Blog Offseason:Things To Come

This is the slow time of year for me with sports--although I do watch football and am trying to get back into hockey after a hiatus with that (along with UMass football or b-ball whenever that's on)--once baseball ends, being able to turn on the TV or MLB.TV everyday is over. So now that baseball isn't everyday until March or April 2008, my blogging won't be as frequent.

But I can promise a few things will be written:

1. Anytime there's a Yankee or Red Sox transaction that's newsworthy (trade, free agent, Fake-Rod) I'll post my reaction to it.
2. If there's something newsworthy in baseball I find worth commenting on, I'll post.
3. I will give an assessment of the Yankees 2007, a player-by-player blow of 2007, and what we can expect from the team and key players in 2008.

I'm hoping, really hoping Doug comes back and posts and I would like us to do some sort of debate or Q&A each other on our teams.

So for now, check back every couple of weeks or if you see something big, check in. Also email us at rivalryredux@gmail.com, we're happy to take some questions (I will be getting to one long overdue from this summer).

Head Over Heart

The Yankees took care of business quickly and picked Joe Girardi
as their new manager. I was already sad to see Joe Torre go, but now it looks like Don Mattingly, who I thought to be the next Yankee manager, is going to go. Mattingly a fan favorite, and my favorite player of all time, certainly had expectations to be the heir after serving as bench coach for the past two years, but it looks like the Yankees made their decision with their heads and not their hearts. So now it will be sad to see Mattingly go and who knows if he'll ever wear the pinstripes again.




Looking at Girardi as the next manager is a solid move. The key points to picking him are as follows:

• Girardi knows the Yankees organization, its expectations, and how things are run from being a player from 1996-1999 and bench coach in 2005.


• Girardi has managerial experience as the Marlins manager in 2006 where he won NL Manager of the Year for putting a young, inexperienced, and low budget team on the field and doing much better than expected (they were in the playoff hunt if you remember).


• From his Florida experience, he knows how to work with young players which fits right into the who rebuilding strategy the Yankees have going.


• He has a strong reputation of being a no nonsense leader, strict but fair, wants to win, intelligent (he's a Northwestern grad), articulate, prepares well, pays attention to detail, and handles the media well.


• As a catcher he'll know how to work well with the Yankees young pitching staff, possibly use the run more, and be able to analyze other teams' pitchers as well.

Right now it's pure speculation how he'll fare as the manager in New York, we won't know until spring training starts. In the mean time, the Yankees have Rivera, Posada, and Abreu to think about as well as a hole a thirdbase, their starting rotation, bullpen--lots of decisions. But I think Girardi was the right way to start.

To My Red Sox Friends,

Congratulations, I thought the Red Sox deserved to win and the comeback against the Indians was amazing to watch. This new century has brought a new definition to what it means to be a Red Sox fan, player, Red Sox Nation--you name it. You can throw out the curse, however you look at it this is a new franchise that will continue to do well.

Someone rubbed it in that because I'm a Yankee fan, a Red Sox World Series win should hurt my team the most. The thing about a World Series win is that one team is the best out of 29 other teams. Twenty nine of us don't get to celebrate, just remember that, we all suffer, or whatever you want to call it.

I'll leave it to Doug to summarize, celebrate, whichever he chooses to to this win. He's been absent since August and he'd best able to talk Red Sox on here.

Fake-Rod

"You're asking me what my sincere feeling is. I want to 100 percent stay in New York. Period. That's it. I don't know how many ways I can say it."
-- Alex Rodriguez, on WFAN-AM's "Mike and the Mad Dog." 3/2007

"Either New York is going to kick me out of New York this year, say 'I've had enough of this guy, get him the hell out of here,' and we have an option. Or New York is going to say, 'Hey, we won a world championship, you had a big year, you were a part of it and we want you back.'"
-- Alex Rodriguez, in the same interview. 2/3007

My emotions have the best of me, but I'm officially going to start bashing A-Rod--or as I will now call him--Fake-Rod. As just announced during the World Series, Fake-Rod has opted out of his contract with the Yankees, which shouldn't be a huge surprise given his agent Scott Boras' greedy ways. But I'm a bit more upset at Fake-Rod because of what he said above, something he always said since putting on the pinstripes.

Now, let me be clear, I was never a fan of Fake-Rod, but I also never hated him. Sure he had the biggest multi-year contract ever, but that was the Rangers fault. As a Yankee fan, I gave him a chance but he never fully became a true Yankee because he always disappointed in the playoffs. With that aside though, he's the best player the Yankees have had since--well maybe Mantle.

I was going to write a post on this whole saga and what the Yankees should do, but it's clear now they won't negotiate a new contract. At least they better not. Even so, something I have never been comfortable with about Fake-Rod is that in NY, you never really knew what kind of player he was going to be. He suffered two sub-par years (2004 & 2006) relative to his entire career but also two-MVP season (2005 and yes, he'll win it this year). His fielding and move to 3B was never a solid decision and overall he had a love hate relationship with the fans.

Fake-Rod is still the best ballplayer in the game today, even at 31, but even the greatest players never win a championship. But all along, Fake-Rod talked the talk that he wanted to win one in NY, end his career as a Yankee, and win the fans over. Apparently his talk is worth shit.

All of this will be labeled, the "business of baseball", and the main excuse Boras gave (not Fake-Rod directly) is that basically he (Fake-Rod) didn't know what was going on with the Yankees in terms of a manager, ownership, and certain teammate. Though curiously Boras added, "He really didn't want to make any decisions until he knew what they were doing." So opting out isn't a decision at this juncture?

I'm sure more details will come out in the days to follow. If the Yankees are truly done with Fake-Rod, then only a handful of teams could pay him for whatever he wants, which will be yet again the biggest multi-year contract in baseball. Could he be a Red Sox next year? It would be amusing seeing how adamant Sox fans have been calling him A-Fraud, cursing him out, and seeing the teams payroll likely increase upwards of $200 million like that other team.

Anyway, I'm done with Fake-Rod and so is New York, good riddance!

Before the Meds Kick in

It looks like the Red Sox pulled it off and I wanted to quickly post here to congratulate them. I honestly did not think they were going to come back like this. But the Indians lost this one--a reversal of sorts, bad starting pitching and an offense that wasn't effective (which the Red Sox had earlier in the series).

So before my meds kick in to relieve pain and make me pass out, congrats to the Red Sox. This 2004 onward looks like a new era for you guys and I think that's a good thing considering your history before that. And the best team in the AL is going to the World Series.

I was on the phone with my aunt before the game, and my uncle--a lifelong Red Sox fan--said he wouldn't gloat. I've been around Red Sox fans my whole life and honestly I love them. They are the most passionate fans in baseball in my view and they make the Rivalry an awesome sporting event every year. So eventhough they beat the Indians, I can understand why they may gloat just a bit.

But it's onto CO for them against a hot Rockies team. I think this will be a good World Series.

Insulting

I don't really care what the Yankee higher ups say about Torre for turning down an opportunity to manage the Yankees again, from a logical and rational standpoint Torre made the right choice. What this offer came down to was a difference in what was fair. Unfortunately for Torre he got the raw end of the proposed deal because it was a business decision, nothing personal--though in the end it's become that.

So what was the different in fairness? From the Yankee higher up standpoint, despite the perceived changing of guards, the Steinbrenner Doctrine as Buster Onley calls it, is still in place. All that matters is the championship, winning it and as soon as it is won, another one is needed. Not winning the championship is failure and there no excuses because the Yankees can spend and trade away any year they want to reach such success.

Anyhow, the Yankees took a page out of the book of corporate America in offering Torre a deal. Imagine the Yankees as a private company and they hire Torre to manage the operations with the goal being to have the highest profit of all companies. At first he does this in the first four of five years, but since (seven years), although he's been close, he hasn't reined the most profit in. So he has a performance review and the options on a table are: 1) fire Torre, 2) bring back Torre for a few more years, or 3) bring back Torre but give him additional goals to meet with incentives. The additional goals make sense as a business decision because some have not been met in the past few years (winning ALDS, ALCS, World Series). Additionally, because of Torre's lack of performance he gets a paycut--he was getting paid too much for too little the last few years. But if Torre meets all the goals, in the new deal he'll make more than he ever has before and get another year to do it again.

So from a business sense Torre didn't perform, so he got a paycut and less years in a contract offer. But if he did perform well, he could make more money and save his job another season.

But like the corporate America today, the decision left out things like having made the playoffs every year for 12 years straight, winning all those World Series up to 2000, and this season turning it around and making the playoffs when it looked like they wouldn't make it at all. It left out the leadership Torre had displayed, the respect his players had for him, and the loyalty the fans had for him. All of that doesn't go into a business decision because you can't put numbers to it.

And that's why it wasn't fair to Torre. The humanistic element was left out of it. There was no loyalty, no input from the players, and it added more pressure for him and his team to perform next year. Even if Torre accepted, he could have been fired if the Yankees started off terribly. Either way you looked at it, he was on a tighter leash, on the hook, back against the wall, it's not how Joe Torre played the game. It wasn't about the money, it was going to be there--this is the Yankees afterall.

To me, that's not how you treat an employee, it is insulting, and I think the Yankees will regret this decision.

Postseason Notes

This is a smorgisborg of sorts (I know I spelled that wrong), but I have lots on my mind with the playoffs. I'll get to the first reaction I have regarding Joe Torre.

Torre Declines

I just read it--Torre is gone, turning down a one year contract with incentives to return as the Yankees manager. It amazes me how quickly it was settled and possibly how Torre seemed to have made up his mind. Was the deal an insult to Torre or did he not plan to come back anyway? There are a couple pros to this decision--one pro being at least an offer was made, which to the public and Yankees team shows that the Yankee decision makers were giving Joe one more chance. But maybe it was a bit half assed.

The other pro is that I believe the Yankees will have a new manager by Monday and I think it will be Don Mattingly. I don't know anyone that doesn't respect Don Mattingly for who he was as a player and I'm sure he'll have the same respect stepping in as a manager.

Whatever happens, it is happening quickly because the leadership issue for the Yankees can not be dragged out with the free agents looming.

Past Does Not Predict the Future

Tonight is game 5 of the ALCS and there are references already to the Red Sox being in this position before and coming back a la 2004 style. The media and everyone else for that matter seems to forget that was the first time that ever happened in baseball and chances are the Red Sox won't make the World Series. After game 1, the Indians adjusted their approach but in general the team has hit well with runners on as they did against the Yankees. This series proves once again that pitching makes it or breaks it for teams--the Red Sox pitching has a 6.75 ERA in the series and the bullpen has been blown up.

"Who Cares" Anyway?

Whoever writes Manny Ramirez's biography will have one hell of a time explaining who Manny is. Oh right, he's just being Manny. The last game Manny hit a HR, after Youkilous and Ortiz had just hit solo shots, and made himself a target for bean ball sometime in the future by celebrating more than he should have at that point in the game. He then went on to basically say, well if we lost the series who cares, we'll be back next year. Maybe this is his usual poor judgement but why does Manny care about that HR and not winning?

Will Boras make A-Rod a Fraud?

I want to do a separate post on A-Rod to assess whether the Yankees should sign him or not and I must do it soon since things are heating up. Boras met with his client the past few days to go over his options--or more specifically how much more money he could get for A-Rod. Trust me, Boras has some tricks up his sleeve. Not only will A-Rod get more money, Boras will likely add some new things to his contract that have never been seen before in baseball. Whomever signs him will give A-Rod a deal of at least 5 years and $30-$35 million/season. Some of that money will come from revenues generated by a regional sports channel or part-ownership of the team--just watch, this is what Boras' career has been about and this is his best client, so he will pull out all the stops.