Pineda Begins Work-Outs In Tampa

Let me see......

Wasn't there a big name pitcher for the Yankees who got injured by a garbage truck, while making out with some bimbo in Florida?

Wasn't that pitcher a total waste for 4 years until he went to another team and started winning again?

Our man from Seattle de-bugged from that snow bound burg and headed straight for Tampa. Shortly after flashing his new Yankee team colors, he attracted a babe to his audi convertible and was last seen outside a leafy park at 4;00am.

The garbage is picked up in Tampa starting at 4:15 am.

The Yankees picked up their garbage last week.

The Yankiverse remains troubled and convulsive over the Jesus trade

Last night, the pre-eminent Yankee blog, River Ave, held an open thread on Michael Pineda, the man who will never be Jesus Montero.

Within minutes, it belched 100 comments. Or transcribed grunts. Many could have been typed by Lyndon Larouche. Fans ranted politics. They gave Pineda nicknames: Seeyalatta Pineda...  Pinata. They glinked and glonked about how we should sign Prince Fielder. (Note: We're not going to sign Prince Fielder.) One guy mentioned Sergio Mitre. He was tripping on morning glory seeds.

Listen: I judge nobody. We are what we are: Restless, boneless, slaves to Yankee bullshit - for better or worse, till death do us part.
But in my entire life, I cannot remember such massive disappointment and unease over the trading of a prospect. If we had dealt Munson's legacy for a bowl of soup, the Yankiverse would not be so roiled and disillusioned.

And we all know why. We just walked out onto a frozen lake. We want to believe the ice is thick. But Bobby V's words - if he's so good, why did they trade him? - hang around our necks like a rotting sea creature. If Pineda tanks, we will experience the Yankiverse version of that super volcano in Yellowstone, the one that outblows mounts Buhner and Drabek. We will experience nuclear winter.

The truth is this: We might have just traded away Babe Ruth. Or Miguel Cabrera.

Ugh. It hurts to think: Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas. Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio. Mark McGwire for TJ Matthews. Josh Hamilton for Edinson Volquez. Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson. Now... ugh...

Don't get me wrong: I really do believe. But I'm pushing 60. I got 10 to 20 good years left. And folks, here is my reality:

If this trade backfires, it will haunt me the rest of my life. Try to put that into an open thread.

Cost of Darvish to Rangers: 4.1 Seligs

The Bush Rangers -- the Conservative, fiscally-adult franchise that gave humanity the original Arod supercontract -- has signed Japanese sensation Yu "Don't Call Me Kei" Darvish to a six-year contract for $60 million. Per season, the Japanese sensation will earn 0.4 Seligs -- according to the universal scale of compensation, based on the salary of Supercommissioner Bud Selig ($25 million.)

The true cost of stabling the Japanese sensation is $110 million - more than 4 crisp Seligs. To meet Darvish, the Rangers had to pay ransom to his Japanese captors: a cool $51 million - or 2 Seligammas.

As you know, I wanted us to outbid Texas for the negotiating rights, then never even call him. That would force the Japanese sensation to return next year, without bidding rights. It would have cost us nothing, but it would have totally ruined the Rangers' Christmas. They'd whine and call us names, but, hey, that's Chinatown, Jake.

I try not to root against players, (aside from physically obese Redsocks). I have no quarrel with Yu. In the past, overpaid Rangers were destined to become Yankees, anyway, so why be negative? Still, it would be nice if Darvish fumbles, while the pitcher Texas tossed overboard - CJ Wilson - does well. It would be a classic George Steinbrenner 1980s move: Lust for other teams' players, while undervaluing your own. If Yu isn't worth all those Seligs, Texas is going to play like Rick Perry debates.

Anticipated great moments on July 6, when Roger “Pink Floyd” Waters brings “The Wall” to Yankee Stadium

1. After giant brick wall is built, Bobby Abreu plays a catchable ball off it.



2. Crowd sings: “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Cashman, leave them kids alone!”


3. Pig flying overhead wears Big Papi jersey.


4: Don Zimmer, fighting Pedro doll, performs live rant: “If you don't hit yer head, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't hit yer head?"


5. John Sterling, during introduction, confesses to have never heard of band or any of its music.


6. Arod sings, “Money, it’s a gas.”


7. Crowd sings along with salute to Jeet: “All in all you’re just another Yank in the Hall.”


8. Ramiro Pena dedication: “I... have become... confortably slumped.”


9. Called out for encore, Waters receives pie in face from AJ Burnett.

A SHOCK FOR ALPHONSO?

It Is High friend and commenter Buhner's Ghost asked me to pour into Alphonso's half-empty glass this column from The Seattle Times' Larry Stone (the columnist who writes like a columnist, not the Peter Abraham-style extreme blogger, both of whom I mentioned the other day). Stone sees top Yankee Michael Pineda as a candidate for:

"The Verducci Effect" -- the theory by Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci that targets young pitchers in danger of "injury or significant regression"

Read and weep

Wikipedia: The Poem

In honor of today's protest.

(From looks of things, we'd have to pack it

in if that law gets passed.)

Wikipedia,
The perfect media!
Facts for you,
And they might be true!

Wikipedia,
Not a picky media.
No need to fight it.
I just rewrite it.

I did "Suburbia:
"A town in Disturbia,
"Home to Uncle Sam,
"Birthplace of Spam."

And then "Clitoria:
"Fear of euphoria.
"For more, see KAY."
(My ex-fiancé.)

Christina Aguillera?
"Wife of Yogi Berra." James K. Polk?
"Inventor of Coke."

Frozen Margarita?
"Girl in iced Velveeta."And of course, Voodoo:

"Doo droppings from Voo."

Wikipedia.

The low-cost media.

We sew what we reap,
And free is cheap.

Lincecum wants 0.86 Selgs: How dare he! And guess who is to blame...

The Yankees, of course.

Yes, blame for the Giant pitcher's overwhelming, sickeningly lustful greed falls squarely on pinstriped shoulders: The damn Yankees pay too much money, because they actually try to win each year. (At least, I think we do. This winter, I've had reason to wonder.) We chase free agents - (Damn that Curt Flood!) - and return calls to Scott Boras. We've ruined the game. Players are now seeking Selig money! Damn Yankees! Damn us!

Now this: A seemingly nice young hippie, Tim Linceum - who should be above materialism - is demanding nearly an entire Selig. (That's the universal measurement of $25 million per year, what our nylon-haired Commissioner gets paid.) What is happening to our children!

Fortunately, for the owners, Bud the Rug recently brokered a de facto salary cap, masquerading as a massive luxury tax upon anybody who tries too hard to win. Strangely, this group of moral giants has not publicly come out to support higher income taxes on America's 1 percent, which would jive with their management style in baseball.
Remember, folks: They are billionaires, pretending to be millionaires so we will feel sorry for them.

Now Tim Lincecum wants 4/5th of a Selig? Heavens to Murgatroy.

Listen: Nobody poormouths more than the owners of sports teams. You'd think they live hand-to-mouth. They own franchises worth hundreds of millions of dollars - in some cases, billions - and they tap into public money whenever needed - yet they wail like sidewalk rag ladies to anybody near.

Well, last week, we did their bidding. We traded Jesus Montero to shore up our pitching staff, rather than sign a free agent. Maybe it'll work. But if the Yankees simply used the money from taxpayers and corporate boxes - signing Darvish or Wilson or Edwin Jackson, while keeping their kids, they cannot fail. 

Now, there's a chance this kid from Seattle will blow an elbow (Humberto Sanchez!), shrink from the lights (Carl Pavano!) or simply be pitched out (Javier Vazquez!), and we'll spend the next 15 years rueing the day we traded Jesus.

But at least our owners will have saved some precious pennies. They're burning furniture to stay warm, I hear, in the Poorhouse that Ruth Built.

Redsocks looking ready to move

Carl Crawford had surgery today on his wrist.

"Can you hit a man-sized target with a baseball at a distance of two hundred feet?"

The blog Ptak Science Books found an "unlikely advertisement" from 1916 "for baseball players with good throwing skills to enlist in the U.S. Army" and pitch hand grenades at, it would soon turn out, Germans.

Excerpts after the jump.

Read more >>

For DH, how about if we turn to the Mexi-Man Miracle, Jorge Vazquez?

Hell, he's only 30. He bats right, he's in his prime, and with the Yankees suddenly looking for a fulltime DH, why not try the great El Chato, Jorge Vazquez, whom we signed three years ago off the Juan Miranda Memorial Scrap Heap three years ago. He's been mashing ever since.

El Chato signed with the Mexican League at age 17 and played there until 2009, when we snagged him. He was the regular all-star first baseman and the pre-eminent slugger. He missed much of his first Yankee year at Trenton with an appendectomy. Last spring, his HRs were the talk of Tampa.

He whacked 32 at Scranton and batted .262. Trouble was, he fanned 166 times in 455 plate appearances. I don't even want to do the math on that. His nickname could be El Whiffo. He's had a big winter in Mexico, hitting 18 HRs and batting .330.

It's now or never on this guy. Jesus is gone. Jorge II? I say, use him or lose him. He aint gonna get better at age 31.

Yankees reach deal with Phil - one year at 0.17 Seligs

The Steinbrothers will pay Phil the Phranchise Hughes a mere 0.17 Seligs ($3.2 million) next year, thanks to a deal to avoid the A-word, (arbitration, not Arod.)

Last year, when Hughes sat out the first three months with blah-arm syndrome, he earned 0.108 Seligs ($2.7 million.)

Note: Seligs are the universal measuring stick for 1 percenter compensation, based on contribution to humanity. One Selig - that's year's salary for the great commissioner Bud Selig - equals $25 million. Thus, Mitt Romney is worth about 6.5 Seligs... which means 6.5 Seligs is one Bain.

(Obviously, only great human beings are paid in Seligs and Bains, and in the popular mindset, they are always - unlike baseball players - "worth every penny."

Final Note: MLB has no recourse but to pay Bud Selig what he's worth on the open market. If he were to bolt to, say, the Arena Football League or Womens Basketball Association, there's no telling how much more he would make. The current NFL Commissioner receives 0.4 Seligs, which only shows how Bud Selig is the Arod of professional sports administrators.)

The highest paid Yankee, Alex, earns 1.35 Seligs per year. Over the course of his career, he has accumulated 2 Bains. Way to go, Arod!

Talking points Rick Perry can use in defending those Marines for urinating on Taliban bodies

"Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go!"

"Give 'em a break! Doesn't every kid yearn to do silly stuff like that?"

"That durn Barack Obama, he's done it again!"

"In war, you wanna make dang sure they're not playin' possum!"

"A sixpack in the afternoon - it runs through you like Gayle Sayers!"

"I say, 'Let he who hath never peed on a dead body throw the first stone.'"

"Can ya' blame em? Everybody wants to get on YouTube!"

"Heh-heh, they broke, heh-heh, the military rule: Don't ask; don't expel!"

10 Reasons the Packers collapsed

1. Offense confused when Aaron Rodgers kept calling for "Discount Doublecheck."

2. Before game, Clay Matthews horrified to find frizzy ends, damaged roots.

3. Defense thought, "Cover Nicks" meant NBA Knicks.

4. Coach wanted to see if you can really win Super Bowl without rushing.

5. Team figured since refs overturned fumble calls, they'd overturn score.

6. Whenever Tom Coughlin is one loss away from being fired, beware.

7. Team up all night cheering Wisconsin victory in Miss America.

8. Nobody wants to miss Super Bowl halftime show with Madonna.

9. Disillusioned with God after Tebow loss.

10. Really: Who can fear somebody named "Pierre-Paul?"

Awwww, tooo bad: Baseball plantation owners sad about not being able to sign Puerto Ricans at age 16

Those pesky school teachers ruin everything! That's the story from baseball pimps in Puerto Rico, which only has 20 players in the majors - all because mean old MLB includes the U.S. territory in its annual draft - which requires signees to be at least 18 years old.

If only Puerto Rico was poverty stricken, like other Latin societies - why, everyone would be happy! A few more players would make it, and as long as the media writes about them, rather than the losers, it's a happy story all around!

The problem? That damn lack of poverty, say baseball officials in the New York Times.

Some, like Sandy Alderson, the current general manager of the Mets and a former consultant for Major League Baseball who handled issues in Latin America, said Puerto Rico’s socioeconomic status — somewhere between the United States and the Dominican Republic — left it in a peculiar position.
       

“From a socioeconomic standpoint, things have changed quite a bit in Puerto Rico,” Alderson said. “There are lots of other ways to spend your time. In the Dominican Republic, on the other hand, unfortunately, poor kids who are playing ball and who are from the lowest economic strata in that country, baseball is a way to escape, so there’s a greater concentration of players and effort. I think they’re just very different dynamics than Puerto Rico.”

Not to rip on Alderson here. He's got it absolutely right. But where is MLB in this?

In the new labor agreement, Bug Selig - the $25 million man - made sure MLB has a hidden salary cap - the massive luxury taxes will crush free agent spending. Thus, owners can bank more money, with nobody the wiser. Players salaries get published, riling fans. (Damn that AJ Burnett! It's his fault the tickets cost so much!) But when it's time for a new stadium, the owners plead poverty and beg for taxpayer welfare. And their books are personal business.

Now they say the new MLB agreement won't ban the signing of players at age 16. Maybe someday. Not now. Apparently, it's just not a priority.

I wonder how many Jerry Sanduskys are out there, recruiting 15 year olds for the baseball plantations of Latin America?

But it goes deeper. When you sign a player at 16, the corruption of the child begins much earlier - at 10 or 12.

No wonder these guys go in as Don Mattingly and come out as Manny Ramirez.

Twenty five million dollars a year, folks.

Lingtks

Brangelina Burnett?

Arod working out?

Is Gary the new Jesus?

For five years, we Yankee believers awaited the Coming of Jesus Montero. We praised his first HR in the Florida play-gym league. We toasted his pilgrimages through Charleston and Trenton, and the Electric City/Anthracite Capital of the World. We devoured meaningless projections of how his Triple A stats would translate unto The Promised Land. We defended his defense, or lack of it. We believed in him. Mike Piazza! we said. Miguel Cabrera! we said. Mike Napoli! we said. Jesus was coming, this we knew.

Well, Jesus is gone, and He will never forgive us.

Oh, well, our new savior is... Gary! Gary Sanchez. Praise Glory, praise Gary?

For you who follow the Yankees sparsely - as in, "I hear they have a player named Arod, or something..." - Gary Sanchez is Jesus II. He catches, he hits for power, and he breaks the scale at 235. We paid more to sign him at age 16 - $3 million - than we ever paid before or since. The only concerns are his attitude and defense. The party line, believe it or not, was always that Gary was better than Jesus. Yes, better than Jesus.

But dare we bother to follow him? Having betrayed Jesus, do we have unmitigaed gall to simply rewind the Savior Clock?

Last month, Gary turned 19. This summer, he probably starts in Tampa, at High Single A. Thus far, his career has been a Jesus carbon copy. If it continues, he'll ransack Tampa - Montero did - and ascendeth unto Trenton. That would have him blessing the mudfield in Scranton next year and reaching New York by 2014 - age 22 - like Montero, with the same hype but one big difference.

By then, we'll know if we blew it by trading Jesus.

If so, if Montero is the savior we gave away, Brian Cashman might not even be around in the Yankee temple anymore. You only get one Savior in life. If you trade it away, do you get a chance at a second Second Coming?

Should we believe, or does it still hurt too much?

Four Reasons ( At Least ) Why Dumping Jesus Was A Horror

1. What no one is even mentioning is that Hector Noesi was also lost in the trade. Hector was a dominant, make that THE DOMINANT, pitcher in winter ball. And he is both young and battle tested in the majors.

He is better now than Phil Hughes will ever be, whether as starter ( Hughes will never be this ) or reliever ( Hughes will be given the 6th inning at best, and more often than not screw it up ).

Hector will win 16 games for Seattle this year.

2. The dip-stick Jose Campos, whom we received "in exchange " for Noesi, won't see the majors in the 2012 season. More likely, he will never see the majors. He has no upside at all.

3. Pineda not only has arm trouble, but the league quickly figured out he has only two pitches. Did we get him for a closer role? The likelihood of him developing an effective 3rd pitch ( a change-up no less) at this stage is practically zero. Hughes tried to develop a change-up and we all saw how effective that new pitch was for him last year. He threw it once for a strike and twelve times for extra base hits.

4. Related to the news of this trade disaster, mostly by timing of course, is the brilliant signing of Kei Igawa's older cousin, 14 year veteran Hiroki Kuroda of the world famous LA Dodgers pitching corps. This bum is already useless, can't throw strikes and, hopefully, it is questionable whether he can pass a physical. His 78 mph fastball, combined with his 55 foot breaking balls will surely dominate American League hitters. We can only hope he has a torn labrum that will show up on an MRI.

Don't we all know that, one way or another, Japanese pitchers will always fail at the major league level when it matters? This guy makes me happy to have AJ Burnett.

5. I know I said 4 reasons, not 5. However, Jesus has already proven he can be a monster hitter. I think Alex Rodriguez no longer can be. Alex is 37 and fading fast. His at bats in

our "one and done" playoff series were laughable. He is again watching fast balls blaze past him for strikes, then flailing at the inevitable breaking ball, a foot off the plate. Out of strikes, looking aimlessly to the sky for answers, he walks gingerly back to the bench leaving at least two runners on base. You'll be seeing this a lot with Alex milking millions as a .223 hitting DH with no power.

Extending his contract years back so that we now owe him 6 more years of bench time, was part of the disaster that now unfolds.

6. Romine, Sanchez ( see Grasslands Institute for The Mentally Unbalanced ) and the person named Murphy, will make Cervelli look like Elston Howard. They are all bums who can't hit and never will.

I will wager anyone right now that when I arrive in Tampa for the early spring training games, Pineda won't be pitching because of a balking arm tendon, brought on by trying to learn his new pitch. Kuroda will be lights out in the training games but give up 8 runs in 1 and 2/3 innings in his first outing at the stadium.

Now, we'll never know John's updated home run call for Jesus Montero

Last September, when the Times' Bill Pennington called to ask why our blog celebrates the outdated Yankee carnivale broadcast pinata known as John Sterling, I picked his brain for dirt. Pennington had spent weeks probing internal dark dimensions of the Master's psyche that the rest of us can only piece together from disconnected lyrics of Ethel Merman show tunes and 15-minute calls to Geico. The reporter had spent an entire day with John. Ponder that, folks: An entire Sterling day. Thus, I viewed Pennington as a potential Rosetta Stone of Sterling gossip and set out to decipher it. And the juiciest bit I shall now share:

Pennington disclosed that John was not enamored with his "Jesus is loose" homerun call, used for what now will be the only four dingers Montero ever gives us. John planned a new, improved call. He had one in mind but was not ready to share it with the world.

Now, we will never know.

Friday, Brian Cashman traded away our secret map to Candy Land, to Valholler... the lost call of Jesus Montero.

Opposing batters do not receive Sterling calls, which are forged in the volcano of his Yankee soul. That is the law of Sterling, the rule of life. We will never know what John had in mind, or how Jesus HR calls would have evolved over his long Yankee career.

We can speculate, but what's the point? No one can approximate the Master's limitless knowledge of 1950s Broadway standards, and unless we can simultaenously channel both Rogers & Hammerstein and Barber & Rizzuto, we cannot come close. The Seattle announcers won't try. Now and then, Jesus will hit a "grand salami." In New York, he would have had an A-bomb, a Text message, or a flight into Camelot on the vocal wings of Robert Goulet.

Gone. Forever.

The Yankiverse still grumbles about this trade. On paper, it was crafy. We dealt a young hitter for a young pitcher. It's not Buhner for Phelps, Drabek for Rhoden. But while pitching wins championships, nothing brings more instant joy to a Yankee fan - and its radio voice - than a glorious blast into the seats. It is the orgasm that comes from true Yankee love. And we might just have traded away 500 of them.

This guy, Pineda, had better be good. Because he will never bring us a home run call.

Yanks Re-visit Disaster Of Jay Buhner Trade

I now know for sure that jesus will haunt the Yankees for the next 15 years.

Luckily, Seattle is awful now and may not keep us from securing second place in the AL East, but we have just treaded on the same snake that bit us years back.

This excuse for a pitcher they sent us will be having surgery before May, I assure you.

He will go the way of those lefties whose names we can't pronounce and who never contributed a lick to the yankees.

El Duque has done his best to spin something positive and hopeful. Disregard every word.

His argument is similar to that which says our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will bring peace, democracy, brotherly love and tranquility to those nations. Or that we will all soon book vacations there, dance with Omar, Muhammud and Abu in their mosques, have cocktails on the shore of the Euphrates and play stick-ball in the back alleys of Bagdhad.

Cashman has, in panic, erupted with a disaster for the ages. Soon, he will be GM for the Royals.

As for us; we shall be reading, within weeks mind you, reports of renewed arm troubles. Then we can look forward to yet more surgery, a lengthy recovery progress, and finally the excitement of a moderately successful inning or two at "A" ball three years hence.

In the end we shall have nothing but further disappointment, unrealized expectations and, at long last, an endless winter of drinking as we hopelessly try to forget this day.

Jay Buhner twice in a lifetime is too much for anyone to bear.

Mark my words and mark them now. This is a disaster.