A very Yankees signing

Masahiro Tanaka pitches for
Team Japan in 2009.

The Yankees won the Masahiro Tanaka competition: seven years, $155 million (plus a $20 million posting fee to Tanaka's Japanese League team).

There was talk of Tanaka going to the Dodgers, and the Cubs were said to be prepared to outbid everybody, but it's never a surprise when the Yankees come out of a free agent auction with the winter's top prize.

But this is not buying a title, a charge often laid against the Yankees.There's no title at the end of this route.

The Yankees spent a lot of money this winter — on Jacoby Ellsbury, on Brian McCann, on Carlos Beltran, on Tanaka —yet they remain a largely flawed team, one heavily dependent on long-shot returns to form by aging, injury prone stars in decline. Derek Jeter. Mark Teixeira. CC Sabathia. Brian Roberts. Robinson Cano is gone, Mariano Rivera is gone, Andy Pettitte is gone, Curtis Granderson is gone.

Tote up the additions and subtractions, and I don't see the Yankees as better than the Red Sox or the Rays.

Meanwhile, the notion that the Yankees will get under the luxury tax line is dispelled. Perhaps knowing that will free them up to chase the remaining comes-with-a-price free agents. On the other hand, as Tyler Kepner of the New York Times details here, the Yanks have already spent some $500 million this offseason, between free agents and luxury tax bills. And the signings they've made already have cost them their first three draft picks in June (although they'll get one back for losing Cano).

I love this comment in the Kepner piece:

This is what the Yankees do. They understand there is a better and cheaper way, they just cannot execute it. 

Doing the Yankees' dirty work

Alex Rodriguez has vowed to take his
case to federal court, but the courts
are unlikely to get involved in a
labor arbitration case.

Back in the 1980s, George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, was eager to find a way out of the 10-year contract he had signed with Dave Winfield — so  eager that he paid out some $40,000 to a lowlife named Howie Spira, who claimed mob connections, to smear the outfielder.

That scheme backfired on Steinbrenner, who wound up suspended in 1990 by then-Commissioner Fay Vincent. (That suspension is widely seen as a crucial first step in the creation of the late-decade Yankee dynasty; with Steinbrenner out of the way, the baseball people were free to draft and develop cornerstone players Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte.)

Today the Steinbrenner sons are equally eager to get out of their contract with Alex Rodriguez, which runs through 2017 and calls for the third baseman to get some $86 million the rest of the way — plus $6 million in bonuses for home run milestones.

The A-Rod contract posed a major financial problem for the Yankees, who really want to break their string of escalating luxury tax penalties. They had targeted 2014 as the year to get the payroll under $189 million. Getting under that figure breaks the string and ends the escalation of the penalties. But A-Rod was to get $25 million this year.

Now he's to just get $3 million, because on Saturday an arbitrator deemed his suspension for the full season to be valid under major league rules and the labor agreement.

Rob Manfred, COO of Major League Baseball, on
Sunday's "60 Minutes" puff piece.

Major League Baseball — the commissioner's office, and specifically Rob Manfred, widely seen as the successor to Bud Selig when Selig retires — got the evidence to suspend Rodriguez by paying a lowlife named Tony Bosch.

Few can legitimately sympathize with Rodriguez, but one lesson for all should be clear: If you want to get out of your contract, get the commissioner's office to do the bribing.

My distaste for the Yankees no doubt colors my thinking, but I would be far happier with the A-Rod ruling if it didn't relieve the Yankees of serious financial pain that was the result of their own foolishness. The $25 million should still be marked against the Yankees for luxury tax purposes.

Anything less than that will leave a legitimate suspicion that MLB's dogged pursuit of Rodriguez was less about steroids and more about helping the Yankees avoid the consequences of their bad decision.

When there's no clear Plan B

Bruce Rondon may be Plan A
for the back end of the Detroit
bullpen, but his spring training
has not gone well so far.

More than three weeks remain before the regular season opens, but a couple of high-expectation teams have developed significant roster questions that don't have easy answers. It will be interesting to see how they cope.

Detroit Tigers: Jose Valverde, who had been their closer the past few years, is out of the picture (and still unemployed, for that matter). Bruce Rondon, a hard-throwing 22-year-old prospect, had been deemed the front-runner as Valverde's successor, although manager Jim Leyland was coy during the offseason about the bullpen glory job.

Rondon has struggled with command this spring. The Tigers skipped his most recent scheduled appearance to work on his mechanics in a side session and pronounced themselves pleased with the tweaks, but we've all seen reports of struggling pitchers having a "great bullpen session" and continuing to struggle.

Maybe Rondon can be fixed in the time remaining. Maybe the Tigers will make a March trade — there's plenty of speculation about the availability of starter Rick Porcello. Perhaps they'll open the season counting on Leyland to work the closer-by-committee approach that worked so well for him in his Pittsburgh days more than 20 years ago.

Mark Teixeira didn't spend a lot of
time in a Team USA uniform this week.
He's been replaced on the roster by
Eric Hosmer of Kansas City.

New York Yankees: First baseman Mark Teixeira injured his wrist hitting off a tee shortly after joining Team USA in preparation for the World Baseball Classic, and he'll be out of action eight to 10 weeks, or into May — a rather similar return date to that of outfielder Curtis Granderson, who broke his forearm in his first exhibition at-bat.

Tex, Grandy, Alex Rodriguez — the Yankees have more than $60 million in salaries already destined for the disabled list on Opening Day, or roughly twice the Houston Astros' projected payroll. (Heck, even general manager Brian Cashman broke a leg and dislocated an ankle skydiving for a veterans charity.)

If you're going to lose lineup keys for eight weeks, it's just as well that a sizable chuck of that time be spring training. But that's a lot of power suddenly vanished from the Yankee lineup for at least a month.

This being the Yankees, there's a lot of speculation that  Cashman will acquire a veteran. Which brought on this tweet Wednesday from the Daily News' Mark Feinsand:

Cashman said NYY could look at a pool of 1B and 3B thanks to (Kevin) Youkliis' versatility: "It's kind of like a baby pool. A lot of kids pee in it."

Ah, lemme guess: He's not that thrilled with the options outside the Yankees system either.

Girardi should return to the basics

The media horde surrounds Alex Rodriguez, written
out of the lineup yet again by his manager.

With his Yankees one loss from elimination Wednesday, Joe Girardi designed a lineup that excluded his 43-homer center fielder (Curtis Granderson) and the highest paid player in baseball history (Alex Rodriguez).

That lineup didn't get used, as the game was postponed to this afternoon because of rain in Detroit. I think Girardi would do well, with another night to sleep on it, to tear up that lineup and rethink the panic it reveals.

A 25-man roster simply isn't large enough to bench every slumping hitter Girardi has. And even if it were possible, it would hardly be wise.

Players are constantly urged to "play within yourself." The same is true of managers — it is possible to try too hard, to outsmart yourself, to overmanage.

It's time for Girardi to say: If we're going down, we're going down with our best. This is the lineup that won 95 games; this is the lineup that led the American League in wins. If it doesn't get the job done, so be it.

I say that knowing that it's impossible for Girardi to put his full regular lineup on the field. Derek Jeter isn't playing again in 2012, and somebody else has to play shortstop.

Shuffling the slumpers in and out just smacks of panic. And panic is never useful.

Tigers v. Yankees. Yuck.

Justin Verlander's ERAs in six postseason
series: 5.06, 6.75, 5.73, 5.00, 5.56 and 0.56. 

So this is what the American League is down to for its World Series representative:

The New York Yankees, the very symbol of smug entitlement, and the esthetically unappealing Detroit Tigers.

Obviously, I was rooting for the Orioles and Athletics in the division series. The big budget boys won.

Both teams feature power hitters, power pitchers, inferior defense (especially Detroit), offenses that struggle to generate runs without homers and a lot of wasted payroll (especially the Yankees).

After watching the Yankees hitters flail and fail repeatedly against Baltimore this week, I'm inclined to predict that the Tigers' fastballs will be too much for them. True, Justin Verlander won't be available until the middle of the ALCS, but Max Scherzer is a high-velocity arm, and Anibal Sanchez is no slouch.

And sooner or later, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder have to start hitting. Don't they?

The surviving National League teams, San Francisco and St. Louis, are likewise less interesting to me than the teams they vanquished, Cincinnati and Washington -- the two teams with the best records in the league.

The four division series all went the maximum five games, and, particularly in the AL series, there was a lot of drama. But only one of the higher seeds -- the Yankees -- advanced. Such is postseason baseball. In a short series -- and even a seven-game series is short -- the better team doesn't always win.

The battle for New York

The New York Yankees are preparing for the postseason. The New York Mets are looking for a new general manager and a new field manager.

The Yankees have had a lot of
clubhouse celebrations in recent
seasons.

The Yankees, for the eighth straight season, led the American League in attendance, drawing 3.7 million fans to their new stadium. The Mets drew 2.5 million to their new stadium.

The Yankees "own" the New York market. The Mets .. don't.

This was not always the case, and the Yankees dominance of the market was not inevitable.

Back to ancient history — back to the time before I was born. New York had three teams for almost 60 years — Yankees, Giants and Dodgers. While the Yankees had their adherents, the two National League teams combined outdrew them. When the Jints and Bums decamped for California after the 1957 season, Yankee attendance barely budged. There were AL fans and NL fans, and  seldom did the twain meet.

Enter the Mets in 1962. They found a ready audience — a hard-core 1.5 million National League adherents. Shea Stadium opened in 1964; the Yankee dynasty crumbed in 1965; the Mets won the World Series in 1969, went to the Series again in 1973.

From 1969-76 — and particularly in the first half of that stretch — New York was a Mets town. The Mets drew about 2 million fans a year during that eight-year stretch, the Yankees 1.25 million. The Mets led the National League in attendance for four straight seasons (1969-72).

Ownership, no matter how
short-sighted, seldom fires itself,
which is why Mets COO Jeff Wilpon
(center) remains while Jerry Manuel
(left) and Omar Minaya (right) are out.

Two things happened in the mid-'70s, or rather, one thing happened to which the two franchises reacted differently: Free agency gave players, especially star players, more leverage. George Steinbrenner catered to those stars and brought the likes of Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage and Catfish Hunter to the Yankees. The Mets antagonized their star, Tom Seaver, and wound up trading him in midseason 1977.

The Yankees went to the World Series in 1975, won the Series in '76-77. The Mets fell into the bottom half of the National League in attendance with the Seaver trade and didn't emerge until the mid '80s.

Which was the next period for the Mets. Steinbrenner's free-agent addiction by then was beginning to backfire on the Yankees, and the Mets had developed a sharp organization. From 1984-90, the Mets won 95 games a year while drawing more than 2.7 million fans a season. The Yankees, in that period, were declining on the field and drawing 2.2 million a season.

That comparison leaves out the nadir of the Steinbrenner era — in 1991-92, they ranked 11th in American League attendance.

But the Mets became victims of their own success. The young cornerstone stars, Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, ran aground on their addictions. The organization lost managerial talent (Terry Ryan, Billy Beane, Ron Gardenhire were all part of the Mets system in the Davy Johnson era.) The Doubleday family sold to the Wilpon family.

And the Yankees took advantage of a lengthy suspension of George Steinbrenner to build both a young talent base and a revenue base that dwarfs all others in the sport.

The Wilpons are said to believe that New York teams are not allowed to tear it down and rebuild from the bottom. The history of the Mets and Yankees the past half-century suggests exactly the opposite.

Your frustration's showing, Mr. Gardenhire

The Twins allowed four runs in 1.5 ball games Wednesday and lost both. They have been outhomered in Target Field by more than a 2-to-1 ratio, they lead the majors in grounding into double plays and their record against the Yankees just keeps getting worse.

And Ron Gardenhire lashes out at an age-old bit of gamesmanship by the Yankees.

Buying time at the start of the inning by having a pitcher won't actually pitch that inning take the mound for his warm-up tosses is nothing new. It was standard operating procedure once upon a time. It's fallen out of disuse now, largely (I suspect) because of the emphasis managers have put on planning out their bullpen use ahead of time. They're generally not winging it now, as they did 30 or 40 years ago.

Do the Yankees waste time and drag games out unnecessarily? Absolutely. Was this an egregious example? No.

We know what Gardenhire's really unhappy about -- double plays and men left on base and fly balls to the warning track. But he's not ready (yet) to rip into his hitters for public consumption.

Jamie Hoffmann's Yankees gig (with addition)

Jamie Hoffmann is not your typical Rule 5 pick. But then the New York Yankees aren't exactly the kind of team that uses Rule 5 a lot.

A few paragraphs of definition: Jamie Hoffmann is a 25-year-old outfielder, born and raised in New Ulm, who reached the majors last season for 14 games with the Dodgers and split the rest of the year between the Dodgers' Triple A and Double A affiliates.

Rule 5 is intended to keep clubs from burying talent in the minors. It applies to players with more than four years in pro ball who aren't on the parent club's 40-man roster. Any other team can draft such players for a nominal $50,000. The catch is that they have to keep the drafted player on their 25-man (active) roster all season.

In effect, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in removing Hoffmann from their 40-man roster last September, said he wasn't one of their 40 best players; the Yankees, in trading for the first pick in Thursday's Rule 5 draft and using it to select Hoffmann, are saying they expect him to be one of the 25 best.

Generally, Rule 5 picks are fliers taken by bad teams looking to expand their talent base. It's how the Twins got Johan Santana out of the Houston Astros organization back in December 1999. Its easier for weak teams to carry a talented but too-raw player; the 2000 Twins were going to lose 90 games no matter who they had on their pitching staff. Santana had an ERA of 6.49 that year. That pick paid off in the long run, but it didn't help immediately.

That's not a tradeoff the Yankees are interested in. They want wins now. And they think Hoffmann can help as a reserve outfielder.

ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted this Thursday: The Yanks intend to head into spring training assuming they'll keep Rule 5 pick Hoffmann on the roster.

OK, consider this: The Yankees now have Nick Swisher in right, Curtis Granderson in center, and (at the moment) Melky Cabrera in left, although it seems almost inevitable that Johnny Damon will re-sign with the Bombers once they've jammed his lack of leverage down his throat. When/if that happens, their outfield reserves will be some combo of Cabrera, Brett Gardner and Hoffmann.

There's probably only room for two of them on the 25-man roster. I would expect Gardner to be the odd man out.

Addition: This link contains an intriguing detail of how it was that Hoffmann made through waivers when removed from the Dodgers' 40-man roster Sept. 1.

More thoughts about Mauer, catchers and the MVP

It is an unofficial part of the BBWAA's voting process for the awards, at least the major ones — somebody who casts a vote that leaves the rest of the baseball world puzzled writes a piece explaining/defending the vote.

Let us hope that Kezio Konishi writes such a piece — and that it's readable by those of us who don't read Japanese.

Konishi writes for Kyodo News in Japan, and he covers the Mariners — or perhaps what he covers is Ichiro Suzuki. In the rotation system the BBWAA uses to determine who votes for the awards, he was one of the two votes allotted to the Seattle chapter — and he cast his vote for Miguel Cabrera.

Now, I said this Tuesday: I'm not upset that Mauer didn't win a unanimous vote. He missed all of April, and if someone insists that a full season of Derek Jeter or Mark Teixeira is worth more to his team than five months of Mauer, I won't agree but I'm not going to write the guy off as hopeless.

But Cabrera? His bulk power numbers aren't much better than Mauer's ( 34 HR MC, 28 JM; 103 RBI MC, 98 JM); there's a difference in defensive value between a quality catcher and an OK first baseman; and, of course, Mauer didn't get stone drunk with the division title on the line.

This was just a stupid vote.

Konishi, you got some 'splaning to do.

---

Mauer is the sixth catcher to win an MVP award; it's the eighth to go to a catcher, Yogi Berra having won three of them.

The list: Mickey Cochrane, 1934; Berra in 1951, 1954 and 1955; Elston Howard in 1963; Thurman Munson in 1976; Ivan Rodriguez in 1999; and now Mauer.

Interesting list. Cochrane and Berra are in the Hall of Fame, of course; Rodriguez, still active, figures to join them. Those three are among the handful of players with a claim to the title of greatest catcher ever.

Howard and Munson aren't on that level. Howard might have been, but he was stuck behind Berra for about a third of his career — Howard's rookie season was Berra's third MVP year. He was the Yankees' first black player (Casey Stengel supposedly grumbled: "They finally get me one, and they get me the only one who can't run") and the first black to win the AL MVP Award.

I suspect that had Howard come up with another team, he'd be a Hall of Famer.

Munson is another matter. He died at age 32 — he was piloting a small plane in midseason 1979 and crashed — but, as Bill James has noted, his career was in a downhill spiral. He was having back problems — one of the banes of catchers — and his power had largely dried up. He'd have played longer had he lived — but the quality of that play was not going to be up to the standard he had set. And that quality wasn't truly as high as that of Berra, Cochrane, Rodriguez or Howard.

And now Mauer.

---

Which raises the point that the Yankees' many dynasties have been largely built on great outfielders (Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle, Jackson) and great catchers (Schang, Dickey, Berra, Howard, Munson, Posada).

A quick ranking of Yankees catchers:

1) Berra.

2) Bill Dickey. A .313 lifetime average, albeit in a hitting-rich era. Quietly platooned for years. Credited with teaching Berra to catch.

3) Jorge Posada. Never a great glove behind the dish and getting worse with age, but a quality switch-hitter. Should have gotten more MVP consideration in 2003; he finished third (behind Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Delgado).

4) Howard. Could rank ahead of Posada, but Jorge has had more good years and more playing time.

5) Wally Schang. Why this man isn't in Cooperstown in a befuddlement. Caught for the A's in the final years of the $100,000 infield dynasty; two pennants there. Traded to Boston for the last season of that dynasty; total of three pennants, two World Series wins. Traded to the Yankees for the start of the first Ruth dynasty; three more pennants and another World Series win — that's six and two. Moved on again to the Browns, who didn't win, and then back to the A's where he backed up Cochrane for another pennant and World Series title. All told, seven pennants, three World Series titles.

And a productive switch-hitter to boot with a lifetime OBP of .393.

6) Munson.

Pretty rich crop there, made all the more impressive by the fact that of the bunch only Schang spent a significant part of his career elsewhere.

Damn Yankees

The World Series turned out pretty much as I expected — the Yankees' left-handed starters, CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte, made two starts each against a Phillies team with little right-handed power, and the Yanks won three of the four.

I have generally found it impossible to root for the Yankees. The Steinbrenner era, which started in 1973, just four years after I started paying attention to baseball, was one of escalating bullying, smugness and excess. Joe Girardi, the current Yankees manager, said during this Series that George Steinbrenner "deserves" another World Series title; I have my own notion of what his life deserves, and of which circle of the inferno it entails.

But "deserve" has little to do with it. The Yankees outspent everybody by a wide margin yet again, and should have won this championship. But it didn't have to go their way.

Girardi (above) deserves credit for making things go their way. I suspected when he was hired that he was too tightly wound, too intense, to do well in the Yankee job, that in that particular environment the manager needs to ease the pressure, not apply more. Perhaps in the long run that will prove true.

For this year, in this postseason, he recognized the one glaring flaw in his highly-compensated roster, and smothered it. He had three starting pitchers worth any sort of confidence — Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Pettitte — and a stable of young middle relievers.

So he used just the three starters — becoming the first manager since the playoffs went three series deep to win the championship with just three starters — and refused to lean heavily on any reliever not named Mariano Rivera. Everybody else was shuffled in and out.

The Yankees are not a particularly good defensive team, but they don't have to be. They're not, despite the great baserunning play in Game Four by Johnny Damon, a particularly speedy bunch, but they don't have to be. They have a deep lineup, laden with legitimate switch-hitters — the Yankees, according to Baseball Info Systems, had the platoon advantage in 73 percent of their plate appearances, which is a very very high number — and Girardi wisely is content to follow the old dictum credited to Hall-of-Fame manager Bill McKechnie: "If you take care of the percentages, the percentages will take care of you."

Two-hundred million and then some will take care of a lot of percentages.

Series-ous pitching choices

One thing I've found to admire in Joe Girardi's handling of the Yankees this postseason is his willingness to drop the hammer.

Two-inning save from Mariano Rivera? Done that. Strip the two weak links from his rotation and go with three starters? Doing that.

He was aided in this plan by the TV-driven schedule, which has given the Yankees more days off than games played (the fact that the Yankees cleaned up the Twins and Angels in quick fashion helped too). He was also aided by the fact that nobody seriously questions the use of CC Sabathia on three days rest. The man's an obvious horse with a track record of short-rest success.

Now, however, Girardi — for the first time — has to push A.J. Burnett (above) and Andy Pettitte. And the result with Burnett on Monday was not good.

But it was justifiable:

1) The old-school pitchers from the '60s and '70s heyday of the four-man rotation generally agree that three days rest may detract from velocity but sharpens control. Burnett has had a season-long issue with wildness — remember, he led the AL in walks and wild pitches and was among the leaders in hit batters — and he was out of control Monday. It happens.

2) Burnett had a good, if small, track record on three days rest: 4-0, 2.33 in four starts.

A good decision; it just didn't work.

Now it's Pettitte's turn, and his record on short rest isn't quite so good: 4-6, 4.15. The ERA isn't out of line with his career stats, and this is still a tolerable decision.

---
Meanwhile, Charlie Manuel has his own decisions to make.

*Can he trust Cole Hamels in a Game 7?

*Should he start J.A. Happ on Wednesday (Game 6) and save Pedro Martinez for Game 7?

* Can he use Brad Lidge to close a game after Sunday's disaster?

Pedro, by reputation, prospers on long rest. The career numbers don't really bear that out, however, and this year's numbers are too skimpy to put any weight on.

Hamels has not fared well this postseason. The stat mavens suggest it's been tough luck, that the key ratios of walks, strikeouts and innings are all in line with last year. Luck or bad pitching, it's added up to a lot of opposition runs.

There's there's his now notorious quote after Game 3: "I can't wait for it to end. It's been mentally draining. At year's end, you just can't wait for a fresh start."

My guess is that Manuel will go with Pedro on Wednesday and Hamels on Thursday if needed. Hamels did it for him last year. And off Monday's pitcher use, I expect Ryan Madson to get the ball late — but at this point, it's all hands on deck for the Phillies.

A piece of the Acta, and other odds and ends

It's good to see a long-suffering team like the Yankees finally reach the World Series.

Surrre it is.

* The Cleveland Indians, with a choice of a win-now manager from the outside (Bobby Valentine) and a veteran of their farm system to supervise a rebuilding project (Torey Lovullo), split the difference to hire Manny Acta.

Acta (above) is a more sensible choice than Valentine, who told the Cleveland media after his interview that he and the Tribe may not be a good fit. But the reality for the Indians is that they are rebuilding and they're going to take their lumps in 2010. Lovullo would have made more sense.

Of course, it's possible that general manager Mark Shapiro doesn't have enough security to write off 2010 — in which case he'll make more, and worse, mistakes in the offseason that's just beginning.

* The current issue of Baseball America names Joe Mauer its Major League Player of the Year. Mauer is the first player to be BA's High School Player of the year, Minor League Player of the Year, and Major League Player of the Year.

*Tony LaRussa will return as St. Louis manager. Just as important: pitching coach Dave Duncan, who was vocally on the outs with the front office during the season, will return also. Less important, but certain to make headlines: Mark McGwire will be the hitting coach.

LaRussa was, at best, a passive encourager of the rise of steroids in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. Even after the backlash, he vocally sought to bring Barry Bonds to the Cardinals and defended Rick Ankiel's use of human growth hormone. And now he's trying to rehabilitate McGwire's image.

Good luck with that.

"We have Hall of Fame players"

From the Associated Press game story:

"This team's good. We have great players, Hall of Fame players," said (CC) Sabathia, who has won three of the Yankees' seven playoff games. "We've got all the confidence in the world."

Every once in a while somebody who really ought to know better will write something about a World Series matchup that says something like: There are no Hall of Famers in this series. Tom Boswell, a great baseball writer, said that during the 1991 World Series. Kirby Puckett's in, and Tom Glavine and John Smoltz someday will be, but Boswell didn't have the imagination to see it.

The fact is that almost every team that wins a World Series — and, indeed, the losers — has at least one play on is roster who is Cooperstown bound. Sometimes they're just getting started, sometimes they're on their way out.

The furthest back one finds a Series winner without a Hall of Fame player is 1984, the Detroit Tigers. Their best candidates are Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. There are worse pitchers than Morris in the Hall (and better ones outside); Trammell is not only better than several enshrined shortstops, he's probably the best eligible one not in. But there seems little inclination from the writers to enshrine either.

Next up is the 1990 Reds, but I figure Barry Larkin will get in once eligible. And the champs to follow that don't have an enshrinee by now have guys who figure to get in someday — Glavine or Derek Jeter (above), Pudge Rodriguez or Randy Johnson.

So yeah, the Yankees have some players destined for the Hall of Fame — Jeter and Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, possibly Sabathia himself. That, in itself, doesn't mean all that much. The Phillies do too.

ALCS Game 2: Yankees 4, Angels 3, 13 innings

This game ended well after our press deadline, so here is the AP game story.

The winning run scored because Anaheim's second baseman, Macier Izturis, made an over-aggressive play. Men on first and second, one out, a grounder to Izturis's glove side. Instead of taking the sure out at first base, he tried for the tougher out at second, presumably in hopes of getting an inning-ending double play. He threw the ball past shortstop Erick Aybar, and Hairston scored (right).

Too aggressive. It was a dicey DP ball, and there was no reason to worry about a second runner in scoring position. Only Hairston mattered. Take the sure out, take your chances on the next hitter.

The Yankees thrive on other teams' over-aggressiveness. Torii Hunter in the first game of the series. Nick Punto and Carlos Gomez on the base paths in the division series.

You don't see the Yankees diving for balls on defense, and you don't see them taking chances running the bases. Earl Weaver would approve; he didn't want his players diving and running into walls. Such plays can result in injuries and misplays. Take the easy base, take the sure out, be in position, make the percentages work in your favor.

The Angels pride themselves on their aggressiveness. In the regular season, against bad teams, that can be effective. Bad teams miss cutoff men; bad teams throw to the wrong bases; bad teams can be pressured into making mistakes.

Flash and dash don't fare so well against good percentage baseball.

Pitching inside works both ways

The Yankees and Blue Jays had an on-field skirmish Tuesday night. The condensed version, if you don't want to bother with the Daily News' link above:

Toronto took an early lead; the Yankees hit a couple of Blue Jays hitters; Toronto relief pitcher Jesse Carlson threw a pitch behind Jorge Posada; Posada, after scoring a run, threw a forearm at Carlson; and there they go.

A few points here, some of them specific to the incident, some in general:

1) Plate umpire Jim Joyce blames Posada for the brawl, calling the forearm a cheap shot.

2) The Yankees pitching staff leads the majors in HBP, 7.6 percent more than the runner up Phillies. No. 6 in HBP is closer to No. 2 than No. 2 is to No. 1.

Put another way: No team with A.J. Burnett (9 HBP), Joba Chamberlain (12) and CC Sabathia (7, including the one that ended Carlos Pena's season) on its roster has any right to complain about opposing teams buzzing its hitters.

3) "They started it" may sound childish, but it's still true on an emotional level.

4) The Yankees — and the Red Sox and Cardinals, for that matter — tend to react to an opposing team playing well by trying to physically intimidate them. The Rays last season had a number of incidents with both the Yanks and BoSox. At their core, the Yankees, Red Sox and Cards are bullies.

5) There are a LOT more HBP than there used to be. In 1976 (picking a year at random) the average AL team was hit 31 times, the average NL team just 26. The low in the majors this year is 33.

Why is that? A few factors:

1) Hitters have learned that — contrary to what was thought 30 years ago — that they can hit the opposite way for power. They crowd the plate and even dive over the plate to do that. This makes it more difficult to get out of the way.

2) The tendency of some umpires to follow the catcher outside almost encourages hitters to crowd the plate and dive. If the ump is calling strikes on pitches three or four inches off the plate, they have to.

3) Hitters wear more protective padding than they once did. Everybody has ear flaps now (it's mandatory). There are elbow pads, hand pads, forearm guards. Again, that encourages them to set up closer to the plate.

4) Baseball's powers want umpires to be assertive about warning against brushbacks/purpose pitches. This, I think, has the opposite effect of making "deep inside" pitches more of a surprise.