The Rays know where they’re at and act accordingly

When the Tampa Bay Rays traded Evan Longoria, Corey Dickerson, Steven Souza Jr., Jake Odorizzi and Brad Boxberger and repeated their usual trend in free agency of finding players who sought a mutually beneficial circumstance to try and replenish their bonafides while the Rays hoped to get motivated value, the word “tanking” was thrown around. It was an easy assumption to make. But there’s a difference between tanking and accepting losing as a necessary corollary for the experimenting that the club is doing. The difference is subtle and might have the same result as tanking without the intent and the justifiable criticism that goes along with getting as close to losing on purpose as a team can get without throwing games a la the 1919 Black Sox, but it won’t be viewed as “dirty.”

After an atrocious start losing 13 of their first 17 games, the Rays have won 19 and lost 12. In doing so, they have turned their starting rotation into a petri dish by using “bullpen games” – a concept teams had generally done only in an emergency – as a regular part of their strategy. It might seem odd, but that’s only because no club has ever taken it to its logical conclusion before. However, the Rays have a history of flouting norms to achieve their desired ends.

It was the Rays under owner Stuart Sternberg and general manager Andrew Friedman who were one of the first clubs to put circumstantial tanking into action before it became such an objectionably noncompetitive act that teams openly wallowed in and even took pride in doing. When Sternberg took over, he and his staff tacitly chose not to overspend on free agents or make shortsighted trades just to win 75 games instead of 65. Getting higher draft picks; developing their players and signing them to preemptive long-term contracts; manipulating service time; finding players who needed a job and had upside; and identifying puzzle pieces who, individually, weren’t much, but in combination were formidable was their method of competing with the Yankees and Red Sox. And it worked. It was so obvious that it begs the question why no one else tried it. They tricked out the Moneyball concept and went all-in from a different angle.

Now the Rays are doing something else unconventional in having three regular members of their starting rotation and using their relievers in the other games. Already Sergio Romo – a career-long reliever who had not been in a starting rotation since his first two seasons of professional baseball in 2005 and 2006 – has started two games this season…and they were on back-to-back days.

Naturally, if this takes hold across baseball, it will not only change the landscape of how players are assessed, utilized and paid, but it will essentially take the pitcher win and rather than say it is meaningless as many insist it should be, will make it legitimately meaningless.

They are discarding the constraints of convention and longtime tactics by ignoring the idea that a starting pitcher must pitch X number of innings followed by specialized relievers until the ninth inning when the designated closer will pitch regardless of the situation.

This can easily be compared to the incremental changes that took place as teams went from four starting pitchers to five, relied more heavily on relievers, transformed relievers into specialists and chipped away at how things have always been done. In context, is it any different from Jack Chesbro throwing 454.2 innings, starting 51 games and winning 41 in 1904 and that never happening again? It’s ludicrous to think about today. In a few years, the same could be said about having five starters and eight relievers with the innings doled out according to those roles whether the pitchers available are suited to that blueprint or not.

Friday’s trade of Denard Span and Alex Colome to the Mariners for pitchers Andrew Moore and Tommy Romero could be viewed as a head-scratcher, but in reality, it makes perfect sense. Moore fits into the Rays’ pitching experiment as a big-league ready arm who they can plug into their grid. Romero is in the low-minors, is about to turn 21, has impressive numbers and a quirky, over-the-top motion. They were not getting more than this for Span and Colome. Span’s injury history is such that they needed to act before he got hurt again and they were left with nothing when he departs as a free agent at season’s end. (He has a mutual option the Rays were not exercising.)

As a team and as well as they have played since that hideous start, what is the best-case scenario for the Rays this season? They’re in the AL East with the powerhouse Yankees and Red Sox; the World Series champion Astros are in the AL West. Let’s say the Rays win a Wild Card. It’s one game. Anything can happen. But as top-heavy as the AL is, what is the likelihood that they can get past the Yankees or Red Sox in that one game and then get past the Astros in either the division series or the championship series?

There is no likelihood because it’s not going to happen.

So, like the decision in 2006-2007 to tank without tanking, the Rays are trying this new method of using erstwhile relievers to pitch the first inning and flipping the entire script as to how pitchers are used because they have the opportunity and the wherewithal to see if it can succeed. They’re accepting reality and trading away Span, whom they only acquired as a salary exchange in trading Longoria, and Colome, who is just another in a long line of replaceable short relievers who just happened to be their closer and led the majors in saves in 2017.

They know who they are, they know what they are and are making the wise decision to shun pretense and act rather than react.

ALDS Playoffs Preview and Predictions – Boston Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays

Boston Red Sox (97-65) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (92-71)

Keys for the Red Sox: Score a lot of runs; don’t rely on their starting pitching; get the Rays’ starters pitch counts up and get into the bullpen; don’t let Farrell’s mistakes burn them.

The Red Sox led the American League in on-base percentage and runs scored. Much has been made of their “top-to-bottom” lineup, but a lot of their success was based on circumstance. Yes, they have guys who hit the ball out of the park and work the count in David Ortiz, Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino. Yes, they have grinders and fiery players like Dustin Pedroia, Jonny Gomes and Mike Carp. Yes, Jarrod Saltalamacchia had a big power year.

That said, the Red Sox took great advantage of teams with bad pitching. When they ran into teams with good pitching – teams that weren’t going to walk them and give up homers – they had trouble. The Rays aren’t going to walk them and give up homers.

The Red Sox starting pitching has been serviceable, but not superior. They have a starting rotation of a lot of impressive names who have also benefited from the Red Sox run-scoring lineup and solid defense.

The Rays’ starters have a tendency to run up high pitch counts. Manager Joe Maddon showed that he was willing to push his starters in the post-season with David Price’s complete game in the wild card tiebreaker. The Rays bullpen has been shaky and I certainly don’t trust Fernando Rodney. If the Red Sox can have a lead or keep the game close late, they’ll score on the Rays’ bullpen.

Farrell deserves immense credit for the Red Sox turnaround. It can’t be forgotten, though, that everything worked out right for them this year. Farrell still has his strategic missteps and in the post-season, they’re magnified.

Keys for the Rays: Get depth from their starters; keep the Red Sox off the bases and in the park; rely on Evan Longoria.

Maddon is deft at handling his bullpen, but it’s always better to not have to put the game in the hands of Rodney, Joel Peralta and the rest of the mix-and-match crew he has out there. Price pitched a complete game dancing through the proverbial raindrops against the Rangers. Matt Moore racks up high pitch counts by the middle-innings. Maddon will push them, but he won’t abuse them. If he has to remove them, then a bullpen-based game is to his disadvantage.

The Red Sox look for walks and pitches they can hit out of the park. If you don’t walk them and get the breaking ball over, they’re not going to be able to hit their homers with runners on base.

Longoria lives for the spotlight. He wants people to be talking about him on social media and over coffee the next morning. If he hits and the Rays pitch, they’re tough to beat.

What will happen:

As incredible as Koji Uehara has been as the Red Sox closer, his longball tendency concerns me. He’s never faced this kind of pressure before and all the strikeouts in the world aren’t going to help him if the home run ball bites him at an inopportune moment.

I don’t trust the Red Sox bullpen; I don’t trust their starting pitchers; and I don’t think they’re going to hit with the authority they did during the regular season, nor are they going to have the runners on base to put up crooked numbers.

The Rays are playing with a freewheeling abandon that comes from the top. Maddon is a superior strategic manager to Farrell and has greater experience in post-season games. Farrell will make a game-costing gaffe at some point in this series.

There’s a strange love-fest going on with the Red Sox outside their fanbase and I’m not sure why. There’s an idea that because they had a collapse in 2011 and a rotten year in 2012, that they’ve “earned” this season and it’s going to end in a championship.

The playoffs have a tendency to provide an electroshock rude awakening. Sort of like a sting from a ray.

PREDICTION: RAYS IN FIVE

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American League Remaining Schedule and Playoff Chance Analysis

Let’s take a look at the remaining schedules for all the teams still in the hunt for an American League playoff berth.

Boston Red Sox

Record: 89-58; 15 games remaining

Current Position: First Place by 9.5 games, American League East

Remaining Schedule: 1 game at Rays; 3 games vs. Yankees; 3 games vs. Orioles; 3 games vs. Blue Jays; 2 games at Rockies; 3 games at Orioles

The Red Sox have the best record in the American League by five games. They’re going to have a significant say in which team gets the second Wild Card given their six games against the Orioles and four against the Yankees. They’re not going to lay down as evidenced by manager John Farrell’s somewhat odd – but successful – decision last night to use Koji Uehara is a tie game that meant nothing to them. I’m wondering if Farrell has received advice from Patriots coach Bill Belichick on going for the throat at all costs because it was a Belichick move.

They don’t seem to have a preference as to whether they knock out the Yankees, Rays or Orioles. They’re playing all out, all the way.

—

Oakland Athletics

Record: 84-61; 17 games remaining

Current Position: First Place by 3 games, American League West

Remaining Schedule: 1 game at Twins; 3 games at Rangers; 3 games vs. Angels; 4 games vs. Twins; 3 games at Angels; 3 games at Mariners

The A’s lead the Rangers by three games and have three games with them this weekend. Strength of schedule can be a dual-edged sword. This isn’t the NFL, but teams whose seasons are coming to a disappointing close are just as likely to get some motivation by playing teams that have something to play for as they are to bag it and give up. The Angels have played better lately and the Mariners can pitch.

—

Detroit Tigers

Record: 84-62; 16 games remaining

Current Position: First Place by 6.5 games, American League Central

Remaining Schedule: 3 games vs. Royals; 4 games vs. Mariners; 3 games vs. White Sox; 3 games vs. Twins; 3 games vs. Marlins

The Tigers’ upcoming schedule is pretty weak and they have a good cushion for the division. They can’t coast, but they can relax a bit.

—

Texas Rangers

Record: 81-64; 17 games remaining

Current Position: Second Place by 3 games, American League West; lead first Wild Card by 3.5 games

Remaining Schedule: 3 games vs. Athletics; 4 games at Rays; 3 games at Royals; 3 games vs. Astros; 4 games vs. Angels

The Rangers are in jeopardy of falling out of the playoffs entirely if they slip up over the next ten games. All of those teams have something to play for and the Rangers have been slumping.

—

Tampa Bay Rays

Record: 78-66; 18 games remaining

Current Position: Second Place by 9.5 games, American League East; lead second Wild Card by 1 game

Remaining Schedule: 1 game vs. Red Sox; 3 games at Twins; 4 games at Rangers; 4 games at Orioles; 3 games at Yankees; 3 games at Blue Jays

With the way they’re currently playing (think the 2007 Mets) they’re not going to right their ship in time to make the playoffs. They’d better wake up. Fast.

—

New York Yankees

Record: 78-68; 16 games remaining

Current Position: Third Place by 10.5 games; 1 game behind for the second Wild Card

Remaining Schedule: 1 game at Orioles; 3 games at Red Sox; 3 games at Blue Jays; 3 games vs. Giants; 3 games vs. Rays; 3 games at Astros

There’s a reluctance to say it, but the Yankees are better off without this current version of Derek Jeter. He was hurting the team offensively and defensively. Their problem has nothing to do with schedules or how they’re playing, but with age and overuse. They’re hammering away with their ancient veterans for one last group run. Mariano Rivera is being repeatedly used for multiple innings out of necessity; Alex Rodriguez is hobbled; David Robertson is pitching hurt; Shawn Kelley isn’t 100 percent; Andy Pettitte is gutting his way through. If they’re in it in the last week, will there be any gas left in their collective tanks?

—

Cleveland Indians

Record: 77-68; 17 games remaining

Current Position: Second Place by 6.5 games, American League Central; 1.5 games behind for the second Wild Card

Remaining Schedule: 4 games at White Sox; 3 games at Royals; 4 games vs. Astros; 2 games vs. White Sox; 4 games at Twins

The White Sox are playing about as badly as the Astros without the excuse of lack of talent/innocent youth. They just don’t seem to care. The Indians’ schedule pretty much guarantees they’ll at least be alive in the last week of the season.

—

Baltimore Orioles

Record: 77-68; 17 games remaining

Current Position: Fourth Place by 11 games, American League East; 1.5 games behind for the second Wild Card

Remaining Schedule: 1 game vs. Yankees; 3 games at Blue Jays; 3 games at Red Sox; 4 games at Rays; 3 games vs. Blue Jays; 3 games vs. Red Sox

The Red Sox are taking great, sadistic pleasure in hampering the playoff hopes of anyone and everyone and have shown no preference in who they’re beating on. This will hurt and/or help the Orioles. The big games to watch are those four with the Rays.

—

Kansas City Royals

Record: 77-69; 16 games remaining

Current Position: Third Place by 7 games, American League Central; 2 games behind for the second Wild Card

Remaining Schedule: 3 games at Tigers; 3 games vs. Indians; 3 games vs. Rangers; 3 games at Mariners; 4 games at White Sox

I’d like to see the Royals make the playoffs because: A) they’re a likable young team; B) we need some new blood in the post-season; and B) the likes of Rany Jazayerli, Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan and the rest of the stat-obsessed “experts” who live to bash the Royals will either have to admit they’re wrong (unlikely) or will join together to play a disturbing game of middle-aged men Twister (hopefully clothed) to justify why they were “right” even though Dayton Moore’s moves worked and the Royals leapt into contention and more.

It will be nice having an experienced arm like James Shields for a one-game Wild Card playoff or for the first game of the ALDS. I have a feeling about the Royals making the playoffs. And it’s gonna be funny.

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The Reality of the Yankees’ Playoff Chances

Regardless of what happens in today’s game against the Red Sox, the Yankees are still going to be in position for a run at the last realistic Wild Card spot. Ignoring that they’re injury-ravaged, have no pitching left and are staggering toward the finish line, that is not going to change in the next several days at least.

No matter how many times we hear the mathematical probabilities from the New York Times, the truth about their current and future state from the New York Daily News and Mike Francesa’s death bed postmortem, the fact remains that the Yankees are still only 2.5 games behind the plummeting Rays and 1.5 games behind the Orioles and Indians. They have a four-game series in Baltimore this week and, obviously, if they pitch as they have against the Red Sox the real funeral for the Yankees of 2013 will be underway. But now? No. They’re a three game winning streak and a little luck away from suddenly being in the lead for the second Wild Card.

Of course, one thing that many seem to ignore is that making the playoffs with the Wild Card isn’t a guarantee of anything beyond one extra game. Given how battered the Yankees are and that the team they’re going to play in the game is the Athletics or the Rangers, their chances of advancing even if they make it that far are weak. They’re old and in significant transition. The overwhelming likelihood is that they’re as done as the above-linked articles say. The idea that they were “the team no one wanted to face,” or other clubs were feeling the Yankees’ breathing down their necks, or that the old warhorses Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Andy Pettitte still had something to say in the playoff race were no more than reminiscing for remember when. Pettitte has been good and A-Rod has had his moments.

Then we come to Jeter.

The decision by manager Joe Girardi to pull Jeter from yesterday’s game was made because he didn’t like the way Jeter was running. It’s clear that he’s nowhere near 100 percent. In fact, he’s probably at around 70 percent. His range, never that great to begin with, is even worse; he’s not hitting; he’s not helping the team on the field. All the talk of the lineup not looking the same without him in it and how his mere presence in the lineup is a lift for the team is a politically correct thing to say to play up Jeter’s value. Except his current value isn’t all that much. He can lead from the clubhouse and they can put someone into the game who’s going to provide more on the field and considering that someone is Eduardo Nunez, that says about as much about what Jeter can currently do as anything else.

This could change within the next 2-3 days, but the fact is that the Yankees are still in contention no matter what the numbers and opinions say.

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Blame Joba?

You can’t blame both Joe West and Joba Chamberlain for last night’s Yankees loss to the Red Sox. When seeking a responsible party, Mariano Rivera also has to be part of the mix. But since that’s not allowed in Yankee-centric circles, the focus turns away from Rivera to the reviled Chamberlain and the cranky veteran ump West.

There were concession speeches going on when Chamberlain was seen warming up in the bottom of the ninth inning. Not even Michael Kay could muster any enthusiasm – phony or otherwise – to show a small positive notion that Chamberlain would do anything more than what he did: give up a run to lose the game. He gave up the run and took the loss, but it’s not entirely his fault.

It really wasn’t that long ago when there were “Joba Rules” T-shirts all over Yankee Stadium; concerns were expressed that then-manager Joe Torre would abuse Chamberlain as he did Scott Proctor and other relievers to ruin his incredible arm; and near fistfights and lunatic rants as to whether Chamberlain should be a starter or reliever were a daily occurrence and went on for years.

It’s 2013 and rather than swat the Cleveland midges that partially defined Chamberlain’s 2007 coming-out party, he’s gotten so heavy that he simply would eat them to add to his prodigious girth. The Yankees and their fans can’t wait until he’s some other team’s problem. The story has come 75 percent of the full circle.

The midges are an appropriate allegory for Chamberlain’s career with the Yankees. It was sabotaged and missed being something special. Who knows what would have happened had Chamberlain been placed in the starting rotation and allowed to pitch and figure things out on his own rather than be subject to the stifling and counterproductive innings limits and pitch counts that ruined not only him, but Phil Hughes as well? What could he have been if he’d been placed in the bullpen as Rivera’s set-up man and allowed to do his job in the same devastating fashion he did when he was a sensation for two months in 2007?

As the years passed and the Yankees jerked him from the rotation to the bullpen and back, as Chamberlain himself ate and trampolined his way out of the club’s and fans’ good graces, he’s become the “Oh God, no” pitcher that no one with anything invested in the Yankees wants to see. Last night’s result was what was expected, but it wasn’t due to anything Chamberlain did. While the Shane Victorino check-swing was viewed as so cut-and-dried that it was portrayed an obvious swing and Chamberlain got himself ejected for arguing it after he was pulled from the game, it wasn’t so blatant that the entire episode should be placed at the feet of West.

After the check-swing, Victorino hit a looping single to right field to score Jacoby Ellsbury. Right fielder Ichiro Suzuki’s throw to the plate would’ve been in time to get Ellsbury had catcher Austin Romine held onto it. How are any of the events subsequent to the check-swing Chamberlain’s or West’s fault?

Chamberlain is immature and was damaged by the way the Yankees anointed and babied him since his debut. That said, he still throws a fastball that reaches the upper-90s and has a hard slider that will accumulate a lot of strikeouts if he’s simply allowed to pitch without all the hovering hatred and preordained negativity that follows him around as long as he wears pinstripes. He’s going to go somewhere next season, either be a set-up man or closer and rejuvenate his value simply because that’s what happens with pitchers the Yankees have played up as their homegrown saviors and are tormented and dispatched when they don’t produce results commensurate with the overwhelming expectations.

Don’t be surprised to see both Hughes and Chamberlain with a team like the Marlins on cheap deals and pitching well. Or for Chamberlain to be the Astros closer. Or for the Rays to try to do what they did with Kyle Farnsworth and Fernando Rodney, give Chamberlain the chance to close and coax 50 saves out of him. Then the fans will turn their ire away from Chamberlain to the Yankees themselves for not getting out of him what another team will. He can be of use. It just won’t be as a Yankee and for that, much like last night’s loss, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

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Mike Morse, the Mariners and Jack Z

Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik was roundly roasted when he made the three-way trade with the Athletics and Nationals to acquire Mike Morse. The trade to get Morse was considered about as bad as the trade Zduriencik made at mid-season in his first year at the helm that sent Morse to the Nationals for Ryan Langerhans. In truth, the reacquisition was an understandable deal.

The Mariners sent John Jaso to the Athletics and the Athletics sent young pitchers A.J. Cole, Blake Treinen and Ian Krol to the Nats. This was a trade that made sense to all sides. Despite the stat guy lust for Jaso that would make one think the A’s were getting Johnny Bench, he’s a mediocre defensive catcher who has some pop and gets on base. The Mariners were intent on taking a long look at Jesus Montero, had Mike Zunino on the way and signed veteran Kelly Shoppach. They needed a power bat more than they needed Jaso and thought they were getting one in Morse. Morse had hit 31 homers two years ago and appeared to have figured out how to use his massive size effectively. He hit eight homers in April, three in May and then spent a month on the disabled list from early-June to late July with a strained quadriceps.

If the Mariners were expecting a mid-lineup basher when they acquired Morse, they made a significant mistake in judgment. Morse has tremendous power, but he’s vulnerable to power pitchers and has trouble laying off the high fastball and low breaking stuff. He’ll hit mediocre-to-bad pitching and average fastballers.

With the Orioles, he’ll probably have better success playing in a smaller ballpark. For the Mariners, it was a calculated risk considering what they were giving up and the chance that Morse would be motivated to repeat his 2011 season in his free agent year in 2013. The end result of trading Jaso is that the Mariners wound up with a speedy fifth outfielder in Xavier Avery. The Rays are widely regarded as the smartest organization in baseball and when they traded Jaso to the Mariners, all they received was Josh Lueke with his character issues and 7.50 ERA as a Ray. The difference is they made a worse trade than the Mariners did and were shielded from criticism due to their perception.

If anyone got the best of this deal, it’s the Nationals. Morse was worth a gamble for the Mariners and it didn’t work out.

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MLB Hot Seat – Brian Cashman, Yankees

Manager Joe Girardi’s contract expires at the end of the season, but if he leaves it will be of his own choosing. There will be an abundance of managerial jobs potentially opening up and all would be appealing to Girardi. The Nationals, Angels, Tigers, Blue Jays, Royals, White Sox and Mariners all have positive aspects. The overwhelming likelihood is that the Yankees will give Girardi a lucrative three-year contract extension no matter who the general manager is. And that’s the question: is Brian Cashman safe? Do the Steinbrenners and Randy Levine want to keep him and does he want to stay?

There is circumstantial evidence that the answer is no on both counts. Hal Steinbrenner’s convening of an organization staff meeting is a signal that ownership is displeased with how Cashman has run the minor league system. Since wresting control of the baseball operations from the Tampa faction in 2005, his strategy for procuring and developing talent has been found wanting in theory and practice. They haven’t developed anyone to the maximum since Cashman took command and now that the club is cutting back on payroll, it’s turning into a problem that can’t be solved by buying their way out of it. When they were able to just spend to cover holes, it wasn’t as much of an issue.

Beginning from the time the Yankees whiffed on Cliff Lee, players are increasingly choosing other venues as free agents. First it was the big names like Lee that shunned the Yankees, then it turned into the Nate Schierholtz, Raul Ibanez, Eric Chavez-type player. If a club limits its spending and doesn’t have young prospects to use for themselves or trade, they’re going to have a trouble competing. That falls on the general manager.

Another issue for Cashman is the clear chasm between him and ownership. The acquisition of Alfonso Soriano was the second time the GM was overruled by ownership in acquiring a player with the surname of Soriano. Cashman openly disagreed with ownership’s decision to sign Rafael Soriano. In both cases, the deals wound up helping the Yankees.

Before getting into his newfound mouthiness (cursing at Alex Rodriguez; telling Derek Jeter to shop his offer around) and embarrassing peccadillos, his actual baseball work warrants a dismissal. From the viewpoint of ownership, it’s perfectly understandable that they look at the Rays and Athletics, see how they’re able to succeed spending in three and four years what the Yankees spend in one, and place scrutiny on their general manager.

With the newfound austerity, developmental failures and constant drama swirling around Cashman, do they feel comfortable going forward with him as their architect? Hal Steinbrenner is more cautious than his father was. There haven’t been any significant changes made under his watch—no threats to the manager, coaching changes or missives. While they’re patient, they’re not blind either. If the Yankees miss the playoffs this season, someone will be made to pay and the most logical target is Brian Cashman.

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Hal Steinbrenner Summons His Yankees Staff

Hal Steinbrenner is thoughtful, calm and polite. He’s running the Yankees like a business and doing so without the rampant firings, missives and bluster that his father George Steinbrenner used to intimidate, bully and get what he thought were results. It’s the son’s demeanor that is probably even more intimidating to the gathered staff than anything his father ever did. The George Steinbrenner meetings were a regular occurrence with a red-faced Boss shouting, threatening and firing people only to calm down, feel badly about what he’d done and immediately rehire whomever he’d briefly fired. Hal’s different. If he makes changes, they’re made and that’s that.

The news that Hal convened a high-level meeting with his staff is a serious matter to the future of the Yankees’ baseball operations. It’s obviously not lost on him or any of the other Steinbrenners and Randy Levine that the baseball people led by general manager Brian Cashman have been trumpeting home-grown talent in recent years while producing very little of it. For all the talk that the Yankees were going to grow their own pitchers similarly to the Red Sox, Giants and Rays, the last starting pitcher drafted and developed by the Yankees who had sustained success as a Yankee is still Andy Pettitte. That’s twenty years ago.

A new storyline referenced repeatedly is that the Yankees intended to draft Mike Trout in 2009, but the Angels beat them to him. Are they looking for credit for players they wanted to draft four years ago after he’s become one of the best players in baseball?

The defense implying that the Yankees’ success caused them to only have late-round first round draft picks thereby reducing their ability to find top-tier players is weak as well. You can find players late in the first round and in the second and third rounds. The Yankees talk out of both sides of their mouths when they claim that Pettitte (22nd round), Jorge Posada (24th round), and Bernie Williams and Mariano Rivera (undrafted free agents) were due to the Yankees’ methods and then complain about their low draft status and inability to find players. It’s one or the other. Either there’s a Yankees “specialness” or they’re a victim of their own success.

They haven’t signed any impact free agents from Cuba, Japan, Taiwan, Venezuela or the Dominican Republic and their drafts have been failures in the early, middle and late rounds. Dustin Pedroia, Jordan Zimmerman, Giancarlo Stanton, Freddie Freeman, Chris Tillman, Trevor Cahill and Justin Masterson were all second round picks. You can find players if you’re savvy and give them an opportunity. The Yankees’ lack of patience with young players combined with the overhyping to suit a constituency and narrative has certainly played a part in the failures, but they’ve also made some horrific gaffes in evaluation and planning. They have yet to publicly acknowledge that Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova were all mishandled, nor have they indicated a willingness to alter their strategy in building pitchers.

With the military school training that he has, it’s no surprise that Hal—as Commander in Chief of the Yankees—is seeking answers as to why the club’s farm system is so destitute and few players have been produced to help the Yankees at the big league level as they downsize the payroll. If they’re not going to spend as much money on free agents, young players are a necessity to maintain some level of competitiveness. But they don’t have them to use for themselves to to trade for someone else’s more established star. The logical next step after this meeting is to start replacing some of his staff.

This recent hot streak aside, the overwhelming likelihood is that the Yankees will miss the playoffs in 2013. There will be the complaints that injuries were the main reason, but teams with $200 million payrolls really don’t have much of a leg to stand on when coming up with excuses. After the season is over, there will be a lament that “if the season had gone on a week longer” then the rest of baseball would’ve been in trouble; or that the way Rivera goes out with a declining, also-ran team is not befitting his greatness; and that the post-season “loses its luster” without the Yankees.

These are diversions and attempts to make the Yankees more important than they actually are.

No one, least of all Hal Steinbrenner, wants to hear it. He’s the boss now and he’s been patient. He’s justified in looking at the Yankees’ annual payrolls and wondering why, with a roster full of the highest salaried players in baseball for as long as anyone can remember, they’ve been rewarded with one championship since 2000. Why, with the money at their disposal and an ownership willing to green light just about anything to make the organization better, they haven’t been able to find young talent and nurture it to success. Why the Rays, Athletics and Cardinals among others have been able to win and develop simultaneously while spending a minuscule fraction of what the Yankees have spent. And why his GM so openly criticized the acquisition of Alfonso Soriano when Soriano has turned into a bolt from the sky in his return to pinstripes.

What this will do is embolden Hal, Levine and the rest of the Steinbrenners to believe that perhaps the implication of “baseball people” knowing more than anyone else might be a little overplayed.

This meeting is a precursor to a change in the structure of the baseball operations and with Cashman’s repeated public embarrassments, inability to hold his tongue and abject errors, he’s on the firing line. The Steinbrenners have been agreeable, loyal and tolerant to Cashman’s demands and decisions. With the details of this meeting strategically leaked, it looks like they’re greasing the skids to make a change. George Steinbrenner was more emotional than calculating and his meeting would have been eye-rolled and head shaken away as the ranting of a lunatic, quickly dismissed. Hal Steinbrenner isn’t like his father, but the result might be the same when the season ends and he’s not going to change his mind five minutes later.

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An All-Around Bad Year for Rizzo and the Nats

Mike Rizzo said that the Nationals have a “run left in us.” There’s a precedent for teams coming out of nowhere in the final month of the season and making the playoffs. The Rays and Cardinals both did it in 2011 with the Cardinals winning the World Series after having trailed the Wild Card-leading Braves by 10 1/2 games on August 25 of that year. The Cardinals and Reds are currently the National League Wild Card leaders. The Cardinals have been ravaged by injuries; the Reds haven’t played consistently; and the NL Central leading Pirates are still young and collapsed in both 2011 and 2012. There’s some justification for Rizzo not to quit. Prior to yesterday’s game, the Nats claimed David DeJesus from the Cubs. It was seen as a signal that they’re still trying to add to win now and perhaps have a player in DeJesus they can use in 2014.

The assertion that the Nats are still “in it” would likely have been better-received had the team not gone and immediately responded to the GM’s confidence and gotten hammered by the Cubs 11-1. The DeJesus acquisition wouldn’t have looked like Rizzo and his staff are a bunch of screw-ups if there was a hint that they truly wanted DeJesus and it wasn’t a waiver claim mistake that they tacitly admitted by placing DeJesus back on waivers immediately after getting him. And the team might have had a better shot in 2013 if they had played like a cohesive unit with a definition of purpose from the first day of the season rather than an arrogant, self-important group that believed winning a division title in 2012 automatically meant they were going to be a playoff team every single year based on talent alone.

Rizzo isn’t going anywhere, but manager Davey Johnson won’t be back in 2014. This was meant to be his final year in the dugout with the hope that it would be a logical step in the innocent climb from first round playoff loser to World Series winner with Johnson’s experience being a key. Instead, Johnson’s warts—his riverboat gambler’s mentality; the trust in his players; open insubordination—reared their heads. Barring a late-August hot streak, Rizzo might relive him of his duties for the final month in a similar fashion as the Phillies did with Charlie Manuel. The Phillies wanted to have a look at Ryne Sandberg. The Nats might want to do the same with Randy Knorr.

The Nats are dysfunctional mess. The Stephen Strasburg shutdown from September of 2012 is being used to symbolize the organizational hubris and it’s a perfect example of why nothing can be taken for granted.  In 2013, they don’t have to worry about any innings limits or shutting anyone down because the rest of baseball is doing the job for them by sending the Nats home, far from where they thought they’d be and currently having more questions than answers as to where they go from here.

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Ryan Dempster Is Your Self-Anointed Sheriff

The swinging doors of the Fenway saloon burst open. A shadowy figure with a scruffy beard and unruly hair slowly ambled in. He surveyed the gathered imbibers and stated with certainty in his voice and the twinge of a Canadian accent, “There’s a new sheriff in town. And his name’s Ryan Dempster.”

The patrons paused for a moment…then burst out laughing.

Let’s get past the stupidity of Dempster for declaring himself as the judge, jury and executioner of Alex Rodriguez for whatever it was that A-Rod did. Initially it was believed that Dempster threw at A-Rod for his PED use and swirling controversies including allegations that he’s also an informer, but it was revealed in this Yahoo piece that Dempster apparently threw at A-Rod because A-Rod had snubbed him.

Yes, we’re back in the eighth grade and cool kid A-Rod wouldn’t let Dempster play first base in punchball.

The Red Sox fans gave Dempster a loud ovation when he was removed after a performance in which he:

• Handed a Red Sox lead back to the Yankees in large part because he hit A-Rod.
• Had A-Rod shove his face in the sandbox with a tape measure home run later in the game.
• Allowed seven earned runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings.

There’s a cost for frontier justice and if it was necessary for the good of the entire community, then there’s a justification for it regardless of the consequences. But business comes first. Will the Red Sox fans think it was worthy of a loud ovation if their team winds up losing the AL East to the Rays by this one game that they could have won had Dempster done his job instead?

“At least we got A-Rod,” is not a suitable gap-filler for a missed playoff spot or division title. The days in which it doesn’t matter whether a team makes the playoffs as a division winner or a Wild Card team are over. I don’t agree with the stat guy assertion (excuse) that the playoffs are a “crapshoot” when it comes to a five or seven game series. However, a one-game playoff as is in place for the Wild Card winners is the ultimate in crapshoots. It can take one great pitching performance, one play, one bad pitch, one home run, one error to send a team home. Was it worth it for Dempster to show A-Rod not to “snub” him? Or not to use PEDs and lie? Or for whatever idiotic reason Dempster decided to do what he did?

Perhaps Dempster was of the opinion that he was bulletproof. “Everyone hates A-Rod and no matter what the reason, selfish or not, I’ll be given a pass.” It was a ridiculous thing to do on all counts. Forgetting about the division race for the Red Sox, this was a two game swing for the Yankees as well. Had the Red Sox won, the Yankees would’ve been 9 1/2 games out of first place and essentially done in the division. They also would have been eight games behind the Rays and Athletics in the Wild Card race. Now the division deficit is 7 1/2 and six in the Wild Card standings. It’s going to be hard for the Yankees to come back considering all the teams they have to jump over, the difficulty of schedule, their age and current struggles on and off the field, but it’s doable.

Dempster made A-Rod into a sympathetic figure at least for a moment; probably got a large faction of his organization mad at him; let the Yankees out of the noose because he decided to play the clumsy assassin himself; and put his own team’s playoff prospects in jeopardy. Managing to combine all these factors into one giant lump of brainless absurdity is an unusual accomplishment on the part of Dempster. If I were the Red Sox, I’d fine him a significant amount of money and move him to the bullpen when he gets back. This was an important game and and he had his own ego on his mind in lieu of the state of the team.

The only salvation the Red Sox have in Dempster’s likely and well-deserved suspension is that he’s been mostly awful and another pitcher taking his spot will be a step up from what he’s given them all season long. And last night he made it worse.

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