***yankees official offseason thread*****

[MuresanForMVP]

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Exactly. With Wang, Andy, Joba, Hughes, and Kennedy, Kennedy is the #5.

If Kennedy is a potential #2 or #3 starter (2 on Pirates, 3 on the Yankees) pitching in the fifth starter spot, that is freakin awesome.

Just think about that trouble the Yankees have had the past few years trying to find a 3-5 starter that will even PITCH let alone be decent.

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Just a small thing: when it comes to scouting reports the numbers assigned to their spot in the rotation comes from a fairly specific criteria. There is not a team in mind when saying he is a potential #3 or 2 or whatever when they're making these scouting reports. Sydney Ponson was the Orioles #1 starter for several years, he was not a "real" #1 starter. Kennedy may find himself pitching in the #2 spot in the rotation but he isn't a true #2, etc etc. I'll try to find an article that explains the differences between the spots, but it was from several years ago.

Since he's been in college, most scouting reports on him have been fairly lukewarm. They typically go "Considering his stuff alone he shouldn't be on this (top prospect) list, but considering his performance it's hard to say otherwise." Again, like I said, lukewarm. He could be a very good 4 or 5, a decent 3, but if he becomes your #2 (or God forbid #1) then your pitching staff must be in some big big trouble.

[THAY3R]

Do you think if the Yankees rotation had 5 Ian Kennedy's they would be in big trouble?

[MuresanForMVP]

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Do you think if the Yankees rotation had 5 Ian Kennedy's they would be in big trouble?

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Not sure what point you're trying to make here, but to have 5 starters with completely average stuff probably isn't the recipe for winning a championship

[MuresanForMVP]

That being said, having 5 starters who profile as decent-to-solid #3 starters is probably better than a lot of other pitching staffs

[DesertCat]

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Girardi was watching his starting pitcher, Scott Olsen, pick an argument with the plate umpire for shorting him one warm-up toss. Obviously distracted, Olsen promptly gave up a home run. When Olsen reached the dugout after the inning, Girardi grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the tunnel.

"He didn't want me to worry about stuff like that anymore," Olsen said. "Coincidence or not, we've been playing well ever since."

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I will have to look for the story where Josh Johnson and his doctor basically said that Girardi leaving him in that game had nothing to do with his arm injury... and need for Tommy John Surgery... but all the blame thrown at Girardi eminates from Marlin's owner Jeffrey Loria -- not doctors or trainers or baseball professionals. It is unfortunate that Marchman has accepted the Loria story, but he likes to be controversial.

...

I won't go thru the hocus pocus of statistics, but here they fail to account for the management-induced distractions. In the last three weeks of the 2006 season, with the knowledge that Girardi was going to be booted, the Marlins collapsed... I believe they went 4-13 or something like that to finish the season and skew their record. (not to mention the fact that they started 11-31 when the team was basically dismantled after Girardi was hired and he had a roster of 20 or so rookies). Indeed, you have it backwards -- Loria is the confirmed "red-ass" and Girardi was the man caught in the bad situation at a terrible time. He was hired to manage one team and then did his best to be successful with a very different team with no experience. As Girardi has said, he went through a lot that season and learned a lot...

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Loria is a red-ass, but that doesn't matter as he's the owner. But your essential point is that it's okay that Girardi grabbed a pitcher by the collar, and yelled at his owner during a game. I see those as tendencies for Girardi to lose his cool, but if you think those represent great judgement we'll have to disagree. I don't see Torre doing that crap.

But don't duck his record by calling it "hocus pocus statistics". He brutalized that staff, and you can't deny that those pitch counts and innings are totally unreasonable for 22 year old pitchers straight out of the minors. Whether Johnson's arm was injured by Girardi's terrible decision in that game we'll never know, but we know he was due for an injury the way Girardi flogged him all year. The D-Train's counts were abusive even for a veteran. And the proof is in how each of those pitchers has collapsed since that season.

And regardless of how many rookies were on that team, they performed well all year long, because they have very talented players (Cabrera, Uggla, Hanley Ramirez, Willingham). They performed well enough to win at least 5-10 games more than they did with a competent manager. This year they were even better but someone destroyed the starting staff.

And you think the team stopped playing because Girardi was due to be fired? Most of the team hated Girardi, but even if they loved him do you really think they would stop striving for the playoffs because he wouldn't be around? Maybe the fact he blew out his second best starters arm, and ran the rest of his starters out of gas might have had something to do with the collapse (49 runs in last 7 games)?

You better hope Girardi learned from the experience if he ends up managing the Yankees and those young pitchers.

And I mistyped my last paragraph, I was just pointing out it's clear Cashman isn't making those decisions. So your management hierarchy is screwed up and that's bad news.

[Vyse]

DesertCat makes inarguable points re: the ridiculous pitch counts Girardi piled on. I didn't know Girardi did that, and that is well beyond inexcusable. That is pretty much the worst thing a manager could do.

[rwperu34]

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I don't disagree with the views of Thay3r etc but I do think most Yankee fans view their prospects with a best case scenario type of view.

I.E. Joba/Hughes can be awesome...thus they will be

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I agree with this. I remember Kyleb saying that the FLOOR of Phil Hughes was a #2 SP. well, that's pretty LOL. his floor is Mark Prior, or Kerry Wood, or any other young pitcher that gets hurt and is never quite the same, and at any rate is not a good productive pitcher for all his cheap years.

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One thing about floors on prospects is, there is an injury risk with all of them. When we talk about floor, we are talking about the downside above the standard risk for all players. WIth young pitchers you're talking an injury/flameout risk of 15-20% no matter who it is. Even the other 80% of the time, saying Hughes floor is a #2 starter is a bit absurd.

[TMTTR]

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DesertCat makes inarguable points re: the ridiculous pitch counts Girardi piled on. I didn't know Girardi did that, and that is well beyond inexcusable. That is pretty much the worst thing a manager could do.

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Glad to see he is getting support from someone I assume is a big Yankee fan. His points are far from inarguable. Pitching is a very unnatural motion and pitchers -- particularly young pitchers -- are very susceptible to injury. In the month after hiring Girardi, the Marlins dumped most of the remaining veteran talent -- including the trade to the Red Sox that have brought them back to the World Series. The 2006 Marlins bullpen was aweful. There was no one to pitch other than young pitchers.

Despite that, Girardi never pitched the rookie starters on short rest and their average pitch count was manageable. Certainly the GM could have dictated guidelines to Girardi or given him additional arms to use in the games. That didn't happen. Girardi used the players that were provided to him. Failure of communication is obviously part of the problem and that was in large part due to the disfunctional relationship between Girardi and the Owner/GM. (A disfunctional relationship caused overwhelmingly by such owner and GM.)

Desert Cat can distort the facts and continue to rely on statistics that fail to give the complete picture. Girardi was thrust into a tough position that changed radically after he was hired. He made the best of that situation and that was why he received the NL Manager of the Year that he deserved.

That being said, the managerial job appeared to be Mattingly's job to lose and it does not appear he did anything to lose it yesterday... I suspect he will be announced as the new manager on Friday...

[CharlieDontSurf]

Joe G is known as a tom coughlin, military type, tough love my way or the highway type of coach. I'm sure that will go over awesome on the Yankees..especially since he used to play with many of the players

[JordanIB]

So it looks like the Yanks brass have already put out their first "Cover my ass/Get-out-of-jail-free" card with Hank's declaration that the fans should give the manager a fair chance as this is a young team, and a "team in transition"

Love how he makes it sound like this is the Marlins post-fire sale or something