Monday, December 21, 2020

Cashman tries to talk himself into thinking Yankee pitching will hold up. It doesn't work.

One of the joys of any holiday season is watching Brian "Cooperstown" Cashman beam about the roster of Olympians he has assembled.

Yesterday, the GM went on SiriusXM pay radio to say, of Yankee pitching:

"If I can add to what I have sooner than later, all the better.  If I have to wait to do it in season, so be it.  But we also might have enough right here before us that’s just untested.”

In other words, "Hold off on the sandbags. The water is barely over our ankles." 

A quick recap on our pitching depth chart: For the rotation, the Yankees have... 

No. 1: Gerrit Cole.
No. 2: TBA
No. 3: TBA
No. 4: TBA
No. 5: Bullpen.

Yep. Cole and the Mysterians. Certainly, Deivi Garcia, Jordan Montgomery and Domingo German are hopefuls. In a regular year, they could be seen as viable mid-season replacements. But as frontrunners heading into a season? The water is at our knees. 

Look... I don't want to belabor this. We've discussed this for months. The only question now is whether Cashman is gaslighting Yankee fans - or himself. 

Hey, I'm all for magical thinking. It's fun to imagine Garcia as the next Pedro, Montgomery as the next Andy, German as the next - um - Ray Rice? While we're at it, maybe Trump can pardon Randy Levine for the last 11 Yankee seasons. Maybe the answer is to fantasize great pitchers emerging from the farms and not question the brain trust. 

For this holiday week, let us embrace the wise and comforting words of Bojack Horseman:

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, fiddle-dee-dee!

17 comments:

13bit said...

Waiting for the slew of bullshit fake posts about that hideous porn star. I'm starting to think they are being generated by a bot or some really bad AI. No way something that consistently idiotic could come from a human, even a human with no life who lives in his parents' basement and never washes his crusty, semen-stained chinos.



As for Yankee pitching, the old song-and-dance is getting really tired. Buy a staff or grow a staff - get it, "grow a staff?" - but stop trying to gaslight us into believing you're assembling some stellar staff.

Brian, you're a moron who does NOT know baseball. Hal, you're a cheap piece of rodent meat hanging in the open-air market.

13bit said...

I always forget about the mental illness factor...

DickAllen said...



Harold and Brain are only continuing a long-standing Yankees tradition: mediocre pitching and even worse pitching free-agent signings. Aside from finding occasional chestnuts, the Yankees pitching current pitching woes are part of a tradition dating back to the early 70s. They have managed, by throwing pots of money in an attempt to find a pitching staff, to find an occasional gem, but mostly wasting money on pitchers who are either over the hill, can't cut it in New York, or never deliver on their promise.

The list of pitchers they've coveted and discarded is an extensive one, starting with Don Gullet and Rawley Eastwick, all the way through Kei Igawa and Carl Pavano all the way down to my personal favorite: Sonny Gray. You could create a Hall of Shame from the roster of Yankees free-agent pitching signings failures.

Have some fun over the holidays! Create your very own list of pitchers who shit the bed in New York! There are going to be plenty of small pieces in this group, so it is not recommended for children under the age of four!

Brain and Harold are trying something that might or might not work this year: they are banking on a treasure trove of young arms to develop into the legendary Orioles pitching staff from the 60s. At least I think that is their aim.

Let's face it: the Yankees have never truly been known for pitching prowess. They are the Bronx BOMBERS, not the Bronx Golden Arms. Fasten your seatbelts boys and girls, the kids are coming to the mound next season and it could, as Yogi reminds us, get late really early around here. The Yankees are going cheap, emulating the business model of the Rays and...

And a Happy Solstice to one and all. You bring a beacon of light into these dark days!

DickAllen said...



and please, don't encourage the children...

Local Bargain Jerk said...

Horace, what the real 13bit said about that irritating troll in the first paragraph at the top of the page was absolutely hilarious and much funnier than anything that dumb-arsed Pauline Hickey obsessed looney has ever written on here, 13bit might be a comic genius without actually realising it ! ! !.

DickAllen said...




And today, in honor of the passing of my childhood hero Dick (don't call me Ritchie) Allen, I'm changing my screen name.

JM said...

The Giants lost. And the Yankees won't win a ring.

This Hickey shit has got to stop, too. Not only is it annoying, but that girl was grotesque.

Anonymous said...

A few thoughts...

1)Cole and the Mysterians

We wish.

"Question Mark and the Mysterians are the very definition of one hit wonders. Are you saying you wouldn't take a pitching staff of one hit wonders? I would.

2) Hall of Shame

"You could create a Hall of Shame from the roster of Yankees free-agent pitching signings failure"

It's pretty stunning actually. But I don't know if it's the free agents as much. I mean, Cole, Clemens, Key, Cone, Catfish, Tanaka, etc. there have been some really really good ones.

Yes, there were too many who got here after their expiration date like Randy Johnson. But I don't think it's the FAs that do them in.

It's the trades or the lack of smart trades that are the killer.

If we look at their recent inability you mentioned Sonny Grey, he was a failed trade. Paxton, Happ. All bad trades.

The other side, as Hoss mentions a lot, was their inability to get the difference makers at the trade deadline all of whom seem to come back and bite us in the playoffs. Verlander comes to mind immediately.
There are others.

Hoss - please list them again.

Add to that their seeming total inability to develop home grown guys and we end up with a rotation of maybes.

I get that it is in part because they rarely draft high enough, but the truth is really suck at development.

No one gets better here.

3) The Rule of 28s

There is a little known comedy rule called the Rule of 28s. Unlike the Rule of Threes, a major building block of comedy math that is both efficient and effective, the Rule of 28s takes much longer and can, if used improperly, get you punched.

Simply stated, "Saying or doing anything 28 times in a row eventually will become funny" You see this work a lot at sleepovers.

Unfortunately, with the apparently astonishing Miss Hickey and, BTW because she's only seventeen, jail bait (and those who advocate seeing her are walking a thin line here), no matter how cleverly written at times there is no "Rule of 146" Even adding the Bombay Roll variation is not sufficient to save it.

I suggest you use it as a call back some time in 2023.

Doug K.



Anonymous said...

Now see hear! This Pauline Hickey stuff, worthy of a grin the first time, needs to stop! I'm as twisted as the worst of you, but I want Yankee baseball. THX100.

DickAllen said...



Doug, the Yankees are just plain terrible when it comes to FA pitchers. And development as well. I grant you: throw enough money at a problem and there are going to be times when you land a good fish. No question, as Joe Torre used to say (a lot).

Want a list? Here you go:

Looking to sign an ace? Don't call any of these guys:

1977 Don Gullett
1978 Rawly Eastwick
1984 Ed Whitson
1996 Kyle Farnsworth
1997 Kenny Rogers
1997 Hideki Irabu
1989 Pascual Perez
2002 Jose Contreras
2003 Kevin Brown
2004 Carl Pavano
2004 Jaret Wright
2006 Kei Igawa
2009 A.J. Burnett
2004 & 2010 Javier Vazquez (why, oh why?)

I would even put the two biggest assholes, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens, on this list as well. Just because they're assholes. Roger Clemens, in my mind, will never be "A True Yankee." Not for love nor money.

And that doesn't even include a list of prospects that just never cut it.

The Yankees suck at developing pitchers and they can't seem to get it right with free agent pitchers. As you suggested, they strike gold on occasion, but not nearly often enough make a case for their good sense when it comes to spending money on arms.

DickAllen said...



My apologies for not including Gray, Paxton, and Happ on that list. They WERE all bad trades.

This leads me to suspect institutionalized stupidy. A complete inability to accurately assess players. And that blindness seems to be leeching into position players as well these days.



Anonymous said...

DickAllen,


"This leads me to suspect institutionalized stupidy. A complete inability to accurately assess players. And that blindness seems to be leeching into position players as well these days."

Big thumbs up for institutionalized stupidity.

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

That said,

Hunter
Cone
Key
Cole
Kuroda
Mussina
Orlando Hernandez
Tanaka
Sabatthia (although I have issues with him)

But your point is still well taken

Doug K.

HoraceClarke66 said...

You're both right! And peanut butter and chocolate DO go together!

First, let me say that I admire DickAllen for his change to his hero's later (MVP-winning) name.

Second, just to set the historical record straight, while the Yankees always had flashier hitting, pitching was really their hidden, secret weapon. Over and over again, the Yanks had staffs with spectacular depth, even when they rarely had the best pitcher in the league.

In the 1930s, for instance, Joe McCarthy often had 6-7 very good starters to choose from. Similarly, they had terrific staffs in the 1970s and 1990s. For instance, even Gullett was vital in them winning 1 of their 2 rings in the 1970s (and Eastwick was disposed of simply because Billy Psycho didn't like him, because he wasn't consulted about getting him)...

HoraceClarke66 said...

...But while FA's and young arms alike are always hit-and-miss, the wheels have really come off the dessert trolley in...you guessed it, the late Cashman period!

Over the last100 years, I don't think the Yankees have EVER failed as consistently at developing or acquiring pitching as they have under Brain since 2004.

And Sonny Gray was maybe THE ultimate example, guys, as you point out.

Brain deliberately got him instead of Verlander, thereby costing us at least 2-3 rings. Then, under Brain crack instructional staff, Gray had the worst meltdown of his career.

THEN, though still a highly rated pitcher, Sonny was shipped out again for almost literally nothing.

Failure in assessing talent, failure in enhancing it, failure in passing it on for a decent return.

In many organizations, Sonny Gray alone gets you fired. In Yankeeland, it gets you a pat on the back for cutting salary.



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