Really Bob Raissman? Lets Take a Better Look...

So here's the article. More or less, my issue is that Raissman wants Girardi and Cashman to bite the bullet for this season's failures. And he waxes poetic about how Joe Torre could have fixed it all and seen us through to the post-season... and I'm not buying. Lets get started...

Monday night, with the Angels on their way to a 12-1 romp, Michael Kay decided it was safe to lower the boom. Gee, it only took him 144 games to - on Al Yankzeera - figure out the time was right to express disdain for this poorly constructed, underachieving team.

So wait... you mean, they waited until it's basically a mathematical impossibility to really criticize a team that, up until 2 or 3 weeks ago, still could have made the playoffs, and ultimately won the World Series? God forbid! Maybe their job isn't to be sensational and sell newspapers like say... your job. And "poorly constructed" how? Hughes and Kennedy pitched great last year and looked ready to make the jump. Chamberlain was a lock to give them great innings. Wang was a back-to-back 19 game winner. Melky had a nice year in CF in 2007. A-Rod, Jeter, Cano and Giambi were probably the best offensive infield in baseball. Abreu and Matsui can mash. And Posada was coming off a career year. Morgan Ensberg was on the bench, a former 30-homer guy... Betemit had "loads of potential." Damon was our 4th outfielder for crying out loud. Mussina was supposed to be our 5-starter! Who was more stacked than us?

That's why, as the Yankees play out the string, don't expect Kay, or any other Yankees mouthpiece, to mention the name Joe Torre and speculate about what his presence would have meant to this team.

Why is this about Joe Torre? The fucking Dodgers have a WORSE RECORD THAN THE YANKEES!! THEY'VE WON LESS GAMES!! You're telling me that if Joe Torre was the manager, the Yankees would be in the NL West this year? Not to mention that Joe Torre's Dodgers were a below .500 team until they hijacked Manny Ramirez and he batted .400 for a month in the middle of their lineup!!!!

What of Cashman's decision to put all his faith in two young pitchers, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy?

It backfired. We get it. There was no reason to think these kids would be so bad, and so hurt. They were both great in 2007 and looked ready to make the jump to being front-line starters, which they still may become. People have whined for 10 years about the Yankees free-spending ways... and when they go with homegrown kids instead of $20M Santana, you wanna bash them? Pick a side of the fence guys.

Here's the deal: Rewind to spring training. There was all this hype, coming out of YES and other media outlets, contrasting Girardi's style to that of Torre's.

No, Bob Raissman, here's the fucking deal. Everybody got hurt. Everybody. Lets look at who got hurt, and what that cost the Yankees based on 2007 production, or in the case of youngsters, reasonable 2008 projections.

2007
Chien-Ming Wang - 19 wins, 218 innings at a 124 ERA+ in 2007.
Phil Hughes - 10 wins, 150 innings at about a 120 ERA+ projected.
Ian Kennedy - 8 wins, 150 innings at about a 110 ERA+ projected.
Joba Chamberlain - 150 innings at about a 150 ERA+, 180 K's and about 10 wins projected.
Jorge Posada - .338/.426/.543 with 20 HR and 42 doubles in 506 ABs in 2007.
Hideki Matsui - .285/.367/.488 with 25 HR and 28 doubles in 547 ABs in 2007.

2008
Chien-Ming Wang - 8 wins, 95 innings. (Loss of 11 wins, 123 IP)
Phil Hughes - 0 wins, 22 innings (Loss of 10 wins, 128 IP)
Ian Kennedy - 0 wins, 40 innings (Loss of 8 wins, 110 IP)
Joba Chamberlain - 4 wins, 93 innings (Loss of 6 wins, 57 IP)
Jorge Posada - .268/.364/.411 with 3 HR and 13 doubles in 168 ABs (Loss of 338 ABs of OPS .969)
Hideki Matsui - .297/.375/.430 with 9 HR and 17 doubles in 330 ABs (Loss of 217 ABs of OPS .805)

So again, in summation, show me a team that can lose 418 innings of above-league-average pitching, about 35 wins, about 30 homers, 200 RBIs, 50 doubles and 500 at bats of OPS .800+ and still play even .500 baseball. I beg you to do this.

Yes, the Sox lost Ortiz for a while, and Schilling for the year. Beckett and Matsuzaka missed little stretches. Lowell went down for a little while. But their losses don't come CLOSE to what the Yankees have lost this year.

Mussina's overachieved like a mad man. We've gotten half-serviceable innings for Sidney Ponson, Darrell Rasner and Dan Giese. Xavier Nady's been a man on a mission since coming back to the Big Apple. And A-Rod's been his usual freak of nature. Those are the prime reasons that this isn't an 85-90 loss team with the guys that have gone down.

For the sake of comparison, imagine if the Mets lost Santana, Perez and Pelfrey for the year in May, then lost Maine for 2 months starting in July. And also lost Reyes and Delgado for half the year, and Wright for a month. Where would they be right now?

Or for the D-Rays, picture if Kazmir, Shields and Sonnanstine went down for the year in May, then Matt Garza lost 2 months... and then Pena, Navarro missed half the year, and Crawford missed a month.

Yes, I realize that Crawford, Percival and Longoria are out with injuries. By the time they went down, the Rays had what? A 6-game lead? Aside from Kazmir missing a few starts in April, they haven't had an injury in their rotation or bullpen all year. And aside from Baldelli's genetic condition, they've been VERY healthy.

It's a down year for the Yankees. Jeter struggled all year. Melky was terrible. A-Rod and Giambi have struggled with RSIP. There are aspects where people have underachieved... but the bottom line is... that as a whole, this team has overcome a TON just to be above .500. It's not a championship, but it should be a little bit of a moral victory.

And on the bright side, we'll have Mark Teixeira and C.C. Sabathia next year...

So our top 3 in the rotation should be Sabathia, Chamberlain and Wang. And we'll have A-Rod, Teixeira, Nady, Abreu, Matsui and Posada mashing in the lineup. The future is bright.

www.enough-vacations.com?

As you all know, Fafa's on vacation, which means that I'm in charge around here! I can say and do whatever I want! If I were so inclined, I could tackle politics or religion. I could enlighten you all about my personal views on gay marriage. Or I could explain my fool-proof argument for why Rudy Giuliani should be euthanized. But instead I think I'll just complain about crappy sports writing.

I think Mike Lupica might have gone on vacation too, because today's shitty Yankee-bashing Daily News article comes from the usually tolerable, Bill Madden! I don't hate you Bill, but you shit the bed on this one.

Well, I guess this is it and there's nothing left but to accept it: We have come to the end of the Phil Hughes-Ian Kennedy era.

Yeah, I mean... since they both suffered career-ending injuries over the weekend. I guess we can just kiss them goodbye. We'll always have September 2007 though. Wait a second... you mean neither one of them is dead? Or terribly harmed? Then what the fuck is Bill talking about?

Who could have possibly seen it coming? And yet, here we are, the first week of May, and the two whiz-kid starting pitchers, on whose sturdy right shoulders GM Brian Cashman had invested not just his reputation but the whole 2008 Yankee season, are both out of the rotation with no timetable for any return.

So wait... the Hughes-Kennedy era is over because of a bad April? Two first-rounders made a total of 9 bad starts, and one of them broke a rib... and we're done with those assholes forever? And the season is over? That's some really fucked up shit. I hope Bill's exaggerating.

The road from the Bronx to Columbus and Scranton over the years is littered with the broken spirits and dreams of young pitchers developed and hyped by the Yankees only to be abruptly discarded upon meeting failure at the big league level.

Wait, I know this song! I'll cut in with the chorus now!

I walk alone, I walk alone. I walk alone, I walk a--- MY SHADOW'S THE ONLY ONE WHO... Shit, I got carried away for a second. So we're not singing Green Day songs?

Who are these hyped, developed prospects who turned out to be busts? Over the years, we've brought up some minor leaguers. Matt DeSalvo, Tyler Clippard, Chase Wright, Christian Parker, Alex Graman, Jeff Karstens, and guys like that have been mostly bad. But none of them were heralded prospects, or guys we expected to develop into rotation mainstays. They were spot-starters and dudes we hoped could contribute a little.

An organization hyping Brandon Claussen in the hopes of dealing him at some point in the future for a quality player is one thing. Refusing to deal Hughes and Kennedy for the best pitcher in baseball is totally another thing. I think Bill Madden is asserting that the Yankees believed their own hype or something. The fact is that Hughes was the top-rated pitching prospect in baseball according to numerous non-New York-based sources. Everybody loved him. Most of those people STILL love him.

Of course, Cashman is not about to put Hughes and Kennedy, former No. 1 draft picks, in that category. (The category of busts)

Of course he's not. Because Hughes and Kennedy have made a total of NINE. BAD. STARTS. IN. FUCKING. APRIL.

As for Hughes and Kennedy, the much-hyped No. 1's, Hughes is said to be out at least until July with his stress fracture, while Kennedy probably will to have to string together at least four or five good starts in the minors - like Rasner did - before he gets the Yankees' attention again.

So Hughes is gone until he's healthy. Then he'll rehab and come back. And Kennedy's gone until he gets his shit together a little bit.

And that signifies the END of the Hughes/Kennedy ERA? It sounds like they're both going away for a short period of time, and then coming back again. So again I ask... are you exaggerating a little bit Bill?

Just to put the Hughes/Kennedy struggles into perspective, here are some game lines.

Mystery Player A
1) 8 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 2 K
2) 8 1/3 IP, 5 ER, 7H, 2 BB, 2 K
3) 6 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 5 BB, 8 K
4) 2 2/3 IP, 5 ER, 4 H, 6 BB, 4 K
5) 2 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, 6 BB, 2 K
6) 1 2/3 IP, 4 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 0 K

Oh my god! Mystery Player A started out good... and then regressed. And then lost his confidence and got scared to throw strikes! His career must surely have gone down the tubes from there!!! Who could he be?!

John Fucking Smoltz. That's who. At age 21, Smoltz went 2-7 with a 5.48 ERA and a 1.672 WHIP. He was dogshit, but he took his lumps and developed into a pretty good major league pitcher.

Mystery Player B
1) 7 IP, 3 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 9 K
2) 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 8 K
3) 8 IP, 0 ER, 6 H, 2 BB, 4 K
4) 7 IP, 0 ER, 8 H, 4 BB, 5 K
5) 2 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 K
6) 8 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 2 K

This guy is fucking awesome! Wow! I bet that's like Greg Maddux or Sandy Koufax's first 6 games! Wow! The guy didn't even give up a run in 4 of his first 6 outings!! Who could he be?

The answer is Zach Duke. He went 8-2 with a 1.81 ERA as a rook. Since then, he's 13-25 with A 4.82 ERA.

Six starts is a very small sample size. It proves absolutely nothing about how good or bad a baseball player is, or will be in the future.

Some of the best and most memorable pitchers in the history of baseball have started their careers poorly. And some of the worst/most forgettable guys have shot out to fast starts and faded away. Only time is going to tell how good Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlain will be.

Bill Madden exaggerated a lot in his article. He never admitted it. I'm sad for Bill.