There are many instances where you can reflect and wonder where it all went wrong for the Yanks this season. But the truth is, it all came down to one offseason decision.
Javier Vazquez. It's that simple. Javier Vazquez is where the Yankees went wrong, and all the other excuses are smoke-filled coffee house crap (thank you Kevin Pollack of A Few Good Men).
Sure, they could have won Game 4. But Mariano Rivera didn't protect a one-run lead for two innings. And in Game 5, Joe Torre should have gone back to Rivera in the 8th inning with a two-run lead. Instead, Torre let Tom Gordon pitch to three batters, who all reached base, and then went to Rivera.
Why would Torre bring Rivera into a no-win situation? I assume he didn't want Rivera pitching two innings, two days in a row ... but if he was prepared to bring Mariano into the game with runners on the corners and nobody out in the eighth with a one-run lead, why not just start the eighth with Mariano on the hill with a two-run lead?
Of course, all of this controversy would have been for not if the $252 million dollar man, the 2003 American League MVP Alex Rodriguez was able to hit a fly ball to the shallowest part of center field in the top of that ill-fated eighth inning of Game 5.
Because with Miguel Cairo on third and one out, I'm guessing Johnny Damon's left arm, which has drawn comparisons to that of a 6-year-old girl, would not have been strong enough to throw out Cairo. That run would have given the Yankees a three-run lead.
And then there was the beleaguered starting pitching, highlighted by Kevin Brown's inability to last more than two innings in either of his starts. This was the man George Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman had put their faith in when they let Andy Pettitte walk to Houston.
Brown's relief in both games was the protagonist in this author's narrative, the disappointing Javier Vazquez, who posted a 9.53 ERA in the 2004 postseason.
It was Vazquez, if you recall, who the Yankees chose to trade for last winter instead of signing Bartolo Colon, a flame-throwing right-hander who later signed with the Anaheim Angels.
What made the decision to go with Vazquez over Colon so devastating is two-fold. First, Colon performed remarkably better over the second-half of the season than Vazquez. From July on, Vazquez's ERA was 6.70. Colon by comparison posted a 4.23 ERA over that same span.
In Colon's only appearance this postseason, he went six innings and allowed three runs to the Red Sox, the same team that thumped Vazquez for 7 runs in 6⅓ innings over two games.
Ultimately, Torre's decision of who to start Game 7 would have been much easier if Bartolo Colon, and not Vazquez, was an option.
Secondly, in addition to Colon being the superior pitcher to Vazquez, Javy's asking price was steeper. Unlike Colon, who was a free-agent, Vazquez was property of the Montreal Expos. If the Yankees wanted him, they would have to trade for him.
This brings us to the second part of Cashman's catastrophic maneuver. Like the Red Sox, who traded Casey Fossum and others to obtain Curt Schilling, the Yankees would have to part with some prospects to obtain the Expos top pitcher.
The Bronx brass shipped Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera, the last marketable trade chips of the depleted Yankees' farm system, north of the border in exchange for Vazquez.
It was at the midseason point when the Yankees' weakness became most evident. Their starting pitching was lacking, but hope existed. A five-time Cy Young winner openly campaigned to join the Bronx Bombers. In fact, Randy Johnson would not accept a trade to anyone but the New York Yankees.
The problem, though, was the Yankees had no prospects of worth to offer, and the boys in the desert could not justify shipping the Big Unit East for anything the Yankees were peddling. If Cashman still had Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera, the scenario would have been dramatically different, and Randy Johnson could have found his way into pinstripes.
Potentially, the Yankees' rotation this October could have been Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Bartolo Colon, and Jon Lieber. That foursome would have offset the colossal blunder Cashman committed when he traded for Kevin Brown last winter, and thus lessened the ire Yankees fans currently hold against the surly right-hander.
Instead, Torre was forced to juggle Orlando Hernandez along with Brown and Vazquez in a rotation that looked more like the teams New York used to beat along their unimpeded route to the World Series instead of a rotation the 26-time world champions would use to get there.
The Yankees currently find themselves with the same problem they faced all season, a dearth of starting pitching. Their options are limited, though. With virtually no prospects to speak of, and Yankees enemy No. 1 Pedro Martinez being the most attractive free-agent on the market, it could be another long year in the House that Ruth built.
November 10, 2004
Jonathan Moncrief:
Yankee fan, you just don’t get it do you?
First, Kevin Brown tanked in the playoffs, but realistically, when he took a 1st round TKO against that dugout wall in September, you shouldn’t have even had him available. BTW, getting Brown also allowed you to cut loose Jeff Weaver, who was a 0 for you here.
Second, Vasquez is a number 3 or 4 starter at best. No rational baseball fan thought he was anything but that. Oh, and I guess Arizona would have been foaming at the mouth to take Nick Johnson and Juan Garcia for Randy Johnson had they been available, as your article suggests. And also, since your using hindsight to evaluate this year’s debacle, let me ask you a question: How many wins did Andy Pettitte have for Houston in their post-season run? Let me answer that: ZERO.
Third, before you climb all over Alex Rodriguez, tell me exactly how many hits Jason Giambi and his 18mill per year had in the post season? I’ll tell you how many for steriod boy: ZERO.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: George is the one who spends the money and signs the checks, and he tried to put together a fantasy baseball team. It didn’t work, it doesn’t ever work. Even the Yankee teams that won recently had grinders and role players.
The point you should have made about the starting pitching was that it forced Torre to overwork a bullpen which consisted of: no real middle relief; Tom Gordon, who has had major arm surgeries in recent years; no lefty to get that ‘obe out’ when you need (like Mike Stanton was in years gone by); and a Rivera who, despite being the best closer the game has ever seen, was: (a) distracted by a family tragedy, and (b) was long overdue to blow a game in a big spot.