2013 Potential Trade Targets — Part I
After a fairly dismal road trip, the Yankees now stand in third place with a 39-32 record and a run differential of zero. With just under 60% of the season remaining, there’s a lot of baseball to be played and a lot of time for rosters to change. As to be expected, Brian Cashman has already mentioned the team is “open for business,” so let’s take a look at some possible targets* who have been swirling about here at RAB.
Giancarlo Stanton
The 23 year old outfielder formerly known as Mike hasn’t had the best luck this season. He was sidelined in late April for five weeks with a fairly severe hamstring strain. Since returning Stanton has batted .344/.382/.813 (1.195 OPS) with four home runs. He’s a career .270/.350/.550 (.382 wOBA, 140 wRC+) hitter with three cost controlled years remaining. This is exactly the type of guy the Yankees should pursue. Chances are the Marlins won’t completely screw their fanbase move their disgruntled superstar by the deadline, but they very well may consider moving him come the offseason.
The problem is that Stanton’s a superstar and superstars require major hauls. The Yankees would be required to give up at least four or five of their top prospects (which I would definitely be okay with) – we’re talking Gary Sanchez, Tyler Austin, Mason Williams, and maybe Rafael DePaula for starters – and that very well might not be enough to get it done, nor would a package such as that necessarily compete with other insane prospect packages offered by other organizations. Chances of this trade happening, in my opinion, are gloomy with a chance of “get-the-eff-outa-here,” but it’s fun to dream nevertheless.
Chase Headley
Headley has had a disappointing start to the 2013 season, at least by his standards. He’s batting .221/.328/.350 (.304 wOBA, 99 wRC+); hence the “Quick! It’s time to buy…” chants. The problem here is threefold. First, the Padres, despite sitting right at .500 are only three games out of first place, so they probably aren’t going to be sellers, at least as it stands now.
Second, San Diego GM Josh Byrnes isn’t a fool. He’s not going to just hand over a young, talented third baseman just because he’s struggled early on this season – it just doesn’t behoove the team to act in such reactionary fashion. In fact, the organization actively tried to discuss a long-term extension with Headley already. Third, and along the same lines as Stanton, if Byrnes were to trade Headley, it wouldn’t be cheap nor would NY necessarily have enough MLB-ready, elite prospects to get a deal done. If this was doable, I’d be all for it even if it meant gutting the farm. I just don’t see it happening though. Bummer.
Alfonso Soriano
This one’s kind of interesting because it’s much more plausible. The former Yankee second baseman has a full no-trade clause, though that really isn’t a big deal as he can still approve a move to NY (and all indications suggest he would be willing to consider them). Contractually, Soriano is still owed about $30.5M total for the remainder of this season and next. Presumably, if the Cubs were to make a move, the expectation would probably be for them to eat a significant chunk of the contract if they’re expecting any sort of return. If the Cubs just wanted to unload the remaining salary on to another team (which is also possible), they probably wouldn’t get anything back — kind of like how the Yankees handled A.J. Burnett.
Maybe the Cubs are willing to eat $15-20M, in which case I could see a C-level prospect getting thrown into the deal. In terms of upgrading the Yankee lineup, Soriano has hit .249/.280/393 (.290 wOBA, 79 wRC+) this season but is one year removed from posting a 116 wRC+, 3.6 fWAR season last year. He also has a very discernible splits against right-handers and he’s never shown a whole lot of patience at the plate (career 5.9 BB%). Would he be an improvement over what the Yankees are currently trotting out into left field? Probably. Do we really want another him though? I’d say no unless the Cubs eat almost all the remaining dollars, in which case, my official stance becomes “meh.” Eventually Curtis Granderson will return anyway.
Andre Ethier
Now here’s another guy who’s name gets mentioned frequently around here. Ethier has batted .251/.333/.377 (.308 wOBA, 98 wRC+) this season, which is about on par with what ZiPS projected. On the plus side he’s consistently been a 100-plus wRC+ hitter who has hit for some power over the years. On the downside, he has very obvious splits – lefties haven’t been particularly kind to him which inevitably translates into another platoon bat. He’s also shown increasing strikeout trends over the past few seasons. Moreover, his defensive value in right field has been judged as anywhere from slightly below-average to outright lousy.
The real elephant in the room though is the contract. The Dodgers saw fit to give Ethier a five year, $85M deal which carries him through 2017 (plus a 2018 club option). That translates out to about $8M owed this year, $15M in 2014, $18M in 2015 and 2016, then $17.5M in 2017. Yikes. Then there’s the age. He’s already 31 years old. I don’t want to see the Yankees on the hook for a ton of cash during his decline years, and I don’t want to see anyone noteworthy get shipped out to LA in return for him. Fortunately, should the Yankees elect to send prospects to LA, I imagine it would be nothing beyond a B-level prospect. Granted, I have never been a big Ethier supporter, but I really have no interest in seeing another corpse stumbling along the bases over the next several years.
*For the record, I have been saying from day one that there aren’t going to be any big names heading to NY by the trade deadline. Until I see otherwise, I’m sticking by this prediction. Also, if you have any trade targets you’d like me to consider, please submit them using the “Submit a Tip” feature, and I’ll try to incorporate it into my follow up piece which will hopefully be written in the next week or so.
Mailbag: The ones that got away
Daniel says: What I’ve been thinking is that maybe there was no way of preventing this season’s struggles … I really believe it is just one of those years that a lot of problems fell onto the team all at once from injuries to decline to inconsistent performances (and not just a poor approach to free agency). I think it would help to keep it all in perspective by taking a look at the players the Yankees “missed out on,” and speculate exactly what kind of a difference it would have made had they been brought on. I may be one of the few that does not blame this whole joke of a season on Brian Cashman at all, and I place only a fraction of blame on the front office.
(Apologies, Daniel. I trimmed down your submission quite a bit, but hopefully this will still get your point across satisfactorily. Of course, with loaded question comes loaded answer…)
I suppose the best way to approach this topic would be to take a quick visit to MLBTR’s 2013 Free Agent Tracker. From there, we can try to assess whether any of those “lost” free agent candidates would impact the team’s needs enough to make a tangible difference.
Let’s start with 3B, SS, C, and RF as those were all obvious spots of concern this past offseason. Of course, it is worth mentioning that this kind of speculation is somewhat futile as we don’t know whether any of these players would have performed comparably had they been with the Yankees, nor do we know how the other clubs’ rosters would have been realigned if they couldn’t get some of the players they did. But for the sake of vacuum-written posts everywhere, let’s just go with it.
(click every table in this post for a larger view)
The third base market was pretty barren this past offseason. To make matters worse, the Yankees weren’t exactly looking to make major moves at this position heading into the offseason. The decision to repair Alex Rodriguez’s torn labrum surfaced in late-November. He required a month or so of pre-rehabbing prior to surgery, followed by an estimated four to six month recovery time afterward. This resulted in a need for a third baseman who could not only start, but who could potentially handle the rigors of playing all season long should A-Rod’s return become delayed (which was/is definitely plausible).
Unfortunately, Eric Chavez was already off the table by the first week of December. He signed a one year, $3 million dollar pact with the Diamondbacks, opting instead for a starting gig. Chavez has had a solid season thus far and would have been a decided upgrade over what the Yankees have gotten from their third basemen collectively, though he’s already experienced his first (of what I’m sure will be several) injuries this season.
After Chavez, the alternatives are pretty awful besides Mark Reynolds. We’re talking Brandon Inge (signed a MiLB deal), Drew Sutton (MiLB deal), Mark DeRosa (1 yr/$750k), and the oft-injured Placido Polanco (who’s been terrible with the Marlins). Signing Kevin Youkilis made sense in theory to some degree, but it was an extremely risky move to replace one injury prone player with another. $13M for a fragile Youk plus random assorted parts simply doesn’t cut it.
Shortstop
Derek Jeter sure didn’t do the team any favors when he decided to go break his ankle last October. Man, that screwed things up. The Yankees took a gamble that the Captain would heal by his Opening Day target date (which in retrospect seemed pretty ambitious). Their backup plan, Eduardo Nunez, has been sidelined basically all year which has paved the road for other internal candidate, Jayson Nix who has been serviceable.
Would Alex Gonzalez (1 yr/$1.5M), Ronny Cedeno or Cesar Izturis (MiLB deal) prove a better alternative? None of these options seem particularly appealing to me – then or now. Stephen Drew would have been an upgrade over what the Yankees have for sure, but there was no way Cashman was going to sign him for a part-time gig anyway – remember the assumption was that Jeter would be back by Opening Day. I’m just not sure free agency was the solution for the short stop dilemma in terms of quality. Cash gets a pass here for not biting on any of the alternatives if all the information provided to him at the time suggested Jeter was likely to return on the expected schedule.
Catcher
That brings us to catcher. The plan was – I can’t believe I’m saying this – to roll the dice with Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart. Frankie went down early after contributing at a surprisng pace. Austin Romine came up and played miserably in limited opportunity. This allowed Stewart to secure the starting gig for himself. Now, to be fair, Stewart has surpassed my expectations with his .270/.326/.348 (.299 wOBA, 84 wRC+) line and three home runs, which basically represents career highs for him. Russell Martin, on the other hand, is playing pretty close to his career norm. That is to say seven home runs and a .247/.340/.419 (.336 wOBA, 116 wRC+) line – a rate, mind you, that is sustainable for him … perhaps unlike Chris’ production (or Cervelli’s for that matter).
Pierzynski (102 wRC+) has been pretty good too, and he was signed by the Rangers for a one-year stint. Other FA catchers such as David Ross, Yorvit Torrealba, Rod Barajas and Henry Blanco have all performed generally worse. While Stewart hasn’t been bad, I think it was still a pretty big #FAIL to not re-sign Martin (especially since Martin is also a defensively capable catcher, which is apparently an asset these days). I’ll blame Cashman for this lost production, but who knows. Maybe ownership deserves some of (or the majority of) the blame here too if they either a) passed on Cashman’s recommendation to keep Martin or b) prevented him from retaining Martin because of the proposed austerity budget.
Right Field
Now … the OF, which as it currently stands, is a complete cluster-f mess. As I mentioned last week, it’s no one’s fault that Curtis Granderson fell victim to two fluky injuries, the first of which happened in Spring Training. However, it is of absolutely no surprise that right field ended up being an offensive void after the team elected to drop Nick Swisher in lieu of some Ichiro/Francisco-headed platoon. Once Grandy went down, the team was doubly screwed as it would then be forced to trade/rely on Vernon Wells in left field. Prior to the start of the season, there were some outfielders available. The Yankees could have tried to replace Swisher with another right fielder, or hire a different outfield position and find a way to reorganize the lineup possibly.
For what it’s worth, Swisher hasn’t been all that great in Cleveland thus far; though even while playing relatively mediocre, Swisher’s 107 wRC+ still manages to sit about 30 points higher than the Yankees not-quite-so-dynamic outfield tandem of Ichiro and Wells. I can totally understand not signing a guy like Josh Hamilton for health concerns or Michael Bourn (might as well just get Swisher if you’re spending almost $50M anyway). Heading into the season, Justin Upton was an appealing option though. Ditto Torii Hunter. Mike’s been endorsing Nate Schierholtz from day one. All of these guys would have felt like a better plan going in, and a few would still be improvements now.
Sure, the actual numbers for some of these outfielders may not have panned out favorably through the first third of the season, but the opportunity for success would have been better heading in, and that’s the real point. The team chose guys whose ceilings were likely to be below average for a few of these positions. Again, these decisions were largely driven by the austerity budget, and we’re examining them in hindsight. But neither of those points makes the outcome an easier one to accept. The Yankees have gotten very little production from their corner outfielders and their third basemen, and it shows. Obviously, the Yankees were betting on their pitching and defense to help shoulder some of the burden, which it has, but the overall lack of offense has put a lot of pressure on the team to generate runs in different ways which isn’t always easy.
Now to be clear, this isn’t to say that if Cashman had hired any of these Free Agents, they’d be instant World Series contenders or definitively better off now than where they currently stand. What we’re talking about here is incremental upgrades. If some of these Free Agents came aboard and translated into even a few extra wins over the course of the season, who knows, maybe that ultimately winds up being the difference between making the playoffs and missing it in the hyper competitive A.L. East.
It’s about trying to mitigate the possibility of failure as much as possible before experiencing diminishing returns on the investment. Frankly, I think even a marginal upgrade in RF and 3B would definitely help considering how awful those spots have been — hence the reason I’m somewhat optimistic about A-Rod when he returns. Short-stop and Catcher haven’t been as bad relatively speaking, even though we’ve seen how Stewart’s skill set compares to a guy like Martin. Or, maybe they wind up right where they are as you suggest even with some of these guys. There’s no way to prevent a disappointing season from possibly happening if a maelstrom of injuries occurs.
I also wouldn’t go so far as to call this season a joke either. Games have been painful to watch at times, but there is a lot baseball to be played and the team is obviously in contention. You are absolutely right, though, in the sense that the perfect storm of injuries has exacerbated an already difficult set of conditions. Ultimately, maybe they get by without some of those Free Agents which is obviously the most desirable outcome as that’s the reality that the team created. In the meantime, keep yourself prepared for some low-scoring ballgames as we find out.
When the cavalry arrives
With a little luck, it shouldn’t be too much longer until some of the prominent Yankee regulars start returning from their respective DL stints. Although Cashman’s cast of fill-ins have generally done a fine job keeping the team in contention, the team will surely benefit from the return of its traditional starters. Let’s take a look.
Alex Rodriguez
Once upon a time, Alex was one of the best players on the planet. Unfortunately, this really hasn’t been the case for the past several years. In addition to an increasing number of injuries and subsequent trips to the DL, he’s appears to have lost bat speed and continues to produce more dramatic batting splits as time goes on.
In 2012, A-Rod batted .272/.353/.430 (.342 wOBA, 114 wRC+) with 18 home runs. Frankly, given his age and health, who really knows whether he can produce at even this level moving forward. For what it’s worth, ZiPS projected Alex at .253/.335/.412 in 2013 (.327 wOBA). If I had to guess, he’ll probably hit about 8-10 home runs once he returns, assuming his activation date still falls around the All-Star break.
Is he the guy who’s going to turn the team’s offense around and ensure the 28th championship and live up to his mega contract? No. He is not, nor should that be the expectation at this point. I think we have to look at A-Rod in terms of incremental benefit. Basically, is he better than league average, and at the very least, does he represent an upgrade over what the team currently has?
Given that the Yankees have received fairly lousy production from their third basemen so far, I’d say there is a distinct possibility that the answer is “Yes!” to the latter question. According to B-Ref, league average would be approximately .255/.320/.408, so that benchmark may be attainable too.
Defensively, I imagine he’ll be stiff as a board out there, but what else is new as far as Yankee infielders are concerned? Joe Girardi will likely give him some time at DH as well, along with a few off days or partial off days to keep him fresh. Color me naive, but I’m actually looking forward to seeing A-Rod back on the field if for no other reason than Kevin Youkilis looks completely cooked (and now injured).
Of course, A-Rod’s difficulties with Biogenesis could certainly complicate the matter depending how that plays out.
Derek Jeter
Are we all feeling super confident about the Yankees ageless Captain? Of course not. Derek is pushing 39 (!) years old at this point, and is coming off of a pretty substantial ankle injury. Personally speaking, I think Derek is the biggest wild card here. Unlike Alex, who has been steadily declining the past few seasons, Jeter’s been more sporadic with his performance. After having arguably the worst season of his career in 2011 (and really a very mediocre year by his standards in 2010), he bounced back and was effective in 2012. ZiPS has Jeter batting .277/.344/.369 (.311 wOBA) when he returns which would represent a drop off from last year. Still, I think he too would have to fall into the better-than-the-alternatives category and given how tight the A.L. East is, every bit counts.
My guess is he’ll spend a fair amount of time DH, which still leaves plenty of room on the roster for the likes of Jayson Nix or Eduardo Nunez (if he ever returns). Honestly though, this would probably be an ideal scenario as it would allow the team to deploy a more capable defensive alternative to Jeter while still retaining whatever’s left of his bat.
While I typically don’t put much stock into the intangibles, I tend to change my stance a bit when it comes to Derek Jeter. Every time I doubt him, he proves me wrong. Great players don’t always follow the trend line neatly. Eventually Father Time will catch up and he’ll stink. Whether that’s this season remains to be seen, but until I see it, he’ll have the benefit of the doubt. Having his name back in the lineup card will be a welcome addition.
Curtis Granderson
The Grandy-man can! He will be back, and he will be fine. That’s my official stance. His two freak injuries this season were unfortunate and frankly, I’m still a little worried that the power may be sapped a bit after having his forearm/hand broken. Still, he’s still relatively young and seemed to be just starting to contribute positively during his brief return. If I were a betting man, I’d mark him down for 10-15 home runs once he returns. His 2012 campaign, which resulted in a .232/.319/.492 (116 wRC+) line, seems like a reasonable starting point though I certainly wouldn’t mind a little bit more contact and a little less feebleness against lefties, but such is life.
Aside from Granderson’s personal contributions, he’ll also offer the gift of outfield reconfiguration. All of a sudden, there won’t be black holes sitting in both corner outfield positions. Ichiro Suzuki and Vernon Wells can go back to situational hitting (and dare I say, even show some improvement). Between Grandy, Jeter and A-Rod, you’d have to think Travis Hafner would benefit from some additional rest as well. If this is the last year we get to see Curtis in pinstripes, hopefully he’ll make the remainder of it a good one.
An optimistic response to last night’s debacle
Yesterday sucked SUCKED! An 18 inning loss is grueling enough in its own right, never mind the not-so-insignificant matter of the offense seemingly going on long term hiatus. I think Mike’s rant yesterday was a very candid reflection of how a lot of us (including myself) feel after watching some of these excruciating losses too – and frankly, there was a lot of truth in what he wrote. With that being said, and maybe this is just me optimistically rationalizing, I think a few points have to considered in addition to what was said. So…here goes.
The offseason was awful. I didn’t feel particularly confident with any of the moves that they made other than the re-signing of Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda. Downgrading Nick Swisher for Vernon Wells and Ichiro Suzuki (each for two years no less) also hurt quite a bit. However, I think it’s important to remember that while those two have been big contributors to the outfield’s woes, they are not the complete cause for this situation. While Mike interpreted the offseason as NY hubris, I see it as more of the culmination of frugality and unfortunate circumstance.
Curtis Granderson’s injuries were both fluky and that put the team in a difficult spot. It’s tough to stomach both OF corner spots being offensive voids; realistically, it probably should have only been one spot that made us cringe. The offense would be more tolerable as a whole, if some of these guys were used as they were intended to be – in other words, as situational hitters coming off the bench…not starters. Eventually, Grandy will return and his presence in the lineup can’t be overstated. He hits for power and offers a middle of the lineup bat that the team sorely needs. We’re seeing some of these guys become exposed. I give Brian Cashman the benefit of the doubt when I say they were never intended to be used as they are now.
The same argument can be made for Kevin Youkilis and Lyle Overbay. Youkilis was a super expensive health liability from day one designed to replace another super expensive health liability – he was also a sheer desperation move. And while Overbay has been performing admirably, he’s not Mark Teixeira nor will he ever be. Teixeira’s injury was unexpected, as was the timing of Alex Rodriguez’s second hip surgery. Even if the team had wanted to find an adequate replacement for both, it would have been difficult due to the timing of the injuries themselves. The point here is that while the offseason was awful in hindsight, that outcome was partially unavoidable I think. Frankly, a team cannot survive long-term when so many starters are on the DL. High impact players are just not in great supply on the free agent market, and trading for them is a bear. Fortunately, reinforcements are on the way as these guys recover and one can only hope they’ll be effective upon return.
I don’t really want to spend too much time discussing the farm system because I think that’s a pretty complicated topic – one that most certainly deserves its own post. I will say this though. The team hasn’t had an opportunity to acquire a ton of super high-end talent in the draft because they win a ton and those picks really don’t fall that far down the food chain. One can make the argument that the team hasn’t maximized the draft picks it has had, or that it hasn’t developed those players as well as they could. I won’t argue either of those points. What I can say though, is that prospects fail way more often than they succeed, and on some level, it makes sense to me that team hasn’t reaped the benefits of internal replacements as much as one would hope. Having a “Core Four” come up through the system is insanely difficult and insanely rare. I’d assume fans of most other teams are probably saying the same thing about their organization’s prospect failure rate too.
While the Yankees haven’t had too many game-changing prospects (we’re talking first round top ten talent, they have found a lot of guys who have tangibly helped the team. You’re seeing it right now on the pitching side of things. Warren was magnificent last night. Phelps has been great. I think Claiborne has been really fun to watch. And guys like Ian Kennedy, Austin Jackson, Jesus Montero (who was a headliner in the Minors mind you) have helped the team in a big way via the trade (I’m assuming Michael Pineda eventually contributes – go ahead, and call me an optimist). Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain are topics of perpetual disagreement, but it’s inarguable that they are big league talent. Hughes can probably slot into the rotation right now for A LOT of teams and Chamberlain is a very good reliever. Not every pitcher can or will be Felix Hernandez or Mariano Rivera. That doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable in their own right though.
Do we have the best farm system? Absolutely not. Do we have one that is able to help the Big League squad overall? I contend that we do. It just may not be as much as we would like. But who knows, maybe some of these young players coming up through the system will become the next great name to wear pinstripes. I for one am really excited about Rafael DePaula and Gary Sanchez. Despite some drab numbers, I am also a huge fan of Mason Williams. These guys have the potential to be really helpful.
I do believe Mike’s post was spot on when he said the team lacks direction. It is hazy, at least to us. We don’t know the Steinbrenner’s agenda with certainty, nor do we know Cashman’s master plan to keep the team in contention assuming he has one. And this team may not be a championship caliber team. Frankly, I’m not sure any of that matters though, at least for the time being.
The idea shouldn’t necessarily be to win the championship every year because that’s an absolutely unattainable objective and a ludicrous measuring stick. The goal should be for the team to put its self in the position to win a championship every year. And the first step of giving the team a chance to win it all is to contend in their division and ultimately reach the playoffs. They are currently in contention — and I don’t expect that to change — and they can reach the playoffs (especially now with two wild card spots). It sucks watching the team lose, but perspective helps mitigate the nausea.
Are the Yankees the best team in the American League East? Right now, no. Are they the second? Quite possibly. Look around at their competition. They’re all flawed too; Ken Singleton did a nice job summarizing those weaknesses the other day. Are they better than the Tigers or the A’s? Probably not at this point. Are they better than the teams vying for a Wild Card spot in those divisions. I think so. We’ve seen what happens in the playoffs. Games are not played out as planned on paper and the damn San Francisco Giants end up winning it all. Get to the playoffs, and worry about the rest when the time comes. For what it’s worth, at least the Yankees have the pitching to give them a chance when it counts.
I was in the camp that was hoping the team could simply stay afloat while it weathered the injury-bug storm. They have done this, mostly admirably. They aren’t bludgeoning teams and they aren’t the dominant force that they have been in years past. But they are still around and better then much of their competition in the league. Ultimately, the team will need to decide how it’s planning on handling the austerity budget topic. It will have to carefully trapeze through the challenge of staying competitive perennially while simultaneously retooling. Given some of the terrible contracts already in the books, maybe they ultimately turn into the Phillies or the Angels as Mike cautions. Right now, though, I think this team still has plenty of opportunity to have a successful season and we shouldn’t write the future off quite yet either.
/optimistic_rationalization
RAB Live Chat
An interview with Ken Singleton
You may have seen him play back in the ’70s or early 80’s. Chances are, you most certainly have heard him on the YES network. Please welcome Ken Singleton!
Matt Warden: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with me! I know everyone here at River Ave Blues will be thrilled!
Ken Singleton: Sure thing. I always enjoy talking baseball.
MW: Alright, great, let’s get started with this. I was checking out some of your career stats on Baseball-Reference.com. I noticed you spent time with the Mets, Expos, and Orioles. One team was conspicuously not on that list. How’d you wind up announcing for the Yankees?
KS: That’s a very interesting question. I was working with the Expos doing their radio and TV games. Mike McCarthy was the executive producer for the Yankees on MSG. I noticed that whenever we came to NY, he would sit in the back of the booth and not say very much. When the time came for me to leave the Expos he wanted me to work for MSG.
He paired me with Jim Kaat. We were supposed to do a demo tape of three innings of the World Series. After about one inning, he said that was enough and that we were a perfect fit, so he had to pitch it to George Steinbrenner down in Tampa. When I met George, I would say he wasn’t completely enthusiastic about the idea since I had never played for the Yankees. I remember his own words were, “Our fans aren’t going to like you because of all the bad things you used to do to us.” [Laughs] I explained to him I was only doing my job and he responded that I had done it very well which I took as a compliment. But I still wasn’t sure.
I went home to talk to my wife about the interview. One thing that George knew though, was that I was originally from New York so I guess he took that into consideration. I ended up getting the job and 17 years later, I’m still here. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. The Yankees have been great whether with MSG or with YES. I’ve always said that outside of playing, this is the best job you could have. It’s worked out really well.
MW: Commentating for the Yankees is one thing. Playing for them is another thing altogether. Do you think you would thrived as a player under George Steinbrenner’s regime?
KS: You know what, I don’t know. I’m not sure. I mean if other guys could do it, I’m sure I could have too. There were some very good teams in those days. Of course, we were one of their rivals as George pointed out. Yeah, I could see where he was very demanding. That first year, doing the games on TV for New York, I just did what I had always done. I prepared just as I had in the past as player. George never said anything bad about it and I’ve gotten a lot of favorable feedback around the city. I think I would have fit in fine as a player because I would have prepared well and then I would have gone out and done my job.
MW: Do you feel that some players tend to fit in better in New York than others? Is the NY media lime light overstated sometimes?
KS: I think there is something to that. With all the media attention, there are certain players that handle it better than others. You see it from time to time — players that have done well, and others who come to NY and don’t do quite as well. There are writers and opinions everywhere. It does happen. You need to have a thick skin. You need to go out there and do your job as best as possible and let things fall where they may. For me, personally, having grown up in NY, I knew what to expect as a visitor. That’s just how it is. It can be a demanding place. I’ve mentioned on the air that NY isn’t just competing against everyone else, but their own history as well. And their history is unmatched.
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