The Futility Infielder

I've gotten my feet wet -- literally -- with the 2004 season, having paid visits to both New York City stadiums since I last posted. Come to think of it, paid is the wrong word, as I was treated to both games. Friday's game found me at Yankee Stadium, courtesy of a client of mine who was in town on business. Unfortunately said client (whom I'll call Bob for reasons that will become clear), in an effort to procure good seats, purchased a pair of counterfeit tickets from an scalper, and the fakes were confiscated by the geezers at the gate without a second thought. Not a good start. Duly chastened, we went and procured some real tickets from the appropriate channel, somewhat sheepishly entering via a different gate.

The Yanks got off to a good start, taking a 1-0 lead on Sox starter Jon Garland in the second inning. Gary Sheffield led off, lacing a double down the leftifield line, and Hideki Matsui followed with a broken-bat single up the middle. But the Yankee offense, still sputtering since their return from Japan, remained in neutral. Sheffield left two men on in the third, and in the fourth, Garland escaped a four-walk inning without giving up a run or being given the hook by manager Ozzie Guillen (Matsui got picked off of second with nobody out).

Up to that point, Yank starter Jose Contreras had been solid but unspectacular, but he unraveled in the fifth. Timo Perez led off with a single and then stole second on the first pitch to number nine hitter Miguel Olivo (whose first big league home run I witnessed on on a rainy September day in 2002). Contreras immediately followed with a wild pitch to send Perez to third, and then walked Olivo without throwing a strike. Ugh. Olivo -- a catcher -- then stole second on Supposedly Defense-Minded Backup John Flaherty. After escaping from a 1-2 count, Willie Harris brough Perez home with a sacrifice fly to tie the score, and then Jose Valentin walked on five pitches. I groaned and turned to Bob, telling him that Contreras was courting disaster, and that sooner or later one pitch was going to cost him dearly. The next batter, Magglio Ordonez, made me look pretty smart by smacking a three-run homer into the leftfield net, 4-1 Sox. An analytical pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

Garland led off the fifth by walking Alex Rodriguez, and for a moment it seemed as though the Yanks would come right back. But they couldn't get the ball out of the infield, and the inning ended with Sheffield hitting into a double play. Meanwhile, the Sox picked up where they left off. Joe Crede drilled a one-out solo homer, spelling the end of Conteras' day, and then lefty Felix Heredia broke out the gasoline. He walked Perez on four pitches and then yielded a double to Olivo which put runners on second and third. Harris grounded one to Derek Jeter, who hurried a throw home trying to get Perez. The throw was off the mark -- wide to the first base side -- and Flaherty couldn't hold on to it, so both runs scored. This prompted a verbal melee among the fans next to us over the semantic details of whether it had been "a shitty play" with a bad result or just "a fucking stupid play" in the first place. Plenty of insults were exchanged, and tension filled the air as the Yanks' day slipped away. 7-1 Sox.

Heredia then walked Valentin and was mercifully given the hook by Torre. Paul Quantrill came on and yielded a first-pitch single to Ordonez. Bernie Williams' reacted strangely to the hit; I'm not sure if he never saw the ball due to the late-afternoon light or whether his shoulder is in such dire condition that he didn't want to make a throw, but with the ball about six feet from him, Sheffield had to come over and hurl it back to the infield while Valentin came all the way around to score. @#%$^*! With all four runs were charged to Heredia's room without the benefit of a single out,I was sure I could hear Brian Cashman pick up his telephone to start working the lines for a lefty reliever.

The sole bright spot for the Yanks came in the ninth inning with the score still 9-1. Facing Japanese import Shingo Takatsu (making his major-league debut after 13 years playing in Japan), rookie Bubba Crosby, who'd replaced Bernie in the top of the inning, stepped up for his first at-bat as a Yankee. To the delight of the crowd, he smacked a two-run homer over the rightfield wall, his first ever in the big leagues.

Crosby gave the Yankee fans even more to cheer about on Sunday when manager Joe Torre started him in centerfield in place of the gimpy Kenny Lofton. The kid had several great plays in center, including a catch made where he crashed into a wall, and he smoked a three-run homer off of the face of the rightfield upper deck to propel the Yanks to a 5-4 win and a split of their four-game series. The victory marked the 200th career win for starter Mike Mussina, who had struggled his two previous outings and had taken a total of five-starts to surpass the milestone. Rightfully so after Mussina's recent ugly American act, it was the gritty Crosby who was the toast of the town in the Monday papers. More on him in a moment.

Monday found me at Shea Stadium for the Mets home opener, courtesy of my friend Lillie, a former co-worker who's taken me to a ton of games over the years. Amid a light drizzle, the Mets took it to the Atlanta Braves by scoring runs in the first five innings, ten in all. To the fans' satisfaction, the first seven came against former Met Mike Hampton, who spurned the team's offer following the 2000 Subway Series to sign a huge deal with the Colorado Rockies, making all kinds of noise about lifestyle. It was a slap in the collective face of New Yorkers, and they showered him with boos and epithets to accompany the rain as he departed. Hampton's ERA since leaving the Mets: 5.28. How are those Colorado schools working out for your kids, Mike?

The Mets rolled to their lead behind a makeshift lineup. With Mike Piazza, Jose Reyes, Karim Garcia and Cliff Floyd all sidelined (the latter placed on the DL yet again), the 2-3-4 hitters in the lineup were Ricky Gutierrez, Shane Spencer, and Todd Zeile. By the fourth inning, Zeile had three hits, and Spencer got his second in the fifth inning. Making his Shea debut was Mike Cameron, who had an RBI single in the first and an RBI double in the fourth, also running down several fly balls in centerfield, an unusual sight for Mets fans used to the wanderings of Roger Cedeno and Timo Perez.

Steve Trachsel pitched six strong (and relatively fast, for him at least) innings, driving in a pair of runs himself, one on a double down the line in the second. The rain continued to fall and my interest began to wane even as the Braves (who were without both Chipper Jones and Rafael Furcal) came back with six runs in the late innings; I split after Atlanta catcher Johnny Estrada stroked a three-run homer off of Grant Roberts. Even with the rain, it was a fun day at the ballpark, and it was nice to see Mets fans have somthing to cheer about.

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On the heels of a great spring in which he surprised everybody by making the roster, Crosby's two-game splash has Yankee fans abuzz. It's not hard to see why; on a superstar-laden $180 million team with a moribund offense, he's the humble, aw-shucks rookie making the minimum and providing the unexpected boost, giving the fans somebody new to root for. But Bubba and the Yankee fans should savor the moment, because it may not get any better than this.

It's tempting to tell the already limping, already disgruntled Kenny Lofton, "Park cars, bitch," while Crosby takes over centerfield, but the fact is that Bubba is playing above his head. With the exception of last year's stats, which are aided by the thin air of Las Vegas (which inflates runs by about 5 percent), Crosby's minor league numbers aren't so hot: .268/.343/.380 in A ball, .290/.354/.414 in AA, and the Vegas-boosted .304/.352/.502 in two half-seasons there. Baseball Prospectus has been quite critical of him, and didn't even include him in either of the past two years' books which is a pretty serious dis -- though for '04 it's also a commentary on how unlikely it was for ANY rookie to crack the Yankee roster. Here's a sampling of what past BP books have said about him:

2000: Crosby, the Dodgers’ 1998 #1 pick out of Rice, hasn’t adjusted to professional baseball. He illustrates the problems with drafting college players in the middle or at the left end of the defensive spectrum: if they don’t hit, they’re completely useless. It’s better to draft collegians from the right end of the spectrum. It’s better still to eschew college hitters entirely and draft college pitchers and high school position players. Crosby has about six weeks to save his career.

2001: Here's a test of the Arizona Fall League's power to save a career. Bubba Crosby hadn't hit worth spit since being drafted in the first round in 1998. In the AFL, he hit .340 with some power, so he's back on the prospect track. Still, he's one-dimensional; there's not much chance of him ever contributing to the Dodgers.

2002: Highly touted coming out of Rice, Crosby hasn't adjusted to pro ball as well as the Dodgers hoped he would. His bat speed has really disappointed scouts. Crosby was pretty much an average hitter in the Southern League this year, and he'll begin his age-25 season in Triple-A. In reality, he's probably a better option for center field in Dodger Stadium than Grissom and Goodwin are. If he hits at all early in the season, look for him to get a shot with the big club.

Crosby's shot to this point has been in 12 at-bats with the Dodgers last year prior to coming to the Yanks as part of the Robin Ventura deal. BP's PECOTA system has his weighted mean forecast at an unremarkable .258/.309/.411 in about 250 PA, which comes out to an EQA of .248 -- solidly below average. His defense is good; the system puts him at +3 runs, which means that he's not a bad option as a fifth outfielder, especially on a old team with more than its share of defensive question marks. Here's hoping he sticks around, as he may help the Yanks win a game here and there. But he's going to have to produce AND get some breaks (and bruises and strains and tears) in order to do so, and this weekend to the contrary, that's still not a given.

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Commenting on the Philadelphia Phillies' 1-5 start, fellow Larry Bowa-hater Nick Stone sent me an email with the subject line "Bowa on the Barbecue" and wrote: "I have only one question: Spice rub or chipotle sauce?" Cracked me up...

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The Twin Cities' Pioneer Press had an enjoyable article by columnist Charley Walters, who had a cup of coffee with the 1969 Minnesota Twins. Much of the self-deprecating piece revolves around Billy Martin, then the Twins' manager (yes kids, Martin did manage -- and win -- before becoming George Steinbrenner's personal yo-yo); after he made his big-league debut, Walters was rousted out of bed by Martin at 3 A.M. for the purpose of drinking. If that's not a welcome to the big leagues, I don't know what is.