Yankees need to study Red Sox, Cardinals

For Yankee fans' sake, they can only hope Hal and Hank Steinbrenner have been watching these League Championship Series, and in particular the Cardinals and Red Sox, the two teams that will meet Wednesday night in Boston for the start of the World Series.

Beginning Monday, the Yankee owners will be conducting their organization meetings in Tampa, at which time the prime topic of discussion is expected to be the Yankee player development and scouting departments and the abysmal performance of both, which led to the embarrassing season just concluded.

GM Brian Cashman, VP of minor league operations Mark Newman and scouting director Damon Oppenheimer all have a lot of explaining to do. They can start with all those No. 1 draft picks (Dante Bichette Jr., Cito Culver, Eric Duncan, John-Ford Griffin, Jon S. Skaggs, David Parrish, David Walling, Andrew Brackman & Co.) who have gone bust over the years. Then they can move onto the absence of any impact position players or frontline pitchers out of the draft since the previous administration produced Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte.

So, assuming they have been catching a peak at the playoffs, and the largely homegrown Cardinals, and Red Sox core players, here are some pertinent questions the Steinbrenners might want to ask the baseball operations honchos:

— Where is our Xander Bogaerts? In 2010, we drafted this high school shortstop from Rochester, N.Y., Culver, with our No. 1 pick — 32nd overall — and now he’s not even listed among our top 20 prospects. Can anyone explain what the thinking behind that was? Who was the scout who made that recommendation?

— In 2009, we took Slade Heathcott, a high school outfielder with a troubled family history, with our No. 1 pick (29the overall), and J.R. Murphy with our No. 2 (76). Heathcott’s been constantly hurt while Murphy looks like he may develop into a decent major league catcher. We’re just wondering: What were our reports on Joe Kelly, the Cardinals’ No. 3 starter in the postseason whom they took in the third round (98)? Or Matt Carpenter, their second baseman who’ll probably get a lot of MVP votes this year, whom they took at 399? Or Trevor Rosenthal, their new closer who throws 100 mph, whom they took at 639? Or Matt Adams, that big lefty hitting first baseman of theirs, whom they took at 699? We realize the draft is a crapshoot and everyone else passed on those guys in the early rounds, but what were our reports on them? We did see them, didn’t we?


In 2007, we took Brackman, that 6-11 pitcher out of North Carolina State, with the 30th overall pick, paid him an over-slot $3.35 million signing bonus even though we knew he was going to need Tommy John surgery. Again, we’re just curious: What were our scouting reports on Todd Frazier, the infielder from Rutgers taken by the Reds with the 34th pick, or Travis d’Arnaud, the catcher the Phillies took at No. 37 who is now the Mets’ top prospect? Or Josh Donaldson, the A’s third baseman who will also get some MVP consideration this year, whom the Cubs took at No. 48?

— We agree the 2006 draft — the one Brian here put the emphasis on pitching and took seven pitchers with our first 10 picks — was one of our better ones, even if we did screw up Joba Chamberlain, who we took at No. 1, and traded away three pitchers in the majors who we took after him — Ian Kennedy, Zach McAllister and Mark Melancon. No question, David Robertson was a good find in the 17th round. But again, with the dearth of position prospects we have now, what did our reports have on Jon Jay, whom the Cardinals took in the second round, Shane Robinson, whom they took in the fifth round or Allen Craig, who may be their best player, whom they got in the eighth round? Again we realize the difficulty in projecting players, and that you have to get lucky, too. But how are the Cardinals THAT lucky and we’re so unlucky? How come all these pitchers they’ve taken in the draft — Kelly, Rosenthal, Shelby Miller, Lance Lynn, Michael Wacha, Kevin Siegrist — are all up here performing at a top level while all of our drafted pitchers aren’t? And how come their pitchers don’t have the command problems almost all of ours do?

— And can you tell us, who was the scout who recommended we take that high school shortstop, C.J. Henry, with our No. 17 pick in 2005? Is he still working for us? Do you have our scouting reports on Jacoby Ellsbury, whom the Red Sox took at 23, or Clay Buchholz, whom they took at 42? Or Jed Lowrie, whom they took at 45 — college guys, all of them, who should have had a much clearer track record, no? We rated Henry better than ALL of them?

Bu Haber için yorum yapabilirsiniz 25.10.2013 08:32:41 204.236.235.245

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