Kuzul

More than other team sports, baseball grants its players longevity.

Being on the wrong side of 35 isn’t such an awful thing. I could muster a formidable 25-man roster comprised strictly of MLB players who are of that age or older.

Time eventually reduces all athletes, but elite baseball players often sustain their level of play as their hair grays.

Veterans of the game adjust to adversity. They continue to contribute even when agility, bat speed and arm strength deserts them.

It is a sport unintentionally engineered to preserve its athletes.

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Baseball is a sport that inspires its fans, at least its most passionate and ardent ones to follow it year round. 

For those fans the 2011 season started on Jan. 1, 2011 and will end at midnight on Dec. 31, 2011. In that one-year span, there are numerous stories. Each franchise has a storyline for the whole year. Some teams had more memorable years than others, but the most passionate fans of every team will leave 2011 with memories. 

For some fans 2011 won’t be that memorable. Maybe if you’re an Astros or Twins fan the 2011 season, or the whole year actually may be worth forgetting. 

For other fans, 2011 will be unforgettable for the wrong reasons. Braves and Red Sox fans own this title. 

For fans of the Tigers, Rangers, Rays, Diamondbacks and  of course the St. Louis Cardinals, 2011 was not just unforgettable but also memorable. 

Lots of good stories were written in the year 2011, it’s hard to narrow it down to the five biggest, but it’s worth trying. 

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The New York Yankees are reportedly seeking to lower their payroll to $189 million. To most teams that seems very easy but the Yankees have a bunch of aging stars with huge contracts that will make this seemingly-simple task very difficult.

Now, the Yankees will not have to permanently stay at $189 million to save money, as the luxury tax in the new CBA punishes repeat offenders, so the Yankees payroll will waver above and below $189 million. In order to save a large amount of money the Yankees will only have to drop to the $189 million payroll threshold once of out every three years.

I will be acting as the Yankees GM and my goal will be to field a competitive lineup while trying to eventually lower the payroll to $189 million. For this article I will ignore arbitration, bench players and players getting league minimum because those figures tend to stay pretty much stable year-to-year and they are tough to predict.

Lets see how this $189 million payroll is possible.

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Joe Girardi is known for changing things around, using different players on different days and tweaking his lineup. However, in 2012, Joe needs to make a basic lineup and stick with it. 

For the sake of this article, the starting positions will be:

C: Russel Martin

1B: Mark Teixeira

2B: Robinson Cano

SS: Derek Jeter

3B: Alex Rodriguez 

LF:Brett Gardner 

CF: Curtis Granderson

RF: Nick Swisher 

DH: Jesus Montero 

When you look at this Yankee lineup, just when you think you’re about to hit a weak spot, you get another guy who is is well capable of hitting close to .300 or knocking in 20 bombs a year. It is relentless, to say the least. 

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The New York Yankees have been known for buying all of their players via free agency instead of bringing up young talent from their farm system. And while the Yankees have been very active in free agency and trades, they have brought up some very good players, with some of their prospects becoming stars while some have not.

International players who spent less than one season in the minor leagues, such as Hideki Matsui, will not be listed.

Lets see who the are Yankees’ 10 most highly touted prospects since 1990.

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If there’s anything the New York Yankees don’t need right now, it’s another player like David Ortiz.

And if there’s one team on which Ortiz’s talents would be squandered, it’s the Yankees.

See where I’m going with this?

After a long and successful tenure with the Boston Red Sox, Big Papi may be on the way out of Beantown as a free agent, with some “baseball insiders” suggesting he may cross over to the (other) Dark Side to suit up in pinstripes.

The only issues? He and the Yankees simply don’t need each other. New York’s roster is already loaded with old, overpaid stars of yesteryear who will need at-bats at the DH spot, where Ortiz, a career professional hitter and a mediocre fielder at best, does the bulk of his damage.

The assumption around Yankee Stadium is that Jorge Posada, the longtime catcher who spent most of the 2011 season “DHing,” will retire, though that won’t exactly open up more opportunities for someone like Big Papi to absorb. Aging Hall-of-Famers like Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter figure to get a reprieve from the field in that spot, as does first baseman Mark Teixeira.

That is, when rookie Jesus Montero isn’t busy eating up opposing pitchers and the at-bats that come with the territory.

Therefore, even if the Yankees wanted to kick the rival Red Sox while they’re down and pick up Ortiz, doing so wouldn’t exactly be to the betterment of their chances of winning, not with a team that’s already among the oldest and least effective defensively in all of baseball.

Nor would a move to New York necessarily benefit Big Papi. Aside from scaring off Wally, a cap swap would put Ortiz in a position where, as previously mentioned, he would be lucky to sniff 400 or 500 plate appearances, much less the 605 trips to the batter’s box he garnered in Beantown this season. Instead, he’d be relegated to a sort of platoon duty, splitting the bulk of his time with Montero while ceding his spot to A-Rod, Jeter and Tex on occasion.

And it’s not as though Big Papi can’t handle a full workload, either. Ortiz had a terrific season at age 35, hitting .309 with 29 homers, 96 RBI and an OPS of .952. The man can still rake but probably doesn’t have too many primo productive years left in the tank. As such, he’d be well served to take his act to a team on the cusp of big things, a team in need of a veteran presence and a powerful bat.

Like, say, Tampa Bay, thereby following in the footsteps of former teammates Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez. The Rays showed in September that they have the pieces to be a dangerous team in the AL East in 2012, sporting a combination of dominant pitching, strong defense and clutch hitting that even the mighty Yankees can’t match.

Wherever Ortiz goes, he isn’t likely to find any monstrous, long-term deal. He’ll get one year, maybe two if he’s lucky, at around $5 or 6 million per, though New York may be more inclined to offer him a deal in the $2 million range, as they did with Eric Chavez and Andruw Jones.

The key for Big Papi is to find the right fit on a good team with legitimate World Series aspirations. The Yankees don’t have the at-bats, the need or really the pennant prospects that would make springing for Ortiz a sound, logical move.

Then again, when it comes to Yankees-Red Sox, you can pretty much throw logic and sound reasoning right out the window. GM Brian Cashman passed up an opportunity to sign Big Papi when he was released by the Minnesota Twins in 2002, which opened the door for the Dominican daddy to sign with Boston and become one of the Yanks’ biggest tormentors over the last nine years.

But, if Cashman is smart, he’ll resist the temptation to make up for lost time, and if Ortiz is smart, he’ll turn down the chance to redo history if Cashman can’t help himself.

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You’ll notice I said “largely”. Of course, it’s not totally meaningless but as the season winds down there’s going to be a ton of attention focused on the American League East. Two regular season series match-ups remain between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox and I think everyone reading knows they will receive no shortage of media attention and hype. 

In some ways, that makes sense. After all, they really are one of sports’ greatest rivalries. Two franchises who have now been linked for nearly 100 years by an ill advised trade that sent Babe Ruth who would go on to become arguably the most important baseball player in the history of the sport from Boston to New York for nothing more than a bag of cash. It’s a cautionary tale for anyone looking at a short-term gain over a long term investment. 

This season once again finds the old rivals neck-and-neck as the regular season winds down. New York has a division lead of merely a half-game over Boston as of this weekend. The two teams are one and two for best record in the American League and two and three for best record in baseball, trailing only the Major League leading Philadelphia Phillies for best overall record. 

Two old rivals locked in a race for a division title that only one of them can have. Sounds like a big deal right? Well not so fast. This isn’t 1978 when the team crowned American League East Champ moves onto the post-season while the second place finisher slumps off into the sunset waiting for spring training to start and another chance at a run for World Series glory. No, this is 2011 and the loser of the American League East will in all likelihood simply move onto the playoffs as the American League Wildcard entry to the playoffs. 

The Boston Red Sox are currently 8.5 games ahead of division rivals Tampa for the AL Wildcard slot and that’s following a week when the Rays managed to take two of three from the Sox in Boston. Tampa still has seven games against the Red Sox and six against the Yankees.  That might give Rays fans some hope but the Rays just don’t appear to have the offense needed in spite of their solid pitching to go on a run against either of their division rivals.

Meanwhile the Yankees and Red Sox trade spots in the standings almost weekly. Both Boston and New York are very good but both teams also have some weaknesses. The Yankees have relied on a collection of largely veteran pitchers who could falter at any moment. Guys like Freddy Garcia and 2005 Cy Young award winner Bartolo Colon both of whom are having much better seasons than even the most optimistic Yankee fans could have predicted back in April. Meanwhile AJ Burnett continues to be a mystery and Phil Hughes has been plagued by injuries. 

The Red Sox are battling some injuries to middle of the order bats such as Kevin Youklis and David Ortiz. Even more worrisome for Sox fans is that the starting rotation, thought to be one of the league’s best when the season started, has not come together in the manner that most thought it would. Daisuke Matsuzaka cemented himself as an all-time Boston free agent bust back in the spring when the chronically inconsistent starter was lost for the remainder of the season and likely for the remainder of his career in Boston with a severe arm injury. John Lackey the big free-agent signing of the 2009-2010 offseason is still trying to find his groove in a Boston uniform and currently sports an e.r.a. of 6.02 on the season. Clay Buchholz is on the disabled list with a back injury that may or may not keep him as an observer through the end of the regular season.

These injuries have turned the Boston rotation once thought to be one of their greatest strengths into a bit of a question mark. Yes, the team is getting Cy Young caliber stuff out of Josh Beckett and Jon Lester but the names Andrew Miller and Eric Bedard were not on the tips of many Red Sox fans tongues as possible starters in October back in April. Veteran Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield has done his usual admirable job by filling in when needed but he’s never been dominant and is unlikely to be a viable starting option come the playoffs.

 A race for home field is important but pales in comparison to what is going on in the American League Central where three teams, The Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox are all fighting for their postseason lives. In the National League West the defending World Series Champion San Francisco Giants are facing the very real possibility of missing the post-season all together as the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks show no signs of letting up and currently sport a 2.5 game lead over the Giants who are 7 games back of the Atlanta Braves in the National League Wildcard race.

Everyone in baseball knows it’s all about October and the postseason is a tougher entry in baseball than in any of the other three major professional team sports. Home field is really nice but gaining entry to the playoff field is the most important thing and that appears likely for both Boston and New York no matter who wins the division.  

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The situation is simple. It’s late in a scoreless ballgame, there are no outs and the number six batter gets a single up the middle. It would only make perfect sense for the next batter to bunt and move the base runner to second, right?

In today’s game bunting is apparently no longer necessary.  The number seven hitter swings for the fences and ends up grounding into a double play, squandering a potential run.  This is one of baseball’s biggest flaws. Instead of moving the runner over and recording a productive out, managers simply wait for their offense to kick in.

Bunting was a vital part of the game back in the day and managers used this move frequently to score runs.  Guys like Rod Carew could have bunted .300 if they chose to.  Eddie Collins has 512 sacrifices—the most in the Majors—to go along with 3,000 plus hits and over 700 stolen bases.

Of course his hitting and base running gets more attention than his unselfish play, mainly because hits and steals are more glamorous than bunts.  Being a member of the 3,000 hits club and 500 steals club sounds a lot more prestigious than having the most bunts in MLB history.

In 2003 the Japanese media was covering a player who had broken a seemingly unbreakable record. No, it was not the home run record, it was the bunting record.  Masahiro Kawai broke Eddie Collins’s record for most sacrifice bunts. 

In fact, Kawai’s team celebrated at the stadium by showing fireworks on the scoreboard and having a flowery ceremony for him.  His proud wife and children were in attendance and the fans gave Kawai a standing ovation.  In the last plate appearance of his career Kawai laid down a sacrifice bunt.

If Kawai did this in the MLB, would it be greeted with this kind of fanfare?  Probably not, because Americans don’t appreciate bunting as much as the Japanese do.  If Kawai broke the record over here he would be mentioned briefly on ESPN. The fans at the game would give him a generous applause, but would they recognize that it truly takes a talented ballplayer to bunt?

I’m not saying every player that is good at bunting should be in the Hall of Fame. What I’m saying is that these players should be appreciated for having a skill that is gradually disappearing from baseball. 

Managers do not seem to recognize the fact that bunting can win games and confuse the opponent’s defense.  Mike Scioscia recognizes the importance of bunting in baseball and uses this—along with stealing bases—to win games when his offense is stagnant.  Managers and other baseball players have to realize that bunting is not “small ball,” its baseball.      

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On Monday, New York Yankee captain Derek Jeter is expected to make his return from the 15-day DL against the Cleveland Indians.  The veteran is six hits away from 3,000 for his career.  Upon reaching that milestone, he will become the first New York Yankee to accomplish that feat.

However, as he has chased that milestone this season, Jeter’s numbers have been fairly average.  A career .312 hitter, he is batting just .260 with two home runs and 20 RBI.  Of his 68 hits this season, all but 12 are singles. 

This should cause concern not only for Yankees fans, but also the front office.  The shortstop is currently in the first year of a three-year contract worth $51 million, plus an option for a fourth year.  In all honesty, I don’t see Jeter playing beyond the length of the contract.

Don’t get me wrong.  Jeter is a fine athlete who has been a great presence on the Yankees throughout his career.  Yet, he is now 37 years old and, as much as I hate to say it, is being slowed by age.

Take a look at his numbers last season.  He hit just .270, a career low for him and his lowest season batting average since hitting .292 in 2004.  To put it bluntly, for much of the latter half of 2010, Derek Jeter just looked lost at the plate.

He entered spring training looking to adjust his swing with hitting coach Kevin Long and he did just that, but went back to his old swing just a couple of weeks into the season.  Am I the only one who thinks that was a bone-headed move?

Anyway, back to the point.  Jeter is inevitably going to reach 3,000 hits this season, and fans will celebrate as the feat is added to his Hall-of-Fame resume.  Yet, after hitting that mark, does Jeter really have anything else to prove?

He is already the all-time Yankees leader in hits and stolen bases.  On top of that, he is also at the top of the list in career postseason hits and runs scored.

Most important, however, is Jeter’s success in the later rounds of the playoffs.  He has been to the World Series seven times and has walked away a winner five times.

After hit No. 3,000, there isn’t much else that Jeter needs to do to make his case for the Hall of Fame.  All he could possibly do is win another World Series.  As awesome as that would be, why keep playing and looking bad on the decline?

Still, Jeter is a proud man who isn’t going to leave baseball quietly.  I can see him playing out this contract, fourth year option at all.  He will be 40 years old at that point and barring some sort of miracle, be done with baseball.

I can only hope that he finishes his career with a bang, for it would be quite a shame for one of the most beloved New York Yankees of all time to go out on such a steep decline.

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Fly ball, left field.  It’s heading for no-man’s land down the line, surely a blooping base-hit by Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon, giving them an extra-inning lead in what is already an instant classic in the Bronx.  One player had different ideas.  Out of the hole at shortstop comes Derek Jeter, storming for the ball at full-speed.  He reaches up over his head, snags the third out, and promptly crashes into the second row.  As he’s pulled out of the stands with blood drawn on the chin, one thing is apparent: nobody on that field wants it more than him.  But is that drive to succeed every single night, even in a July meeting with the Red Sox, enough to make him the all-time icon that he is?

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