Former Yankees on Opening Day… RAB has a round up of the opening day performances of Yankees who got away. OK, I don’t care about Phil Coke’s performance. Coke stinks and I certainly don’t care that he’s gone. But Matsui in particular looked like he picked up where the World Series left off. I still don’t understand walking away from him.
Posada must DH… We’ve been talking the in the comments section of my opening game post about the problem of Posada behind the plate. Posada’s poor defense has been driving me crazy for years–his complete unwillingness to block the plate, his persistent passed ball problem (I’ve been less disturbed by his dicey handling of pitchers–yeah Posada doesn’t frame a pitch or give a good target, but a lot of pitchers are prima donnas who should shut up and find a way to work well with others, Posada has won a lot of MLB games as a catcher). Now Posada’s defense has become a raging meme. Bob Kalpisch at of NorthJersey.com sees it my way–it’s time for Posada to be moved from behind the plate (actually it was time 3 or 4 years ago. I actually was against re-signing him a couple of years ago, and, while he obviously is still an excellent hitter his defense has been killing the Yanks for years) ). But Greg Cohen at Sliding Into Home defends Posada offering the most commonly heard rationalization for leaving bad enough alone: “The Yankees won the World Series last year with this guy, and like last year, Posada’s defense probably won’t be a major issue for this team.” But Greg is wrong. First, the logic is fallacious: the Yanks won the World Series last year without a dependable 4th starter also, that doesn’t mean the team wants to try to repeat without one. Second, Posada’s defense has been a major issue with the Yankees for years. It’s a problem that they’ve managed to play through, but a problem nevertheless. Now that Posada’s nearing 40, the team has largely cleared out the DH spot, and the Yankees have other catching options from the athletic Francisco Cervelli to the legit Austin Romine (Montero, it appears, would not be a defensive upgrade), moving Posada to DH–where he belongs–is easy. Over the last two years Girardi has tried to move Posada from behind the plate but the sulking, selfish, pig-headed catcher has made life difficult for everyone in the organization. It’s time for Posada to grow up and the Yankees to get tough. Better catchers than Posada, like Yogi Berra, spent their later years catching less and playing elsewhere more, and one suspects, had there been the DH in the AL in the 1960s, Berra would have spent much of his time there. I love Posada’s clutch hitting, his fiery intensity, his switch hitting power. He’s a beloved Yankee. But for the love of God, please don’t let him catch 130 games!
Money for Nothing… Great reaction from It is High.. to the NY Times Op-Ed on luxury box tax deduction. Love it. New Yankee Stadium is such a horrible, Dickensian testament to the new gilded age, completed, ironically, just as the new gilded age was in its terminal stages–with its walled off front section beyond which the swells dine on mutton, and it’s public money subsidized construction. I love the Yankees, and the lower level of new Yankee is a great posh place to see a ball game. But baseball is best when it’s the egalitarian, open-access sport it was when it became America’s game, not a the stuff of a Robb Report pictorial.
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