Wednesday, October 31, 2018

From Eli to Gardy, it's a problem when ownership falls in love

Today, the Yankees must decide the immediate fate of Mr. Brett Michael Gardner, their longest tenured and most respected soldier. 

They can pick up his $12.5 million option and keep Gardy for another year. They can pay him $2 million in movie money and bid him adieu. Or they can start talks on a new deal, somewhere in the middle. Three options. None overtly palatable. 

Within the vast, eternal clockwork of the Yankiverse, this is not a big money decision. But it's the first sign of how the franchise intends to move this winter. Will it leave an opening in the outfield, one that might be filled with a bigger name? Or will it double-down on a slowing 35-year-old with questionable tread left on the tires?

In the second half of 2018, Gardy flat-out sucked, batting .206. He was so bad that the Yankees rented Andrew McCutcheon for the final month, even though it meant listing further rightward in their lineup. Today, Gardy looks like a clone of Jacoby Ellsbury, minus the injuries and horror movie contract, and the worst irony here is that both players were once exactly what the Yankees will need in 2019: A lefty lead-off hitter with speed. Now, neither can be counted on.

Of course, one player we cheer, and the other we lustily boo. Everybody loves Gardy and views Ellsbury as a waste of band-aids. I think it's important here to remind everybody that you can't blame a player for his contract. He's just feeding his family. It's the front office that deserves the tomatoes. Remember: They gave Ellsbury the third-richest deal for an outfielder in history; they did it in December of 2013, after missing the playoffs and watching Boston win the world series; and they did it as Robinson Cano was walking to Seattle. What a colossal, reactionary mistake. 

So... today? Personally, I hope the Yankees let Gardy test the market for a better deal. He'll always be loved in NY and maybe can return someday for a final bow. But there is danger is outstaying your welcome, and having an owner fall in love with you... as illustrated by another fine fellow playing across the river in Jersey. His name, of course, is Eli Manning. 

Right now, the 1-7 Giants are riding Eli like Slim Pickens on the nuclear bomb in Dr. Strangelove. There is no hope, no chance of a resurrection, no nothing... as the team is better off losing every game. Eli moves in the pocket with the dexterity of George Steinbrenner's statue, making the Giants' terrible offensive line look even more porous than it is. Any other team would have weeks ago gone Megyn Kelly on their QB, but not the old money, country-club, white bread Giants. Nope. The Maras - America's WASPiest family - loves Eli as a cherished, longtime cabana boy, and the last coach and general manager to bench him were shit-canned within a week. So Eli stays, and the NFL's worst team does the impossible: It somehow gets worse, not even able to properly tank. Eli is on contract through 2019. He makes Ellsbury look like a free chicken dinner.

Jeez, how depressing it is to be an old-line NY sports fan - the Yankees, Giants, Knicks and Rangers. If we're not mired in the cellar, we must watch our arch-rivals snake dance in the streets, chanting that we suck... and know that they are right. 

The Yankees must change. Believe me... I love Gardy. But the changes must start today. 

19 comments:

Anonymous said...


There's no way they give him the 12M. So he gets released and they pay him the deuce. Do they bring him back for 3-5? Maybe, but odds are no. Give him an org. job. Maybe he want's to manage somewhere. I can't imagine any team wanting him.

As to the Giants - I offer my most immature work to date.

The New York Giants really stink
Eli. Eli. Oh!
In the standings they will sink.
Eli. Eli. Oh!
With a forced pass here and
Check off there
Here a sack, there a sack,
Look at Eli on his back.
The New York Giants really stink
Eli. Eli. Go!

Doug K.

KD said...

I was thinking that Gardner could come back to the team in a few years to coach players how to actually expend effort. However, I have changed my mind. I don't think a position like that could actually exist with The NEW New York Yankees. after all, you only hire coaches to teach players skills that are actually valued by the club. amiright?

13bit said...

Sentimentality and nostalgia will kill you. Let Gardy run free. Bet on Ellsbury or Frazier miraculously healing and coming back for a career season.

Hey, and while we're at it, let's dig DEEP into that vaunted farm system and pull out some other young kids to duke it out in Spring Training. Oh, that's right, I forgot...

Pass me the posies, pardner.

Alphonso said...

The problem is, when you ask the Yankees to dig deep into their vaunted Farm System, what you get is shovel full of worms. Good only for fishing.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Not even good for that, Alphonso, if we're fishing to useful players.

Posies, indeed, 13bit. And I like that NEW New York Yankees, KD. I'm sending it through the black hole to my alternate universe, Right Earth Yankees, where of course they will gratefully accept it, always being open to good ideas from their fans.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Duque, you sent some Halloween shivers up my spine.

I feel like one of the detective team in some serial murder procedural: 'Of course! It's coming from inside the house! This maniac is going to bring back Gardy on a (reduced) three-year deal AND Ellsbury to back up the outfield, and NOT sign anybody new! NOOOOOOO!'

Connie Mack always said, better to cut a player a year too early than a year too late. Don't know if that's always true—we sure could have used Reggie Jackson in 1982—but it is in this case.

HoraceClarke66 said...

And as someone who is part-Irish, part-WASP myself, I have to agree that the Maras are the WASPiest Micks in Christendom.

A desperate hour indeed for old-line New York fans. I feel we should all meet at Gallagher's, have a farewell toast over shrimp cocktails, a mozzarella-tomato-onion "salad," and a porterhouse, then walk over to the site of the old, 49th-Street Madison Square Garden, and commit mass hara-kari in protest and sorrow.

13bit said...

This is when New Yorkers are at their best! We need to form a platoon and surround the Steinbrenner stockade in Florida.

Anonymous said...

BOSTON TEAMS (INCLUDING THE PATRIOTS), DON'T PLAY THE "FALL IN LOVE" GAME.

WHEN YOU DON'T PRODUCE, YOU'RE GONE.

THEY DUMP OR FIND A WAY TO TRADE PLAYERS THAT MAKE A FORTUNE THAT DON'T PRODUCE. (RUSNEY CASTILLO, KUNG FU PANDA, DAISKE MATSUZAKA, CARL CRAWFORD, JOSH BECKETT, YOAN MONCADA AND MORE).

WE HAVE NO PROBLEM GOING AN ENTIRE SEASON WITH A GUY LIKE STEPHEN DREW.

WE HAD NO PROBLEM GOING MULTIPLE SEASONS AFTER ANOTHER DISMAL COOP CASHMAN SIGNING THAT THE SPORTS MEDIA HAS SWEPT UNDER THE RUG. (CHASE HEADLEY).

JACOBY ELLSBURY. (NO PRODUCTION).

GARDY NEEDS TO GO. (VERY LITTLE PRODUCTION).

CC NEEDS TO GO. (CAN BARELY GO 3 FULL INNINGS).

NEIL WALKER NEEDS TO GO. (VERY LITTLE PRODUCTION).

IF WE SIGN NEIL WALKER AGAIN AS "INSURANCE", AS YANKEE LOYALISTS, WE SHOULD JUST PACK IT IN ON OUR HOPES FOR 2019.

THE RED SOX SANG "NEW YORK", NEW YORK" IN THE LOCKER ROOM CELEBRATION AFTER WINNING
THE WORLD SERIES.....

CORA SAID "SUCK ON THIS" TOWARD THE YANKEES AT THE PARADE.

ARE ANY PLAYERS ON THE YANKS MAD AT THIS?

IS OUR FRONT OFFICE MAD AT THIS?

IS OUR OWNER, MAD AT THIS?

I'M AFRAID OF THE ANSWER.

I KNOW IT PISSES OFF EVERYONE ON THIS SITE, THAT'S FOR SURE.

WE LOST OUR EDGE WHEN WE LOST GEORGE.





HoraceClarke66 said...

Good point, ALL-CAPS, and this is the trouble.

Everybody has to buy in to professional sports, or it doesn't work.

Is it surprising that professional athletes who make tens of millions a year—or an ownership family of people who never had to work a day in their lives but inherited all their money—don't take the New York-Boston rivalry all that seriously?

Not really.

But unless they do buy into it—unless they MAKE themselves care, nobody is going to keep coming out and laying down their hard-earned bucks to keep them in Florida beach houses.

If they don't care, why should we care?

They don't call major-league baseball "The Show" for nothing. It is a show, and if it's going to consist of a bunch of big lugs smirking and lazing about while other teams run rings around them, nobody is coming out to see it.

Anonymous said...

I have a plan to save NY sports.

We do it as a sting.

We lure Hal, Wilpon, Dolan, the Maras, and the Johnsons to a ballroom at the Four Seasons to meet with a high ranking government official who wants to go over a "special tax break" that not only will eliminate any taxes they pay but will actually tax fans and give them the money.

While they are eating shrimp cocktail and marveling at the buffet's centerpiece,
a giant ice sculpture of Steven Mnuchin's wife or possibly just her in frosty body paint. (It would be hard to tell the difference.)...

The FBI surrounds the ballroom and arrests them on a RICO charge of fraud:

Intentionally overcharging for an inferior product, waiver wire fraud, false(hope) advertising and conspiracy to obstruct views.

They will be convicted, incarcerated, and forced to watch back to back to back games of the other owner's franchises until they go insane. Eye for an eye baby!

Justice!

Doug K.



Unknown said...

I've followed Gardy since he was drafted.

Each season in the minors he was written off and barely scraped into the top 30 prospects list.
He will have the bat knocked out of his hands if he reaches the bigs and no power and relying on speed gives him little chance of making an impact.

Well he proved a lot of knowledgeable people on these prospects sites wrong
He has been my favourite Yankee player and has my total respect

But very very sadly I have to agree there is no room for sentiment and he should be released with all our thanks for a great career.

I would love to see him remain with the team in some sort of coaching capacity he is a credit to himself and would be a good role model for younger players and an example of someone making the most of their ability and having a long successful career against the odds

Unknown said...

By the way this is the only living boy in wishaw/Scottish Yankee fan.

Using my real name as I'm too lazy to sign into my Google account so using my real name

KD said...

redsock fans celebrate WS victory by throwing beer cans at the players. Really! I am not making this up!!! MASSHOLES!!!

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/10/31/mookie-betts-red-sox-world-series-parade-fans-throwing-beers-boston-duck-boats/


Anonymous said...

Resigning Gardy to a $7.5M deal for one year is effectively CashAss telling us to forget about Harper...

HoraceClarke66 said...

Head for the hills. They're going cheap.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Love the plan, Doug K. But it's too late!

Carl J. Weitz said...

Only one thing wrong with your plan, Doug (other than not adding a few drops of Putin's Special Polonium 210 into the shrimp's cocktail sauce). Trump will pardon them all.

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