The Yankees' Fiscal Cliff

As we approach the end of the year, our national impolitic faces the specter of punitive cuts in everything from social services to defense about which economists aren't in unanimous agreement of jackknifing us back into recession only because some modeling suggests depression instead.

Faced with this, left-wing idealouges and right-wing stonewallers in Congress have reached consensus on the following: they are prepared to compromise as long as the other side agrees to their stipulations. The result is an economic ship in stormy seas with no one at the helm.

Could the Yankees be on the same collision course? The team has anchored itself to some long-term contracts that figure to get right ugly with the passage of time.

Coming off an MVP quality season in 2007, when he punished the American League with 54 homers, 24 steals and a .422 OBP, Alex Rodriguez tore up the most egregious contract in MLB history in search of even more. Having already taken $200 million of Tom Hicks' money, ARod coaxed the Yankees into committing $275 million of George Steinbrenner's over the following 10 years. 

Although it seemed unlikely that Rodriguez could find another partner willing to go steady for a decade at anywhere near that rate, or a franchise dumb enough to commit while being smart enough to contend, the Yankees eyed their below-replacement-level replacements at third base and blinked. If the Treasury was being raided while they danced, at least they got the prettiest girl at the party.

Except age was getting into Alex's system just as the muscle-building agents were cycling out. In '08 and '09, at age 31 and 32, ARod ceased to be ARodian, but simply great at the plate and missed 24 and 38 games for the first time in his career. In the three years since, he's averaged 119 games, a .350 OBP and declining range at third base, all for $92 million.

And it gets worse. ARod will make $114 million from now, age 37, until age 42, during which projections suggest he'll contribute around three wins above a replacement for New York. Those projections are based on him playing roughly full-time during that stint, which seems only slightly more likely than his joining the priesthood.

Particularly for a company awash in cash, that's a waste of money, not a fiscal cliff. But a declining Mark Teixeira presents the same dilemma. Coming off 54 magical games with Anaheim in '08, during which Tex hit.358/449/.632, Brian Cashman inked what appeared to be an eminently sensible eight-year, $180 million deal with the steady first baseman.

Since then, Teixeira has gone steadily downhill. Having never posted an OBP below .370 when he donned the pinstripes, he's declined every years since, down to .332 this past season. Teixeira enters his age 33 season with real question marks, but none of them are attached to a contract that obligates the Steinbrenners to pay him $90 million over the next four years. 

Pile on the $119 owed to CC Sabathia through 2017 and impending free agency for Curtis Granderson and most notably Robinson Cano and even the Yankees may be approaching their debt ceiling. Should a couple of these players hit the wall while under contract, the roster could get old, average and awfully expensive simultaneously.

Obviously Yankees, Inc. is better positioned to withstand such financial hardships better than are the Kansas City Royals, or the Republic of Congo, for that matter. But Hank and Hal have whinnied about sliding back under the $189 million luxury tax threshold, of which the five players above will siphon off more than $100 million regardless of whether they're roster-worthy. 

If you love baseball you'll be rooting for it all to come tumbling down simultaneously. My heart goes out to the metro area in the wake of Sandy (and so did some of my money), but a Yankee implosion is the kind of natural disaster that the rest of the country can enjoy and even benefit from. A few years of AL East dominance by Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Toronto would be a nice change of pace.

Kind of like a sensible compromise in Washington that reduces deficits without slowing economic growth. Don't hold your breath for that one.

The Worst Performance Ever

So thin at pitching that they welcomed back a retired 40-year-old and signed a 37-year-old free agent pursued by few else, so riddled with injuries that they grasped mid-season at a punchless 39-year-old with a .642 OPS and relied on a menagerie of long-in-the-tooth backups to staff the outfield and DH spots, so aged and lumbering without their leadoff sparkplug all season that they swiped just 93 bases, the New York Yankees crumbled in 2012...

...to the best record in the American League over 162 games despite playing in baseball's toughest division, then stole two close victories over the best one-run team in MLB history to earn an opportunity to play for the league championship.

Their lineup was so patchwork, decrepit and anemic that it lead the AL in on base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS and home runs and scored the second most runs in the game.  Absent the greatest closer known to humankind, and denied their ace for nearly a month, they produced the fifth best ERA in the league, nine percent above average.

And two games later they were being booed by their own spoiled fans. 

For eight games of the playoffs (they tallied seven times in their Game One win over the Orioles), Swiss cheese bats transformed the Yankee season from an accomplishment to an obscenity. A string of obscenities, if Twitter is any indication. The sports media is now brokering a deal to send ARod to Libya for a de-commisioned Scud missle and forty-three dollars of salary relief. This despite the fact that he produced 21 runs more offense than a replacement player while struggling with injuries and missing 40 games.

Yankee fandom is also actively seeking a managerial replacement today -- I hear Bobby Valentine's available; so's Bill Cowher -- because Joe Girardi merely steered his tattered club to regular season supremacy. That he eventually stopped rolling sevens in the crapshoot known as the playoffs apparently makes him guillotine fodder in NY.

Pity Max Scherzer. According to the predominant narrative, the Tiger K-machine who won 16 games and held opponents to 3.74 earned runs per nine authored his five-and-two-thirds innings of two-hit, 10-strikeout ball under the pseudonym Yankees Suck, and as such, he gets no credit. Ditto Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez.

Here's another narrative, the one Jim Leyland subscribes to: the Tigers made good pitches to the Yankees just when they were struggling at the plate. That combination led to more zeroes than a Japanese air museum, and a Detroit sweep. Whether ARod, Cano, Granderson, et. al will return next year, despite their advancing years, with a slightly altered supporting cast to make another run at glory, or whether the brass will take a step back to secure the post-Jeter/Rivera/Teixeira future is known only to Brian Cashman, and maybe not even to him. We could soon see the Yankees and Red Sox in simultaneous rebuild mode.

Or the Yankees will again be the best team in the AL. But who cares about that when four games can unravel it all?

Reports of Their Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Woe are the Yankees, doomed to oblivion by home futility before unsold sections, the excavation of their captain, the looming Hurler from Hell and a lineup sucking wind through a toothpick. Their fans, conditioned to World Series entitlement, are tearing out hair and rending garments.

The end is nigh.

Sure, but...

True, Derek Jeter, a bronze bust-in-waiting and several wins a year better than a replacement level player like Eduardo Nunez, will watch in a cast. 

True, three of the next five games are in Detroit, and two of them will be pitched for the Tigers by the baddest thrower on Planet Earth.

True, the middle of the order is waving at distant pitches -- in the dirt, around their chest, in the visiting dugout. Nick Swisher is 4-for-26. Alex Rodriguez is 3-for-23 with 12 strikeouts. Curtis Granderson is 3-for-26. And for you momentum fans, Robinson Cano entered the playoffs hitting .615/.628/1.026 in his last nine games. In the seven since, he's 0-for-26. 

Things look bleak.

But baseball is a fickle game. Justin Verlander gets strafed now and then. Guys break 0-for-26 skids with multi-homer games. Whole lineups slump together and then revive as one. Two wins -- one, two --  change everything. Then suddenly home field has returned. The crowds come back. The other team's on its heels. And CC takes the ball.

The modern era of Yankee dominance began in 1996 when the post-Mattingly Bombers met the defending champ Braves in the Fall Classic and got hosed by Maddux and Glavine in the first two games. Then they came back to win the Series in six. They won again in '98, '99 and '00, won the AL in '01 and '03 and took the championship again in '09.

More recently, like last week, the Giants dropped a pair at home to the Reds and came back to sweep a trio of road games to advance to the NLCS. It can happen.

New York remains the best team still standing, wobbly though they've been. That lineup can't remain unhinged forever. Abandon hope all ye who enter here? Okay, unless they win Tuesday.

Our Funny Valentine . . . and Other Stories

Goodbye Valentine
Hindsight is 20/20, but didn't we all know that Bobby Valentine seemed like an odd choice for a veteran club with a history of success? Frankly, I thought the best manager for the Red Sox was Terry Francona, and if the team had ceased paying attention to him, a Terry Francona dopleganger.

I always assume the front office knows something I don't, but this time, they just made a bad judgment. You know who they should hire to replace Valentine? Terry Francona!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Orioles Will Fly South
I'm rooting doubly for the Orioles this post-season because I know that they are a streaking asteroid that will crash to earth next year. Their historic 2012 includes some unsustainable performances. To wit:
1. A 29-9 record in one-run games; 16-2 in extras. Not repeatable.
2. No starting pitching. On career years, the starters still managed just a 61-58 5.03 record, and posted a below-average number of quality starts. The lifetime ERAs of their top five starters are: 4.73, 4.78, 3.25 (this year only), 4.02 and 4.74.
3. Phenomenal relief pitching. Their top five pen-dwellers own 2012 ERAs between 2.28 and 2.64, but in no more than 75 innings. Bullpens are as stable as Amy Winehouse.

Godspeed Ballimer! See you again in 2016.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Never Argue With An Idiot . . .
At week's start, I knew that Mike Trout was the best MVP candidate, but that a vote for a Triple Crown laureate, though wrong, was defensible.

The brain-addled illogic of the pro-Cabrera arguments have altered my thinking.

How about this one: Cabrera deserves it because his team made the playoffs and Trout's didn't. Let's stuff this turkey carcass in the trash this way: For kicks, we'll assign truth to the provably false notion that one player is responsible for his team's success.

Well then, Trout's team won 89 games; Cabrera's team 88. Advantage Trout.

Trout's team went 8-15 before calling him up, 81-58 after, a .582 winning percentage. Cabrera led his team to a .543 winning percentage. More advantage Trout.

Cabrera's team played in the weakest division in the AL and didn't sew up the division until the White Sox collapsed in the final two weeks. No advantage Cabrera. 

Then there's this rat's nest of weak cognition: Cabrera came up big when it mattered at the end; Trout didn't. 

It's true that Miggy got hot in the second half and his team finished 16-7 to win the Central. Trout's Angels finished 18-8 until the last two games, when elimination had already whispered in their ear. Their MVP nominee batted .340/.473/.705 in the final two-week sprint to the finish.

Finally, I actually heard this: the SABR types will value their stats and the traditionalists like me value ours. Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown and that's all I care about.

Isn't it fun when your opponent admits that he's wrong and everyone knows it but him? Austin Jackson led the league in triples (10), Kevin Youklis in HBP (17) and Quintin Berry in SB% (21 without getting caught.) Those are my stats, so maybe one of them should be MVP. Youk!

Just for the record, Baseball-Reference has Trout at 10.7 wins above replacement; Cabrera at 6.9, five spots back. Discounting defense, they have Trout at 8.6 wins above replacement; Cabrera at 7.5, which means their system is pretty generous to both on the defensive side of the ledger. (This is doubly remarkable when you consider that Trout missed the first 23 games of the season.) They also have Trout higher on adjusted OPS (OPS adjusted for ballpark) and 40 points higher on offensive winning percentage. Unlike batting average, home runs and RBIs, these metrics take everything into account.

In short, Mike Trout had a better season than Miguel Cabrera, amazing though Cabrera was with the stick. And that's really the only argument there is.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here We Go Again
Baseball's post-season is a lottery, but it does appear as if the Yankees are finally rounding into playoff form. They've got Andy Pettitte healthy, this hour. Mark Teixeira returned from injury last week and promptly belted a homer. And there's some semblance of order in the rotation with Hideki Kuroda shaping up. 

Given their home field advantage, they've got to be considered the favorite in the AL.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leaving Las Vegas
The NL is much more of a dice roll. I wouldn't let Barak Obama bet Mitt Romney's money on that one.

One Year At A Time

The New York Yankees can thank a pair of Hall of Fame infielders, potential Famers at first, second and the mound, a clampdown bullpen and sluggers all over the lineup for their 10-game lead in the AL East and near certain postseason entry.

But World Series winners tend to catch lightning in a bottle too, and the Yankees have gone storm-hunting this year with great results. Consider these four veteran players:

Andruw Jones: 154 PA, 12 HR, .851 OPS

Eric Chavez: 157 PA, 8 HR, .849 OPS

DeWayne Wise: 56 PA, 7 XBH, 7 SB, .841 OPS

Raul Ibanez: 254 PA, 12 HR, .766 OPS

(League-average OPS is around .730) 

Jones has taken the sting out of losing Brett Gardner for much of the season. Chavez has offered Alex Rodriguez respite at the hot corner. Wise provides a lefty platoon bat and CF defense if need be. Ibanez is bald.

All four are longtime Major Leaguers who aren't what they once were, and in Wise's case, never were. Each could have been scooped off the scrap heap by any team in the Bigs. And best of all, each is on God's Gift to GMs -- the one-year contract.

We focus so much on the shiny pieces that Yankee brass spends three months' salary to acquire that we often fail to notice these diamonds in the rough. Taken together, Jones, Chavez and Wise constitute a full-time-equivalent, collecting more hitting value than every Yankee star but Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson. The trio has out-hit Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

But if they hadn't panned out, no harm done. The entire quartet cost the Bombers $4.5 million without any future strings attached. The Pirates, Rays and other cost-conscious contenders would do back-flips over three extra wins this season for $4.5 million and no 2013 commitments.

Throw in another $4 million and you get fifth starter/reliever Freddy Garcia,whose tottering performance, particularly as a starter, has vindicated the short-term contract. That's the thing about one-year deals: when they work out, the choice of player is inspired; when they don't work out, the duration of the contract is. It's a win-win for the team, and win-win describes the Yankees pretty well these days.

b

Miracle on 161st Street

They entered the season with only three reliable starting pitchers, one of whom would miss much of the 2011 campaign. Their star shortstop and catcher are getting creaky. Their roster includes more retreads than a used car lot. The dessicated remains of Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez actually get playing time, despite 3.7 wins above replacement combined over the last four years. Their superstar cornerman is dinged and running from the MLB law. Their huge free agent reliever walked six batters a game before pulling up lame. All 700 pounds of Bartolo Freakin' Colon has 18 starts for them already this year.

They play in the toughest division in baseball and they didn't make a single trade deadline deal for the first time since the Paleolithic Era.* So the Yankees are toast, right?

Kudos to Joe Girardi, Brian Cashman and team management in the Bronx. Two-thirds of the way through a lost season they're tied for the best record in the American League with a starting rotation right out of 2001. They've managed to spin Colon, Freddy Garcia and Ivan Nova into gold. They stuck with David Robertson out of the pen and he's rewarded them with a 1.44 ERA, no home runs allowed and 14 strikeouts per nine. Somehow this squad ranks second in the circuit in ERA ... and that's their weakness.

At bat, it's no surprise that the Bombers are a juggernaut. They're second in scoring in the majors with 5.38 runs per game, led by three starters with .500+ SLG (and ARod is close). Derek Jeter at short and Russ Martin behind the plate are rebounding from awful starts, and  keeping Jorge Posada away from lefties (he's hitting .103 against them) short-circuits the only black hole in the home half of the inning. Absent Posada versus southpaws, every one of their hitters ranks above replacement value, which is a fancy way of saying their bench is solid too, They've even swiped 120 of 156 bases as a squad, a superb 77% rate.

To top it off, the Bronx brass refused to succumb to deadline deal extortion and instead let a flaccid trade market go untouched. The Yankees may have locked up the most productive trade deadline week by demonstrating disciplined restraint. Without sacrificing either of their catching uber-prospects, they got Soriano back from the DL last week and will welcome back Alex Rodriguez next week, Bud willing.

I'd still be a tad concerned, were I other than a Yankee-antagonist, about the pitchers they'll run out after Sabathia come playoff time. Garcia, Colon and Nova could turn into pumpkins any day now. But with Robertson, Rivera and perhaps Soriano locking up the late innings and a lineup that could scare Chuck Norris, they will once again be a force to be reckoned with once the post-season arrives.

*May be slight exaggeration.
b

Major League Lily-Gilding

Just in case you're still munching on that old chestnut about the Yankees not being the only team with  financial advantages, here comes Exhibit Z: Roy Halladay will reportedly approve a one-way ticket to NY despite an ixnay on the adetray in his contract.

If I recall correctly, NY is not shorthand for Cincinnati. Or more pertinently, for Boston or Anaheim. The Yankees don't just flash the most Benjamins; they also offer Broadway, a market of 40 million eyeballs, outfield monuments and 27 shiny rings. It gives them advantages that even free-spending competitors will never have.

That Toronto would dump their ace on their own division just demonstrates how miserably desperate they are. NY is reportedly prepared to trade some prospects before they sign Halladay to another mega-contract, but there is no way the Blue Jays get anything like equal value. Roy Halladay is literally worth more than the entire Yankee farm system, which right now has three serious prospects, one of whom lacks a position.

There is some serious lily-gilding here, and I'm not talking about the pitching staff in the Bronx. We don't actually need any more evidence that the playing field is tilted steeply towards the Yankees. But that's what a Halladay-to-NYY transaction would be. At the rate we're going, why don't they just have the AL All-Star Team play in pinstripes. Imagine how exciting and unexpected it would be if they win the World Series.

b

Whoop-de-Doo

So what have we learned? The team with advantages at every level and in every aspect of development wins. What could be more anti-climatic than that? It's as if we put a marble on a three-legged table and got excited about it rolling off the lowest side.

I'm not the first, last or loudest to bemoan this year's World Series purchase. I'm just amused by the response. Don't blame the Yankees; they're playing by the rules and doing everything they can to win. You'd want your team to do the same thing.

That's precisely the point. By the rules of Major League Baseball, it's the Yankees' league and everyone else gets to play in it. Allowing the team in the largest market with the deepest tradition and the most money to exploit its position to the exclusion of almost everyone else is uninteresting, unfair, and detrimental to the long-term interest of the sport. The Yankees have played in 40 of the 86 World Series since 1923. Even Yankee fans should be sick of them.

Listen to Yankee fans themselves. They reminisce about the last championship, as if it were eons ago. They wail about the long drought. It's been eight years, during which time they reached the World Series twice and the playoffs seven times. Good god, even Moses waited 40 years, and he didn't have a DH.

Baseball desperately needs a mechanism to level the playing field -- at all levels of the game -- or risk losing fans in all those cities that haven't sniffed the championship for a generation.
b

Time for the Mercy Rule?

So has Rudy Giuliani thrown himself off a bridge yet? Anybody check old man Steinbrenner's pulse recently? Because in case you haven't heard, the Yankees are now doomed like the Gosselin kids. People who picked Yankees in five, as I did, are now switching to Phillies in three.

New York fell in Game One. In the Bronx. So all is lost. Just as it was against the Braves in '96, when they were the underdogs and they came up on the short end in the first two games at home.

Okay, maybe last night was a solitary game, but the trend lines don't look good. After all, over their last three contests, the Yankees are playing .333 ball -- worst in the Majors. ARod's made four consecutive outs. If he keeps that up, he'll go 0-28 in a seven-game series.

And tonight it's AJ Burnett against Pedro Martinez. Had NY won Game One, the analysis of Game Two would look like this: Pedro is old. He's not the same pitcher he was when Britney Spears was a virgin. Burnett has electric stuff. Then Pettitte and Sabathia and lights out.

In the shadow of one defeat, here's the conventional wisdom: Pedro has found new life. Burnett is inconsistent. He's never been a big game pitcher. Philadelphia has wrested away home field advantage.

Even people with severe bi-polar disorder don't skip from euphoria to depression every day. It's got to make you dizzy.

Far be it for me to break up a good dose of mental illness, but might I mention that the Phillies won because a single pitcher threw a great game, and he'll be starting only once more in the Series?

Haha, silly logical guy! That doesn't fill up a three-hour radio show! You don't need a Baseball Analyst to tell you that it's just one game. Baseball Analysts make their money revealing things that have no basis in fact, and so can't be disproved. Things like, ARod is tightening up. (Apparently Kate Hudson's spell has worn off.) Things like, you'd rather have Ryan Howard (batting average this year vs. lefties: .204) than Mark Teixeira at first base in the playoffs because Tex lacks post-season experience. (This nugget came from Rob Dibble, a veritable font of non-sequiturs.)

I can't wait until tomorrow's analysis if the Yankees win Game Two.
b

Now THAT Is Baseball Analysis

For eight minutes and 19 seconds this afternoon, I listened to former Major Leaguer Eric Karros explain the baseball playoffs.

On how the Angels could beat the Yankees: "The Angels are not in awe of the Yankees. No one else can say that."

On why the Yankees might win it all: "The Yankees are more real this year. More relaxed. Expectations are the one thing that will slow them down. There's something to be said for that."

On how the Dodgers might overcome their weak finish to the season and make the World Series: "The Dodgers are like the infantry: they keep coming. Each guy plays like he's the 25th man. They're grinders, but they're superstars."

You see, it's this kind of insight that makes world class athletes the best analysts. They know more about the game than other people because they played it.

I'm not an athlete. That's why I have less informed ideas about these questions.

On how the Angels might beat the Yankees: Score more runs than NY. Win four games out of seven. Get good pitching and timely hitting. It'll help if the breaks go the Angels' way. They're more or less equally matched, so the biggest factor will be luck. No one can predict whom that will favor.

On why the Yankees might win it all: Well, they're the best team.

On how the Dodgers might beat the Phillies: Score more runs than Philadelphia. Win four games out of seven. Get good pitching and timely hitting. It'll help if the breaks go L.A.'s way. They're more or less equally matched, so the biggest factor will be luck. No one can predict whom that will favor. Oh, and throw lefties at that lineup. Howard and Utley are death on righthanders.

Look, these series are best-of-seven. Two hot pitchers can win it for you. One bad closer can lose it. The best team has an edge, but the best teams haven't even made the World Series in at least three years. So let's just sit back and enjoy the pennant races and leave the meaningless cliches for highly-compensated former athletes.
b

Taking Offense in the East

When you add a healthy Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon on a 30-HR pace and Robby Cano's Dr. Jekyll side to a lineup of Texeira, Rodriguez and Jeter, it doesn't matter how many Nick Swishers or Brett Gardners nose their way into the lineup, you're going to be near the lead in the Majors in run scoring. And if you can get plus performances out of Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes behind mercenaries Sabathia and Burnett, well, it's no surprise that you've got the best record in the game.

The truth is, the Yankees can ride that rocket ship lineup to the playoffs even without much pitching and defense. They're on pace to score 100 more runs than anyone else in the division, which leaves a lot of leeway in the field.

Look at the Equivalent Averages for the Yankees starters: (EQA condenses offensive production, including baserunning, into one number that looks like a batting average. It is adjusted for home park.)
Texeira .312
Damon .304
Rodriguez .304
Jeter .295
Matsui .295
Swisher .293
Posada .291
Cano .287
Cabrera .266

In other words, the entire lineup is above average, and the second weakest link is one of the top three second basemen in the league.

The Yankees may or may not run away with the division. That's entirely up to the Red Sox. And if you're wondering what's wrong with the Red Sox, here's the answer: nothing.

Oh sure, the Sox have done less hitting since the All-Star break than a Quaker, and several of their pitching hopes have flamed out. All of which is a testament to Theo Epstein's construction of the team. With a working premise that you never really know about your pitching, Boston stockpiled hurlers. They have withstood the Smoltz and Matsuzaka disasters, Wakefield getting hurt, Brad (Hardly Worth A) Penny and other rotation failures to post the best overall pitching in the AL.

The fields have gone fallow lately on the offensive side, which is why mixing Victor Martinez into the Lowell/Youkilis/Kotchman rotation makes so much sense, even if it looks like overkill. What would really improve the Red Sox would be the benching of their two beloved deadweights -- David Ortiz and Jason Varitek.

Ortiz had his last great gasp in June, when he batted over .300 and smacked a string of home runs. Even including those four good weeks, his .221/.310/.411 production is inadequate for a speedy middle-infield gloveman, much less a Brontosaurus DH.

Tek started the season with his hair on fire, but he's cooled and mortified since then to .222/.333/.441. Throw in the black hole at shortstop and the Sox trot out three empty batting spots against the likes of division foes Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia and Matt Garza. That's not getting it done.

Boston still leads the Wild Card race and can be a serious threat in the playoffs. They have to parlay all that depth into a better lineup. And they have to wait for lack of depth to catch up to everyone else.
b

A World Series Good Luck Charm?

If Eric Hinske isn't the luckiest man in the world, it's because Ringo is still alive.

Two years ago, Hinske picked up a championship ring while collecting splinters for the Red Sox. The corner infielder/outfielder contributed two home runs and a .317 OBP pinch hitting and spot starting for the rouge hose.

Last year, Hinske chipped in 20 dingers but a mediocre .798 OPS for the AL champion Rays, while anchoring right field.

This year, the 31-year-old former Rookie of the Year was relegated to purgatory, signing a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he's blended seamlessly into the general level of futility. His World Series streak was certain to end at two.

Until today, when the Bucs sent Hinske to the Yankees for a pair of minor league non-prospects. Hinske will provide a lefty bat and badly-needed defensive versatility to the Yankees, and ironically replace injured Xavier Nady, whom the Pirates dumped for prospects last year.

The Pirates have nothing to lose in jettisoning Hinske, who has never replicated his impressive debut. However, it's doubtful that they got much in return in a pair of 23-year-old Single-A players. Casey Ericson has looked sharp here in Charleston out of the pen, but he's facing adolescents at this level. The same can be said for Florida State League outfielder Eric Fryer, batting .250 so far this year. Each has a long way to go in a short time for this to pay off for the Steel City.
b

Sanity In An Insane World

As usual, Fox subjected me again this Saturday to the Yankees, without whom apparently baseball would not exist. I live 750 miles from NY, but get the Yankees telecast probably half the time. Add in the Mets and Braves (ostensibly my home team) and you have nearly 100% of the games we digital box users get to see.

In any case, the Yankees once again held their opponent to under four touchdowns, limiting the Red Sox to 16 runs. Of course, being the home team, Boston didn't bat in the 9th and since they failed to get out of the gate against AJ Burnett in the first four innings, they tallied all 16 scores from the 5th through 8th frames. The game exposed the Yankees' two major weaknesses: utterly no bench and worse relief than Srebrenica. Because he's forced to carry 13 pitchers, Joe Girardi is out of options after he pinch hits twice.

**

It was fun to note how fickle this game is. Reigning MVP Dustin Pedroia committed a costly baserunning gaffe with a man on third to extinguish an inning and then Bucknered an inning-ending grounder into a two-run, game tying error. Meanwhile reputed gamer Derek Jeter fanned in a critical situation. (I believe there was second and third with one out in a one-run game.) Even Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, who by their own on-air admission stifle orgasms everytime they mention Jeter's name, were forced to admit that it was the biggest at-bat in the contest up to that point.

Meanwhile, AJ Burnett cruised through the first four innings and then coughed up a hairball in the fifth, serving up a bases-juiced tater to former Major Leaguer Jason Varitek. ( You may be too young to remember when he could hit.) For Mike Lowell, on the other hand, it was a moral victory if he could just make contact against Burnett in the first five innings; he ended up with a homer, a double and six RBIs.

**

Though he was ineffective for the first five innings, Josh Beckett found himself staked to an 8-6 lead heading into the top of the 6th. At that point, McCarver opined that Terry Francona is a moron. Well, he didn't say it quite that way; what he said was that Francona was sending Beckett back into the fray so he could get the win. If Terry Francona is managing so that his players can compile personal statistics -- meaningless ones at that -- he is mentally retarded. I say this with all due respect to people with mental retardation, and I think we can all agree that no such person should be the field manager of a $100 million enterprise. Based on that comment, I guess we can include Mr. McCarver. (Also worth noting: Beckett was already positioned to chalk up the W.)

Fortunately for Saux Nation, Francona did no such thing. He sent out Beckett either because he thought the right-hander had found his way in the scoreless 5th or because his bullpen was worn out from the previous night's 11-inning affair. As it turned out, Beckett surrendered two more runs without recording an out and was long gone by the time Hideki Okajima was "credited" with the win.

Okajima "earned" the win by getting an out to end the seventh inning, watching his team score three runs in the bottom of the frame to provide a two-run cushion, and then sitting on the bench and admiring the work of Ramon Ramirez, who shut down the Yankees in the 8th. This was highly necessary after Okajima allowed half the lead to disappear when he grooved one to Robby Cano, who redirected it some 400 feet in the other direction. Of course, on an afternoon when Beckett and Burnett each pitched five innings, gave up eight runs and avoided being charged with a loss, Okajima's performance appeared win-worthy.

b

Yankee Ingenuity

Word from Yankee spring training camp is that Joe Girardi will flip Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon in the lineup, moving his shortstop up to leadoff. Jeter's response was that he doesn't care, telling the Associated Press, "You hit 60 seconds earlier than you normally do."

One of the things that great players often demonstrate is an intuitive feel for the game that had never been borne out by the numbers, or even by conventional wisdom. I'm reminded of Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens, both correctly attributing statistical declines in their mid-career performance to bad luck and weak defense respectively. Each went on to win subsequent Cy Youngs.

Jeter's flippancy about his place in the batting order demonstrates that he understands how irrelevant it is. Batting order is largely immaterial beyond a few rudimentary concepts. As long as your best hitters bat at the top of the order, and you maximize the effects of handedness, there's little to be gained by sweating the exact order. About the only egregious error that managers regularly commit is to bat a weak-hitting speedster in the leadoff spot. Simply put, that strategy gives a weak hitter 50 extra plate appearances a year.

Being similar kinds of hitters, either Jeter or Damon would be a reasonable choice to lead off. Both get on base and around the bases, but are unlikely to waste a lot of home runs to start the game.

So why bother? My guess is that Girardi exploited Damon's .375 OBP last year and expects him to regress closer to his career average of .354 this year, while recognizing that Jeter's .363 OBP in 2008 was the second lowest of his career and is more like to edge closer to his lifetime .383 pace this year. If so, it demonstrates that Girardi also understands something about baseball.

The Bad Old Days

I have opined in the past that the so-called Golden Era of baseball, the 1950s, was actually the worst period in baseball history. One city monopolized the AL pennant and dominated the NL pennant and the World Series. If you were a fan of any AL squad other than the Yankees, who appeared in 14 of the 16 World Series in that period, you spent a decade and a half banging your head against the wall. Ditto for the NL, at half that rate.

Some of the advantages the Yankees had then, persist -- money, market size, glamour of NYC, tradition. It's natural that they exploit them in order to collect the best players and win championships. Good for them.

Bad for baseball.

Sports is a zero sum proposition. As long as one franchise uses its edge at every level to win all the time, other franchises must, by definition, stumble. Some of them will act on the premise that they can't compete and wallow in futility. That is bad for them, their fans and the league.

Two quick case studies: After 35 years as a fan of the Kansas City Royals, I switched allegiances a few years ago. It became obvious to me that the Royals' ownership had chosen profit over occasional competitiveness, and that there was no hope of my team succeeding on the field. I'm not a fair weather fan, but neither am I an idiot.

Last year, while the Tampa Bay Rays won 100 games, their attendance lagged. That's standard procedure after years of futility. In 2009, fans will flock to the Trop. That binge and purge mentality, and the attendance fluctuations that accompany it, can be avoided, as long as the team is generally competitive. That's not possible if one franchise, endowed beyond all others, attracts an All-Star squad roster and dashes everyone else's hopes.

All of which brings us to the current state of affairs. Let's face it: the Yankees have not dominated baseball the last four years; they didn't even make the playoffs in '08. The signings of CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett (can't they find anyone with a first name?) are not going to change that without other conditions also changing, like the emergence of Hughes, Kennedy or some other prospect, rebound seasons from Cabrera or Cano, or the signing of even more big impact free agents like Mark Teixeira.

What's troubling is that when other teams are facing recessionary restrictions, layoffs and renewed budget consciousness, the Yankees are accepting public money, raising ticket prices and pursuing almost all of the high-priced free agents simultaneously. If this means a new era of Yankee domination, Kansas City Royals fans are not going to meander to other teams (the Nationals in my case; maybe I am an idiot) but to other activities.

The effect on a team like Toronto is even worse. The Blue Jays could have fancied themselves a player in '09, given their strong performance in '08. But with three powerful in-division competitors, a weak Canadian dollar and the resources of the Yankees, it's understandable why they have become passive. It's now dubious whether a large monetary investment in players could yield much return. How can they compete with a rival that outbid the field by $40 million for Sabathia's services?

So you'll understand why I hope Sabathia's weight and workload start wearing him down and Burnett's inconsistency remains his one constant. You'll understand why I'm rooting for Teixeira to sign with one of his non-contending pursuers and why I want the jettisoned Bobby Abreu to have another season like his 1999-2002 stretch where he hit for power and average, walked like a mall rat, stole bases and excelled in the field, all for someone else.

It's why I hope the Yankees overpaid for so little that they're hamstrung financially in their efforts to offset their mistakes. The problem is, they never are. It's baseball fans who are hamstrung, and that's the shame of it.

Wither the Bombers?

It's going to be a very interesting off-season for the New York Yankees. Not since the early 90s has the team been in such flux.

At 89-73 in '08, the Yankees could be said to be at the precipice of playoff contention, except they're not. They are old, slow, defensively creaky and getting more of each. Their best pitcher from last year retired and another veteran hurler is either joining him or poised to continue his career downslide. They have four DHs, no first basemen and an outfield of noodle arms and rubber legs.

That's the bad news for pinstripe partisans. The good news is that they still have some great assets, including the best hitting shortstop-thirdbaseman combination in the league -- maybe even in history. They have $75 million in bad contracts coming off the books and some delicious free agent possibilities. Dismissing Jason Giambi was the right move because his defensive liabilities limit him to a DH role that render him redundant on this team. He'll find employment on a younger, weaker-hitting lineup.

The obvious apple of the Big Apple's eye is Mark Teixeira. Tex is two players in one -- a peak-of-career banger who draws walks and a Gold Glove-caliber first baseman. He fills an open spot on the diamond and his presence would mitigate some of the infield's defensive deficiencies while his bat delivers RBIs in clumps. With a reasonable expectation of some resurgence from Robby Cano at second base, the Yankees would sport a spiffy infield. Of course, the Teixeira option will come at a nine-figure cost, with warm regards from Scott Boras.

Jorge Posada returns, but at 37 and coming off shoulder surgery he'll need an apprentice. Similarly age-enhanced Ivan Rodriguez and talent-challenged Jose Molina don't qualify. Adios amigos! Ring in the new!

The Yankees should re-sign Bobby Abreu despite his age. Both his patience at the plate and his speed are valuable assets to the Bombers and he'll be needed to fill that decrepit patchwork outfield. Among the now-brittle Matsui, Damon and Abreu there'll never be more than two healthy players, and one of these lefties will be needed to platoon with Xavier Nady against righties. Nick Swisher is an adequate stopgap centerfield option, allowing the Yankees the luxury of not relying on Melky Cabrera's unlikely bounceback. One of Damon, Matsui and Posada can DH while Brett Gardner serves as an everyday defensive replacement.

This arrangement allows for the foreseeable breakdown in bodies over 162 games and will give the front office another year to fertilize the farm system or fish for a unheralded studs.

In the rotation, NY would be well-served by signing an average or better lefty starter. Wang and Joba are locks, and the Potential Twins -- Hughes and Kennedy -- will get their chance. Figuring one of them succeeds sufficiently to be a #3 starter, that leaves the rotation one good pitcher short. (Every team needs a better fifth starter; if the fifth starter was a star he wouldn't be a fifth starter.) Banking on Andy Pettitte's return is a fool's errand, but so is banking on a CC signing. He's going to cost an arm and a stomach; the latter is frighteningly prodigious and the former has thrown 700 innings in three years. This will be the most important move the Yankees make.

Bullpens are always fluid entities and this one is no exception. The 39-year-old Panamanian could lose 10% of his effectiveness and still anchor the pen. Beyond him, a couple of lefty-righty options ought to be available from the scrap heap if Brian Cashman is vigilant.

If Cahsman turn the dial a little towards younger, faster and better defense, the Yankees will be able to reload as they compete with the Red Sox and talent-stuffed Rays. If not, the pinstriped machine will lose worn-out parts as the season progresses and grind to a halt in the dust of Boston, Tampa and even Toronto.

Do So At Your Own Risk

Ask your average baseball fan who will win the AL Wild Card, and he'll say the Tamp Bay Rays. I understand why. After 13 years of playoff appearances, the Yankees bore me too. But count them out at your own risk.

Sure baseball's most expensive team has been treading water for two-and-a-half months. They've also replaced the AL's best catcher since May with a .553 OPS. The game's best player has been on the shelf for a couple of weeks and the Hall of Fame shortstop and All Star second-sacker have been scuffling.

The Yankees are long in the tooth on both sides of the ball. Partly as a consequence, they are a lousy defensive club that needs two green lights to get across the street. Their 33 stolen bases rank second in the Majors behind Jacoby Ellsbury.

Moreover, their rotation is a little tattered and their relievers are iffy despite the best closer in history. Assuming Wang isn't seriously hurt, he, Mussina, Chamberlain and Pettitte comprise a reasonable front four. If Rasner keeps up the good work, that's a viable mound staff, particularly considering the offensive potential.

Joba's shift to the rotation leaves Kyle Farnsworth and his 100 miles an hour of knucklehead as the centerpiece of the relief corps. Yankee trainers had better keep this year's Joe as stocked as last year's Joe in Rolaids.

The Yankees have less margin for error this year, but unless things come terribly undone, they have a monster lineup and sufficient pitching to tear up the league for long enough to grab the Wild Card. The Rays would be a better story, but don't let it get in the way of the facts.

Of Bengals and Bombers

While watching the Yankees and Tigers conclude a pair of three-game series (thanks to rain postponing game 7), it struck me how similar these two teams are. Tell me which one I'm describing:

1. They have a big payroll and face high expectations.
2. They have a well-respected manager.
3. They have a roster that's expected to mash.
4. Their rotation needs a rotation. It's aging in the middle.
5. The bullpen is stronger than the starting corps. The best hurler on the team is a reliever.
6. They've been inconsistent so far and have fallen behind their main competition.
7. Fans hold their breath every time a ball is hit near their first baseman.
8. Their defense is questionable.

Their destinies may also be linked. Detroit's pitching, which appears to be in worse shape than NY's right now, especially with Verlander and Bonderman spiraling out of control, seems to have little chance of reeling in a balanced Cleveland squad. And the Yanks have their work cut out for them if they expect to rise through the bloody waters of the AL East to get their heads above Boston. It's quite possible that NY and Detroit will compete for the Wild Card.

At this point, the Bombers appear to have a much better team. They have endured much of their troubles with ARod and Posada on the DL, while only Gary Sheffield has battled injuries for the Bengals. The two Yankee pitchers who have flamed out were expected to provide back end support, while the entire Detroit staff has been a disaster. As for defense, the Yankees are the French Resistance, but the Tigers are the Maginot Line.

But Detroit has one thing in its favor: The Twins, White Sox and Royals, not to mention the early struggles of the Tribe. Its race to respectability will be marked by little more than potholes. Of course it might all be moot unless 44-year-old Kenny Rogers starts pitching like it's 1995.