doesn't score more runs. Jeter, ARod, Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada is just a killer lineup to work through.

 

They do have the best offence in baseball in terms of runs scored after adjustments for ballpark. However, Tony Womack is what you're wondering.

 

Womack really didn't play though, he had 2 postseason AB's.

[erik316wttn]

There's no doubting that ARod didn't do squat. What a choke artist.

 

Did you know:

 

Jeter is a lifetime .314/.386/.461 hitter. For his career he's hit almost exactly that in the postseason (just slightly lower in AVG/OBP), in the divisional series he's been much better than that, but in LCS he's been much worse, and in the WS he's been a little worse.

 

ARod is a lifetime .307/.385/.577 hitter. In the posteason overall he's .305/.401/.534 (less in the division series, better in the LCS).

 

Choke, clutch, choke, clutch.

 

They're fun words to use, but largely meaningless.

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

That was a 5-game span.

 

I'm sure I could take five consecutive games and make anyone in baseball look bad.

 

Sample. Size.

 

It's not all A-Rod's fault they lost that series. He didn't help, but there were other reasons. Nobody seems to mention the lack of communication in last night's game that led to the collision between Crosby and Sheffield. That was a blunder as well.

 

A-Rod was a big part of the reason they got to the playoffs in the first place. Nobody seems to mention that, either.

 

Just because he's the marquee name does not mean it's his fault. It's like saying Sammy is totally the reason we lost the NLCS in 2003.

[stitchface]

Just because he's the marquee name does not mean it's his fault. It's like saying Sammy is totally the reason we lost the NLCS in 2003.

 

It was his fault, his game 1 homer should have won the game instead of just tying it. a better rbi man would have won that game there.

[Diffusion]

I don't pretend that I am qualified to run a baseball team, but if you gave me the Yankees payroll, I'm pretty confident I could build a team that would compete with Cashman's squad.

 

Well I like giving Cashman a good bashing more than anyone, so much so I've made "most ineffective GM in baseball" his new nickname, but I seriously doubt you'd be too much better.

 

To surpass Cashman, you'd above all have to be able to talk Steinbrenner and the rest of the Yankee brass into actually letting you make the decisions.

 

Two things:

 

I didn't say I'd do much better. I didn't say I'd do any better. I said I could build a team that would compete with Cashman's

 

I didn't say I could run the Yankees better than he can, I said, "if you gave me the Yankees payroll". No doubt the best work Cashman has done in his tenure is by not going ballistic to the press yet, and getting fired. I have no idea how I'd handle working as George's GM.

 

Regardless of whether you said you'd do better than Cashman or would only match him, or whatever, my point still stands. And it's a point that you completely ignored in writing the following...

 

He stepped into a perfect situation. The Yankees were not the top payroll when he took over, yet they were the most talented team. Bob Watson did the dirty work. Brian was able to keep every single player he wanted, and he was able to go after more guys than anybody else. It's an easy job. It might not be easy to take the heat from the fans, press or George, but his job is assembling a great team, and that part is easy when you can spend twice as much as anybody else, and 4 times as much as most. Bowden could create a winner if he could keep every player he has, and then move his mistakes to utility roles and start over with new guys. Poor teams can't afford one player who underperforms his contract. The Yankees can afford to trade for every one of those guys, and since they take the contract, they don't have to give up talent. And when a guy might be underperforming his contract, he can still be good enough to be valuable to a team that doesn't care about cost. For instance, on any other team, Jeter is overpaid by a wide margin, but the Yankees can afford to pay $20m to a guy who has never been a $20m player, and is just going to keep declining. The Yankees have about $30m in wasted pitchers on their staff. But since they can cover that up with another $45m in pitching talent, it doesn't bother them.

 

Every GM would like a do over on his worst mistakes. Cashman is the only one who actually gets that chance.

 

All of that assumes that Cashman is in total control and is totally responsible for the product that the Yankees are currently fielding.

[Derwood]

I love how suddenly the Yankee loss is all A-Rod's fault. He's a big choker. Nevermind that his career postseason stats are better than Jeter's, who is lauded as a "clutch" postseason performer. But hey, what do stats mean?

[Diffusion]

Watching that game last night, I was wondering why that team doesn't score more runs. Jeter, ARod, Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada is just a killer lineup to work through.

 

They do have the best offence in baseball in terms of runs scored after adjustments for ballpark. However, Tony Womack is what you're wondering.

 

Womack really didn't play though, he had 2 postseason AB's.

 

I thought Tim was talking about the regular season. I certainly was.

[YearofDaCubs]

There's no doubting that ARod didn't do squat. What a choke artist.

 

Did you know:

 

Jeter is a lifetime .314/.386/.461 hitter. For his career he's hit almost exactly that in the postseason (just slightly lower in AVG/OBP), in the divisional series he's been much better than that, but in LCS he's been much worse, and in the WS he's been a little worse.

 

ARod is a lifetime .307/.385/.577 hitter. In the posteason overall he's .305/.401/.534 (less in the division series, better in the LCS).

 

Choke, clutch, choke, clutch.

 

They're fun words to use, but largely meaningless.

Did you know that ARod's avg this postseason was .133 and had no homers or rbis? That's pretty terrible if you ask me especially considering the money he makes.

 

That was a 5-game span.

 

I'm sure I could take five consecutive games and make anyone in baseball look bad.

 

Sample. Size.

 

It's not all A-Rod's fault they lost that series. He didn't help, but there were other reasons. Nobody seems to mention the lack of communication in last night's game that led to the collision between Crosby and Sheffield. That was a blunder as well.

 

A-Rod was a big part of the reason they got to the playoffs in the first place. Nobody seems to mention that, either.

 

Just because he's the marquee name does not mean it's his fault. It's like saying Sammy is totally the reason we lost the NLCS in 2003.

Yeah, a 5 game span in the playoffs. He is not the sole reason why they lost. Their starting pitching has more to do with that. When you are in the heart of the order you are expected to produce. ARod in this instance did not. I never said ARod was a choker throughout his career but in this playoff series he choked. No question about it.

[goonys evil twin]

Watching that game last night, I was wondering why that team doesn't score more runs. Jeter, ARod, Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada is just a killer lineup to work through.

 

They do have the best offence in baseball in terms of runs scored after adjustments for ballpark. However, Tony Womack is what you're wondering.

 

Womack really didn't play though, he had 2 postseason AB's.

 

I thought Tim was talking about the regular season. I certainly was.

 

They scored the 2nd most runs in all of baseball, behind Boston. How could anybody expect them to score many more?

 

And Womack was still only a utility player in the season. The 8 guys who qualified for the batting title all produced respectable numbers for their position, except Bernie. If you want to question their offense, the discussion would have to begin with him.

[Tim]

Watching that game last night, I was wondering why that team doesn't score more runs. Jeter, ARod, Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada is just a killer lineup to work through.

 

They do have the best offence in baseball in terms of runs scored after adjustments for ballpark. However, Tony Womack is what you're wondering.

 

Womack really didn't play though, he had 2 postseason AB's.

 

I thought Tim was talking about the regular season. I certainly was.

 

They scored the 2nd most runs in all of baseball, behind Boston. How could anybody expect them to score many more?

 

And Womack was still only a utility player in the season. The 8 guys who qualified for the batting title all produced respectable numbers for their position, except Bernie. If you want to question their offense, the discussion would have to begin with him.

Let's put it this way - they scored only 70 more runs than Cincy, without having to waste a spot having a pitcher hit, with Posada over LaRue, with Giambi over Casey, with Sheffield over Kearns & ARod over Randa. The Reds have an edge in CF with Griffey, no doubt, but Dunn's edge on Matsui isn't huge.

 

It just seems to me that the Yankees have the talent to make a run at 1000 runs and they ended up 115 short of that.