Brian Cashman has wasted little time as he starts to tinker with the Yankees roster. If I were him, I would focus on the following:
- The 2015 team was historically boring. Really. The Stadium was dead, the team was dead and the ratings were way down.
- The Chase Headley signing was a big mistake. The Ellsbury signing was a bigger mistake. Headley can be moved. Surely there is some GM that admires Cashman and thinks there was some gold in Headley based on his one big season when he clearly spent extra time in the weight room to hit 30 homeruns. But Ellsbury is going to be a Yankee for life. He will show some flashes of greatness during his hot streaks which will be followed by the freak injury and then the long ramp-up period to get back to some level of normalcy. 110 games a year, .280 batting average and low power numbers. Not bad for $22 million a year.
- SU liked John Ryan Murphy. They needed a right-handed bat and he had some pop. McCann is the kind of player that will wear down over time now and he was running on fumes in September. But some say this guy Hicks from Minnesota can hit and is starting to figure things out. SU likes to root for the youngsters and is ok with this move. Plus, we can now find out if Gary Sanchez, their top catching prospect who has maturity issues, is the real deal. SU says worth the risk – good move and let’s see.
- Is Brett Gardner the next to go? SU has never been a huge fan although he is a gritty player, shows up every day and gives his all. Another guy who runs hot and cold. If you can use him to get a younger pitcher, probably worth exploring the trade market.
- The Yankees have 2 more years of CC and A-Rod (or is it 17 for A-Rod?) and Tex is finally down to his last year. SU will be very upset if Greg Byrd starts the year in the minor leagues. But that may very well happen.
Bottom line: we are probably 1 year away from a major revamp of the roster. Look for more zzzzzz in the Bronx in 2016.
SU was pumped by Jeremy Lin’s performance last night. He played the last quarter and a half of the game (what a concept! Go with the hot hand instead of conforming to the typical player rotations. Coaching creativity!) and played great at both ends of the court. It’s why Charlotte is SU’s team for 2015-16. Of course, I was rooting hard for Porzingis and he was oh, so close on that last shot. By the way, that was a very quick NBA officiating replay over-rule. That was not obvious at all and to me, it was too hard to over-rule. But the refs had given the Knicks a break the night before and there was no way they were going to double-down.
SU anti-moral compass Stephen A. Smith (right up there with the New York Times’ William Rhoden) went on a rant the other day that the Knicks should absolutely not trade Carmelo. This reinforces my thinking that they should do it. Tell the truth: wouldn’t it be so much more fun to see them featuring Porzingis down the stretch of a close game (and paging Derek Fisher: can you please put him on the court?) than watching Melo do his jab stab thing? If you are going to be a .500 team at best, play the youngsters and showcase something new.
Jets – Bills tonight. The NFL should do away with Thursday night football. The teams are ill-prepared to play these games – especially on defense. We don’t need NFL games 7 days a week. Time to reset on that.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
The media was responsible for the Knicks signing Carmelo Anthony so little surprise that they’re getting involved again. I’d be happy to see him traded but doubt any team would do it. As always, he should be able to score but I just don’t see him making any team better. I don’t mind them feature him with plays late in the game. But isolation plays are not really plays at all. They should get him the ball but through movement. Somebody needs to get in his ear and explain how by moving he will actually be working less hard for his shots.
I liked Murphy too but I guess that catcher is one position where they have minor league depth. Can’t comment on Hicks until I get to see him every day. I guess the plan is to move an outfielder but with Gardner, Ellsbury and Beltran there will be plenty of injury opportunities for the 4th outfielder.
Thursday night football should absolutely not happen and it will stop exactly when the league stops making a fortune on it (possibly earlier if the union decides to make a big complaint about it). Not only are the teams less prepared and more injury-prone but the Sunday afternoon product is getting diluted.
Seth, the sad reality is that a 4th outfielder for the Yankees is almost an every day player given how brittle these guys are. I know people say every NBA team needs a go to guy to take the big shots down the stretch but aren’t you a better team if you have more than one player who can take that shot?
Cashman needs to stay away from the big, long-term contracts. I know he will pursue David Price big time but he has always been pretty healthy and you wonder if he is due for Tommy John? I read last night that the Yankees were looking at the Orioles left-handed starter who is a free agent – Chen. But he’s 31. So little for Yankee fans to be excited about these days.
Jeremy Lin- nice hair!
Hey, it makes him look taller on the court. He is fun to watch as he tries to be creative and drive the ball to the hoop. He should be playing more minutes for Charlotte. The reality is that the NBA can’t handle an Asian-American guard playing big minutes. He is not the fasted guy on defense but no-one can effectively cover the best point guards. Plus he’s tall enough to play the 2-guard as well. The Lakers were a bad fit – hey, anyone playing with Kobe is a bad fit. But Charlotte is young and they have a good coach. And Michael Jordan likes him for the moment.
Dear Sports Update Editors: Do you the GMs are getting smarter and there is, or will be, a trend toward not signing long-term contracts with 31 year old star baseball players.
I will answer on behalf of the SU Editorial Staff. Always hard to get them all in a room at the same time. Clearly, sabremetrics is the rage in baseball. GMs and even managers like to look at statistics to determine line ups, match ups, etc. You would have to figure that signing free agents also falls in this bailiwick. While we don’t have the figures to back this up, I think most long-term deals for pitchers who generally become free agents in their early 30s end badly. You will get 2-3 good years out of them and then suffer through 2-3 bad ones. I cannot think of any of these deals that ended remotely well. Look at CC Sabathia – perfect example. Justin Verlander – trending that way now. It’s a long list. If I was a GM, I would overpay for a 3-4 year deal and never agree to an opt-out clause. This will only change if the GMs get together and do it. But there is always an outlier – same for the owners. It’s less risky with position players. But they too get old quickly and you end up rolling them out there with a .220 batting average for years.
Jose Reyes in major trouble-will be interesting to see MLB stance
Since Reyes is on the downside of his career, he is going to get the hammer here. If Ray Rice got 4 games (a quarter of the season), I suspect Reyes could get 40 – 50 games off.
The Carmelo trade theory would hinge on some team close to contention that believes he would be the missing piece to put them in title contention. I’m not sure who holds that viewpoint though. A trade would have to either be initiated by Melo or positioned as being done as a favor to help him get a ring to be politically acceptable to all parties.
I’d be a big fan of trading him for assets since the Knicks are at best a 7 or 8 seed in the East and can probably achieve that without him. A dynamic ball handler is really what they need over a ball stopping PF though Melo at least shows more of an inclination to pass this year. Too bad Chris Paul seems content with the Clippers. It’s been decades since anyone was content with the Clippers, so go figure.