Watching Neil Walker flounder around in right field again today, it made me think again about how much Cashman handicaps Yankees teams by usually insisting that they carry 13 pitchers (no matter how mediocre some of them are).
This gives you all of two possible subs in most situations, considering that you want to be careful not to use the back-up catcher too soon.
Frankly, I've always thought that 11 pitchers, max, should be sufficient for a major-league team. Your five starters should be able to average about 200 innings, which means that the six relievers give you another 80 or so apiece.
Considering the fact that you are always going to be pulling up or acquiring other pitchers during the season, that shouldn't be an intolerable burden. And as we've seen, having so many pitchers on a team at one time just inspires managers to use more and more of them until they find the rotten-apple-in-the-barrel for that game.
But like everything else that Coops does or believes in, this is holy writ and can never be changed. So what to do?
What the Yanks need is to have a team built, as much as possible, like the Casey Stengel squads of 1949-60, with plenty of guys who can play two, three, or even four positions, and pitchers who can relieve and spot start.
This team is now so bereft of bodies, period, that it is not only going to have to sign Harper AND Machado for next year, which it should definitely do. It's also going to have to get versatile.
Since we don't know if Red Thunder is ever coming back, we ought to have Andujar learn some outfield, where his arm will be an asset. Get Manny to play third, but of course he can also play short, as can The Gleyber.
I'd love to see Sanchez shipped to Cincinnati (a city once known, appropriately, as "Porkopolis"), but I doubt if that's going to happen. If not, jettison Slo-Pitch and alternate Sanchez there with Stanton and occasionally, Andujar, too. Mr. Ice Cream Sandwiches can catch a couple times a week.
Make Toe or Wade the back-up infielder, and have him spell Machado, Didi, and Torres once a week, to give them some rest.
With the pitching, they should investigate having Adams, Sheffield, Losaiga, and maybe German alternate spot starts and long relief stints, instead of putting everybody through these trials by torture of Kahnle, Holder, Cessa, etc.
Impossible to say exactly what the pitching staff should be—but I think we should let CC and Robertson walk, and give pink slips to Cole and Holder.
For the 12 position players/DH:
Sanchez
Romine
Torres
Torreyes
Didi
Machado
Andujar
Stanton
Judge
Harper
Hicks
Frazier/Wade
But Neil Walker should never be in right field again.
They did the Binders dirty today. No respect for the starting catcher of 98
ReplyDeleteAHH! AHHH!!! AAaAaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHaaaaAAHHHHHHHHHHHaaaa-ah-ah-ah-aaaaaaaaAaAaHaHaHaaaAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!??!?
ReplyDeleteWOW....DIDN'T REALIZE THERE WERE NO BINDERS TODAY.
ReplyDeleteWONDER IF HE REFUSED THE INVITATION, OR IF HE WASN'T INVITED AT ALL?
BTW....HOW MUCH DID IT IRK A BUNCH OF US TODAY, BY INTRODUCING THE 1998 GM, "BRIAN CAHSMAN!"???
ReplyDeleteWE ALL KNOW THE TRUE ARCHITECTS OF THAT TEAM (AND THOSE GREAT TEAMS OF THE LATE 90'S), WE'RE STICK MICHAEL AND BOB WATSON.
Stick was talked about, in very nice terms. I don't think Watson or Buck were mentioned, which was wrong.
ReplyDeleteGirardi was apparently invited, but ignored when he didn't show up, which also happened to some other of the key members of that team, El Duque, Mike Stanton and Ricky Ledee, even as the likes of Mike Figga and Mike Budde were being saluted. (There was also no mention of Mike Lowell or Dale Sveum, who were at least on the team for a few minutes, too.)
For that matter, I thought they could have sought out some stand-in for Irabu, but maybe nobody was available.
Jeter, of course, managed to find a way to dominate even without being there. Everybody stood and watched his big board message, in which he also scored major good-guy points by apologizing but saying he could not miss his daughter's first birthday.
The bigger question about this is how it is possible for the Yankees to not have checked with Jeter and clear the weekend with him in the first place. Certainly, they should have ensured that the whole Core Four were available. And the "If you don't make it, forget it" logic for the others was typically shoddy and classless of Hal and Coops' version of this great franchise.
Still, it was fun to see the ones who did show up.
IT WAS A GREAT CEREMONY.
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