With the shocking and sad news that Tim Russert passed away this afternoon, baseball lost one of its own. Tim, a New York native, was a life-long Yankee fan and a recent Nationals season ticket holder as well as a Board of Director at the Hall of Fame. MLB.com’s Barry Bloom has up a piece with reaction from around the game. Our thoughts go out to the Russert family.
Yanks exile Shelley to AAA
Shelley Duncan, the once and former wunderkind, has been sent back to AAA. Alberto Gonzalez has been recalled to provide more flexibility off the bench over the next few weeks. As the Yanks are planning on holding on to both Chad Moeller and Jose Molina until they get to Pittsburgh, the timing on this move seems to suggest that Duncan will come up again when a third catcher goes down. Brett Gardner is, of coures, the wild card there.
And as an administrative note, if you’ve been trying to e-mail the three of us over the last two days, try again now. We were having some problems with our e-mail server that have since been fixed.
NY pols bemoan stadium subsidies
The coolest construction picture you’ll see all day. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)
Chalk this one up to the “too little, too late” department.
One day after word leaked about the Yanks’ intentions to seek more money to fund their stadium construction, New York’s elected represented hopped up on their soap boxes with vows of “never again.” Never again will they allow such a high amount of public funds to go toward sports franchises. Never again will backroom deals be allowed to carry the day. Color me skeptical.
Now while I’m no fan of Richard Brodsky or Hakeem Jeffries, these two Assemblymen are right to question the Yankee Stadium funding plans. Via the AP:
Three state Assembly members from New York City called for a public hearing to examine a proposal to provide public support for one the richest franchises in sports.
“These sports teams are private companies that appear addicted to keeping their hands in the government cookie jar,” said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn.
Brodsky, meanwhile, is going a bit overboard with the rhetoric, but he too brings up some valid points. As The Sun reports, Brodsky compared these tax deals to Soviet Russia. “These decisions are being made in secret in these Soviet-style meetings and it is outrageous,” he said. More compelling are Brodsky’s arguments about the state of the New York economy:
“What’s at stake here is a much bigger issue than whether you like or dislike the Yankee Stadium deal,” Brodsky said. “Stadiums [are] soaking a lot of the tax-exempt financing, and we can’t fund the capital plan of the MTA and we’re short capital money on schools and hospitals.”
While there are myriad reasons why the state can’t fund the MTA’s capital plan — legislative neglect, the downfall of congestion pricing, Brodsky’s own refusal to dole out the funds — his overall message is a valid one. The state is not in a fiscal position where it should be giving more funding breaks out to its wealthy sports institutions.
As Charles Bagli wrote in The Times today, the end game of this debate will probably lead to cost increases across the board for projects of this nature with the potential rule changes impacting the Atlantic Yards development, Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. But somehow I think the sports franchises will worm the money out of the public coffers one way or another.
Anatomy of a trade rumor
So I just read through this thread at MLBTR, talking about the C.C. Sabathia rumors involving the Yanks. Of course, everyone in the comments has their idea of a trade proposal. And, more often than not, anyone who came up with a proposition was called stupid or insane by a slew of other commenters.
We’re going to hear trade talk for the next month and a half, so I figured we could agree on some groundrules for talking trade. These are just points we can bear in mind when we post an irresponsible rumor, so we don’t start flame wars across the board. I’ll start with a few, and we can add some in the comments.
1) We value our own prospects more than the rest of the league. Definitely the most important point on this list.
2) Our trade proposals are never going to happen. They’re fun, for sure. That’s why we think about who we would trade for whom. But so few of them end up happening. Bottom line: You’re not right and I’m not right, so let’s not act like it.
3) C.C. Sabathia is a six-month rental, and brings zero guarantees, in terms of his helping the team, and in terms of him re-signing.
4) As with No. 2, the trade rumors you hear in the paper will likely amount to nothing. We see them every year. They’re neat, but not very useful.
5) The more players you put into a trade proposal, the more certain it is to not happen. The days of trading a bunch of crap for a good arm — like the David Cone trade — are far behind us. Bobby Abreu is the exception, far from the rule.
6) When we’re talking trading prospects, we’re talking about uncertainty. Teams take that into consideration when trading their established players.
I’m sure I’m missing a ton. Fire away in the comments.
Heading to the NL
With interleague play making its return tonight, the Yankees find themselves in the unenviable position of losing the DH. While Jason Giambi’s bat will stay in the lineup, the Yanks will either have to sacrifice Hideki Matsui’s bat or Johnny Damon’s bat and defense (or, as a few commenters have noted, Melky Cabrera). That’s not an easy decision to make.
Making matters worse for the Yanks is the lack of data against tonight’s starter Shawn Chacon. No one on the Yanks outside of Bobby Abreu has faced the former Bronx flash-in-the-pan more than a handful of times. Matsui is 2 for 3 off of Chacon, Damon is 1 for 5 and Melky is 1 for 1. Decision. Decisions. Decisions.
Meanwhile, as the Yanks head to an NL park, their pitchers will have to bat. Overall, the Yanks on the team with official at-bats are a whopping 36 for 295. That’s .122 for those keeping score at home and a far cry from their DH production this season (.319/.407/.504). With the Yanks offense slogging along, it’s time for the guys slumping and underperforming — middle infielders, I’m lookin’ at you — to pick it up a bit.
The birthday boy delivers, and so does Andy
So that’s the way the Yankees are supposed to play. The Yankees capitalized on Joe Blanton’s one mistake, and Andy Pettitte pitched eight dominant innings as the Yanks won 4-1 behind a grand slam from Hideki Matsui on his 34th birthday. Pettitte rebounded from one of his worst outings of his career to stifle the A’s, and the Yanks head into Houston winning two out of three on the brief West Coast trip. Congratulations are in order too for Mariano Rivera. His two strike outs moved him ahead of David Cone into 16th place on the Yankees’ all-time strike out list. And that’s all she wrote.
White coughs it up in extras
Triple-A Scranton (5-4 loss to Richmond in 13 innings, walk-off style)
Brett Gardner, Eric Duncan & Matt Carson: all 1 for 6 – Gardner scored a run, drove in another, walked & K’ed 4 times … Duncan K’ed twice … Carson drove in 2 runs & K’ed
JD Closser: 1 for 5, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 CS
Alberto Gonzalez: 1 for 3, 3 BB, 1 K, 1 E (fielding) – on base 20 times in his last 7 games
Jason Christian: 2 for 5, 2 R, 1 BB
Nick Green & Bernie Castro: both 2 for 6 – Green doubled, drove in a run & K’ed – Castro stole a base & was picked off first
The Ghost of Kei Igawa: 6.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 6-6 GB/FB – picked a runn off first, but he gave up a homer to Sal Fasano … Sal freaking Fasano
Scott Strickland: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K – only 8 of 22 pitches were strikes (36.4%)
Heath Phillips: 0.1 IP, zeroes
Scott Patterson: 1 IP, zeroes, 1 K
Billy Traber: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 3-2 GB/FB
David Robertson: 1 IP, zeroes, 3 K – this time last year, he was still in Charleston
Steven “don’t call me” White: 0.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 0 K – to make it worse, Scranton took the lead in the top half of the inning thanks to a Brett Gardner bases loaded walk … the link is for those of you that never got the reference