SU has figured out the Yankees’ strategy. It’s becoming clearer to me:
- They will humiliate him for the rest of this season along the lines of what they did to Jorge Posada in his last season. Bat him 8th or 9th, sit him in games you would figure he would start, piss him off. Then, after the season is over, they will negotiate a buyout for A-Rod’s last year of his contract and that will be that.
- This will be a long and tortured road and A-Rod will do his best to be the good soldier. The media will be all over it as we know they relish the chance to bring someone down even more than building them up in sports.
- The other alternative is that they accelerate this plan and negotiate the buyout mid-season this year.
SU believes he still has something left in the tank and surely more than the other slugs on this roster. Plus, I would rather watch him swing and miss vs. seeing Mark Texeiria hit into the shift over and over and over again.
Time will tell.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I would rather see them obtain a new General Manager by buying out Cashman. To spend $200m + and look this pathetic offensively is absolutely unacceptable. Who do we have besides our Big Three Relievers whom we can build our team around? Who knows if after surgery that Bird is the next coming of the Messiah. Who do we have down in the minors that are really turning heads? It seems like Castro is our best hitter or maybe old man Beltran. This is an embarrassment which certainly George would never accepted. Who is our team leader? On top of all of this it doesn’t seem like impact players are dying to come to NY. The bottom line here is that now Cashman is exposed because he has more competition dollar-wise from other teams. Anyone can look like a genius if you are spending $50- $100m more than your nearest competitor. Besides are 3 headed monster relieving corp can anyone else come remotely close to being placed on an All Sta ballot?
The answer to all this is when Trump loses the election in November he should buy the Yankees and turn thing around immediately.
PS Would it surprise anyone if Girardi flies the coop after this season. The only two people whose timing was perfect on when to leave were Mo and Jeter. I actually think we might be overachieving if we reach 500 this season.
Andy, I don’t think Girardi is going to fly anywhere. But he may be nudged out if they don’t respond to him. It’s never the manager’s fault to a large degree but as we all know, teams do tune out voices at some point and Girardi may be nearing that. Even Joe Torre was fired after making the playoffs. Girardi is actually getting good starting pitching now but needs to have a longer leash in the 7th inning. Too many quick hooks of late. I agree with you that Cashman needs to be held accountable. I will start to gather my quarters and change to see if there is enough to buy the Yankees. Let me get back to you on that.
I never do this, for fear of sounding like one of the idiot callers on WFAN, but I have a trade proposal that is not a blockbuster but I think is worth a shot to shake up both teams and makes sense salary-wise…how about Granderson for Gardner? Shake up both teams, change of scenery, both teams struggling offensively, why not? Your thoughts?
Asa Met fan- NOT interested!
Mark, Gardner is a lot younger than Granderson but I believe they each have 2 years remaining on their contracts but not positive. I don’t think the Yankees would do it. They probably feel like they got the best of Granderson – he had some big homerun years for the Yankees and is likely on the downside of his career. Gardner is still in his prime although he is just incredibly streaky – either red hot or ice cold. Plus the Yankees need to get more right handed -I don’t see them doing that. I do think they would entertain trading Gardner though but Cashman just wants to get younger in any deal at this point.
I don’t know about the A Rod theory. They supposedly went through this once before and his performance last year turned around. So what new information has them wanting to flip back the other way? That he’s not worth $20 million/year? That’s not news. That he won’t be breaking the records they expected? That’s not news. That he hasn’t performed in the past week since coming off the DL? That is news but you can’t run a team based on that kind of sample size.
I could see Girardi getting fired, not because he’s a bad manager, but because this is the type of team performance that gets managers fired.
Cashman too. Although he can’t be blamed that much The team is right now paying the price for the 2009 World Series. That was after the time that baseball financial landscape began to change and they needed to overpay a bunch of players (Sabbathia, Burnett, Texiera, A Rod) in order to build that team. Then they doubled down when they overpaid McCann and Ellsbury in response to fan pressure when they let Cano go. The fact is that even after 2009, they have averaged over 90 wins a year. There are not many teams that have done that. People talk about rebuilding but that means a couple years of bad teams. People talk about getting younger and shrinking payroll but that means inconsistent performance. There really aren’t any teams over the past decade that are playoff competitive every year. Well maybe the Cardinals. And the Yankees (until maybe now). What he’s been doing is hard. You can say that he should be able to do it with a $200 million payroll but with overpriced stars and long term deals it’s hard to keep that up. He’s stuck with an expensive roster that doesn’t look very good. But taking a different approach would have meant no championship in 2009 and infrequent post-season appearances.
I’ve been a long time fan and can deal with a losing team. Even many years of it. Part of being a fan is finding the positives when there are few to be found. Cashman has made some deals I don’t approve of (Ellsbury, Beltran, A Rod) but I can handle that. The people killing the Yankees are the ones behind the stadium with outrageous prices, empty seats and a soul-sucking atmosphere.
Also, before replacing the manager or GM, the Yankees should replace the matte helmets. They look awful and uniform modifications should be left to lesser teams.
I think this topic has been eating away at Seth judging by the length of his post(s). Thanks SU for letting him get it out before he exploded.