Kuzul

Just to clarify:

Yes, I know that Adam Wainwright is in St. Louis.

And yes, I know that the Yankees are in no way directly related to him.

Yet, Adam Wainwright’s injury could spell bad news for the Yankees as they begin their long climb back to the top.

We all know of the Yankees’ rotation woes. It’s been well-documented through every single form of media available to the masses. Nos. 1 through 3 are a lock, and that’s not saying much as Hughes and Burnett are question marks, and Nos. 4 and 5 are up for grabs.

The Yankees have plenty of options for those last two spots, but none that they are absolutely in love with. Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon, Ivan Nova, Sergio Mitre, Andrew Brackman, Hector Noesi and David Phelps are all in competition for those last spots, and each one is just as inconsistent as the last.

There are a few intriguing free agents left, such as veteran Kevin Millwood, the oft-injured Jeremy Bonderman, left-hander Doug Davis and even the injury magnet himself, Ben Sheets.

The Yankees would prefer to offer any free-agent starter a minor league deal, this way, there’s no guarantee that they’ll crack the rotation. They would rather have a competition this spring, and rightly so.

Now, even if they wanted to sign any of the aforementioned free agents, they’ll have very stiff competition from the Cardinals.

The Cardinals can, and probably will, offer a major league contract to any free-agent pitcher they chase after, and, of course, a major league contract versus a minor league contract is a joke. 

The Yankees already attempted to entice Millwood with a minor league deal, but to no avail. He has chosen to hold out for a major league contract, and he may get one in St. Louis.

Having Millwood could really help the Bombers. An innings eater his entire career, Millwood has the potential to give the Yanks 180-190 solid innings. For argument’s sake, let’s just say that Sergio Mitre occupies the spot that Millwood doesn’t.

The only time that Mitre has cracked the 100-inning plateau was in 2007 when he threw 149 innings for the Marlins. He was 5-8 with a 4.65 ERA. In my personal opinion, keeping Mitre out of the rotation is incentive enough to sign Millwood.

Remember that Chris Carpenter to the Yankees rumor?

Well, you can forget about that one now.

I’m not sure how reliable that rumor was, but it’s moot now. The Cardinals will be extremely reluctant to trade their ace now that his co-ace has gone down for the season. 

Adam Wainwright’s injury affects more than just the Cardinals.  The Yankees will have to fight even harder to attract some of the remaining free agent arms.  If not, the Yankees are going to have to catch lightning in a bottle in 2011 and hope that Hughes, Burnett and the fourth and fifth starters will produce.

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The whole offseason drama with the Yankees was: “Who’s going to pitch for us?”

The Yankees have talented minor league pitching prospects, but they aren’t ready to pitch by Opening Day and they have free agents on their staff, with decidedly mixed results.

Where that leaves the Yankees as Spring Training 2011 begins is with a starting rotation with holes the size of fishing nets. Just how did the richest organization in sports get into this mess?

Short answer: They don’t develop pitchers. 

Since the “Core Four” came up together in 1996, the Yankees have developed exactly one starting pitcher: Phil Hughes.

For years, the Yankees relied on Andy Pettitte and a bevy of free agents: Clemens, Mussina, Wells, Pavano, Wright, Irabu, etc.

During that time, from 1996 until 2010, there were two pitchers the Yankees brought up that could have worked, but A: They traded Ted Lilly for a headcase and B: They mishandled Chien-Ming Wang’s injury and he is busted for the foreseeable future.

It’s interesting to note that the Yankees were initially reluctant to bring Wang up and showed little faith in him, despite his domination of the minor leagues. Wang only was in the rotation because free agents Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano and Jared Wright all had catastrophic performances throughout 2005.

Wang was never supposed to have been given a chance—circumstances and desperation afforded him his opportunity.

In any event, the point is the Yankees have had no real success in developing young pitchers since 1996. Their faith has always been placed—despite much evidence to the contrary—in free agency.

Whether it was due to lack of interest or just plain old incompetence, the Yankees haven’t been able to develop a young pitcher and haven’t shown any confidence in giving one a chance.

“We’re gonna be in it every year,” says Hank Steinbrenner. “Every single year.”

Which is great news for Yankees fans, having an ownership that puts their profit back onto the field is a wonderful thing.

Ask the Pirates.

But it also means that trusting rookies to develop is going to usually be a non-starter, especially pitchers. Rookies make mistakes, need time to grow.

Check out Randy Johnson’s first couple of years, or Johan Santana’s or Tom Glavine’s. It takes a bit of time before pitchers find their groove.

The Yankees do not have a bit of time.

So here come the free agents—the Kei Igawas, the Kevin Browns, the Jared Wrights, the A.J. Burnetts.

Which brings us to 2011 Spring Training, with a ball club that has a $200 million dollar price tag and roughly 2.5 to 3.5 starting pitchers.

Ivan Nova will probably have a starting job, but will also have the added pressure that he has to produce immediately as a starter in the rotation. He wont be afforded the luxury of developing in the bullpen and working his way onto the staff. His growth as a pitcher is borne of panicked desperation instead of prudent development.

Our rivals to the north have in two slots of their rotation potential aces that were home-grown. Both Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz came up young, were allowed to make mistakes (Jon Lester’s WHIP his first two years was 1.648 and 1.460; Buchholz went 2-9, 6.75 ERA, 1.763 WHIP in 2008), were allowed to get sent back down to AAA to work on their stuff and generally learn and grow.

There is very little chance that the Yankees would have allowed a 2-9 performance or a 1.648 WHIP rookie on their staff. A call would have been made to Sidney Ponson or Shawn Chacon to try to save the season.

Development over.

So that is where the Yankees are in 2011: Two quality starters, one recovering starter, one journeyman starter and a rushed rookie, along with a $200 million dollar price tag and tons of hope in the minors, but most of them at least a year away.

Going forward, the prayers of Yankees fans regarding those talented minor league pitchers are A: Don’t rush them (remember 19-year-old Jose Rijo?) and B: Don’t trade them for someone like Derek Lowe or Bronson Arroyo in an attempt to catch the Red Sox in July.

I do appreciate the Yankees spending beau-coup bucks to try to win. But that mindset—of winning every single season no matter what—has placed pitcher development on the back burner, and has created a culture of distrust of young pitchers.

“Win now” has meant “No Growing Pains;” either perform like an All-Star immediately or you’re out, which is a short-sighted philosophy.

Overpaying an older, fading pitcher who may not fit your team and who will plug your payroll for years (Brown, Johnson, Wright) instead of taking a chance to develop a younger, cheaper pitcher makes no sense over the long haul.

Yet the Yankees continue to do it.

Which is how we got here.

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The news for the Yankees this offseason has been generally negative. Missing out on Cliff Lee, the Derek Jeter contract debacle and Andy Pettitte retiring. Add a peppering of has-been players, and the Yankee Universe isn’t looking as rock-solid as it has in the past.  

There are a few questions, both big and small, for the Yankees heading into spring training. 

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One of the biggest parts of MLB Spring Training is determining who will be the starters. As usual, there are a lot of tough position battles this year.

A lot of high-profile moves were made this offseason. There’s a lot of anticipation to see who will win those battles.

Here are the top 11 players who have the most to lose in their position battles this year.

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As always, the Yankees have a chance to be really good this year.

Except for the minor problem that their No. 2 starter has only one year of starting experience in the majors, their No. 3 starter is probably the single most maddening starter in baseball, their No. 4 starter has seven major league starts to his credit and their No. 5 starter is either a guy who has never pitched in the majors or a guy who couldn’t hold the starting spot when it was handed to him last summer. 

Suffice it to say that if the Yankees win the World Series, it will defeat the adage that pitching wins championships.

CC Sabathia is where it all starts, and thankfully for the Yanks, this guy is awesome.  One of baseball’s most consistent pitchers, he hasn’t won fewer than 17 games since 2006 (and even then he had 3.22 ERA and 1.17 WHIP), strikes out a ton of guys, keeps his WHIP super low and he never gets hurt.  For my money, he’s in the top 3 or starters in baseball. 

I don’t believe in picking pitchers in the first round, but he’s a guy to target very high.

Phil Hughes is the aforementioned No. 2 starter with a year’s worth of full-time starting under his belt.

He’s got filthy stuff and throws as hard as anyone around, but I am definitely concerned about his 2010 trajectory.  

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This winter has exposed cracks in the New York Yankees’ organization.  What was once the proudest and most cohesive unit in baseball has reverted to the days of factions between the New York front office, headed by GM Brian Cashman, and the Tampa brain trust, led by the Brothers Steinbrenner.

The winter was mostly inactive, until the Steinbrenners overruled Cashman in signing Rafael Soriano, a free agent Cashman didn’t want because he wanted to protect the Yankees’ first round draft pick.  Recently, Cashman allowed himself to go on the record suggesting Yankee captain Derek Jeter move to the outfield by the end of Jeter’s contract, igniting a media frenzy in the New York papers.

Numerous sources indicate that Cashman may leave the Yankees organization for a smaller market club when his contract ends after the season.  And to that, Yankee fans should say good riddance.  Brian Cashman has been the most overrated general manager in all of sports for the last ten years.  

While Cashman has made some good moves over the course of his tenure (trading for Scott Brosius and Chuck Knoblauch in 1998, getting major contributions from Shawn and Aaron Small in 2005), most have been relegated to obscurity (Chili Davis anyone?).

The only reason Cashman has been able to survive for so long was that he was able to win multiple World Series Championships with teams that Gene Michael built.  

His mistakes are further covered up by the Yankees’ huge payroll, which allows the team to eat bad contracts without problems, like Carl Pavano’s in 2004 (who Cashman greatly considered bringing back this offseason) or AJ Burnett’s in 2008, contracts that would devastate other teams.

So, to Brian Cashman I say, “Be careful what you wish for.”  Leaving a great gig like the Yankees will be a day you rue for years to come.  Sure, you may get more power with a mid-market club, but you’ll miss the ability to sign any free agent you want, as well as the pomp and circumstance of New York.

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It’s hard to believe, with all the snow we’ve gotten here in the Northeast, that spring training is just a few weeks away. As a fan of the New York Yankees, this hasn’t been the best of offseasons, so I would like nothing more than to fast forward to mid-February to see how the team is going to answer all of the questions that haunt them right now.

Before we get to February though, here is the first segment of posts regarding the direction of the Yankees, both on and off the field. I will pose questions that need to be answered before the season begins, starting with what I believe to be the most important question that still needs to be addressed.

1. What is going on with the rotation?

Almost all offseason, many have wondered what the Yankees are planning on doing with the No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the starting rotation, in the wake of Cliff Lee signing with Philadelphia, and Andy Pettitte acting like he’s not playing in 2011. What people really ought to be wondering about is the status of the Yankees rotation as a whole, because it’s not pretty.

To me, the Yankees starting rotation is an obvious weakness. CC Sabathia is the only pitcher in the rotation who can be counted on for 200 injury free innings. He is the clear ace of the staff, and should contend for the AL Cy Young award, yet again.

2010 AL All-Star Phil Hughes provided the Yankees with hope. He won 18 games last season and he threw a career-high 176.1 innings last year. However, he threw just 86 innings in 2009 and before last year he hadn’t topped 120 innings since throwing 146 way back in 2006, when he split time between Single A and Double A. A big jump in innings pitched from one year to the next can sometimes lead to injuries, or ineffectiveness, and Hughes has a bit of an injury history already.

Speaking of injuries, one of the knocks on A.J. Burnett when he signed with the Yankees prior to the 2009 season was that he was injury-prone. He’s now had three straight seasons with at least 33 starts.

So, a glass-half-full kind of person would believe that Burnett has turned a corner and is a healthy, durable pitcher as he enters his mid-30s. A glass-half-empty person would believe that Burnett, following a career-worst 2010 season (10-15, 5.26 ERA), will be on the disabled list a few times in 2011. I fall in the durable veteran pitcher camp when it comes to Burnett, but his lack of consistency is a huge problem for the Yankees.

Healthy or not, they don’t know what to expect from Burnett.

So, the Yankees rotation, as of right now, consists of one pitcher they can truly count on (Sabathia), two spots that are completely up for grabs (No. 4 and No. 5 spots), and two pitchers with question marks (Hughes and Burnett).

This is not a World Series caliber starting rotation, to say the least.

Coming soon: Question two in the series.

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It’s been quite a few weeks since former Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland was removed from the team’s equation for 2011, and Cubs coach Larry Rothschild was hired to replace him.

The many ways in which Rothschild is a major upgrade for the Yankees this coming season (and the obvious and equal number of ways Eiland’s departure was necessary) will be dealt with by others in the coming months and season.

But in each interview since his bon voyage and subsequent landfall in the the front office of the Tampa Bay Rays, Eiland has relied upon both the good will and silence of the Yankees organization and New York beat writers to rewrite history.

Not once has he thanked the team that gave him his biggest shot in the baseball business, or even wished them well.

If he can’t man up to the fact the whole country is pointing at Yankee pitching as their downfall last season and weak link currently, that’s fine. Yet another reason why he’s gone, one might say.

However, Marc Topkin, a St. Petersburg Times beat writer of long standing who has proven eminently fair and balanced in his many years covering the Rays, conducted an introductory interview with Eiland yesterday.

And I’m afraid Dave’s story has grown such a long nose in such a short time I believe someone should alert Mr. Topkin and others in his new environs they should resist the temptation to treat this guy like an abused victim of the Evil Empire.

Mr. Topkin:

Nice piece. You’re cozying up to a new suit in the front office with an interesting history, and that’s cool.

But we Yankee fans (and all NY Yankee beat writers, I suspect) notice a few swings and misses in your little feature regarding that history that perhaps you might need to re-address at some point with Dave:

1) When Eiland says “there was never any real reason as to why” he wasn’t rehired by the Yankees, certainly you, the Yankees and every thinking Yankee fan know seven little letters are the reason:  R-E-L-A-P-S-E…and it’s not the first time.

If you don’t believe so, ask him. And if you don’t feel asking would be polite, then at least please don’t rely on this guy as a knowledgeable source this coming season. His Yankee legacy is that of a bungling sabateur, not artful mastermind.

2) Eiland is no longer a coach. The Rays didn’t hire Eiland as a coach, and nobody else ever will either. The Rays aren’t allowing him within a mile of their own pitchers or any of their other major league personnel. He’s special assistant to somebody who also isn’t allowed on the field near players.

3) When Eiland said his firing by the Yankees “was a bit surprising, but he hasn’t said much about it,” that’s either a momentary lapse in research or a blatant lie by Eiland.

Google-news Eiland’s comments immediately following his ejection from the Yankees and you’ll see he had plenty to say about it…a lot more than did the Yankees’ brass and manager Joe Girardi, who all stayed classy and didn’t diss him like he did them.

4) When Eiland says “I’ve got plenty of them” regarding “secrets on how to beat his previous team, the Yankees,” we all know he is indeed telling the truth since “Joba’s rules,” “Hughes’s rules” and most heinous of all, “AJ’s rules,” whatever those might have been, all helped detonate the team’s 2010 season, and were all his own.

5) When you mention that Eiland “lives in Wesley Chapel with his wife and two daughters” you hit the real nail on the head. With his family living within a short daily commute from the Trop, the Rays have a reasonable expectation he won’t be hitting the bars (and whatever else he was hitting) after games up in the Bronx and on the road this past season.

I personally hate stories dealing with the human frailties of anyone in the public spotlight, and I have tipped my Yankee cap elsewhere repeatedly to NY beat writers for not grinding their boot heels into Eiland’s personal problems before now.

But until Eiland shuts up, goes gently into his good night and embraces his last chance appropriately, I’m uncomfortable with the coverage of the AL East going forward lest there be anything he’s saying now that might be referenced as authoritative or prescient come October.

Coaches who screw up get fired, but usually latch on elsewhere. Employees who use up their last chance change professions. That’s what happened to Eiland. He’s no longer a coach.

Zip it, Dave. If you had any clue how to help (or defeat) the Yankees, you’d still be coaching somewhere right now.

For two seasons, everybody gave you the benefit of the doubt that it was AJ and not you that needed counseling.

How ironic it is the reverse turned out to be true…and will be all the more so if he has a bounce-back season in what is shaping up to be the AL East’s most exciting race in years while you’re printing out spreadsheets in Tampa.

Count your blessings, Dave, go home after games this season for a change and shut up already. Your 15 minutes are over.

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This off-season, the New York Yankees‘ hopes of adding an additional pitcher fell through.
 
True, pickings were slim, but with the seemingly impending retirement of Andy Pettitte, it didn’t make life any easier in the Bronx.
 
The Yankees will turn to their starting three of CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes and AJ Burnett. In 2010, Sabathia and Hughes were solid, but Burnett was inconsistent and the team needs his talents in order for the team to stay competitive in 2011.
 
Burnett knows how important his role will be and GM Brian Cashman paid Burnett a visit to make sure he was fully aware of the situation.
 
MLB’s Bombers Beat has confirmed that Burnett has built an indoor pitching facility in an old farmhouse at his home in Maryland, and new Yankee pitching coach Larry Rothschild is planning to spend about a week there at the start of New Year.
 
That is great news, but Burnett is a competitor, who has the talent and skills to be an ace. When his curveball is on, some say it is the best and most unhittable in all of baseball—as Yankee fans have witnessed countless times.
 
Burnett has to realize that last season is now history. If Burnett can be self-assured and remain level-headed when difficulty arises—whether a wild pitch or a home-run—he can be as dominant and illustrious as any.
 
As the great Joe Paterno once said:
 
“Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.”

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A.J. Burnett is coming off an extremely disappointing season with the New York Yankees, and as if things cannot get any worse, he has to deal with ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd.

Burnett did not need this especially, as he is going to try and bounce back from a dreadful season in 2010.

Cowherd ironically made cowardly comments regarding a divorce between A.J. Burnett and his wife. Cowherd made comments about Burnett’s wife being spiteful and vindictive.

He went on to say that he did not want to get into the rest of the story.

Cowherd now has to deal with criticism regarding his comments.

After these comments from Cowherd, people will wonder if A.J. Burnett is really going through a divorce and If so, where is Cowherd getting his information from?

Burnett’s agent, Darek Braunecker, has stated that the pitcher is not going through a divorce and that Burnett is angry about Cowherd’s comments.

Despite his anger, Braunecker said that Burnett will not respond to Cowherd’s false statements.

Burnett will need to put this behind him and focus on the 2011 season, because the Yankees need him to step up especially after missing out on free agent Cliff Lee.

The 2010 season is one to forget for the hard-throwing righty, as he lost 15 games and posted a 5.26 ERA, both career-worsts.

Burnett only struck out 145 batters, his lowest since 2006 when he only struck out 118.

Cowherd’s comments may affect Burnett, but he needs to let this go and focus on helping the Yankees get back to the World Series.

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