This comes as the brain trust had been claiming for weeks that there was no more money in the till, the cupboard was bare. Obviously, this was not true. In fact, the Yankees have no problem lying to their fan base. They do it commonly with injuries to players. (To be fair, most teams do; lying comes natural to all secretive, paranoid, super-rich organizations.)
The fact is, whenever the Yankees poor-mouth, they are lying. It's amazing - and sad - how the Gammonites seem to fall for it every time.
Our track record on resurrecting injured pitchers is less than spectacular. Last year, the Yankees tried with Dave Aardsma and Chin-Ming Wang. Years ago, they whiffed on Octavio Dotel, but got one decent season out of Jon Lieber. Scranton always has at least one former stud, trying to come back from surgery. It's part of baseball, I guess.
But now that we know the front office was bluffing about being penniless, the matter of Aledmys Dias becomes front and center. He's the 23-year-old Cuban SS looking for an MLB contract, expected to sign today or tomorrow. Supposedly, the Yankees are interested in him. Considering the state of their infield, he makes far more sense than a bullpen guy who won't be back until after the All-Star break.
So... was this a pre-emptive public relations strike, because they're not going after Dias? I hope not.
Listen: If you can't sell a kid from Cuba the notion that he could become the heir apparent to Jeter, that he could be the shortstop for the New York Yankees... well... either you are not trying hard - or you simply are not offering competitive money. There can be no honest excuse for either.
Of course, we know how the Yankees value honesty.
*That's a joke.
The notedly Republican, insanely patriotic Steinbrenners have always had problems with Cubans, who may be great players but are probably still secretly Commies or something, trying to drain America's wealthy team owners of their God-given gazillions. This is really why we have signed so few and let amazing players get picked up by other teams. In George's wobbly later years he took a flyer on one or two, but his kids knew he was dotty by then and just let him go--trying to stop him would have been too embarrassing for the better-behaved, media-averse children of a raving egomaniac.
ReplyDeleteBesides, you can't have some Spanish-speaking furriner with God knows what gaudy jewelry and strange personal habits take over for Jeter. Mr. America, the poised and perfect biracial face (tending toward the paler side of that equation, which helps) of baseball and the Yankees, has to be followed by someone bland, quiet, respectful and not as good for at least a couple years to create a buffer and let the memories fade a little. Then we can bring in anyone we want, even somebody better than Jeter if they're out there.
I think Hal 9000 will probably be looking for a great player at that point, but one who isn't prone to that unseemly gift basket thing. Perhaps a nice, steady, monogamous gay SS. Think of the PR possibilities, not to mention the special, more upscale gift nights.
Gardner extension for 4/$52
ReplyDeleteboth happy and annoyed.
Happy: we're not trading him
Annoyed: we won't be able to trade him when his legs quit on him and he's useless in 2 years