Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Where is Brian Cashman?

Last time I checked, Brian Cashman is the gm of the New York Yankees. Not Georger, Hank, Al or any other Steinbrenner in the universe. So why have the Steinbrenners made all of the decisions so far this offseason, Torre and A-Rod? Are the Yankees' owners deciding on all the big issues, and letting Cashman decide on the "petty" ones? Should Cashman be okay with that?

There are some owners in sports who act as their team's general managers. Cowboy's Jerry Jones is the first to come to my mind. I feel either of the following two things need to happen. Either the Steinbrenners say, "we want to take over as gm of our team" or Cashman should resign. What gm would be happy not making the decision.

He might just be saving himself, because I do not believe he is guaranteed to get hired again. He is so used to having unlimited money to spend, that he might struggle if he gets hired by a team like the Cardinals or Orioles.

My question is ,why hasn't Cashman spoken a word about the Yankees, he is the gm still, right?

Thursday, October 25, 2007

A Different View on Joe Torre

Well its been a while since my last post, but I have reason. Hope everyone is watching and enjoying the World Series, I feel it will be a struggle for both teams despite Boston's game 1 rout.

Everyone feels that the offer the Yankees gave Joe Torre was an insult because it decreased his salary. False. In 2007 Joe Torre made $7.5 million last year as the Yankee skipper. Just to give you some perspective as to how ridiculous this contract was, the next highest salary for a manger was Lou Pinella's $3.5 million from the Cubbies, and the average MLB manager's salary was (I excluded Torre's as an outlier) $1.22 million. Wow. So Torre is complaining about a $5 million deal with incentives anyone could pickup, i.e. $1 million for making the playoffs.

So Torre is making eons more than any other manager, yet still is unhappy. His reasoning is that the decrease in salary is a sign of disrespect to him. Well, the Yankees expect to win a World Series (and should with that payroll) and he's on a good 7 year drought, so he obviously isn't doing the best job. So why shouldn't he accept a small pay cut while still being the league's top paid manager?

If a player has a career year, signs a lucrative deal, and does horrible over that contract, then that player will probably take a pay cut when his next contract negotiations begin. So why is this different for Joe Torre. Has he really done that well as the Yankees' manager? Is there no one else capable of "handling the media" as well as Torre supposedly did? I'm saying there is someone else, and the Yankee's made a smart business decision by not throwing out millions of dollars to Joe.

Almost no one shares my point of view on this, and I cannot understand why the Yankees $5 million+ contract was seen as "disrespectful". It does not make any sense to me. Feel free to comment how you think about the situation now.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Best (And Worst) of 2007 Part I

Well, what a season it has been. Some players did really great, and we expected them to do so. Others, did horrible, and we expected them to do that also. However, today I'd like to focus on players who we expected to do good, but performed bad, and vice versa. I'll break it down my hitting and pitching, good and bad. I'm going to go by winshares, so if you don't know how that works I suggest you read this (http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/2004-win-shares-have-arrived/) Remember, this isn't who performed the best, its who exceeded their expectations the most. This is Part I of this compilation with only hitters. Soon I'll be posting Part II with the pitchers and any players I feel left out. Anyway, on we go, starting off with the best hitters:

1) Prince Fielder: +9 win shares. He was a touted prospect, Had decent last year. I expected good things from him this year, but 50+ home runs definitely exceeded our expectations. He carried his team, and is now a MVP caliber player. he's justifying his first round selection back in 2002.

2) Magglio Ordonez: +14 win shares. Amidst the Tigers potent offense there was one standout player this year, Magglio. He was on pace to break the doubles record for most of the year, and sustained an unsustainable batting average (for him) of .360. His avoidance of the injury bug was key to this, since we all knew he was an offensive weapon, but not this sharp.

3) Carlos Pena: +27 wins shares. Wow, in 2004 this guy did hit 27 home runs, but where was he the last 3 years? His first round talent finally showed up again, and showed up big time. This year he blasted an amazing 47 homers in just under 500 ab's. Question for next year, is he for real?

Honorable mention: Eric Byrnes, Jorge Posada, Curtis Granderson, Brandon Phillips, and Hanley Ramirez

Onto the bad list. Those hitters who killed your fantasy teams and dreams.

1) Jason Bay: -10 win shares. A huge disappointment this year for the Pirates, the only thing going for them. Was an around .300 hitter and for 3 years, and out of nowhere his b.a. drops below .250. His OPS dropped a whopping .182 points. There were signs of regressions this year, but if anyone predicted this much of a drop, I'd like to meet them and kiss their ring or shoe or something.

2) Andrew Jones: - 10 win shares. Andrew's disappointing year came at the worst time, in a contract year. He's losing tons of money because of this. But here we are interested in the stats the Braves lineup are missing. He hit 26 homers this year after averaging 46 over the last two seasons. He's never been good at hitting for average about a .260 hitter, but .222 this year! His OPS dropped exactly .170 points, and has had a season we'd all like to forget. Although, I'm not so sure he will bounce fully back.

3) Travis Hafner: -10 win shares. I was the fortunate owner of him in my most prestigious baseball league this year, and that did not work well. 18 less home runs, a 30 point drop in batting average, and an incredible 260 drop in OPS, mostly due to slugging. Hafner was and still is in the middle of his prime, and this season was not expected by anyone, not one person. Every year there are a couple of disappointments like this, and there is nothing you can do about it, just hope it's not you. Sometimes a 162-game season can't cure the worst of droughts.

Unhonorable mention: Vernon Wells, Manny Ramirez, Joe Mauer, Troy Glaus, and Bill Hall.

That's it! Check back soon for the pitchers chance at glory/shame. Leave comments or e-mail me at cowchow4you@gmail.com I ask that you watch and enjoy the postseason, and feel free to give in your two cents.

Cheers!

Paul