Archive for Days of Yore
What it was like, 59 years ago
Posted by: | CommentsFor all of the baseball history in New York and Philadelphia, for all of the years when there were only 16 teams and the Yankees were in the World Series every year, the Yankees and the Phillies have matched up in the Fall Classic just once before. That year — 1950 — a seminal year in my life for it was the year my dad was born. The Yankees and Phillies, then, were his first World Series, and he assures me that he remembers it well.
That year, the Yankees swept the Phillies in a display of pitching. The first three games were all one-run affairs, and the teams combined to allow just 16 runs. As a team, the Yanks hit just .222/.295/.304, but their pitchers held the Phillies to a .203/.250/.266 line. Some kid The New York Times called Ed — Ed Ford, 21 and not yet Whitey — won Game Four. (For more on the games, check out Fack Youk’s excellent recaps of Games One and Two and Games Three and Four.)
Although nostalgia runs deep in baseball, this modern World Series with high-definition TV, FoxTrax and a chance to watch it streamed live over the Internet from multiple camera angles, offers up quite the contrast to the Classic played 59 years ago. A clear sign that times have changed comes to us from the Palm Beach Post. Joe Capozzi tracked down Curt Simmons for an interview about that World Series.
Simmons was one of the Phillies’ Whiz Kids at the time. Just 21 in 1950, he went 17-8 with a 3.40 ERA and would have started Game One of the series but for his military service. Simmons was called to active duty on September 4, 1950, and although the Phillies tried to get their ace out of the service, he would not return to the Majors until in 1952 after a stint in Korea.
Simmons was, in fact, the first Major Leaguer to fight in Korea, and he still thinks about that World Series. “Yeah, I’ve wondered,” Simmons, now 80, said to Capozzi. “I’m sure the Phillies would have liked to have had me.”
Simmons’ service is not the only thing that has changed. Take, for example, an article about a TV outage during Game One. The first World Series to be televised was the 1947 match-up, but still in 1950, CBS ran into some troubles. The networked paid $800,000 — or just $7.169 million in today’s dollars — to broadcast the games, and the picture went out just a few minutes into the broadcast. Coverage from Jack Gould and The Times is rather precious:
Pour old TV! After laying out $800,000 to go the world series, it was plagued at yesterday’s opening game by a number of technical mishaps, which were climaxed by Jim Britt’s determined assurances that television really was advancing. All that is needed now is someone to figure out how the darn thing works.
First to disappear was the picture portion of the program, a power failure near Shibe Park in Philadelphia, leaving the screen blank from 1:25 to 1:45. After an inning or so of just voice from the ball game, the video portion was restored. A little later the audio portion was interrupted while the video stayed on. At last reports this voice portion was “lost” somewhere between Philadelphia and the rest of the country. A lot of viewers were not sure where they were, either.
Once the game came back on, Gould questioned the announcer’s abilities to call a game. Jim Britt, the play-by-play man “was not always the best judge of where fly balls were going.” (Paging John Sterling.) Gould praised the “placement of a camera so that there was a direct, downward view of first base” and noted the use of five — five! — cameras for the broadcast. Radio, he said, had “a comparatively uneventful day. It just worked right.”
Other historical quirks abound. Brokers were selling box seats priced at $8.75 for $150 a pair. That today is the equivalent of selling $78 seats for over $1340 a pair. The Phillies’ ticket plan too broke new ground. Called “precedent-shattering” by the Associated Press, the Phillies sold single-game tickets and limited fans to just one game and two tickets to that game. Games were doled out on a first-come, first-serve basis. No longer would one fan be able to buy tickets to all four games, and the Phillies defended the move by noting that 92,000 fans instead of 23,000 fans would see the Series.
The World Series ended with each Yankee receiving a winners share of $5,737 or $51,411.38. This year, the World Series winners will earn shares of around $350,000 per player. And finally, with a victory in hand, Casey Stengel mulled retiring. He would stay on to manage the Yanks for another ten years and would win five more World Series titles. Those were the days.
Almost a Yankee: Jack Morris
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the Yankees were in Minnesota, albeit briefly this weekend, Jack Curry tracked down Jack Morris to catch up on old times. The two Jacks talked about 1996 when Jack Morris was almost a Yankee but backed out of the deal at the last minute. Morris, 41 at the time, now says he regrets that decision because he probably would have helped win himself a fourth World Series ring.
I don’t remember the dealings for 1996, and so I thought I’d dig up some archival materials on the dealings between Morris and the Yanks. When the 1996 season rolled around, Morris had been out of baseball for a year. He had a career record of 254-186 with a 3.90 ERA but had flamed out in Toronto and Cleveland in 1993 and 1994 respectively.
At the age of 41, Morris went to the St. Paul Saints to pitch in the independent league. On July 15, 1996, Currey reported that the Yanks were scouting Morris. At the time, the right-hander was 5-1 with a 2.17 ERA, and with David Cone out and Dwight Gooden aching, the Yankees were looking for some back-end help for the starting rotation. “That’s a real long shot,” GM Bob Watson said of landing Morris.
Over the next few days, the Morris rumors increased. On July 20, Morris and the Yankees appeared to be headed for a deal. The financials of the deal were in place, but Morris and the Yankees were haggling over Minor League starts. The veteran wanted to make just one Minor League start before being activated while the Yanks wanted him to make two.
“Jack feels he’s pitched in front of the Yankees for the last 20 years,” Morris’ agent Jim Barrons said. “Either the Yankees feel he can do it or he can’t. He doesn’t think pitching at Columbus will help that.”
The next day, Curry reported that the deal had fallen apart. According to Curry, Watson said “he was not thrilled with Morris’s fastball or his location on pitches.” Barrons claimed that then-Assistant GM Brian Cashman spoke about the dispute over the Minor League stint and not Morris’ fastball velocity which at the time was just 89.
In the end, Morris never made it back to the Big Leagues. The 1996 Yankees acquired Dave Weathers and Cecil Fielder at the deadline and managed to patch together a World Series-winning rotation anyway. No wonder Morris now regrets his decision to push for just one Minor League start.
The Say Hey Kid, the Yanks and race in baseball
Posted by: | CommentsOver the weekend, The Times ran a piece on Willie Mays and the Yankees by John Klima, an author. Klima’s most recent book is entitled Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend, and Klima is a member of both the BBWAA and the Society for American Baseball Research.
Klima’s piece on Sunday explored how the Yankees passed on Willie Mays:
Black Barons visited the Brooklyn Bushwicks, a white semiprofessional team whose general manager, Joe Press, was a part-time scout for the Yankees. Press booked Negro leagues teams like the Black Barons to play the Bushwicks and had a feel for the talent available. He liked Piper Davis, Birmingham’s second baseman, but he loved center fielder Willie Mays.
Press pleaded with Paul Krichell, the Yankees’ head scout, to see Mays. In a letter to Krichell, Press raved about players but expressed dismay that the Yankees had chosen to ignore black prospects. “You could have had practically all of them, just for the asking,” Press wrote, naming several players, including Davis and Mays.
When the Black Barons returned to play the Cubans at the Polo Grounds on June 11, 1950, the Yankees sent a scout, Bill McCorry, but again decided to not pursue Mays, who signed with the Giants nine days later.
The Yankees, as Klima writes, weren’t too serious about integration. They were signing old players from the Negro Leagues who would never see the light of the Bronx. It was not until the team saw the impact of Willie Mays on the Giants that they went out and snatched up Elston Howard.
Bruce Markusen at the Banter riffed on the Mays revelation. What, Markusen, pondered could the Yankees have accomplished with Willie Mays on the team? Markusen speculates that a few more World Series would have been forthcoming during Casey Stengel’s amazing run, and he marvels over a potential outfield of Mays, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.
For me, Klima’s story about Willie Mays and integration led me to the current roster makeup of Major League Baseball teams across the country. Take a look at the Yankees. Only Derek Jeter, Jerry Hairston and CC Sabathia are black. The Red Sox, playing in a city not known for racial tolerance, have one black player: Joey Gathright. The Mets have Gary Sheffield. While rosters are replete with players from Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, African Americans are wildly unrepresented in Major League Baseball.
Baseball has come along way since its days of segregation. Teams are now more integrated than every before with more countries represented on the baseball diamond than the players, manages and owners in the 1920s and 1930s would ever imagine. Yet, some obvious questions flow from an observation that been supported by annual studies about diversity in baseball: Is the relatively small number of African American players a problem for the game? Is it a problem for the game as America’s Pastime? As a popular sport with a huge economic component? I’m not in a position to answer these with any certainty, but it — along with the grand Willie Mays “What If a Yankee?” — is certainly something to ponder on a day without Yankee baseball.
Drafting Derek Jeter
Posted by: | CommentsIt might be tonight. It might be Friday. It might be Saturday. No matter the day, though, Derek Jeter will soon get the four hits he needs to become the New York Yankees’ all-time hits leader. Through a combination of health, talent and ability, Jeter has swatted his way to the top of the list of many Yankee greats. Next year, he may very well emerge as the organization’s all-time steals leader, and before he retires, he’ll lead the organization in runs scored as well.
With history upon us, Derek Jeter Nostalgia has been in full force. Dorothy and Charles Jeter have been making the media rounds, and columnists all over New York are warmly praising Jeter for his hard work and clean image. My favorite of these pieces is this Anthony McCarron column. The Daily News tracked down a yearbook photo of Derek from Kalamazoo and spoke to Dick Groch, one of the scouts who first evaluated the eventual Hall of Famer.
Today, we view Derek Jeter as the consummate Yankee, but that’s due more to history than anything else. Derek has come to symbolize the Yankee dominance of the late 1990s and the Yankee perseverance of the past decade. He is one ring shy of a full hand and hopefully will earn that piece of jewelry this year. Jeter though almost wasn’t a Yankee, and for that, we jump into the Wayback Machine.
The date is May 30, 1992, and the Yankees had just lost to the Brewers 8-3. Greg Cadaret drew the loss, and Bill Wegman walked home with the win. In the game recap, Jack Curry talked about the Yankees’ draft plans:
Miami catcher Charles Johnson, Pepperdine pitcher Derek Wallace and high school shortstop Derek Jeter are the players the Yankees are interested in selecting with the sixth choice in the amateur draft Monday.
Grouping Derek Jeter in with those other two players reminds me of the old Sesame Street song with the line “one of these things is not like the other.” Charles Johnson was selected 28th overall in the 1992 draft by the Florida Marlins. He played parts of 12 seasons for seven teams and hit .245/.330/.433. One can only imagine what would have happened had the Yanks opted for Johnson over Jeter in 1992, the year Jorge Posada moved behind the plate.
Derek Wallace is a name lost to time. Selected 11th overall in 1992 by the Cubs, he was traded twice and eventually made his big league debut with the Mets. His Major League career lasted all of 33 innings.
As the draft neared in 1992 and the Yankees considered their top three candidates, another team emerged as a potential player for Derek Jeter. Said Murray Chass:
The Astros, with the No. 1 selection, had been leaning toward Phil Nevin, a third baseman from California State-Fullerton, but late last week, they were considering changing to Derek Jeter, a high school shortstop from Kalamazoo, Mich.
With just five teams in front of the Yanks, the Astros were the prime candidate to snatch Jeter away from them. But the ‘Stros wanted Phil Nevin a little bit more than they wanted Jeter. In the end, the Yankees got their man, their four World Series and a Hall of Fame short stop.
* * *
Postscript: The link in the last paragraph goes to a Jack Curry article from June 2, 1992. Curry talked with the Jeter family shortly after the Yankees made Derek the number six overall selection of the amateur draft. Curry speculated that Jeter would command the then-high signing bonus of $400,000, but Jeter, in Curry’s words, “downplayed” the money.
“I enjoy playing the game,” a young Derek said. “I think the money part is just an extra.” Indeed.
Remembering an August series with Boston
Posted by: | CommentsOn August 18, 2006, the Yankees started a five-game series with the Red Sox with a rare Friday doubleheader. As usual, the two teams were battling it out atop the AL East. The Yankees, at 70-48, were a game and a half up on the Red Sox, though they had dropped the previous two games to Baltimore and were 4-6 in their last 10. The Sox, too, were 4-6 in their last ten. Yet none of that mattered on the afternoon of the 18th. All that mattered were the five games at hand, surely a series which would determine the fate of the AL East.
What followed was one of the most memorable Red Sox series in recent years. The Yankees offense stepped up, putting up double digit runs in the first three games of the series, taking them all. They put up an eight spot on Sunday to take that matchup, and then finally won a light-hitting affair on Monday, 2-1 to cap what has been dubbed the modern Boston Massacre. Five games, five Yankees wins. On the morning of August 22, the Yankees woke up to a 6.5 game lead, one they would not relinquish.
At the time, I could hardly believe those four days and five games actually happened. The two teams seemed evenly matched. They’d been atop the division all year. If you told me on Friday morning that either team would win all five, or even four of those games and I’d have said you were nuts. Beyond nuts. That you didn’t understand the ebbs and flows of a season, and more than that the anyone-can-win-any-game nature of baseball. Funny how things work out sometimes.
On August 6, 2009, the Red Sox head down to the Bronx, two and a half games down in the AL East. Both teams have spent time atop the division this year, and the series is critical for both. Again, if you tell me that either team will take all four, I’ll say you’re nuts. Two teams of this caliber shouldn’t have many lopsided affairs. In fact, they’ve had too many already this season.
Yet I can’t shake the notion of the Yankees burying the Red Sox right here. A sweep would put them six and a half games up, exactly how many they were ahead after the Boston Massacre. While it’s not quite as late in the season, it’s late enough for a team like the Yankees. That would be an enormous cushion that they could build on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Red Sox would be scrambling for the Wild Card.
It’s not likely. It’s not really necessary, either. Considering their eight-game deficit to the Red Sox already, the Yanks would do well to take three of four. Still, it’s almost impossible to not think back to those four euphoric days in August 2006. They turned the season in the Yankees’ favor. We can only hope the next four games have a similar effect.
Thirty Years Ago Today
Posted by: | CommentsThirty years ago, the Yankee family lost one of it’s greatest and most beloved members. Just like today, the last game the Yankees played before Thurman Munson was killed in the plane crash was against the White Sox in Chicago. The YES Network is going to air a tribune to Munson before today’s game, starting at 1:30pm. It’ll be a good opportunity to sit down, take a step back, and remember there are more worse things in the life than losing a few baseball games.
A look at trade deadlines past: 2007
Posted by: | CommentsThe final stop in our trade deadline series will be 2007. I mean, we all remember 2008, right? You can find 2005 here and 2006 here.
Lay of the land
At 9-14, the Yankees sat last in the AL East on April 30, 2007. Even then, it took a couple of A-Rod walk-offs to even keep them at that level. They recovered, but then fell back off, again finding themselves in the cellar, tied with the Devil Rays at 22-29. Meanhwile, Boston has the best record in baseball. By July 15 they’d hit some kind of stride, creeping into second place but still 8.5 games behind the first-place Red Sox.
At this point the offense was starting to come around. Johnny Damon had somewhat recovered from his putrid start, which included leg cramps and a reported desire to walk away from the game. Robinson Cano had bounced back after a slow April. Bobby Abreu returned to form after a May which was so bad that some wanted to trade him for Jermaine Dye, who was hitting equally poorly.
Then, of course, were Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada, who were both tearing the cover off the ball. Melky Cabrera had heated up after a slow start. Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter were both hitting to their expectations. Only two real holes remained on the offense, and they were Jason Giambi, who was out with plantar fasciitis and a partial tear of his plantar fascia, and Doug Mientkiewicz, who after kind of turning it on was out as a result of a Mike Lowell elbow.
The rotation looked the best it had in years, though that’s not saying a lot. Chien-Ming Wang was having another standout year, Andy Pettitte was contributing quality innings for the first time since 2003, and even Mike Mussina had recovered after a shaky start (though we know how that story ended). Roger Clemens was in the rotation and pitching okay. The bullpen is what needed some serious help.
Things were just starting to get good. The Yanks had propped themselves up by mid-July, and after the All-Star Break they went on a tear.
Cashman’s moves
There were plenty of Yankees rumors leading up to the deadline, mostly focusing on acquiring Eric Gagne. It seemed like they were close with the Rangers, but it just didn’t work out. The Red Sox jumped in and got him. That was the big name. There were other little ones.
In an attempt to find someone, anyone who could pitch a scoreless inning, Cashman took a few shots in the dark. First was Runelvys Hernandez, though that experiment ended on July 7. He picked up Scott Williamson, who hadn’t pitched well since 2004. That was it on the bullpen front, though. Neither worked out, obviously.
There were a couple moves of note, though. Sick of watching Wil Nieves, the Yankees dished Jeff Kennard for Jose Molina. Then, in a surprise move which left the bullpen even weaker and spelled the end of Torre-favorite Miguel Cairo, Cashman traded Scott Proctor for Wilson Betemit.
That was it. Nothing major, just a few moves to the team going forward. This was a bit strange, because the Yankees were looking for relief help and so many relievers changed teams before the deadline. In addition to Gagne, Scott Linebrink, Dan Wheeler, Ron Mahay, Octavio Dotel, and Wil Ledezma all found new homes. The Yanks had someone better than all them, though.
How it all worked out
In early August, the Yankees decided to do something a bit unorthodox. They announced they’d take a look at first-year pro Joba Chamberlain as a reliever. The idea was that someone with Joba’s electric stuff could make a difference in the bullpen. They were right, and Joba served as the bridge to Mo over the last two months of the season. It was better than any deadline acquisition they could have made.
(Especially Gagne, who famously tanked.)
Yet even with a mostly quiet deadline, the Yankees picked up steam. Phil Hughes came back after tearing his hamstring amid a no-hitter and then rolling his ankle during rehab, pitching serviceably the rest of the way. The offense started hitting — including Jason Giambi, who came back in early August.
Despite their torrid start, the Red Sox cooled off, and found their lead as little as 1.5 games on September 23, with seven games left. They’d end up winning it, but the Yanks took the wild card with relative ease, The Yanks had almost come all the way back, by doing almost nothing.
The pickings were seemingly slim in 2007. The Yanks definitely could have used Mark Teixeira, but there was no way they could match the Braves’ package without giving up Phil Hughes, and in 2007 that was off the table (partly because he was untouchable, partly because hew as injured at the deadline). Even then, that was one helluva trade, and I’m not sure the Yanks could have matched it anyway.
It was all going so well, and they would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for those meddling midges.
In the three years we’ve examined, the Yankees have made one big move, the 2006 trade for Bobby Abreu. Other than that they’ve gone with a series of lesser moves in hopes of shoring up a few weaknesses. I expect much of the same this year. Maybe they get a pitcher today, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The Yanks look good now, their flaws no greater than those of other teams.
A look at trade deadlines past: 2006
Posted by: | CommentsWe continue our look at the New York Yankees trade deadline moves with 2006. You can check out the 2005 version here.
Lay of the land
After a tumultuous beginning to the 2005 season, the Yankees were in a much better position in 06. At 52-36 they were just a game and a half back of the Red Sox on July 15, and owned the AL’s fourth best record (remember, the Tigers were on pace for 110 wins at that point). Their pitching was much better, even though Carl Pavano, in the second year of his four-year commitment, hadn’t thrown a pitch.
Chien-Ming Wang was emerging as the team’s best pitcher. Mike Mussina had a torrid first half, going 10-3 with a 3.24 ERA in his contract year. Randy Johnson, despite an ERA in tatters, was still getting enough run support to win games. Even Jaret Wright was pitching well enough to be a fifth starer.
The problem was that one hole in the rotation. Shawn Chacon went downhill after taking a line drive off the shin. At the time, Darrell Rasner, freshly plucked off waivers from the Nats earlier in the year, was having some issues and couldn’t come up. In an apparent desperation move to fill a rotation spot, the Yanks signed Sidney Ponson on July 14. That should show their pitching troubles.
In the bullpen, things were a bit better. Mike Myers wasn’t all that bad. Scott Proctor had emerged as Torre’s seventh inning guy. Kyle Farnsworth, in the first season of his three-year deal, was disappointing. Tanyon Sturtze had bombed. Ron Villone was pitching well after sitting dormant for much of the first half. The Yanks were trying various options, including Sean Henn, though not much was sticking. Hell, even Scott Erickson got into nine games.
The look of the offense, though, was a bit more bleak. Hideki Matsui went down in May with a broken wrist and wouldn’t be back until at least September. Gary Sheffield had surgery on his forearm, and it was uncertain if he’d ever be back. The Yanks were running an outfield of Johnny Damon, Melky Cabrera, and Bernie Williams. It wasn’t the worst, but neither Melky nor Bernie had a lot of power. Things had gotten bad enough that the Yanks signed Terrence Long.
Cashman’s moves
July started slowly for Brian Cashman. The Phillies were demanding Phil Hughes in exchange for Bobby Abreu, which was simply out of the question. Still, Cash made a few under the radar moves, picking up Brian Bruney as a free agent after the Diamondbacks released him, and selecting Aaron Guiel off waivers. Nothing groundbreaking, but again part of Cashman’s strategy to pick up some low risk guys.
In the last week of July, Cash made his move. It started small, trading a nothing prospect to Philly for Sal Fasano. Ed Wade and Cashman would hook up four days later, as Philly sent Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle to New York for C.J. Henry, Matt Smith (who hadn’t yet allowed a run out of the bullpen), and a couple others. It was a clear case of the Yankees taking on salary so they wouldn’t have to send real prospects in a trade. In one swoop Cashman had added his fourth starter and his starting right fielder.
The next day he capped the deadline activity by trading the floundering Shawn Chacon to the Pirates for Craig Wilson, who was to shore up the bench. That didn’t exactly work out, but there was no downside to the trade. A half month later, however, the Yanks made perhaps their worst move by releasing Carlos Pena. Clearly they didn’t foresee his looming breakout season, or else they would have called him up to replace Andy Phillips at first. Plus, who knows if he would have done anything in 06. He was, after all, in the minors for a reason. The Red Sox made a similar judgment.
How it all turned out
There were mixed results with the pitchers, but Cashman scored a bit win with Abreu, who tore it up with a .926 OPS. That helped shore up the outfield, though it would create a logjam later when Gary Sheffield insisted on coming back in late September. Best of all, Abreu gave them an instant replacement for Sheffield, who was going to depart after the season anyway. Aaron Guiel was also a modest success, though nothing to brag about.
Lidle didn’t hold down that fourth rotation spot like they’d hoped, but both Rasner and Jeff Karstens contributed down the stretch. Bruney was a hit in his 19 appearances, allowing just two runs. He did walk 15 in 20.2 innings, which was a sign of things to come for 2007. Still, he helped out a shaky bullpen, which was pretty much without Ron Villone come September.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Abreu acquisition. It powered the Yankees through August, including the glorious five-game sweep of the Red Sox which effectively buried them. The Yanks ran away with the division, winning 97 games and finishing 11 games ahead of second-place Toronto. They actually finished ahead of the Tigers, who blew the division to the Twins at the end. That led to a Yanks-Tigers matchup, and we all know what happened there.
Next up is 2007, another season in which the Yankees started off slowly and had a few needs at the deadline.
A look at trade deadlines past: 2005
Posted by: | CommentsIn case my recent spate of posts hasn’t made it evident, I have quite the obsession with the trade deadline. It really covers all team building maneuvers, but the trade deadline is of especial fascination. Here are teams, two thirds of the way through a grueling 162-game season, deciding which of their players, veterans and prospects alike, are expendable. They have to make judgments about myriad details: what helps them now, what helps them in the future, what kind of value they should give up, and what kind of value they should get in return, just to name the obvious.
If you can cut through the wall of noise which surrounds us during times of high trade activity, it can reveal a lot about an organization’s philosophy. The problem is that we never get the full signal. Even the reporters who cover this team and deliver our daily helping of rumors don’t know everything a team considers. They don’t know some deals that almost went down. We get some of that information, but like all information of this sort there are many smokescreens which disguise a team’s true intent.
Over the next couple of days I’d like to take a look at the Yankees from 2005 through 2007 (with a possible addendum of 2008 just before the deadline on Friday) to see where they stood, where their weaknesses lied, and what moves they made. It’s tough to go back and find all of the rumors, but we can look at what they needed and what they got. We start with 2005.
Lay of the land
The Yankees, you’ll remember, started off 2005 in poor fashion, posting an 11-19 record on May 6. Many comparisons were drawn to the 1965 Yankees, who fell off a cliff. They did recover, and by July 15 were 47-41, just two and a half back of the first-place Red Sox. As every year, they were clearly buyers, and the prime target was pitching.
Like 2009, the Yankees had basically every spot filled. They could have upgraded in the outfield over Bernie Williams and Tony Womack, but it’s tough to just sit a veteran like Bernie. Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui manned the corners, while Robinson Cano played a capable second base. They could have upgraded there, but were seemingly satisfied to let Cano grow into the role.
On the pitching end, the Yanks were in a bit of a bind. Randy Johnson was pitching well, but Mike Mussina was having an off-year. Jaret Wright and Kevin Brown were hurt — surprise surprise — as was Carl Pavano at that point, though the Yanks thought they’d be getting him back. Chien-Ming Wang surprised with some solid performances, but he hit the DL with a rotator cuff issue after his July 8 start. That left the Yankees with just Johnson and Wang, and though the bullpen was in need, they needed a starter far more.
Cashman’s moves
The prospect-depleted Yanks weren’t really in a position to make a big move in 2005. They had tried to acquire Randy Johnson at the trade deadline in 2004, but their system, headed by Cano, Wang, and Dioner Navarro, wasn’t impressing the Diamondbacks at the time. With Wang and Cano on the active roster, and with Navarro gone in the Johnson deal over the winter, the cupboard was pretty bare. Cashman then took the only viable strategy: throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks.
On July 1, Cashman signed Brian Boehringer. The next day he dished the underperforming Paul Quantrill for Darrell May and Tim Redding. Two weeks after that he received Al Leiter from the Florida Marlins. On July 29 he signed Hideo Nomo. His biggest move, if you could even consider it big at the time, was trading two minor league relievers, Eduardo Sierra and Ramon Ramirez, to the Rockies for Shawn Chacon. With no good, proven veterans available to the Yanks, this is all they could really do.
To shore up the bullpen, he signed Alan Embree, freshly released by the Red Sox. Again, not a big move, but it was something, anything to shore up the mess of a bullpen, which featured the likes of Tanyon Sturtze, who was terrible after May, Scott Proctor, Felix Rodriguez, Buddy Groom, Mike Stanton, and Wayne Franklin.
How it all turned out
Strangely, one of Cashman’s biggest moves came on January 21, when he signed Aaron Small to a minor league contract. That and the trade for Chacon saved the Yankees’ season. Not that Cashman could have relied on them. They were just some shit that happen to stick to the wall at the exact right time.
Small appeared in 15 games, started nine, and famously went 10-0. His 3.20 ERA was a testament to his ability to keep the ball in the park and keep men off base — his 8.4 hits per nine is far, far below what should be expected of a player with Small’s lowly K rate. Chacon started 12 games, pitching 79 innings and allowing just 25 runs. His walk rate and his strikeout rate sucked, but like Small he allowed a small number of hits for his peripherals.
The real deadline acquisition was on the offensive side, and that was Jason Giambi. On May 14 he was hitting .200/.382/.318, and most fans thought he was done. He had, after all, missed most of the 2004 season with a pituitary tumor which most assumed was steroids-related. Without the juice, Giambi was a goner. But from this low point, when his OPS dropped below .700, Giambi exploded, hitting .289/.455/.590 the rest of the way, combining with eventual-MVP Alex Rodriguez for one of the most formidable 1-2 punches in the league.
It was the summer of luck for the Yankees. They got a few decent starts out of Leiter and Wright once he returned (before Wright fell off a cliff in his last three starts). Chacon and Small were the very definition of blind luck. They also got a run of good starts from Mussina, though he too fell off a cliff at season’s end. It’s hard to imagine any team being that lucky, considering the injuries the team suffered and the replacements they hired.
Tomorrow we’ll come back with 2006, a bit more stable of a season. Still, it’s easy to remember what the Yanks’ major needs were that July, too.
Trading a Drabek
Posted by: | CommentsOver the next few days, the name Kyle Drabek will surface in many a trade rumor. He is a 21-year-old pitcher, a 2006 first-round selection by the Phillies and the son of former Major Leaguer Doug Drabek. He is a much sought-after prospect and may or may not head to the Blue Jays as part of a package for Roy Halladay. No matter the outcome, though, his name in the press reminds of when another team — the Yankees — traded a 23-year-old Doug Drabek and got back not much in return.
The year was 1986. While the Yankees would put up the best cumulative won-loss record of the decade, any sort of success, post-season or otherwise, would elude them. George Steinbrenner was at his peak. He had no patience for young players and would order his GMs to trade at will. Young players, and pitchers in particular, had no chance of sticking around.
In 1986, the Yanks called up one of their top pitching prospects. A young Doug Drabek would make his Yankee debut on May 30 in relief. He threw 4.1 innings, giving up one run on one hit and three walks, and he recorded four strikes. Over the course of the season, he would appear in 27 games for the Yanks, making 21 starts. He went 7-8 with a 4.10 ERA — and a 100 ERA+ — with 50 walks and 76 strike outs in 131.2 innings. For a young kid with a lively arm, it wasn’t a bad debut.
In November, the Yanks would ship Drabek along with Logan Easley and Brian Fisher to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Pat Clements, Cecilio Guante and Rick Rhoden. Drabek and Rhoden were the centerpieces of the deal. The Yanks felt they were a starting pitcher short of a playoff berth, and Rhoden was supposed to be the key to that berth.
In a way, Rhoden reminds me of Halladay. There are some definite similarities. Before arriving in New York, Rhoden was 121-97 with a 3.48 ERA. Halladay is 142-69 in 12 seasons with a 3.45 ERA. The won-loss records aren’t identical; the ERAs are similar.
After arriving in New York, Rhoden, 33 and one year older than Halladay at the time, would pitch three more season, two in New York. As a Yankee, Rhoden went 28-22 with a 4.09 ERA. The Yanks would not make the playoffs with him around, and Drabek would go on to be a very good pitcher for the next eight years.
Although it’s tempting to draw parallels between Rhoden and Halladay, as I did just a few paragraphs ago, Roy is a much better pitcher than Rick. At the time of the trade, Rhoden’s ERA+ was a 103 while Hallday’s sits at 133. Rhoden struck out 4.8 per 9 IP and had a 1.72 strike out-per-wak ratio. Hallday’s numbers are 6.5 and 3.20 respectively. The comparison is barely valid.
In trading Doug Drabek, the Yankees made a clear mistake, and everyone knew it at the time. Dave Anderson, writing in The Times during Thanksgiving, called out the Yanks for “acquiring an older pitcher more susceptible to arm trouble rather than having the patience to let a younger, sturdier pitcher develop.” That criticism would become more apt after Drabek won his 1990 Cy Young Award. The Yanks sure could have used that.
As 2009 ticks away, the Phillies should probably trade Kyle for Roy Halladay. Doc would hand them the NL while Rick Rhoden wouldn’t have amounted to anything. Still, as the trade deadline approaches, young pitchers will always remain a hot commodity. The Drabeks know this just as well as anyone.
