"They don't believe in hot."

Ah, that we could play in the Aviary forever!

But I digress.  Interesting little booth discussion when Wildling came up for the first time, and Michael Kay mentioned that Boone had decided to play him because righties had more success against Hess, the right-handed Baltimore starter, than lefties.

To which Ken Singleton dared to ask, "How about a start just to say, 'Nice job winning the game last night?' "

Whereupon Kay, speaking of the Yankees' beanstrust (not to be confused with a brainstrust), informed him, "They don't believe in hot."

Let's put aside for a moment the age-old question of whether or not hot does exist.  Most fans and pretty much anyone who's ever played the game will tell you that it does.  The Sabermetricians insist that it does not.

But never mind.  The interesting part came when Singleton told Kay:  "How are you going to build everyday players then?"

It's a good point.

In fairness to the Sabermetricians, there have been plenty of managers who have had success with platooning players.  The most notable example is Casey Stengel, who was also the greatest Yankees manager, and maybe the greatest manager what ever was.

Casey platooned all the time, thereby utilizing the Yankees' greatest advantage—depth—in an era when their starting lineup and starting rotation was not that much far ahead of the other good teams' in the league.  He went to war with the team he had—and won.

But that's not the team Aaron Boone has today.

Casey's Yankees rarely carried more than 9 or 10 pitchers at time.  Since there was no DH at the time, either, that meant that he usually had 7 or even 8 guys he could bring off the bench.  And many of those played multiple positions.

With the Yankees' insistence on carrying 13 pitchers—and with the DH—that means Boone usually has all of 3 subs on the bench.  Take away the back-up catcher, and he really has only 2.

What does this mean?

It means that Ken Singleton is right, and the Yankees have to concentrate on building everyday players.

You don't accomplish that by sitting a promising young outfielder just when he's getting hot.