The Futility Infielder

Apologies to those of you who believe this is a family blog which should be free of the kind of language used in the above headline. Silly, silly people. If you don't know me after four years of this, you're not paying attention. The above was the back-page headline I imagined a more gutsy tabloid editor would use in describing Yankee rightfielder Gary Sheffield's response to rumors that he might be traded in the wake of the latest attempt to revive the Bronx Bummers' season. And if said tabloid editor won't run it, I will.

But first, a little context. It rained on Wednesday night, washing away the evening's Yanks-O's game and making Joe Torre's decision to tap Mike Stanton over Mariano Rivera on Tuesday look all the more foolish. Stanton, of course, had a one-pitch outing that resulted in a walk-off homer by Brian Roberts. As disquieting as that decision and the Yankees recent performance has been, the news reports -- or shall we say rumors -- that emerged in the wake of Tuesday's defeat were even moreso. With the Yankee brass gathered down in Tampa for a skull session (vision of George Steinbrenner as DeNiro's Capone taking skull a little too literally), the local papers had the Yanks mulling all kinds of options.

The first, and juciest, revolved around Sheffield, with the Yanks trading him to the Mets for Mike Cameron and Miguel Cairo, according to the New York Post. The move would give the Yanks a quality centerfielder; quite frankly, Cameron should have been wearing pinstripes after 2003 instead of Kenny Lofton, but the team had yet to face the reality of Bernie Williams' decline. But trading Sheffield would leave a gaping hole in the Yank lineup, as Shef is currently hitting .300/.396/.502. Additionally, with the emergence of Robinson Cano, who's hitting a surprisingly useful .284/.311/.464, Cairo's utility to the Yanks would be considerably diminished. He had a surprisingly fine season as the Yanks second baseman once Enrique Wilson was kicked to the curb, but both he and the Yanks missed the boat for his return in the offseason, and it's just as well.

Shef has barked about his contract structure, but after Tuesday's game he said hell no, he won't go if traded:

"I'm not going anywhere," said Sheffield, who is signed through 2006. "If I have to go somewhere, I won't go. If they said, 'Wouldn't you want to get paid?' I'd say, 'I've got plenty of money.' I'm not playing nowhere else. I can promise you that."

Yesterday, Sheffield backed off that statement, but in true Shef fashion, dialed things up a notch at the same time. In a New York Times article titled, "Sheffield Warns 29 Teams: You Don't Want Me," he told reporters:

"I would never sit out," Sheffield said. "I would go play for them. It doesn't mean I'm going to be happy playing there. And if I'm unhappy, you don't want me on your team. It's just that simple. I'll make that known to anyone... I'll ask for everything. Everything. You're going to inconvenience me, I'm going to inconvenience every situation there is."

Which is where I envisioned a competing editor of one of the city's less dignified rags running the above headline. Decency may prevent them from doing so, but like Shef, I'm less inclined to mince words.

Fortunately, my favorite Yankee isn't going anywhere. The Yankee brass assured Sheffield he was untouchable. "I just wanted to let him know that we turned down any inquiry about him," Joe Torre told reporters. "We said, 'No thank you.' I wanted to give him what Cash gave me." Whew.

There are those who will point to Sheffield's comments as being in line with the rest of his controversial career, and they may have a point. But the man is considerably more complex than some simple knee-jerk response to being traded, as I discovered in a lengthy three-part series I wrote for this site late last summer (Part I, Part II, Part III). Here's the conclusion:

Gary Sheffield has come a long way since those hot-headed days in Milwaukee. Though he's continued to generate controversy at nearly every stage of his career, his outbursts have rarely been without provocation. As he's aged, his temper has cooled, his level of maturity has visibly increased, he's stayed healthier, and his bat has remained lethal. Rather quietly for such a controversial player, he's made his mark as one of the game's best hitters, destroying the ball in even the most inhospitable environments. He's won honors and he continues to contend for them. He's helped a team win a World Championship, he's fighting to do so again, and he'll have at least a couple more opportunities beyond this year.

Sheffield's coming to the Yankees fits in with a certain definable career arc. In recent years, talented but star-crossed players, from Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden to David Cone, Roger Clemens and Ruben Sierra, have found their way to the Yankees seeking redemption for transgressions both real and perceived. With the benefit of years of often harsh lessons, they subsume their egos in the name of playing for a winner. That the winner is the winningest team in the history of baseball, playing in a stadium steeped in tradition, in the glare of the country's top media market, is part of the point. Older and wiser, they strive to show the world that they can stand up to life in the pinstriped crucible. If they can make it there, they can make it anywhere: words to a song, and the key to the Yankees' seductive myth, one that Gary Sheffield has bought, lock, stock, and bat barrel. Thus far, he's done everything in his power to hold up his end of the bargain.

Beyond Sheffield, other rumors abound. Newsday reported that the Yanks might tap the Marlins for a centerfielder in either Juan Pierre or Juan Encarnacion. Both are execrable hitters who more closely resemble Tony Womack, the root of so many evils regarding the current lineup, than anything else. But George Steinbrenner been enamored of Pierre's speed-and-bunting style (not substance) since he helped beat the Yanks in the 2003 World Series; as Derek Jacques and I agreed a couple of weeks ago, they'll be paying for Pierre until they're literally paying Pierre. Newsday version has Paul Quantrill as the rotten carrot being dangled in the case of the latter deal, while the pricetag on the former is likely to be out of reach unless the Yanks start offering whatever B-grade prospects they've got, such as centerfielder Melky Cabrera, who was promoted from Double A to Triple A.

Today's Palm Beach Post has an even more salacious rumor which reads like a combo plate of the Marlins and Mets rumors: Sheffield to his old team for Encarnacion and starter A.J. Burnett. As attractive as acquiring Burnett might be (he's put up a 3.14 ERA, an 8.13 K/9 and 2.82 K/BB ratio), I'm not even going to sweat that one in light of Torre and Cashman's comments. Other centerfield-related rumors include Oakland's Mark Kotsay and Seattle's Randy Winn. Here's a handy clip-and-save guide to these guys:

                  ----Current----    -----------Career----------
             Age  AVG   OBP   SLG    AVG   OBP   SLG   Rate2 (CF)
Cameron      32  .297  .396  .535   .250  .342  .443   102
Pierre       27  .257  .303  .337   .306  .356  .376    98
Encarnacion  29  .271  .347  .457   .265  .314  .441    96
Kotsay       29  .281  .339  .401   .286  .343  .423   108
Winn         31  .276  .348  .374   .283  .344  .407   101

As you can see, each has his plusses and minuses. Cameron is probably the superior one of the group, and he's been hitting well above his career levels this year, but he also missed five weeks with a wrist injury, and of course, he's the oldest of the bunch. Kotsay's the superior fielder, but don't think Billy Beane doesn't know this; his price will likely be prohibitively high. He's also got a history of back problems. Encarnacion's got the most pop, but in a hacktastic way that brings to mind Ruben Sierra Lite, which isn't what the doctor ordere with the low-OBP Sierra Genuine Draft, Cano, and Woemack all contributing higher than normal out-making abilities to the lineup.

But while centerfield remains unresolved, it looks as though the Yanks are about to get decisive with their bullpen. ESPN and many other sources report that both Quantrill (6.75 ERA) and Stanton (7.07 ERA) have been issued the proverbial blindfold and cigarette, with Jason Anderson (who made the Yanks Opening Day roster in 2003 but was shipped to the Mets in the Armando Benitez deal), Colter Bean (who's got a funky sidearm motion), and Scott Proctor, all righties, in the mix for their roster slots. All three have been blowing hitters away in Columbus to various degrees:

          IP  ERA    K/9   K/W  
Anderson  47  2.85   7.99  3.82
Bean      40  3.15  11.03  2.58
Proctor   35  4.15  11.94  4.18

The team's commitment to youth might be laudable if Mel Stottlemyre's track record with young pitchers were more sterling, but beware that the Yanks might also simply be auditioning these players for other scouts as they look ahead to a difference-making deal in centerfield or the rotation.

If there's one certainty in all of this, it's that the organization, from the Boss on down, appears committed to keeping rookie starter Chien-Ming Wang as well as Cano. Reports Newsday's Shaun Powell:

The best news to emerge from Tampa is that not even Steinbrenner is desperate enough to trade Chien-Ming Wang or Robinson Cano, two prospects who came from nowhere to give the Yankees what they haven't had in years: cheap talent with upside.

Both are in direct contrast to the overload of mega-million-dollar names on the roster who are either tapped out or burned out. You can even make the case that the Yankees are being bummed out by the veterans and bailed out by Wang and Cano. Too many established stars aren't living up to their reputations and paychecks; that's why the Yankees are still staring up at the Red Sox and Orioles in the division. If the state of the Yankees isn't disappointing enough, imagine where they'd be if not for those two?

Wang is arguably their most reliable starting pitcher after Mike Mussina. Cano is making strides and giving life to perhaps the most unstable infield position of the Joe Torre era. And they're not swelling up the payroll. This makes them more valuable to the Yankees as keepers, not trade bait.

Brian Cashman didn't need to do a heavy sell job on Steinbrenner regarding Cano and Wang, which means The Boss finally understands he can't swap every promising prospect who comes along for an old player with an expiration date. This means Cano and Wang will not meet the same fate as others who came up through the system and were dumped as soon as they showed the slightest bit of skill... Nick Johnson, for instance.

As Cliff Corcoran notes at Bronx Banter, Wang's got the highest percentage of Quality Starts (six or more innings, three or fewer earned runs) of any Yankee starter at 70 percent, well above the team average of 48.1 percent. Hearing that he's in pinstripes to stay is good news, but I'll believe when the clock strikes midnight on July 31 and the trading deadline passes. Until then, no matter what they're saying, anything can happen in such a volatile situation.