Something strange is happening as we head into October. The American League has turned into the bizarro world of baseball. The Boston Red Sox are gelling and the New York Yankees are collapsing. There's certainly a lot of baseball left to be played, but right now the Yanks are being spanked harder than Marv Albert.
So what's going on? Well, to start, the Yankees are acting very un-Yankee-like. Following his last start, New York pitcher Kevin Brown punched a wall out of frustration and broke his non-pitching hand. He might be out for three weeks. Smart.
The Bronx Bombers are also missing first baseman Jason Giambi. Giambi has been bothered by a mysterious parasite, a benign tumor, the plague, and gonorrhea. Those aren't all jokes, he really had the parasite and the tumor. It certainly hurts to lose an offensive star of Giambi's magnitude, but the biggest problem with the Yankees has been their pitching.
Remember those days when the Yankees had so many starting pitchers it wasn't even fair? They would try out about seven all-stars in spring training and see which ones made the cut. Sterling Hitchcock was being paid tens of millions of dollars to sit on the bench and pitch in mop-up duty. Now they don't even have enough good pitchers to fill out their rotation.
The Yankee general manager, Brian Cashman, is widely respected throughout baseball, and surely he's a brilliant individual. But "Inside the American League" is flabbergasted that a team with a $180 million payroll can't find a decent fifth starter. And when you have the oft-injured Kevin Brown in your rotation, you need a sixth starter too. How this wasn't anticipated is mystifying. Of course you're going to have problems when you rely on someone like Jon Leiber, who just came back from Tommy John surgery and wasn't that great to begin with.
Yet another problem with the Yankees is that they've become a team of hired mercenaries. There's nothing wrong with an off-season signing or two, but the Yankees are starting to become a team composed solely of free agents. That hurts in two ways: it prevents good team chemistry, and makes the Yankees unable to develop prospects to trade for players of value. Plus, it's ridiculously expensive.
The Yankees are probably one more dominant starting pitcher away from being one of the best teams in a long time. They have the bullpen and the offense, but they needed Randy Johnson ... badly.
New York wanted him, and the Arizona Diamondbacks were willing to deal, but the Yankees just didn't have anyone in their system other teams wanted. There was a rumor circulating that the Yankees told the D'Backs to pick any five minor leaguers they fancied in exchange for the Big Unit. Arizona still declined because New York traded all its prospects for people it didn't really need (see Boone, Aaron), and it lost all its top draft picks as compensation when it signed free agents from other teams.
New York has also lost that all-important swagger. Maybe it's because they're now a team of mercenaries, or maybe it's because the Red Sox are breathing down their necks. But the recent fiasco involving the Tampa Bay Devil Rays illustrates this perfectly.
The D-Rays didn't make it out of Tampa this weekend because of Hurricane Frances. They claimed they tried to make arrangements to leave early but could not, and the players wanted to be with their families to ride out the storm. As a result, Tampa did not show up on time to the first game of a doubleheader on Monday.
New York's front office demanded a forfeit because Tampa failed to arrive at the scheduled time. Not only was the Yankee suggestion for a forfeit a stretch (their request was denied); they did it in a stupid manner. Instead of quietly placing a call to commissioner Bud Selig to voice their concern, Brian Cashman and Yankee President Randy Levine held a press conference outlining all of their reasons for a forfeit. That sort of move undercuts the players and shows a lack of confidence. Again, like Kevin Brown, it was a very un-Yankee-like move.
That's not to say things won't turn around. The Yankee bullpen is dominant, their offense is powerful, and while their defense isn't fantastic, it's not horrible either. If Mike Mussina can turn it around, Javier Vazquez can get in a groove, and Kevin Brown stops the Rocky Balboa impressions, this Un-Yankee team might be able to right the ship just in time for October. But they've got a lot of work to do.
