Building for the Future and Winning in the Present
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Yesterday, I proposed that the Yankees ought to use this off-season to reorient themselves toward building another dynasty, rather than doing whatever is necessary to win the World Series next year. I think that’s true, but I don’t think this approach is necessarily inconsistent with winning now. It’s all a matter of priorities.
For instance, the most coveted position player and pitcher on the free agent market – Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon and Florida starter A.J. Burnett – are bad fits for the Yankees, in the former case because the team already has a surplus of veterans unlikely to be star-caliber players three or four years from now, and in the latter case because the team already has enough iffy starters in their late 20s. Spending money on top free agents isn’t inherently a bad idea, even when building for the long term; the problem is doing so when the top free agents are so only by default.
Counseling against the Yankees simply going out and buying some short-term solutions is different from suggesting they do nothing. A variety of creative approaches are possible, but these are the moves I’d like to see the Yankees make this winter.
1) Bring in a real general manager By this I mean no slight to the presumably departing Brian Cashman, who will probably do quite well with his next team. I mean that a change in the general manager’s office is an opportunity to change the team’s culture and centralize power in one office. Assuming a basic level of competence and respect within the game, I don’t think who it is matters much, though a drab functionary like Ed Wade, freshly fired by the Phillies, or even former Mets GM Jim Duquette, might do better than people think. What matters is that this new official have control over George Steinbrenner’s “baseball people.”
2) Hire Leo Mazzone This could easily go at the top of the list. Considering the relative pittance he’s paid (reportedly a few hundred thousand dollars), the Braves’ pitching coach is arguably the most valuable asset in all of baseball. Controlling for all other factors, his effect on a pitching staff seems to be worth about half a run of ERA, a difference comparable to replacing the worst starter in the league with the best. Say the Yankees lured him north by offering to increase his salary tenfold – it would still be an expense comparable to what Tony Womack is making this coming year.
3) Hire Chuck LaMar The former Devil Rays executive may have been over his head as a general manager, but having built Tampa Bay’s tremendous stock of young talent and learned his trade as the nominal head of the marvelous Atlanta system, there may be no one better qualified to build a productive Yankees farm system than LaMar.
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Front-office hires and coaches are all well and good, but the game is won on the field. What player moves can the Yankees make? Leaving aside the possibility of, say, trading Womack for Albert Pujols, I’d like to see the team focus on moves with little risk and the potential to be masterstrokes. You don’t need to be an expert to counsel a team to buy low and sell high, but the Yankees seem to have an organizational problem grasping that that’s what they should do. Here, then, is some free advice.
4) Trade for Corey Patterson Coming off a season when he hit .215 AVG/.293 OBA/.414 SLG, spent most of the summer in triple-A, and then refused to go to winter ball, “Korey,” as the strikeout-prone Cubs center fielder is known, will never come at a lower price. For all his flaws, he’s 26 years old and not far removed from his .298/.329/.511 line of 2003.He can’t possibly be as bad as he was this year, and even if he doesn’t break out with the bat it wouldn’t much matter, as the lineup will be strong enough for a dead spot to be tolerable, especially when that dead spot is as superb a defender as the truly excellent Patterson. He still has all the talent in the world, and if someone can unlock it he can still grow into a regular All-Star.
5) Trade for Justin Morneau Like Patterson, Morneau, a first baseman, has completely alienated his team. (He reportedly got into a fistfight in the Twins’ clubhouse in the last week of the season, and after missing a lot of time over the last couple of years, the team has lost faith in his toughness.) Expected to come up from the minors and immediately turn into a stud hitter, Morneau has disappointed, hitting 248/.313/.461 in three seasons. That’s not bad, actually, and he’s still only 24, a good glove at first, and, again, unlikely to ever come as cheap again. Boston reaped the rewards the last time the Twins were disappointed in a young first baseman who hadn’t lived up to expectations; I’m not saying Morneau is the next David Ortiz, but he’s more than worth taking a shot on.
There are a variety of other moves the Yankees could make – there would be no harm in shoring up the bullpen with a veteran like B.J Ryan, or stocking the bench with some of the cheap sluggers who are always floating around. The broader point is that they need steady, reliable management and some younger players who can, in the right circumstances, become stars, the sorts of players they’re going to have to take some risks to get. Remember that the 90s dynasty was built on the work Gene Michael and Buck Showalter did, among it bringing in young veterans with dicey reps like Paul O’Neill and John Wetteland – that’s the kind of thing it’s going to take for the Yankees to once again be what they can be.