Dropped Third Strike

We would love to, but we’re in it to win it. The war between DTS and Yankees Brass rages on, as we strike another blow, as frequent DTS nemesis Hank Steinbrenner pulls a stunning swerve and joins us in the ranks of Bonds supporters. 

Co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner acknowledged he’d mention Bonds, the indicted home run king who became a free agent when the San Francisco Giants did not bring him back.

“I’ll mention it. We’ll cover everything,” Steinbrenner said before the meetings began. “No stone will be left unturned.”

Thanks for the support, Hank. 

Now, we’ve been going to therapy the last few weeks to try to help us get over this Bonds obsession, and it is our fervent hope that we will leave the topic alone for a while, and get back to the business of covering the wackiness of the game of baseball and the douchiness (yes, douchiness) of baseball’s many players. But no promises.

We finally score a victory in our ongoing battle with Brian Cashman. After Cashman recently rebuffed our repeated calls to sign Barry Bonds, our strongly worded riposte seems to have stung him into doing a little backpedaling:

I would say any rampant speculation on us involving a player of that magnitude would be extremely premature,” Cashman said. “I would caution everybody to not misunderstand that since I’m not saying no to it, that that means, `Oh my gosh, that that might be happening down the line.’ It’s not something we’re focused on at this point. We’re focused on getting Hideki Matsui back rather than, you know, what we’re going to do if he’s not back.”

We’re going to keep at this until the job is done. Cash, you better be ready for a long fight.

No, no we won’t. Word comes down that Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon might miss considerably more time than optimist Joe Girardi expected. We’re shocked! Appalled! Amazed! Bah. This was, of course, bound to happen, and now we insist that Brian Cashman call Jeff Borris and say, “hey, you know that Bonds guy you represent, yeah I’ll take one of those please.” We love Brett Gardner here at DTS. We love him for his shaved head, his game winning walk off hit against the S*x that are R*d, for his speed, for his defense and for his willingness to take walks. But we want to see him as the centerfielder of the future, not as a corner outfielder/DH. The only fear we have about bringing Bonds into the fold is that he might take a lead pipe to A-Rod’s knees in an attempt to prevent him from surpassing his HR total. But that’s a long shot. We think.

Brian Cashman hates us. From a Newsday piece about the Yankees’ needs:

Barry Bonds is not considered an option. Cashman said: “I guess I can say that they have engaged us in the past and I’ve told them that I have too many people, maybe not too many people with the same ability, but too many people at the same spot that you have a lot of dollars committed to.”

This is a terrible argument and B-Cash must know it. He basically admits that there is a better option out there (and can we reiterate: BONDS WILL PLAY FOR A PRORATED SHARE OF THE LEAGUE MINIMUM — THAT IS LESS THAN 200K NOW) but says that because he has signed lower quality players to bad deals he is unwilling or unable to sign this better option. Sigh. Even if Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon come back at full strength (they won’t), doesn’t it make sense to have the best possible bench players? Cash is right, though, if Damon and ‘Sui are healthy, then he does have a lot of players to fill in the LF and DH spots. But doesn’t a rotation of Giambi, Damon, Matsui and Bonds seem a lot more comforting than just the first three? There’s no way those four guys can go out there and play every day from here on out. But some combination of those four can probably find their way into the lineup for the entire second half. We’d never have to see Justin Christian again, and with more DH options, Girardi and B-Cash would be more motivated to play Jorge at catcher, meaning we’d see less of Jose Molina.

Check it:

1. Damon/Matsui LF
2. Jeter SS
3. Abreu RF
4. A-Rod 3B
5. Giambi 1B
6. Matsui/Bonds/Damon DH
7. Posada C
8. Cano 2B
9. Cabrera/Gardner CF

Seems to me that that’s a lineup that’s pretty certain to score runs. Ultimately it comes down to this — Matsui, Damon, Giambi and Bonds are 4 guys who are going to be hurt, or worn down during the course of a long year. If Bonds was going to cost upwards of $4 million it wouldn’t make as much sense to sign him (though it’s been said there’s no such thing as a bad 1 year deal [never mind, Clemens disproved that theory last year]) but since Bonds is coming so cheap, it boggles the mind that the Yanks wouldn’t at least consider it. Brian Cashman is a smart, sophisticated baseball man: the argument he gave against signing Bonds was far from smart or sophisticated. We can’t help but conclude that there’s a wholly different reason for his refusal to look at the home run king. Bud Selig, we’re looking at you.

Is that a trademark? Hope not. Don’t want to get sued. Or maybe we do — heck lawsuits equal publicity, and that’s a good thing right? (Wrong). Anyway, to the point. It being almost all-star break time, and us not having anything better to do, we’re going to go ahead and give our midseason predictions. (Well, theoretically we could analyze the Harden/C.C. deals, but a) that’s been done by better and smarter folks than us, and b) it would involve some actual thought and analysis of numbers — and as you may have noticed from our frequent vacations, we’re fairly lazy). Our predictions on the other hand, are based on anecdotal evidence, hearsay, drunken arguments, drug-induced hallucinations, and a dash of good old fashioned intuition and gut feeling. Watch as we predict (with remarkable inaccuracy) the winners of each division, the wild card teams for each league, and the two MVPs and Cy Young award winners, as well as the two Rooks of the Year.

Let’s start with the American League shall we.

Division Winners

• East: R*d S*x
• Central: White Sox
• West: Angels

Wild Card: Yankees (Yeah, yeah we know we predicted the Rays would stick to their winning ways, but come on, you’re asking us to actually write down Tampa Bay as a play off team. We just can’t do that.)

MVP: Josh Hamilton (This is tricky because Hamilton’s Rangers aren’t going to end up going anywhere, but his gaudy numbers and his drugged-out-loser-turns-superstar-slugger story will be too tempting for the voters to pass up. Kevin Youkilis deserves a good long look, and A-Rod will always be up there. Depending on what happens in the A.L. East, either one of these two could take it). 

Cy Young: Cliff Lee (Another ridiculously tricky one. Joe Saunders or Ervin Santana could each end up deserving it. As could Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina, Jon Lester and John Danks. We ruled out Saunders because of his low K totals, Santana because of his tendency toward inconsistency, Mussina because he’s too gosh darned old and likely to hit the DL for a couple weeks, Lester because his ERA will probably rise just a little too high, and Danks because he remains a relative unknown. Halladay’s numbers probably make the strongest argument, but Lee’s winning percentage is so good, and he also has the comeback-story factor working for him.

Rookie of the Year: Joba Chamberlain/Evan Longoria. This one will be decided by the division race. If the Rays stay strong, it goes to E-Long, if they fade and the Yankees surge, Jobs will take it.

And now the National League.

Division Winners:

• East: Mets
• Central: Cubs
• West: D-Backs

Wild Card: Brewers (Dodgers come close.)

MVP: Who the heck knows? None of the top 12 guys in OPS in the National League play for a team that we see going to the playoffs. This leaves an odd situation. Either the MVP comes from an irrelevant team, or someone really undeserving is going to win it. Ultimately we think it’s Chipper Jones’s to lose. If he gets (and stays) healthy and keeps his average ridiculously high then he’ll win it. If Jonesy and Hamilton win the MVP awards we’re going to see a whole bunch of articles discussing the meaning of “most valuable.”

Cy Young: Johan Santan (Could also go to Tim Lincecum, Edinson Volquez, Dan Haren, Cole Hamels, and Ben Sheets. We pick Johan because of his tendency to improve in the second half [the end of last season notwithstanding] and because we see the Mets surging at the end of the season, with Santana leading the way, which will stick in voters minds.

Rookie of the Year: Geovany Soto (Does he qualify as a rookie. We believe so. We hope so.)

And there you have it. If you don’t like our predictions, well then you’re not getting a Christmas card from us this year.