A Month of Fundays

A New York Yankees, Giants, Knicks, Rangers and other stuff blog.


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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Unreal

1 and 5 to finish interleague. The Yanks should probably fire Torre, but they won't (and leadership is an issue here), so they need to get a bat and call up Ramirez and Britton. We can't give up on this season or the farm system. Go Cash, Go Yanks.

38 Comments:

At 5:35 PM, Blogger Michael said...

I hope George does not get impatient..

 
At 5:36 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

Can't trade the hot prospects.

 
At 5:49 PM, Blogger Michael said...

They cannot be short sided here. Continue with the plan as is. I do expect trade efforts to be ramped up this week perhaps, but we need to be prudent.

 
At 5:50 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

Yeah, they can't do anything crazy to the farm.

 
At 5:52 PM, Blogger Michael said...

No need to overpay for Tex or Dunn. Let the market come to us. Minor note I posted in the NYR thread I heard that Lang for 1 yr is possible if as expected Nylander walks.

 
At 5:53 PM, Blogger Michael said...

Time to redo the pen. Myers is first on my list out of here.

 
At 6:32 PM, Blogger Laser Cat said...

The Yankees' immediate future is all about getting to 2009 without trading the wrong people.

 
At 6:33 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

yup,they have to ride high into the new stadium.

 
At 7:07 PM, Blogger Rich said...

There is a need to trade top prospects if Cashman's job is on the line if they don't make the playoffs.

 
At 7:35 PM, Blogger Michael said...

Immediate future starts with extending A-Rod.

 
At 8:12 PM, Blogger Rich said...

The A-Rod issue won't be addressed until after the season.

There are at least two critical issues that have to be addressed before then.

 
At 8:25 PM, Blogger Laser Cat said...

There is a need to trade top prospects if Cashman's job is on the line if they don't make the playoffs.

I'm not so sure. Who's in line to replace him? Nobody ever talks about that. . .

 
At 8:27 PM, Blogger Laser Cat said...

"Immediate future starts with extending A-Rod."

That's true. That and not trading the young rotation/pen before it has a chance to shine. And that will take a couple of years.

 
At 8:33 PM, Blogger Rich said...

I have no idea, but unless it's Stick, I doubt that it would be someone that most of us would have confidence in.

It's also hard to predict because we don't know what George's level of involvement is in the decision making process at this point.

That could work in Cashman's favor, as it did in Torre's after the ALDS loss to Detroit, but I think it's reasonable to think that Cashman's job would be in jeopardy if they don't make the playoffs.

To that end, the only true untouchables, imo, are Hughes and Joba. I don't want to trade Tabata, but I would consider it for young star in his 20s, like Texeira.

 
At 8:47 PM, Blogger Laser Cat said...

Rich-

I find it hard to credit Cashman with much more than not making bad prospect trades. And I'm not sure that any organization trades a Hughes or a Chamberlain, or even a Tabata at this point.

You can call the results of most of the rest of what he's done bad luck, and you might be right, but I'm not worried about the next guy making worse personnel decisions.

 
At 9:09 PM, Blogger Rich said...

lc,

I have been one of the few people that have been critical of Cashman. For example, I have pointed out at another site that he has said that the "mission statement" of this team is to win the WS every year, yet he failed to get any immediate help (other than Vizcaino) from either the RJ or Sheff trades, even though the roster had some obvious holes.

Many of his acquisitions of starting pitchers have also failed (Weaver, Brown, Vazquez, Pavano), however, he has only had full decision making authority since Oct. 2005. If he had had that power in the preceding years, he has said that he would have signed Beltran instead of trading for RJ, and he would have signed Vlad instead of Sheff. Those two moves would have compensated to some degree for his poor decisions.

Also, under Cash's tenure, Damon Oppenheimer has been free to implement his strategy of drafting players with signability issues, which has helped to transform their farm system into one of the best in MLB, even with the injuries to Sanches, Garcia, Melancon, and Cox.

So I agree that the totality of Cashman's body of work has been mixed, but we do know that he understands that the farm system is the lifeblood of any organization, irrespective of payroll, so it's not unreasonable to believe that the good outweighs the bad, especially considering that it's possible that he would be replaced by an Emslie/Connors type who may in fact be willing to trade Hughes or Joba.

If, however, you told me that Terry Ryan would succeed him, I would be fine with that, but I think it's highly unlikely.

Consequently, I think it would make sense to trade some minor league assets to save his job (i.e., make the playoffs).

Firing Torre would be a lot more efficient, but it doesn't seem like that is an option.

 
At 9:36 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

There is no need to trade top prospects when you are as rich as the Yanks are - ever.

 
At 10:30 PM, Blogger Rich said...

I think that depends on what you define as a top prospect.

It can be argued that C.J. Henry was a top prospect. Baseball American had him ranked 4th in 2006, and he was traded.

The Yankees have not been on the brink of disaster (defined as a real danger of not making the playoffs) this late in the season since the run started.

Their roster has not had this many holes during that period either.

I don't think it can be denied that a major piece, like Texeira, would cost a significant prospect.

I'm not sure that a fungible addition would be sufficient to fill the holes on the team, especially since: 1) Torre doesn't play their best players; and 2) the best players available in the system aren't even on the major league roster.

 
At 10:33 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

They were in danger of not making the playoffs at this time last year, and I seem to recall the year before.

And I wouldn't trade Tabata for Teixiera. Tabata's come along once in a great while. He is raking at high A at 18. Worse comes to worse, Tex will be a free agent in 18 months and we can get him then. You don't trade a Tabata for 18 extra months of Tex.

 
At 10:48 PM, Blogger Rich said...

They were 2.5 games out of first on this date last year.

2005 is a closer comparison, but their poor play occurred much earlier in the season and they had both Cano and Wang to promote. This season they had Hughes, who got hurt, but that only makes the obstacles tougher to overcome.

Given the realities that exist under George, I would trade anyone but Hughes or Joba for a 27 year old hitter with .900 career OPS.

As I said, if I knew that if Cash was fired, he would be replaced by a high caliber GM, I would be willing to risk not making the playoffs, but I'm not confident about that happening.

 
At 10:51 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

makes no sense to me. Adam Dunn is a 27 year old .900 OPS guy who can be had for less than Tabata. Oh, and he's healthy and Tex isn't. I'd trade Clippard, Gardner, Marquez, and various other guys this year, but not Hughes, Joba, Tabata or Betances. They are too rare.

 
At 11:02 PM, Blogger Rich said...

Except Dunn can't necessarily play a position, while Texeira can play 1B very well.

If Dunn can be had a reasonable price, do it.

According to what was posted on this blog, however, the price isn't reasonable right now.

Time isn't on the Yankees' side as of today.

It's not like I want to trade any prospects with high ceilings, but I don't want one of George's sycophantic cronies to succeed Cashman, and I don't think we can discount that possibility at a time when George may be vulnerable to undue influence.

 
At 11:05 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 11:24 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

I bet you Dunn, the all state QB is a better athlete than Tex and if he had been playing first as often as he should have been during his career he'd be a damn fine one now. First base is very easy to play and we could get by with him there right away, and he no doubt would improve, cause he is a great athlete.

 
At 11:34 PM, Blogger Rich said...

That is the least of the points that I am arguing so I will readily accept it to in order get to the larger one (and note that we are talking about JFR who thinks that Cairo is an acceptable 1B option because of his defense):

The Yankees are in trouble, and short of firing Torre or at least taking control of the roster composition, which Cashman has shown a disappointing reluctance to do, bold moves are needed in a short timeframe, and that reality is going to be potentially costly to confront, no matter which major player they target.

 
At 11:37 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

They don't have to be bold, they have to be smart. Those are not always the same thing. I think Cash can keep his job, keep the key prospect and still add the pieces we need to make the playoffs.

 
At 11:46 PM, Blogger Rich said...

Trading for Dunn given the cost (as posted here) would be bold.

A lot of things may or may not happen, but given George's earlier pronouncement to the effect that Cashman wanted the power and now that he has it he will be held accountable, it's not unreasonable to think that his job is on the line.

It's indisputable that the Yankees, having already dug one hole to start the season only to almost climb out and dig yet another hole, are in a precarious situation.

To this point, Cashman has provided Torre with a set of options, and while Torre has chosen the least of those options, Cashman has done nothing to take charge.

If he doesn't act soon, this year won't be worth discussing much longer.

 
At 11:52 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

No, it would be SMART. Dunn is undervalued because he strikes out a lot (though he GIDP's in single digits) and because people have inflated the value of defense through evolving metrics. In the AL you can put your defensive problems at first, DH or even LF (Frank Howard played LF!) Offense and pitching are still your two big tickets for scoring runs or preventing runs to be scored. Dunn is a lot of offense, and right now he's a much cheaper target than Tex who gives you lots of D where it's needed least and who may be a health risk.

And as long as the farm is blooming we'll have plenty to discuss about the Yanks. btw, Grote says he's signed.

 
At 12:08 AM, Blogger Rich said...

As I said, I'm fine with getting the Dunn done.

The problem is that the Reds have reportedly asked both the Angels and Yankees for packages that should yield a contractually locked up Santana.

When and if Cashman trades for Dunn at a much lower price, I will give him props.

Until then, I remain skeptical that it's possible, in part because it's no secret that Yankees are desperate for help, in stark contrast to last year's situation when they pursued Abreu.

 
At 12:11 AM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

Of course you don't give the Reds what they want, you give them what you want and they can accept. We got Abreu on the cheap and we can do the same with Dunn, hopefully over a shorter time frame.

Rich, when the Yanks pursued Abreu last year, they were down Sheffield and Matsui.

 
At 3:06 AM, Blogger Michael said...

Going with your stadium thought yes the future starts with A-Rod. Today's issues are the pen and 1b.

 
At 10:42 AM, Blogger Rich said...

But they were winning anyway, Phil.

When they traded for Abreu on July 30th, they were a half of game out of first place.

That grants additional leverage.

 
At 3:02 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

Dan will be by in awhile with another update.

 
At 3:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

First thing is First...I am no Eklund or Gloveone so if something doesnt happen please dont be calling for my head

For Updates:

Rangers- Barring something, Gomez has told the Rangers he will sign when Free Agency Starts...Rangers also want either Briere or Drury(1 of 2 or both if Gomez doesnt sign)

Knicks- I hear now Knicks might trade 23 pick and someone for either NeNe or Camby

Spankees- Dunn is being talked still but nothing is gonna happen soon the source said, the interesting thing he said was its so quiet talk wise like when A-Rod was traded here so he is saying dont be suprised if boom something happened out of nowhere


Also Very Sad News- Chris Beniot(WWE Wrestler) and his Family(Wife,Son) found dead

 
At 3:56 PM, Blogger Kalel9 said...

All Quiet On the Yankee Front. A little too quiet.

 
At 5:04 PM, Blogger Rich said...

I appreciate your info, Dan.

There is a huge difference between Camby and Nene.

I would love to have Camby back. I have never been particularly high on Nene.

 
At 5:49 PM, Blogger Michael said...

I agree with you Rich, Camby would be a nice complimentary piece to Curry.

 
At 6:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

well knicks want camby...nuggets want to give up nene and for camby nuggets are asking for "high stuff"

 

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