Thanks for the free advertising, by the way.

"Praise the Lord and pass the checkbook, if the Yankees outbid everybody for this kid Tanaka, perhaps our long national nightmare — and obsession — about a $189 million payroll for the Yankees might finally come to an end."

I don't quite understand the focus on $189 million, either. I always considered it a negotiation tactic more than anything else, though there may be some movement to cut payroll slightly.

Tanaka will sign with the Red Sox, which will trigger effusive Cherington praise from Lupica, and then Tanaka will be a disappointment in the American major leagues. That's my prediction.


"The coverage, of course, will be that Hal Steinbrenner has finally come to his senses, as if the Yankees going past $200 million again guarantees them World Series No. 28."

The coverage will be the Yankees are a third-place team.

No legitimate source in the entire world will guarantee a World Series for the Yankees.


"But Hal Steinbrenner has a right to look at the bottom line on his own bottom line."

No, he doesn't.

It is against the New York State Constitution for Hal Steinbrenner to look at the (ahem) bottom line on his own bottom line.


"He has a right to look back over the past decade, just since the luxury tax found its way into Major League Baseball, and not only see the $250 million the Yankees have had to shell out because of that tax (out of a total of $280 million in all of baseball), but the $200 million-plus his team pays out every single year in payroll.

You do the math on that."

No.

You do the math.

The big boy math.

Revenue, expenses, income before interest and taxes, return on investment, return on equity, total assets, etc.


"Oh sure, go ahead, do the math on payroll plus taxes as you remember that the Yankees since 2000 have won the same number of World Series as the Marlins and White Sox, one fewer than the Cardinals, two fewer than the Red Sox.

Steinbrenner has been portrayed as some kind of narrow-minded cheapskate for asking his baseball people to just spend an amount of money that is more than any team in baseball — other than his own — has ever spent on a World Series-winning team, in all of baseball history."

I have not seen any person describe Steinbrenner as a narrow-minded cheapskate.

Nor have I seen any person guarantee a World Series championship for the Yankees.  90 wins is the most optimistic prediction I have seen, and that included Tanaka.

Everyone knows the Yankees are not winning championships and everyone knows they are no longer a top-tier team. Lupica is either arguing with the Yankees PR crew or with voices in his head.

As for the success of the past decade, measure it in franchise value and it has been incredibly successful. The real story is that this asset train keeps rolling along despite a lack of titles.

Who watches the watchmen?

Sportswriters judging the character of baseball players.

Sportswriters, who seemingly rate a player based on the player's willingness to conduct locker room interviews.  I'm surprised sometimes that they let Eddie Murray in.

"Need" is a funny word.

Not sure why the consensus seems to be the Yankees "need" a Japanese pitcher.

The thing is, it's only $20 million.

Bartolo Colon's contract is smaller than Phil Hughes's.

It's lot of things, but it certainly is not a blockbuster contract:

"So perhaps it’s appropriate the Mets celebrated this milestone anniversary by blowing the dust off that wallet Sherman referred to and signing Bartolo Colon to the kind of two-year, $20 million deal that had disappeared from their arsenal not long after however many hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared from their Madoff accounts.


Maybe this really is a sign the Mets are back in the business of brandishing, pairing the Colon signing with Curtis Granderson and seemingly stating, for the first time in forever, Madoff’s $50 billion lie finally has stopped chiseling away at their finances and their foundation."

It's a low-risk, low-money, probably low-reward contract.

In terms of 2013 MLB, it's not a blockbuster. You'll need to add another zero to the $20.

Marvin Miller is an American hero and a savior of Major League baseball. Bill Madden? Not so much.

The sport Marvin Miller saved allows Human Garbage like Bill Madden to make a living, and that's kind of a shame:

"You want to know why Miller, who missed by only one vote in the last Expansion Era election three years ago, didn't come close this time? You probably need to look no further than his repeated statements prior to his death in November 2012, decrying the players union's agreement to drug testing."

1) Miller was 100% correct. You want a drug test, you get a Court order.

2) Doesn't explain why Miller wasn't elected long before 2012.

"Almost to a man, the Hall-of-Fame players have condemned the alleged steroids cheats — Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens et al, who have obliterated their records or passed many of them on the all-time lists — and Miller's adamant stance against taking measures to clean up the game has diminished him despite all his accomplishments on their behalf."

Colon to the Mets!

Because Bill Madden cares about ethics!

Or maybe Madden just has an affinity for colons, since he's a 6-foot piece of crap.


"And lest anyone still believes this is still an owners' conspiracy to keep Miller out of the Hall of Fame, again, there were only four owner/executives on the 16-man committee. The rest were either senior baseball writers, historians or former managers. It was not much different from the first Veterans Committee ballot Miller appeared on in 2001, which then was comprised of all the living Hall-of-Famers, most of them former players who were Miller's constituents, and he fell short by more than 10% of the necessary 75%."

No one said Hall of Fame ballplayers were intelligent people.

They owe Marvin Miller just about everything, and so does Bill Madden.

If Hell has a newspaper, Bill Madden will have all Eternity to write its Ethics column.

Curtis Granderson

If you want to improve your status in the Daily News, simply sign with the Mets.

Andy Martino compares Granderson to HOFer Catfish Hunter:

"When Hunter signed a then-historic five-year, $3.35 million contract with the Yankees before the 1975 season, his arrival augered a better age for a team emerging from its darkest phase.  The onetime Oakland ace ended up a pedestrian 63-53 for the Yanks, though he contributed in key moments.
But that was hardly the point.  Hunter was George Steinbrenner’s first big catch, before Reggie, Goose, or any of the others who headlined the late-70s dynasty. Catfish was the beginning of Yankees spending, the true end of the doldrums of CBS ownership, the signal that the team was emerging again.

Thirty years later, the Mets employed this same approach, using significant offers to Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran to signify that they were back after a few seasons behind the shadows, ready for relevance in the Omar Minaya age.  That plan never resulted in a championship, but did give the team and it’s fans several years of intrigue and excitement. Martinez and Beltran were worthwhile contracts for the Mets, and the latter was greatest free agent acquisition in franchise history."

I get what he's trying to say, but Granderson is not that thing.

Also, the Mets signing of Pedro was a disaster.  $50 million for 32 wins.


Lupica's predictable endorsement of All Things Mets feels like the Geno Smith Kiss of Death:

"Curtis Granderson won’t hit as many pitching-wedge shots over the wall at Citi Field, but he will help the Mets a lot, and probably go back to being the kind of hitter he was when he was with Detroit."


Granderson hasn't been a Tiger since 2009.

Why would a 33-year-old be as productive as he was at his peak at the age of 26? 

At the end of this contract, the 36-year-old injury-prone OFer is going to hit 20 triples just because CitiField plays large in the power alleys?

Granderson's age is a non-issue, but age is all you hear about when the subject is Beltran, Ellsbury, Soriano, etc.



I am not slagging on Granderson. I think it was a good signing for the Mets and would be a good signing for any team.  (Same goes for Ellsbury, McCann, and Beltran.)

Thing is, Granderson is not the Pied Piper putting an entire sub-.500 franchise on his shoulders.  Fans aren't going to clock to CitiField to see the 100th-best player in baseball.

Granderson is also not the owner of a time machine.

The Daily News is simply insistent on pushing a pro-Mets/anti-Yankee agenda.

Should the Yankees sign Bartolo Colon?

Bill Madden wants the Mets to sign Colon.

I have a hunch that Madden wouldn't even consider Colon for the Yankees because Colon is too old for the Yankees and too suspended by MLB. Is there a single player that Madden wants the Mets to sign who is not a steroid cheat?

I just heard the song "Car Wash" in the supermarket.

I was thinking the hand claps at the beginning are probably sampled a lot.

What does that have to do with baseball?

Alex Rodriguez:

"Maybe Yankee fans can start organizing weekend car wash events if that’s what it will take for their team to pay off Alex Rodriguez and tell him to go away."

I don't get it.

 

I get what Lupica is trying to say ... Yankee fans don't want ARod around anymore.  

 

But I don't get why he brought up a car wash.  

 

Is that supposed to be funny?

Besides, the Yankees probably have money-printing machines right behind Monument Park (yuck yuck).

 

 

"This isn’t about whether the Yankees can afford Cano; of course they can afford him, they’re the Yankees and probably have money-printing machines behind Monument Park."

 

Exactly!

 

"But Cano’s contract will be a bad one at the back end the way CC Sabathia’s will be a bad contract at the end, the way Rodriguez’s contract turned out to be the worst contract in all of world history.

So here’s the deal if they do go to eight years and $200 million at the end:

When he breaks down in three or four years, nobody is allowed to be surprised."
 

Like every Yankee and every non-Yankee.  But I don't recall the same scrutiny applied to Johan Santana, Dustin Pedroia, and David Wright.

 

In fact, it would be amusing if Cano actually signed with the Mets. In Lupica World, Cano would instantly go from overrated and overpaid to the Greatest Athlete in New York History (outside of Geno Smith and Tony Womack).

 

A well-respected organization.

Meet your new hitting coach.

Oh, we already know each other.

Oh, yeah!  Say "hi" to Dr. B. for me next time you see him.

2013 NL MVP Poll

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Andrew McCutchen	409
Paul Goldschmidt	242
Yadier Molina	219
Matt Carpenter	194
Freddie Freeman	154
Joey Votto	149
Clayton Kershaw	146
Hanley Ramirez	58
Carlos Gomez	43
Jay Bruce	30
Craig Kimbrel	27
Shin Soo Choo	23
Jayson Werth	20
Andrelton Simmons	14
Yasiel Puig	10
Hunter Pence	7
Troy Tulowitzki	5
Allen Craig	4
Adrian Gonzalez	4
Buster Posey	3
Adam Wainwright	3
Michael Cuddyer	3
Matt Holliday	2
Russell Martin	1

Felz Poll

Name	Points
Andrew McCutchen	19
Paul Goldschmidt	13
Matt Carpenter	7
Gary Carter	4
Hanley Ramirez	4
Joey Votto	4
Jay Bruce	2
Michael Cuddyer	2
Freddie Freeman	1
Buster Posey	1

2013 AL MVP Poll

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Miguel Cabrera	385
Mike Trout	282
Chris Davis	232
Josh Donaldson	222
Robinson Cano	150
Evan Longoria	103
Dustin Pedroia	99
Adrian Beltre	99
Manny Machado	57
David Ortiz	47
Jason Kipnis	31
Max Scherzer	25
Adam Jones	9
Edwin Encarnacion	7
Greg Holland	3
Carlos Santana	3
Coco Crisp	3
Jacoby Ellsbury	3
Torii Hunter	2
Hisashi Iwakuma	2
Koji Uehara	2
Yu Darvish	1
Felix Hernandez	1
Salvador Perez	1
Shane Victorino	1

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Miguel Cabrera	24
Chris Davis	10
Mike Trout	6
Gary Carter	4
Josh Donalson	4
Adrian Beltre	3
Robinson Cano	2
Adam Jones	2
Adam Longoria	2
Alfonso Soriano	1
Koji Uehara	1

I think ARod is lying.

Not because I analyzed his body language, but because I analyzed his language language.

2013 NL Cy Young

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Clayton Kershaw	207
Adam Wainwright	86
Jose Fernandez	62
Craig Kimbrel	39
Matt Harvey	39
Cliff Lee	32
Jordan Zimmerman	21
Zack Greinke	18
Madison Bumgarner	3
Francisco Liriano	3

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Clayton Kershaw	20
Adam Wainwright	11
Gary Carter	4
Jordan Zimmerman	4
Jose Fernandez	3
Francisco Liriano	2
Zack Greinke	1
Craig Kimbrel	1
Kyle Lohse	1

2013 AL Cy Young

Not much interest in my poll this year, including respondents who didn't bother to figure out which league the players are in, but here you go.

 BBWAA

Name	Points
Max Scherzer	203
Yu Darvish	93
Hisashi Iwakuma	73
Anibal Sanchez	46
Chris Sale	44
Bartolo Colon	25
Koji Uehara	10
Felix Hernandez	6
Matt Moore	4
Greg Holland	4
James Shields	2

 Felz Poll

Name	Points
Max Scherzer	24
Bartolo Colon	9
Yu Darvish	6
Gary Carter	4
Felix Hernandez	3
Anibal Sanchez	3
Adam Wainwright	3
Zack Greinke	2
C.J Wilson	2
Phil Hughes	1
Hisashi Iwakuma	1
Cliff Lee	1
Mariano Rivera	1

Describing Bill Madden as a hypocrite is an insult to hypocrites.

"But if he doesn’t get Granderson, where might Alderson go for the bats he needs? I say he should think Biogenesis.

After all, Alderson has never seemed to have a problem with drug-tainted players, going all the way back to his days in Oakland when, whether he knew it or not, the Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, were alleged to have been shooting up steroids in the bathroom stalls of the A’s clubhouse.

...

There is one other added advantage in signing Cruz or Peralta. Both of them have demonstrated they know how to beat a drug test."

Not that a clown like Bill Madden ever sought noble goals such as "journalistic integrity" or "consistent principles," but the next time the name "Alex Rodriguez" is moving up his throat, he should choke on it.

I know nothing.

I would have bet the ranch on Farrell.

Mount Rushmore of Heroes

Mike Lupica can't think of anything interesting to write about the Yankees or baseball.

If you don't believe me, ask Mike Lupica:

"There was a time, and it wasn’t so terribly long ago, when you got the idea that you could lead a paper like ours with Yankee news in or out of season, like they were the big game in town no matter what else was happening in football or basketball. But those days are long gone, starting with the way pro football has gotten as big as it has over the past several years, because of the Giants winning two Super Bowls that stand with any dramatic World Series the Yankees have ever won.

There is more to it than that, you know there is. Rex Ryan got to town and was an immediate game-changer for the Jets until things went sideways for them. There is this arms race between the Knicks and Nets now in New York, the teams and their owners apparently as obsessed with beating each other as they are with beating the Heat or the Bulls or the Pacers in the Eastern Conference.

You even wonder what happens to the whole dynamic of the baseball summer if ’14 is the year when the Mets make another run at the playoffs.

(What, a guy can’t dream?)"

I think the problem is that you are unskilled at your profession.

Worse, you are whining about it in public.



"If you’re a Yankee fan, and you’ve been watching the way teams like the Cardinals and San Francisco Giants and now the Red Sox win the World Series, are you really willing to pay Robinson Cano whatever he wants?"


Of course not.

I also didn't pay much attention to the World Series because that has little to do with my analysis.

I did pay attention to the 2013 Yankees ... I know that's boring torture for you ... being your job and everything.

Listen to what you're saying, part two.

MLB is accused of singling out ARod and putting emotion ahead of prudent, blind justice. Rob Manfred responds by emotionally singling out ARod.

Manfred also inadvertently accuses MLB of either ignorance or injustice:

"Mr. Rodriguez's use of PEDs was longer and more pervasive than any other player, and when this process is complete, the facts will prove it is Mr. Rodriguez and his representatives who have engaged in ongoing, gross misconduct."

Either:

1) MLB knows of a lot of other players who took PEDs and evaded punishment.

2) MLB has no idea how many other players took PEDs.

Scenario #2 is more likely.

But if that is the case, then Manfred shouldn't proclaim with certainty that ARod took more PEDs than Sosa, Dykstra, Canseco, Bonds, and ... most likely ... some AA muck-a-luck catcher who never batted above .250.

Listen to what you're saying, part one.

Jon Lester defends David Ortiz against Colin Cowherd's accusations:

"You couldn't be more wrong," Lester said about Ortiz. "You really haven't seen the power numbers spike up. He's really just become a more complete hitter. It's not like he's all of a sudden hitting 50 homers and driving in 140. He's done it the right way for a long time."

Right.

It's not like he's hitting 50 HRs and driving in 140 ... like the first time he used PEDs.

Mike Lupica had several weeks to come up with this zinger.

"They had done everything else over the past 10 seasons, taken out the Yankees and then won their first World Series since 1918 in St. Louis and then won another one three years later in Colorado. The Red Sox had done everything except win a World Series at Fenway Park in all the years since 1918. Like there was one more monster to slay. Just not the Green Monster."

Not the Green Monster.

Lupica is a pro's pro.

I'm a sheriff and I'm a'huntin' for PED users.

Got him! I found another one!

Miguel Cabrera, of all people, is featured in a car commercial which takes a moral stand against PEDs.

Makes me wonder if the Average American thinks PED use is worse than drunk driving.

I think the Average American really does.

Certified check. You can get them at any branch office.

"While I usually enjoy Mr. Francesa’s show, I submit he may be drinking too much of the A-Rod Kool-Aid lately. People with experience in criminal law understand that when dealing with criminals or even just the average guy in the street, cash is king."

Right.

When dealing with criminals.

Which is precisely why MLB should not be conducting its legitimate business in secret, in cash.


"In other words, In God We Trust, but all others pay cash."

For real?

When you wrote this column for the Daily News, did they pay you in cash?


"Thus, assuming that MLB investigators made a legal deal to purchase documents, I suspect the seller of the same would insist on cash. Why? People in these types of situations always think a check could be canceled. The person usually thinks taking cash somehow gives them anonymity."

Exactly.

Which is why MLB should not conduct their legit business in cash. Unless they are trying to hide something. Something they may be trying to hide, for example, is the purchase of stolen documents.


"Mr. Francesa also railed about IRS violations the MLB investigators may have committed by paying 'cash cash' for the document, as if it was the crime of the century that would diminish the evidentiary value of the document(s). The reality is that the finder of fact typically will not be swayed by such issues, unless perhaps the allegation is that the documents were forged or altered."

Not the crime of the century.

Just a regular run-of-the-mill shady tax evasion.


"The fact that Mike Francesa is even talking about MLB’s possible malfeasance shows the Yankee third baseman’s attorneys have been at least somewhat successful in clouding and obfuscating the real issues: did A-Rod take PEDs and thereafter impede MLB’s investigation? It seems Mr. Francesa thinks this circus hurts the sanctity of baseball, and for MLB to participate in this circus by using hardball tactics damages the institutions of baseball itself. Point taken."

"Point taken," he says.

So you're doing a tremendous job agreeing with Francesa.

Which is weird since you started this whole thing out by suggesting you were disagreeing with Francesa.


"Lost in this mess is the legal issue of whether Alex Rodriguez deserves his 211-game ban or something less. If the former All-Star did not use PEDs, there is no issue, and he should not agree to even a one-day suspension."

We're so far past this, for crying out loud. Fifty games, like everyone else.


"There certainly seems to be a colorable legal argument that since A-Rod was never officially 'caught,' that under the MLB Drug Agreement, his suspension, if he did use PEDs, should be 50 games. Many attorneys would argue that using multiple drugs over a period of time cannot result in more than a 50-game ban under the MLB agreement if the player wasn’t officially suspended for each violation separately."

FIFTY GAMES LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

Of course it's the number of times you're caught. Nobody who takes steroids takes one steroid.


"If A-Rod did take PEDs, after the circus he has created, it sure seems hard to think he doesn’t deserve the entire 211-game suspension, if not more. Indeed, it seems to match the number of lawyers he has working on this matter."

Weird conclusion that is not aligned with the rest of your analysis.

So MLB should function like the FBI

"In many of the major Mafia cases prosecuted in New York in the last 20 years, our federal government cut deals with murderers, money was paid and testimony was provided by cooperating witnesses who had supposedly been reformed.

The reality is that a number of active and retired MLB players have repeatedly lied, some even under oath, when asked about illegal drug use, and thereby made a complete joke out of the Joint Drug Agreement and our courts."

I think the people at the Daily News have convinced themselves that Alex Rodriguez is an actual murderer.

Matt Williams was just hired as a manager of the Washington Nationals. At the same time, MLB is going after ARod with the same zeal as the FBI goes after the Mafia. This sounds like testimony for the defendant.


"The reality is that MLB investigators — many of whom are former FBI and NYPD police officers — used the same investigative techniques they used for years when they were on the job, chasing con men and criminals.

Sorry, but I don’t see anything wrong with that just because it is A-Rod. In fact, maybe there is something right with it."

Of course that isn't right.

MLB should not be using the same investigative techniques as the FBI and the NYPD.

This Week in Bill Madden

Terrific insider "confidential" stuff by Bill Madden. Not one, but two columns in which Madden reminds the Yankees to follow the strategies of the teams that are in the World Series.

Which would also be good advice for the 30 teams that are not in the World Series.

Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Win World Series


It's difficult to describe Madden as a "hypocrite," because a hypocrite first needs to have a coherent point of view in order to violate the tenets of that point of view.

Madden's garbled nonsense does not even qualify as a coherent opinion, it seems more like a random word generator ... a baseball_ebooks twitter account, or something.

But if a mushbrain can be a hypocrite, I suppose this is pretty close:


Madden on 9/21/2013:

"And there is also this to consider: In years past, the Yankees had an added advantage in the free-agent market besides just money: As a team that was always assured of being a World Series contender, players wanted to come to the Bronx. Now they are back to where they were during George Steinbrenner’s manic ’80s, a purgatory the Mets have been mired in, seemingly forever, without a championship-caliber team and having to overpay for free agents in order to get them to come to New York."



Madden on 10/19/2013:

"With the Yankee high command left little choice but to fill their multiple holes through the free-agent market, it was interesting that Scott (Avenging Agent) Boras should suggest the other day that they’re going to need to prove to the major free agents they will be competitive next year. Coming from Boras, the ultimate 'money talks' and 'sold to the highest bidder' agent, this is laughable."

So Boras is "laughable" when he comes to the same conclusion you made a month earlier.

Don't blame the teacher.

"Twenty years later, the lesson hit. Terry Collins was standing a few feet from Jim Leyland and Barry Bonds on that day in spring training, 1991, when Leyland howled at his superstar, 'don’t you f--- with me!' and ended up with more respect from the player because of it.

Bonds has been sulking all spring about losing his arbitration hearing, and one morning began cursing at a photographer. Bill Virdon, an old baseball lifer and coach on Leyland’s staff, told Bonds to stop, and Bonds was soon swearing at Virdon; Leyland would not have anyone disrespecting his coaches, so he stuck his face into Bonds’ and started yelling. Bonds later called Leyland the best manager he had ever played for.

How, wondered Collins, then a bullpen coach and aspiring manager, did Leyland pull that one off?

Two decades (and two failures in with Astros and Angels later) the Mets manager understands. 'What I got from him was that I always had to be myself,' said Leyland’s longtime friend and acolyte on the day of the 68-year-old’s retirement in Detroit. 'Then there was what happened in Houston. Then there was what happened in Anaheim.' "

The implication seems to be that he has succeeded in New York.


"But then there was what happened in New York: Close relationships with star players, and a strong hold on the clubhouse despite three years of losing records. So it took 20 years for the deep lessons of Leyland to take hold inside Collins?

'Exactly,' Collins said."

Congratulations on your close relationships with star players and a strong hold on the clubhouse despite three years of losing records.

The World Series counts more.

Top Ten list of best playoff hitters which does not include Reggie Jackson.

Rules of evidence.

"A source familiar with the proceedings said Manfred admitted to Rodriguez’s attorney Joseph Tacopina, during cross-examination, that a member of MLB’s investigative team made two cash payments — one for $100,000 and a second for $25,000 — to Gary Jones, a former Biogenesis employee, for the information. The documents turned out to be stolen from Biogenesis founder (and now MLB’s star witness) Tony Bosch, though Manfred testified he did not know that at the time."

How was I supposed to know this information was stolen?

When he asked for payment in a brown paper bag in non-consecutive, unmarked bills ... I just assumed he didn't have a paypal account.

Nobody ever remembers Jose Veras. Poor Jose Veras.

One team will win the World Series in 2013. That team will consist of a lot of player who used to play for other teams:

"Today’s installment of 'Former Yankee Chronicles' is brought to you by the Detroit Tigers, who are hoping Austin Jackson and Phil Coke, two pieces they acquired in the Curtis Granderson trade, can help them in the AL Championship Series against Boston."

Austin Jackson is a former Yankee in the sense that he never played a single game for the Yankees. He's a former almost-Yankee.

Randy Choate is on the Cardinals. I always liked Randy Choate. He was walking off the field and they flashed a graphic that he got 8 outs on 20 pitches. Way to go, Randy Choate.

The prosecutor is the judge.

"Alex Rodriguez’s doping-ban arbitration hearing resumes Wednesday for three days of testimony during which Manfred, MLB’s chief operating officer, is expected to take the witness stand and outline the investigation that led baseball to suspend Rodriguez for 211 games.

Manfred, a member of the three-person panel hearing the appeal of the suspension along with Players Association lawyer David Prouty and arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, is expected to testify about what MLB knows about Florida’s now-shuttered Biogenesis clinic, the source of performance enhancing drugs for more than a dozen players. Rodriguez is the only player appealing his suspension.

...

Manfred will vote to uphold the suspension, which was handed down by commissioner Bud Selig, while Prouty, as the union rep, is expected to side with the player. Horowitz, the arbitrator, will cast the deciding vote on A-Rod’s punishment."

Yes, I suspect Manfred the arbitrator will be convinced to uphold the suspension. I wouldn't expect Manfred the arbitrator to spend much time questioning the testimony of himself.

Red Sox players secretly complaining about Peralta's PED use.

Peter Gammons is in the writer's wing of the Red Sox Propaganda HOF ... I mean, the actual Major League Baseball HOF.

Yes, the one in Cooperstown.


Though I guess I shouldn't complain about this article.  Gammons at least points out the ongoing benefits of PED use.

The monetary benefits clearly outweigh the costs.

The reputational costs are fatal, yet selective.

The long-term health costs may be tragic.  I wouldn't take steroids, I'll tell you that.  But I also understand the allure of a pro sports contract.


Mike Lupica makes passing mention of a local steroid cheat, but still can't generate any legitimate disdain.  He can only use it as an opportunity to slag on ARod:

"Kellen Winslow must have gone to the PED store because he thinks using PEDs is working out so well for everybody else."

A PED cheat just hit a game-tying grand slam in the playoffs.

In the same game, Peralta's fly ball died on the track ... I'm guessing it would have had a little more kick if he had hit it earlier in the season. Funny how the wind was blowing out earlier in the season.

Off the top of my head? ... Colon, Byrd, Cruz, Peralta played for their teams in the 2013 MLB playoffs ... McGwire has a good chance to get another ring in his role as Ironic Hitting Coach.

Who knows how many current playoff participants weren't caught?  We know the MLB tests are insufficient ... biogenesis proved that, as if we didn't already know.

So you take a couple of months off and rest up for the playoffs.  It works out fine for the player and for the team. 


Kellen Winslow will miss four games and no one will care.  The head coach of the Jets already said the backup tight end is an acceptable replacement.  Winslow will be back in a month ready to go.

Bill Madden and Mike Lupica won't even be able to feign outrage.  They're not repulsed by steroid use; they're repulsed by ARod.


"Well, if it turns out that the Yankees really are hot on the latest Japanese pitching phenom, it means they do have a farm system after all:

The Nippon League."

Right.

I don't understand why that is intended as an insult.


Look, the US draft is rigged. It is intentionally rigged -- that is the whole point.

The Yankees are at a big disadvantage because they made the playoffs for 2 straight decades, give or take.

The Yankees would be better served to eliminate their entire minor league system and buy the entire island. Spend $100 million on 1,000 17-year-olds and hope 3 of them become Bernie Williams.

Girardi signs with Yankees.

Daily News 0-for-2013 in the prediction department.

I suppose I give Klapisch credit for trying.

He is actually watching baseball games and writing about them.  Not that anybody around New York will care ...

No wonder he jogs to first base ...

... he is exhausted from working the night shift at the factory:

"You are not the only one who has seen Robinson Cano jog to first base, exerting a tepid effort that harms his reputation and, perhaps, his earning power?
Joe Girardi and his coaches reveal scores of appeals to Cano about how bad the visual looks — both to the fans and to impressionable younger Yankees — and that it is, quite frankly, not the way any major leaguer should play.
Yet the same folks disappointed in this aspect of Cano’s game nevertheless vouch for his work ethic, commitment to winning and belief that a lucrative long-term contract would not diminish either of those elements."

I don't doubt that Cano spends a lot of time in the batting cages.

You and I would consider that "recreation," but in the rarefied air of a pro athlete, I suppose that could qualify as a "work ethic."

I see no indication that he takes his craft seriously.  Situational hitting, base running, straddling the bag on throws from the catcher, all the things I learned in Little League.


"It is the Cano disconnect — the player not trying hard, except he is. The guy giving off a terrible impression in public, doing the opposite behind closed doors for his teammates. The loafer with impeccable work habits."

I just think you're sort of diminishing the meaning of the word "work."


" 'When he hits a groundball to the second baseman or shortstop, I know what it looks like,' Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long said. 'I get it. I know it is part of the perception. He’s been talked to a million times about it. But I am telling you that is not a true picture of how hard he works or cares, and so if that is his only downfall, it is not the worst thing in the world.' ”

1) Perception is reality.

2) It "looks like" he is jogging to first base because he "is" jogging to first base.

3) If he has been talked to a million times about it, and he refuses to change, then someone needs to be fired ... or Cano needs to be benched for insubordination.


"Ask those around the team and different theories abound:
1. This is just the way the game is now — you have players who don’t always go hard at every moment."  Every moment?  How about nevery moment?


 "2. He is trying to preserve his body. Reggie Jackson used to say he could dive for an extra 10 balls a year in right field or bat 600 times, you can’t have both and which do you want? This theory holds that Cano knows his body and over-extending on what is a routine out 499 out of 500 times doesn’t make sense in risk-reward."  It's more like 49 out of 50 times and Professor Reggie Jackson's analysis is completely wrong.  No one is demanding a player ruin his body by recklessly crashing into walls.  Run 90 feet one time in your entire career.  Then make it a habit.


"3. Cano is so smooth and graceful that — like a prime-aged Carlos Beltran — he does not look like he is giving full effort, even when he is."  Ever notice how Cano almost never makes a diving stop at second base?  Maybe once or twice per season.  It is an impossibility that this is because he has fewer opportunities to do so.  It's because he refuses to dive for a ball and alligator-arms it rather than strain himself.

He does not makes hard plays look easy.  He makes easy plays look hard.


 "4. His frustration gets the best of him when he rolls a ball over. Paul O’Neill — who George Steinbrenner dubbed “The Warrior” for his intensity — used to jog to first after hitting routine grounders, so angry was he with wasting an at-bat. He nevertheless was beloved. Cano is not in nearly the same way. Is this about championships? Skin color? Something else?"  Abreu on the warning track would be a better parallel than O'Neill.

I think Cano always acts like he knows what's going to happen on every play.  It's why he almost gets pegged at second base on doubles.  It's why he has never taken an extra base in nine years.  It's why he pauses so long before throwing the ball to first base.   It's why he inexplicably puts the bat on his shoulder when he knows he's going to take a pitch -- as if the physical act of holding a baseball bat upright away from his body is too much of a strain.


We're all wasting our mental energy on this topic, anyway.  Comparing this guy to O'Neill and Jackson, for crying out loud ... O'Neill and Jackson would run through a brick wall to win a baseball game

Run to first base and all then there is no reason for these complaints and apologetic theories

It's only 90 feet.

Took PEDs and is a victim of a witch hunt. Not mutually exclusive.

"A-Rod doesn’t have a whole lot of defenders at this point, and this over-the-top lawsuit isn’t likely to improve his image any. Nor is the suit likely to find much traction, considering the commissioner’s broad power to act in the 'best interests' of the game. Of course, one could also argue that what would truly serve the game’s best interests is a little court-ordered discovery.

It’s tempting to dismiss the suit as a public-relations stunt, A-Rod’s desperate ploy to counter the piles of evidence that baseball has reportedly amassed against him. They can’t win on (the merits), said one blind source quoted by the Daily News, 'so the next move is ‘let’s attack the integrity of the investigation.

It looks to me like this is an investigation whose integrity is worth attacking, or at the very least scrutinizing. More to the point, A-Rod may be guilty of using PEDs, but that doesn’t mean baseball should be free to do whatever sleazy things it wants to prove it. A lot of people will look at this lawsuit and say that it has nothing to do with whether Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs. Which is true. In its own, self-serving, A-Rod way, it’s about something much bigger."

Alex Rodriguez sues MLB.

You know what would be hilarious?

If someone could think of a synonym for "witch" or "witch hunt" and then use that as a prefix for "Rod."

Because you can then use that word to refer to Alex Rodriguez and it's funny.

It would a can't-miss, uproarious yet biting response to the news that Alex Rodriguez is suing MLB.

Because it's always funny to attach something to "Rod" and refer to Alex Rodriguez that way.

Mike Lupica?  Are you up to the task?  I anxiously await your next column with cautious optimism.

Mike Lupica attacks real-life straw men.

Humorless and ignorant, Lupica usually attacks non-existent arguments from the opposition. This time, he attacks the weird, possibly fictional pro-ARod protesters. A real-life manifestation of straw men.

Arguing with these people would be a waste of intellectual energy, except Lupica has no intellect in the first place:

"Up until now, you probably thought he was just another rich, self-absorbed athlete trying to hold on to his money and what is left of his prime. But looking at the demonstrators on Park Ave., it turns out you were wrong, we all were. Alex Rodriguez is a victim, and practically a political prisoner. No one saw the obvious similarities between him and Nelson Mandela until now."

No one is really comparing ARod to Nelson Mandela, but you're going after a very easy target. I actually think these protestors were hired or were satirical.


"He is a symbol of oppression, at least according to protesters who appear to have piled out of a Volkswagen like clowns every morning for photo ops before Rodriguez goes upstairs for these hearings on his 211-game suspension."

You're shooting fish in a barrel.


"You really do start to wonder how we did miss the obvious comparisons to Mandela. Or Cesar Chavez. Or, better yet, Che Guevara."

You, Sir, are an ignorant turd.

I really think Lupica googled "freedom fighter" and picked the first three names that appeared.

Not to get all political up in here, but you're linking Nelson Mandela to Che Guevera and you somehow think this comparison is appropriate. If you want to join the adult conversation, read a book or something.


"No justice, no peace for the guy, to go along with a batting average that ended up in the .240 range, and two swings that anybody remembered after Rodriguez rejoined the Yankees."

Right.

When he bats .300, it doesn't matter. When he slumps, it matters.


I'm also quite intrigued by the "two swings" theory. My guess is (1) the Revenge HR in Fenway off Dempster, and (2) the record-breaking grand slam.


I can think of many other memorable ARod swings in 2013, so I'm not sure what Lupica is talking about.


Are "memorable swings" even a thing? Does the lack of memorable swings speak to a player's ineptitude? Or does it speak to an elderly sportswriter's soft brain?


MVP Candidate Mike Trout: name two specific swings since the All Star Break.

Alfonso Soriano: name two specific swings since the Yankees picked him up.

The entire Mets team: I challenge Mike Lupica to name two specific swings from the entire Mets team that occurred in the final seven weeks of the 2013 season.



"He thinks he can lawyer his way out of this, or flack his way out of this, or crisis-manage his way out of this. He is defended by these demonstrators and really is treated like some sort of victim as the meter continues to run on these lawyers and flacks and crisis managers. You start to think that in the end, what he will end up paying these people could have kept the government running this week."

Wow! Effortless transition to current events.


"Alex Rodriguez, bless his heart, has played a lot of parts in his life, and now he plays a new one, at least in his own mind, and the minds of these people on the street who seem to think they’re in some weird reality series:

Freedom fighter.

Maybe he really is Che Guevara in pinstripes. Don’t call him A-Rod, anymore. Go with Che-Rod."

"Che-Rod."

Good one.

I'm sure it's going to catch on like Fox News' "government slimdown" is catching on.

Before you conflate Nelson Mandela and a baseball player to a Marxist guerrilla mass murderer, you should probably check wikipedia.

Ken Davidoff talks to the crazies.

I like the "Randy Levine is the Devil" signs.

Yeah, what's up with your drug testing?

One might accuse Murray Chass of being "pro-ARod," but I think he's basically right on. Read the whole thing if you wish. Here are the highlights:

"A prediction (I am not big on making predictions, but I like this one’s chances of being right):

Frederic Horowitz will join Raymond Goetz, Richard Bloch, George Nicolau and Shyam Das in the ranks of baseball’s impartial arbitrators who have overturned or reduced player suspensions for off-field transgressions.

...

And baseball will have to deal with the fact that Rodriguez never tested positive for banned drugs in the 'multiple years' Selig has cited.

Oh yes, about those tests. Why didn’t Selig’s vaunted, self-proclaimed toughest tests nab Rodriguez? The commissioner, as far as I know, hasn’t answered or explained that matter. I, for one, am intrigued by the question and would be happy to hear an answer. Maybe it will come up in the Horowitz hearing."

I want to rant about the Wild Card's supposed success.

The Pirates earned a four-game intra-divisional regular season edge over the Reds. That can evaporate in one game.

The only city that was energized by the wild card race was Cleveland.

If the goal is to make September more important and compelling, this goal is largely counteracted by the expanded rosters.

The one-game playoffs are exciting only because they are rare and unique. You can't force a Game Seven or a Bucky Dent Game or a Last Day 2011. Nobody cares about the first round and why should they? It's like trying to generate excitement by declaring every day is Christmas.

They had a nice talk.

"You don't hustle."

"You're right, coach."

"Okay.  Nice talk."

Is Edgardo Alfonzo wearing pajamas?

Betcha didn't think you'd read an article today in which Mike Piazza compared himself to Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio:

" 'The Hall of Fame, I truly feel I got a lot of support,' Piazza said.'It’s a process. I’m very proud of my career. Obviously I put my body of work up against anybody, I’ve said before. But, you know what? I truly feel that the process is a beautiful thing as well. It is what it is.


'I mean, looking back, Yogi (Berra) had three ballots. And Joe DiMaggio three ballots. So if I’m so blessed and honored to get to that point someday, I will enjoy it and be proud and wear the honor that is so important... I know throughout history there is always going to be debate. That’s the best thing about baseball and the best thing about sports. ' ”

Anyone who praises Selig is willfully blind.

"Maybe the best evidence of this admittedly unscientific observation is the national TV ratings. There’s no sense comparing baseball’s numbers to football’s, which exist in a whole other Nielsen’s stratosphere. But baseball is losing ground to pro basketball, too. In 2012, the N.B.A.’s regular season ratings on ABC were nearly double those of Major League Baseball on Fox. The last eight years have produced the seven least-watched World Series on record.

More to the point, baseball seems simply to have fallen out of the national conversation (unless the conversation happens to be about steroids, that is). The last time baseball felt front and center, culturally speaking, was the 1998 home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. And we all know how that turned out.

...


Baseball’s never-ending nostalgia trip has made it an inherently conservative sport, one that’s forever straining to live up to its own mythology. This year, not a single contemporary player was voted into the Hall of Fame because so many eligible players were suspected of steroid use. Never mind that Cooperstown has its share of racists, wife beaters and even a drug dealer. (To say nothing of the spitballers.) "

If you go to a game at Yankee Stadium, the theme song is sung by Frank Sinatra. Bob Sheppard might announce a player or two. Kate Smith sings "God Bless America." Robert Merrill sings the National Anthem.

Never-ending nostalgia trip sounds about right.

Let's all slag on Alex Rodriguez and pretend it's sportswriting.

Bob Raissman shines the spotlight on ARod by complaining about all the ARod coverage.

Now, if the Daily News really wants to parse the difference between andro and "steroid," they'd solve a medical conundrum.  The rest of us know that Piazza cheated his way to the Mets Hall of Fame.  Not a peep of outrage from the Daily News' self-appointed Guardians of the Game.  A bunch of deluded, infantile keyboard heroes who use their columns to throw temper tantrums when they don't get their way.

To wit:

"They were bidding against themselves when they gave Rodriguez the dumbest contract in sports history, even as people try to tell you now what a star and a TV attraction he’s been, and it’s really not that bad. Right. Another hundred million still owed to a guy who’s calcifying in front of our eyes. Barry Bonds at least still had his hometown fans rooting for him at the end. Who roots for A-Rod except his own lawyers and flacks and other hired friends?"

ARod played pretty well this year.  I expect he'll get suspended for some part of 2014, but his hips could probably use more healing time.

ARod is a star and TV attraction.  Not arguable.  Probably one of the reasons is that the media continually give him free advertising.

Who roots for ARod now?  Lupica would be surprised.  I root for ARod and so do a lot of people I know (mostly Yankee fans; that's how it works).  Not the Daily News sportswriter cocoon, that's for sure.


"And yet: All they have to do is look across the diamond at where their broken-down third baseman was, until he couldn’t even make it through a seven-week season. Look at the deal they gave him when they didn’t have to. Look at what they’re getting out of it on the back end."

1) The Yankees are not giving Cano $300 million.  Nobody is.  It's the first figure in a negotiation and there is no real need to give it attention.

2) ARod made it through the seven-week season and played pretty well.  The last four games don't count and he could have played if the games mattered.  He proved you wrong.  He proved you wrong and now you won't admit it because you have no integrity.

3) All long-term deals in MLB depreciate sharply at the end.  The same fate awaits Cano, Sabathia, Teixeira, Jeter, Wright, and Pedroia. 

It is unlikely, however, that Lupica will refer to Wright as a "broken-down heap" the next time Wright gets beaned with a pitch.

Any friend of Selig's is an enemy of mine.

"Bud Selig's legacy is about as uncomplicated as it gets. He's the best Commissioner baseball has ever had. Is that uncomplicated enough?"

As uncomplicated as saying 2 + 2 = 5.

Elegant ... simple ... wrong.


"All the good things that have happened to baseball the past 21 years have been a byproduct of Selig's leadership, persistence and vision."

Steroids.


"Twenty-one years later, baseball has been transformed by labor peace, revenue sharing, drug testing, competitive balance, affirmative action, new ballparks, expanded playoffs, television coverage and a little Internet startup, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, that has become one of the most remarkable success stories in the history of American business."

All built on the overwhelmingly positive response by fans to PED freaks hitting lots of HRs.

As for competitive balance -- though I dispute whether or not competitive balance is good for the sport in the first place -- tell it to the Astros.

The 1980s had nine separate Champions, many of them small-market. Not sure what problem Selig thought he was solving when he got all freaked out by the 1998 Yankees.


"As he prepares to leave the sport he transformed, that single image of Bud Selig, this good man, this smart, funny man who remade a sport, is the one that will endure."

I think he's a sad old man who has some problem with the Yankees, and ARod in particular, even though he profited greatly from both of them.

The rest of his so-called accomplishments? Tell me how the game is better today than it was in 1991.

I'm not complaining about the game as it is, but I don't see how Selig has improved the game in any way.  Selig capitulates to old, white men instead of embracing the modern athlete and the younger fans. The next commissioner ought to be Scott Boras.

Bill Madden can't admit he was wrong.

Nice first sentence, professional writer:

"If you didn’t already know that has been a liar and a total phony through all of this ... that he told kids from the Taylor Hooton Foundation about the dangers and evils of steroids when he himself was continuing to seek them out ... that he selfishly dragged the Yankee organization and his teammates through an ugly summer of mudslinging distractions once it became evident he was going to be severely slammed by Major League Baseball for multiple violations of the joint drug policy, you could almost feel a little sympathy for him after watching him strike out twice, looking helplessly bewildered at one pitch after another Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Tampa Bay Rays’ David Price."

I don't even know where to start:

1) That's a ridiculous run-on sentence.


2) "... through all of this ..."

Through all of what? Provide a setting, a context. Writing 101.

Because, yeah, I know all about Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees, but I still don't know what you "all of this" refers to.

This season?

This career?

This game?

The biogenesis scandal?

Help us out. We're the readers, you're the writer.


3) " ...that he told kids from the Taylor Hooton Foundation about the dangers and evils of steroids when he himself was continuing to seek them out ..."

a) Did someone just use the word "he" followed immediately by the world "himself"?

That can't be right. I must be hallucinating.

b) The way this sentence reads? ARod continuing to seek out the Taylor Hooton Foundation kids.


"After his second called strikeout in the fifth inning, A-Rod concluded that his night was over. As it turns out, his season will likely end Thursday as he may not join the Yankees in Houston for the final series of the season."

Yeah, he strikes out too much, without a doubt.

As for his season being over, it's the 200th time you predicted this and you're finally right. Four games left, after the Yankees have been eliminated from the playoffs.



“ 'Take me out, coach, I’m no longer ready to play,' is what he essentially told Joe Girardi in the eighth inning Wednesday night, paraphrasing John Fogerty. He needed to take care of his legs, which were pained by calf and hamstring problems, to which Girardi said something to the effect of: 'Whatever. Take care of your legs.' "

"Paraphrasing John Fogerty," he says.

It seems like a wise move to me. Girardi rode this guy for as long as he could, got some decent production for a while. I see no reason to push it.


"Not that we should be surprised by any of this. All the medical people you talk to — other than, perhaps, the 'five-minutes' famous Dr. Michael Gross of Hackensack Hospital who A-Rod’s handlers pulled out of central casting to refute the Yankee team physician’s MRI of a Grade One hamstring strain that was keeping him off the field during his re-hab circus back in July — agreed the surgeries Rodriguez has had on both hips, if not necessarily career-ending, would significantly diminish him as an everyday All-Star caliber player.

They all cited the fact that frequent related leg injuries, like the calf and hamstrings that have hampered him this year, were inevitable."

No one is ever again expecting him to be an everyday All Star caliber player.

As an aside -- those medical people you talk to - do they wear white coats? Have they cut back on your meds?


"According to one source in the know, despite his blowhard lawyer Joe Tacopina’s bravado that Rodriguez doesn’t deserve even one day of suspension, A-Rod, 'is terrified' about the upcoming hearing on his 211-game drug suspension that begins Monday in New York. According to the source, that might partly explain the recent 3-for-17 (.081) slump in which he’s looked so helpless."

Listen to this freakin' guy.

Slumps happen all the time. ARod is a streaky hitter. ARod strike out way too much. His bat is slow, he refuses to adjust, his legs are shot, his conditioning is poor, David Price is good. Lots of reasons he'd strike out twice in one game.

One thing that is definitely not a reason? ARod is scared of the upcoming MLB hearing.

Even if ARod is terrified of the hearing, it certainly is not the reason for his slump.


"If that’s true, then maybe A-Rod needs to stop listening to all these lawyers who are bent on keeping their meters running and bleeding him for more money than he’s going to lose from his suspension, and take the weekend to see if Commissioner Bud Selig’s drug sheriff, Rob Manfred, and his MLB honchos might be amenable to a deal."

Really?

This ought to be good.


"I don’t propose to know if they would be — they’ve already come down from the lifetime ban Selig wanted to the 211 games — but even if, say, as many as 60 games were taken off the sentence, it would still amount to A-Rod getting three times more punishment than all the other 12 guilty players in the Tony Bosch Biogenesis case. And it would still keep him out of the game for nearly the entire 2014 season and, for all intents and purposes, end his career."

A career-ending deal?

Well, when you put it that way, it's an offer too good to pass up.


"At the same time, it would save everyone the further time, expense and trouble of a hearing that Rodriguez must surely know isn’t going to be deemed to be a lot of trumped up falsehoods based on forged documents, unreliable testimony and devious investigative means, as his lawyers are claiming. Not after his own union head, Michael Weiner, essentially said he was guilty when the Biogenesis suspensions came down in early August, and that only the proper punishment needed to be determined."

So we're finally ready for the hearing ... we're four days away ... and Madden's proposal is for ARod to scrap the idea to save everyone time, expense, and trouble.


"He needs to get a grip on reality — which is that he’s finished as a player and guilty as charged as a serial steroids cheat. His best option now is to try and make a deal with MLB, so at least all the lurid details of just how guilty he is and how much he betrayed Don Hooton’s kids, may never come out."

Madden insists ARod will never play again. ARod plays.

ARod outperforms Madden's expectations. Madden insists ARod is finished as a player.

MLB leaks all of its ARod information since day one, so there is no reason for anyone to believe the lurid details wouldn't come out.

Who needs a grip on reality here?

The least relevant baseball headline I have ever seen.

2014 is nothing like 1965.

Bill Madden still gets paid to write about baseball even though he is always wrong. The reason he is always wrong is because he is rooting against the Yankees and his judgment is therefore warped. This is not a genius observation, it's plainly obvious, and there is no way anyone should take him seriously anymore:

"You have to wonder now if Derek Jeter isn’t going to come to the same conclusion that it’s time for him, too. With Jeter’s 3,316 hits in the bank — 10th-most all-time — his legacy as one of the all-time greatest shortstops and automatic first-ballot Hall-of-Famer is secure. In all of their cases, however, it’s also time for a different reason."

I don't know for sure, but I'll bet Jeter gets healthy and plays for the Yankees next season.

On second thought, since Bill Madden says Jeter is quitting, I know for a fact that Jeter will play for the Yankees next season.


"In all their years with the Yankees, Rivera, Pettitte and Jeter have known nothing but Octobers, nothing but championship-caliber teams, and more rings than any other players in baseball could hope to own for the foreseeable future. All of that ends this year, and the future of the Yankees beyond this season is even more dubious."

The future is always dubious. It is indubitably dubious. It is the future.


"If it wasn’t for the fact they are all class acts whose careers have been fulfilled, you could perhaps liken this to the proverbial rats deserting a sinking ship. For why would they want any part of this immediate Yankee future that is going to be so unrecognizable?"

Pettitte and Rivera are retiring, as expected.  They are both over 40 years old.

Not sure how that's likened to rats deserting a sinking ship.

Oh, yeah, I know why. Because Bill Madden is a sad prick.


"Once this season of overachieving retreads and sadly gassed and broken down former superstars mercifully comes to a close, the Yankees go into an uncertain winter with more holes than almost any other team in baseball."

Almost any team in baseball?

That makes no sense.

It makes sense to Bill Madden because his brain is puerile and diseased.


"Welcome back to 1964, when the Yankee dynasty ended with a resounding crash because the core veterans got old, and the minor league pipeline that had sustained them through four decades dried up."

The circumstances are entirely different in 2013.

Madden is not explaining how the Yankees got their minor league pipeline in the first place.  That is to say, the MLB amateur draft started in 1965, followed soon by the ending of the reserve clause.

The current Yankees are in an entirely different circumstance in every way.


"And now you wonder if maybe Joe Girardi, seeing the same thing, won’t also follow his fellow ’96, ’98, ’99 ring-bearers out the door? Is Girardi — who will almost surely get a goodly share of Manager of the Year votes even if he isn’t able to complete a miracle run to the playoffs with this rag-tag, beaten up Yankee team — prepared to be Johnny Keane circa 1965?"

It wouldn't bother me too much if Girardi took the Cubs job. Girardi is good, not great.

But he will probably be back. If Bill Madden says Girardi will not be back?  Girardi will definitely be back.

 
As for Manager of the Year, it's Farrell unanimously. Francona a distance second. Girardi will get a handful of votes.


"Unlike the Yankees, the Cubs under Theo Epstein have been quietly assembling a top-rated group of young players and prospects through the draft (shortstop Javier Baez, outfielder Albert Almora, righthander Kris Bryant), trades (first baseman Anthony Rizzo, third baseman Mike Olt) and international signings (Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler). Dare we say the lovable losers of Wrigley Field look to have a brighter future than the Yankees right now?"

You only say that because it's wishful thinking because you hate the Yankees.  I'll believe it only when I see it.

Mike Olt might be Drew Henson. Kris Bryant might be Phil Hughes. "Potential" is a French word that means you haven't done anything yet.


"And there is also this to consider: In years past, the Yankees had an added advantage in the free-agent market besides just money: As a team that was always assured of being a World Series contender, players wanted to come to the Bronx."

This guy is living in a fantasy world.

Can you name one free agent in the past 20 years for whom the Yankees underpaid?

All I remember is the writers whining about the obscene salaries.  Every single one, from Pascual Perez to Roger Clemens to Chuck Knoblauch to Randy Johnson to Alex Rodriguez to Tom Gordon to Kevin Brown to Jason Giambi to ... well ... every single damned one.

They were "buying the Championship," ruining the competitive nature of baseball, forcing Selig to institute a salary cap.

Who knew the whole time the Yankees were getting all these players at a big discount?


"Now they are back to where they were during George Steinbrenner’s manic ’80s, a purgatory the Mets have been mired in, seemingly forever, without a championship-caliber team and having to overpay for free agents in order to get them to come to New York."


The Yankees are exactly like the Mets.  I can't stop laughing about that, for one thing.  We're in purgatory!  Help us!  Help us!


But that last line?  I really can't stop laughing about that last line.

Overpay for free agents?  Well, I declare, the mere thought of this is profane to my delicate ears.  What would that ever be like for the Yankees to overpay for a free agent?


I did the math, and I won't bore you.  Every player who leaves gives the Yankees a lot of salary to play with, even if they insist on getting under $189.  Youkilis and his 8 RBIs, Kuroda, Pettitte, Rivera, probably Granderson, probably 60% - 75% of ARod.  Maybe they even drop Cano and decide to spend a ton of money on depth instead of superstars.


Winning the World Series is tough indeed.  I am not expecting a dynasty anytime soon from the Yankees or any other team.

But Madden is essentially predicting a decade of ineptitude.  Sub-.500.  Worse than the Cubs.  Baseball purgatory.

It might happen.  It probably won't.

When you consider the source, it definitely won't.

Wild cards are bogus.

The fans don't care, and they shouldn't. 

John Harper suggests the Giants can spoil the Yankees' playoff hopes. The Giants are too late. We're talking about a team that has been swept by the Mets and the White Sox; a 4th-place team that has been outscored about 20 runs this season. The full roster provided a little short-lived rejuvenation, but let's get serious.

The Lind HR felt like sweet relief:

"As Adam Lind pulverized a Joba Chamberlain slider Thursday night, sending it deep into the right-field stands and burying the chance of another come-from-behind Yankees victory, the ugly truth emerged:

These Yankees have been too terrible, too often. They have virtually no chance to qualify for the playoffs, and no right to do so, either, even in baseball’s watered-down format.

Another must-win game turned into a tepid, 6-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, and at 80-73, the Yankees are gasping for their final breaths. They head home Friday coming off a roller-coaster, 4-6 road trip through three cities that likely will be remembered as season-killing."

You can't kill something that is already dead.


"It’s almost certainly too late. Until Girardi made the highly questionable decision to call upon Chamberlain to keep the Yankees’ deficit at 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh, you thought that maybe the Yankees could pull off another late-night theft as they did in Wednesday’s 4-3 thriller. The problem is, it’s hard to keep winning games in that fashion.

When Chamberlain spit the bit, the hope evaporated. A bases-loaded, one-out rally in the ninth proved mere window dressing.

Girardi defended his choice of Chamberlain, both in starting the seventh and then staying in the game against Lind, who entered the at-bat with eight hits in 18 at-bats against the fallen prodigy. Shawn Kelley has been shaky since returning from his injury hiatus, David Phelps is just back off the disabled list, and Girardi wanted to save Adam Warren for the eighth. And Chamberlain had thrown two shutout innings in two appearances against the Red Sox. Lefty Cesar Cabral is an inexperienced rookie.

'Where do you want me to go?' Girardi asked reporters.

It’s easier said than done, but anywhere besides Chamberlain, once he walked Munenori Kawasaki and gave up a seeing-eye single to Brett Lawrie. Not given how bad Chamberlain, now the owner of a 4.97 ERA, has looked for the duration of this season."

Hughes and Chamberlain should have been abandoned mid-season, just for the sake of the fans who stuck with this team. Watching Hughes and Chamberlain on the mound is a big downer. It's fitting that Joba went out like a punk and took the team down with him.

The 2013 Yankees.

Pride and power, guts and glory.

Second wild card is bogus. In fact, the first wild card is bogus.

Why was anyone expecting a great team to take the second wild card?

Ten teams out of thirty make the playoffs in MLB. 

The Yankees, at their best, are a mediocre team.  The sole reason the Yankees have hope is because lots of mediocre teams make the playoffs in MLB and quite a few mediocre teams go on to win the World Series:


"While it has indeed been a bit of a miracle managing job on Joe Girardi’s part, keeping this Yankee team September relevant in the face of all the injuries and all the wear-down of his veteran starters, he still couldn’t have done it without the help of the Tampa Bay bullpen, the Kansas City Royals’ offense, the Orioles’ strikeout-challenged pitching and now, all of a sudden, a second straight September implosion on the part of Ron Washington’s Texas Rangers."

Of course.

Just like the Rays are "lucky" the Astros didn't win 120 games. If the Astros had won 120 games, then the Rays would not make the playoffs.


"Of course, even with the easy schedule, Girardi’s wild-card task just seems to get tougher and tougher. With Gardner gone for the season with an oblique injury, Soriano nursing a sprained right thumb and the uncertainty of just how many more games, if any, Rodriguez has left in him, Girardi’s lineup, which also now includes light-hitting Brendan Ryan at shortstop, appears to be once again diminished to its first-half model that averaged 3.9 runs and eight hits a game. Overall, the Yankees rank 12th in the AL in on-base percentage, a category in which they routinely finished first or second the past 20 years."

The Yankees offense has improved greatly since the additions of Granderson, Reynolds, ARod, and Soriano. The on-base% is up from 14th or 15th.


"So it stands to reason, the Yankees are going to struggle scoring runs again — at least everyone is going to be spared that magic moment of A-Rod passing Willie Mays on the all-time home run list — leaving in question whether the starting pitching can at least keep games in check, as they did in the first-half formula of getting a lead to David Robertson and Mariano Rivera."

I feel relieved.

Since Bill Madden just wrote off ARod again, I'm pretty sure ARod is going to come back strong in the next two weeks.  Maybe "everyone" will not be spared the torture of an ARod home run.

In fact, this is the only time I have felt confident the Yankees can make the playoffs.



"Maybe the Blue Jays, Giants, Rays and Astros will provide a welcome end-of-season breather for this beat-up Yankee team. Or maybe the Yanks are simply too beat up now to make a big finish.

On the other hand, the way most of the other wild-card contenders have been playing, it may not take a big finish."

Of course this ... it stands to reason that ... maybe this, maybe that ... on the other hand.

The Yankees will make the playoffs ... the Yankees won't make the playoffs ... the Yankees will make the playoffs ... the Yankees might make the playoffs.

So you're basically saying you don't know what will happen over the next 12 games. Big ups to the in-depth baseball columnist.

Nate Silver he ain't.

A sample size of 1,000 is huge.

One does not need to poll "ten bazillion" people. After the first nine bazillion, the final bazillion are just going to confirm the results you've already observed.

In fact, you don't need to poll anywhere near 9 bazillion. A survey of 50 people is quite accurate.

A poll of 1,000 people gives us 95% confidence that the results are within the 4-percentage-point margin of error (+/- 2%):

"But maybe my favorite addition to A-Rod’s ever-changing narrative is this recent survey of 1,000 baseball fans across the country who have him as the face of baseball. A thousand.

Out of a whole country of baseball fans, about ten bazillion of them.

If you polled a thousand people across the country, Anthony Weiner would have been the face of the New York City mayoral campaign."

A few observations that should be obvious to adults, but are not obvious to mushbrains like Lupica:

1) Picking ARod as the "Face of Baseball" may be intended as an insult to baseball.

2) Weiner may very well be the "Face of the Mayoral Race." This is accurate, as long as the "Face" of the Mayoral Race" is differentiated from the "Winner" of the Mayoral Race.

3) Like it or not, ARod is the Face of Baseball. Lupica should not be so shocked. The Daily News is the vehicle, Madden and Lupica are the drivers, ARod is just along for the ride. Maybe if the Daily News wrote one word about Josh Donaldson ...


"Suddenly there is this notion, because Alex Rodriguez has exceeded expectations as a baseball player in his return to the Yankees, that somehow he’s altered the circumstances of Major League Baseball’s case against him."

No.

Few who admire ARod's performance on the baseball field have altered expectations regarding MLB's case.

Lupica should ask himself why the expectations were so low in the first place. It's because the writers hate ARod and are rooting against ARod. This personal animus poisons their opinions and is a disservice to their readers.

The same writers who drool at the memory of Piazza's post-9/11 homerun.

So please don't tell me they're anti-steroid. They're just anti-ARod.


"Since the Yankees are in Boston right now, by the way, just remember where the Red Sox were one year ago and where they are because of all the moves Ben Cherington made.

Starting with making John Farrell his new manager."

Says the guy who enthusiastically endorsed Bobby Valentine last year.

In normal circumstances, I would conclude that the Valentine endorsement hurt Lupica's credibility. But, since we're talking about Lupica ...


"If you’re going to lose your mind because you think the other team is stealing signs, the way Joe Girardi did in Baltimore this past week, you have to make sure that your guys have never done the same thing themselves, right?"

Wrong, wrong wrong! Wrong, I say!

You really don't get it.



We are not impartial observers, we are not moral arbiters, we are not looking at the big picture.

Stealing signs is good when we do it, but it's bad when they do it. Whatever helps our team win the game.

Whichever team wins the World Series, steroids will be on that field. If you want to take a moral stand and abandon sports, be my guest. I am rooting for my team's cheaters to score more points than the other team's cheaters.

Yankees are finished and the Mets are totally awesome.

A class act who did a fine job managing the Red Sox last season.

Wells batting second, Reynolds attempts a sac bunt.

Girardi is either panicking or giving up.   I don't believe he is incompetent.

Red Sox are old, fragile, and better than the Yankees.

"This was supposed to be the Yankees’ red line, a huge weekend series with the Red Sox that brought you back to this rivalry’s better days in 2003-04. All the peripheral issues had thankfully been peeled away — no more talk about injuries or performance-enhancing drugs or Alex Rodriguez’s schoolyard war with the front office. The Bombers prepared for a sprint to October, and if they weren’t going to catch the Red Sox, they’d at least use the final 20 games as a dress rehearsal for the playoffs."

Meh.

I don't think too many people thought the Yankees were going to make the playoffs.


"It was an intoxicating sales pitch; it certainly helped pack the Stadium over the weekend. If only the Yankees had made good on the promise of pumped-up baseball. Instead, they were nuked again by Boston’s offense Saturday, 13-9, revealing all the dark secrets about a roster that’s too old and too fragile to hang with the Sox."

The Yankees have scored 25 runs in 3 games and a lot of old players are driving in a lot of runs.

Jeter got hurt this weekend, ARod rested one game this weekend. Those are concessions to age.

Robertson, Logan, Phelps, and a lot of other injured players are "young" and the accompanying "athletic."

Kind of like how Ellsbury got hurt again and the Red Sox are on their third closer ... which may be proof that the Red Sox are brittle ... except there is no reason for alarm since the Red Sox won the games.


"None of that matters over these final 20 games, however. The Yankees’ only consolation has been the Rays’ surprise slump, which has kept not only the Bombers but the Orioles and Indians relevant. But don’t be fooled, the Yankees are barely breathing right now. They’ve been humiliated all weekend by their archrival, learning firsthand the Sox are younger, more athletic and on a run-producing surge that would intimidate just about any pitching staff." 

I think the Red Sox are better than the Yankees in every aspect of baseball: starting staff, bullpen, fielding, baserunning, bench depth, coaching, managing, heart, guts, smarts ... and, oh yeah, hitting.

But it's not really the athletic youngsters that are dominating the Yankees.  Victorino is old, Napoli is old, Gomes is old, Ortiz is old.

This game will not be used in their Yankeeography.

Hughes: 1/3 IP, 4 ER.

Joba: 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 3 BB.

Out with the new, in with the old.

Kazmir beats Harvey.

Koufax threw out his arm and has fewer career wins than Kevin Appier.

"But just in case Keith doesn't mention this, I will: One of the biggest problems with saying that modern pitchers get hurt because they're babied -- relative to their forebears -- is that we generally remember only the forebears who didn't get hurt, while forgetting the hundreds and hundreds who did get hurt.

I don't think anybody would suggest that anybody's figured anything out. We don't know if the current amount of babying is too much, not enough, or just about right. But this longing for a bygone era in which men were men and nobody blew out elbows and shoulders is a longing for an era that never actually existed."

 This is not difficult to figure out.  The lineups are better nowadays, so the pitchers have to strain themselves.  

But even if the pitching conditions are exactly the same, Seaver and Ryan (and others) inexplicably forget hundreds of contemporaries who blew out their arms and were never heard from again.

David Clyde and Mark Fidrych come to mind.

My nightmares are much more imaginative.

Can't take your eyes off him, can you?:

"You watch Alex Rodriguez in the Yankee Stadium sun a little before 4 in the afternoon, fielding one ground ball after another, making throws across the infield to first base and occasionally to second, and try to remember what it was like, less than four years ago, when he owned the place."

Infield practice? I sure hope Nunez taking infield practice. I didn't know big-leaguers did that anymore.

Oh, as for "owning the place," my memory tells me that ARod has been the most hated player in baseball since 2001.

My memory is correct.


"Not only did he own the place in the postseason of 2009, when the Twins and Angels and finally the Phillies couldn’t get him out, when he was finally the kind of October Yankee he had always wanted to be, he was supposed to own the place for a long time."

Yeah, it was great.

It's certainly an odd situation when a player inspires such passion, both good and bad. His presence instantly pushed attendance up 1 million per season, but it seemed like 1/2 the people were there to boo him.


"Now it is September of 2013, what the Yankees hope will be a big September as they try to clinch a wild card or maybe still win the American League East from the Red Sox, whom they would play in three hours. And less than four years from A-Rod’s dream October, he has become Major League Baseball’s worst nightmare."

Aaron Hernandez.

Jerry Sandusky.

Sarin gas attack.


"The idea of Rodriguez in the playoffs has to be about as appealing for Bud Selig as it was for the late Pete Rozelle to hand Super Bowl trophies to Al Davis in the 1980s, back when Davis was suing Rozelle and his own league every couple of hours.

Or as appealing as it was for Selig to be in the ballpark when Bonds, an obvious drug cheat, hit the home run that passed Aaron.

Might still turn out to be a dream September for the Yankees. Maybe the best of it starts this weekend. Doesn’t change the fact that their third baseman is their game’s worst nightmare."

My dream, however unlikely, is Selig handing the World Series MVP trophy to ARod in a champagne-soaked locker room.

ARod accepts the trophy with a huge grin on his face. Awkwardly hugs Selig and refers to Selig as "Buddy."


The AL MVP race is between a steroid cheat and a drunk driver. The supposed leader for NL Comeback Player of the Year is coming back from a PED suspension.

Is ARod's presence on the baseball field unappealing for Selig?  Yes.  That's because Selig has a personal gripe against ARod.

Would ARod's presence in the playoffs be Selig's worst nightmare?  Hardly.  Unless good ratings and mountains of money is a nightmare.

Long overdue.

Hughes might actually be effective out of the bullpen.

Cano went 0-for-5, so maybe it's Girardi's fault for batting Cano third.

If anything, I think Girardi stuck with Pettitte too long.  Kelley, Logan, Robertson, Rivera, win.

If Kelley and Logan can't get anyone out ... if your team bats 1-for-10 with RISP ... your team is going to lose:

• Far easier to question the decision to bring in Joba Chamberlain after Boone Logan put two runners on base. It’s been a while since Chamberlain pitched in a real leverage situation in a winable game, so why bring him in today? “The inning didn’t work out the way we want because we used Kelley, and the outs that we thought he would get, he didn’t get,” Girardi said. “And then Boone didn’t get the outs we thought he would get. So we had to make some changes.”

• Chamberlain actually had been better recently, but it’s hard to think he would have been the go-to choice in that situation had Preston Claiborne been on the roster. Girardi said he didn’t want to use Dave Robertson because it would have meant giving him six outs if he were going to form a bridge to the ninth. “I’ve done everything,” Chamberlain said. “So there’s nothing they can put me on the field in that I haven’t been in. It’s just execution of the pitch. that’s the one pitch I made a mistake on and they made me pay for it.”

• Why three straight sliders to Adam Jones? “We needed a double play right there,” Chamberlain said. “I threw him the sliders and just — as aggressive as Adam is — if I threw it in a good spot and hopefully get him to roll over and get us out of that inning, and keep us within one run. That was the thought process.”

• Interestingly, this was Stewart’s take on three straight sliders: “I wanted to throw another fastball just to get them off there, but Joba felt confident in the slider and unfortunately, all three of them weren’t really good sliders. He just didn’t have it coming out of the bullpen, and he left one hanging and he hit a homer on it.”

This is game #136 of the season.  This is Joba's 7th season in the major leagues.  Joba is a fly ball pitcher throwing three straight sliders to a power hitter because he thinks he's going to get a ground ball double play ... and he then refers to this as a "thought process."


As for the game itself, Joba pitched two innings and allowed one run.

Kelley and Logan combined for zero outs and four runs.
 
Joba is a fat, stupid, gutless, sloppy bacon double cheeseburger.  Every time Joba take the mound, he mocks Cashman's long-term plan.  But this particular loss was not particularly Joba's fault, and it also wasn't particularly Girardi's fault.