Some Advice For Scott Boras

This has been brought up elsewhere on the interwebs, but I wanted to touch upon it a bit more here. Has uber agent Scott Boras lost a little bit off his fastball?

Two years ago he badly, badly botched the A-Rod opt out situation, both from a public relations standpoint and in grossly overestimating the market for his client. Had A-Rod not come crawling back to the Yankees on his own and had Hank Steinbrenner not been in a historically giving mood, A-Rod might have found himself without a suitor capable of matching the deal from which he opted out. Given the hard budgetary line Hal has drawn in the sand this off-season, consider how differently the A-Rod situation might have played out had Hal been calling all the shots two years ago.

That spring, Boras client Pedro Alvarez was the second pick in the draft. Under Boras' guidance, Alvarez did not sign a contract prior to the August 15th signing deadline. Not only did this lead to the MLBPA filing a grievance against the Pirates and Alvarez being temporarily placed on the restricted list, but it delayed the start of Alvarez' career and created bad blood between him and his ballclub before he even put on a uniform.

Last off season, he foolishly steered Jason Varitek away from accepting arbitration from the Red Sox, only to find that there wasn't much of a free agent market for the declining backstop. Varitek reupped with the Sox for $5M, while accepting arbitration would have guaranteed him a raise on the $9M he made in 2008. That deal did lead to Varitek having a $3M option for the upcoming season, but the $8M total over 2009-10 is less than what he would have earned in 2009 had he accepted arbitration.

This year, Boras gambled with Matt Holliday and was lucky enough to get the Cardinals to outbid themselves by several million dollars. As we all know by now though, Boras wasn't quite so lucky with Johnny Damon. Boras admittedly paid Damon no mind until the Holliday situation was resolved; completely overplayed his hand with the Yankees, Braves, and Giants; and is losing the public relations battle badly.

So here's a little unsolicited advice for Scott Boras. Take a good look at this picture:

Firstly Mr. Boras, if you don't remove your head from your ass in the immediate future, your client will be photographed golfing far more often since he'll no longer be playing baseball.

Secondly, take a good look at Johnny's swing. Perhaps you can market your client as a switch hitter, a dead low ball hitter from the right side, in a last ditch effort to squeeze a few extra million out of some poor, unsuspecting, mystery team.

(Photo from i-yankees)

Joba Sits In With The Roots & Some Other Links

Did you know Joba Chamberlain can play the keyboard? Well, he can't really, but Jimmy Fallon bet the band on his show - who just happens to the The Roots - that if the Yankees won the World Series, they would have to let someone from the Bombers sit in with them: (via Jambands.com)



Apparently, the song they played was Empire State of Mind which I'm sure most of us have heard enough times by now that we are thankful that the clip didn't include it.

Onto some Yankees Hot Stove talk...

Hey y'all, Andy Pettitte told the guys he wants to come back for one more year! (maybe)

Brian Cashman has arrived at the GM's Meetings in Chicago.

Joel Sherman relays through his Twitter account that Cashman, like your high school girlfriend, will be more cautious than anxious this offseason.

Ken Davidoff thinks that this kind of restraint has made Cashman the 6th best GM in baseball.

As such, here are a couple of tidbits from elsewhere in the MLB:

The Elias Free Agent Rankings have been released. As River Ave. Blues points out, World Series MVP Hideki Matsui isn't on there at all but Xavier Nady, who played 7 games this year, is.

Unsurprisingly, the Red Sox have picked up Victor Martinez's $7.1M 2010 option but not the $5M one they had for Jason Varitek. However, the Captain might not be giving up his Capital C just yet, since he has until the end of the week to decide if he'll exercise his $3M player option.

The Sawx also renegotiated the guaranteed money in Tim Wakefield's formerly infinite contract.

The Rays have exercised Carl Crawford's $10M option, so you can forget about only giving up money to get him for a while. I believe desire to keep Crawford might have played into the decision to trade Scott Kazmir, who is due $8M this coming year. Well, that's the only way I can defend this post from last December, anyway.

The Mariners seem pretty intent on keeping Felix Hernadez. Which you probably already knew if you looked at the rumored package they turned down from the Red Sox back at trade deadline.

Yanks Flip The Script On The Sox

After a week of people declaring that the Yankees weren't built for success in the postseason, it was the Red Sox last night who took some hits - both literally and figuratively - to what John Kruk thought was the only team "ready for the playoffs". Now Boston's rotation is under the microscope.

It was a tough night for Jon Lester who was getting hurt by the Yankees even before Melky Cabrera ripped that line drive that hit him just above his knee in the bottom of the third. It was a scary moment for all baseball fans when Lester hit the deck. He was on his back for quite a while, appeared to be in serious pain and had to be helped off the field. However, X-Rays were negative and Terry Francona thinks Lester will make his next start.

Last night was the young lefty's worst outing since May 9th against the Rays, as he allowed 11 baserunners in just 2 1/3 IP, four of whom scored on his own watch and the last who probably would have came to the plate regardless of who was pitching. His post game comments sounded like something Joba Chamberlain might have said: "I felt like I had good stuff tonight, but it was one of those nights where [the Yankees] made it seem like I didn't."

Marc Carig of the Newark Star-Ledger declared early on last night that it was backwards night at the Stadium and instead of his usual routine Chamberlain has decided to pitch well but then rip himself to the media after the game. That latter part didn't come true, but Joba's final line of (6IP, 5H, 3ER, 1BB, 5K) probably undersells his performance last night just a bit. He'd retired every batter he faced until allowing a solo shot to Victor Martinez with two outs in the fourth inning. As Michael Kay endlessly reminded us, the long bottom of the third due in part to Lester's injury delay probably didn't help much.

The other two runs Chamberlain allowed come via an opposite field 2 run homer by David Ortiz with two outs in the 6th, so he very nearly escaped with only one earned run. Even still, Joba needed only 86 pitches to do his work and there was plenty to be encouraged about.

Chamberlain got into trouble in the fifth inning with men on 2nd and third with no one out but squeezed out of the jam without allowing a run by getting Jason Varitek to pop out to third, striking out Alex Gonzalez swinging and inducing a grounder to Jacoby Ellsbury.

Speaking of the Red Sox' Captain, the Yankees ran absolutely wild against him tonight, stealing a season high 7 bases. It started when Derek Jeter singled and immediately took of for 2nd in the bottom of the first, setting the tone for the rest of the game. The inability to prevent runners from stealing could turn out to be a tragic flaw for the Sox when they match up with the Angels in the ALDS. The Yanks did their part to expose that tonight with Robinson Cano even getting in one the action, picking up just his 5th SB of the year.

A-Rod was the biggest thief of the night, swiping three bags but that only begins to describe his contributions. Alex didn't make an out all night, going 3-3 with a HR (off of Lester), a double, two walks and 4 RBIs.

It was an excellent night for the Yankees and a terrible one for the Red Sox. It was a testament to how quickly things can change. Which of these two teams looks primed for the playoffs now, pundits? Let's not get too excited though because things will probably change a little more today when CC and Dice-K take the mound at 4:00.

He's A Better Golfer Than He Was A Closer

Golf is definitely Jay's territory around here, as I generally have no interest in the sport unless it involves a windmill and/or a clown combined with drunken gambling.

However, I couldn't help but notice the results of the final round of The Barclays over in Jersey City yesterday, where Heath(cliff) Slocum(b) out lasted Tiger and the other guys to win the tournament.

Looking to sell high, the PGA Tour promptly traded him to the Nationwide Tour in exchange for Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek.

Yanks Go Yard, Go Home

Tonight's game was a vintage late summer contest with the gametime temperature sitting at a balmy 80 degrees with the threat of thunderstorms lurking. At one point, the grounds crew was in position to deploy the tarp but it was never necessary. It was far closer to a so-called playoff atmosphere than the either two games before the first pitch was thrown.

However, Derek Jeter quickly quieted the Fenway crowd by ripping said first pitch into the home bullpen in right centerfield. Hideki Matsui did almost the exact same thing to Beckett's first pitch of the second inning.

In the bottom of the 2nd, the Red Sox continued their two out hit barrage that started last night with a double, a single and another double but Mike Lowell, Rocco Baldelli and Jason Varitek to bring the score even at 2-2. The Yanks answered with two of their own in the 3rd on three straight singles by the top third of the order and a RBI ground out by A-Rod. An error by Robinson Cano in the fourth allowed another Sox run, but the Bombers kept their foot on the gas, plating runs each of the first five innings.

Matsui added a dinger in the 8th for his 2nd multi-HR game of the series while A-Rod and Cano each went yard as well. Amazingly, the Yanks only had 3 at bats with runners in scoring position, but didn't need them with all the long balls that were flying.

Sabathia threw 118 pitches and due to the fact that 80 of them were strikes, didn't walk a batter. Nor did Beckett who threw 87 of his 120 pitches over 8 innings for strikes. Beckett gave up all 8 of the Yankees' runs and was tagged with 5 homers for the first time in his career. Allowing 4 runs and 8 hits over 6 2/3, Sabathia picked up his 15th win on the season and fifth in a row. His ERA is now lower than Beckett's, despite being 0.20 higher when the game started.

Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera shut down the Sox for the final 2 1/3 innings and the Yanks pulled out of Boston last night having taken the series, turned a road trip which people were suggesting would test their dominance at 7-3. I'd say they passed that "test".

They boys are rewarded with another day off today, before they begin a 6 game homestand and host the Rangers on Tuesday. Derek Jeter seemed to be nursing some sort of a leg injury he picked up during the third inning and he could probably use a breather anyway. The lead is 7.5 games once again while the Sox edge the Rangers by one and the Rays by 3 in the Wild Card.

Wrapping It Up For The Weekend

Sorry Fackers. Like Jay, I'm heading out for a little weekend trip to the heart of enemy territory, so things are going to be a bit sparse around here. We'll have previews, maybe recaps, maybe scattered updates. But don't count on too much.

That also means that even though last night's game marked the two thirds point of the season, we won't be doing our usual extrapolations and ZIPS. Sorry math geeks. If you have a third grade education you should be able to figure out how to do the extrapolations on your own. For the ZIPS projections, check out the awesome fangraphs.com

Before I go, here are a few Sox related thoughts:

During the series in Boston in June, I posted a recap of the Sox off-season moves compared to the those of the Yankees. Though lauded in the media, they haven't been too great. Smoltz is pitching like he has a giant fork sticking out of his back, Kotsay was DFA's then traded, Bard was released before the season started, Penny's been so-so, Baldelli's on his second DL stint, and Varitek will now be losing playing time to Victor Martinez.

I was a little perplexed by the Sox deadline moves - particularly the quick flip of LaRoche for Casey Kotchman. They way I figured it, Youkilis, Kotchman, Lowell, Martinez, Varitek, and Lowell would all be fighting for playing time amongst the corners, catcher, and DH. Last night's line up may have given some insite into their thought process. With Jason Bay sidelined with a sore hammy, Youk was in leftfield. Youkilis made 18 OF apperances in 2006, but has played less than 9 innings out there since. And left field in Yankee Stadium is far different than catching caroms off the Monster.

I wonder though, if J.D. Drew continues to struggle, might the Sox give Youk more time in the OF to get the other bats in at first and third? Time will tell, but from my vantage point in the upper deck last night, Youkilis didn't look too comfortable out in left. He was continually short-arming his throws like an infielder as well. But it speaks volumes as to the guy's versatility that he was able to that. Fack him anyway.

I was a bit surprised that Francona left former Yankee Billy Traber out there for so long. It was the equivalent of waving the white flag. Given the way the Yanks swung the bats it may have been the smart move, but seemed to be in stark contrast to the all-in look of the initial line up, i.e. Youkilis in left.

Lastly, I'm extremely interested to see what comes out of the David Ortiz press conference tomorrow. I realize it's convenient for the union to address this now since they're based in NYC, but it can't the wisest move for Ortiz to do this right in the thick of a critical series against the Yankees, in New York. You knwo the tabloids are going to be hanging on every word like a pack of hungry dogs.

That's it until the preview folks. Enjoy your Friday.

Okay Maybe One More Thing...