Another tough loss for the Cards last night. Then again, aren’t they all tough this time of year? They are up against the wall now and I doubt they’ll win the damn thing which is a drag.
I saw this picture and thought I’d share it. It doesn’t mean anything. I just found it pleasing.
[Photo Credit: Anthony Delgado via MPD]
I think we'll get a Game 7 out of this mess, but the big picture darn't look good fer humanity.
Even worse, I feel a baseball Ice Age coming on in the Bronx. Endless winter and all that.
I could almost -- I'm saying this with my team out playing golf, and a long winter ahead, when talk is cheap -- almost take a couple of years of rebuilding. Sports is entertainment, after all, and that quiet period would count as an entr'acte. A reel or two of Wes Anderson to break up the Jerry Bruckheimer.
I can enjoy rooting for a team of up-and-comers if the organization puts good people in place and sticks with them for a while, like Durocher with Mays. That's a storyline. That's a chance to see "my kid" blossom into a star, rather than just trying to wrap your heart around the newest free agent to put on the laundry. A lot of my fondness for the big guys phasing out now has its roots in the days I watched them play as Columbus Clippers.
Easier to get tickets, anyhow.
Yeah, we are in for at least a couple of years of resting in October. I guess that's the price for the latest dynasty. And while we can fault management because the farm system is bare, to be fair the mantra has been "win now" so you trade a prospect to get a piece to help win the World Series this year. Do that often enough and when MLers reach the end, there aren't ready replacements.
RedSox and Cards, my two least favorite teams in baseball. The Cards offense is pathetic and, though I'd prefer anyone but Boston, I hope it ends quickly.
There's more to it than the fact we had low picks from being perennially successful relative to making the playoffs. A lot of the choices that have been made over the last several years have been mainly high risk-high reward (with the risk often superseding the reward), conservative (either not bidding or being seriously outbid for international free agents), ludicrous (scrap heap players either OPP or had never been good anywhere else) or impatient (trading prospects for now-players who are good for less than a season, then fall off the map). I've long criticized the front office of seriously course correcting throughout the season and over multiple seasons. There has been little consistency in personnel management except that the decisions are mostly short term, and there are no assurances from the front office worth putting your money on in terms of a direction or function the team is focused on. Very little to assure the fans that something is happening worth waiting for.
Part of that is certainly the media, which often takes a condescending or adversarial position when reporting on the team (or in the case with their own network, obtuse and disingenuous), but the organization can't always function in a defensive stance all the time; it only leads us to believe they ARE doing something wrong or stupid. It also leads us to believe that players like Nova and Gardner and Robertson are successful DESPITE the Yanks' development. It's why fans and media alike were practically begging for Girardi to return, despite the plethora of criticism he endured throughout the season.
Of course there has to be a wall of some sort; a layer of secrecy in order for competing organizations to function, but why does it seem like the Yanks are as scatterbrained and bereft of talent as the dregs of the league like Houston or Seattle? I don't believe it, but I don't believe much coming out the front door these days.
While Cashman has been "successful" as a GM (playoffs vbirtually every year is something every city would want), my sense is that there really hasn't been a "plan" other than "win now."
Chickens are home to roost; Moneyball and sabremetrics have shown that you can build a relatively low cost, successful team, but it's hard to KEEP them successful.
Having lived through the deepest dark ages of Yankee history, it's not much fun when you're out of the playoffs for years and years. OTOH, a true "fan" sticks by the team. Guess it's too late to change, although I must admit that living in the DC area, I can root for the Nats and have a reason to check out the sports pages, even if my beloved pinstripers are out of it by June 1.
The Yankees will be competitive. Fox paid too much for 50% of the YES Network to allow management not to figure it out. It might be difficult for real fans to observe.
One thing about the Sox, they have not won the WS at home since 1918.