The Mind Gone Mad

I look at him. He looks at me. I know what he knows, but he has no idea what I know.

I know all his secrets, where he hides his demons, and those little tells can’t get past me. I read him like a book, but when he looks at me he misses everything.

I’m just another face in the crowd to him. I can hide in plain sight. But he sticks out like a sore thumb.

It’s almost not fair to have such an advantage…almost.

I am he and he is me. The only problem though….which one am I really?

The other reasons why this season has been going nowhere for a long time for those New York Yankees.

Front Office

The off season moves, the lack of trades, who they did and did not sign. It’s all added up to the team being poorly put together.

Johan Santana. Why that never happened I will just never understand. OK. I can understand not wanting to send over both Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy during the off season as well as Melky Cabrera, but where are all three of those guys right now? In the minors because they all weren’t able to cut it on the major league level throughout the season. Hell, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy went for a combined 0-8 this season.

And yeah, I get that it’s all hindsight, but what isn’t hindsight is that during the off season, the Yankees were offered the Santana trade that did not include both those two pitching prospects and not Melky at all. And they didn’t go for it? When I heard that, I flipped out. A stupid move. And with how it’s all worked out now, an even more stupid move.

Here is the clear lesson to the Yankees as well as their fans: just because prospect is highly thought of and is young, doesn’t automatically mean he’s a sure thing. I remember talking about this with a guy I work with of mine back over the winter as we’re both Yankees fans. I said to him that if there was a deal that let them send only one of their pitching prospects then it was a deal that should have gotten done. Well thy had that opportunity and they passed it up.

And that was just the real big mess up. Let’s not over look the smaller ones that when added together certainly did nothing to help.

Morgan Ensberg – remember him? Yeah he was a hell of a glove, but a dead bat.

Latory Hawkins – when they signed him, I cringed. Another once good, but passed his prime player in a bullpen filled with question marks.

Richie Sexson – His glove probably helped them win about 2 or 3 games, but other than that…who gave a shit.

Ivan Rodriguez – granted, when that trade happened everyone was happy about it. Myself included. This is more of one of those good trades that just hasn’t worked out because the player is sucking on his own when he shouldn’t be.

Damaso Marte – the guy who came over with Xavier Nady. The Yankees wanted him more than Nady and yet its turned out that Nady has been the big addition and this guy has been the chump. He started off fine with the team, but the league must have caught up to him or something because now he just serves it up to them.

Coaching

Or rather, just the manager, Joe Girardi. Now I think he is a great manager and certainly a much better one than Torre, but he hasn’t lived up to his own hype. Girardi was considered a National League style manager who would come in and bring that small ball mentality back to a team that desperately needed it. He hasn’t.

The season started out like that, but he’s fallen into the “wait for the home run” trap. It’s not working for him. And lately some of his moves have just been weird.

Girardi needs to step up and say “This is how we are going to play the game,” and then do it. They need to establish some base stealing, hit and running, bunting people over, choking up on the bat to get a sack fly, squeeze bunting, the works. He hasn’t taken control of the team like that yet, and it’s pathetic.

The Players

The biggest reason of all. I can talk injuries and a poor roster all day long, but when it comes down to it there is no one at fault more than the players themselves.

Injuries and a half ass roster can hurt you, but not even I can deny the fact that these are still Major Leaguers. They just don’t show any fire, any guts, any real sense of wanting to win. They go out, play somewhat hard, and at the end of the day, they are still being paid  millions. Now am I suggesting they don’t care and it’s all about the money? No. But I am suggesting that they are a team with too many stars.

I’ve felt that way for years. Yankees have a limitless payroll, but they have to learn they don’t need to always use it. You need those low salary, blue collar, work all the time just to earn his spot on the bench, kind of player and they really don’t have that.

Where are the Paul O’Neill’s, the Tino’s, the Scott Brosius’? Where are those work their ass off types who played hard and played right. It’s hard to pick those guys out, but the team needs to stop thinking they need an All Star at every position. You need those fiery other guys around because they end up motivating the stars. And that’s then the stars end up playing to their full potential.

What do they need to do in the off season? A lot of things. And were I them, I’d start thinking about it because to me, this season is over.