Merry Christmas, but I don't want to see Manny Ramirez under the Yankee tree

Squawker Jon and I would like wish all our Subway Squawkers readers a very merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you're celebrating this year.

This is our fifth season of writing this blog, and we're happy that we've had this opportunity to squawk about our teams -- and about each other. We also really appreciate that we've gotten to know our readers a little better, via Facebook, Twitter, and real-life meetings. Thanks for reading us!

Anyhow, I went to church for Christmas Eve, and they had a Las Posadas ceremony as part of the service. But there was no mention of Jorge!

Now, I did get the Bruce Springsteen box set The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story under my Christmas tree. But I don't want to see Manny Ramirez under the Yankee tree!

There have been rumors flying about that the Yankees are targeting him and Johnny Damon. I wanted Manny as a Yankee after the phenomenal end to his 2008 season, and I of course wanted Damon back last season. This year, not so much.

Sure, Ramirez might be the all-time Yankee killer with the bat, and Damon is one of my favorite Yankee players, but neither of them really fit on this team right now, in no small part due to Jorge Posada being paid $13 million for 2011 to be the DH.

I can't see Damon being happy to be a part-time player. And Manny hasn't been the same hitter ever since The Man took away his right to take fertility drugs! Besides, I think the Yanks have enough superstars on the decline right now. They don't need another one.
Anyhow, I told Jon that Posada ought to send a big Christmas card to Omar Minaya -- their meal at the Four Seasons when the catcher was a free agent got Posada a fourth year!

Anyhow, thanks again for reading us. If you got any cool Yankees- or Mets-related loot under the tree, let us know!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Brian Cashman sez the Yankees have until July (!) to improve their rotation

At the beginning of this offseason, Brian Cashman said his priority was "pitching, pitching and pitching." Two months later, after not getting Cliff Lee -- or any other arm -- for the Yankee rotation (and no, I'm not counting Mark Prior!), and after the potential loss of Andy Pettitte, Cash now appears to be in no hurry to fix the rotation, telling ESPN's Wally Matthews:

Cashman acknowledged his team could use a major league ready starter as well as another arm in the bullpen but seemed pessimistic about the chances of getting one before Opening Day.

"Could I go out and get a starter? Yes, I could. But there's just not much out there," Cashman said. "I have March, April, May, June and July, really, to come up with someone."..."

In the past, we might have gone out and traded away prospects just to get someone in here," Cashman said. "But realistically, I have until July to get this solved."

Oh, no you don't, Brian. If the reloaded Red Sox go off on a tear, you could lose the division very early on. And there's no telling when some other team in the league might be the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays. To assume you have four months to fix the team is one of the more arrogant thiings I've heard anybody say in a while.

First off, I don't understand why it's apparently so hard for Cashman to pick up the phone and woo Andy Pettitte. The GM told Matthews, "If we get Pettitte back, so much the better. But I'm not waiting for him. He told me not to." Would it kill Cashman to show Pettitte some love -- and some money? And why is it that the Yankees have always seemed to take Pettitte for granted?

As for using two rookies to fill up the Yankee rotation, I tend to share some of the skepticism my friend Steve Lombardi of Was Watching has about the plan. Going with the young guns in the starting rotation didn't exactly pay off in spades in 2008. And please, I don't want to see Darrell Rasner or Sidney Ponson back again, either!

Besides, while the Red Sox can afford to do a "bridge year," the Yankees really can't. I am pretty sure Derek Jeter will have a great year this season to shut up the naysayers. But it will probably be his last one. Mariano Rivera won't be pitching into his 50s, and A-Rod isn't getting any younger, either. I'm all for playing the kids in some spots, which is why it seemed to make more sense to me to bring up Jesus Montero and have Jorge Posada work with him, as opposed to signing Russell Martin. But the idea of not one but two untested rookies in the rotation scares me more than a little.

I hope this "I have until July to fix the rotation" talk is this year's 'Bubba Crosby is our centerfielder," as opposed to, say, thinking that reacquiring Javy Vazquez and Nick Johnson would be good moves!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Looking back at Brian Cashman's offseason moves

It's December 18. Exactly two years ago today, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett spoke at a press conference introducing them as Yankees. A few days later, word leaked out that Brian Cashman had swooped in and snatched Mark Teixeira from under the Red Sox's Christmas tree. That offseason, combined with the Yanks trading for Nick Swisher, turned out to be Brian Cashman's finest hour. He spent around $425 million that winter, but that spending was well worth it. It helped get the Yankees their 27th title.

At the time, I was excited about CC and Tex, but I thought Cashman spending $82+ million on A.J. Burnett was outrageous. However, I was wrong about Burnett, at least for 2009 -- he was a critical part of the World Series Championship team. 2010, not so much, though!

Last season was mostly a disaster for Cashman. The Javier Vazquez and Nick Johnson moves were baffling at the time (I griped loudly against both of the moves.) They made even less sense as the year went on. Vazquez made $11.5 million, and had a negative WAR value in 2010 (-0.2 according to Fangraphs, 0.0 according to Baseball-Reference.) Not exactly good bang for your buck. About the only positive thing that can be said about that trade was that Boone Logan, who was part of the Vazquez deal, turned out to be fairly decent as a reliever.

And remember how Cash said that if Nick Johnson were healthy, he'd be a $15 million a year player? Well, Johnson had all of 98 plate appearances last year, and made $5.5 million. That works out to around $56,122 a plate appearance.

To put those numbers in perspective, Alex Rodriguez made $33,000,000 last year, and had 595 plate appearances. That works out to $55,462 a plate appearance. So, yes, Nick Johnson actually made more per plate appearance than any of the team's regulars, including the guy with the biggest contract in baseball history! For A-Rod's salary, he still hit 30 home runs and came in second in the league in RBIs, even though he missed 25 games. Johnson, as DH, had all of 12 hits, 8 RBI, and 24 walks.


Curtis Granderson turned out to be a very good player in the last two months of the year, and was one of the few players to hit in the playoffs, but Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski, as usual, got way too much out of Cashman for him.

As for this year, I can't say I'm very impressed with Cashman's moves so far this winter, other than that I think he was completely in the right on the Derek Jeter issue, and that it was time for Jorge Posada to be a full-time DH. But the Yanks need to do more than to re-sign their veterans (and, for that matter, Andy Pettitte is still not back in the fold) in order to win the division.

The Red Sox won 89 games last season, during a bridge year, with a slew of critical injuries. Now they've reloaded the team with Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, and even added another bullpen arm with Bobby Jenks. Given that, the Yanks can't afford to stand pat and say, "Hey, we won 95 games last year."

The minor moves Cashman has made so far --  Russell Martin, Mark Prior, and Pedro Feliciano  -- don't exactly compete with that. Prior is a project. The fact that Martin, who had hip issues, just needed to get his meniscus repaired, is a little disconcerting. And Feliciano was very good with the Mets, but Jerry Manuel overworked Perpetual Pedro a lot over the years.

Cashman's Plan A -- signing Cliff Lee -- didn't work out. Maybe he has some great Plan B in the works that's going to knock everybody's socks off. I hope that's the case. But so far, Cashman's offseason this year is not exactly going swimmingly, the way it was two years ago at this time.


What do you think? Tell us about it!

Did Squawker Jon and I see Bob Feller throw his last pitch?

Rest in piece, Bob Feller. Squawker Jon and I were both big fans of him, even though he didn't play for either of our teams. So when we saw that he would be pitching in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame Classic last summer during a time we'd be upstate, we decided to check it out. It may have been the last time he threw a pitch in a game.

Here is Jon's report on the event, and my own. Here is Jon's description of seeing Feller:

The 90-year-old Feller started the game and, as Lisa noted, even threw inside to Bobby Grich.

When Feller was removed from the game before the end of the first inning, I suspected he had been called up by the Mets. We know how much Omar Minaya loves those veteran pitchers!

After Feller was taken out of the game, we saw him walking around and talking to fans. I didn't get the chance to meet him, but I was excited just to see him.

Anyhow, we're not sure if this were the last game Feller participated in, but we are glad we got to see him up close.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Is losing Cliff Lee a "PR nightmare" for the Yankees?

Ouch! Cliff Lee said yesterday that he signed with Philadelphia Phillies in part because they give him "the best chance" to win!

Here's what he claimed in Wednesday's presser: 

"At this point it's about trying to win championships," Lee said, preparing to join a rotation that already includes Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. "I think this team gives me the best chance to do that."

Harsh! But given that rotation, and the rest of the team, he's not inaccurate. The New York Post made a big deal because the Lees said the Yankee fan issue in the ALCS was "way overblown." But the real story here is that while Lee dissed the Yankees in a number of ways. It's clear he had no intentions of coming to the Bronx; he just used the Yanks to drive up his price. To top it all off, he said that the Philllies gave him a better chance to win than the Yankees. When was the last time the Yankees got so owned by a free agent who signed with somebody else?

Our Yankee-hating reader with the controversial name of urinalfresh23 has flushed back onto the scene since Lee rejected the Yankees. He writes:

Losing out on Cliff Lee is a PR nightmare for the Yankers, which is just about as devastating to them as what happens on the field. Without positive PR, you don't sell tickets. Get the hint? Why do you think everyone in the front office is doing damage control?

While I don't think it's quite a PR nightmare, there is simply no good way to spin this issue. The Yankees' swagger of having the ability to swoop in and get whatever player they wanted is gone, thanks to Cliff Lee. No longer can they make the assumption that more money will get them whatever player they want to put under the ol' Christmas tree. Every December, Yankee fans run out and buy t-shirts of whoever the latest free agent du jour is. Don't see anybody lining up for Russell Martin t-shirts!

But here's the thing, even if you think Lee was a jerk who used the Yanks to get more money from the team he really wanted to play on, Mark Teixeira did the exact same thing. So the Bombers have no moral high ground here. Sorry.

I don't think there is anything the Yanks could have done to get Lee -- they got played, plain and simple.  But here's the thing -- if I could have figured out in October that Lee wasn't likely to be a Yankee, why couldn't they?

And why did Cashman waste time on nonsense like rappelling off a building instead of formulating a coherent Plan B? (Oh, and by the way, signing Martin as catcher wasn't exactly a big coup, given that he already needs surgery.)

I'm afraid Cash's Plan B will consist of trading Jesus Montero for Carlos Zambrano, or something equally as dopey. Cashman has exactly one sharp tool in his skill set -- the ability to spend a lot of money. Creative deals aren't really his strong suit.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Note to Yankeeland: Stop the spin already

Maybe it's just me, but I still don't understand why Brian Cashman and many others in Yankeeland are still trying to act like the Cliff Lee rejection is no big deal. It's also amazing how the No. 1 player in the free agent market has become a bum, according to some of the fanbase, now that he's not going to be a Yankee.

It's one thing to have been concerned over the number of years he wanted, or the money he was going to cost. I get that. But when I hear some fans, like Squawker reader Uncle Mike, say stuff like "I fail to see how not getting Cliff Lee is a minus for the Yankees" and "Cliff Lee going to the Phillies is a plus for the Yankees: They don't waste a lot of money on a guy who would be their 3rd-best starter," I just have to laugh over these shameless attempts at revisionist history. Cliff Lee would be the Yankees' 3rd-best starter? C'mon now. Put your Yankee pom-poms down already.

Cashman said yesterday that "I don’t think we have a lot of holes." Really? The current Yankee starting rotation is CC Sabathia (great, but coming off surgery), A.J. Burnett (terrible 2010; needs to turn it around), Phil Hughes (wore down during the stretch last year), Sergio Mitre (horrible pitcher), and Ivan Nova (untested rookie.) Andy Pettitte may retire. Is that a great rotation? Other than CC, absolutely not. And I'm not going to put on Yankee blinders and say it is.

Other than Mariano Rivera, the Yankee bullpen is a mess, too, with Joba Chamberlain flailing, David Robertson being inconsistent, and Kerry Wood likely going elsewhere.

Granted, the Yankees still have a very good team, but to pretend like they don't have issues is simply denying reality.

Anyhow, the Daily News' Bill Madden features more spin from the Yankee camp:

[A]s one Yankee operative, no doubt in reference to Lee signing with the Phillies and the Red Sox bagging Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, noted Tuesday with a trace of sobering resignation: "The team that wins the winter doesn't usually win the next season. In recent years, we've come to know that better than anyone."

In 2008, the Yankees paid $423.5 million on CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Mark Teixeiria. And guess what? In 2009, all three had great years and helped the Yankees win their first ring since 2000. To act so blase about what free agent signings can do pretty much flies in the face of what really happened in recent years. Looks like Derek Jeter isn't the only one who needs a nice healthy dose of reality potion.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Yankees on Cliff Lee rejection: There must be a pony in here somewhere!

There is no way to spin Cliff Lee rejecting the Yankees to sign with the Phillies for less money as anything short of a debacle. But some sources in the Yankees' front office are trying to find a pony in here somewhere.

In an attempt to spinning this rejection as no big deal, here's what two anonymous sources in Yankeeland told ESPN's Wally Matthews:

But it was clear in talking to Yankees insiders that the organization was neither surprised nor particularly disturbed by Lee's choice. In fact, there was a sense of relief that Lee was out of the American League and, with the Yankees and Phillies not scheduled to play during the regular season, could not torment them again until the World Series.


"Maybe this is all for the better," one of the sources said. "Do you really want to give a seven-year deal to a guy who doesn't want to be here?".... 

Whoop-de-do. Is that all you got? Puh-lease.

First of all, if I could figure out in October that the Yankees' chances of signing Lee were slim, then why couldn't the brainiacs in their front office?  Contrary to them claiming now they weren't surprised by this, the fact remains that they put all their eggs in the Cliff Lee basket, now the eggs look like a steamroller ran the basket over, and they're acting like it just gives them more material for omelets? Leggo my eggo!

Second, what is the Plan B here? It could have been signing Carl Crawford and trading a current outfielder for a pitcher, but that ship has sailed. Who's going to be starting for the Yankees -- Sergio Mitre? Carl Pavano?

And both used the same word -- "celebrate" -- to describe the rarity of an athlete opting for less money in favor of playing for a particular team.


"Obviously he wasn't all about the money, which is refreshing," said one of the sources. "He left a lot of it on the table."


"I think we should celebrate the fact that a guy took less money to go to a place he loves," the other said. "I honestly don't think he or his wife were afraid of New York, just that they enjoyed their experience in Philadelphia to such an extent that they would rather go there for a lot less money."

There must be a pony in here somewhere! Hey, let's "celebrate" Cliff Lee taking less money to go to the Phillies. Break out the champagne! Wheeeeeee!!

Are you kidding me? This attempt at damage control is pathetic.

And nobody said that Cliff and Kristen Lee "were afraid of New York;" instead, they were reportedly ticked off at the unruly fans. Big difference.

Besides, what is "refreshing" from the Yankee perspective about Lee taking less money to play elsewhere? That he hates the Yankees so much, not even the lure of filthy lucre couldn't convince him to come to the Bronx? And they're acting like this is a good thing?

Squawker Jon says that Yankees "refreshing" comment is one of the most hypocritical things he has ever heard. I can't disagree.

The reality is that unless Brian Cashman has some secret rabbit he's going to pull out of  his elf hat, the Yankees have completely wasted the offseason so far on the Lee pursuit. And no matter how much the Yanks try to spin, spin, spin, there is no pony in here anywhere!

What do you think? Tell us about it!