Pitchers and catchers report in less than a week.
Normally, that would be music to my ears. Maybe we've gotten over the hump with winter (my least favorite season), maybe the sounds of bats hitting balls will bring back the feeling of summer and youth and excitement and pure, unadulterated joy.
But probably not.
When the big question you're facing seven days before spring training begins is whether the Yankees will suffer more from the loss of Alex Rodriguez or Francisco Cervelli, this is not going to be a stellar season.
It was reported tonight that Cervelli's name showed up on the purloined records of the Miami-based "clinic" where Mr. Rod "allegedly" got the half a drugstore he was pumping into his veins, skin and for all I know, hair for years. And frankly, I'm more concerned about the 26-year-old catcher than the 400-year-old third baseman with the hip replacements.
This winter, Brian Cashman appeared before Yankee fans as a man trying to general manage a team with one hand tied behind his back. Maybe both hands. He has an aging roster, a third baseman under siege while trying to come back from serious surgery, an ace pitcher who just had the first surgery of his career on his pitching elbow, a 43-year-old closer (who is, it must be said, the greatest who ever did the job, but still) also returning from a serious injury and an iconic shortstop who will turn 39 this season. And oh yeah, he had a big surgery this offseason, too.
But wait, it gets worse.
Cashman had to deal with all those holes in the roster by signing players to one-year deals. That's because baseball's new rules make it financially prohibitive for the team to have an excessive payroll--the thing it does best--in 2014. So any players the Yankees added this winter would have to come off the books at the end of this season.
That meant the biggest deals Cashman made were with people the team already had last year--Andy Pettitte, Hiroki Kuroda, Mariano Rivera--while handing out only one two-year contract, to Ichiro Suzuki, who is going to be 102 in 2014, and starting in right field. Swell.
And he added Kevin Youkillis, a player who has had trouble staying off the disabled list for the past few years, to fill in for Mr. Rod, and who's backing up Youkillis? We'll have to get back to you on that.
Leaving are the team's best on-base-percentage guy (who admittedly became a large unmoving statue once the postseason rolled around), all the reliable backups including the guy who hit all those home runs in late innings and essentially got the Yankees to the division title by himself in September, the only reliable option as a closer if the 43-year-old wizard is shown to be mortal, and, what am I forgetting?
That's right. The only starting catcher the Yankees had. He's gone, too. Because he wanted the same kind of deal Suzuki got, and Cashman wouldn't go there.
So Cervelli possibly being suspended for whatever hijinks went on at the Miami dispensary--and the idea that if that was Cervelli on performance-enhancing drugs, you can imagine what he'll be like just walking around--is actually a somewhat scarier proposition than losing Mr. Rod for, let's say ever (we can be optimistic). Chris Stewart as your everyday catcher with only Austin Romine as a possible backup is downright scary.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays were adding every name player on the Florida Marlins roster, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, and for all I know, resurrecting Lou Gehrig to play first base. The Red Sox, while not exactly setting the world on fire, got better than the awful they were last year. The Orioles aren't going away, because they're afraid Buck Showalter will kill them if they do. The Rays always, always seem to get better somehow, while constantly spending less money each year.
I am not liking our chances, friends.
But it's possible to have a sense of perspective about this, too. See, I lived through the mid-to-late 60s Yankees, when Horace Clarke was the name player, and the 1980s version of the Yankees, who seemed to relish the challenge of finding new ways to be mediocre every year. Remember Danny Tartabull?
It's been a very long time, but I hung in there for all those years because you still get to watch a baseball game every night, and there are few things better. Because you don't ever know how a team is going to coalesce in the course of 162 games. Because the 1996 Yankees didn't have any big stars on the team, and they did okay.
Pitchers and catchers arrive in Tampa within a week, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be watching, and no doubt complaining, but it will be a hell of a lot better than the offseason.
And that's not a small thing.
