The Yankees are a bad team. It sucks but it is true. Not saying it doesn't change things. Avoiding the obvious doesn't make the problems that the Yankees have go away. It also doesn't make the grey cloud hovering over the Yankees heads any more ominous.
The Yankees have had problems for the last few seasons now and they managed to tread water and remain competitive until now. This is the year that it has finally caught up with the Yankees and it is bringing the worst out in some fans.
This weekend we ran LET'S STOP KIDDING OURSELVES... written by Ike and all he did was say what a lot of fans are really feeling. He said the truth and it is a good read. If you haven't read it you should and see if you agree. We like different opinions here but what we also like here is a little something called respect. We interact with all of you. We also take the time out of our busy lives to write a blog with new stories daily. Not all blogs do that. We take time away from our friends and families and do this in addition to our own everyday jobs. This is a grind and it's not easy or for the faint of heart.
What is in front of us is a team with a laundry list of issues. We've written about them so I don't need to repeat it and you guys see the same things too. Ike's story definitely hit a sour note with Shane David though.
First of all, congratulations on your accomplishment there, Shane. You are the first one to be rude and be fundamentally wrong at the same time. More importantly here, the Yankees are NOT a contending team without Mark Teixeira or Brian McCann in the lineup.
Those are some important bats that we were and still are missing in Tex's case. Their lack of production aside, the Yankees don't have "better" candidates to throw in there. Be as mad as you want with Tex but there are few players that demonstrate his high level of defense in the entire league.....and there certainly isn't one ready in our farm system at any level including Greg Bird when he is healthy. Yes, I am throwing Bird into this. He's a great talent but he does not have the experience that Tex does so that argument is null and void.
The Yankees answer to replacing Tex? Well....they tried Austin Romine and Rob Refsnyder NEITHER OF WHICH PLAYS FIRST BASE! Romine has been with the Yankees for eons now and finally breaks the big league roster as a backup and with much less polish than he once had years ago. The Yankees are playing with fire here, using your backup catcher as a platoon first basemen is another recipe for disaster. It's asking for another injury. The bottom line here is Romine was supposed to be the next big thing. He's not even the next big catcher let alone the best backup for Tex.
And what about Refsnyder? Well, I think Ike said it best in his piece so I am in fact just going to quote him:
"Rob Refsnyder is on a track headed for disaster. He was a second baseman, then an outfielder, now possibly a first basemen." - Ike DimitriadisHow are the Yankees better off with him over Tex? The Yankees didn't even have enough faith in him to play second base for us this year. Look again, look really close because Refsnyder is not playing second base for the New York Yankees.
Instead, we had to go out and trade for Starlin Castro. So now we are trying to reinvent the wheel. It's the old ideology of throwing something to the wall and "seeing if it sticks." The Yankees are using him as a crash test dummy and trying to reinvent him in a critical point in time. This isn't fair to the fans or Refsnyder.
Now the Yankees are turning to Chris Parmelee who is a .245 career hitter with 28 home runs and 94 RBIs after five big league seasons as both an Minnesota Twin and Baltimore Orioles. Yeah, the Yankees are clearly better off with this guy too. I HAVE A IDEA.....let's pull a Moneyball concept and try to recreate Tex in the aggregate like the Oakland A's did! YEAH....let's bring in three defective players and use all of them in hopes to recreate him in the aggregate! It was a crazy idea back then and it still is now. I dread the idea of watching ANY of these three guys try and make a crazy play at first that Tex can make in his sleep. If a ball takes a weird hop to first base we have no proof that any of these guys can field it! None.
The fact of the matter is you can put lipstick on a pig and it is still a damn pig. No matter how the Yankees try to dress this up they are still a bad team and they are not contenders. Look at the standings.....they are still seven games out of first place, in fourth place in the AL East and not even a .500 team. HOW ARE THEY CONTENDERS? The Yankees have a .236 team batting average. They are at the bottom of the batting average stats for all of major league baseball ahead of only the lonely Minnesota Twins. They are ranked 19th with team pitching with a 4.23 ERA. That is called not getting the job done so we are not a contending team.
So yes, it is time to stop kidding ourselves. The pitching is bad, the hitting is a joke and some of our biggest bats are gone. There is no silver lining right now. To be a contender you have to hit. To be a contender you have to pitch well and shut the opponent down. To be a contender YOU HAVE TO WIN GAMES!
So to Shane....let's just leave emotion out of it, shall we? I am sorry but these Yankees are not contenders. You can continue to tell the world we are wrong and that we don't make sense but the facts don't lie and they are staring at you right in the face. It is time to accept reality, do the best we can this year and continue to rebuild in hopes to get back to playing championship baseball. Carry on.
--Jeana Bellezza,
BYB Senior Writer and Editor
Twitter: @NyPrincessJ
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