TAMPA, Fla. — Routinely in the early days this spring, the Yankees haven’t started workouts until late morning. Nobody begins their workdays this late in the spring, ever. Not in Florida. Not in Arizona.
Why did manager Joe Girardi do it? Was it because:
A. He wanted to outwait the thick morning dew and make sure the fields were dry.
B. The Yankees needed an extra couple of hours each morning to ensure that Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow was still in one piece, and to get CC Sabathia weighed in.
C. Alex Rodriguez thought it would be a fabulous team-bonding exercise to hold FaceTime sessions each morning with retired icon Derek Jeter.
Correct answer? A.
But the fact there is even a remote chance that “all of the above” could be accurate tells you how weird things have gotten around here.
“The [pitching machine] got yelled at for not covering first,” Girardi quipped.
Yet ol’ Iron Mike still was more nimble than Michael Pineda.
From the time A-Rod walked in wearing a lime green polo shirt and holding a cup of coffee at 10:08 a.m. Monday until the last Yankees straggled out midafternoon, there was every chance of spotting a flying monkey, or an intrasquad game featuring pitching machines instead of real, live pitchers.
Wait. That last thing was something else that really happened, one more odd twist in a spring full of them. Girardi explained that it was easier to control things with the pitching machines because the point of the exercise was to work on baserunners’ reactions, and cutoffs and relays.
These are different times and different faces for the Yankees, who are steaming toward a transformational summer that could be spectacular or disastrous, with little chance for anything in-between.
Disastrous, though, currently is the odds-on favorite.
In order to avoid utter catastrophe, old-timers Mark Teixeira (wrist), Carlos Beltran (elbow) and Rodriguez (yearlong suspension) must reverse their declines. And with Teixeira turning 35 on April 11, Beltran 38 on April 24 and A-Rod 40 on July 27, Father Time may be tougher to hit than Indians Cy Young winner Corey Kluber.
Tanaka (small tear in his elbow’s ulnar collateral ligament) must become the outlier from a group of many other pitchers—Chad Billingsley and Dylan Bundy among them—who have tried to avoid surgery by rehabbing, only to eventually need Tommy John surgery anyway.
Sabathia, who intentionally regained some of his old weight and expects to pitch at around 305 pounds this season (he’s 6’7″, so it’s not as bad as it sounds), must also rebound. And he turns 35 on July 21.
Even Brian McCann, who declined last year, is 31. Brett Gardner is 32 on Aug. 24.
In other words, the Yankees’ only hope is for a group of aging, veteran players to all bounce back together.
And of that group, how many? Four? Five? Six?
“I’ve never looked at it that way, you know?” Girardi says. “What’s important is everyone contributing. To win, you don’t need everyone having career years.
“Sometimes, what you need is nine or 10 guys having really good years. Sometimes, what you need is having three or four guys having career years.
“Whatever the combination is, we need to find it.”
With a fat payroll expected to check in at around $230 million and attendance expected to plummet now that we’re past the Jeter and Mariano Rivera farewell tours, you also wonder whether the conversation soon could turn from A-Rod’s sins to the futures of Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman.
It’s hard not to see a scenario coming soon in which both Girardi and Cashman move onto the griddle, unless you’re a fervent subscriber to the YES Network who believes in unicorns and the Easter Bunny.
If things go south, look out.
“The body’s perfectly fine,” Tanaka says through an interpreter. “I understand everybody’s worried about the elbow, and I understand, too, that I have to be cautious about it as well.
“But so far, it’s been good.”
Neither Tanaka nor Sabathia will see Grapefruit League action before next week.
“If I worry about every pitcher, it’s going to drive me crazy,” Girardi says. “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”
Pitching coach Larry Rothschild is clinging to the belief that there are many pitchers who currently are throwing with small tears in their elbow that we just don’t know about yet, and they’re all doing fine.
“So I’m not sure how much actual knowledge we have,” Rothschild says. “You can draw conclusions.”
But his point is, those conclusions might not be accurate.
So the Yankees continue to believe.
At least, in the clubhouse.
Outside, with Jeter, Rivera and the rest of the icons now gone, it appears to be a different story. The Yankees already are dipping back into their past this summer in retiring the numbers of Bernie Williams (51), Andy Pettitte (46) and Jorge Posada (20), moves largely viewed as a means to create a few blockbuster days in a schedule that could be devoid of them.
In Tampa, the Yankees have scheduled some giveaway days during their spring schedule to help attract fans. And anyone wanting to purchase tickets for the Boston Red Sox visit on March 11 is required to also purchase two tickets to two other Grapefruit League games.
Never heard of that before in the spring.
Meanwhile, the new guys blend in, one pinstripe at a time.
“[S]tarting times were earlier in Arizona,” says shortstop Didi Gregorius, who has his work cut out for him in replacing Jeter at whatever time is go time. “That’s the biggest difference.”
Well, that and the clown show known as A-Rod. And, honestly, right now that could be a blessing for some of these guys. Because as he’s swallowing up all of the attention, the rest of the Yankees can work in peace. Gregorius doesn’t have 30 people asking him about Jeter every day. And Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances aren’t being sized for tabloid headlines looking to stoke a closer war.
“It’s been great,” third baseman Chase Headley says. “It hasn’t been an issue at all with Alex.”
And that’s where this entire misdirection play is coming from with the Yankees: While we’re all watching A-Rod, the real issues are a few more miles up the road.
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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