I agree with this...say bye bye to Giambi...please

Everyone's talking about which players to get rid of or not re-sign (A-Rod, Giambi, Clemens) but no one's talking about ways to improve the team. (I don't think any of those players qualify as addition by subtraction.)

Improve middle relief. Get a real lead-off man who gets on base and steals them. We rely too much on HR's which is exactly the kind of team we used to beat during our championship run.

As soon as that last out was made, I became a Cleveland Indians fan.

That was an odd feeling?

btw, the yanks lost this series b/c of their hitting, not their pitching.

jeter ended so many rally's with his double plays.
posada can't hit in the postseason (nobody brings this up).
arod can't hit with runners in scoring position.

we get sac flies when we're supposed to. stay out of double plays. we would've won the series tonight.

We have to see what will be avaliable in free agency, but the original plan with Joba was to make him a starter. He has ace potential and you have to be very careful with that. Considering that our worst problem this season was starting pitching, we have to make sure we come into next season with the best starting lineup. Not because it was the Indians' case but, we need 2 aces to lead this team. Maybe we already have one in Hughes. Maybe Joba will become the other one, who knows. But we definitely need to come next season with a solid rotation, or else it will be the same story as last postseasons. Our best weapon coming into this series was our offense, and again we got the lesson that good pitching beats good hitting.

Posted by tomverve:

Posted by djsunyc:

btw, the yanks lost this series b/c of their hitting, not their pitching.

Hard to argue that when your staff ace gives you worst case scenarios in both starts and another of your high priced starters can't make it through half a game. How did the Yankees lose 3 games? Two meltdowns from Wang, plus some biblical distractions for Joba. Forget the bullpen, with dependable starting pitching the series is completely different.

It was both to some extent. The Yankees lost because of Wang's pitching and Jeter's, Matsui's, and Posada's hitting.

Posted by djsunyc:

btw, the yanks lost this series b/c of their hitting, not their pitching.jeter ended so many rally's with his double plays.
posada can't hit in the postseason (nobody brings this up).
arod can't hit with runners in scoring position.

we get sac flies when we're supposed to. stay out of double plays. we would've won the series tonight.

dj, I don't agree. when your ace gives up 12 runs in 2 starts in a 5 game series, you are dead!!

The Yankees hitting and pitching failed them miserably. Why blame one or the other when they're both to blame?

Starting pitching killed them in game 1

Hitting killed them in game 2 when they couldn't give their solid pitching any runs to work with. They couldn't even make Carmona work.

Starting pitching AND hitting killed them in game 3. Wang puts them behind early and they couldn't get a clutch hit if their lives depended on it. Jeter was nothing short of awful and Posada sucked the entire series.

I'm not even upset at losing this series because they did nothing to deserve it.

I really think this team is more than talented enough as currently constructed and doesn't need a lot of tweaks. They play tight and need a different personality leading the ship. Girardi is my choice no.1- he's young, intelligent and respected as a leader.

I think the pipeline of youngsters is ready to fill in wherever there are need spots (except catcher- I'd re-sign Po and either bring back Molina or sign a guy like Rod Barajas to backup). Bring back Mo, Bobby is a perfect bridge, and of course bring back ARod. You don't toss away the best hitter in the game even if he doesn't hit much in the playoffs- he's only 1 of 9 and he does so much for you in terms of bringing the team in a position to win that he deserves all the money he asks for.

My only question is what to do with Damon/Matsui in left. I'd rather keep only 1 at this point, and frankly I'd lean towards Damon since he's more of a table setter and we have a good deal of run producers (Cano is certainly ready to move up in the lineup).

The rotation needs to have 3 spots for Hughes, Joba and Kennedy. No ifs ands or buts. Unless they have disastrous spring trainings they should be assured spots. Wang is obviously in there and I'd love to have Pettitte back another year cause he's an anchor. Moose will be hard to move- he might have to become a Met, a Phillie or an Oriole. I'm not concerned with getting a lot back for him. Roger can go off to Houston or Boston or wherever, but we don't need to waste money on average performance.

The bullpen has plenty of bodies. No need to sign another Farnsworth or one year wonder guy. Bring back Mo, give roles to Ohlendorf and Britton. Viz and Farns wil be back as veteran setup men. Viz should be re-signed so we have at least one vet in there. Farns probably can't be moved. Darrell Rasner, provided he can stay healthy, can be a plus reliever. He has been solid in his major league opportunities, and his sinker should make him effective as an every day guy. He can start as your long man and move into a more important role. Between Chase Wright, Steven White, Tyler Clippard and a host of others there's gotta be a quality reliever in there somewhere. And Humberto Sanchez' power arm should get an opportunity at some point.

Still room for youngsters as positional players too. I wouldn't be averse to Shelley Duncan as my semi-regular 1b/DH. He wasn't as bad defensively as billed. He has a couple things going for him that make him a better bet than a Shane Spencer/Andy Phillips overaged power guy. Unlike Spencer, he has a patient approach. Unlike Phillips, he has power on the major league level. Even if he can only hit .250 he should put up a .330/.475 on conservative basis (and I feel he can slugh much higher than that). That's at least league average or slightly better. Giambi can stay on the team as insurance if we can re-work his deal. Give Gardner or Sardinha a chance as a 4th OF and see if you can find Betemit some at-bats.

LF-Damon
SS-Jeter
RF-Abreu
3B-ARod
2B-Cano
C-Posada
DH-Matsui
1B-Duncan
CF-Cabrera

Bench:
IF-Betemit
1B/DH-Giambi
C-Barajas or Molina
OF-Gardner/Sardinha

Rotation
RHP-Wang
LHP-Pettite
RHP-Hughes
RHP-Chamberlain
RHP-Kennedy

Bullpen
CL-Rivera
RHP-Farnsworth
RHP-Vizcaino
RHP-Ohlendorf
RHP-Britton
RHP-Rasner
LHP-Wright

yes, wang was terrible in game 1, we lost.

but game 2 was a pitching gem which we should've won. we gave up 1 run through 9 innings and we couldn't score. how many dp's and runners left on 3rd base that game?

game 3 we won b/c our bats woke up - and we only gave up 4 runs total.

game 4, wang was pulled in the 2nd inning. yes, he didn't have it but the score was 4-0. wang makes 900K a year. our 100+ mil yankee offense couldn't overcome a 4 run deficit vs. paul byrd with 8 innings to go...and at home? we had runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs in two consecutive innings. we failed to bring either of them in. it should've been 4-3 at one point.