Retro Week Archives - Page 2 of 9

Taking A Chance On A Rookie General Manager

January 31, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Less than a month before the start of Spring Training, the Yankees suddenly found themselves without a general manager in 1998.

Bob Watson, who became the first African-American general manager in baseball history with the Astros in 1993, resigned from his post with the Yankees in early February because he felt his role had been diminished within the organization. He joined the Yankees in October 1995 and was at the helm for the 1996 World Series title.

“Everybody knows Mr. Steinbrenner is a hands-on guy,” said Watson to reporters after his resignation was announced. “I know that. It’s his club and it’s his prerogative. We’ll just leave it at that.”

Watson, like most people who worked for Steinbrenner, had a difficult relationship with The Boss — a few weeks before resigning, Watson joked “little people that run around (George’s) head are his baseball people” — but those close to him felt Watson was simply burnt out. He didn’t want to be a general manager anymore.

“He knows and I know I’m not an easy guy to work for,” said Steinbrenner to Buster Olney. “If he doesn’t want to work for me, he shouldn’t have to do that. I want to know that Bob is happy. I’m all for him, and I hope he has a great career in television. I don’t think this is as big a story as anybody is making it out to be.”

There were rumblings Watson would join ESPN to do broadcast work, though he instead landed in MLB’s executive offices as vice president in charge of discipline, rules, and on-field operations. Either way, Watson was gone, and the Yankees were without an experienced general manager.

* * *

“I want to introduce you to Brian Cashman … Someday you’ll all be fired and he’ll be the general manager of the Yankees,” said Steinbrenner, according to S.L. Price, when he first hired Cashman in 1989 and introduced him to his baseball operations brain trust, which included Gene Michael, Dallas Green, Syd Thrift, and others. The room laughed.

For a long time — a very long time — people tried to diminish Cashman’s role in the Yankees’ success by saying he inherited a great team from Watson and Michael. He inherited the (groan) Core Four. He inherited Bernie Williams. He inherited Paul O’Neill and Tino Martinez and David Cone and lots of others who were key members of the late-1990s dynasty.

And you know what? It’s true. Cashman did inherit that team as general manager. He couldn’t have walked into a better situation. What gets overlooked (or ignored) is Cashman’s role in building the team he inherited. Cashman did not join the Yankees from outside the organization. He’d been with the team for a decade prior to becoming general manager.

Cashman started with the Yankees working in the scouting department during the day and security at night. He climbed the player development ladder under then farm system head Brian Sabean, when all those core players were minor leaguers, and he spent four years as an assistant general manager under Michael and Watson. To pretend he didn’t have a hand in building the roster he’d inherited as general manager is folly.

* * *

At the time he was hired, the 30-year-old Cashman was the second youngest general manager in baseball history. And he was about to walk into a situation that drove Watson, a grizzled old school baseball lifer, away from the Yankees and into a cushy job with MLB. Cashman knew what he was getting into though, because he’d worked for Steinbrenner for a decade.

“I’m working on it. We’re in talks and we have a lot of things going on. I’m not going to guarantee it’s going to happen,” said Steinbrenner to Buster Olney when asked about the Chuck Knoblauch trade talks. That was the day Watson’s resignation was announced and Cashman took over. George made it clear who was running the show.

The Knoblauch trade was completed three days after Cashman officially took over as general manager. A month later Cashman helped push the Orlando Hernandez signing to the finish line. And that was pretty much it as far as big moves for the 1998 Yankees. The team Cashman inherited — the team he helped build under Sabean, Michael, and Watson — was incredible and they didn’t need help. Cashman passed on Randy Johnson at the trade deadline and the Yankees won the World Series anyway, with him watching from the stands in San Diego.

In a weird way, Cashman’s first season as general manager was pretty uneventful. There were no roster crises, no rumblings of a managerial change, and the team won so much that Steinbrenner had nothing to get angry about. Couldn’t have asked for a better situation. Things could’ve gone haywire though. The general manager resigned right before Spring Training and a 30-year-old rookie replaced him? Steinbrenner took a chance, and that chance continues to reward the Yankees to this day.

“The Boss said to me, ‘I have talked to enough people that tell me you can do this. I can go outside the franchise and recycle somebody who’s done this job before, bring them in and plug and play. But I have talked to enough people that I respect and they said you can do this,'” Cashman said last month, after introducing Aaron Boone as the next Yankees manager. “He took a chance on me in 1998.”

Great Scott! How a Salary Dump Yielded a World Series Hero

January 31, 2018 by Domenic Lanza Leave a Comment

The story of the 1997 Yankees was largely that of disappointment. They finished second in the AL East despite winning 96 games, and traveled to Cleveland for the ALDS, where they would take a 2-1 series lead in short order. And they went home just two nights later, suffering a couple of one-run losses on the road. I remember that series (and the playoffs as a whole) more vividly than I’d like to; but I digress.

One of the scapegoats for the “failed” 1997 season was a pitcher that didn’t even appear on the playoff roster – Kenny Rogers. The Yankees had signed Rogers to a four-year, $20 MM contract heading into 1996 (a tremendous deal back then), and were almost immediately ready to send him packing. He posted a 4.68 ERA (92 ERA+) in 179 IP that year, and then allowed a 14.14 ERA in four postseason appearances. Rogers followed that up with a 5.65 ERA (78 ERA+) in 145 IP in 1997, shuffling between the rotation and the bullpen. The Yankees had lined up a deal for Rogers in July, whereby he and Mariano Duncan would’ve headed to San Diego in exchange for Greg Vaughn, but the curmudgeonly outfielder failed his physical and the deal was scuttled. Thankfully, his pinstriped career would only last a few more months.

On November 7, 1997, the Yankees dealt Rogers and $5 MM to the A’s. The team had tired of his non-performance and inability to deal with the pressure of New York, so they happily ate some of the contract to facilitate the deal. And, in true George Steinbrenner fashion, Rogers’s fortitude was questioned as he headed for greener pastures. In exchange, the Yankees received 31-year-old utility player Scott Brosius. And even that is a bit of an exaggeration, as the official trade was for a player to be named later.

When the deal was made, Brosius was viewed as “a player who we feel can help us in the future” by then-GM Bob Watson. It was difficult to be too excited about Brosius, as he was coming off of a season in which he slashed .203/.259/.317 (53 OPS+) in 526 PA. He had produced in back-to-back seasons beforehand, including an excellent 1995 (.304/.393/.516, 22 HR, 127 OPS+, 5.3 bWAR), but there was little excitement about his prospects at the time. After all, he was a 31-year-old PTBNL with a somewhat lengthy injury history coming off of an awful year.

The Yankees opted against picking up Wade Boggs’s team option heading into 1998, so they had a vacancy at the hot corner. That vacancy turned into opportunity for Brosius, who opened the season as the team’s starting third baseman. He batted eighth on Opening Day (between Chad Curtis and Joe Girardi), and went hitless in four at-bats. It was a non-story, to be sure, but his job security wasn’t quite there yet, so every at-bat counted. If he struggled as much as he had in 1997, you could be sure that the Yankees would’ve pulled the plug.

That never happened. Brosius reached base safely in his next seven games (.375/.484/.458 with 4 RBI and 6 BB), and endeared himself to the fans with a propensity for clutch hits and great defense as the season wore on. He earned an All-Star nod for the first and only time (serving as a reserve), wrapping up the first half with a .309/.380/.462 slash line, along with 8 HR and 52 RBI.

Brosius had the first extended slump of his Yankees career in the weeks following the All-Star game, when he hit .167/.245/.271 over a fourteen game stretch from late July into early August. It was relatively short-lived, though, and he hit .324/.387/.549 with 9 HR and 36 RBI over his last 53 games. All told, he hit .300/.371/.472 (121 OPS+) with 19 HR, 98 RBI, and 5.3 bWAR. That’s not too bad for a PTBNL.

Of course, Brosius’s reputation wasn’t built solely on his strong overall performance. Instead, it largely revolved around his ability to come through in clutch situations, which can’t really be overstated. He batted .373/.444/.588 with RISP, .301/.400/.493 with RISP and 2 outs, and .300/.372/.457 in late and close situations. Those last two numbers look an awful lot like his baseline numbers, which may lead to the ubiquitous “is clutch a skill” debate; but for our purposes, these numbers match his reputation, and maintaining one’s awesomeness in big situations is always worthwhile.

And then the playoffs came, and Brosius went a bit crazy. He hit .400/.400/.700 with a home run and 3 RBI in the ALDS, as the Yankees swept the Rangers, and then .300/.348/.500 with a homer and 6 RBI against the Indians in the ALCS. Both of those home runs ended up being the game winners, with his three-run shot against the Indians coming in the decisive game six.

The memory of Brosius’s 1998, however, often boils down to his two home run effort in game three of the World Series:

Brosius hit .471 with 2 HR and 6 RBI in the World Series, and took home MVP honors as a result. His playoff numbers as a whole merit writing out here: .383/.400/.660, 6 runs, 1 2B, 4 HR, and 15 RBI in 13 games.

All this from a player to be named later that spent 139 games batting 8th or 9th in the lineup.

The Rogers-for-Brosius swap was brought-up consistently throughout the season, with the Daily News frequently leading the charge. The trade was not second-guessed (particularly after the postseason that Brosius had), but Rogers rebounded tremendously, and was a legitimate asset for the A’s. His 1998 was, by both versions of WAR, the best season of his career. It was the rare deal that worked out well for both sides, and I can’t imagine that either team would have had it any other way.

The Mike Lowell Mistake

January 30, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

The Yankees had their third baseman of the future going into the 1998 season. Then Scott Brosius changed their plans.

The original plan called for Brosius, who came over from the Athletics in the Kenny Rogers trade in November 1997, to hold down third base for a season while top third base prospect Mike Lowell gained more seasoning in the minors. Brosius was due to become a free agent after the 1998 season, so it would be a clean break.

Instead, Brosius had a fantastic 1998 season, hitting .300/.371/.471 (121 OPS+) while setting career highs in doubles (34), homers (19), runs batted in (98), stolen bases (eleven), and walks (52). He also hit .383/.400/.660 with three home runs in the postseason and was named World Series MVP, thanks largely to his two-homer effort in Game Three, which included a go-ahead three-run shot against Trevor Hoffman.

Brosius became a free agent as scheduled following the 1998 season and my goodness, how do you let a guy walk after a season like that? The Yankees didn’t. They gave him a new three-year contract worth $15.75M in November. Suddenly Brosius had become the third baseman of the future.

* * *

Going into that 1998 season, Baseball America ranked Lowell the 71st best prospect in baseball. The Yankees drafted Lowell in the 20th round of the 1995 draft and he’d done nothing but hit as a pro. He put up a .315/.401/.562 batting line with 30 homers and more walks (71) than strikeouts (64) in 135 games split between Double-A Norwich and Triple-A Columbus in 1997. He was the future.

The Brosius trade was made to give the Yankees more of a sure thing going into 1998, a season in which they were a World Series contender, and also give Lowell more time in the minors. Lowell had a strong Spring Training that year, then was sent back to Columbus, where he hit .304/.355/.535 with 34 doubles and 26 homers in 126 games. Brosius was having a big year in the Bronx and Lowell was having a big year in Triple-A. The Yankees were in a good spot.

Not surprisingly, other teams came calling for Lowell at the trade deadline. The Yankees were obnoxiously good — they were 75-27 on the morning of the trade deadline, ten games better than any other team in baseball — but they were trying to get better. Randy Johnson was the big name on the trade block and gosh, George Steinbrenner loved him. There were also rumblings the Yankees were after Roger Clemens.

Ultimately, the Yankees didn’t do anything at the 1998 trade deadline. Their most notable in-season addition that year was spare part righty Jim Bruske, who came over from the Padres in a minor August trade and appeared in three games with the Yankees. Clemens stayed with the Blue Jays and Johnson went to the Astros. The Yankees tried to get both though, especially Johnson, who was an impending free agent everyone knew the Mariners had to deal.

According to Buster Olney, first year GM Brian Cashman rejected Seattle’s request for Lowell, Hideki Irabu, and a pitching prospect for Johnson. Cashman was worried Johnson would wind up with the Indians — Olney says Cashman called Indians assistant GM Dan O’Dowd right after the trade deadline to see whether Cleveland landed the Big Unit — but not enough to move Lowell or other young players.

“We made a tough decision and we will live with it,” said Cashman to Olney after the trade deadline. “We could have done some things but the price was too high.”

* * *

The Yankees rewarded Lowell for his strong Triple-A season with a September call-up. He didn’t play a whole lot, appearing in only eight September games, three of which were starts. But, in his second big league game on September 20th, Lowell went 3-for-5 against the Orioles. He went 4-for-15 with one strikeout, no walks, and no extra base hits in September for an aesthetically pleasing .267/.267/.267 slash line.

Lowell was not part of the 1998 postseason roster and no one expected him to be. Brosius played third base and mashed, and the Yankees won the World Series. Lowell got a ring out of it, so that’s cool. His future with the organizational had suddenly become uncertain, however. Going into the 1998 season, the expectation was Lowell would take over at the hot corner full-time in 1999. Brosius complicated things.

So, after the Yankees gave Brosius that new three-year contract, Cashman cashed Lowell in as a trade chip. Lowell was traded to the Marlins on November 24th, 14 days after Brosius signed his new contract. The Yankees received three pitching prospects in return: Ed Yarnall, a lefty, and righties Mark Johnson and Todd Noel. Baseball America ranked Yarnall as the 60th best prospect in baseball going into the 1998 season, eleven spots ahead of Lowell.

“You never have enough pitching. Pitching is the name of the game. If we could utilize Lowell by trading him and bringing three legitimate prospects into the organization, we were going to do it,” said Cashman to Buster Olney after the trade. Olney spoke to several executives who praised the deal for New York:

”Yarnall throws from the side and can be very deceptive,” one executive said. ”He had some problems with his back last year, but I don’t think that’s a long-term concern.

”One of our scouts who saw Johnson said he has a very good slider and has a good feel for pitching, and figures that he could develop into a No. 4 or No. 5 starting pitcher in the big leagues at some point. Noel has a good fastball, and if he can develop a breaking ball, he might be the best of the three when it’s all said and done.”

Yarnall, Johnson, and Noel combined to throw 20 innings with the Yankees, all by Yarnall. Noel never made it out of Single-A. He got hurt and was out of baseball by 2001. Johnson was lost to the Tigers in the 1999 Rule 5 Draft — the Tigers drafted Johnson, then released him and re-signing him to circumvent the Rule 5 Draft roster rules, a move that is now illegal — and he allowed 23 runs in 24 innings with Detroit in 2000. It was his only MLB action.

Yarnall was the headliner in the trade. The Yankees originally drafted him out of high school in the 44th round of the 1993 draft, but he declined to sign and instead heading to Louisiana State. The Mets made Yarnall their third round pick in the 1996 draft, then traded him to the Marlins in the Mike Piazza deal in May 1998. The Marlins then sent him to the Yankees in November 1998.

After starting the 1999 season in Columbus, Yarnall made two appearances with the Yankees in July and three more in September, allowing eight runs in 17 innings. He had a 3.47 ERA with 146 strikeouts and 56 walks in 145.1 innings in Triple-A that season. Yarnall figured to have a more prominent role in 2000 — Baseball America ranked him as the game’s 55th best prospect going into that season — but he struggled and went to the Reds in the Denny Neagle deal. He was pitching in Japan by 2001 and never reached MLB again.

Lowell, meanwhile, spent the next seven seasons with the Marlins and was a very good player, going to three All-Star Games and finishing 11th in the 2003 NL MVP voting. He helped the Marlins beat the Yankees in the World Series that year. To this day, Cashman says the Lowell deal is his biggest trade regret. The Yankees could’ve moved him for Randy Johnson, and instead wound up with nothing.

“We had Scott Brosius and we had a lack of pitching depth in the system,” said Cashman to Bryan Hoch in 2016. “So we secured three high-ceiling starters — Eddie Yarnall, Todd Noel and Mark Johnson — all three high picks, all three with high ability. But all three busted. I know when the deal was done, it was something that we secured three high-end arms in the system, but none panned out.

“We’re in a better position, I think, because of analytics and our education on it,” Cashman added. “The data streams and stuff, I’m not sure if it would have changed the decision-making back then or not. We didn’t have access to that type of stuff back then. I think it was a trade of need for both organizations. We had depth to trade from, as did the Marlins. It just didn’t work on our end. It worked out for them.”

Shane Spencer’s September to Remember

January 30, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

The 1998 Yankees won what was then an American League record 114 games, and the funny thing is they started slowly, and had a bit of a slump in September. The Yankees lost their first three games of the season, and four of their first five games. Panic was already starting to set in given the team’s quick exit from the 1997 postseason.

Then, in September, the Yankees lost eight times in a 12-game span at one point. They were already a lock for the postseason — the Yankees won their 100th game on September 4th — but still, no one likes to hit the skids in September. You want to finish strong and go into the postseason feeling good about things. The Yankees eventually righted the ship and won their final seven games of the year. It was touch and go for a bit though.

For much of the 1998 season, 26-year-old rookie outfielder Shane Spencer was on the Columbus shuttle, going back and forth between Triple-A and MLB whenever the Yankees needed a body. He played two games with the Yankees in April, one in June, three in July, and seven in August before returning as a September call-up. Spencer had a great Triple-A season, hitting .322/.397/.570 with 18 homers in 87 games. It was also his second straight year at the level.

When Spencer came back up in September, he initially rode the bench. He appeared in only seven games during the first 21 days of the month, and four of those seven appearances came off the bench late in blowouts. The Yankees were struggling a bit and having a hard time scoring runs — they scored no more than three runs six times in that 4-8 stretch — so Joe Torre stuck with the regulars to try to get them going before October.

The legend of Shane Spencer started in earnest on September 18th. He came off the bench in a blowout against the Orioles, and smacked a grand slam off Jesse Orosco.

Two days later Spencer came off the bench again, this time driving in what proved to be the game-winning run with an eighth inning pinch-hit double off Jimmy Key. The Yankees and Indians played a doubleheader on September 22nd, and Spencer started both games. He started the first game in left and the second in right because Torres wasn’t going to overwork his regulars that late in the season. Not with the team’s record being what it was.

Game one of the doubleheader: 3-for-5 with two home runs. Game two of the doubleheader: 2-for-3 with a walk. The Yankees won both games. A performance like that will earn an unproven player more playing time, so Spencer was in the lineup again the next day, and he went 3-for-4 with another homer. A grand slam against the Devil Rays followed the next day. And on September 27th, in the final game of the regular season, Spencer hit another grand slam, his third in eleven days.

The three grand slams were a new rookie record and Spencer accomplished it in only 27 games and 73 plate appearances. (Alexei Ramirez hit four grand slams in 2008 to break Spencer’s record.) Spencer helped the Yankees out of their little mid-September funk by hitting seven home runs and driving in 20 runs in the span of eleven team games. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were in the middle of their home run race at the time, and I remember the Yankee Stadium scoreboard flashing:

McGwire: 66
Sosa: 66
Spencer: 9

“I’m not shocked, I’m happy. I’m just having a good time right now,” said Spencer to Jack Curry. Overall, Spencer hit .373/.411/.910 (236 OPS+) with six doubles and ten homers in 1998.

The 1998 Yankees never really had a set left fielder. Chad Curtis received most of the playing time out there, though Tim Raines, Ricky Ledee, and Darryl Strawberry also saw time in left field as well. It was basically a “who is playing the best right now?” situation. The Yankees were so good that year it didn’t matter. They were plenty good enough to overcome the left field revolving door.

The Yankees of course carried Spencer on the 1998 postseason roster after his huge September, and given the fact they weren’t locked into one player in left field, it was easy for Torre to get Spencer into the lineup. He started Game Two of the ALDS against the Rangers. Two hits and a dinger. He also started Game Three of the ALDS. Three-run homer. That gave Spencer nine homers in his last eleven games.

“I’ll tell you what, he doesn’t get cheated,” Rangers manager Johnny Oates said to Jack Curry. “He knows what that piece of wood is made for and it’s not cleaning his shoes … Where has he been all year?”

Spencer started the first three games of the ALCS against the Indians, but didn’t fare all that well (1-for-10). There was also some controversy in Game Two in the series. With the score tied 1-1, Raines started the bottom of the ninth with a leadoff single. Spencer, the man who’d hit nine homers in his previous dozen games, was ordered to bunt (!) pinch-runner Homer Bush over to second. For real.

The bunt was never laid down. Paul Shuey’s first pitch to Spencer was out of the zone and Bush stole second, so, with the runner in scoring position and a guy who’d hit nine homers in his last 12 games at the plate, Torre took the bunt sign off. I mean, duh. Spencer struck out and the Yankees didn’t score, and eventually they lost the game. The inevitable “Spencer should’ve bunted him to third!” nonsense was sputtered in hindsight the next day.

The Yankees did rally to win the ALCS in six games, and in the sweep of the Padres in the World Series, Spencer started just one game. Game Three against the lefty Sterling Hitchcock. He didn’t even pinch-hit in the other three games. Spencer went 1-for-3 with a double in that one World Series start.

Spencer’s magic had worn off, and he didn’t have much big league success the rest of his career, but the magic lasted long enough to help the Yankees win the 1998 World Series. The 28th round draft pick who spent parts of eight seasons in the minors before getting his first big league opportunity had become a September and October hero.

“That’s a fun story,” said Paul O’Neill to Curry when Spencer was in the middle of his home run binge. “It’s so much fun. The game goes in slow motion when you feel like he does. He’s just grinning when he runs around the bases. It’s fun to see, especially for a guy whose paid his dues in the minor leagues. You need stories like that in baseball.”

The Changing Of The Guard Behind The Plate

January 30, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

The Core Four as we know it did not become the Core Four until 1998. Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera were all established big league stars who’d helped the Yankees win a World Series by time that 1998 season rolled around. They were the present and the future. In 1998, it was Jorge Posada’s turn to join the mix.

* * *

Posada had cups of coffee with the Yankees in 1995 and 1996 — he was on the 1995 ALDS roster as a pinch-runner, if you can believe that — before spending the 1997 season as Joe Girardi’s backup. He started 52 games that year and hit .250/.359/.410 (101 OPS+) with six homers and nearly as many walks (30) as strikeouts (33). It was a damn fine first full MLB season. The only problem? Posada was 26 and growing impatient.

“They keep saying I’m the catcher of the future. For me, the future is now,” said Posada to Jack Curry in January 1998. “I’ve been working hard all these years to win the job. My time is now. I don’t want to be too late. I’m going to be 27 in August. They keep saying I’m the future. By the time I get there, it’s going to be too late.”

Although he was a 24th round draft pick who never appeared on a Baseball America top 100 prospects list, Posada was not an unknown. He was a well-regarded prospect who ripped up Triple-A — Jorge hit .271/.405/.460 with 11 home runs in 106 games with Columbus in 1996 — and had been asked about during trade talks. Posada to the Padres for Rickey Henderson was a popular rumor at the 1997 trade deadline.

GM Bob Watson had no real interest in trading Posada. It was all George Steinbrenner. Girardi was entering his mid-30s and Watson saw Posada as the heir apparent. The Yankees even left Girardi unprotected during the November 1997 expansion draft. Both the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays passed, however. Girardi knew his days as a starter with the Yankees were numbered. Posada’s ability was obvious.

“One thing (Girardi) told me was, ‘I’m holding the job for you,'” said Posada to Curry. “I’ll never forget that. He knows what’s going on. He’s been a friend and he’s helped me a lot. He’s still going to help me, no matter if I’m starting or not. He’s not jealous about me playing, and I’m not jealous about him playing.”

* * *

When the season started, it was Girardi behind the plate on Opening Day, not Posada. And in the second game of the season too. And the third. Posada didn’t get his first start of 1998 until April 5th, the fourth game of the season, and he responded by going 3-for-5 with an eighth inning go-ahead two-run home run against the Athletics. Posada later scored the go-ahead run in the tenth inning after Rivera blew the save.

Posada started again two days later and hit another home run. For the first few weeks of the season, he and Girardi split catching duties 50-50 — they both started 16 of the first 32 games of the season — which was an increase over Posada’s workload in 1997. On May 17th, Jorge was behind the plate for David Wells’ perfect game, baseball’s first perfect game in four years and at the time only the second by a Yankee, after Don Larsen in the 1956 World Series.

“This is great, Jorge, this is great!” Wells yelled to Posada as Paul O’Neill caught the final out, according to Buster Olney.

By time Wells threw his perfect game, the Yankees were locked in and emerging as baseball’s powerhouse. The perfect game was their 28th win in the span of 34 games. The Girardi-Posada timeshare behind the plate was working, so why fix what’s broken? That’s the approach Joe Torre took. The two continued to split time 50-50.

“Jorge’s chances of getting better have improved only because of (Girardi’s) attitude,” said Torre to Claire Smith. “He doesn’t have blinders on. He knows that Jorge is the future catcher in this organization. But he’s going to do whatever he can to help us win, to help this kid develop.”

When the All-Star break rolled around, the Yankees were 61-20 and had lost nine fewer games than any other team in baseball. Posada started 44 of those 81 first half games. Girardi started the other 37. Their first half batting lines:

Posada: .275/.374/.479 (126 OPS+) with eight home runs
Girardi: .248/.310/.346 (75 OPS+) with two home runs

Posada also had more success throwing out baserunners (40%) than Girardi (26%). There is something to be said for veteran leadership, no doubt, but halfway through the 1998 season, it had become clear the Yankees were a better team with Posada behind the plate, not Girardi. Besides, Jorge caught Andy Pettitte in the minors and had taken over as Orlando Hernandez’s personal catcher, and he caught Wells’ perfect game. He handled the pitching staff just fine.

It wasn’t until the end of July that the 50-50 timeshare behind the plate came to an end. Girardi started 12 of the first 21 games after the All-Star break. Posada then started 37 of the final 60 games of the season. He finished the year with a .268/.350/.475 (115 OPS+) batting line and 17 home runs in his 83 starts. Girardi hit .276/.317/.386 (75 OPS+) with three home runs. The 27-year-old switch-hitter with power had taken the job from the 33-year-old defensive specialist.

“I’m able to be realistic and understand the situation,” said Girardi to Smith. “(Being upset) doesn’t help anyone. I don’t believe it helps yourself — and I think that’s why guys try to be a problem, to help themselves. Most of all, I think it hurts the team. And this is a team sport. Jorge is very easy to work with. He’s a good kid. He wants to learn. He wants to get better.

”He’s also very beneficial to this team, a team that has a chance to go to the World Series,” Girardi added. “As you get to be 33, 34, you don’t know how many more shots you’ve got. The games are long when you’re on the bench, but from that standpoint, I think I’m able to be realistic and get the best out of the days that I’m playing. That’s all I can do.”

* * *

In the postseason, rather than play Posada behind the plate every game, Torre came up with a personal catcher system. Posada caught Wells and El Duque while Girardi caught Pettitte and David Cone. Torre didn’t deviate from the plan at all. Wells started Game One of the ALDS against the Rangers and Posada was behind the plate. Girardi caught Pettitte and Cone in Games Two and Three, respectively.

Posada caught Wells in Game One of the ALCS against the Indians, Girardi caught Cone in Game Two and Pettitte in Game Three, Posada caught Hernandez in Game Four and Wells in Game Five, and Girardi caught Cone in Game Six. Through the ALCS, Posada was 2-for-13 (.154) with a home run, five walks, and four strikeouts in the postseason. Girardi was 5-for-15 (.333) with one walk and one strikeout.

The personal catcher system got the Yankees to the World Series, so there was Posada behind the plate for Wells in Game One and El Duque in Game Two against the Padres. Girardi caught Cone in Game Three and Pettitte in Game Four to complete the sweep. He went 0-for-6 in the World Series. Posada went 3-for-9 (.333) with two walks and a home run in the blowout Game Two win.

It seemed obvious the Yankees would part ways with Girardi after the season and commit to Posada as the full-time catcher going forward, but that didn’t happen. Well, the second part happened. Posada did take over as the clear cut starter in 1999. But Girardi stuck around. The Yankees picked up his $3.4M option.

“At a time when quality catching is at a premium, Joe Girardi is one of the best defensive catchers in baseball and Jorge Posada is one of the game’s emerging stars at that position,” said Brian Cashman to Buster Olney in November 1998. “You also cannot overstate Joe’s leadership abilities.”

It had been previously announced the Yankees would decline Girardi’s option — Girardi even said he understood the decision and would look for a starting job elsewhere — but Torre reportedly lobbied Cashman and George Steinbrenner to keep Girardi because he valued his leadership and the way he worked with Posada. Girardi knew Posada was there to take his job. He mentored him anyway.

“It’s not easy to compete with him because he’s such a nice person,” Posada said to Smith. “Ever since I got here he’s gone out of his way to help me, to tell me about how to call games, to tell me about the league. I’ve got nothing but admiration for him.”

BLAUCH HEAD: The Blockbuster Trade For A Superstar Second Baseman Who Was Anything But

January 29, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

For a few years in the mid-1990s, the Yankees had a revolving door at second base. Pat Kelly mostly held the position down from 1992-95 before getting hurt and giving way to Mariano Duncan in 1996. Duncan, Kelly, and Luis Sojo took turns at the position in 1997. That’s three primary second basemen in three years.

The Yankees were a good enough team overall to overcome the second base revolving door. They won the World Series in 1996 — thanks in part to Duncan’s inexplicably excellent season — and won 96 games in 1997. And yet, going into the 1997-98 offseason, the Yankees were in obvious need of a second base upgrade. They also wanted a set leadoff hitter so Derek Jeter and his bat control could hit second.

Meanwhile, up in the Minnesota, the Twins were dealing with a second base problem of their own. They had a franchise caliber player at the position in Chuck Knoblauch — Knoblauch hit .319/.413/.468 (127 OPS+) and averaged ten homers and 47 steals per season from 1994-97 — but he wanted out. Bad. He demanded a trade publicly and backed the team into a corner.

Knoblauch signed a five-year extension worth $30M in November 1996, and after the club floundered in 1997 (79-83), he wanted out. “I was just dejected. The losing got to me. I wasn’t handling getting beat up on a pretty consistent basis,” Knoblauch said to Amelia Rayno in 2014. The Yankees needed a second baseman and a pretty great second baseman had just demanded trade. It was a perfect fit.

* * *

“‘Don’t get too excited about Chuck Knoblauch,” said George Steinbrenner to reporters in January 1998. “(The Twins) have to get realistic about what they’re asking for. I’m a great Knoblauch fan, but at what price?”

Knoblauch and the Yankees were a match made in baseball heaven, yet trade talks dragged on for weeks and months, so much so that then GM Bob Watson suggested the Yankees could go into the season with Sojo and Rey Sanchez at second base. The Indians were in on Knoblauch as well, so the Yankees had competition.

The Twins, even though Knoblauch demanded a trade and had long been a clubhouse headache, had a high asking price. Bernie Williams was involved in trade rumors at one point. Mostly though, Minnesota focused on prospects like lefty Eric Milton, catcher Jorge Posada, and outfielder Ricky Ledee. They wanted first baseman Sean Casey from Cleveland.

It wasn’t until February 6th, three days after Brian Cashman replaced Watson as GM and not long before the Yankees opened Spring Training, that the Yankees and Twins came to a trade agreement. Knoblauch went to New York for Milton, shortstop Cristian Guzman, outfielder Brian Buchanan, righty Danny Moto, and $3M in cash. It was a blockbuster. Knoblauch was a star and Milton and Guzman were top prospects.

“I had to do the best I could under the situation. When you go public with a trade demand it’s very difficult to do anything,” said Twins GM Terry Ryan to the Associated Press. “Until you see what these kids do you aren’t going to be able to evaluate this trade. It might be five years. It might be three years. We do know what we traded.”

* * *

With Knoblauch at second base, Joe Torre’s lineup seemed to write itself. Everyone fell right into place.

2B Chuck Knoblauch
SS Derek Jeter
RF Paul O’Neill
CF Bernie Williams
1B Tino Martinez
DH Chili Davis/Darryl Strawberry
LF Chad Curtis
C Jorge Posada
3B Scott Brosius

The pieces just fit. Knoblauch, however, had trouble with the adjustment to New York. He had a four-hit game in the second game of the season, but on May 17th, his batting line was .238/.346/.318. It was .246/.358/.371 on August 1st. Knoblauch was expected to bring a high batting average and on-base percentage, and steals. Instead, his average and on-base percentage sank, and he went from 62 steals in 1997 to 31 steals in 1998.

“‘I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this is the most positive experience I’ve had in baseball and in my baseball life. Off the field, everything,” said Knoblauch to Jack Curry amid the struggles. “New York is just different from any other city. The people, the city, everything is great.”

Because he had been traded in the middle of a multiyear contract, the Collective Bargaining Agreement allowed Knoblauch to request a trade after the 1998 season. The Yankees discussed a contract extension with him earlier in the year to prevent that from happening, but talks were tabled. There were even rumors of a Knoblauch-for-Roberto Alomar trade at midseason.

”The only discussion we had was early and how he doesn’t want to go anywhere and we don’t want him to go anywhere, so let’s not worry about it” said Cashman to Curry. ”I’m not worried about it.”

The Yankees were, of course, completely dominant all summer — at one point they won 91 of 117 games, if you can believe that — so Knoblauch’s less than stellar production wasn’t dragging the team down. Neither was his suddenly shaky throwing. The potential for a trade demand — or the potential to leverage that trade demand into an extension — was a bit of a headache, though not much.

Knoblauch finished the regular season strong, hitting .303/.369/.471 with seven homers in his final 51 games, giving him a .265/.361/.405 (102 OPS+) batting line overall. He set a new career high with 17 homers, walked more than he struck out (76 to 70), and also led the league with 18 hit-by-pitches. Not awful. Not great, not Knoblauch with the Twins, but not awful.

* * *

As the Yankees marched to the 1998 World Series title, they did it in spite of Knoblauch, not with his help. He went 1-for-11 (.091) during the team’s three-game sweep over the Rangers in the ALDS. In the ALCS, Knoblauch made what is one of the most infamous plays in recent Yankee history, as he let two runs score while arguing with the umpire in the 12th inning of Game Two against the Indians.

Knoblauch argued Travis Fryman interfered with the play by running outside the basepath and on the infield grass. He argued, and he continued arguing, and he arguing some more as Enrique Wilson chugged all the way around from first base to score on the play. Knoblauch was booed when he came to the plate in the next half-inning, and the Indians eventually held on to knot the series up at a game apiece.

“I screwed up. I screwed up the play, and I feel terrible about that,” Knoblauch said to Buster Olney after the game. “I should have went and gotten the ball, regardless of what the outcome of the umpire’s call was. I need to apologize to my teammates and my manager and all the Yankees fans.”

The Yankees rallied to win the ALCS and, in the World Series, Knoblauch atoned for the boneheaded mistake against the Indians — I’ll never forget the “BLAUCH HEAD” headlines in the papers the next morning — with a game-tying three-run home in the seventh inning of Game One against Donne Wall and the Padres.

”If you try in this game or any other game to make up for every time you struck out with the bases loaded or every time you made an error, that pressure would pile up so much that you wouldn’t be able to walk,” said Torre to Selena Roberts after the game. ”The fact that we did get to the World Series was big for everyone. Not only Chuck, but we wouldn’t want anyone living with that.”

Knoblauch was great in the World Series that year — he went 6-for-16 (.375) with the home run, three walks, and two strikeouts in the four-game sweep — so, in that sense, it was mission accomplished. The Yankees won the World Series! That’s the ultimate goal.

At the same time, my lasting imagine of Knoblauch as a Yankee is him standing and pointing at the basepath in the 12th inning of Game Two of the ALCS. I know I’m not the only one who remembers him this way:

The Yankees acquired Knoblauch to solidify second base and raise hell atop the lineup. He did neither. He had some defensive issues and his offense was not up to his career standards. That was true in 1998 and in subsequent years as well. The throwing issues got worse and the offensive numbers trended down.

Knoblauch had some big moments from 1999-2001 — his game-tying two-run home run in the eighth inning of Game Three of the 1999 World Series comes to mind — but he came to New York as one of the game’s premier second basemen, and left as a left fielder the Yankees tried to unload every winter and every trade deadline.

”Forget the player, I’m a better person having been through all of that and being through it in New York,” said Knoblauch to Rafael Hermoso in Spring Training 2002, after signing with the Royals as a free agent. ”The bottom line is I have three World Series rings, and one or two outs away from a fourth. I had a great time there.”

The Duke of the Bronx

January 29, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Welcome to RAB’s Retro Week. Spring Training is two weeks away and there’s not much going on in the hot stove league, so this is as good a time as any to look back at some Yankees stories from yesteryear. Since this year is the 20th anniversary of the 1998 Yankees, this week will be dedicated to that team.

Given how the season played out, it can be easy to forget the 1998 Yankees needed to be saved. Twice.

The first time they had to be saved came early in the summer, on June 3rd, when David Cone was unable to make his scheduled start because his mother’s dog bit him in the hand. True story. Cone talks about it during YES Network broadcasts all the time.

With Cone unavailable, the Yankees turned to maybe 28-year-old but possibly 32-year-old Cuban right-hander Orlando Hernandez, who the team signed in March because pitching depth was in short supply. The expansion draft raided depth charts — the Yankees lost righty Ben Ford to the Diamondbacks and righty Brian Boehringer to the Devil Rays in the November 1997 expansion draft — and left teams hesitant to trade their leftover pitchers.

* * *

“I’m sick of George’s tactics,” said Joe Cubas, Hernandez’s agent, to Murray Chass in March 1998. George being George Steinbrenner, of course. “I’m fed up with it and tired of it and sick of it. My conscience is clean. I can speak about this because I just told the Yankees first … George is leaking (numbers) on purpose to scare others away. If they think they are going to corner me into a deal with those tactics, they’re going to have a rude awakening when they see I’m about to cut a deal with another club.”

Hernandez defected from Cuba in December 1997, two years after his younger brother Livan left the island. As punishment for Livan’s defection, Orlando was left off the 1996 Cuban Olympic team and later banned from playing baseball in Cuba entirely. He defected to Costa Rica, which allowed him to avoid the draft and instead negotiate with any team as a free agent. The Yankees, Indians, Angels, and Mariners all wanted him, and George was driving a hard bargain.

“I’m dealing with four clubs. I’m close with one, and it’s not them,” said Cubas to Chass. “They’re trying to make it look like there’s a deal about to be made. The other clubs are taking it out on me. They’re asking, ‘Are you using us to get a better deal from George?'”

One day after Cubas made those comments — literally the very next day — Hernandez and the Yankees agreed to a four-year contract worth $6.6M. The Indians made a late push, but El Duque wanted to be a Yankee.

“I was about to cut a deal with Cleveland,” said Cubas to Buster Olney. “We were at opposite ends of the spectrum yesterday. The thing that helped was that (Brian) Cashman got directly involved, which he hadn’t been from the very beginning.”

* * *

Hernandez was a bit of a mystery at the time aside from his stellar record in Cuba. He’d starred in the Cuban league and pitched well in the 1992 Olympics, but it was unclear if he’d even start in the big leagues. The Yankees viewed him as a potential back-end starter or relief option. After an abbreviated Spring Training — Hernandez reported late because he signed late — he headed to the club’s High Class-A affiliate in Tampa.

Two starts and nine innings of one earned run ball later, the Yankees moved Hernandez up to Triple-A Columbus, where he pitched to a 3.83 ERA with 59 strikeouts and 17 walks in seven starts and 42.1 innings. The Yankees were preparing Hernandez for a bullpen role — “We’re kind of tossing the idea around,” said former farm system head Mark Newman to Chass — when Cone was bitten.

Hernandez made his big league debut on June 3rd, against the expansion Devil Rays. Against an admittedly thin lineup, El Duque fired seven innings of one-run ball at Yankee Stadium, striking out seven. Most fans hadn’t seen Hernandez prior to that. He was late to Spring Training and had been in the minors. Hernandez wowed with his leg kick and array of arm slots.

“It was very emotional due to the fact so many years had gone by since I pitched in front of so many fans, and it was my first game at the Major League level,” said Hernandez to Olney after the game.

The original plan called for Hernandez to make just the one spot start, then return to Columbus. Steinbrenner instead ordered Hernandez to remain with the big league team. “When you have an organization and an owner who knows what he wants to do, that’s going to happen,” Joe Torre said to Olney. Ramiro Mendoza shifted to the bullpen and Hernandez remained in the rotation.

So, with Cone recovering from his dog bite and David Wells nursing an achy shoulder — Hernandez nearly made his MLB debut one day earlier in place of Wells — El Duque stepped into the rotation and provided the type of stability the club was seeking behind Andy Pettitte. The Yankees were short on pitching depth and short on healthy starters. Hernandez helped save the day.

All told, Hernandez made 21 regular season starts for the Yankees in 1998, throwing 141 innings with a 3.13 ERA (142 ERA+) and a 3.53 FIP. That earned him a fourth place finish in the AL Rookie of the Year voting — Ben Grieve won the award, and was followed in the voting by Rolando Arroyo and Mike Caruso — and also a spot in the postseason rotation behind Pettitte, Wells, and Cone. Hernandez over Hideki Irabu was an easy call.

* * *

The second time the Yankees had to be saved came in October. The 114-win juggernaut Yankees swept the Rangers in the ALDS — the Yankees held Texas, a team that scored 64 more runs than any non-Yankees team during the regular season, to one run in the three-game sweep — before running into a very deep and very dangerous Indians team in the ALCS. Cleveland’s lineup for Game One that series:

CF Kenny Lofton
2B Joey Cora
LF David Justice
RF Manny Ramirez
3B Travis Fryman
DH Jim Thome
1B Richie Sexson
C Sandy Alomar
SS Omar Vizquel

The Yankees scored five runs against Jaret Wright in the first inning of Game One and eventually held on for the win. The Indians rebounded with a 12-inning win in Game Two and put a hurting on Pettitte in Game Three (six runs in 4.2 innings) to take a two games to one series lead. The only thing standing between the Yankees and a three games to one series deficit was the Cuban veteran and big league rookie Hernandez.

To make the situation even more dire — Game Four was in Cleveland, which was not an easy place to play in the late-1990s — Hernandez was going to pitch in cold weather, something he never did in Cuba, and pitch in general for the first time in 15 days. He wasn’t needed during the ALDS sweep of the Rangers and had a long layoff since his final regular season start. And it was the powerhouse Indians. And it was cold.

“When I was pitching with the Cuban national team, we played in Italy and Ireland, and other countries in Europe, and it was pretty cold. I’m not sure what the temperatures were, but it was pretty cold,” said Hernandez to Olney. “I’ve been through some cold times. I don’t feel that the cold on the field will affect my pitching tomorrow.”

El Duque was right. Seven innings, three hits, two walks, no runs. He struck out seven and retired 14 of the final 16 batters he faced. Paul O’Neill smacked a first inning solo home run to give the Yankees the only run they’d need on the night — they did add three insurance runs later in the game, and those are always appreciated — and Hernandez pitched the series back even at two games apiece.

“I’ve watched him pitch all year, and I’ve never seen him tense,” said Chili Davis to Mike DiGiovanna after the game. “With the rest he had, you knew he’d have a good fastball. When you’ve thrown a fastball by Thome, you’ve accomplished something.”

El Duque saved the Yankees’ bacon and helped them avoid a dreaded three games to one series deficit. They went on to win the ALCS in six games. Had there been a Game Seven, there was talk Hernandez would get the ball on short rest rather than Pettitte on normal given how Games Three and Four played out. Fortunately Torre never had to make that decision.

Hernandez started Game Two of the World Series against the Padres and was again magnificent, holding San Diego to one run in seven innings. The Yankees swept the series for their second championship in three years and the first of what would eventually be three consecutive World Series titles. El Duque allowed one run in 14 postseason innings in his two starts. He saved the Yankees when their rotation was falling apart in June, and he saved them again in the ALCS.

* * *

Going from leaving Cuba on a fishing boat to signing a $6.6M contract to pitching at Yankee Stadium in the World Series surely made for a whirlwind year for El Duque. The best part was saved for last though, and it wasn’t the World Series title.

John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, sent an emissary to Cuba and convinced Fidel Castro to allow Hernandez’s family to leave the island so they could reunite in the United States. Castro allowed Orlando’s family to leave, just as he allowed Livan’s family to leave a year earlier, after he pitched the Marlins to a World Series title.

On October 22nd, the day after the Yankees won the World Series, Hernandez’s mother, his two daughters, and his ex-wife were chartered from Havana to Miami. George Steinbrenner then flew them up to New York on his private plane. Hernandez and his family reunited at Teterboro Airport. The next day, they paraded down the Canyon of Heroes together as a family.

“He was just totally overwhelmed with joy,” said Rene Guim, a spokesman for Hernandez’s agent, to Andy Newman and Charlie Nobles. ”He cried like a little baby.”