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Wednesday, November 12, 2014

While the Yankees poor-mouth, Boston quietly pushes forward

Baseball beats Interstellar in teaching the Yankiverse about wormholes.

Consider the Evil Empire. Darth Cashman is searching for a wormhole back to that magical season of 2014, looking to re-sign the Bore Four: Chase Headley, Chris Capuano, Brandon McCarthy and Stephen Drew.

I can't tell you how exciting this is. Words aren't enough.

Through this wormhole of wonder, the Yankees will find a world without age or injury. All those former stars who fizzled last year - that is, numbers 3 through 7 in the batting order - will raise their averages by 100 points. Don't ask how. Also, A-Rod will disappear without gaining us anything, an increasing certainty.

We've seen the movie. We've seen the back pages. Obviously, Hal Steinbrenner wants him gone, which means Darth Cashman wants him gone, which means Billy Madden wants him gone, which means the chain-rattling ghost of Dick Young will rise up and wave his giant, Gin-swollen dildo/pen until something happens, and we can look forward to Zelous Wheeler. Our corners will be held by San Diego's notorious LOB-machine, Chase Headley, and the rising young comic, Mark Teixeira - who together last year drove in 109 runs. Nope, they'll both suddenly get younger and hit to all fields.

Dear God, are we screwed, or what?

Meanwhile, the Redsocks are courting Pablo Sandoval and Jon Lester - if not Max Scherzer or James Shields. Last fall, they signed the Cuban "Brett Gardner with power," Rusney Castillo - who came up and hit 2 HRs. They will add these to a slew of prospects, including Mookie Betts, and the hot whoosh we will feel in May will be of another team passing us on the way up, while Cashman moans about how unlucky the Yankees are, due to injuries. Oh, if not for all those injuries...

Nope. Words fail us. We need disco lights, a dead planet and Matthew McConaughey hawking a car.

Last July, when Boston tanked, its ownership recognized what Shallow Hal cannot seem to fathom: There is a tomorrow, and sometimes, you ought to consider it. They didn't, when they re-signed A-Rod. They didn't, when they doubled-down on CC. They didn't, when they gave Jacoby Ellsbury seven years. Now, the Redsocks can sign the Panda without surrendering a top draft pick, and Boston is flush with cash, while Hal pulls out his pants pockets and poor-mouths to Madden and his fellow ladies of the secretarial pool. Of course, Boston wouldn't give a 38-year-old Carlos Beltran a three-year deal, as the Yankees ludicrously did last year, so I guess it doesn't matter.

So now Cashman - speaking expertly from both sides of his mouth (must be a wormhole in there) - says a) he has no expectations for A-Rod, but b) fully expects Beltran to return to form in 2015. Oh? Did he, by chance, watch Beltran last year? It's fair to wonder what A-Rod has left, but this is the exact style of crapola that Cashman blathered last November about Alfonso Soriano. When the Gammonites re-trowel the Dark Lord's insane mutterings, do they ever mention Alfonso, or Vernon Wells, or Travis Hafner, of Andruw Jones, or all the other stumble-bum retreads the Retrieval Empire has trotted out over the last four years, as we flutter through this wormhole into the giant black hole?

Yet we re-sign Chris Young, and here we are - nervously crossing our fingers and hoping Chris Capuano returns the call. GAHHHHHHHHHH...

OK, throw me a rope. Not the one with the noose. I gotta climb off this ledge. Maybe Cashman is just playing dead. Yeah. That's it. Maybe Hal will leap out from underneath the desk, blow a noisemaker, yell 'SURPRISE!' and we'll sign the Cuban OF, or the Korean SS, or the Japanese pitcher, or somebody, anybody, who was not on last year's horrible, soul-draining team. Jeez, you'd think Chris Capuano won 20. He won two and lost three. His ERA was in Joba Chamberlain territory. Next season, he'll be 36. He's our hope? Dear God, what a wormhole. And what a bunch of worms.

4 comments:

ceeja said...

The Yanks should have snatched up Puig and Abreu, but Cuban talent will now be so high priced that it might make sense be cautious. Otherwise you get the Cuban equivalent of Kei Igawa on a 9 figure contract.

They've got two infielders ready to promote: Refsnyder and Pirella. Play both of them next year and I'll be happy. At least that would be progress. Hopefully the talent they have below AAA will mature and they will have some kind of reasonable core of young players within the next 3 or 4 years.

JM said...

If only they WOULD play the kids from the minors--kids being a relative term since you can play until you're 40 in the Yanks farm system while Headleys clog the major league roster.

The Sox say they're 'all in' on signing Sandovar. But we don't need a third baseman. Noooooo.....

Dr. Joyce Brothers said...

I'm telling ya, Hal hates his Dad and this is his way of getting even. What's happening is a parody of GMS's early years, when he would get excited about players who used to be good. (Substitute Roy Smalley for Carlos Beltran.) We're cursed.

ceeja said...

See also Dave Collins, Ken Griffey, Steve Kemp, John Mayberry, Doyle Alexander, Toby Harrah, Don Baylor, Jack Clark, Ken Holtzman, Don Gullett (great for 1/2 season), Jesse Barfield, Mel Hall.