Continuing our look at the American League East, we move on to the Yankees. Despite a slow start in 2007, the Yankees eventually righted the ship and earned the wild-card, and were bounced in 4 games by the Cleveland Indians.
Key Acquisitions
-Joe Girardi
-LaTroy Hawkins
-Morgan Ensberg
Key Departures
-Roger Clemens
-Joe Torre
-Luis Vizcaino
-Doug Mientkiewicz
The Yankees also resigned several prominent players, including Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite, and Alex Rodriguez. They also picked up right fielder Bobby Abreu’s option.
The key transactions were the departure of manager Joe Torre and the hiring of Joe Girardi. Torre leaves a Yankee legacy behind comparable to those of Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel. However, he had drawn criticism for a number of things, including his handling of the bullpen in recent years, his laid back approach, and his leaving A-Rod out to dry in 2006. When you win 4 World Series titles in your first five seasons with a team, and fail to win one in the seven after that, people are going to talk.
There are a few similarities to Girardi and Torre. Both are ex-catcher, they both were ex-National League managers when they were hired, and both had ties to New York(Torre played for the Mets in the 70’s, and was actually a player-manager for a short time).
Girardi guided a young, inexperienced team to 78 wins in 2006, and won the NL Manager of the Year award (whether he really deserved it over Willie Randolph and his Mets running roughshod all over the NL is a different article). He was fired after one year, in part because of clashes with ownership, and in part because of his perceived handling of a young pitching staff.
One incident that sticks out is Josh Johnson coming back to pitch after a rain delay of almost an hour and a half. It was Johnson’s last game of the season, September 12th. Girardi has taken a lot of heat for his handling of the pitching staff, as his detractors point to the fact that Anibal Sanchez, Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco were unable to pitch most of 2007. Those three combined for 28 starts over 100 pitches, out of their 63 combined starts.
A bit worrisome if you’re a Yankee fan looking forward to watching Phillip Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy for years to come. The Yankees and pitching coach Dave Eiland have made it clear that they’ll treat this players with kid gloves, but you have to wonder, if push comes to shove, will Girardi just strap ‘em to the deck and ride the wave in the crunch?
Swapping out Luis Vizcaino for Latroy Hawkins is, at best, a lateral move. Vizcaino pitched much better in the second half(1.28 WHIP and 3.34 ERA). Hawkins pitched well in Colorado, but it was the first time since 04 he had posted a WHIP below 1.30. The departure of Clemens was probably for the best, as he wouldn’t have added anything to the 2008 staff except for payroll and bad publicity.
2008 Outlook
The Yankees should finish 2nd in the AL East, and claim the Wild Card. They do have questions in the rotation (where their top two starters of Wang and Pettite trail behind other 1-2 punches in the AL) , and the bullpen, after Rivera and Chamberlain(and if Chamberlain moves to the rotation, do the Yankees have a reliable setup man) is unrealiable. The offense, which will regress after career years from Posada, and possibly A-Rod(it would be crazy to expect 54 homers and 156 RBI’s again), though will carry them, though one has to wonder for how much longer, given the age of their offense(31.3 on opening day for their likely top 10 hitters in 2008).
No comments:
Post a Comment