The Yankees’ Altered DNA

Joel Sherman has broken out his eighth grade chemistry set to coincide with his sixth grade writing to “report” that it’s in the Yankees’ “DNA” to make trades at the MLB trading deadline. Apparently Sherman has abandoned reporting trades as completed to be the first to break the news only to have to retract when it falls apart as he did with Cliff Lee being traded to the Yankees three years ago, then not being traded to the Yankees. Now he’s switching to existentialism and “science.”

The “DNA” argument is missing several levels of evolution. Was it or was it not in the Yankees’ “DNA” to make bold and splashy off-season moves with the biggest names on the market? Was it or was it not in the Yankees’ “DNA” to eschew any pretense at fiscal restraint when it came to acquiring players via free agency or trade? And was it or was it not an annual expectation that the Yankees are absolutely going to be in the playoffs no matter what?

Did the DNA regress into the current circumstance with the Yankees resembling a developmentally disabled child due to a quirk in cell formation? Or has Sherman gotten to the point where he no longer has actual players and “rumors” to pull from his posterior in the interest of generating webhits and pageviews and is liberally relying on “Yankee history.”

The new reality is finally starting to sink in with the Yankees, their fans and the desperate media. The club is serious about holding down salaries and is not going to deviate from that plan even if it means they stagger down the stretch and are a non-factor or—perish the thought—sellers on August 31st. They aren’t going to be bidders on the big ticket items that might make a difference to get them back into a legitimate title contender this season or next season. In getting the payroll down to $189 million (even if Alex Rodriguez’s salary is off their ledger during his suspension) they’re going to need to repeat what they did this season with players on a level of Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells: veterans who no one else wants, have a semblance of a history and will sign for one season or be available on the cheap.

The argument that injuries have sapped the Yankees of viability this season is valid to a degree. But without amphetamines and PEDs, players the age of Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte break down. Sometimes players get hit and hurt as Curtis Granderson did twice. Other times the players are finished as is the case with Hafner, Wells and even Ichiro Suzuki.

The Yankees big issues now are they don’t have the money to buy their way out of an injury with an available name player; they don’t have prospects to deal; and the youngish star-level talent a la Andrew McCutchen signs long-term with his respective club rather than price himself out of town and is not on the trade block. So what’s left? The strategy has become obsolete because the core is old and they don’t have an ability to acquire fill-ins to surround or supplement them. When the money to patch holes is gone, the holes are not patched effectively. All the appellations of “specialness” and “Yankee magic” have degenerated to the same level as Sherman’s DNA stupidity. It was based on money.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the ridiculous analysis brought forth by know-nothings was that the Yankees would be better off if they hit fewer home runs. Four months of lost opportunities, Joe Girardi’s small ball bunting and wasted pitching performances has rendered that argument to the idiotic category in which it belonged.

Whether or not the Yankees do make a move for Justin Morneau and/or Michael Young to add to Alfonso Soriano or any other aging veteran who’s not under contract beyond 2014, it’s probably going to have little effect on this season. The teams ahead of them are younger, faster, more versatile, have prospects to deal and, in the biggest irony, have more money to spend.

As the season has moved along, we’ve seen the storyline shift from “Yankee magic” to “wait until the veterans get back” to “underdogs without expectations” to their “DNA.” In a month or so, when the dust settles on the state of the club, the new lament will be that the “playoffs loses its luster without the Yankees.” That, like the Yankees crying poverty, is a cry for help like a kid playing in his backyard having the umpire change his mind so his team will win. It goes against all logic and sanity. It’s something no one wants to hear. Baseball survived perfectly well without the Yankees in the playoffs every season from 1965-1975 and 1979 to 1993. It will do so again. In fact, it might be better and more interesting. It will tamp down the Yankees and their arrogance and clear out the bandwagon for awhile at least. These are the Yankees of 2013-2014. No trade is going to change that at this late date.

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Tino Martinez And The Clash Of Baseball Civilizations

During the late-1990s Yankees dynasty, certain players had certain off-field roles. Derek Jeter was the quiet, behind-the-scenes leader. Jorge Posada was Jeter’s enforcer. Mariano Rivera was the team’s quiet conscience. Bernie Williams was the player who receded into the back of the clubhouse but came through at crunch time. Paul O’Neill was the snarling, raging, water-cooler abusing intense competitor. And Tino Martinez…

Well, does anyone remember what part Martinez played off the field? Yes, people remember his near-MVP season in 1997 when he hit 44 home runs. During his time in pinstripes, he was a good fielder and a consistent offensive performer during the regular season. He hit the tone-setting grand slam off of Mark Langston in game 1 of the 1998 World Series. But he was never the one other clubs said they had to stop to win a game or series against the Yankees and his personality in the clubhouse was not discussed.

That lack of definition kept Martinez as a background player. During his career, he had a seething, underlying intensity that was similar to O’Neill’s, but it never manifested itself in the same overt manner. That anger could have stemmed from many issues. Given his status as a former member of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team and the Mariners’ reluctance to give him regular playing time, there was always a sense that he spent a year or two more than he needed in the minors. Other stars from that Olympic team, notably Jim Abbott and Robin Ventura, went almost immediately to the majors. Martinez, however, languished in the minors and didn’t get the opportunity to play regularly for the Mariners until 1992.

When given the chance to play, he evolved into a key component for the Mariners until he was traded to the Yankees after the 1995 season. Replacing Don Mattingly, he heard the boos at Yankee Stadium as punishment for a slow start. He rebounded to hit 25 homers and drive in 117 runs during the Yankees’ first championship of that era.

An underappreciated cog from the World Series winners from 1998-2000, Martinez was one of the first to depart after the 2001 World Series loss to the Diamondbacks. It was then that the Yankees went from having a cohesive unit that knew each other, trusted each other and would fight and grind their way to win and evolved into a club that relied on star power and mercenaries. Martinez’s replacement, Jason Giambi, was an expensive PED user. He was well-liked and performed up to an MVP-level, but there was something missing with Giambi’s reluctance to step forward in Jeter’s clubhouse and the absence of Martinez’s understated fire.

Those who claim that Martinez is “mild-mannered” have seen the smiling face on Yankee-centric TV too much and don’t remember the anger he sometimes exhibited. The stories surrounding Martinez’s resignation from the Marlins as their hitting coach center around his alleged abuse of players with cursing and some physicality. He responded to those allegations here.

It’s a case of “he said/he said” and the incidents were probably due to several factors that could not be avoided unless Martinez never went into coaching at all. Having come up the way he did in baseball and, in his formative big league years, playing for a manager who yelled a lot and confronted players in Lou Piniella; then going to the Joe Torre Yankees where players were expected to behave a certain way and if they didn’t, they were gone; then going to play for Tony LaRussa, it’s no surprise that there’s been a clash of cultures with Martinez and the young players of today. When he was a young player for Piniella, had Martinez done what Derek Dietrich and other players are said to have done by refusing to behave as rookies and do what they’re told, he would’ve been screamed at, possibly grabbed and shipped to the minors. In today’s game, you can’t get away with that type of methodology when overseeing players.

The problem with the former MVP-caliber player is that he generally has to alter his expectations and demands when dealing with players who aren’t going to be as good as he was. When performing as the hitting coach for a young team like the Marlins, the attitude that Martinez shows is probably not going to go over well with the players because they don’t want to hear it and will react rather than fall into line to keep their jobs. It wasn’t that long ago that players had to conform. Now, with the money they’re making and the power they have over the people who are ostensibly their bosses, they don’t have to listen. And they don’t. The attitude is, “I’ll be here longer than he will.” Most of the time, they’re right. The results of the clash of civilizations are evident with what happened to Tino Martinez, who might not be cut out to be a coach in today’s major leagues.

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The Royals Should Not Sell

One you reference Joe (the Twins should’ve drafted Mark Prior over Joe Mauer amid dozens of other analytical baseball travesties) Sheehan as the basis for your logic, your foundation is built for collapse. In this SB Nation posting, Rob Neyer suggests the Royals throw the towel in on the season while they’re still within reasonable striking distance of first place by trading Ervin Santana, Greg Holland and Luke Hochevar. Needless to say, I’m not swayed by the Baseball Prospectus playoff percentages that are used as tenets to make these moves and I really don’t care what Sheehan says about anything.

The Royals have disappointed this season. They made a series of deals to try and win now and they’ve been hit or miss. James Shields has been good; Wade Davis inconsistent; Wil Myers, now with the Rays, is looking like the hype was real. The Royals haven’t scored in large part because their approach has been atrocious and Mike Moustakas has played poorly enough that they might want to consider sending him to the minors. But wouldn’t a sell-off of Santana, Holland and Hochevar be giving up on a season when they are still only seven games out of first place behind the somewhat disappointing Tigers? That’s an eight game winning streak away from getting it to three games. They have a large number of games against the White Sox, Mets, Mariners, Twins and Marlins. They have a lot of games left with the Tigers as well. Is it out of the question that they can get to within five games by September 1? If it were a team run by Sheehan or Neyer, would it be justified to give up on the season while still within five games of first place with a month left? Or is the loathing of general manager Dayton Moore so intense that it clouds their judgment to try and get him fired?

It appears that the hardcore stat guys have still not learned the lesson that taking every single player at a certain position and lumping them into a group as what teams “should” do with them based on that position is not analysis. It’s hedging. The lack of consistency in the suggested strategy and examples are conveniently twisted. At the end of the piece, Neyer writes, “We know what the A’s and Rays would do, though” when discussing why closers are disposable. Neyer writes that Holland is “probably worth more now than he’ll ever be worth again.” Yet the Rays, who got the best year of his life out of Fernando Rodney in 2012 and had him under contract at a cheap rate for another year, didn’t trade him when he was in a similar circumstance. The Rays had traded for a big money closer in Rafael Soriano before the 2010 season, much to the consternation of the “pump-and-dump/you can find a closer” wing of stat guys. Which is it? Is there consistency of theory or consistency when it confirms the bias as to what “should” be done?

I also find it laughable when people like Sheehan and Neyer have all the guts in the world to make these decisions while sitting behind a keyboard simultaneously having no responsibility to try and adhere to the various aspects of running a club—doing what the owner wants, attracting fans and keeping the job.

There’s an argument to be made for making deals to get better for the next season if the situation calls for it. If not an outright fire sale, a concession to reality by dealing marketable commodities is the correct move when a team is underachieving. The Blue Jays are an example far more relevant to the concept of giving up in late July than the Royals are. The Blue Jays have a GM, Alex Anthopoulos, who thinks more in line with what the stat people think and is probably more likely to be fired after the season than Moore.

With Neyer, Rany Jazayerli and presumably Bill James (even though he now works for the Red Sox), I can’t tell whether they’re providing objective analysis based on the facts or they’re Royals fans hoping the club comes completely undone because they don’t like Moore and would like someone closer to their line of thinking running the team. If that’s the case there’s nothing wrong with that if one is honest about it, but it’s somewhat untoward and shady to be using stats and out of context examples to “prove” a point.

Regardless of how they’ve played, the Royals are only seven games out of first place. That’s no time to start clearing the decks of players they might need to make a run. And numbers, hatred of the GM and disappointments aside, a run is still possible, like it or not.

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Francesa, A-Rod and Dr. Gross

Mike Francesa spent his entire show today referencing Alex Rodriguez’s second opinion on his injured quadriceps and essentially accusing the Yankees of intentionally keeping A-Rod out of the lineup. A multitude of reasons were presented for this decision the most prominent being that the Yankees don’t want to pay A-Rod. As much as Francesa attempted to chastise the organization, painted them into a corner to let A-Rod play and boosted A-Rod as a potential cure to the Yankees offensive ills, let’s not make A-Rod into a victim here. Here’s all you need to know:

• The Yankees don’t want to pay A-Rod.
• The Yankees are hoping that the Biogenesis suspension of A-Rod comes sooner rather than later so they don’t have to answer questions about him.
• A-Rod wants to get back on the field to get his money.

Toward whatever end is on A-Rod’s plate at the moment, he continually draws the ire of the organization and break rules that are clear in the collective bargaining agreement. He is not supposed to go see a doctor without team approval. Dr. Gross examined an A-Rod MRI and was clearly encouraged by A-Rod to publicize his findings. But for Francesa’s bolstering of this doctor’s diagnosis because he wants A-Rod back in the Yankees lineup out of some clinging to an adolescent fantasy that they still have a chance at the playoffs this year, no one would’ve paid any attention to this whatsoever. If it’s discussed for 5 1/2 hours, everyone—including the organization—is going to notice and react.

As bad as their third basemen have been this year, A-Rod was probably as bad if not worse in the playoffs last season, so they don’t know if they’ll get much more from him than what they’ve gotten from Kevin Youkilis, David Adams, Luis Cruz, et al. For all of the vouching Francesa has done for Dr. Gross, the “right” and “wrong” here is not clear-cut. The report that Dr. Gross was reprimanded by the New Jersey State Attorney General surfaced shortly after his star-turn with Francesa. It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to surmise that the politically-connected Yankees made certain that this came out as a means of defending the organization from this attack.

It’s not as simplistic as Francesa’s, “He’s a good playa and da Yankees need ‘im.” This is about money, a player they would like out of their sight and off their books. It’s about A-Rod, who wants to be paid as per the terms of his contract. They both have an agenda that goes beyond Francesa again indulging in a logic that was once limited to his callers by saying that the team needs a player and should let that player play without considering the collateral implications. Francesa wagged the dog today and the dog—the Yankees—wagged back.

It will be interesting to see if this degenerates into another cold war between Francesa and a New York organization. His self-indulgent battles with the New York Jets have sabotaged any pretense of objectivity between himself and the team. The Yankees are presumably pretty angry at Francesa for causing them this aggravation and, as was shown with the speed with which this doctor’s history was laid bare for all to see, will retaliate when fired upon. They went after the doctor first. Francesa could be next.

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Ryan Braun Has Highly Offended Me

The easiest thing to do with the latest Ryan Braun saga is to go into a logical mode and say he did something that anyone else would’ve done, got very rich and only got caught because baseball has suddenly decided to do something about an issue that they winked and nodded at less than ten years ago. Or you can go to the other side, go into the idyllic world of fantasy where all athletes are clean-living paragons of sportsmanship and act like Braun just kidnapped your children while starving your dog and committed a Bernie Madoff-level fraud.

Did he lie? No more than most any other athletes or even people you’ll run into who, when cornered, will do something similar to what Braun did. Braun passionately proclaimed his innocence and then came up with a tersely and inadequately worded statement acknowledging the all-encompassing “mistakes” that could mean anything from parking in a handicapped spot to biting the heads off live parakeets. Is this something new in sports? In the world?

It can be parsed, dissected, criticized, ridiculed and bashed, but Braun was doing something that many other players were doing or would do if they had the opportunity. He just got caught. He won an MVP while using PEDs, but other players have won awards and made a lot of money doing the exact same thing. Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa put on a show for an entity in Major League Baseball that was still recovering from the 1994 strike and canceled post-season and helped the game grow stronger with the use of steroids just like bodybuilders and athletes do. Roger Clemens “defied” age. Players who couldn’t play and were organizational filler were suddenly All-Stars. Why is it now something over which Braun is being treated about as badly as Aaron Hernandez is? This groundswell and group mentality is idiotic and if you actually believed he was clean, idiotic is the operative word.

Stop listening to what ballplayers say because it’s made for public consumption or done out of blatant self-preservation. Braun tried to save himself, did for a while, then got caught again and has copped a plea. The over-the-top response is pure self-righteous garbage and it should be ignored just as fervently as the statements players like Braun make saying how “innocent” they are. Braun’s morals and life code are not a concern of mine and I’m not sure why they would be a concern of anyone else either. Then again, I don’t speak the language of “ridiculous.”

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MLB Trade Deadline: Thinking Outside The Box With Hughes And Chamberlain

The Yankees are trying to unload both Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes. In Chamberlain’s case, they’ll take whatever a team is willing to give. In Hughes’s case, they’d like to boost their offense with a third base or outfield bat. With the pending free agency and poor performance from both former phenoms, they’re not getting much of a return on either. Because the interest in the pitchers is limited, it would help the Yankees in their cause to get something for them if they alter the landscape. How about Hughes as a reliever, where he’s been successful in the past; and Chamberlain as a starter to see if he can perform adequately in the role over the remaining two months of the season?

In what would be a combination of Mike Francesa’s current dream and revisiting of a past nightmare by approaching the Twins to see if they’d send Justin Morneau in exchange for Chamberlain and the suggestion that the rebuilding Twins try Chamberlain as a starter, they might be willing to give it consideration if the Yankees throw in another prospect. The trade interest in Morneau is reportedly just as limited for the Twins as Chamberlain and Hughes are for the Yankees, so why not suggest to the Twins that they might get something from Chamberlain as a starter? Perhaps they’d see something they liked, would be able to sign him for another year and give him a full year in the rotation and an opportunity the Yankees never gave him: to function in one role without expectations, demands, hovering questions, rules and alterations that played a large part in his eventual destruction and disappointment.

Chamberlain would be agreeable to the idea because he knows he won’t get a lot of money as a free agent in his current state. Few will dispute that the Yankees mishandled him from 2008 onward. He needs a change of scenery and in spite of his status amongst his peers as overrated and the joy they take in his downfall because he’s not a likable person, he still has a mid-90s fastball and hard slider. His ancillary pitches have diminished due to lack of use, but he does have a curveball and changeup. Naysayers will say “he can’t start,” but no one knows if he can start because he was never given a true opportunity to be a starter with the Yankees’ ridiculous constraints on him in the interest of “protection.” Even when he had a brief run of sustained success in late July of 2009, the Yankees disrupted his rhythm by decreeing that he needed extra rest, made him wait a week between his July 29 start and his August 6 start and he reverted back to what he was with mediocrity and inconsistency. The Yankees’ self-harm with Chamberlain appeared almost intentional like a teenage girl cutting herself.

At this point it’s senseless to go into another rant regarding the mistakes the Yankees made with Hughes and Chamberlain. That the pitchers have neither come close to fulfilling their potential nor living up to the hype the Yankees saddled upon them goes without saying. That’s a matter for discussion once both are gone. Now that Hughes is performing as a back-of-the-rotation starter and Michael Pineda is ready to return makes it wasteful to keep Hughes as a starter or a reliever. A contending team might want Hughes as a starter and give up a low minor leaguer for him, or they might look at his prior success as a reliever for the Yankees’ 2009 World Series winning team and think he can help them as a set-up man for the final two months of the season and let him leave as a free agent with little risk or cost. The team that trades for him might even want to keep him as a starter or reliever.

The fact is that the value of Hughes and Chamberlain is gone. The Yankees don’t need them. They don’t even want them. The best bet for everyone is to restart the whole process and move along. The Yankees can still get something for them and they can be of use to whatever team trades for them if the participants think a bit differently and consider them in different roles than they’re being used in now.

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MLB Trade Deadline: Relievers and the Eric Gagne-Jesse Crain Parallel

It’s safe to say the two veteran relief pitchers the Red Sox just signed to minor league contracts, Brandon Lyon and Jose Contreras, won’t be the missing pieces to their hoped-for 2013 championship puzzle. Suffice it to also say that neither will pitch as terribly as Eric Gagne did when the Red Sox surrendered three players to get the veteran closer from the Rangers in 2007. If they do, it’s no harm/no foul.

The trade for Gagne was meant to create shutdown eighth and ninth innings with Gagne and Jonathan Papelbon and lead them to a World Series title. They won the title with no help from Gagne, who posted a 6.75 ERA with 26 hits allowed in 18 2/3 innings after the trade and pitched as badly in the post-season as he did in the regular season. In retrospect the trade wasn’t one in which the Red Sox are lamenting letting young players they needed get away.

For Gagne, they traded former first round draft pick outfielder David Murphy, lefty pitcher Kason Gabbard and young outfielder Engel Beltre. Murphy has been a good player for the Rangers, but the Red Sox haven’t missed him. Gabbard was a soft-tossing lefty whose career was derailed by injuries and actually wound up back with the Red Sox in 2010 for 11 Triple A appearances and hasn’t pitched since. If the Red Sox wind up regretting the trade it will because of Beltre who is still only 23, has speed, occasional pop and can play centerfield. Regardless of what happens with him, few will hold it against them for trading a 17-year-old in the quest of a championship that they wound up winning independent of Gagne’s terribleness.

The trade could have been far more disastrous than it was and it was due to the club overvaluing both the player they were getting and the importance of a relief pitcher who was not a closer. Interestingly, as written by Terry Francona and Dan Shaughnessy in The Red Sox Years, the Red Sox original intention was to use Papelbon as a set-up man and install Gagne as the closer. They went so far as to go to Papelbon’s home prior to pulling the trigger to discuss the possibility of letting Gagne close. Papelbon objected and the club made the trade anyway to use Gagne as the set-up man. As the numbers show, it didn’t work and it might have been hellish had they made Gagne the closer by alienating Papelbon, angering a clubhouse and fanbase still harboring dreaded memories from the failed 2003 attempt at a closer-by-committee, and repeating a mistake that the Red Sox have—even today—continued to make in undervaluing a good and reliable closer.

No one is expecting Lyon or Contreras to be key contributors to a title run, but they’re “why not?” moves to see if they can get cheap production from a couple of veterans. It’s doubtful the Red Sox are going to give up a top prospect for a non-closer again. Already the club inquired with the Mets about Bobby Parnell and the Mets reportedly asked for Jackie Bradley Jr., to which the Red Sox wisely said no. The Mets are willing to move Parnell if they get that kind of offer but it’s hard to see that happening, so it’s unlikely that they trade him. However, one relief pitcher who is on the market and will be traded is Jesse Crain of the White Sox. What happened with Gagne should not be lost on a team hoping to bolster their relief corps by acquiring Crain.

Gagne, before the trade, was closing for the Rangers. He’d saved 16 games, posted a 2.16 ERA, struck out 29 in 33 1/3 innings and allowed 23 hits. For the White Sox this season Crain made the All-Star team and is in the midst of the year of his life with a 0.74 ERA, 31 hits allowed in 36 2/3 innings (with a .337 BAbip), 46 strikeouts, 11 walks and no homers. Crain has always been a solid set-up man, strikes out more than a batter-per-inning and is a free agent at the end of the season. He’s a good pitcher, but he’s not worth what the White Sox are going to want for him and might possibly get from a desperate team looking to help their bullpen. In reality, the team that acquires Crain won’t win the championship because of him if he pitches as well as he is now, nor will they lose it if he falls to earth.

There are times in which it’s worth it to give up the top prospect to get that last missing piece if the championship is the goal. The Marlins traded former first pick in the draft Adrian Gonzalez to get Ugueth Urbina in 2003. That trade is nowhere near as bad as it would’ve been if Gonzalez had blossomed for the Rangers and the Marlins hadn’t won the World Series, but the Rangers also traded Gonzalez (no one knew how good he really was), and the Marlins did win the World Series that year. They might’ve won it with or without Urbina, but the bottom-line perception is what counts and the title justifies anything they did to get it. It’s the same thing with Gagne. The Red Sox won the title, so nothing else really matters.

Will Crain yield that for the team that acquires him? Is it likely? Probably not on both counts. The only time to give up a significant piece for a known set-up man is if you’re getting Mariano Rivera from 1996 Yankees or the Rob Dibble/Norm Charlton combination from the 1990 Reds’ Nasty Boys. Other than that, a team is better off doing what the Red Sox did with Lyon and Contreras and tossing a dart at a dartboard or finding a reliever who isn’t in the midst of his career year as Crain is and hoping that a move to a contending team and more than a little luck turns into a “genius” move when it was exceedingly lucky.

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Don’t Expect The Giants To Trade Lincecum

Now that the Dodgers have crawled back over .500 the talk of firing manager Don Mattingly and a series of drastic sell-off trades has subsided. If they do anything, it will be to add and Ricky Nolasco was the first domino to fall. Say what you want about Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti, but he doesn’t have a hidden agenda. The only time he’ll sell is when his team is clearly out of contention late in the season. Apart from that, he’s buying to try and win today.

In fact, it’s doubtful that Colletti ever had it in his mind to sell while the Dodgers were floundering at twelve games under .500 on June 21. The addition of Yasiel Puig and overall parity in the National League West allowed the Dodgers to get back into contention. In retrospect it was somewhat silly to consider a fire sale so early with the amount of money the team has invested in their on-field product. There are times to conduct a housecleaning and there are teams that can do it early in the season, but those with hefty payrolls and mandates to win immediately like the Dodgers, Red Sox and Yankees are not in a position to make such maneuvers. The only big money team in recent memory to pull off such a drastic trade to clear salary is the Red Sox and they sent Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett to the Dodgers. Unless Colletti has some diabolical scheme in mind, I doubt he could pull a Dr. Evil and clear salary with himself.

Knowing that Colletti spent a significant amount of his time in baseball working for the Giants and Brian Sabean, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the two think the same way. With that in mind, don’t expect a fire sale from the Giants or for them to trade Tim Lincecum.

This has nothing to do with Lincecum having just pitched a no-hitter. It has to do with the limited return they’d likely get for the pending free agent and that in spite of their atrocious 15-29 record since May 26 they’re still only 6 1/2 games out of first place. The Padres have come undone and the Rockies are not contenders. In the NL West that leaves the Diamondbacks, Dodgers and Giants to battle it out for the division. All have their claims to be the club that emerges and all are looking to get better now. The Giants could use a bat and another starting pitcher. They were in on Nolasco and if they acquire a first baseman like Justin Morneau, they could move Brandon Belt to the outfield for the rest of the season. The change to a contender in a new city with his own pending free agency might wake up Morneau’s power bat.

Before labeling a team as a seller or buyer based on record alone, it’s wise to examine their circumstances. The Dodgers couldn’t sell because it was so early in the season and they had the talent to get back into the race. The Giants can’t sell because of the limited options on what they’ll receive in a trade of Lincecum; because they need him to contend; and with their history of late-season runs and two championships in three years, they owe it to their fans and players to try and win again.

A winning streak of eight games or winning 14 of 20 will put the Giants right near the top of the division. If they get into the playoffs with their experience and Lincecum, Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner as starters in a short series, they have as good a chance of emerging from the National League as anyone else. Trading away players that can help them achieve that possible end makes no sense. Don’t expect them to do it.

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Cliff Lee And The All-Star Look

If there are a trail of bodies or body parts scattered from Cleveland to Philadelphia to Seattle to Texas and back to Philadelphia, be on the lookout for this man.

What is Cliff Lee’s problem? Never mind that his All-Star look was more appropriate for a man awaiting a decision as to whether or not he’d get the death penalty and the question as to whether he’d ever learned to fake a smile and tip his hat. This isn’t about that face which would make a hardened criminal or sociopathic dictator think twice before messing with him, but it’s about the repeated trades of Lee and how he’s seemingly always up for discussion in trade talk. We’ve seen instances of him glaring at teammates who make errors behind him and even confronting them as he did with Shane Victorino. Much like the B.J. Upton–Evan Longoria incident when Longoria questioned Upton as to why he didn’t hustle on a ball hit in the gap, it obviously wasn’t the first time that players, coaches and the manager spoke to Upton regarding his lackadaisical play. Lee’s name prominently featured in trade talks, his strange history as a journeyman in spite of how good he is and that face make it a viable question as to whether he’s worth the aggravation unless he’s pitching like an All-Star.

Is Lee a clubhouse problem? While his teammates appear to respect his commitment and status as one of the top pitchers in baseball over the past five years, it reverts back to wondering why he’s always a negotiable topic in trade discussions. With the Indians the trade to the Phillies was spurred by his contract status, that the team was rebuilding and they wanted to maximize his value rather than lose him for nothing a year-and-a-half later. With the Phillies, the club got the idea that he wanted to test the free agent waters after the 2010 season and they preferred someone who was with them for the long-term in Roy Halladay while simultaneously maintaining some semblance of a farm system. Lee denied that he told the Phillies he didn’t want to negotiate an extension prior to the trade.

With the Mariners, the club was in the midst of a disastrous season in which the planned dual-aces at the top of their rotation with Felix Hernandez and Lee wasn’t working out and they traded him to the Rangers for a large package of youngsters. Lee certainly didn’t look any happier with the Mariners than he did during the All-Star introductions.

He went back to the Phillies after the 2010 season, spurning the Rangers and Yankees. Whether or not Lee is a clubhouse problem or is just an introverted, intense competitor who lets his emotions get the better of him is known only to his teammates and the organizations he’s played for. With Lee, though, there’s been a smirking shrug when things aren’t going his way as if it’s not his fault.

The Phillies’ decision to trade Lee once was based on pure business practices. When the parties reunited after backbiting and back-and-forth accusations as to what went wrong the first time, it was viewed as Lee liking Philly better than New York and the Phillies offering more money than Texas. For the Phillies it was an overt admission of the initial mistake in trading Lee. Given their continued willingness to listen to offers on Lee, it’s clearly evident that the relationship is still a business one. Lee didn’t want to bring his family to New York where his wife had a bad experience during the playoffs against the Yankees while he was pitching for the Rangers. The Phillies wanted to build a juggernaut. Both got what they wanted.

Currently there is speculation that the Phillies might trade Lee if they decide to sell at the trading deadline, but they’ve said they’re not going to. It’s not because they’re in love with Lee, but because they think they’re still in contention for 2013 and will be in contention in 2014, so they’ll be a better team with Lee than they would be with the prospects he’d bring back or the players they could sign with the money freed up after getting his contract off the books. Lee doesn’t sound as if he’s all that bothered by the trade talk. His attitude and that face indicate he’s treating the game as a business and if he’s traded, that’s part of the deal. He’ll get paid and will escape another town and use his glare to scare off onlookers yet again in a new venue.

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The Valdespin Non-Story

Via Twitter, Jordany Valdespin apologized for his clubhouse tantrum following his demotion to Triple A. Read it here and you’ll see that he apology was written by someone other than Jordany Valdespin.

This is a non-story other than adding spice to the All-Star break due to Valdespin’s continuing antics. He’s immature and is not going to suddenly learn propriety in his on and off-field behaviors. He’s got ability with pop, speed and a flair for the dramatic, but his negatives far outweigh any potential positives if he somehow manages to fulfill them—something, at age 25, he’s shown no indication he’s going to be able to do. Valdespin threw his fit with “startled” teammates looking on. They might have been startled, but they weren’t surprised. If David Wright acted that way, they’d be surprised.

It’s understandable that a player doesn’t want to go down to the minors, but there’s an absence of comprehension on the part of Valdespin. He wants to be in the big leagues whether he’s playing or not. It’s lost on him that he was no longer in the club’s plans for this season and was little more than the 25th player on the roster, pinch-hitting infrequently and never starting. In his mind it appears that he wants credit for keeping his mouth shut at sitting when he didn’t deserve to be playing to begin with.

Regardless of his tweets, I promise you that Valdespin doesn’t think he was given a chance. His version of a “chance” would extend further than the three weeks in June following Ike Davis’s demotion in which he played semi-regularly and did nothing at the plate. With other players, that belief wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. With Valdespin’s other issues and lack of production, it is wrong. It’s simplistic to say, “He just doesn’t get it, ” as an easy way to end a statement or article. That he doesn’t get it is a given. The question is whether or not he’ll ever get it and if it’s worth it to hold off and wait to see if he does.

The problem with Valdespin is that he’s surrounded by a sense of waiting. The Mets front office is waiting to see if he’ll play as he did in the minors with power and speed. Valdespin seems to be waiting until the time he does fulfill that potential (you have to admire his ignorant audacity/confidence) and then he can be the indispensible veteran who can act in any way he wants with the organization letting him get away with it because they need him. With that in mind, any expression of maturity will be done with the idea that he’ll get another chance as a result of it and the maturity will be abandoned at the first available opportunity. And that’s not maturity. It’s opportunism. No one in the clubhouse likes him; the manager doesn’t want to play him; the coaches can’t deal with him; and he’s not productive. The question then becomes: Why was he on the big league roster for this long in the first place?

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