Murray Chass: Yankees Rotation Needs an Overhaul

On Baseball
Yankees’ Rotation, Old and Ineffective, Needs an Overhaul

By MURRAY CHASS
The New York Times
Published: October 10, 2006

Nothing against Mike Mussina, but he is the symbol of the Yankees’ failure to win the World Series the last six years. If George Steinbrenner is seeking a scapegoat, make it Mussina.

Mussina joined the Yankees as a free agent six years ago. The only other players who have been with the team that long have a bunch of World Series rings: Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada.

Mussina is the ringleader of the anti-World Series champions: Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, Randy Johnson, Johnny Damon, Kyle Farnsworth.

Mussina, like some players on that list, is a pitcher, and the lack of strong pitching has undermined the Yankees’ chances of winning the World Series.

•As good as Jeter, Williams, Posada and others were when the Yankees won three successive World Series and four in five years, pitching was their foundation. Andy Pettitte started games in each of the four World Series the Yankees won. David Cone and Orlando Hernández started in three, and Roger Clemens in the last two. Of the eight pitchers who started games in those World Series, Denny Neagle was probably the weakest.

The pitchers who started against the Detroit Tigers in their American League division series carried the burden of Pettitte, Cone, Clemens and Hernández, but their performances did not live up to those names.

Johnson has become an aging and aching pitcher, not to mention an inconsistent one. As a postseason pitcher, he reached his zenith in 2001 with Arizona. That was a lot of innings ago. In Game 3 last week, he allowed five runs in five and two-thirds innings.

Mussina pitched his division series game against the Tigers just well enough to lose. A genuinely top-notch pitcher finds a way to win. Mussina finds a way to lose. The outcome of the game last week left him with a 7-8 postseason record, indicating he is not the pitcher to come up big when something big is needed.

Chien-Ming Wang, playing his first full season in the major leagues, was the Yankees’ only reliable starter this season, and he came through again in the playoff opener.

Some people thought that when the Yankees faced elimination in Game 4, they should have moved up Wang to pitch. But they had left him home to rest for a possible Game 5. Manager Joe Torre wasn’t going to risk injury to Wang, who spent nearly two months on the disabled list last year with a shoulder problem.

That left Wright as the pitcher to put his finger in the dike. Instead, he punched a hole in it. He didn’t get out of the third inning.

Wright’s poor performance should have come as no surprise to the Yankees. If they were honest with themselves, they expected it and hoped their hitters could outhit the Tigers.

Wright epitomizes the Yankees’ most recent questionable pitching decisions. When they signed him two years ago, the Yankees acted like many other teams, throwing money at a pitcher because he was a free agent.

An argument could also be made that it is Pavano, not Wright, who epitomizes the Yankees’ pitching problems. The Yankees signed Pavano a week before Wright, and he hasn’t pitched for a season and a half. Pavano is the Red Sox’ joke on the Yankees. They pursued him, too, as a free agent, but the Yankees got him.

It was that kind of signing that prompted Larry Lucchino, the Red Sox chief executive, to call the Yankees the Evil Empire. But as it turned out, this was one signing he was happy to let the Yankees have.

The Yankees are now caught up in the status of Torre. The time they spend on that subject can only be a distraction. Better that General Manager Brian Cashman focus on the pitchers on the free-agent list, and those who could be available in trades, than on his attempts to dissuade Steinbrenner, the principal owner, from firing Torre.

In case Steinbrenner can’t see the forest for the trees, the pitchers the Yankees add for next season will have a greater impact on how far they go than will Lou Piniella or any other new manager.

•Among the pitchers who can be free agents in less than three weeks are Barry Zito, Mark Buehrle, Kerry Wood, Vicente Padilla, Ted Lilly, Tony Armas, Randy Wolf, and, if the Giants don’t exercise his option, Jason Schmidt.

Clemens and Pettitte, who became buddies with the Yankees and joined the Astros in 2004, are also on the list. The Yankees’ pitching fortunes changed when they procrastinated about signing Pettitte three years ago, or simply chose not to. Clemens keeps retiring, then keeps coming back — and keeps pitching well.

This is not to say the Yankees should sign Clemens or Pettitte. They can make their own decisions. They, like many other teams, will probably pursue Zito. They may even ask the Florida Marlins if Dontrelle Willis is available. The Yankees can be sure that the Mets will also look at Zito and ask about Willis, as they did during the summer.

Given the Mets’ success with significant acquisitions the last two off-seasons, the Yankees will have to work hard to make sure they aren’t bumped from contention while the Mets are still in it.