New York Yankees

From the early moments of what ended up as the longest All Star Game in baseball history, it appeared that a member of the New York Yankees would play the hero in the festivities at Yankee Stadium Tuesday night. As it turned out, the hero would end up a member of the Boston Red Sox—J.D. Drew won the Most Valuable Player award in the American League’s 4-3, 15 inning victory.

From the start, most of the hype surrounding the game has been about the venue, rather than individuals or even team rivalries. But at every point, the Yankees were the story. During pregame introductions, Yankees were cheered, of course, Red Sox were booed, and everyone else received largely indifferent responses.  read more »

With Chien-Ming Wang on the shelf until at least September with a torn tendon in his foot, the Yankees are scrambling to replace one of the few givens in their 2008 rotation. The Wang Replacement Derby is wide-open—expect plenty of quick hooks and Plan B's until New York settles on a pitcher—or trades for Cleveland’s soon-to-be free agent ace, C. C. Sabathia. Here is a guide to the likely participants, in predicted order of usage:

Dan Giese

If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then Giese has the inside track on the position, having taken Wang’s spot the first time through the rotation Saturday against Cincinnati.  read more »

Joba Chamberlain’s adjustment to the role of starting pitcher in the major leagues, taking place under the most intense of media glares and in mid-season, has not been noteworthy for the fits and starts along the way. Rather, what is striking is how few of them he has encountered.

Following an 89-pitch outing with a maximum allowance of 95 pitches against the Houston Astros Friday, which equaled six strong innings in a 2-1 New York victory, Chamberlain is now a member of the Yankee rotation without restriction. He has posted a 2.84 ERA in his first three starts. As he displayed in his most recent start, his rawness can provide some revelatory moments—both of the fact that he has been facing major league hitters for less than a year, and that despite that fact, those hitters have a great deal of trouble with even his mistake pitches.  read more »

While the hysteria over Joba Chamberlain continues in the Bronx, Austin Jackson, a 21-year-old outfielder with New York’s AA affiliate in Trenton, calmly prepares to be the next big thing. And Jackson knows exactly who to talk to about that process.

“Reggie Jackson comes and visits us every spring,” said Jackson, as he dressed in front of his locker prior to Tuesday night’s game against the Connecticut Defenders. “The past two years, we got to sit down and talk. That’s huge from a friend standpoint. Sometimes he would be struggling, but he was always confident.”

Tellingly, the younger Jackson seems most engaged when he’s talking about hitting. That alone has to make the Yankees feel reasonably good about their decision to draft him with an eighth-round pick in the 2005 draft.  read more »

Unlike in the NBA or NFL, players selected in the Major League baseball draft are not expected to contribute to the big-league roster immediately, or often for years. But both the Mets and Yankees seemed to draft with the current problems with their respective teams in mind.

For the Mets, the issues addressed were in the starting lineup and depth of starting pitching. For the Yankees, the effort was made to collect high-ceiling young pitchers, hoping enough will stick to make a pitching staff.  read more »

Last Friday evening, Dodger manager Joe Torre was sitting in the visitors' dugout at Shea Stadium, fielding questions from about a dozen reporters about his struggling team. The Dodgers, who limped into a New York fresh off a three game sweep at the hands of the Chicago Cubs, had lost the series opener against the Mets by a score of eight to four, stretching their losing streak to four games.  read more »

Hours before the game, the army of Joba-clad supporters swarmed into Yankee Stadium to welcome the newly crowned king, Joba Chamberlain, to the starting rotation Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays.

But Chamberlain lasted just 2 1/3 innings in his first major league start. Uncharacteristically wild, he walked four hitters. By the final out of New York’s 9-3 loss to Toronto, most of the Joba jerseys had made their way to the exits.  read more »

In recent years, the New York Yankees have made a habit of starting slowly, only to confound critics by coming on strong and making the playoffs. The team started 11-19 in 2005 and 21-29 in 2007, only to rally to make the playoffs in both seasons, winning 95 and 94 games, respectively.

The early returns on the 2008 Yankees have been about as disappointing as those previous starts. But there is also reason to believe that the 2008 Yankees, who currently hold a 26-27 record, will be able to pull off a similar finish.  read more »

It is an acute irony that Darrell Rasner, who improved to 3-0 with seven shutout innings in New York’s 8-0 win over Baltimore Wednesday night, has the best ERA among the team’s starting staff.  read more »

This weekend, as Mets and Yankees reprised their biannual rivalry, the familiar summer smell of sizzling hot dogs and grilled hamburgers was trumped by the cloying stench of mutual desperation. After 40 games and more than $347 million in payroll, the Mets and Yankees entered the series a combined 40-42. Worse still, they saw their respective divisions led by the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, two teams whose payrolls rank last and next to last in Major League Baseball.

So what’s the problem?  read more »

While the Mets and Yankees played just two games this weekend, due to a Friday night rainout, there were a few illuminating aspects to both games for the heretofore struggling New York teams.

Wang’s Increased Use of Slider is Double-Edged Sword  read more »

Morgan Ensberg, backup third and first baseman for the New York Yankees, knows that fans don’t flock to Yankee Stadium to see him.

“For the fans, I am so overshadowed, which makes sense,” Ensberg said, sitting at his locker with a copy of a Dan Brown novel in his left hand prior to Thursday’s game against Cleveland. “I’m not that big-name guy. They get to see me if somebody is hurt, or needs a rest.”  read more »

When the Yankees chose to open the 2008 season with Phil Hughes, 21, and Ian Kennedy, 23, in the starting rotation, some growing pains were expected. But while Kennedy had less of a track record to count on, there was ample reason to think Hughes, who got the call Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Detroit Tigers, would be ready to log at least league-average innings.

But Hughes hasn’t merely been mixing good starts with bad thus far—he’s been almost uniformly awful.  read more »

Sixteen different New York Yankees played in a dramatic 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians April 26. None of their names were at the top of The New York Times’ game story the next morning. Instead, The Times led with the news that Joba Chamberlain had not appeared.

Ross Ohlendorf, the pitcher who gave up the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, didn’t appear till paragraph three. It took six paragraphs for The Times to mention any of the Cleveland players by name, and nine to identify catcher Victor Martinez as the one who got the hit.  read more »

Jorge Posada’s mysterious shoulder injury has not yet healed to the point that he can resume his duties as everyday catcher for the New York Yankees.

"He won't throw today," New York manager Joe Girardi said prior to Sunday’s game against Baltimore. "We'll check again on Tuesday—see how he is and see if the arm is back to full strength."  read more »

Since 2003, the Yankees and Red Sox have been about as even as two teams can be. New York holds a 50-47 edge during the regular season heading into their matchup Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. New York has won the American League East three times to Boston’s one.

The Red Sox have elite hitters (David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez), the Yankees have elite hitters (Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano). The Red Sox have a top closer (Jonathan Papelbon), the Yankees have a top closer (Mariano Rivera). The Red Sox have promising young starters (Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester), the Yankees have promising young starters (Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy).  read more »

Don’t let the scoreline fool you: Mike Mussina is living on borrowed time.

His fastball during last night’s 6-1 win over Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium wasn’t particularly fast—MLB.com’s Gameday listed his initial 85 mile-per-hour fastball offering as a changeup—and his once-great curveball was merely good. This will not be good enough against the American League’s better lineups.

Mussina has built a solid Hall of Fame case on a pair of factors—dramatic difference in velocity between his good fastball and excellent curveball, along with above-average control. But Mussina’s maximum velocity is down considerably, eliminating one of his advantages. It also has led him to nibble off the corners, trying desperately to expand the plate—and eliminating his other major advantage.  read more »

Joe Girardi’s decision to use Jason Giambi as his regular first baseman was anything but a no-brainer. Certainly, Giambi’s recent history argued against it.

Giambi is hoping that a doctor’s diagnosis and his first-ever winter that included running will allow him to be an exception to the rule that first basemen become designated hitters, then slowly fade away. And Girardi is clearly betting Giambi will be the exception to the rule, playing him at first base in each of his first three games as Yankee manager.

Since signing a seven-year, $120 million contract with the New York Yankees prior to the 2002 season, Giambi has been an increasingly irregular presence in the lineup, and seeing him in the field has been an even greater rarity. In his first two seasons with the Yankees, Giambi played in 313 of a possible 324 games, 97 percent, including 177 at first base. But in the past four seasons, Giambi played just 441 of 648 games, and just 211 of those at first base. Last year, Giambi appeared in just 18 games at first base, and often was replaced in the late innings for defense.  read more »

Joe Girardi’s first game as manager of the New York Yankees Tuesday night was an easy one, at least compared to his other Opening Day debut, as a rookie catcher for the Chicago Cubs.

“I was a lot more nervous than I was today,” Girardi said during his pre-game news conference, about three hours before yesterday’s game against the Blue Jays. “I was very nervous. [Cubs veteran pitcher] Rick Sutcliffe said he’d take care of me, that he knew the hitters, and that [leadoff batter] Bob Dernier never swings at the first pitch.  read more »

The dust has cleared on the New York Yankees’ spring, and the many unresolved questions at the beginning of the preseason about their pitching are … still unresolved.

The already fragile coalition that makes up the starting rotation may be splintering. And the veterans at the top of the bullpen have held their spots thus far, but not decisively, meaning that a group of unheralded relievers may end up needing to supplant Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins as the season progresses.  read more »

 A strong and fond memory of being a kid and growing up in New York City was my first trip to Yankee Stadium. You came out of the tunnel that led to the stands and you looked up to see the beautiful blue sky standing in contrast to the white façade above the upper deck. Then your eyes focused downward and the field came into view—and it was the deepest green you could ever imagine. The Stadium really was an urban field of dreams. Recently, major league baseball decided that more than the field should be green.

Baseball is, in many ways, a preindustrial 19th-century sport. Its pace is slow, leaving lots of time for beer and relaxed conversation between pitches and between innings. This week baseball came full circle. Billy Crystal may have stuck out, but he was a Yankee for a day. And this week both the Mets and Major league baseball went green.

The Met’s new stadium, Citi Field, will be built using recycled steel, water efficient plumbing and other green principles.  read more »

The Yankees may have been encouraged by Mike Mussina’s second outing of the spring over the weekend, when the 39-year-old veteran struck out 5 batters in just 2 2/3 innings. Then again, he also walked a pair and allowed a home run, failing to finish the third frame.

It’s too soon in the spring to draw conclusions from any pitching performance. But the Yankees are keeping a particularly wary eye on Mussina, who limped to the 2007 finish line.  read more »

Is slugger Bobby Abreu copying fellow Yankee outfielder Johnny Damon’s real estate moves?  read more »

Watch out, Equinox! New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter is partnering with the international 24-Hour Fitness chain to open three new “classy” sports clubs in Manhattan this year.

What, you were expecting a Roger Clemens-run juice bar?

The first will be a 28,000-square-foot facility on Fifth Avenue, conveniently located just a short guilt-ridden walk from Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

Additional locations are planned for SoHo and also in Midtown, a few blocks from the pro slugger's own $13 million pad in the Trump World Tower.

The healthy and wealthy Yankees shortstop recently took a breather to talk with me about the project.  read more »

Celebrated baseball writer Peter Golenbock, author of Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-64, has signed a contract with John Wiley & Sons to write a biography of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, it was announced today. The book will be called The Boss, and it is scheduled for publication in spring 2009.  read more »

Players including prominent New York Yankees Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte were named in former U.S. Senator George Mitchell's comprehensive report on steroids use in baseball released Thursday afternoon.

Below is the complete list of players implicated in the report. Depth of evidence varies, of course: Brian Roberts was named by a teammate through hearsay, while the report contains cancelled checks from Paul Lo Duca along with a handwritten thank-you note on Dodger Stadium stationary.  read more »

Steve Kornacki thinks there are parallels between Jimmy Carter's primary campaign and Mike Huckabee's, but by losing his "dark horse" status this early, Huckabee will run into trouble.

Also from the Observer, Howard Megdal finds it hard to believe that the Yankees would let Johan Santana go to another team.

If Hank Steinbrenner is to be believed, the Yankees are out of the Johan Santana sweepstakes.  read more »

In case you missed it, Steve Kornacki muses on how, during last night's debate, Rudy Giuliani somehow managed to get the worst of an exchange with Mitt Romney over baseball.

How big a mistake was it for Rudy Giuliani to pander to New Hampshire voters last month by telling them he was pulling for the Red Sox in the World Series?

Big enough that his status among the G.O.P. candidates as The Big Baseball Fan may have been usurped last night by Mitt Romney, a man who almost certainly can't tell the difference between a splitter and a forkball. But to casual viewers of last night's debate, it was Mr. Romney who seemed like the authentic fan and Mr. Giuliani who conjured memories of Hillary Clinton and her "lifelong Yankee fan" nonsense.  read more »

Since the Minnesota Twins made their star pitcher available in a trade, the Yankees’ Hank Steinbrenner made it known that the team is negotiating to put him in pinstripes. Meanwhile, Mets general manager Omar Minaya is fixated on landing Santana to throw the first pitch at CitiField, and resolve a three-year obsession with landing a number-one starter.  read more »

Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees have agreed to the framework of a 10-year, $275 million contract, bringing a happy resolution to a process that the Yankees announced had ended on October 28, when Rodriguez opted out of the final three years of his contract.

According to the New York Times, the Yankees are willing to offer incentives to push the contract beyond the $300 million mark if Rodriguez passes current all-time home run leader Barry Bonds.  read more »

In an offseason so far dominated by high-profile departures, the Yankees finally got to announce an addition to the 2008 squad, introducing Joe Girardi as Joe Torre’s successor to manage New York.

We know that Girardi accepted to a three-year, $7.5 million deal. But precisely what else he agreed to still remains unclear.  read more »

The Yankees ultimatum not to negotiate with Rodriguez if he opted out of his contract has backfired.  read more »

The Yankees have banned ESPN from future conference calls with managerial candidates, Newsday reports. Yankees PR boss Jason Zillo took the action after ESPN aired a conference call live last week (when officials announced Joe Torre wasn't returning) even after the Yankees had requested that networks broadcast the call only in recorded form.

The consequence? No future access for ESPN to managerial candidates Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi and Tony Pena, all of whom are being made available by the Yankees in an unusual move. (Said Zillo: "Instead of them chasing down Joe Girardi or Don Mattingly or Tony Pena at IHOP trying to get a quote from them, we're trying to do this in some type of organized fashion.")

Zillo on the ban: "I want to resolve this but they've backed me into a corner where I don't have many options if they think they're bigger than the organization they're covering."

Micah Kellner, a Democratic Assemblyman from Manhattan and a Mets fan, takes a whack at Rudy Giuliani for supporting the Red Sox.

"This is the biggest flip-flop ever for him," Kellner says.

The New York Post is reporting this morning that George Steinbrenner's sons have taken over daily operations at the New York Yankees ball club.

The New York Post said the details about the control of the franchise will be ironed out at top-level meetings the Yankees are holding this week in Tampa. According to The Associated Press manager Joe Torre's status for next season will be decided during discussions starting on Tuesday morning.

"George has taken on a role like the chairman of a major corporation," team president Randy Levine told the paper.  read more »

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There are lots of reasons the Yankees have been able to climb out of a 21-29-record, 14.5-games-back hole to all but clinch a playoff spot with a week left in the regular season.

There is Alex Rodriguez’s otherworldly season: 52 home runs, a .418 on base percentage and a .641 slugging percentage. Joba Chamberlain’s 21 2/3 innings of 0.42 ERA, 31 strikeout pitching hasn’t hurt either.  read more »

Sunday night’s game was about reaching back to the past, with heavy implications for the upcoming postseason.  read more »

Hughes is a better bet than the Rocket for October.  read more »

It’s hard to justify the schedule worries at this point: only a complete collapse will prevent New York’s entry into the American League playoffs.  read more »

What is the reason for Wang’s frequent struggles, and what can the Yankees expect going forward?  read more »

The Yankees gamble a miracle-pitcher's future.  read more »

Of all the narratives to have emerged from the Yankees’ winning tear since the All-Star Break, one of the most unexpected has been the emergence of Shelley Duncan, an unlikely hero just up from the minor leagues on a team with a score of highly-paid, established players.  read more »

The trade deadline came and went, and the beleaguered New York Yankees bullpen, rather than adding, subtracted. They are dependent, now more than ever, on the right arm of Kyle Farnsworth.

As yesterday’s game at Yankee Stadium showed, this is not a good thing.  read more »

The six-foot-nine pitcher has baseball scouts and fans drooling with Pavlovian certainty. Is he the real thing?  read more »

Brooklyn Cyclones general manager Steve Cohen surveyed his team’s sold-out ballpark from the terrace above home plate during the season opener Tuesday night with a look of general satisfaction on his face.

“It’s great, fantastic,” Cohen said about the day. “We’ve got a couple of things we’ve got to fix. Little operational things, things some people wouldn’t even notice. We’ve got to get the lines down for food, thin out the crowds in the concourse a bit.”  read more »

Since the start of the Yankees’ dramatic turnaround this month, 26-year-old left pitcher Sean Henn has seen almost no action.

This is not a coincidence.

“Everybody here has tasted winning before,” said Henn, a long reliever, in a clubhouse interview prior to New York’s ninth straight victory on Thursday. “The clubhouse is filled with perennial all stars and future Hall of Famers.”
 read more »

If you want to know why New York has become the Mets’ city, don’t look at today’s standings. Look at today’s pictures – the pictures from last night’s 5-4 Met win over the Giants at Shea Stadium.  read more »

Hillary Clinton will participate in her first presidential debate on April 26, which Rick Carlin thinks is soon.

When she's at Al Sharpton's event later this month, Hillary will be the only candidate to have her comments broadcast on Sharptons radio show.

Hillary is more