Long Way Baby
Posted by Steve L. on October 1st, 2009 · Comments (15)
Wasn’t it just like yesterday where the big crisis among many Yankees fans was the fact was that Chris Britton and/or Kevin Thompson were “stuck” at AAA – and the big league team wouldn’t call them up?
It all seems silly now, eh?
Kevin Thompson came and went in the blink of an eye and I don’t remember much about him. Britton, however, pitched lights out for SWB over the ’07 and ’08 seasons and probably deserved a bit more than the cup of coffee the Yanks gave him.
That being said, the system has enough bullpen arms that losing Britton isn’t the end of the world. From the looks of it, he must’ve been injured in 2009 because his performance indicates that something was very wrong.
I did like Chris Britton back in the day, can’t deny it.
And, can we give Cashman props for this?
@ Corey:
I assume you mean props for the system having “enough bullpen arms that losing Britton isn’t the end of the world” right? In that case, I agree.
Cashman still doesn’t know all that much about building a bullpen, as evidenced by the fact that he repeated the Farnsworth mistake (3Y/$17M from ’06-’08) with Marte (3Y/$12M). Again, not a colossal blunder in the grand scheme of things but certainly indicative of the larger point that Cashman hasn’t internalized the error.
MJ wrote:
Ya know what though? The mistake with Marte isn’t as bad because he was just signed to be the LOOGY, with some innings during the 7th. Farnsworth was supposed to be our set up guy for 3 years.
Corey wrote:
3Y/$12M for a LOOGY? Isn’t it worse to overspend for a role player than to overspend for a guy that you thought would play a central role in the closing out of wins?
Cashman swinging and missing with Farnsworth was bad but, according to you, he not only made the same mistake twice, he made it with a guy that is only suppsed to get 1-2 outs max. UGH…that makes it even worse!
It wasn’t so much a crisis as the team not giving them a fair shake. At times it seemed that the organization was doing everything it could to bury Britton, for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. Put him out there and run him into the ground. Make him a long man, short man, whatever. At the time I thought between him and Albaladejo, they could replicate the performance of a LaTroy Hawkins.
As for Thompson, I see him in the same vein as Shelly Duncan. Not sure why the Yanks didn’t even bother to call him up as a bench player.
In any case, we’re talking about a couple of guys who are fringe ML’er, 24th, 25th man on the roster types.
@ Corey:
Marte isn’t a LOOGY.
MJ wrote:
I’m just saying it doesn’t sting as bad cause we don’t have to see him in crucial spots night after night.
Raf wrote:
No? That’s the role he’s been used in. for the most part, since he’s been here though.
Raf wrote:
Agree completely.
Corey wrote:
I know. Marte can get lefties and righties out, and can toss multiple innings, which doesn’t make him a LOOGY in a traditional sense.
Raf wrote:
I assume by “get lefties and righties out” you’re speaking in the hypothetical? Thus far in New York, Marte hasn’t gotten much of anybody out.
Regardless of his time in NY, I can’t ignore the other 400+ innings he has thrown in his career.
@ Raf:
Fair point, although what happened in the past doesn’t matter that much if he can’t produce the same results in the future. It becomes a conundrum of “WTF happened to the pitcher that used to get outs?”
Raf wrote:
regardless of that, he was signed to be the LOOGY.