Yankee Castoffs Are Stealing The Spotlight This Postseason

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.

The New York Sun

It’s clear that George Steinbrenner is a Yankees fan, but is he enough of a baseball fan that he will watch World Series games that don’t feature his club? Should the hectoring, desperate ads on Fox featuring Tommy Lasorda be directed at him? Watch the games, George! Even if we’re not financially interested, we all live for this!

Actually, had the Boss tuned in on Sunday night, he would have found a very familiar lineup, as both starting pitchers were Yankees alumni, and of a most special kind. These were pitchers from the ninth circle of Yankeedom — reserved for the Eddie Lee Whitsons — the pitchers who quivered in Pinstripes. They’re pitching so well now, the owner might want to ask for his money back. It’s beginning to look like he was the victim of fraud.

Kenny Rogers was the first real failure of the Joe Torre era: A pitcher who found himself frozen out of baseball’s most expansive, forgiving, and loyal managerial heart after fibbing about a minor injury early in his tour. Rogers went 18–15 with an ERA of 5.11 in his two years with the Yankees. His 1997 collapse, in which his ERA swelled to 5.65, helped relegate the Yankees to the wild card spot that season. In addition to his salary, which the Yankees helped cover even after trading him to Oakland after that season, Rogers’s disastrous pitching in all phases of the 1996 post-season surely helped to inspire the Hideki Irabu adventure, which cost the Yankees even more time, energy, and lucre.

Rogers was subsequently traded, though the feeling that he had choked on the Big Apple never quite receded. In subsequent years Rogers pitched well at times, but when he found himself back in New York in 1999, having been acquired by the Mets, it was déjà vu all over again: In the final game of the division series against the Braves, it was Rogers who walked in the series-winning run.

Outside of the postseason, though, Rogers quickly recovered his value. Since leaving New York, Rogers has won 119 games and lost 73 with an ERA of 4.18. In the last two seasons he has had an ERA below 4.00.

Weaver was even more disappointing. It is an awesome irony that he should be in a World Series with the opposition Detroit Tigers, because it was from those Tigers that the Yankees liberated him. In August 2002, Brian Cashman jumped into one of Billy Beane’s trademark three-team trades, which sent Ted Lilly, Jason Arnold, and John-Ford Griffin to the A’s, while the A’s sent Carlos Pena, Franklyn German, and Jeremy Bonderman to the Tigers, as the Tigers sent Weaver to the Yankees.

At the time, this seemed like an inspired break with recent Yankees tradition. For once the Yankees weren’t acquiring some 31-year-old journeyman (as Rogers was when he was signed), but an honest, bona fide young pitcher. Weaver was just 25.The prospects were not highly rated, and though Lilly was only a little older than Weaver, past injuries meant that he was not yet established in the majors, whereas Weaver had already made over 100 career starts. It was a move that had the potential to benefit the Yankees for the next five years.

It was not to be. Weaver’s strikeouts dropped off and he became a home run machine. He handled these reversals badly, screaming into his mitt as he stalked off the field at the end of another failed inning. As the 2003 season wound on, Weaver’s results continued to worsen. His ERA before the All-Star break was 5.20, after it was 7.77. Torre dropped him from the rotation, but he was even worse in relief, a fact that caused Torre to ignore him for 18 October days, including the entire league championship series (but didn’t stop Torre from dragging him into Game 4 of the World Series). The call had predictably disastrous results as Weaver gave up yet another home run, allowing the Florida Marlins to even the Series at 2–2. The next day, another pitcher who couldn’t succeed in New York but helped another team earn a championship ring, Jose Contreras, pitched poorly in relief of David Wells, and the Yankees were on their way to their most recent World Series disappointment.

That December, Weaver was dealt to the Dodgers with Brandon Weeden, Yhency Brazoban, and some cash for the burnt-out husk of Kevin Brown, a deal that had its own set of negative consequences. Weaver had two indifferent seasons with the Dodgers, followed by a complete collapse with the Angels. A whole series of pitching coaches, some of whom, like Bud Black, were regarded as being among the best in the game, failed to help. Even Dave Duncan, another top coach, needed better than two months to get through to Weaver.

If while watching Game 2 Torre, Cashman, or Steinbrenner found himself asking, “Why couldn’t they do that for us?” they were posing the wrong question. A better one would be, “Why couldn’t we do that for them?”There is no shame in asking that, no accusation. The Mets couldn’t make Rogers a postseason star. The Dodgers, the Angels, and very nearly, it seemed, the Cardinals, couldn’t fix Weaver.

Yet, there is also a warning to be observed. In the entire Steinbrenner era the Yankees have had just a handful of successes in making minor league pitchers into successful big leaguers. In baseball, “prospect” is just another word for “project.” The Yankees don’t do fixer-uppers. Similarly, they have proved incapable of pacifying nervous imports, immature 25-year-olds, or free agent signees with overly delicate buttocks. They can’t do it, and they shouldn’t try.

That’s a problem, because as the Yankees have found in the past, restricting yourself to excessively stable 30-year-old pitchers doesn’t lead to anything except high payrolls. It’s something that will need to be addressed, as, sometime next year, the franchise attempts to make Phil Hughes a star.

Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for www.yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.


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