It's official: the Yanks stink

No sooner had Michael Kay finished conjecturing about how the Yanks would have lost only one game in the standings to the stumbling Orioles if they could hold their 2-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh than Scott Seabol had parked Tanyon Sturtze's first offering to him in the leftfield seats for Seabol's first major league dinger and a two-run bomb that sent the Yanks skittering to a 5-3 defeat, once again wasting a nice performance from Pavano.

So who's head rolls first? After the season it will probably be Stottlemyre's. The Yanks have had a ptiching coach in waiting (Neil Allen) in their system for a while, and The Monk's desired replacements for Stottlemyre (Mike Maddux, Bud Black, Orel Hershiser, Wayne Rosenthal) are unavailable if their teams have any sense. And Torre's defense of Mattingly last week makes sacking him much harder for Big Stein to do with any credibility.

Joel Sherman suggested the Yanks start selling and shifting salaries before the trade deadline and my previous posts indicate The Monk feels there's wisdom in this. I'd put Quantrill, Felix Rodriguez (once he gets healthy) and Womack on the block immediately but I'd also throw Sheffield and Posada at whomever would give a top pitching and OF prospect for them. Why? Posada's game calling is in the tank. I don't know why, but Posada's staff control is nearly as bad as his defense (he has one of the worst passed balls ratios of any catcher who doesn't deal with a knuckleballer). His hitting is down too and the Yanks would be better off shipping him out too early than too late. The Yanks can promote David Parrish as Flaherty's backup for the time being.

Sheffield's a tougher call. His defense is between bad and worse but he can hit ANYTHING, including the 95+ heaters that give the rest of the team fits; nonetheless, he'd carry the most trade value.

And Sherman's right that the Yanks have set up their budget for 2006 with the presupposition that most of those players would be in pinstripes so they can pay the freight on most of their players (but Sherman's notion of trading Matsui should be dismissed out of hand: Matsui is the anti-Giambi and he's shown signs of snapping out of his hitting slump). But I think the team will continue to be in the tank until it gets rid of Giambi and Williams. Neither can happen until the end of the year. It's a long way until next April.