Bill Madden Lets Loose On Cashman
Bill Madden, via the Daily News:
Son of Boss Hank Steinbrenner has sounded the “wait till next year” rallying cry, and it sure looks as if the Yankees are heeding it. What is curious, however – and, not to mention, very un-Boss-like – is that Hank is blaming injuries for this seemingly lost season while apparently exonerating everyone involved.
In truth, we should have realized right from the get-go that this Yankee team wasn’t constituted for making a 14th straight trip to the postseason. Not when the general manager, Brian Cashman, decided the starting rotation would include one rookie and one semi-rookie in Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes. Or that the bullpen would have to get the job done without the benefit of a lefthander. Or that the bench was going to be satisfactory with retreads such as Morgan Ensberg and the jack of all trades, master of none, Wilson Betemit.
No, there were a whole lot of critical player evaluations made here that were wrong, and for that, the general manager must be held accountable.
It’s a refreshing notion, building a team around your own homegrown pitching, but at the same time it’s fraught with potential disaster. Young pitchers get hurt. Young pitchers usually need two to three years of experience before they start coming into their own. And, as any baseball savant going all the way back to Branch Rickey will tell you, to get just one top-of-the-rotation starter, you need to develop at least seven or eight young pitchers. In the Yankees’ case, those odds are even greater, as they have not drafted and developed a legitimate top-of-the-rotation starter since Andy Pettitte.
So Cashman has to assume the lion’s share of the blame here. He put this team together, staking his reputation on the young pitchers who all either flopped or got hurt, or in Hughes’ case, both.
George Steinbrenner undoubtedly would see things in an entirely different way. After the lesson of 1978, when the Yankees were still nine games behind the Red Sox on Aug. 13, he would never give up on a season. Rather, he would be hammering away at the people accountable for this $200 million failure. In his absence, I suppose somebody else is just going to have to do it for him.
For what it’s worth, Madden also rips Joe Girardi in this column.
Remember the days when Madden was the direct pipeline to “unnamed, high-ranking, Yankee sources“? By the nature of this feature, I’m guessing that pipeline has now dried up…and it’s open season on the Yankees brass.
Madden’s article is complete rubbish, as usual.
How so? What parts?
What’s the basis for your position?
How so? What parts?
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Blaming the pitching when the offense is the problem. The pitching is pretty much performing the same as last year;
ERA+
2007: 99
2008: 99
OPS+
2007: 118
2008: 104
But, nice rant on the part of Madden…
How so? What parts?
What’s the basis for your position?
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Among other things, Madden cited the fact that the bullpen didn’t have a lefty. So what? The bullpen seemed to be doing pretty well without one and the past 10 days’ failures aren’t because the Yanks broke camp without a LHP in their ‘pen.
Or, maybe it was the part about the bench consisting of Ensberg/Betemit. Because it was so indefensible to start the year with a righty hitter off the bench that had a career .278/.400/.512 line vs. LHP? Isn’t that what everyone thought the Yanks needed, more righty power off the bench?
If Madden wants to rant and use examples, he may as well pick on the right people. The team isn’t a $200M beached whale because the Yanks didn’t have a lefty in the pen or thought Ensberg was a good bench player. It’s because a full 33% of their opening day lineup — Jeter, Cano, Cabrera — has played a season to be ashamed of at the plate and in the field.
I suppose that Wang doesn’t count as a front of the rotation starter. I suppose that the loss of the left fielder, DH, power-hitting catcher, and the slow start of Cano, decline of Jeter and Abreu had absolutely nothing to do with the Yankees’ season.
I suppose that Damaso Marte has made the bullpen rock solid.