Last time we looked, the Yankees' 2001 World Series parade hadn't started yet. Joe Torre hadn't started weeping with joy yet. And the only empty champagne bottles in the entire borough of the Bronx were sitting in a recycling bin on Jerome Avenue.
We want you to know these are good things, uplifting things. They are things that reassure us the 2001 season really isn't over before it starts.
OK, so the Yankees signed the best right-handed starting pitcher on the free-agent shelves, some guy named Mussina.
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Yankees 2001 payroll
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Player
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Salary
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Bernie Williams
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$12.357M
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Roger Clemens
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$10.3M
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Mike Mussina
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$10M
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Andy Pettitte
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$7M
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David Justice
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$7M
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Paul O'Neill
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$6.3M
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Chuck Knoblauch
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$6M
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Tino Martinez
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$6M
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Scott Brosius
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$5.25M
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Mike Stanton
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$2.45M
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O. Hernandez
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2.05M
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Allen Watson
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$1.7M
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Glenallen Hill
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$1.5M
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Joe Oliver
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$1.25M
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Alfonso Soriano
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$630K
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Adrian Hernandez
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$600,000
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Derek Jeter
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arbitration
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Mariano Rivera
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arbitration
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Jorge Posada
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arbitration
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Ramiro Mendoza
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arbitration
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Clay Bellinger
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unsigned
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Shane Spencer
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unsigned
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Total (so far)
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$80.38M
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OK, so they now have more legitimate aces in one locker room than the entire AL Central has in its whole division.
OK, so they look slightly more imposing on paper right now than the Yuma Bullfrogs.
Still, we want you to repeat after us: Mike Mussina doesn't guarantee the Yankees anything -- except possibly a larger payroll than General Motors.
Repeat that line as many times as you need to. It's called therapy. It's also called truth.
"Oh yeah. It will be tough to keep the Yankees out of the playoffs now," said a scout from one AL contender Thursday, after the Yankees had alleviated their oh-no-we're-down-to-three-aces crisis by signing Mussina. "But get them in a five-game playoff series and who knows what might happen?
"If Terrence Long just catches a fly ball in Oakland (Game 5 of the Division Series), the A's are probably in the World Series instead of them. So they'll make the playoffs. But this doesn't mean they automatically win the World Series."
Now you need to remind yourselves this is true. All of you. Bud Selig. Boss Steinbrenner. Hizzoner Rudy Guiliani. Everybody.
That's where we come in. We're here to present 10 Reasons The Yankees Still Have To Play Out The Season:
10. They're older than Milton Berle.
Check this roster. Roger Clemens turns 39 in August. Dwight Gooden is 36. Paul O'Neill will be 38. Glenallen Hill will be 37. David Justice will be 35. Luis Sojo will be 35. Mike Stanton turns 34 in June.
This team has more guys from the '60s than the Beatles. They've got to pull all their hamstrings simultaneously one of these days. Don't they?
9. El Duque is really older than Milton Berle.
We love Orlando Hernandez as much as anybody out there. But if he's 31, Pat Buchanan won the election.
So this scenario isn't out of the question: El Duque admits to real age, collects first Social Security check, buys big straw hat, retires to Hialeah. Yeah, that's the ticket.
8. It's impossible to four-peat.
Who the heck four-peats in this day and age? We don't care if their payroll is $110 million or $310 million. October is a mine field. And we know some folks in Atlanta you could consult on this.
Exactly one team has four-peated in this sport since the first year of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration (the '49-53 Yankees). And the other sports aren't exactly bursting at the seams with four-peaters, either.
Jordan's Bulls never did it. Bradshaw's Steelers never did it. No NFL team has ever done it. Only the Bill Russell Celtics did it in the NBA.
So the Yankees can't do it. Can't be done. Bet the Empire State Building on it.
7. Pitching isn't everything.
"I'll give you a reason to play it out," said one scout. "Maddux. Glavine. And Smoltz. You can't win with pitching alone."
And this is true. Three years ago, the Yankees' lineup scared you. This year, they were sixth in the AL in runs scored. They scored fewer runs than the Royals. They scored 100 fewer runs than the White Sox. If David Justice and Glenallen Hill hadn't shown up, they wouldn't have finished ahead of the Red Sox or Blue Jays.
Mike Mussina has four career hits. So he might need some help.
6. They're losing Jeff Nelson.
You could make a case that starting pitching isn't why the Yankees won this World Series at all. Relief pitching is why they won this World Series. Nelson, Stanton, Rivera. That was their secret, friends.
Not anymore. Jeff Nelson is on the verge of hiking off to Seattle for a better pay day. They assume they can replace him because they're the Yankees. They can replace anybody. But suppose they can't.
Here's their nightmare: They replace Nelson with, say, Jaime Navarro. (Same initials.) Right-handers hit .157 against Nelson. They hit .402 against Navarro. Disaster ensues. Yeah, that's the ticket.
6. Nobody left to trade.
The only reason the Yankees won last year is because they traded for all those reenforcements last June and July. That was the good news. The bad news was: To get those guys, they traded away all their youth except Steinbrenner's grandchildren.
So suppose they need to make just as many deals this year? Trouble.
"Our club feels they dealt away a big chunk of their system," says one AL executive. "As great a job as they do in development, after all those deals, their prospects now are nothing special."
So instead of trading for Justice and Denny Neagle this July, say they trade for Izzy Alcantara and Sean Bergman. Disaster ensues. Yeah, that's the ticket.
4. Steinbrenner loses interest
You think it's easy being impestuous team emperor for nearly 30 years? Nobody can do it forever. Even Boss Steinbrenner.
Suppose he gets bored with all this winning, winning, winning. Nobody to yell at. No faxes to send to the commissioner's office. No managers to fire.
So suppose he sells. To, say, WeRunTeams.com. Whose stock then plummets the next day, from $157 per share to $3 per share. Disaster ensues. Yeah, that's the ticket.
3. Chuck Knoblauch still can't throw straight.
When last we saw Chuck Knoblauch, his team was afraid to let him use a glove during the entire month of October. Not that it was his glove they were afraid of.
We're no longer allowed to make jokes about Keith Olbermann's mother, but you might have noticed Knoblauch hasn't quite licked his problem of throwing his way into one David Letterman monologue a week.
And suppose, when this season rolls around, he still hasn't licked it. Then one day, a throw gets away and hits Mussina on the knuckles, preventing Mussina from throwing his fabled knuckle-curve. Disaster ensues. Yeah, that's the ticket.
2. Lockout on the horizon.
With a year to go until another round of labor Armageddon, the perfect scenario for the owners' Why We Need A Salary Cap Or At Least Somebody To Kidnap Don Fehr labor strategy would be yet one more Yankees World Series parade.
So, of course, that can't possibly happen.
No owners' labor strategies ever work out. You could look it up. So we need to think logically here: What's the worst possible owners' labor nightmare?
Twins-Expos World Series. Both teams' payrolls combined are computed to be less than the salaries of Mussina and Clemens. Fehr says after Series trophy presentation to Carl Pohlad: "WHAT disparity problem?" Has to happen. Guaranteed.
1. Bad year for early projections.
After what we've been through for the last month, would you project this election to the Yankees based on the early Mussina exit polls? Not us, friends. Not us.
But we'll let you in on the offseason's hottest rumor: Katherine Harris is picking the Devil Rays.
Triviality
Four active closers with 50 or more save opportunities have converted 85 percent of their chances to get a save. Can you name them? (Answer at bottom.)
Rumblings of the Week
A front-office man from one of the teams pursuing Mike Hampton says that despite agent Mark Rodgers' claims that they've never solicited offers, Hampton is looking for a contract "well beyond Mussina and, actually, north of Kevin Brown." After Mussina settled for about $14.75 million a year, the same source predicted: "He definitely won't get that now."
But Rodgers may disagree. He has often pointed out that Hampton, at age 28, is four years younger than Mussina. And the day before Mussina signed, when asked how Mussina's agreement might affect Hampton, Rodgers answered: "I don't think it will really impact on us. I'm sure some people will try to look at that and gauge what Mike is going to make. But they're two separate players, two very distinct players.
"I don't think it's fair to pin ourselves on either side of Mike Mussina. That would assume that Mike had the same market as Mussina. But in fact, Mussina limited his market (to the Northeast U.S.), and Mike did not."
But a number of front-office people have made sure to note that Mussina didn't cross the Kevin Brown Line ($15 million a year). And even other agents have been predicting that no pitcher will cross that line this winter -- even Hampton. So stay tuned.
When Hampton quickly eliminated a return to Houston, the big worry for the Astros was how Jeff Bagwell might interpret that. One NL source says Bagwell has delayed talking with the Astros about an extension "because he wants to see what they do to improve the club. For that reason alone, I think they're under pressure to have to do some things this winter. He doesn't just want the money. He wants to see a commitment to winning."
There are suddenly many indications the Red Sox are gearing up for a huge run at Manny Ramirez. And there are also indications the Mets have decided not to make a run.
Meanwhile, Ramirez's old team, the Indians, has been as quiet this winter as it has been in years. And even with Ramirez's apparently imminent departure, that might not change for a while.
"We're at a very different point than we've been," said assistant GM Mark Shapiro. "We could field a team today. We don't have a glaring need. We've got six starting pitchers (Bartolo Colon, Chuck Finley, Dave Burba, Steve Woodard, an apparently healthy Jaret Wright and a still-questionable Charles Nagy). So we've had a lot of conversations with a lot of agents. But I don't feel we'll even be middle-market players. We're bottom players right now."
The Indians signed Ellis Burks early on, but are still looking for another bat. So Tony Gwynn remains an option if he doesn't go back to San Diego. They haven't completely closed the door on David Segui, as they wait to see if his price tag (four years, $32 million) comes down. They may even take a run at Andres Galarraga for a year if his price ($6 million) drops.
But one guy they're not looking to move is Robbie Alomar, those Toronto and L.A. rumors notwithstanding. "We've had zero conversation on Robbie since the GM meetings," Shapiro said. "We've never uttered his name."
Another relatively quiet team has been the Mets. But baseball sources who have conversed with the Mets say they simply decided to concentrate their immediate efforts on re-signing their free-agent pitchers (Hampton, Rick Reed, Bobby Jones, Turk Wendell, who re-signed for three years on Friday). But they've covered themselves by working on other options, like Kevin Appier (possible) or Denny Neagle (unlikely at $10 million a year).
There were rumors the Mets had trades working for Dustin Hermanson and Jose Lima, but those seem to have fizzled out. Still on their drawing board: Johnny Damon (for some three-player combination of relievers and prospects). Another name that surfaced this week: Greg Vaughn.
Incidentally, the Mets have taken a lot of heat for leaking Scott Boras' list of mandatory A-Rod perks. And Boras has been denying them feverishly. But a source says Boras repeated the same laundry list in his conversation with the Rangers just this week.
The Dodgers have been denying our report earlier this week that a source from another club said they've been authorized by Rupert Murdoch to hike their payroll as high as $125 million. "No truth whatsoever," said one Dodgers employee. The Dodgers also continue to insist they're not getting into the A-Rod bidding, despite rumblings elsewhere to the contrary.
One scout's view of the best-looking pitcher in the Dominican Winter League: Toronto's Pascual Coco. "To me," said the scout, "he's better than a couple of the guys they're counting on in their rotation."
For all the talk about the Yankees making a big offer to Tom Gordon, a number of sources say Gordon wants to go somewhere he can be a closer again. Baltimore, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and the Cubs appear to be at the top of Gordon's list.
It's been a tough month for brothers, with the break-up of the Alomar brothers in Cleveland and the Martinez brothers in Boston. And come to think of it, those Bush brothers haven't had a real harmonious month, either. But among guys who ought to be brothers but aren't, there could be big news:
If Bobby Jones re-signs with the Mets, the two Bobby Joneses could have a name-game tag-team match going 100 miles down the turnpike. The Phillies have already re-signed their own Brian Hunter, the first baseman. And they're in negotiations to sign the other Brian Hunter, the center fielder. Now if the Giants can only sign Ramon (Brother of Pedro) Martinez ...
Useless information dept.
Another reason to sing the old Life Ain't Fair Blues about the Yankees: Since World War I, only two right-handed pitchers with 225 or more decisions have career winning percentages of .645 or better. The Yankees employ both of them: Roger Clemens (.647) and Mussina (.645).
Here's a whole new way to look at the MVP voting -- players appearing on the most ballots (as opposed to players who got the most points).
Your AL leaders: Jason Giambi, Frank Thomas and Carlos Delgado (28 of 28), A-Rod (27), Edgar Martinez (25), Manny Ramirez (23), Nomar Garciaparra (19), Pedro Martinez (17), Mike Sweeney (16) and Derek Jeter (15).
Your NL leaders: Jeff Kent, Barry Bonds and Mike Piazza (32 of 32), Todd Helton and Vladimir Guerrero (31 of 31), Jim Edmonds (30), Jeff Bagwell (29), Sammy Sosa (24), Andruw Jones and Gary Sheffield (23).
What's fascinating about these results is to see how the point system -- based on a ranking system that gets quirky and arbitrary after the top two or three names -- skews perceptions of where players finish.
For instance, Nomar finished ninth in the point system, while his teammate Pedro, finished fifth. But Nomar actually was named on more ballots. And Edgar Martinez finished seventh in the point totals but was named on all but three ballots.
The two players who appeared in the most different places on the ballot: Darin Erstad (got votes in every spot from second through 10th place) and Helton (got no ninth-place votes but received at least one in every other spot).
The two teams that had the most different players appear on at least one ballot: Atlanta (Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine) and San Francisco (Kent, Bonds, Ellis Burks, Robb Nen).
Our man Jose Lima didn't quite break Bert Blyleven's gopherball record this year. (Lima finished two short, with 48). And he didn't quite outhomer the home-run champ (Sosa, who hit 50). But Lima's 48 home runs served did make him the first pitcher since 1992 to finish in the top three in baseball in homers either hit or allowed.
Last to do it, according to the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent: Bill Gullickson, whose 35 homers in '92 ranked behind only Juan Gonzalez (43) and Mark McGwire (42).
Last guy before Gullickson: Tom Browning in 1988 (with 36). He finished behind Jose Canseco (42) and Darryl Strawberry (39).
Since we live in a world in which people constantly bemoan the fact that so many left-handers can't get left-handed hitters out, we researched this factoid. These are the five left-handed pitchers who were most unhittable against left-handed hitters this year (minimum: 50 at-bats):
Al Leiter (.119)
Mike Myers (.121)
Greg Swindell (.159)
Kelly Wunsch (.160)
Doug Creek (.170)
And now the five left-handed pitchers who were the most hittable against left-handed hitters (same criteria):
Darren Oliver (.373)
Mark Mulder (.368)
John Halama (.343)
Mike Stanton (.339)
Matt Perisho (.331)
We need to give those right-handed pitchers equal time. So here comes a list of right-handed pitchers who picked off the most runners this year:
Francisco Cordova (5)
Turk Wendell (5)
Octavio Dotel (4)
Dustin Hermanson (4)
Scott Williamson (4)
Jamey Wright (4)
Which player led all of baseball in our pal Gammons' favorite stat -- OPS? (That's on-base plus slugging percentage, for those who haven't been following Diamond Notes.) Well, if you include guys who got just one at-bat, then our friend Alan Schwarz, of Baseball America, reports that only one player had a perfect score of 5.000.
It was ... (who else?) ... legendary Devil Rays twirler-batsmith Esteban Yan, who homered on the first pitch thrown to him in his career, in June -- and never got another at-bat.
And this just in: Yan is only the fourth player since 1900 to run up one of those 5.000 OPS numbers (i.e., the fourth to homer in his only at-bat of the year). The first was Bill Lefebvre, for the 1938 Red Sox. The most recent was Guillermo Mota, for the '99 Expos. The other was the great Buster Narum, who did it for the '63 Orioles. No truth to the rumor Narum lost a title fight to Muhammad Ali three years later.
Finally, our buddy, John Perrotto, of the Beaver County (Pa.) Times, checks in with this blockbuster from our Rumblings and Grumblings Taxation Dept.:
Perrotto reports that his paper's business section was doing a story this winter on Pennsylvanians who are owed tax refunds and couldn't be located by the IRS -- when it discovered that one of those missing refund checks belonged to big Pirates bopper Brian Giles.
When informed by Perrotto that the IRS wanted to send him money, Giles replied: "Seriously? I'm getting money back? Is that good? I guess that's good. I'm unemployed right now. I'm a seasonal worker, and I'm out of season. I guess the money will come in handy over the winter."
And isn't it good to know in this holiday season that the Giles family will now be able to afford to buy stockings to hang by their tree?
List of the week
Managers come in all shapes and sizes. And here's a good example -- a most-and-fewest list of managerial tendencies, culled from Stats Inc.'s Major League Handbook 2001:
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Category
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Most
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Fewest
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Using starter on 3 days rest
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Bobby Cox (7)
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Eight managers (zero)
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Using starter for 120+ pitches
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Joe Torre (27)
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Lou Piniella (1)
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One-batter relief appearances
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Buddy Bell (57)
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Davey Johnson (13)
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Saves of more than one inning
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Jack McKeon (24)
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Davey Lopes (1)
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Different lineups
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Jimy Williams (140)
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Jim Fregosi (74)
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Pinch-runners used
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Art Howe (81)
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Gene Lamont (13)
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Intentional walks issued
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Davey Lopes (56)
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Tom Kelly (9)
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Hit-and-runs
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Bobby Valentine (100)
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Art Howe (32)
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Pitchouts called
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Jimy Williams (114)
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Johnny Oates (4)
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Trivia answer
Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Robb Nen and Billy Koch.
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
Rumor Central
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