Of Mice And Men (Part 3 of 3)

"The new look of the Stadium"

Then there’s the Phelps/Giambi/Mientkiedlkja;ldj;lajkfd;lk mess. There is simply no excuse for carrying three first baseman/DH types. Here’s a typical Yankee problem: Mientkiewicz starts at 1B, Giambi DHs, Giambi gets up in the 7th and gets on base, Torre pinch runs with Cairo, Cairo doesn’t score, Torre pinch hits for Cairo with Phelps. Now, Mientkiewicz comes up with runners on-base and because Torre has no one to pinch hit for Dougie-M, Dougie-M does what he does best: ground into a double play, strike out or pop out. You see the problem. Sure some of this could be avoided if Torre would simply stop pinch running for Giambi, then again some of this could be avoided if we actually had a decent bat off the bench who could pinch hit for Doug or Cairo. Actually, this could be avoid if we got rid of Doug and went with Phelps, as Phelps can at least hit the ball with some authority. Unfortunately, Lord Voldemort has placed a spell on the Yankees that forces them to view Doug as a valuable player who saves their pitchers by snagging line drive after line drive that would wind up as a double down the line, but dies in Doogie’s glove. Hopefully, this will be resolved in the next Harry Potter book due this summer.

Finally, there’s the Posada situation. Jorge Posada is this season’s MVP and one of the most underrated players of the past 6 years – end of story. He’s been one of the best hitting catchers in all of baseball for the past 6 years and his defense has grown stronger each year. Even though he is in his thirties, the only catchers who are more dangerous with the bat than Jorge are Victor Martinez, Brian McCann and Joe Mauer. He’s a much more dangerous hitter than Jason Varitek has ever been, and he’s much, much, much, much, much, much, much more dangerous than Paul Lo Duca (unless the danger is in relation to underage Long Island Girls and not pitched baseballs). If Posada were to miss a significant amount of playing time, the Yanks are screwed, done, finished. Imagine replacing a guy whose slugging .548, has an OBP of .422, and is batting .365 with Mr. Zero himself Will Nieves. Now, given Jorge has never been on the DL, but anything is possible and once again it is absolutely inexcusable to have no backup in case Jorge gets hurt. Now, I’d love to see the Yanks get creative and use Phelps as the backup. Michael Kay thinks that’s a terrible idea, because Phelps is not great defensively and it would annoy the pitchers. I wonder how annoyed the pitchers get when there are runners on base and an automatic out at the plate.

The ultimate result of a bad bench is that it exacerbates the bad luck. With Giambi and Damon nursing injuries, there’s no one to ease the pressure on them. Same goes for Abreu and Cano’s slumps. With a payroll approaching $200 million, there’s absolutely no excuse for neglecting the bench. Now, if I were GM, here’s how I would improve the bench:
1. Cut Cairo, Nieves, and Doug
2. Call Kansas and see what it would take to get Jason LaRue, even if it means taking Scott Elarton off their hands. (YES, I stole this idea from www.baseballprospectus.com – Transaction Analysis by Christina Kahrl) But a great idea, is a great idea.
3. Tell Phelps he’s the starting 1b, until Richie Sexson can be pried from Seattle
4. Bring up Kevin Thompson and send down Melky Cabrera (Got Melky, sure, but witty slogan aside, he’s lost at the plate and doing more harm than good).
5. Now that Oakland is awash in outfielders, see if they will trade us Shannon Stewart on the cheap – just to add to the bench.