Saturday, May 28, 2011

Groans, Facepalms and Everything that has Yankee fans Wondering "What the Hell?"

So first off, for any regular readers, I am not Nick. I am his girlfriend and he has asked me to write a piece here because I, as he is, am an enormous yankee fan.

One would be hard pressed to find a Yankee fan who hasn't, for a greater part of this season, been on the edge of their seat (and not in the positive "THESE GAMES ARE SO CLOSE BUT WILL PROBABLY END IN OUR FAVOR" kind of way.) Between sometimes shaky pitching from the back end of the lineup, barring Bartolo Colon, to offense who has seemingly forgotten that if you have a runner on third with less than 2 outs, just about any in play ball will bring in a run, Yankee fans are finding themselves scouring scouting reports of their own to see what our chances are to win a game or series. However, one may wonder who is at fault here; is it the management? the players? pitching? defense? offense? Why is it that with a team of heavy hitting, strong players are we having such issues? Here is my breakdown.

Offense:
This is an obvious problem; they're not hitting when they need to be. It seems that we can get all the hits in the world when we're winning 15-0 but if the game is close and we're not scoring via long ball, our offense stands at the plate and perverbially scratches their asses waiting for the pitcher whose on the mound to do something (also known as throwing a pitch they can hit). Unfortunately, when we're down or up by only a run or two, we can't see the ball or are focusing too much on "we can't lose again" and end up making rookie mistakes.

One huge culprit of this is Robby Cano. Robby is a fantastic player, don't get me wrong, but for whatever reason he cannot seem to get his swing together as of late. Although he carries one of the teams highest batting averages at .273, he keeps swinging at pitches out of the zone, using a long lazy swing that has developed into a lot of groundouts or high pop-ups or just not swinging at the type of pitches he can hit for contact. All batters slump and he certainly isn't the only one in the line up that is doing it right now, but for a guy who is considered to be our best hitter, he isn't showing his stuff right now and instead of being a difficult out at the plate, he has become the exact opposite in the last few games.

It is also difficult to build a solid offense when certain members of the line up are going several games without a hit. These members are Jorge Posada and Nick Swisher. I have been a huge Posada fan for the entire time I've liked the Yankees and I have come to really like Swisher. However, these are two holes in the batting order that are causing some serious problems. With Posada hitting only .178 and Swisher plummeting from .270 last season to .206 this season there are basically two guaranteed outs when they come to bat. This is obviously a problem. Although one would immediately think to either bench them for a while or move them down in the line up, that has proven to be more difficult than it seems. With Posada being a long time Yankee and already irked that he had to give up his position as catcher, moving to 9th in the line up was not something that thrilled him. Although after the "Posadagate" incident in May Posada admitted that he was not hitting the way he should be and that he wasn't contributing much to the team offensively (which is all he can do, because he's the DH!) he still said that he felt disrespected by the Yankees. With ego's like that at work, it is difficult to make any moves or changes. Swisher, on the other hand, has not spoken much about his slump other than to say that he is working with Kevin Long and hopes to improve soon.

Basically, we need a new line up order. The one that we have right now is coming to bite us in the ass. Although Derek Jeter is improving (and then not improving, and the improving again) he is no longer effective in the lead off spot. We should have someone like Gardner batting lead off, Granderson following, Teixeira, Cano, Roderiguez, Martin, Jeter, Swisher, Posada. With a line up like this we would have a better shot at producing runs early and keeping leads. Unforunately, the management is afraid of hurting the feelings of integral Yankee players such as Jeter and Posada. Although Jeter is certainly far from useless, he is no longer (as I said before) effective where he is and until/when/if he improves he should be moved to a part of the line up that reflects his offensive contribution, not his time vested in the team. As far as Posada goes, he needs to take an enormous chill-pill and realize that if he wants to benefit the team he loves so much, he needs to take one for the team and bat 9th. Changes can always be made as players stats change, but for right now, a line up change would help incredibly. Other teams have had no problems moving strong players to lower batting slots in they weren't performing well. For example (and as much as it pains me to say it), Francona and the Red Sox had no problem moving Carl Crawford from the 3rd slot to the bottom of the order when he wasn't performing as he should. Again, I hate to say it, but that is good management. Although loyalty to players is something of a Yankee tradition, Joe Girardi needs to pull his head out of his ass and instead of babying the bullpen and starting pitchers do something about his fledgling offense.

Furthermore, the offense needs to learn the power of contact hitting. Although home runs are great, and they are certainly not a cheap way of scoring runs but they are not the ONLY way. Everyone wants to be the hero so when we have runners in scoring position, instead of taking the sacrifice (in a tight game just to tie the score or gain insurance runs) or trying to just loop the ball into the outfield, everyone starts swinging for the fences. In the process, they miss pitches, get out and we strand our runners. Working on manufacturing runs and playing small-ball will increase our chances of winning more games and make us a more solid team.

That brings me to our next problem, Management:
I do not like Joe Girardi. I feel I need to clear this up now, because I don't think I have many nice things to say about him.
A manager should listen to his players, which Girardi does so I give him that, but he is also supposed to make tactical decisions about problems that players may be biased on. That is what a manager does and that's what they're paying him for. Instead, he over or undermanages different aspects of the team to the point where they become ineffective. Although he does well with the bullpen and makes sure that they stay fresh and ready, he needs to understand what to do with a starting pitcher. Someone like CC Sabathia is easy to manage; he's a workhorse and rarely falters beyond his ability to fix so there aren't too many problems there. Unfortunately, not every pitcher is CC Sabathia. Guys like AJ Burnett are more difficult. Last season I was ready to overthrow the Yankee higher-ups and fire him myself because he was useless, but despite everything, Burnett has come back this season as a reliable pitcher. However, someone needs to deliver the message to Girardi that when he starts to lose the plate in the 6th inning and he has an upwards of 80-90 pitches, he rarely comes back from it without letting a run or two go. It's not entirely his fault, he's not 25 anymore and when he gets tired, as with any pitcher, he gets sloppy. Even though this has been shown time after time, Girardi chooses to rest on his laurels and wait for the score to be tied or give the other team he go-ahead-run before he makes the call to the bullpen. I don't know if he is just trying to give the bullpen time to warm or if he is waiting to see if Burnett will discover the plate again but he waits way too long (not just with Burnett, but with just about every starting pitcher) and it costs the team runs and games. Furthermore, he also has the opposite problem which consists of taking a starter out too early when they're dealing. For example, on April 24, Freddy Garcia was pitching against the Orioles and he was dealing. Of course, Girardi decides to take him out a little early. You could even seen Garcia saying that he was fine and wanted to go back out, but Girardi insisted. The bullpen came in and ended up blowing the lead and tying the game forcing it into extra innings. Although we won, it is possible that if Garcia had come back out it wouldn't have gone on that long. This is an example of his over/undermanaging style. He either makes too many or too few moves and it can render the team in a losing position.

To remedy this situation, Girardi really just needs to pay more attention and take his head out of his special little binder and watch the damned game. He seems to misread signs from the pitchers and overall just waits way too long to make a move when needed and sometimes moves to early when things are "too good to be true". Maybe he should take a him from himself and listen to his pitchers, if they say their tired than it may be time to do something, but if a guy is showing no signs of slowing down and says he can pitch, give him a shot. You can always bring someone in from the bullpen if they prove to be unable to make the outs. Or, there is another option (my personal favorite), fire Girardi's ass and employ Billy Martin's corpse to do the managing.

Finally, we have magically adapted a problem with our defense:
One thing you could always say about the Yankees was that they were solid defensvively, until recently. For some unknown reason (therefore I'm calling in laziness) we have adopted errors, and lots of them.
Robby Cano (sorry to pick on him again, but it's true), a former gold glove second basemen is losing track of the ball and making more errors through this part of this season (5) than he had all of last season (3). He wasn't always a great fielder, but you expect when someone makes advances that they will stick with them instead of regressing.
That coupled with some sloppy infield playing at times is causing some problems for us defensively. Hopefully this is just a phase and they'll come out of it.

This is just a matter of better communication among the infield. They need to decide where to play, how shallow/deep and they need to pay better attention to their signs. Also, our gold glove, silver slugger second basemen needs to wake the fuck up and smell the baseball. It's time to stop playing lazy like you're in little league and play to your full extent. We have the talent and potential to overtake and pull away in the AL East, but if we keep doing nothing with RISP, experiencing shit management and dealing with a sloppy defense, we'll be waiting and watching come post season.

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