Alphonso's Mid-Year Views

REFLECTIONS AFTER 65 STRAIGHT HOURS OF "LITTLE SHOOTERS" IN MY FAVORITE SOUTH MEXICAN CANTINA:

"It is time someone spoke the truth. So here it comes. Not all of the following is original in thought, voice, or verbiage. Much of it is inspired from real journalists who own and edit this very BLOG."

"Some of these truths derive from China. Some from Latin America. Some from the Vatican. Some from Mr. Torre. And much of it from magic mushrooms, chased by some very sizeable gulps of Hera Dura Anejo:"

1. This Yankee team is again chasing .500, and will reach it by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

2. Brett Gardner, our highest performing and highest rated minor league position player, will be 0-16 before returning to Scranton.

3. The Yankees cannot win with a singles hitting center fielder who sports a batting average in the .240 range and is now on an 0-20 streak.

4. The Yankees cannot win with a first baseman who is slow, cumberson and a below average fielder.

5. A-Rod should never, never, never have been re-signed. Now we are saddled with 10 more years of a deathly boring Homerun watch, where meaningless round-trippers will, eventually, accumulate up to some number high enough for ARod to best Barry Bonds.

Personally, I'd rather see him on the juice. Or on Madonna.

6. Joe Girardi, more and more, reminds me of George Bush. Both are in denial.

Joe thinks the Yankees have a potent line-up. George thinks we have pretty much won in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that there are countries in the world who still respect us and want us as their ally.

7. Jorge Posada is hurt and declining, and everyone but Joe knows it. He has thrown out only 6 of 38 attempted steals against him. And he has lost all pop in his bat.

Jesus ( our planned savior replacement for Jorge ) is 17 ( or 2017 ) and will be

" major league ready " when every star on the current team is sitting in rockers on Memphis hotel porches, sporting white suits, sipping juleps and watching the Mississippi flood all the farmland.

8. If the Yankee brass had any sense of reality, Hideki would now be a SF Giant, sitting on their DL. We could have taken any draft pick SF offered, and been better off.

9. As to the future, Brian has us in a position where we have so little talent in the minors, that there is virtually no chance of him pulling off a trade that can hurt us. We have no Jose Rijo's or Jay Buhners, or Doug Drabek's.

10. We do have Jose Tabata ( formerly the Yankee's top position prospect ) who is no longer even a "top 100" minor league prospect.

Jose, by the way, is reminding me more and more of Sidney Ponson...just as big, just as slow, just as poor a hitter. Given how pathetically Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes have pitched, we might just try a position change for this former prospect. We tried it with former number 1 (2?) draft pick Mike Battle. Oops.

Speaking of top draft picks, does anyone know how Eric Duncan is doing? Rumor has it, he is selling sausage heros at Scranton games when he is not in the lineup.

11. Ian Kennedy's fastball, (with a stiff, trailing wind ) is in the low 80's!!! Anyone who tells you differently is a lying Yankee scout. Radar guns on Ian, in the past, were all provided by his family and/or his agent. Seriously, I think Ian , when healthy, would be a 6-10 pitcher for the Sea Dogs.

On a related topic, the other guy in the dynamic duo of Hughes/Kennedy has befriended Carl Pavano, is working out with him in Tampa, and eating chili cheese fries in a private room at Hooters. Both are swimming and surf-casting everyday.

12. Humberto Sanchez, whom we got from Detroit in a trade for Gary Sheffield several years back, is now approaching his 30th birthday. How time flies, eh?

He has a 5.66 ERA over 2 innings in the Florida Gulf Coast League. Maybe he can learn from our latest ambi-dextrous draft pick pitcher how to throw with his good arm.

13. Another top prospect, Dellin Bettances has recently improved his ERA to 8.53 in the GCL. Movin' on up !!

14. The best that can be said of any other recent top pitching prospects ( Brackman, Melancon, Horne, etc ) is that; " several of them are very tall," and " their surgeries appear to have gone well."

15. Our centerfielder of the future, Action Jackson, is hitting a robust .282 at AA. He'll be ready in about 3 years. Ready for what?

16. The bare bones, hard-nosed truth is that there is no one in the Yankee minor league system....let me clarify that...no one.....whom "everyone wants," whom everyone is excited about, who is a " can't miss prospect. There are no Jeters, no Pettitte's, no Mariano's, no Bernie's, no Jorge's, no Mattingly's.

" I defy anyone to name a Yankee position prospect they have been following , who they " can't wait " to see in the Bronx. In fact, can anyone name any Yankee position prospect besides Jesus, Jose and Action Jackson?

The Yankees have nothing. We have Mitch Helligoss...who holds a consecutive game hitting streak record for the Charleston Sea Dogs, at age 26. I think he is hitting about .230 now, playing somewhere deep down in the minors, just outside of nowhere.

"What this means is: the Yankees will do nothing this year or for the forseeable future. What this means is that Cashman has failed. The scouts have failed. Our drafts and trades have failed. What this means is that we are going to increase the payroll to $400 million and buy re-treads again."

The only good news is that this is the first year we don't have to worry what stupid move the Yankees might make at the trade deadline.

81% of Americans feel that our country is heading in the wrong direction. I think 81 % of Yankee fans feel the same way about out team.

Maybe 100%.