The Futility Infielder

Among the things I missed on my extended vacation was the naming of the All-Star teams and the annual flurry of debate which surrounds them. In my brief airport surfing session, as I checked the announced teams, I had a chance to smile at Paul Lo Duca finally making the game, raise my eyebrows at Hideki Matsui starting in centerfield for the AL, and wonder whether Melvin Mora was the first father of quintuplets ever to make the team. But I had neither the time nor the patience to contribute my two cents to the debates, nor to compile my own versions of the All-Star teams.

For that matter, I missed the All-Star Game itself. Last year I was in Milwaukee, gorging on the ASG's surrounding festivities -- the Fan Fest, the Home Run Derby, the Futures Game, the Celebrity Softball Game, and even a chance run-in with Bud Selig -- like a man with an unlimited supply of bratwurst (too close to the truth, alas). But the resulting tie game and all of the bellyaches it caused drained most of my enthusiasm for this year's contest, even moreso with MLB staking home-field advantage in the World Series and Fox serving up a ham-fisted "This Time It Counts" campaign to go along.

So , to borrow a line from Office Space, I wouldn't say I missed this year's game. Rather, I chose an alternate form of baseball entertainment -- though to be honest, when I bought the tickets three months ago, I had no idea the game conflicted with the ASG. Anyway, five friends and I ferried to Staten Island to watch an installment of the Class-A version of the Yankees-Mets crosstown rivalry, as the Brooklyn Cyclones battled the Staten Island Yanks. The Staten Island ballpark, officially Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, is a 25-minute free ferry ride from Manhattan. The park's outfield opens up to reveal Upper Bay and the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan -- as unique a vantage point as any professional stadium in America, even with the loss of the skyline's two most prominent buildings.

The Cyclones have owned the Baby Bombers this season; they entered the game having beaten the Bombers six straight times and with an 11.5 game edge in the McNamara division of the New York-Penn League. The game itself, however, was a nip-and-tuck affair. The Cyclones scored two runs in the top of the first inning, but the Yanks tied it up in the second and took the lead, 3-2, in the fourth. The 'Clones scored three in the sixth, but the Baby Bombers clawed back with a run in the eighth to make it 5-4.

The bottom of the ninth was a wild affair. A leadoff single by one Horace Lawrence was followed by a poor sacrifice bunt by Alexander Santa (who did not deliver) which led to a force at second. Then the Bombers centerfielder, 18-year-old Melky Cabrera, stroked his fifth hit of the ballgame, putting runners on first and second. The next batter, Adam Shorts, popped a foul ball down the first base line. Cyclones first baseman Ian Bladergroen, made an over-the-shoudler catch on the run, and the runners tagged. Bladergroen (isn't that what happens in a long bathroom line?) threw the ball to the shortstop ahead of Cabrera, who stopped in his tracks and began retreating to the uncovered first base. Meanwhile, Santa rounded third and headed for home, as the shortstop finally came to his senses and threw a perfect peg to catcher Yunir Garcia, who held the ball in a collision at the plate. The Yanks lost, but nobody left feeling as if they'd gotten anything less than their money's worth on that one.

• • •

The All-Star Break provides an opportunity for trade winds to swirl, and nowhere are they swirling more than here in New York City. The hot rumor, by now nothing less than a painful inevitibility, is that the Yankees will acquire beleaguered Met closer Armando Benitez for reliever Jason Anderson and a couple of prospects, with the Yanks also letting the Mets off the hook by paying the rest of Benitez's contract this season (approximately $3 million).

This, to borrow another line from Office Space, is a fuck.

No player in the history of the Yankee and Met franchises has been reviled simultaneously by both teams' fans the way Benitez is. Mets fans hate him for blowing leads in their biggest games, such as Game 6 of the 199 NLCS against Atlanta, Game One of the 2000 World Series against the Yanks, two crucial gamed against the Braves during the 2001 stretch run, not to mention a bushelful earlier this season, including a four-walk affair against the Yanks on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. Yank fans' hatred of Benitez goes back to 1998, when he drilled Tino Martinez in the back with a fastball, inciting a surreal bench-clearing brawl. The fact that Benitez has imploded against the Yanks in key situations doesn't exactly raise his stock in their eyes either. No, we like him enough right where he is.

In giving up Anderson, the Yanks are cutting the cord on the first promising pitcher they've produced since Ramiro Mendoza in 1996 (except for Ted Lilly, perhaps). He's only gotten 20.2 innings of big league experience under his belt in 22 appearances this season (a 4.79 ERA), and he was roughed up twice last weekend against the Red Sox, but the 24-year old is a Live Arm who's already as capable as anybody else at the back end of the Yankee pen. If Joe Torre and the rest of the Yankee organization could have cured their addiction to Proven Veterans in the pen (see Acevedo, Juan and Miceli, Dan), they might have found themselves with a weapon eventually capable of filling Jeff Nelson's big, floppy shoes.

But that, as we've been reminded all too many times, isn't the Yankee Way, not with George Steinbrenner's deep pockets and win-now mentality. Never mind the fact that virtually the entire fan base would rather see Benitez implode than watch him help the Yanks win, or that the Yankees' upper farm system is the laughingstock of the game beyond Anderson, Brandon Claussen and a couple of others not named Henson, Almonte, or Rivera. The Yanks are about to take their meager harvest and turn it into the most bitter fruit of all.

• • •

That sushi dinner I wagered on the Minnesota Twins now stinks of rotten fish. The Twins, losers of eight straight and 12 out of 13 going into the All-Star break now find themselves in third place in the AL Central, 7.5 games behind the Kansas City Royals, a half-game behind the Chicago White Sox, and five games below .500. Is it time to start crying wasabi tears?

The Twins are simultaneously blessed and cursed with a plethora of corner position hitters, with manager Ron Gardenhire showing a frustrating unwillingness to commit too strongly to any of the youngsters. Most maddening has been his treatment of outfielder Bobby Kielty, a switch-hitter whose defense is good enough to play centerfield without being laughed out of the ballpark. A rookie last year, 25-year-old Kielty put up an 890 OPS in 348 plate appearances, showing both power (.484 SLG) and a keen batting eye (.405 OBP). But Gardenhire, operating on the theory that this weapon was too important to have in the starting lineup, kept Kielty shackled to the bench in the postseason, limiting him to seven at-bats in seven games.

Thus began a "Free Bobby Kielty" campaign which finally seemed to pay off early this season. Kielty started the year hot, posting a 1013 OPS in April and finally becoming a daily concern in the Twins lineup. A pulled rib-cage muscle slowed him in May, however, and his production has fallen off precipitously: a 771 OPS in May, a meager 634 in June, and a paltry 670 thus far in July.

On Wednesday, the Twins made Kielty something of a scapegoat, shipping him to the Toronto Blue Jays for Shannon Stewart and a player to be named later. In and of itself, trading Kielty in the face of such a redundancy of talent (Michael Cuddyer, Dustin Mohr, Lew Ford, Justin Morneau, Matt LeCroy, Todd Sears, and Michael Restovich) isn't indefensible. But adding another corner outfielder, even a useful (if somewhat overrated one) to the stockpile while ignoring the Twins' needs in the middle infield and in the starting rotation is borderline criminal. Further, this is a lousy deal from the cost-conscious Twins' perspective. Kielty makes only $325,000 and still has 3 years to go before free agency. Stewart, on the other hand, is making over $6 million this season and will be a free agent at season's end.

Even before the trade Rob Neyer chimed in on the topic of the Twins squandering their talent surplus. Now, we can expect plenty of outrage from the online Twins community, especially Mr. Bonnes and Mr. Gleeman.

Meanwhile, those of you who've ponied up the dough ought to read Steven Goldman's piece on the Twins at Baseball Prospectus Premium. Goldman, who pens the much-revered Pinstriped Bible for YESNetwork.com, compares the Twins org's handling of their talent to that of the Casey Stengel-era Yankees. As Goldman points out, the Stengel era was marked by two distinct phases, with opposing tentendcies. In the first (1949-54), the Yanks did a good job of analyzing their youngsters, giving them shots at limited roles in which they could be productive, then gradually expanding those roles. In the second, the Yanks jerked the youngsters around, disappointed in them for what they were not. Goldman finds the Twins at this pivotal point, with tons of talent at their disposal and and wonders which way they'll swing. Good stuff.