YOUTH & NAIL
YOUNG YANKS WILL STRUGGLE TO MAKE PLAYOFFS
This isn't necessarily George King III's fault, but there's like forty different ways to read that sub-headline. "Because of their young players, the Yankees will fail to make the playoffs." "The youth of the Yankees will help them during their tough times this sesaon, and, despite struggling, they will make the playoffs." "The younger members of the Yankees will struggle to make the playoffs, while the older members will make it easily."
Okay, fine. Three ways.
They have the same first name, but after that Torre and Girardi are very different.
It really is hard to think of two more different men than Joes Girardi and Torre -- two Italian-American former major league catchers (each at one point for the St. Louis Cardinals) who have each been named Manager of the Year and Manager of the New York Yankees.
Torre let the players police themselves; Girardi is a stickler for detail and will run a tighter ship. How that plays with the veterans will be interesting to see throughout camp.
I guess that will be kind of interesting. Mostly to me, it will be interesting to see how much of the Yankees' success / failure / averageness is absurdly blamed on / credited to / assigned to Joe Girardi, and the way he gets along with the veterans (weren't we going to talk about the younger Yankees?), when it is way more likely to do with, say, pitching.
The organized Girardi can manage, and the Yankees New York Yankees were fortunate he was available. However, he has one year of experience. And his coaching staff is dotted with neophytes.
Surely his inexperience (second year overall, first with the Yanks!) will only hurt the team. One need only look at the list of recent WS winners, and it's easy to see that you simply must have decades of experience both with the league and your team, to win it all:
2007: Terry Francona (4th year with team, 8th overall)
2006: Tony LaRussa (fine -- 100 years with team, 340 overall)
2005: Ozzie Guillen (2nd year with team, 2nd overall)
2004: Terry Francona (1st year with team, 5th overall)
2003: Jack McKeon (1st year with team, 13th overall)
2002: Mike Scioscia (3rd year with team, 3rd overall)
2001: Bob Brenly (1st year with team, 1st overall)
Can Alex Rodriguez, coming off an MVP campaign, and Robinson Cano, the ink fresh on his first big contract, sustain last year's production?
Rodriguez won't hit .314, club 54 homers and drive in 156 runs.
Okay. He might. He certainly might hit higher than .314, not that it really matters that much.
That doesn't mean he won't have a solid year.
Very true. So what's the problem again?
The Yankees made two mistakes with Cano. They didn't retain third base coach Larry Bowa, who rode Cano hard every day last season before following Torre to LA this offseason. Then they gave Cano, not a hard worker, a multi-year deal.
Because he's good. They gave him a multi-year deal because, ultimately, it doesn't matter how hard he works, as long as he plays baseball well.
And so now, I'm supposed to believe, the onus for Cano performing well in his first big contract year falls on...Girardi? Wait -- actually, now I'm not sure what I'm supposed to believe. A-Rod? Probably A-Rod. Everything is that guy's fault.
Unless Cano does well. Then we can all agree that Jeter did it.
There was nothing wrong with Andy Phillips and Doug Mientkiewicz, but the Yankees got rid of them. Instead, they are looking at Duncan, Wilson Betemit, Jason Lane and Morgan Ensberg. How long before Rodriguez complains about not having a glove guy saving him errors?
I love how the bar just keeps getting higher when it comes to creative ways of calling Alex Rodriguez a shitty guy.
He committed plenty of errors last year. I don't once remember him blaming anyone other than himself. Has he ever thrown a teammate under the bus? Why are we suddenly anticipating some sort of inevitable locker room blamefest where A-Rod starts whining about Jason Lane's glove?
Because he went to therapy and kind of liked it?
I don't get it. This kind of A-Rod bashing is Lame Fucking City, USA. In the words of the incomparable Sagat: "Funk dat."
Labels: a-rod, george king iii, joe girardi, joe torre, robinson cano, sagat, yankees
