A POST-MORTEM

Now that the Yankees's 2008 season has expired and injury and ineptitude have done their worst, the post-mortem has commenced. In the forthcoming months, the columnist and talk radio hosts will pore over the rotting flesh, pronounce their cause of death, and deliver their nostrums on how to resurrect the body for next Spring. Unfortunately, most will confuse the illness with the symptoms or propose cures more lethal than the disease.

Naturally, the Yankees GM's office won't help to clarify matters either. Their vested interest in the regimen they prescribed for this season precludes an objective autopsy, certainly not one they're going to publicize anyway. The Cashman mantra has become, "Never admit error, never apologize, never express regret." Accept responsibility but never say why.

Already the Front-Office has begun to circulate the convenient half-truth that the Yankees didn't fulfill expectations because injuries struck and their hitters failed them. But when only two pitchers in your entire rotation have started 25 or more games and when you enjoy the dubious distinction of the only pitching staff in baseball without 3 or more starters who threw 115 or more innings, something far more endemic is amiss.

Still, Cashman insists he didn't seal the Yankees fate in January by entrusting 40% of his rotation to two pitchers under 23 with less than 100 major league inning between them. As recently as this Sunday The New York Times quotes him defending himself by citing the Minnesota Twins' example of Blackburn, Slowey, and Perkins. Of course, Cashman omits the caveat. All three of the Twins pitchers are 25 and over, and the Twins boast a long, venerable history of evaluating and developing young pitchers that the Yankees don't possess. Indeed the struggles Maddux, Glavine, Clemens, Sabathia, Haren, and Beckett all underwent in the major leagues when they were 20, 21, and 22 provide the far more apposite and informative precedent that Cashman conveniently skirts.

And with Johan Santana a Met, CC Sabathia already telling friends he wants to return home to the West Coast, and the Blue Jays offering the oft-injured AJ Burnett a lucrative 3-year contract extension, the Yankees confront yet another off-season in which an ace will elude them and another Spring with a starting 5 of Wang, Youth, Senescence, Injury-Risk and Enigma.

Worse, many of the writers who cover the team and pride themselves on independent judgment have succumbed to the front-office's cant and have espoused the snake oil cures they're peddling.

Writers like John Heyman and Joel Sherman, to name two, will ascribe the Yankees' ills this year to the precipitous decline from the 968 runs they scored in 2007 to the less than 787 runs they scored in 2008. And then in the very same column, the prescription they advance would rid the Yankees of two of their most productive hitters this season, Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi, without identifying commensurate replacements. '3' and '5' hitters with .375 and over on-base-averages and .850 OPSs don't grow on trees. Or when they do, to pluck them, Scott Boras will charge 150 million dollars. Meanwhile, placing faith in the recovery of a catcher with a torn labrum and a Japanese DH with chronically arthritic knees to mitigate the loss rings less of a cure however than than the sound of whistling as you pass the grave.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU BEAT
In the Pythagorean formula Bill James derived, we must acknowledge, he, in many ways, revolutionized our understanding of the game. For the debate about the respective importance of pitching and hitting to a team's performance had raged since the game's beginning. Yet it was not until James' revelation that we discovered we could quantify the relationship.

Winning Percentage = RS^2 + RA ^2 / RS^2. As simple and self-evident, perhaps, as E=mc^2, but relying just as much on the inspiration of genius to see it.

However, the Jamesian theorem also carries with it a danger. It lend itself to fallacy because it encourages analysts to examine Runs Scored and Runs Allowed in a vaccum, as separate and independent variables, and to forget that baseball is a complex and interdependent system.

That is, the Yankees RS total does not rise or fall on its lineup's performance alone. The team's RS total depends as much on the other half of the equation-- their opponents' RA, i.e., the potency of their staff and the proficiency of their defense.

Blaming the Yankees' anemic lineup this season in general and the shortfall in production from A-Rod, Cano, and Posada for the Yankees fate in 2008, then, tells a partial and misleading story. It's like attributing a patient's anemia to the fall in his red-blood cell count without ascertaining whether he's eating enough iron or whether his g.i. system is digesting it.

To be sure, the Yankees scored fewer runs in 2008 than 2007 not only because they're team OBA and RISP, .369 and .290 respectively in 2007, fell to .342 and .262, respectively, in 2008 but because their opponents' pitching improved as well-- the opponents, in particular, in the AL EAST

THE AL B-EAST
In 2008, the Yankees scored 789 runs in total, 323 of those runs scored against the AL East opponents. In contrast, in 2007, the team scored 420 runs against the same four opponents, and 968 runs in total. I enumerate the break down by team below.

• 2007.................................................2008


• Baltimore -- 107.................................Baltimore-- 91
• Boston -- 93.......................................Boston-- 93
• Tampa-- 133......................................Tampa-- 76
• Toronto-- 87......................................Toronto-- 65
• TOTAL= 420...................................TOTAL= 323

The 97 run decline accounts for approximately 50% of the difference between the Yankees total runs scored in 2007 and 2008. 968 (2007) - 789 (2008) = 179 total run differential. 97/179 = ~54%

In fact, 26% of the total decline in the Yankees RS total over the last year stems from the Yankees' performance against one team, the Rays (47/179). Which is the result one should expect against a Rays pitching staff that dramatically improved from 14th in the AL (5.53 ERA) in 2007 to 2nd in the AL with (3.80 ERA) in 2008.

Add to this the improvement in the Blue Jays staff ERA from its 4.00 ERA in 2007 to its 3.51 ERA in 2008 and together, the Jays and the Rays, pitching staffs explain ~40% of the decline in the Yankees' run production from 2007 to 2008 [47 (rays) + 22 (jays) / 179 (run differential)].

The Orioles and Red Sox pitch staffs' performance, by contrast, varied little from their performances the previous year. The Orioles pitching staff practically duplicated its futility of 2007, a 5.17 ERA, by posting a 5.13 ERA in 2008. The Red Sox staff ERA, meanwhile, stayed about the same as well, declining from 3.87 to 4.01. (The Yankees' staff ERA, on the other hand, improved by about as much, from a 4.49 ERA in 2007 to a 4.30 ERA in 2008). And the Yankees RS totals against the Red Sox in 2007 and 2008 mirror each other, and the RS totals against the Orioles over the two years don't differ much either.

Further illustrating that the decline in Yankees' RS total owe far more to their opponents' improved pitching than their lineup's inadequacies, the Red Sox lineup's experience, in many ways, parallels the Yankees.

In 2008, the Red Sox scored 839 runs, 2nd in the AL. (In 2007, the Red Sox scored 867 runs, 3rd in the AL.) Yet they didn't fare much better this year against the Jays and Rays than the Yankees did. In 2007, the Red Sox scored 113 against Tampa; in 2008, 87. In 2007, the Red Sox scored 91 against the Jays, in 2008, 60.

Three of the top four rotations in the AL (1st Toronto, 2nd Tampa, and 4th Red Sox) are in the AL East. Collectively, the Yankees will play 33% of their games against them.

The first three starters of the Rays' likely 2009 rotation posted the following numbers: Kazmir (3.50 ERA), Shields (3.56 ERA), Garza (3.70 ERA) = 552 innings

The Red Sox: Matsusaka (2.90 ERA), Lester (3.21 ERA), Becket (4.03 ERA)= 552 innings

The Blue Jays: Halliday (2.78 ERA), Litsch (3.58 ERA), and if he stays, Burnett (4.07 ERA)[ if not McGowan (4.53 ERA), by June]= 643 IPs

The Yankees' likely rotation for 2009? If its Wang (4.00 ERA)(200 IP), Mussina and/or Pettitte (4.00 ERA)(200 IP) and if for the remaining 300 IPs they have to rely on Chamberlain (2.76 ERA)(65.1 IP) and Hughes (6.62 ERA)(34 IPs), then in 2009, our post-mortem may very well commence in August.

A PRAYER FOR THE DYING

"Consume my heart away; sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal" -- Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium

When the Yankees' season ends, I mourn. A love has abandoned me. The consolation of 162 forlorn evenings and stressful days has vanished. A six-month drama, sometimes exasperating, sometimes exhilirating, but never other than captivating, had ended. I've lost a steady and intimate friend.

And for each unconsummated ending, grief bear its own metaphor.

1986-1993-- a mercy killing. Death after a long, bleak sickness symptomized by dull, agonizing pain and a morphine-induced amnesiac malaise.

1994-- the tragic suicide of youth brimming with the promise of re-birth.

1995-- a sudden heart attack that's tearful and tragic, but somehow redemptive because of a man who'd long outlived the dire prognosis and had, until the final moment, cheated the end.

2001 through 2003-- the passing of a very distinguished, very old man who dies peacefully and painlessly in his sleep after a full, magnificent, vital life and whose accomplishments' grandeur and whose bequest's lavishness comfort his adoring heirs.

2004-- a President's assassination on the White House lawn, a murder so freakish, so catastrophic, so historically notorious that it bespeaks Divine vengeance. Call it Fate, Destiny, the Gods, what have you: the universe's dark and inscrutable forces have intervened. An apocalypse destroys the existing order and creates shock and awe in its wake. It's horror is its mercy. Memory yields to oblivion.

2005-2007-- a car accident, rapid, abrupt, brutal; and no less unexpected or devastating the first time around than the third. One minute the engine won't start, the next the Lexus is flying West along I-80 at top speed, music blaring, the crisp, bracing air and golden sunshine auguring glorious Autumn ahead. And then, suddenly, the crash. In a split second, the world is upended. Traumatic but quick. Bury the season, say Kadish. Stay warm and fight despair until Hot Stove begins.

Not this year. For Yankees fans, 2008 season has inflicted a brand of torment so exquisite and unique it rivals none and begs a ritual to mourn it. 1965? I wasn't born yet. '79 and '82 I can barely remember.

I wish I could. For 2008 reeks of the darkness before the blackness. The Dying of Light in August. Going gently, without rage or suspense or fight, into the fell night. 2008 signifies the dull, omnipresent ache of dwindling days, of marking time before execution, of a protracted, anguish-ridden dying preliminary to death.

It has evoked something of the slow, excruciating, torment I imagine loved ones suffer as they sit vigil over a terminal middle-aged, cancer patient. Radical treatments, sporadic remissions, fleeting signs of recovery afflict rather than assuage. They tantalize with a hope they cannot possibly deliver.

Oh yes, the last September in Ruth's House has turned out historical, after all. The 2008 New York Yankees: Fourth place, under 90 wins, a Lineup that conjures less Murderers' Lineup than Death's Row. The late 80's revisited.

Symptoms of 2008's malignancy, actually, manifested as early as May. In retrospect, we just refused to recognize them. Injured veterans. Floundering rookies. Skill regression. Down years. A surly, rigid manager. A blinkered, hidebound GM. A tattered pitching staff. Pressing hitters. Low RISP averages. Inopportune errors. Missed Cutoffs. Inept bunts. Botched double-plays. Careless baserunning. The runner, with less than 2 outs, forever stranded on 3d base.

But denial was so easy. Some facile explanation-- the weather, the birth pangs of youth, the slow starts of age-- was always ready at hand. And hadn't the team stood at 11-19 in 2005 and at 21-29 just last season? They'd defied the premature obituaries. So too will this one, won't it?

Only the 2008 Yankees never recuperated. More accurately, depleted, debilitated, and old before their time, they've never really breathed life. They've survived, sure. But in a place where their lineage defines identity as "I win, therefore I am" the 2008 Yankees almost count as stillborn, a fetus that never quite existed.

Denial only deferred the reckoning. And when Joba Chamberlain walked off that mound in Texas he took the final prayer with him. Life-support has sustained the team ever since. A 2-4 homsestand in late August against Boston and Toronto just confirmed and publicized the diagnosis. And this time, foiled so often before, the Grim Reaper secured his bounty. The malignancy had metastasized and spread everywhere. No miracle would save them this year. The 2008 Yankees were dying and they weren't coming back.

Like flies to wanton boys are teams to the Baseball Gods, cruel and malicious with a sadistic flair for irony. For the final act of a moribund Stadium, they've cast a terminal patient. A September to forget has become one we will forever have to remember. Then, come October, Ruth's Ghost will have to the House he built all to himself.

In the meantime while their perverse tragic-comedy unfolds, I wince at the gallows humor. Along the stages of grief, bargaining and depression long since have yielded to acceptance. All that remains is to pry from the abyss some meager saving grace, the strength and dignity that comes from graceful endurance and the preparation granted you when you know a certain end awaits.

And so, here, I sit, paying vigil to a living corpse, however dreadful and desolating. However painful the daily reminder that on September 28 the 2008 Yankees will expire, I watch over and love what little of them remains. There will be time, of course, for eulogies and autopsies too. The vultures already are circling. The recriminations have begun. Last year, thirteen consecutive Octobers had multiple fathers. 2008 is an orphan.

For now, I offer the Yankees my allegiance and succor. Small comfort perhaps but I have no power to change their fate. A debt of loyalty, support, and gratitude, I owe them nonetheless. This they deserve, at the very least. For 13 straight years, a brilliant, prodigious, sublime Yankee Colossus has inhabited my life. It has brightened my summers. It has animated my September. It has raised early autumn to a Fever pitch.

This Great Dying Yankee Colossus has inscribed my memories with joys and sorrows and made for Octobers I will cherish forever.

This year, however, I grieve. I grieve for an October bereft, for the dying of an era, and for a Cathedral that closed not with a bang but a whimper.

HEAR O' TAMPA MY PRAYER.

"YOU'RE NO THEO": THE YANKEES SECOND-RATE FRONT-OFFICE

"Power tends to corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"-- Lord Acton, 1887

You have to admire Brian Cashman. Even when he's wrong, he's right. At least in his eyes, anyway.

Indeed, it takes a certain genius to stare folly in the face and call it wisdom. Or in that rare instance, when failure allows for no other conclusion, to remain utterly convinced that the cause lies elsewhere than one's own judgment. It's a gift, perhaps, all Chief Executives possess. At the very least it's something the Bronx, at the moment, shares in common with Washington.

Sure, Cashman pays lip service to accountability. He hasn't held his job for longer than any man before him without being shrewd and wily and resilient enough to know that the infrequent but opportune mea culpa comes with the title. Two humiliating losses to the Red Sox with the season on the brink occasioned his latest.

"If anything, you're starting to see the necessity of [why] you have to get younger ... We've had some injuries, there's no doubt about it, but we've got some key guys who haven't performed like they're capable of. Is that because of age? I think we have extremely talented players. I've put together a club that is where it's at. I'm responsible for that ... I think Girardi's done a tremendous job given what's occurred," Cashman said. "The buck stops right here with me.”

Or does it? For all Cashman's expressed fondness for Harry Truman, the fine print tells another story.

Parsing the comments reveals Cashman didn't concede any error at all-- not in the manager he hired ("a tremendous job"), not in the team he assembled ("extremely talented"), not in his performance or decisions ("some key guys haven't performed") and certainly not in the notorious off-season trade he foreclosed.

As usual, Newsday's Ken Davidoff exposed the truth of the matter. Did Cashman regret forsaking, not once, but twice, in the past year, the chance to acquire the most precious commodity in baseball-- the proven, under 30-year-old left-handed ace the Yankees have coveted since, oh, the days of Ron Guidry, say? Not in the least.

"I feel a strong reluctance to trade three or four assets to another team [for a player] and then sign him to a multiyear contract," Cashman said, "You trade for a guy, give up three or four assets [and then pay him], then you've crushed your payroll and your assets at the same time." http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spken295821183aug29,0,6550246.column

"Assets": a Cashman shibboleth, it would seem, along with "the process." For the word has become a recurring theme in the self-justification that underlies the GM's pretense to accountability.

RETENTION FETISHES AND BLIND SPOTS

Bob Klapisch's latest article for ESPN relates an amusing and very telling anecdote about how Cashman actually regards his decision.

Apparently, a disgruntled fan somehow uncovered Cashman's E-mail address and sent a note at which Brian bridled. "You're no Theo Epstein," it read and went on to criticize Theo's counterpart for deciding to re-sign Andy Pettitte instead of acquiring Johan Santana.

Never mind that the choice the anonymous writer posed between Pettitte and Santana surrenders half the argument. The Yankees could had both and never intimated to the contrary. They continued to discuss trade proposals with the Twins even after they re-signed Pettitte. No, the choice was not between Santana or Pettitte but between Santana or Hughes-- Hughes, that is, and Melky Cabrera, Jeff Marquez, and Mitch Hilligoss. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2007/12/05/2007-12-05_brian_cashman_yanks_balk_at_millions_and.html

The writer's flawed logic, notwithstanding, credit him this much: he worried Cashman's greatest insecurity sufficiently to incite a response.

"We signed Pettitte and kept our other assets," Cashman fired back; "I'm sorry you were led to believe otherwise."

Notice, again, Brian's fixation on "assets" as though accumulating and retaining prospects were an end in itself rather than a means to improving the team's major league roster.

Memo to Brian: "assets" are only worth "keeping" if they hold their value or appreciate. On the other hand, when their value plummets and the opportunity to sell them at a premium is lost, assets no longer remain assets. They become liabilities.

Indeed, Phil Hughes' stock along with Melky Cabrera's, Jeff Marquez', and Ian Kennedy's (another jewel of the farm system, supposedly) all have depreciated this year. And the established ace that can throw 200 innings and that can anchor the rotation has eluded the Yankees once again and has consigned another promising season to a tragic ending. Only this year it arrived one month early.

What's so problematic, however, is not that Brian Cashman made the wrong decision. After all, the error only appears self-evident in hindsight. Cashman's position on Santana was arguable, if not exactly sound, at the time he advanced it. No, what's so problematic about it is that the GM still defends his folly, adamantly so, in fact, and for the wrong reasons. He doesn't concede that his decision looks misguided only if you narrow the horizon to this year alone. No, Brian kept his "assets", he writes, case closed. Does he actually believe this fact alone wins the argument?

"If you choose to play in that [free-agent] marketplace, the one thing you'd be sacrificing is a draft pick," Cashman told Ken Davidoff. "We're very protective of our draft picks, but for the right player and the right circumstance ... I've always said we're still big-game hunters."

But what if that game don't hunt, to borrow a Clintonism. What if the ace you could have had via trade isn't available to the Yankees via the free-agency because he'd prefer to play elsewhere? (As Sabathia already has disclosed, he favors the West Coast and the National League.)

That is, what if a player of Santana's, Sabathia's, or Pedro Martinez's caliber is so rare that he becomes available once or twice a decade and only through trading one's "assets" and signing him to a long-term deal besides? Does Brian actually believe that it's never wise to trade one or more premium "assets" whose value is impossible to project in exchange for a precious and proven commodity. How utterly foolish!

Is Theo a better GM than Brian? My answer ranges somewhere between ignorance and indifference: I don't know and I don't care.

But Cashman's correspondent was correct in this respect and about this I know and I care profoundly. The Red Sox, twice in the past decade, have done precisely what Cashman claims shouldn't be done and in both instances, they were better for it: they've traded "assets" for an ace and then signed said ace to a long-term contract.

In 1997, the Red Sox traded Carl Pavano (don't you love the irony?) and Tony Armas Jr. for Pedro Martinez and proceeded to make him the then highest-paid pitcher in baseball. They gave him an unprecedented 6-year, $75 million contract. And almost overnight, the team's fortunes underwent a dramatic reversal. After finishing fourth the year before, the Red Sox, in Martinez's first year, qualified for the playoffs, and finished second or better every year Pedro pitched for them, thereafter.

Eight year later, Theo, himself, rehearsed the feat. The Red Sox traded four "assets", including Henley Ramirez and Anibel Sanchez, for Josh Beckett and then signed him to a 4-year $42 million extension plus an additional $18 million they had to assume in Mike Lowell's contract.

But whether Cashman is or is not a better GM than Theo doesn't trouble me. Why the GM of the team in which I have invested "assets" more precious than money-- my heart, my time, and my loyalty-- why he has so persistently erred in his evaluation of starting pitchers does trouble me however. More so, it troubles me that evidently he doesn't see them as errors at all.

CASHMAN D.B.: THE BOSS ERA

Indeed, Cashman's decisions on starting pitchers records one pratfall after another. He has misjudged the talent of minor-league pitchers and miscalculated the fitness of major league pitchers for New York. To illustrate, see below.

• '99-- Mike Lowell for Ed Yarnall, Todd Noel, and Mark Johnson
• '02-- Ted Lily, Jason Arnold and John Ford Griffiths for Jeff Weaver
• '03-- El Duque for Antonio Osuna and Delvis Lantigua
• '03-- Jeff Weaver, Brandon Weeden, and Yhency Brazoban for Kevin Brown
• '03-- Juan Rivera, Nick Johnson, and Randy Choate for Javier Vasquez
• '04-- Jose Contreras for Esteban Loiza
• '04-- Signing Carl Pavano and Jared Wright instead of Derek Lowe
• '05-- Javier Vasquez, Dioner Navarro, and Brad Halsey for Randy Johnson
• '06-- signing Kei Igawa instead of Ted Lilly

Cashman's lone major addition to the rotation that counts as an unequivocal success is his trade of David Wells, Homer Bush, and Graeme Lloyd for Roger Clemens. A few minor trades, perhaps, qualify as well: his acquisition of Denny Neagle and Shawn Chacon. Still the starters who formed the keystones upon which the Yankees built their dynasty during the late 90's-- Cone, Key/Wells, Pettitte, and El Duque-- Cashman's predecessors, Michael and Watson, had obtained before he became GM.

In fairness to Brian, before 2005, he didn't actually possess the full prerogatives the title of GM implies. As such, George and his Tampa kitchen cabinet account for a few of the more egregious miscalculations above: signing Jared Wright and trading Jose Contreras. But Brian orchestrated many of the above trades as well or at least, has claimed to--Jeff Weaver, Kevin Brown, Javier Vasquez, Carl Pavano, and relinquishing Mike Lowell for what amounted to nothing in return.

CASHMAN A.B.: THE POST-BOSS ERA

Astute Yankee fans, of course, applaud Cashman for the principal objective he's pursued since assuming full authority in 2005-- disenfranchising George's kitchen cabinet, dismissing Lin Garrett's retinue of scouting incompetents, re-investing in the draft, and rebuilding the Yankee farm system.

He recognized years ago that the Yankees had to rebuild their farm system because revenue-sharing meant less and less genuine talent entered the free-agent market and when it did, more and more, it commanded inflated contracts that taxed teams' financial ability to address other needs, even the affluent Yankees. The nucleus of the next Yankee championship team, Cashman realized, had to arise from within as had its predecessor. Cashman also saw that teams profited from cultivating talent rather than buying it for reasons beyond money. Developing pitching, in particular, enabled teams to control innings, to limit injury risk, to mold character, to evaluate drive, and to predict how the pressure of New York would affect each player.

The wisdom and imperative of Cashman's goal and the vast improvement his leadership represents cannot be gainsaid. The Yankees could have done much worse these last ten years. Indeed, in the area over which Cashman exercised no control for seven of those ten years, the amateur draft, they did.

Nevertheless, his miscalculations about pitchers, past and present, beg the question whether he's best suited to bring the project he's begun to fruition.

Leave aside his eschewal of Santana and the opportunity he squandered to acquire Sabathia (then to try to persuade Sabathia to stay in New York.)

Questions abound, still, about organizational decisions he's made since he's become Commander-in Chief.

1) Just two weeks ago, why did the Yankees join the Washington Nationals as the only two teams in baseball to fail to sign their first-round draft pick? Whatever the explanation, whether Gerrit Cole misrepresented his interest or Scott Boras deceived the team or Cole's father overruled them both-- whatever the explanation, for the result there's no excuse. Sharing anything in common with the Nationals is an embarrassment. Were that not enough, as it happens, the Yankees, evidently, wasted their second-round pick as well. The player they selected Scott Bittle they ultimately decided not to sign. (They did however sign their supplemental pick, pitcher Jeremy Bleich)

2) Why didn't the GM retain Larry Bowa? Bowa, since, has said he wanted to stay and in fact, deferred decisions on other offers until he heard from the Yankees. Apart from being an exceptional 3d base coach, he, evidently, was influential in Cano's development. Cano isn't the same player this year, either at the plate or in the field. Worse, Bobby Meacham, Bowa's replacement, has proven about as reliable at third-base as he was once at short-stop.

3) Why did Cashman place so much trust in Ian Kennedy, a pitcher with a single season of professional baseball, and 19 major league innings-- so much in fact that he assigned him a spot in the Yankees starting rotation before Spring Training even started? Did his performance in three starts in September really warrant such favor?

4) Is Joe Girardi's tense, irascible personality, that occasionally smacks of the defensive, imperial martinet, who cannot suffer to have his judgment questioned let alone criticized-- is he suited for a veteran team or the relentless scrutiny of New York? And what do Cashman and Girardi actually think they're accomplishing by displaying a penchant for secrecy, if not outright flagrant dishonesty, about player injuries that could make Nixon and Haldeman blanch? They act like they're in possession of industrial trade secrets the disclosure of which could decide a pennant race. What precisely would the Red Sox have gained had they known, along with the rest of us, that Joba Chamberlain's shoulder tendonitus would sideline him for about a month? Would they really have been more or less apt to place a waiver claim on Paul Byrd or to acquire Mark Kotsay? Perhaps, Cashman and Girardi have become a bit too enamored of the power their knowledge grants them. In the meantime, they've antagonized the press and alienated their fans as a consequence.

5) How can Cashman look at a team with a starting rotation where Sidney Ponson, Daryl Rasner, and Carl Pavano comprise the 3rd, 4th, and 5th starters and in his latest mea culpa, puzzle over why his team isn't performing? Cashman even has the temerity to tell Jon Heyman the reason the Yankees have underperformed isn't the pitching at all: "We haven't hit; that's the biggest reason for where we are. This team's DNA was supposed to mean 900 runs. We've had injuries but we haven't performed.'' (SI.COM, August 29, 2008) One wonders whether Brian actually believes his own cant. The Yankees Runs Scored-Runs Allowed differential is the second-worst in the AL East, second to the last-place Orioles. Has it ever occurred to him, that his offense has "underperformed" because they're all too aware of who is toeing the mound and pressing as a consequence? (In 2007, the Yankees scored 240 of their league-leading 968 runs or 25% against TWO teams, the Rays and the Orioles. If Brian knew the Rays were going to be dramatically better this year, as he conceded in Spring Training, against whom did he think the Yankees were going to generate enough runs to duplicate last season's total?)

6) Anyway, isn't negligent, at best, for Cashman to have depended on the production of a lineup where every hitter but one exceeded 32 years of age-- a plan designed to ensure against Hughes and Kennedy's struggles-- and neither anticipate injuries nor ensure his bench contained enough depth to replace the players injured?

The Yankees bench to start the 2008 was as woeful as their bench to begin 2007. In 2008, it consisted of Jose Molina, Morgan Ensberg, Shelly Duncan, and Wilson Betemit. Meanwhile, in 2007, Cashman began the season with 4 players capable of playing 1st base, Giambi, Minky, Phelps, Cairo; a minor-league catcher, Will Nieves; and Melky Cabrera. He hadn't even invited Shelly Duncan to spring training and then waited until July 20th to promote him.

7) What exactly did Cashman think he was accomplishing by disparaging Bernie Williams' worth ethic this off-season and praising Carl Pavano's eight months later?

8) And Kei Igawa? Organizations overestimate talent all the time. But how the Yankees could risk $46 million on a Japanese pitcher, who doesn't even dominate in AAA, utterly baffles reason. Worse, Cashman, not missing the opportunity to repeat the mistake of trading him in the first place, could have allocated a roughly equivalent amount on Ted Lily, a pitcher who already demonstrated he could hold his own in the AL East. Say what you will Ted Lily is a major league pitcher who threw 175 innings this year. Do you think the Yankees would have profited from having him instead of Igawa last year, Ponson this year, and God knows, who as their fifth starter in 2009?

YOU'RE NO THEO
But above all, Cashman is no Theo because he isn't equipped with equivalent or superior baseball minds around him.

The Red Sox front-office includes two former GMs in Larry Lucchino and Allard Baird, a disciple in Jed Hoyer, and the visionary Bill James. The Yankees Front-Office consists of two business people in the prominent positions of President and Assistant GM, Randy Levine and Jean Afterman: the first was a former deputy mayor and the second was the general counsel and negotiator for Japanese agent Don Nomura. Neither's forte is evaluating player talent. In fact, the one person in the Yankees' front-office with an established resume in this regard, Gene Michael, Cashman, according to Michael, consults only rarely.

Cashman's contract expires this off-season. And as ambivalent as I am about his judgment, I hope he returns. The Yankees can, and have, done much worse. Whatever his checkered record on starting pitching, he has made some very shrewd trades for position players over the years, from A-Rod to David Justice to Bobby Abreu and perhaps, Xavier Nady. And the farm system, especially down at the A-level in Charleston, has improved dramatically.

Nonetheless, if he does return, either he has to hire, or the Steinbrenners' must retain, more and better minds to surround him. People confident enough to speak the truth when their GM is wrong even if it costs them. For at present the talent gap separating the Yankees and the Red Sox transcends the personnel inside the diamond. Come this off-season it's the first void ownership needs to fill and the sooner, the better.

"FOR THE LIFE OF BRIAN"

"If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog." -- Herzog, by Saul Bellow

There was a time, long ago, when Brian Cashman distinguished himself as the voice of sanity and reason in the Yankees Front-Office.

Andy Pettitte would pitch poorly. Tino Martinez would slump. Boston would sign David Ortiz. Jose Contreras would lose again to the Red Sox.

The Boss would fume; the tabloids snicker. Joe Torre would sip green tea. And the Tampa Hill- Billies, Connors and Emslie, would wheedle and conspire, sabotaging the roster and robbing the farm.

Meanwhile, Brian Cashman would assume the role Gene Michael once played. He'd counsel patience and discretion. He'd espouse fiscal responsibility. He'd urge the Boss to re-invest below and hold fast to his prospects.

And when the Boss heeded his GM, wisdom, more often than not, prevailed in Yankeeland. Often enough, in fact, that Cashman even persuaded the Boss in late 2005 to subdue the renegade Tampa faction and to grant him the full authority he'd deserved all along. Finally, Brian could execute his plan for the Yankees future without impediment or subversion.

Was it a Pyrrhic victory? Ten years, after all, is a long time for any sane man to spend fighting turf battles inside the Yankee bunker without it warping his perceptions and distorting his judgment. Indeed, with the team staring into the abyss for the first time throughout Cashman's tenure, the GM's recent comments utterly baffle reality. They make one wonder whether the pressure, the criticism, the regret has gotten finally to Brian Cashman and whether he has become the very deluded, irrational agent he once had to fend off.

It is the job of a GM, no less than a CEO, of course, to defend his organization and to protect his personnel in the face of failure, ridicule, and crisis. But it's one thing to justify one of A-Rod's slump as unrepresentative or to reaffirm his steadfast faith in Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes, despite the former's cavalier remarks and the latter's vulnerability to injury-- they're still 23 and 22 years old respectively; in baseball, just children-- but it's one thing to guard the kids and quite another to defend Carl Pavano, an overgrown child. By defending the defensible and vehemently so, has Cashman not suggested he has entirely lost his purchase on reality?

"Carl Pavano", Cashman told The Daily News' Anthony McCarron, "has worked his butt off. He's always tried. He just hasn't stayed healthy... He's one of the hardest workers we've got. People don't want to realize it or look at it, but that's true. He hasn't laid down on us..."

Wait, the pitcher who missed half of 2005 and all of 2006 and set the unprecedented example of spending 18 months on the disabled list without sustaining an operable injury; the pitcher who has managed to pitch 19 games in four years; the pitcher, the Yankees very own union representative, Mike Mussina, dismisses as a malingerer and upon re-signing with the Yankees, according to Josh Feinstein, told Cashman "You're not paying me less than Pavano" -- he is "one of the hardest workers [the Yankees] got."

Well, then, Brian your organization has a very serious problem, far worse than its performance this season. Either that, or in the "people" who refuse "to realize" the self-evident "it," the Freudians have themselves a superbly dramatic illustration of the telling "slip of the tongue".

In fact, to appreciate fully just how deluded Cashman's defense of Pavano makes him sound, compare them with how, just eight months ago, the Yankee GM characterized the work ethic of one of Pavano's teammates.

About the center-fielder who delivered the GM four championship rings, Cashman, recall, had this to say,"[He] got into his music and that took away from his play," and that as a consequence, in 2005, he'd had a "terrible season".

Bernie Williams, a foundational pillar to the Yankees late 90's dynasty, neglected his responsibilities and deserted his team in 2005. However, Carl Pavano, who declined to pitch through shoulder tendinitis after the Yankees lost Wang, "is one of the hardest workers [you've] got." Bernie Williams' season in 2005 was terrible because through 141 games his OPS was down 20% from the previous season. And Carl Pavano's 4.77 ERA during the half season he actually pitched, down 37% from 2004, we assess as terrific?

In what world is Bernie Williams remiss, a disservice to his team and derelict in his responsibilities and Carl Pavano, industrious and a credit to it? Well, like Jonathan Schell, once wrote about Nixon,

"Until facts intruded he lived in a closed world in which he rarely had any experiences he had not arranged for himself. As in a dream....his communion with himself would continue uninterrupted, and the world he saw would have been co-extensive with his thought processes... And, at the center, a perfect closed circle in which he talked into his tapes and his tapes talked to him."

I only hope Cashman is more cunning and less sincere than we realize. Otherwise, he will come to share with the former President more than their influence on George Steinbrenner's legacy in common.

A LONG SEPTEMBER

"A long September and there's reason to believe maybe next year will be better than the last... I guess the losing makes you laugh a little slower. Makes you shout a little lower...

..The feeling that it's all a lot of age and no pearls... A long September... and I try to hold on to the moments of summers past.... For its one more year from Hero's Canyon... And its one more series out in Hollywood... Its been so long since I've mourned September...I guess I should." -- With Liberties, from "A Long December," by the Counting Crows.

With 40 games remaining in the Yankees' season, the team's fortunes have sunk to their lowest point, and look bleaker, than in any year in recent memory. Not since 1995, when on August 13, the Yankees were 9 games behind AL East leading Boston and 10.5 games behind wild-card leading Anaheim, has the prospect of the Yankees reaching the playoffs appeared so remote so late in the season.

Sure, baseball has its own magical way of defying the odds and thwarting the expected. Indeed, history is littered with the shredded obituaries of Yankees-haters so eager to throw dirt on the body and to gloat over the funeral that they neglect to wait for a corpse.

But at the moment, Don Quixote, himself, would be hard-pressed to make Giants of Pinstripes. The Yankees don't scare or intimidate anymore. Indeed the heat they generate arises, by and large, from their uptight, seething manager and their owners' hot-air.

That hot air has occasionally blown a balmy Tampa breeze through the New York chill. Hank is not George, the cheap and facile press comparison, notwithstanding. His magnanimity he displayed in re-signing A-Rod; his ridicule of ESPN; his unabashed regrets about Johan Santana; his refreshing candor about player injuries; his zeal to win--- have warmed the hearts of many a Yankees fan.

Still his latest missive that would ascribe the Yankees' woes to an aberrant rash of injuries from which few teams could recover may not completely qualify as a lame excuse, as his detractors claim. It does however tell a partial and self-serving story.

Yes, the Yankees' disabled list reads like a hospital roster. Wang, Posada, Matsui, Hughes, Bruney all have missed or will miss more than 50% of the season. Damon and A-Rod each spent over three weeks on the DL; and Joba's current stint, very well, may match or exceed their stay. Indeed among the Yankees opening day starting nine, only Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano, and Bobby Abreu have played in 95% of the Yankees first 121 games. And the latter two have degenerated into the least productive regulars in the lineup.

But injuries only explain so much. The RC/G (runs created per game) averages of Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano, and Melky Cabrera all have dropped 25% or more over their totals from last year. Indeed, through 3/4 of the season the team has scored 580 runs, a pace of about 780 for the season, representing a 20% decline from 2007.

Then, too, the GM's and Manager's errors and character flaws have played a part as well. In this post, I assign Cashman his share of responsibility; in a forthcoming one, I will address Girardi's.

THE HUBRIS AND THE ARROGANCE
"Keith Hernandez said that over the weekend of the Angels series he ran into Cashman relaxing with friends in an East Hampton restaurant... 'Under another Steinbrenner he probably couldn't do that,' Cohen said"--- Bob Raisman, August 17, 2008

Despite the New York press' penchant for exaggeration, there tendency to portray public figures in black and white, either as geniuses or fools, Brian Cashman is neither. He is a competent GM, a competent GM who has betrayed some rather disconcerting character flaws of late.

Yes, Cashman deserves his due for wresting control from the George's incompetent Tampa cronies and restoring priority to the amateur draft and the farm system. Cashman also has made his share of shrewd trades over the years which do him credit, balanced, of course, by his share of grievous mistakes. The overall record is a mixed and equivocal one. (I intend to examine his record in a more thorough post in the upcoming months that will coincide with his contract's expiration at season's end.)

My reservations with Cashman's leadership began this off-season. A pettiness and arrogance surfaced that heretofore we hadn't witness Cashman betray. I can't quibble with the GM's silence during the Torre fiasco; even though, in retrospect, it seems evident he preferred Girardi to Torre. That's his prerogative. Cashman's subsequent public criticism of Torre and effort to assign his former manager blame for failures in which he played a part, in addition to his passing shots at Bernie Williams' fitness and commitment in 2005, were unseemly and shameful. In a conference at William Patterson College in January, Cashman accused his retired CF of prioritizing music to baseball in 2005 and attributing his unproductive season that year to his divided focus. Even if true-- and there's good reason to think age more than anything accounted for his decline-- the comment was unnecessary. The Yankees, effectively, retired Bernie the year earlier. Impugning his commitment two year after the fact could serve no purpose other than to besmirch his reputation. But George's protege was finished evidently. He accused his former manager of dereliction as well. In an exercise in revisionist history, Cashman charged Torre with playing Williams over more talented players. Cashman must have forgotten that he'd lost Matsui and Sheffield that year for the season's lion share and that Torre had no choice but to play Bernie. And what more talented player was Cashman referring to? Melky Cabrera? In Bernie's worst year, 2005, he was a more productive player than Melky Cabrera is or probably, ever will be.

But what Cashman did or didn't say is far less responsible for the predicament in which the Yankees now find themselves than what he did and did not do. Albeit, once again, word and deed each illustrate the same tragic overconfidence.

One wonders why Cashman was the only one-- excluding, of course, his apologists and acolytes in the blogosphere-- who couldn't see the disaster he courted in entrusting 40% to 60% of his rotation to Hughes, Kennedy, and Joba. All three rookie pitchers, untested over a full season; all three subject to inning caps; all three under 24 and as Baseball Prospectus recently has shown, susceptible to injury as a consequence. The idea that in the New York crucible-- amid the pressure and scrutiny of an adversarial press, an impatient fan base, an outspoken ownership, and the hype of the Stadium last year-- three rookie pitchers, who'd totalled 116 major league innings between them could develop, flourish, and lead their team to the playoffs seemed, even then, a fanciful pipe dream, at best, and deluded folly, at worst. (See "GM Pride and Prejudice", February 29, 2008 and "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant", March 31, 20008)

Most of the greatest pitchers of our generation, Maddux, Glavine, Halliday, all struggled their first full seasons pitching in the majors. Many more sustained injuries that prematurely ended them. Why Cashman thought Hughes and Kennedy should be any different baffles and incenses me to this day.

The Santana development only crystallized my misgivings about Cashman's judgment and leadership. Now, Cashman's decisions on starting pitcher rarely has distinguished itself. To the contrary, they record one folly after another: (i) Ted Lily for Jeff Weaver; (ii) Jeff Weaver for Kevin Brown, (iii) Juan Rivera, Nick Johnson, and Randy Choate for Javier Vasquez; (iv) Javier Vasquez for Randy Johnson; (v) Jose Contreras for Esteban Loiza; (vi) forsaking Ted Lilly for Kei Igawa; (vii) signing Carl Pavano and Jared Wright instead of Derek Lowe.

Eventually, Cashman, in his defense, realized it was probably more efficient and effective for an organization to cultivate starters from within. Thus, his renewed commitment to the farm system. Nonetheless, Cashman's new philosophy quickly hardened into a rigid dogma.

Of the three pitchers he gambled would renew a Yankee dynasty, he wouldn't relinquish a one. Not even for a proven ace, Not even it enabled him to retain the most promising of the three. So when the opportunity to trade Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, Jeff Marquez, and Mitch Hilligoss for Johan Santana--- the very ace the Yankees have lacked for 8 years running-- Cashman refused. Thus Cashman forswore not only an ace in the hand for prospects in the bush, he also ensure the pressure they'd face would be enormous.

Integrating one or two rookie pitchers is hard enough on a team where the fans, ownership, and the veteran players expect to qualify for the playoffs every year. Thinking he could integrate three without compromising his team's ability to contend was foolish and arrogant, especially where his hitters were aging and his lineup fielded only two players under 33.

What's more, a fallacy underpinned the GM's logic. Supposedly, Cashman insisted that trading prospects for a player the Yankees then would have to pay like a free-agent would be improvident because it would amount to incurring a tax. The outlay for Santana, plus the sacrifice of cheap prospects he'd have to replace with more expensive players. But this assumes that all the prospects he'd have to surrender would make the major league roster and remain there for the forseeable future and wouldn't demand more expensive replacements anyway. Will Jeff Marquez and Mitch Hilligoss ever become major leaguers? Will the Yankees have to replace Melky in CF, in the end, regardless? Will Hughes develop into a full-fledged starter who can throw 200 Innings and if so, when?

And anyway what of the tax? Did Cashman forget that the Red Sox did precisely this twice: in 1997 when they relinquished Carl Pavano and Tony Armas Jr. for Pedro Martinez and then signed Pedro to a 6-year $75 million contract and then again eight years later, in 2005, in acquiring Josh Beckett, who cost the Red Sox less in money but more in talent.

Alas, not trading for Johan Santana has come back to haunt the GM in more ways than one and not just for 2008, but for the future, too.

We can't fault Cashman for having failed to predict the injury to Wang of course. But Santana certainly would have stabilized the Yankees rotation, providing them 200 innings, and in confining one spot in the rotation to one rookie, rather two, would have alleviated much of the pressure Ian Kennedy suddenly felt to perform and may have deferred Joba's transition to the rotation to later in the season. Kennedy may have performed better; than again, he might not have. But the Yankees, certainly, would enjoyed greater latitude with him as their fifth starter and perhaps enabled him to overcome the inevitable growing pains he's now likely to face again next year.


How much of difference on the Yankees' 2008 performance would Santana have made? A cursory glance at the numbers reveals the Santana's impact would have had. Through 168 innings pitched, Johan Santana has a 2.68 ERA for the New York Mets. Let's make the generous assumption, that in the American League, that would have translated into a full point higher ERA of 3.68. Accordingly, instead of allowing 54 earned runs and 62 total runs, in the American League, Santana would have surrendered 68 earned runs and 76 total runs.

Well, Santana's 168.7 inning roughly approximate the inning totals of Hughes, Rasner, and Ponson combined. So instead of the 100 Earned Runs and 104 total runs these three Yankees starters allowed, substitute instead Santana's totals and the Yankees' runs allowed drops from its current 542 total runs, without him, to 514 with him. Plug the new variable into the Jamesian Pythagorean theorem-- (RS^2 / (RS^2 + RA^ 2))-- and the Yankees current Pythagorean record of 64-57, identical to their actual record incidentally, increases to 67-54.

Only three games, you say? Well, if the Yankees miss the playoffs, how many more games than three do you honestly think will separate them from the wild-card winner? And that's three games, through 121 played, a number only likely to expand as Santana's starts accumulate and his performance improves, as it often does late in the season.

Worse, the Santana effect isn't limited to 2008. Forsaking him will impact the Yankees in 2009 as well. Because Hughes and Kennedy didn't develop this season, and Joba, because of injury, the same innings caps will confine them next year and leave holes in the Yankees rotation. The holes will expand, in fact, because both Mussina and Pettitte are free-agents and even if they do return, can anyone honestly expect Mussina to duplicate his bravura performance in 2009?

Sure, if the Yankees can sign CC Sabathia he would more than compensate for not having a Santana in the rotation. But what makes the Yankees so sure they can? Because they can offer him the most money? After dominating the National League, why wouldn't he want to remain there, perhaps moving to some West Coast NL team, where he's currently building a house or even the Cubs. It's not a risk Cashman should have taken. Because when once every ten years a proven ace who can pitch 200 innings is available, a GM with the means at his disposal seizes the opportunity.

Woe be it unto BC if CC dislikes NY.

DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME

The Dog Days are upon us. The stifling, oppressive heat. The grinding days and languid nights. The tired arms; the slow bats; the dull, nagging aches. 50 games separate October Men from the Boys of Summer.

It's the time when the aging Pinstriped animal, aging and wounded, trampled on by younger, fleeter rivals, is left for dead. It's the months when the Voice of Flushing gloats and the Boston gentry snicker, and from the bays of Tampa to the lakes of Minnesota, the upstart revels in a premature victory. It's the moment when the clowns at Bristol College and the apparatchiks at Pravada New England cast-off their disguises to sing eulogies for Bombers of the Bronx.

But it's also the time when the slumbering Pinstriped Monster awakens. Lying in wait, husbanding its energy and conserving its pace, it shakes off its torpor and accelerates, summoning reservoirs of will and mettle and resilience, kicking into high gear and sprinting to the finish line.

What time is it? Consult the history books. It's time for the Yankees Colossus to feed. Now is the time for him to own.

But will the 2008 incarnation prove worthy of the pedigree? Does this old team-- riddled with injuries, saddled with a makeshift rotation and chafing under a new battery-- old but beloved; beloved because human and not machine, beloved because erratic and flawed, beloved because it has taunted death and lived unto October more times in recent memory than we should ever dare have asked of her. Does it have enough left for the final stretch? Or is it too much to ask for one last glorious finish while the venerable stable bearing her name still stands before she must move on to greener but less hallowed pasteurs?

THE ROAD THROUGH PERDITION

Of this we can be certain-- the road there will task this team more than any in recent memory.

AL East leading Tampa has yet to wither. And with a pitching staff possessed of a 3.74 ERA tied for second in the AL, no dark clouds loom on the Ray's horizon. The Red Sox, on the other hand, with a dexterous balance of fiery youth and seasoned age, have weathered grave injuries, a weak and erratic bullpen, and the maelstrom Manny's presence created and then left in its wake. They lead the wild-card race and the division is theirs for the taking.

Meanwhile, just a little Chicago muscle earned gratitude in New York by throttling Cleveland and Detroit, another upstart Minnesota team no one bargained for, least of all their owner, Ebeneezer Scrooge himself, has laid its own claim to the title and with it, the consolation prize.

Worst of all, Baseball's scheduling Gods conspire against history's repetition. They send the Yankees, over the next month, not once but twice, to Disneyland's House of Hell. The Yankees play their Left Coast nemesis from August 8-10 in the middle of a ten game road trip commencing in a one-hundred degree Texan purgatory and concluding inside Minnesota's glorified strip mall and then have to rehearse the Herculean task less than four weeks later, beginning on Labor Day.

ON THE ROAD

In fact, 26 of the Yankees next 35 games are on the road and with the exception of Seattle, against formidable opponents besides. They play in Anaheim for 6 games; in Texas for 4; in Toronto, Baltimore, Tamap and Seattle for 3 each; and in Detroit for a make-up game. In between, they play three games each against KC, Boston, and Toronto at home. That amounts to one truncated three game homestand and a brief six game one interposed between two trips out West.

Compare its rigor to their rivals' remaining schedules. The Red Sox, for example, don't travel to the West Coast again this season. While the Rays, on the other hand, fly west of the Rockies only once more, however to Seattle and Oakland only, without a stop in Disneyland. The Rays three remaining games against the Angels will be played at home.

I list the Yankees', Rays', and Red Sox's remaining opponents below.

YANKEES

• KC -- 3
• CWS -- 4
• Tex-- 4
• LAA -- 6
• Min-- 3
• Sea-- 3
• Det-- 1
• Tor--9
• Bal-- 6
• TB-- 6
• Bos--6

51 Games remaining-- 19 games at home, 32 games on the road

RED SOX

• KC -- 3
• CWS-- 7
• Tex-- 6
• Cle-- 4
• Tor-- 12
• Bal -- 6
• NYY-- 6
• TB -- 6

50 games remaining-- 25 games at home, 25 games on the road

RAYS

• CWS- 3
• Tex-- 3
• Det - 4
• Oak-- 3
• LAA--3
• Cle-- 3
• Min- 4
• Tor--6
• Bal-- 7
• NYY--6
• Boston-- 6

52 games remaining, 22 at home, 30 on the road.

ECLIPSING THE RAYS

The above comparison hardly favors the Yankees. In fact, of the three divisional rivals, the Yankees very well may have the most treacherous schedule of all, with the Rays, a close second. The Rays and Yanks spend a nearly equivalent amount of time on the road, where the Yankees have excelled the Rays. The Rays play .451 ball away; the Yankees, .510.

However, the rigor of the Yankees' road schedule-- including one 10 game period without an off day and one sixteen game period, each with stops in the House of Hell-- still surpasses the the Ray's. What's more, the Rays begin the final stretch six lengths ahead.

The comparative ease of the Red Sox schedule-- 50% of which are at home-- should make them odd-on favorite to repeat as division champions. The two teams that can derail them, the Blue Jays, who play them 12 times, and the White Sox, enmeshed in a division race of their own, who play them 7.

At the moment, the real threat to the Yankees' playoff chances, then, would appear to be the Rays. (The Twins could challenge as well, depending on how much Liriano bolsters their rotation.) And what distinguishes the Rays, apart from the 6 game lead in the loss column at the moment, is the Rays' superior pitching. (In fact, the Yankees and Rays possess identical Pythagorean records, the Yankees at 61-50, the Rays at 60-50-- that is, the Yankees, partly, compensate for the Rays superiority in pitching with greater offensive production. No real surprise there.)

To be more precise, however, the real disparity between the two team lies less in their pitching staffs than in their starting rotations. Their bullpens actually have performed comparably. The Rays' bullpen has posted a 3.43 ERA in 314.2 IPs; the Yankees' bullpen, a 3.64 ERA in 366 IPs.

Among the starting rotations, on the other hand, the differences pale. The Rays starting 5 has a 3.88 ERA and averages 6.1 IPs per game; Yankees has 4.41 ERA and averages 5.6 IPs per game. But closer scrutiny reveals that the variation in their third, fourth, and fifth starters' performance accounts for most of it.

Compare

• Joba's 2.24 ERA vs. Kazmir's 2.89
• Mussina's 3.44 ERA vs. Garza's 3.56 ERA
• Pettitte's 4.18 ERA vs. Shields 3.63 ERA
• Ponson's 4.81 ERA vs. Jackson's 4.20 ERA
• Rasner's 5.23 ERA vs. Sonnastine's 4.58 ERA

The Rays' 3rd, 4th, and 5th starter each have surrendered about .6 less runs per inning.

An obvious solution is one the Yankees already are considering. Some one has to supplant Rasner in the rotation. What's more, he has to perform like a fourth starter or better. Whether this pitcher is Ian Kennedy or Phil Hughes or Alfredo Aceves or Jarrod Washburn, the Yankees have to find him and find him fast. Too many more games in which their starter surrenders 5 or more runs in the first three innings and Ruth's House will indeed host its last game on September 21st. Such a move would have the added benefit of re-assigning Ponson to the fifth starter spot where his performance better suits him.

Then, too, Andy Pettitte cannot reprise either of the two dreadful outings he had to open the July 3rd series against Boston, in which he yielded 5 earned runs in less than five innings, and this last home series against Anaheim, where he yielded nine. Other than those two outings, Pettitte's been exceptional, posting a 2.29 ERA over 55 innings since June 12th. However, if Pettitte has another 10 outings this season, the Yankees cannot afford him to falter like that again. The Yankees need a quality start from Andy-- defined as 3 earned runs or less over six innings-- practically every time he toes the rubber.

If the Yankees can accomplish as much-- fill their rotation's fourth hole and stabilize Andy Pettitte -- without their bullpen or their offense regressing, the AL's fourth playoff spot will come down to the wire and the Yankees will find themselves in a photo finish.

CASHMAN CURBS HIS FARM FETISH

Since Brian Cashman assumed the title of GM in 1998, the three most distinguished trades of his tenure for position players (that is, non-pitchers), in my estimation, rank as follows:

(i) Alex Rodriguez for Alfonso Soriano (February 2004)
(ii) Bobby Abreu (and Corey Lidle) for CJ Henry, Matt Smith, Jesus Sanchez, and Carlos Monstrios (July 2006); and
(iii) David Justice for Ricky Ledee, Jake Westbrook, and Zach Day (June 2000)

Sure, the trade Cashman completed last night for Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte in exchange for Ross Ohlendorf, Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, and Dan McCutchen warrants celebrating.

Cashman overcame the farm fetish that has plagued his judgment over the last year-- as manifest in his decision to forsake first Santana and more recently, Sabathia-- and relinquished promising prospects for two major-league players who immediately improve their major league roster's depth, flexibility, and talent.

That being said, the trade ranks no better than fourth among the foregoing three.

Yes, the Yankees satisfied their desperate need for another productive hitter that arose with Posada and Matsui's injuries. (It shouldn't surprise anyone that once the trade deadline expires, the Yankees suddenly announce that both will undergo surgery that ends their seasons.)

The bottom third of the lineup Girardi has had to field recently of Melky, Molina, and Gardner only has underscored how woeful the Yankees' lineup has become. And by replacing Gardner's paltry production with a right-handed bat capable of league-average or better production, Xavier Nady should improve their run production and add balance to their lineup immediately. (Nady has played both corner outfield positions adeptly in addition to having seen time at 1B and in CF.)

However, Nady, his production this year notwithstanding, hardly qualifies as the premiere hitter either Justice or Abreu were in 2000 and 2006, respectively, to say nothing, of course, of Rabbi Alex.

Indeed, his rather prolific statistics in 2008 (.330/.383/.535 with 13 HRs, 26 2Bs, and 57 RBIs) represent something of an aberration. Nady's career statistical splits are .281/.337/.456 and in six profession seasons before this year, not once did Nady post an on-base percentage above .337 or a slugging percentage over .476.

Contrast these statistics with Abreu's in 2006, a player who until then, consistently walked over 100 times a year and had an on-base percentage over .393 for 8 consecutive years-- every year, that is, since he became an everday outfielder. In addition, Abreu's career slugging percentage exceeded in 2006, and still exceeds, Nady's .456 number.

Nor for that matter is Nady the established hitter Justice was in 2000 either. With minor exception, Justice posted over a .900 OPS (Slugging + OBA) almost every year he played a full season.

In other words, to have matched his previous coups in obtaining Abreu and Justice and to compensate fully for the lost production Matsui and Posada's injuries entail, Cashman would had to acquire a hitter like the Pirates' other corner outfielder, Jason Bay or perhaps, Mark Teixiera.

Of course, Cashman, in this latest deal, also obtained in Damaso Marte, a pitcher the organization has slavered over for years and the lefty-handed reliever Joe Girardi has insisted is a necessity. Given the bullpen's recent performance, however, I'm not sure I agree with him. A left-handed reliever of Marte's caliber strikes me less as a necessity than a luxury at the moment.

Left-handed batters actually have a lower batting average (.183) against Jose Veras than right-handed batters (.238) in an almost equivalent number of plate appearances. And the splits of right-handed and left-handed batters against Edwar Ramirez don't differ materially either .156 (RHs) vs. .176 against (LHs).

(In fact, in his persistent decision to play inferior right-handed lineups against left-handed pitchers, I often wonder, whether Girardi hasn't become overly enamored with the "match-up" tactic in circumstances where it isn't always warranted.)

As Joe Torre often observed, proficient relievers, regardless of from what side they throw, can retire any hitter, lefty or righty.

As for the price Cashman had to pay? Naturally, it's still too early to judge. Ricky Ledee, for instance, was the centerpiece of the Justice trade, but Jake Westbrook, in the end, developed into the more profitable dividend. Still, it appears Cashman, at the very least, yielded more than he did for Abreu. (Although with good reason: the Phillies, in Abreu's case, were eager to rid themselves of the salary.) In contrast, Ohlendorf and Tabata, each, have shown signs of the potential to develop into viable or even superior major league talents. Meanwhile Dan McCutchen recently has skyrocketed through the Yankees farm system and to many, had surpassed Alan Horne and Jeff Marquez on the organizational depth chart. (McCutchen, indeed, might have been there all along had he not neglected to inform the Yankees he takes physician-prescribed Adderall for ADHD and not earned a suspension for it after testing positive for stimulants. Evidently, McCutchen has since received medical clearance to take the drug.)

In sum, Cashman deserves praise for improving his major league roster and with it, the Yankees' ability to contend for a playoff spot this season. What's more, to do so, he surrendered four players, whatever potential they possess, unlikely to help their major league club this year.

However, two misgivings, apart from those expressed above, prevent me from giving this trade an unqualified and resounding endorsement.

First of all, the Yankee farm system's greatest weakness is a deficiency in premiere hitting prospects. And Tabata, along with Austin Jackson and Jesus Montero, numbered among their top three. Accordingly, with the Yankees' corner outfielders all over 33, and Melky Cabrera increasingly demonstrating himself little more than a fourth outfielder, I would have felt far more confident about relinquishing Tabata had the Yankees acquired Pirates' outfielder Jason Bay instead. Bay has more power, a higher career on-base percentage, and slugging percentage than Nady, and has averaged more pitches per plate appearance over his career. Bay also is signed through 2009.

I recognize the Yankees would not have received Marte in such package -- but to my mind Marte's a luxury with Bruney returning and the farm system deep in middle-relievers. And in the long-run, Bay would have been better served the Yankees as a future left-fielder than the less prolific Nady as a prospective one in right.

Which brings me to my second qualm about the deal. In his analysis of it, Newsday's Ken Davidoff writes "Nady, as long as he performs capably over the next two months, should be the Yankees' starting rightfielder in 2009, allowing the club to bid farewell to Bobby Abreu."
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spken265778188jul26,0,380684.column

If the Yankees are indeed planning to act as such, I submit they would be making a major error. Xavier Nady, if perhaps minor improvement over Abreu defensively (and I'm not sure he is), certainly cannot replace Abreu's production as the Yankees 'three-hitter,' not even in Abreu's last two sub-par seasons. No, I concede, Abreu, recently, hasn't shown the same proficiency he exhibited in his first half-season with the Yankees, but his 4.3 P/PA at-bat and .BA with two-strikes, two important qualities in a hitter preceding A-Rod in the lineup, is still beyond compare, as is his speed. Accordingly, if the Yankees can re-sign Bobby for a year or two at less than the $16 million annually they currently pay him-- and by all reports, Abreu wants to return-- they should.

For if the Yankees think they can replace Abreu's spot in the lineup with Xavier Nady or Robinson Cano, for that matter, they're seriously deluding themselves. I only hope my good friend, Ken, is wrong this one time because I can't think of a worthy replacement for Abreu among next year's free-agents either. Mark Teixiera, perhaps, the one palatable alternative, is a Boras client and would cost the Yankees another Giambi-like contract-- money better spent in trying to allure CC Sabathia to the Bronx.

So let's give Cashman his due-- no deal comes easily and his farm restoration project enabled this one. However, he hardly merits canonization for this deal either.