Via PeteAbe, Hank’s not too happy with the Yankee play lately. Well, join the club, Hank. The only difference between Hank and the rest of Yankee fans the world over is that we’re not in a position to get our stupid rants in the paper. Unfortunately for Hank, he’s not the sole decision-maker atop the Yankees management hierarchy. “This is going to get turned around. If it’s not turned around this year, then it will be turned around next year, by force if we have to,” he said. What does that even mean?

Update: At the urgings of a commenter, here is Hank’s entire quote: “There’s no question we need to turn it around and we have the talent to turn it around. We’ve got the team in place, and now they just have to go out and do it. This is going to get turned around. If it’s not turned around this year, then it will be turned around next year, by force if we have to.” Even when we consider the whole thing, he still sounds rather blustery and ridiculous. His point — that the Yanks are playing poorly — can be seen for miles, and I doubt the players are going to feel motivated just because Hank sort of threatened them. Their contracts are, after all, guaranteed.

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Lost in all the hullabaloo over Hank Steinbrenner’s Joba comments was a piece from the tireless Ken Rosenthal. Kenny thinks that Brian Cashman should leave the Yankees after his contract is up this season because Hank Steinbrenner is too aggravating. Besides the fact that Cashman, a 22-year Yankee vet, is fiercely loyal to the Bombers, besides the fact that Hank is just one part of the Hank-and-Hal team leading the Yankees, Rosenthal misses the point. He’s simply validating Steinbrenner’s outbursts while Cashman’s handling of it this week was, in a word, masterful. Despite his flaws as GM, Cashman is and will remain the right man for the job. Hank knows this and so should Rosenthal.

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While we focused on Hank’s call to stick Joba in the rotation, the Yanks’ co-chairman also managed to invoke the name of Mike Mussina as well earlier this week. Steinbrenner said that Mike Mussina needs to learn to pitch like Jamie Moyer. Well, as PeteAbe points out, Mussina already pitches like Jamie Moyer at least when it comes to Manny Ramirez.

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According to PeteAbe, the whole much ado about Joba has been resolved, and Hank and Cashman are on the same page. Cashman explained that Joba’s move to the pen was spurred on last year by the youngster’s innings cap, and he reiterated the plan to move Joba into the rotation later this season. While this whole kiss-and-make-up thing is nice, I’m glad this drama played itself out today. What else would we have done with this off-day?

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Despite Hank Steinbrenner’s demand that Joba be inserted into the rotation, that move will not happen any time soon. Not that we didn’t know that. His innings cap will keep him in a limited role until at least mid-June, and at latest until the All-Star break. From the GM himself:

“Joba’s staying in the bullpen right now,” The Yankee GM told Newsday in a telephone conversation this morning. “That’s where we’re at. [Putting him in the rotation is] not something that’s going to happen here early on, and [Hank] knows that. We’ve talked about it. I don’t know what set him off.”

I’m fairly certain that the recent performances from Hughes and IPK are what set him off. I can’t blame him one bit. During each of their last outings, I found myself tossing things across the room (pillows, thankfully), and screaming “throw strikes!!!!,” much to the chagrin of my neighbors. It’s frustrating. But it can certainly turn around.

I have faith that the kids will grow into their roles and perform well this season. It’s not like Hughes and IPK are guys with suspect control, and who are now being exploited in the majors. They’re two guys with good control (superb in Kennedy’s case) who just aren’t getting it done. They’re going to have to get back to the basics for a bit. And unfortunately, that could mean a few games where they get bombed. But I’d far rather see that than to see them racking up enormous pitch counts early in games.

Joba to the rotation is going to happen. All signs point to it. We just have to be patient. I know that’s a tall order on the Bronx, but it’s what’s required at this point. I’m very surprised more people didn’t learn that after last season.

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The Yanks won today, and as is often the case when the Yankees win, I’m happy not to nitpick the game.

I could write about how Jason Giambi is 3 for 3 with 2 HR and 4 RBI against Mike Timlin and 2 for 43 with no home runs and 2 RBIs against everyone else. But SG at RLYW did a better job writing about Giambi and his potential future in New York in this post.

I could opine about the silver lining in the timing of A-Rod’s injury. His wife is due to give birth this week, and his quad strain can heal while he attends to Cynthia. But Kat O’Brien already wrote a whole story about A-Rod’s injury.

Instead, I’ll write about the words of wisdom that Hank Steinbrenner, quiet through the season’s first 20 games, threw our way this evening. Take it away, Michael S. Schmidt:

With the Yankees off to a 10-10 start, and with two of their young starters struggling, the Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner said there was one thing in particular he would like to change: He wants Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees’ hard-throwing setup man, to move into the rotation.

“I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now,” Steinbrenner said Sunday by telephone. “There is no question about it, you don’t have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don’t do that. You have to be an idiot to do that.”

Here at RAB, we try to be a bit more diplomatic about it than Hank is, but the man’s got a point. He continued: “The mistake was already made last year switching him to the bullpen out of panic or whatever. I had no say in it last year and I wouldn’t have allowed it. That was done last year, so now we have to catch up. It has to be done on a schedule so we don’t rush him.”

Hank, for the record, also feels that Mike Mussina “just needs to learn how to pitch like Jamie Moyer.” And I agree; as I’ve said numerous times, Mussina simply cannot get hitters out by blowing them away with his 85-mph fastball. In fact, he’s gotten few swing-and-misses this year. Mussina instead must get by while command and guile. He has seemingly yet to embrace that.

But Mike Mussina aside, the good stuff here is really about Joba. Hank wants his hard-throwing power pitching throwing innings that count. He doesn’t want him throwing rather meaningless 8th innings in three-run games. Hank sees a rotation struggling with command, struggling with getting guys out, and he knows that a potential fix is waiting in the Yankee bullpen.

Right now, simply because of innings limits, the Yanks can’t rush Joba into the starting rotation. But the tide is turing; the Yankees will deploy Joba in the rotation sooner rather than later. And it seems to me that, as Hank professed his faith in Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, Mike Mussina is now on notice. Shape up; those footsteps you hear are from the 22-year-old fan-favorite will four Major League-caliber pitches under his belt.

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While Hank Steinbrenner and Jonathan Papelbon engage in their shouting contest, Hank is taking on another opponent too. This time, he’s after the entire Tampa Bay Rays organization. As the feud between the two teams simmers, Hank urged the Rays to get back at the Yanks in another fashion.

“I don’t want these teams in general to forget who subsidizes a lot of them, and it’s the Yankees, the Red Sox, Dodgers, Mets,” he said. “I would prefer if teams want to target the Yankees that they at least start giving some of that revenue sharing and luxury tax money back. From an owner’s point of view, that’s my point.” While he probably shouldn’t be saying this, the man has something of a point.

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Jonathan Papelbon should probably keep his mouth shut.

After Hank Steinbrenner criticized Red Sox Nation in The Times’ Play magazine a few weeks ago, Papelbon railed into Hank. “I don’t know if he’s trying to stir things up or not,” the Bosox closer said. “I sure as hell don’t care, because he sure as hell hasn’t stepped on a baseball field. He needs to just stick to pencil-pushing, I guess.”

Hank fired back in a Post article.

“Being insulted by Papelbon is like being attacked by a mouse,” Steinbrenner said. “John Henry and I traded a couple of jabs good-naturedly. So now, all of a sudden, this player, this 20-something kid who really doesn’t know his way in the world, comes out with a personal insult. There’s no excuse for that.”

I have a feeling that if you were to ask the Red Sox their thoughts on this, they’d probably tell Papelbon to stay out of this. Let the big boys argue; you play the game on the field.

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While Yankee blogs were all atwitter this weekend discussing the Steinbrenner brothers article in this quarter’s edition of The Times’ Play magazine, a different story with New York parallels caught my eye.

Joe Nocera, one of the paper’s top business columnists, explores the idea of the Bad Owner. Using two basketball owners — our Knicks’ own James Dolan and the Los Angeles Clippers owners Donald Sterling — as examples, Nocera explores how sports franchise owners get rich without really trying. Outside of real estate, he says, it really is the easiest way to free money.

“To own a franchise in any of the three major sports — football, baseball or basketball — is to enter a club in which it is nearly impossible to come away a financial loser,” he writes.

Nocera’s premise is a sound one: Each sports league has a limited number of franchises and significant barriers to entry. Namely, an interested buyer or group of investors has to come up with a lot of money and find a franchise owner who wants to cash out. Meanwhile, league officials — whether David Stern is behind the helm or Bud Selig is steering the ship — are always trying to improve the league’s image, and teams will rise to the top.

More important to a team’s bottom line than even success is geography and media market. “Certainly a good owner can do things that add value to a franchise. But far more important is whether the team is in a big media market and plays in a stadium with modern, high-priced luxury boxes,” Nocera writes.

Sterling bought the Clippers for $13.5 million in 1984. The team has been terrible since then, and now Nocera figures Sterling could command in excess of $400 million. In New York, the value of the Knicks continues to increase, and as the team struggles and more potential investors make noises about buying the team, the value of the franchise will climb even further. They don’t win on the court, but they win where it counts for the Dolans.

Baseball, of course, has its fair share of bad owners. Some — Peter Angelos comes to mind — seemingly want to win but are too meddlesome; others — Nocera cites Carl Pohlad of the Twins — don’t care to spend an iota of their own copious amounts of money to churn a better product on the field. Yet, when Carl Pohlad or his heirs decide to sell the Twins, they will more than recoup their initial $36 million investment in the team. Why bother working to win if simply owning the team is an obscene money-maker?

Enter the Steinbrenners. As Jonathan Mahler’s article notes, the Yankees have indeed been an obscene money-making venture just like any sports franchise. King George bought the team in 1973 for a pittance: approximately $10 million. Now, the team is valued at around $1 billion with a $300 million cable franchise a part of its global entertainment network. With a new stadium with those high-priced luxury suites in the world’s biggest media market, the Yankees are a money-printing machine.

As tough as it is to embrace the Steinbrenners, then, as tough as it is to overlook George’s shortcomings and his blatantly illegal activities, it’s tough to ignore the impact the family has had on the team. The Steinbrenners have a burning desire to win; mostly, as Mahler intimates, it stems from some tough love issues the men in the family seem to have with their respective fathers.

No matter though; the fans benefit from the owners’ desire to win. The Yanks would still be a very profitable franchise if the team was merely okay. The team would still be worth nearly $1 billion if they won every few years instead of every year.

In a way though, the Yankees are in a unique position in the game. Because they are so successful both on the field and on paper, because they have owners who are willing to invest and spend to win, they have emerged as the leader in baseball. For better or worse, the Yankees, through their revenue sharing contributions, are funding their opponents. They set the bar for player salaries; they set the bar for coaching salaries; they, much to the dismay of everyone else in the game, can set the agenda.

But as I look south from Yankee Stadium to Madison Square Garden and watch the 18-42 Knicks slump away another season, I wouldn’t want it any other way in the Bronx.

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“Red Sox Nation?” What a bunch of [expletive] that is,” he [Hank Steinbrenner] said in an interview with The New York Times’ Play magazine. “That was a creation of the Red Sox and ESPN, which is filled with Red Sox fans.

“Go anywhere in America and you won’t see Red Sox hats and jackets, you’ll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country. We’re going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order.”

That’s the best thing to come out of Hank’s mouth so far.

(hat tip to Mike R.)

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