Signs of the Yankapocalypse: Mini KISS, Doc Gooden, Daddy Field of Dreams

Players we'd consider taking off the Redsocks' hands, when the trade deadline comes

The last place Redsocks have lost 7 in a row, deflating Boston balls on a level that not even Tom Brady can achieve. It's so sad, so, so sad... especially since the franchise spent all of last winter congratulating itself for outwitting the rest of baseball, having folded its cards in mid-July and shedding the dead weight of Jon Lester, Johnny Gomes, etc. Now, they must endure the likes of Joe Kelly and Alan Craig. It breaks your heart.

We must take pity on this lost legion of frat boys - and with more than canned food. Let's think of how the Yankees can help their AL East brethren during this year's purge, when Boston again outsmarts the world.

1. If Boston pays for half of his salary, we'll take Dustin Pedroia for - say - Carlos Beltran and Gregorio Petit. CF Jackie Bradely Jr. will never have to worry about colliding with Beltran, because Carlos doesn't get to right-center. Of course, we don't want to overpay for Pedroia, since he'll be backing up Rob Refsnyder as our utility ace... our new Clay Bellinger.

2. Their Japanese closer - Kenji Somethingorother - (I never bother to learn spelling of Bosock names until the guys clear waivers) - we'll take him as our sixth inning mop up man. They can have Jose Pirela and Garrett Jones and - oh, hell - let's sweeten the deal and give them Chris Capuano. Call me a soft touch. I can't stand to see people in pain.

3. Mookie Betts for Stephen Drew and all our pitchers at Scranton who are over the age of 28. It'll be the first 1 for 12 deal in baseball history. Wait: We can also throw in all our pitchers at Trenton over age 26. They'll need to a bigger boat.

4. Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez. We buy them outright. They can become special correspondents for Suzyn's Clubhouse Report, but only following Yankee victories. There's no reason why Suzyn - in moments of ecstasy - should have to rush down from the booth; she could turn an ankle. Schill and Pedro can collar the Yankee Star of the Game and ask the tough questions, such as, "How about this Yankee ballclub!"

5. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for - hm-mm - Billy Crystal? Hate to see B-Cris go, but I'm figuring he can generate some laughs by going to Florida next year and trying out for the Redsocks. Better yet, he might make the team.

Quick, somebody call Ben Cherrington. Tell him its Terry Francona on the line.

Another ( Not So ) Fun Fact:

Mason Williams will not get another hit as a Yankee.

He will be the only rookie who hit a home run and nothing else, during his time in pinstripes.

His batting average started at .500 and is now .091...and fading.

His best at bats are now swinging strike outs.

He plays great defense, but cannot hit a lick.   Like so many Yankee regulars.

The bus is loading for Scranton.  I can hear the engine throbbing and smell the putrid exhaust fumes.

Goodbye, Mason.  Another top draft pick bites the bullet.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Flip side to this coin:  Mason Williams no longer is tasty to the fish ( trade bait ), and he is still young .  Right, Duque?

Without A-Rod in the Yankee lineup, should anyone expect more than three hits?

Some basic rules of life.

1. When showering with Satan, don't bend over to pick up the soap.

2. When gazing up to heaven, you're most susceptible to getting your throat slashed.

3. When your No. 3 hitter is Brian McCann - batting .260, with the lightning speed of Ethel Merman needing to pee - don't expect to score runs.

OK, nothing personal against McCann.. but No. 3? Yikes. (Vernon Wells, Alfonso Soriano Flashback.) On a pennant-winning team, the Brian McCann guy bats fifth or sixth. And last night - which might go down as the night the second-place Bombers launched their 2015 Wild Card chase - who could look at the lineup without a sense of the impending Yankapocalypse?

Because here is a basic rule, thus far, of the 2015 season:

Without A-Rod, this is a crapola-hitting team. This is a two-run-per-game offense.

How, how... how did the Yankees become so reliant on a guy they spent last winter trying to stuff into a bottle and shipped out on Malaysian Flight 370? Good grief, if the Bill Maddens of NYC had their way - and A-Rod had been traded for a handful of magic beans - this team would be currently scrapping with the Papi-ville Pawsocks for fourth in the lowly AL East. Take Alex Rodriguez out of the offense, and we're reduced to cheering for a couple Gardner singles, a Tex message and a few more lurid accounts about that sex-starved prison seamstress at Dannemora, the one who bakes hacksaw cakes. After that, we're hoping for walks and Jacoby Ellsbury's swift recovery. If anyone out there still gets giddy at the sight of Carlos Beltran waddling to home plate... well... don't bend over for the soap. That's all I can tell you.

I am often accused of living and dying too harshly on every single Yankee outcome. To that, I plead guilty. Can't help it. Never could. When the Yanks play well, the American way of life has been validated. This country was founded on the premise of pioneer guts, shooting anyone who wears feathers... and the Yankees dominating the American League.

But damn, whenever we waste a great outing by Masahiro Tanaka, as we did last night, who DOESN'T wonder if the trap door isn't about to open? This is an old, creaky team, and nothing more reminds us of our impending infirmities than when we must bench our best hitter, because he cannot play in an NL park.

Listen: Winter is coming to King's Landing. It will appear as a wave of injuries that is as unavoidable as the month of July. We all know this. We are showering with Satan. We are in second place. And tonight, against David Phelps and lowly Miami, the question still remains: Without A-Rod, who the hell is going to hit third?

Moneyball may have run its course - (SEE Redsocks, Boston) - but the Rays plan to unlock the power of digital bio-mechanics

We have come a long way from pitch counts.

The Tampanzi will be the first MLB franchise to install Kinatrax, "a markerless motion-capture system," which will provide the Rays with secret super-cool uber-data on every pitcher's personal, 3-D, bio-mechanical motion sensitive magnetic torque impression. It's really simple. Imagine the pitcher hurling inside in a giant, invisible MRI tube, while MIT lab-coats in the Rays clubhouse study print-outs for pertinent data, such as - well - balls and strikes.

By installing Kinatrax at Tropicana Field, not only do the Rays get to analyze their own pitchers, they can track opponents’ biomechanics. Exactly how they will interpret the data is unclear, especially in the immediate future, but years worth of data could provide patterns that show typical biomechanical traits of pitchers who get hurt vs. those who stay healthy. 

This comes just as Moneyball - the Oscar-nominated metric system championed by the Oakland A's, and famously copied by the Redsocks - seems to have stalled. But hey, you never know.

Fun Fact

In their last six games, the Redsocks are 0 and 6.

AJ Burnett yesterday

Nine innings.

No runs.

No walks.

Five hits.

Four strikeouts.

If Seinfeld were still on the air, Jerry Stiller would be yelling at Cashman, "HOW COULD YOU GIVE AWAY AJ BURNETT?"

And yet some self-loathing Yankee fans still defend the brain trust for giving him away.

(Correction: I sincerely apologize to all astute Yankee defenders of the realm, for wrongfully suggesting that the Yankees gave away AJ Burnett. They most certainly did NOT give him away. They traded him for Exicardo Cayones and Diego Moreno.)

The trades are coming, and the Yankees have plenty of chips. But will they address the dead wood?

Friday, the Yankees and Tigers were out collecting stool samples on Reds starter Johnny Cueto. He's 29, throws hard, has both a big beard and big contract, and let's face it: These days, Cincy is deader than a morgue full of Robert Mapplethorpes.

Clearly, it's Cashman's job to scout every feral cat that might stray onto the market next month, but starters - right now anyway - don't exactly scream "Rent me!" The Evils have Ivan Nova returning, Adam Warren moving to the bullpen, Chris Capuano weaving quilts, and Joe Girardi conceptualizing a six-man rotation. Why trade for Johnny Cueto? That's a question worthy of Stephen Hawking. But - hey - when Cashman eyes the mid-season nose job, anything can happen.

Still, let's say you wanted to boost the Yankee brand for a stretch pennant/wild card run, and you wanted to address the team's problems. Clearly, you need RH bullpen help, and Cashman is already well into psycho-scavenger, lift-every-rock, Storage Wars mode. He signed Sergio Santos, the latest - (or first, if you're thinking of 2015) - in a conga line of down-and-outers, who seek to salvage their careers. Maybe somebody will emerge for a month or two, until the wheels fall off, as they all invariably do. Maybe the Yankees won't have to trade prospects - because no matter how frugal Cashman is with his chips, you can't deal kids forever without getting burned. We're still watching Manny Banuelos and Pete O'Brien, wondering if either's name will someday be burned into Cashman's gravestone, or cause dispirited Yankee fans to salt his driveway with nails.

But here's the question: Can Johnny Cueto play RF or 2B? Because those are the problems.

For a month now, the Yankee blather squads have been crowing about Carlos Beltran's resurgence. And OK, Beltran did improve over his wretched first month of the season. On May 13, he was hitting .221 with no power. He's now hitting .244 with no power. (Over the month, 2 HRs.) He seems to have plateaued in the .240s. Also, Beltran's fielding is atrocious. It's probably not his fault: The guy should be a DH, but A-Rod is there - so Beltran goes to right, where he covers ground like Chris Christie. Frankly, we might be better off with Mason Williams, Ramon Flores and/or Slade Heathcott. But we'll never know, because one - or all of them - will probably go in a deal.  And we'll keep Beltran.

Then there is 2B, still held by Stephen Drew. On May 13, Drew was hitting .161. He's now hitting .172 - but then again, he's belted 5 HRs over that period, with sound defense. Last winter, everyone assumed Rob Refsnyder would take over at 2B around July - (and Refsnyder is red hot in Scranton right now, on a HR-hitting binge) - but the Refsnyder Hope Train doesn't seem to be leaving Scranton. His defense remains suspect. And Jose Pirela is also back at Triple A. I think both will have nice MLB careers, but not necessarily in NYC. And we'll keep Drew.

The Yankees strategy seems to be: We're paying them a lot, so we gotta play them.

But the trades are coming. Cashman has plenty of options. Let's hope he address the problems, rather than just create more of them for this time next year.

Let's not pop a Willie on the Redsock demise just yet

Boston lost again today, crushed by the ever-lowly Blue Jays.

Once upon a time, I could easily take delight over Redsockian hopelessness. I could laugh at their sad, feeble existence - snicker at their fate as also-rans... certain that the juju gods would never hold me accountable.

That peace of mind died in October of 2004.

It will never return.

Yankee fans are stuck in an abusive, bipolar relationship with the 2015 team

One night, they bring flowers and chocolates, put Barry White on the stereo, and everything is... mm-mm, oooh, so lovie-dovie. 


Next morning, they're flinging dishes at your head, screaming about demon leeches in the attic.

On a good day - and, mm-mm, there ARE good days - you can't keep your hands off them. You vow to love them forever, to do whatever they want: To watch YES Network, to buy WB Mason napkins, to drink Bigelow tea while calling Cellino and Barnes, the injury attorneys... because they're worth it! And then comes the bad day: They don't know you, and you barely recognize them.

In Seattle, they look stunningly beautiful, and every Mariners fan wishes he could be you. Then... in Baltimore, they wear a fright wig, and their teeth fall out. What is going on?

Friend, you are a battered Yankee fan, trapped in an abusive, bipolar relationship, and if you think that one day, your lover will suddenly wake up sane and composed, you are living a lie.

They win seven straight - a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic getaway in Seattle - but now they have lost three (and counting.) We had a chance to build something - a lead in the AL East - and to crush Boston's summer hopes before the Fourth of July. We botched it. 

Worse, we are now entering a psychological breakdown phase. Every day, someone goes to Scranton, replaced by a new face from the wastelands. Soon, the rhinoplasty will begin, and if you think you couldn't recognize the Yankees in Baltimore from the team in Seattle... well... it's going to get much scarier. If you took a week off, you might have missed the Ramon Flores Era.

You wish you could leave. There are other lovers out there, teams that would cherish a fan like you. They'd never go through your backpack, looking for Oxy, or charge you $500 to watch Sergio Santos' return from Mordor. If only you could summon the courage to tell them off - one and for all - to walk out the door and never look back.

Then Mason Williams hits a home run, and there you are, in love again.

Maybe it's time to ask ourselves why, why, why were we fated to fall for such a fetching, but obviously deranged, bipolar nut crisp of a team. Did Hal Steinbrenner drink the crazy Kool-Aid... or did we?

By being so loyal, so heart-stricken, have we failed to give the "tough love" that this franchise needs to truly heal?

One day, they adore you. Next day, your clothes are out on the street.

Baseball teams. Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em.

Essay question: The Oakland A's have the worst record in the AL, yet their overall run-differential is plus 9. How can this be?

Somebody's got some splainin' to do.

Get Ready To Rage

Easy for me to sit around, calmly, and survey the countryside.  Listen to the birds, smell the roses and have an occasional pull on a flask of Crown Royal Reserve.

The world is good.

Then, I start thinking about the Yankees.  About the slimy, stupid, manipulative GM we have.  I tune in the game to find that Mason Williams got a call up.  Mason, despite my certainties of his hopelessness as a future CF fixture in the Bronx, remains young, and a " work in progress."  Such a work, in fact, that he hit over .300 both at AA and AAA.

I had to admit, in a foggy state no doubt, to Duque and Mustang back in the March, that Mason now looked like a ball player.   No longer the 140 pound, angry kid from who knows where, but now a strapping athlete.  And he did pretty well in spring training. 

So, in his debut he strikes out.  The, he becomes the Yankee offense for the night....a two run dinger.  Good for him.  So now, we have paraded Heathcott, Flores and Williams.  To no avail, but we have paraded them.

What is going on?  Is it Cashman's contract review time?  Is he showing the brass that he has nurtured some young prospects in what is jokingly referred to as the, " Yankees' farm system?"

I think it is something more insidious.  I think it is a pre-trade deadline runway of goodies. A virtual fashion show, with the Yankee stadium outfield grass as the runway.

 Anyone wants to dump some contract they can't afford, any team headed no where and willing to exchange former competence for future competence, will line right up to deal.  Cashman should wear a suit that reads, " Suckers."

Yes sirs.  That is what we are seeing.  Cashman plays his trump card and shows the world we have three young outfielders, who can play.  He took a chance here, of course, as they could have collectively gone 0-60, and made bad plays in the outfield.  But his stunt worked.  They each shined.

Soon, Mason will be cycled back to Scranton with the rest of them, but the trade bait has been put on display at the major league level. Throw in a Sorviano and we can get pretty much any dog out there.  Just the dog to solve our growing bullpen problem, or our inability to score runs problem. 

This is the worst nightmare time of year, now, for Yankee fans.  It used to be a good time.  A time for the David Justice piece of the puzzle.  The missing piece that puts us into the world series.

But now, there are too many old and injured pieces to the puzzle missing.  Nothing we can do except blow the future.  Desperately striving to get the wild card invitation to the one game play-in. 

And to no avail, I promise.

So long, Esmil Rogers. Hello, next class of Yankee scrap heapers

Last July 5, the Yankees parted ways with the 38-year-old Alfonso Soriano, ending the free-swinging slugger's career. For three months, Sori had languished in the meat of our batting order, hitting .221. Finally, the Yankees cried "Uncle."

Three weeks later, the team cut ties with 36-year-old Brian Roberts, the great former O's 2B who - by 2015 Drew/Ryan/Petit standards - was actually having a great season. He was hitting .236! Unfortunately, we were still comparing secondbasemen to Robbie Cano, doncha know? So... they cried "Uncle."

Thus ended months of self-congratulation by the Yankee front office - aped by the Buffalo Jills of the YES Network - relentlessly praising the brain trust for using its vast treasury of gold to sign washed-up veterans that smaller market teams could not afford.

Which brings us to Esmil Rogers - and, probably, Sergio Santos.

Last summer, the Yankees signed the then 28-year-old Rogers off Craig's List and quickly anointed him as a "live arm," after he won two games. Once again, the blogs of the Yankiverse extolled Brian Cashman's relentless brilliance in snapping up vintage tees from the Biz Bag. (Keep in mind that they also went through Jeff Francis, Matt Daley, Alfredo Aceves, Rich Hill, Josh Outman, Bruce Billings, Chris Leroux, Wade LeBlanc and Jim Miller. The Biz Bag also offers rags.) Esmil pitched to a 4.68 ERA - and the hope brigade wondered how the Blue Jays could have let him go? (Here's one theory: In Toronto, Esmil's ERA was 6.97. Jeepers. Could that be a reason?)

This year, Esmil was touted in spring training as a top candidate for fifth starter, and throughout the early season, we were reminded often of how smart the Yankees were to snag him.

Last night, after yet another public cuffing, the team cut ties with Alfonso - Esmil - whose ERA is now 6.39.

Yep. We signed him at a plus-6 ERA, and that's exactly what we got... which is pretty common around the Bronx.

Other teams promote young players on the way up. The Yankees sign old ones on the way down.

Which brings us to Sergio Santos, age 31, and supposedly the next in line for the Yankee scrap heap Hall of Fame. We signed Sergio two days ago, after the Dodgers cut him. His ERA stood at 4.87 and I don't even want to report his ERA last year with Toronto; let's just say it was worse than Esmil's. (Oh, hell, why fool around: It was 8.57. Yes, eight-fifty-seven! Eight-frickin'-fifty-seven! Eight-five-seven. Eight runs and fifty-seven percent of another run. Over 26 games! Essay Question: How does a guy last 26 games with an ERA of 8.57?)

Well, we signed Sergio, and he pitched a scoreless inning in Trenton, and soon we'll be hearing about his "live arm." And if he gets one batter out, you better believe some Baghdad Bob in the YES happy gas booth will be blathering about the Yankee front office's brilliance.

Listen: We on this site rag on Brian Cashman a lot. Frankly, I don't think he's baseball's worst GM. The problem is that he gets so overly praised by the Yankee echo chamber that somebody has to wonder, WTF?

WHY DO WE HAVE NO YOUNG PITCHERS AT SCRANTON? WEREN'T WE TOLD ALL SPRING THAT THE YANKEE BULLPEN WAS ONE OF THE DEEPEST IN BASEBALL? WASN'T THAT SUPPOSED TO BE CASHMAN'S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF THE WINTER... THAT HE HAD ROUNDED UP A CAVALRY OF "LIVE ARMS?' (Wither goest, Johnny Barbuto?) WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE IS EVERYBODY? 

Sergio Santos?

I believe I speak for the Yankiverse...

UNCLE!

Consolation Prize: Our night was bad; their night was worse

New Business

In the right-hand sidebar, between the informative Yardbarker headlines and the hilarious Cashman phone gag, you will find a John Sterling Birthday Countdown Clock. At this writing, we have 21 days and roughly 10 hours to figure out how make John's 77th his very best yet! That's not much time.

Updates

KAAAAAA-BOOM! PAPI GOES DOWNTOWN!

Slugger wallops first dinger since May 19... wins another month of prime playing time!

Thank you, Yankee juju gods.

The Yankees are playing two different long term strategies: One for college guys, and one for Latino teens

The Yankees this week drafted 41 amateur players - 34 from the college ranks - according to the Wall Street Journal. Over the last two years, 4 out of 5 Yankee picks have been college dudes - who are about 21, a few years older than the garden variety high-schooler. The Yankees' draft rate is 83 percent college - that's higher than the MLB average - and it's the team's highest percentages since the the early 2000s, when they also played this card (with mixed success, at best, by the way.)

Drafting amateur players is always a crap shoot, and the Yankees have famously flubbed a few. (Cito Culver, Dante Bichette Jr., et al). Clearly, they get a better read on the college sophomore or junior, who has played at a higher level. College guys are safer. College guys are cheaper (less leverage, since they can't go to college.) Also, at some point, Hal Steinbrenner must be flat-out pissed about the inability of his Yankee farm system to grow players up from age 18. In 20 years, they raised two first-rounders from high school: Phil Hughes and the very recent Slade Heathcott.

In that period, they have used a top draft pick 16 times on Joe College. That meant Brian Buchanan, Shea Morenz, Eric Milton, Ryan Bradley, Mark Prior (didn't sign), David Walling, David Parrish, John-Ford Griffin, John Skaggs, Jeffrey Marquez, Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain, Andrew Brackman, Jeremy Bleich, Eric Jagielo, Aaron Judge - and now James Kaprielian and Kyle Holder. We traded away the two best - Kennedy and Milton.

But the Yankees seem to be running two separate farm systems, or least two entirely different acquisition plans. While they draft older, safer - and lower ceiling - college guys, they shovel mountains of money onto younger Dominican and Venezuelans - much younger, age 16. The strategy, simplified, seems to be; 

Buy the Gringos ripe, and buy the Latinos green. 

Last summer, around now, the Yankees once again went berserk signing Latin teens who were barely shaving. They spent more than anybody else in baseball on 16-year-old kids - several of the consensus top prospects, who are now launching pro careers. (Does it work? The answer usually seems to hinge on how Gary Sanchez, the Trenton catcher whom they spent the most money on, has done lately: He's got 8 HRs and is hitting .256, but bruised his hand last night and could be out a few weeks, so go figure.) 

Soon, the newly signed 2015 college draftees will start at Charleston, Tampa or probably Low A Staten Island and Pulaski, and the Latinos crops will fill the entry levels - the Dominican Summer League and Gulf Coast League (where the Yankees have two teams.)  
I'm not saying this is a bad or wrong-headed strategy. Maybe it'll work. I haven't a clue.

But it seems to me that the Yankees do run the risk of creating entirely different developmental tracks for Latinos and for U.S. college players, (who are mostly white.) At a certain point - around high A Tampa - two streams of players with widely divergent backgrounds will merging - or crash. Not only will they have come from different parts of the world, but they will have entirely different Yankee farm experiences. One raised in college, one raised in Yankee boot camp.

Hal can spend the world on talent, but he damn well better not skimp on coaches.