And in this case, I wish I was proven wrong......

And in this case, I wish I was proven wrong...... -
village plumber Reputation:94 Level:All-Star Since:Jul 27, 2007
	May 13, 2008 11:24 am Score: 96
	Since 1998, the man has not fallen under 200 innings in any year...Some years exceeding 250 innings....If that doesnt say durability and reliability, I dont know what does.......... has a lot more to do with him being able to make all his starts rather than because he can give you 8 innings when you need it. If you're expecting him to be an innings eater who will give you 8 innings of 5 run ball when he throws, then you're going to be dissapointed. He can give you 6 innings of baseball, but he can do it 34 times a year Dont take this out of its proper context....I am not saying this is more than a depth signing, and insurance policy, Im not saying he is going to anchor any staffs depth signing is one thing, but 7 million for "depth" is way too much. Especially when the whole point is to get younger. This is about more than this year, and you have to let the young guys pitch even if they're struggling. Also, Rasner is shaping up to be much nicer insurance than anything Livan can provide, at a much cheaper price. This was a no brainer signing for a team that had unproven kids well we need those kids to become proven, and they have to start somewhere. They needed to be in the rotation. it doesn't always work right off the bat, but Hughes and Kennedy won't become proven by throwing zero's down in AAA. They need to pitch against major league hitters eventually. who came off the worst year of any starting pitcher in the game......... Jeff Weaver, Dontrelle Willis, Bartolo Colon, most of the Rangers and Marlins starting rotation and several other nobodies that i can't think of because they're so irrelevant might want to argue that point. Most overpaid? Maybe. But he certainly wasn't the worst You talk about youth movement but if they had a plan that if Kennedy or Hughes would fall flat on their face and be sent to the minors, than how could they NOT make a signing like this?? Because no 6th starter is worth 7 million dollars, least of all one who could barely crack a 5 era in the worst offensive division in baseball by far. Cause guess what? They didnt go through the growing pains with Kennedy, they sent him down with ZERO back up plan.... They sent him down for about 10 days. Had Hughes gotten injured, it probably would've been the same. You're overreacting about the staff era. For all the horrors that it's going through, their rotation ERA is 4.67. Not a great number, but not exactly reason to jump off a cliff. The reason they're not winning is because the offense is underachieving, mostly because A-rod and Posada are out. At this point, Livan's "8 innings, 5 runs" wouldn't help us much either, because the Yankees would still be losing. Yankees offense is only averaging 4.3 runs a game. and there were plenty of rumors that Moose would be in the bullpen to start the season this winter, that only would've been the case had they wanted Joba to start in the rotation But its well known throughout baseball that the Yankees have shockingly never adressed their bench and depth these past few years....... it's not the depth that's the problem. With the exception of the beginning of last year, they've had excellent depth on the bench. Betemit is a good utility man, Duncan and Ensberg are good pinch hitters/spot starters against lefties, Gonzalez is a great late inning defensive replacement and Molina is one of the best backup catchers in the game. The only reason they look so bad right now, is because they're starting every day (due to injuries), when they're not good enough to be everyday starters. However, they're among the best utility men. Most teams benches consist of a bunch of automatic outs/ pinch hitters. With the yankees bench, you have good defensive replactments, good pop vs. righties(betemit), good pop vs. lefties (duncan/ ensberg), and a good backup catcher. If i want to be nitpickey, i would say that they should have a speedster on the bench (call up gardner??), but i can't complain about this bench .Yankees have always been known to have an above average bench. You're not going to find many teams in baseball that had better benches than they have . Only problem was at the beginning of last year, before they shored up the bench with Betemit, Molina and the Duncan call up. If you want to look for the problem, it lies in the fact that guys that deserve to be on the bench are starting (Giambi, and several players on defense).....not because guys on the bench don't deserve to be on the bench. Can't hold it against Ensberg or Gonzalez if they don't put up A-rod numbers when subbing for him With their payroll there was never an excuse for such a thin roster, and the payroll of course is mostly attributable to some bad contracts, and the one huge contract he was against was for the guy we so sorely miss in that lineup..... The bad contracts though are mostly attributable to Steinbrenner. Almost every bad one was by him, starting with Giambi. When you have guys like Giambi, getting paid 23 million and clogging up 1st base, it's hard for Cashman to maneuver. He's doing the best he can given the situation (amazing and quick rebuilding of the farm system), but given all the DH's that are playing in the field, it's hard for him to. You'll get a much better gauge of him this offseason, when we see how he handles all the dead weight coming off the books, and unclogging positions (Giambi and Mussina head that list), if he's still the GM and the one huge contract he was against was for the guy we so sorely miss in that lineup......Think about that, just think that Cashman did NOT want to sign Arod.... it wasn't the "one" huge contract.....he was against most of the huge contracts. And i wasn't for it either. No player in baseball deserves to be paid 30 million a year when he stops hitting by the 162nd baseball game of the season. Period. End of discussion. I don't care what his regular season stats are. Cashman is trying to be more fiscally responsible, so he didn't think A-rod was worth 30 million. Maybe that would've hurt the yankees today Paydirt, but when you sign a guy for 10 years, you can't just think about 2008. 10 years from now, when he's 42 and getting paid 30 million, we'll be saying the same thing we say about all the bad contracts we're paying this year. You have to think about more than 2008 Paydirt, both with big contracts, and with young players. "win now" is the motto they've been following since 2002, and it hasn't exactly worked out for them. Why not try to change it to building from within, and making responsible signings- the same things that helped them win in the late '90's? Yankees didn't win in the late '90's by signing players to long term contracts that went into their late 30's/early '40's like they did the past few years (A-rod, Matsui, Damon, Giambi, Mussina etc....)
	See replies · In Reply to... · Reply · Permalink