Miss me? No? Ah, well, too bad.

Anyway, some hopefully coherent thoughts about the postseason:

1) Since May 1st, Derek Jeter has 148 hits, of which just thirty-four have gone for extra bases, and only one out-of-the-park home run since June 12th. His slugging (.344) is only six hundredths of a point higher than his not-quite-as-awful on base percentage of (.338) in that same time span.

Since May 1st, Brett Gardner has a .380 OBP and .378 slugging. Sure, his OBP being higher than slugging doesn’t suggest he’s a great power hitter, but the argument can and should be made that Brett Gardner should hit lead off for the Yankees in the post season, as their highest OBP guy, and, at this rate, his 29 extra-base hits in the same time span is not sufficiently less than Jeter’s 34 for his lack of power to be such a liability to keep him out of the top spot.

2) A discussion on Twitter emerged tonight over who the Yankees should start game two, Andy Pettitte or Phil Hughes.

I’m falling into the Hughes camp for these reasons:

a) his home/road splits go beyond just the home run: a higher SO/9 and SO/BB rate indicate pitching better on the road, even accounting for the difference in innings pitched.

b) Target Field is a pretty massive ball park, which should theoretically help with the whole home run issue.

c) While you can argue that you’d rather have Pettitte pitching in game five, I think that it’s not the wisest move to plan for game five before you’ve finished games one, two and three. The Yankees’ best bet is, of course, to win the LDS in as few games as possible.

d) If the Yankees do lose game one, they can adjust the rotation if they see fit, although I imagine this is quite unlikely.

That said, the big difference between this year’s Yankees and last year’s has got to be the current confidence in the rotation: last season, besides CC, Pettitte was still healthy and although AJ Burnett was a wild card, he was not downright bad as he’s been for much of this season. This year, there’s CC, sometimes Hughes, pray Pettitte stays healthy…

3) It’s not that this year’s Yankees team is bad or undeserving; but that last season’s, especially after mid-June, was that good, getting better as the year went on. This year’s team started strongly enough, and then stumbled once Pettitte got hurt, Vazquez came up lame and Burnett was, well, AJ Burnett.

That said, this year’s squad has much to commend to it: Nick Swisher’s had a brilliant, consistent year, Brett Gardner has emerged as a legitimate mlb-caliber outfielder, Curtis Granderson’s remembered how to hit of late, and even with Jeter’s struggles you can still argue the Yankee infield is one of the best in the league. Kerry Wood has been simply fantastic in pinstripes, and Boone Logan’s turn around means the loss of Damaso Marte is a little less gaping.

4) So what happens if Girardi fails to win the World Series?

It seems almost unfair that he could make it to the World Series, or even game seven of the ALCS, lose and then not be invited back even when he won a World Series just last year, but, of course, the world of Yankee baseball is not a forgiving place.

I think, in the end, if the Yankees don’t win it all (and even perhaps if they do), it will depend as much on how the events occur as the events themselves; managing a team out of an ALDS win because Francisco Cervelli is hitting instead of Jorge Posada is a little bit different than losing in a game seven bottom-of-the-ninth hit with Mariano Rivera on the mound.

Of course, everything could go right and then Girardi choose not to return, but that’s probably a bridge to cross when it’s reached, to use a cliché.

5) Lastly, on the question of Minnesota or Texas as a playoff opponent, I’ll simply say that either team would offer its benefits and drawbacks, and it’s still up to the Yankees to win the games they need to win–and that, even if they do so, the much-imagined ALCS versus the Rays is not a guarantee, as the Rays would need to take care of business on their end and well.

Neither Minnesota nor Texas is a walkover…

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The last time I ever had to leave a Yankee game early, they were up by a large margin and I remarked to my friend, “well, if the Yankees blow this lead, I don’t particularly want to see it.”

I was reminded of this incident today.

I’ll keep it simple.

1) The game story, as explained by WPA, courtesy Fangraphs.

2) Prayers are with David Huff, who took an A-Rod double off of his head. Fortunately, word has it that he never lost consciousness, and his CT scan was negative. His family was in attendance at the game. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how dangerous this game can be…

3) CC Sabathia, via tweets from JMK and OSingh91, respectively:

CC currently sporting a career high in FIP, career low in BABIP, contact rate at 79%, high in HR/FB, less than 7 K/9. Career low in fastball velocity.

Wow, a career high in 2-seamers says Pitch f/x (18.1%, career 3.0%, but only 4 yrs of data). Explains low K’s and high FIP.

I mentioned that maybe CC’s heavy workload the past two years is coming home to roost. I hope it’s not the case, but no human being (except maybe old Hoss) can really pitch that many innings that often without having issues.

3) Joba Chamberlain

Needs to not be pitching in high leverage situations.

Last five games: 5 IP, 11 H, 11 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 6 K.

What’s worse? His numbers in high leverage situations: Opponents are hitting .308/.357/.462/.819, which is very much not what you want from your set-up man. It’s the anti-what-Hughes-did in 2009.

4) Joe Girardi

This shouldn’t be entirely on him, because CC and Joba should have been able to do their jobs, but I don’t really understand removing Mitre after facing just one batter and even less removing Damaso Marte after he got the second out of the inning.

As Jay Jaffe tweeted, the Yankees do not have a shut-down non-closer, healthy RHP in the bullpen right now. That’s, um, not good.

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I don’t always watch the postgame show. Most of what I care about–manager and player quotes–are picked up on by the beat writers, but after a win like tonight’s, I kept YES on while I made gleeful and petulant comments on Twitter.

Girardi’s postgame conference with the reporters actually kept my attention for a couple of reasons: 1) for the way in which he defended his player, and 2) the managing of an injury-depleted bullpen.

There was one particular exchange of note: the question, which I cannot quote word-for-word, so please pardon the summary, nor can I officially identify who asked it:

Q: So, since it seems like you skipped Vazquez, so he didn’t have to handle the pressure of the situation–

The answer involved a very animated Girardi. Now, I’m sure, behind closed doors that some have been privy to seeing him really light up, but as far as anything I’ve seen on television, this was the most, erm, cross I have seen the Yankee skipper:

““I want to make this clear. He was not skipped because of that situation. Our bullpen is a mess. We needed a long guy. We could not activate Chan Ho Park if you didn’t have a long man. You couldn’t call up some of the guys we sent down, you couldn’t recall them, and you did not have Nova. We wanted Chan Ho Park back in our bullpen, and that’s why Javy had to do it.”

Let’s dissect that a bit, shall we?

First, there’s Girardi’s defense of Vazquez. It should not have needed to occur at all, but there you have it.

No, no one expects Javier Vazquez to be the Yankee ace, nor do you want to embarrass him, but if he can’t take the mound against a decent team (and Boston, thus far, is not), then he shouldn’t be pitching in baseball. Yes, I saw the references to “the last time Javier pitched in a Yankee uniform in relief” on Twitter, and yes, how could I not think about it, but, see, that’s the thing about baseball. You can’t forever dwell on past failures.

If Javy’s moved on, then we probably should, too.

Second, there’s Girardi’s admission that the Yankee bullpen is, in his words, “a mess”.

This ‘mess’ is due to a couple reasons, most of which relate directly to one another, starting with the rained out game in Detroit. The double-header the next day meant that some other starter had to be found for Sunday’s game against the Twins, as both Vazquez and Hughes pitched on the same day. Sabathia took the final game against the Tigers, and Burnett and Pettitte the first two against the Twins.

The Yankees had two long men in the bullpen: Sergio Mitre and Ivan Nova, and the start was given to Mitre. You can debate the merits of Mitre over Nova all you want, but this is besides the point.

Mitre left the game on Sunday with a lead, having given the Yankees five innings, and thus making himself unavailable for Monday’s game. After Joba’s high-stress outing on Sunday, as well as having been up twice on Saturday, Girardi had also deemed him (along with Robertson) unavailable for tonight’s game. In a later comment, Girardi reflected, saying how hard it can be to not use arms, but that the more important obligation is to keep everyone healthy–which, unlike what Joe Torre may have you believe, means not over-using relievers. It means that some days you’ll be in a lurch, because as much as you might want to use reliever B instead of reliever E, reliever B just needs that day off. His health is much more important than one game in a 162 game season.

Thus, at the start of today’s game, if you did not include Vazquez, the Yankees had at their disposal: Boone Logan, Damaso Marte, Chan Ho Park (replacing Ivan Nova off of the DL), Mariano Rivera and….well, that’s it. Alfredo Aceves is on the DL, and Chamberlain and Robertson were unavailable.

Chan Ho Park, who can pitch more than one inning in relief if need be, but not five, was then tapped to pitch two, and in his first game back from the disabled list, he was, shall we say, a little more than rusty. This was very possibly (I’m not in Girardi’s head, so I can’t say for sure) in Girardi’s mind when he told Vazquez to be ready to pitch out of the bullpen.

The Yankees, then, really needed Hughes to give their bullpen length tonight, but as happens with a young starter, Hughes was unable to do so. Boone Logan faced his few batters–and not especially well, either, Chan Ho Park his, Damaso Marte for nearly two innings, his.

With the exception of Mariano, who would have pitched had it been a save situation, Vazquez was literally the last pitcher the Yankees had at their disposal. As a starter, had the game gone into extras, Vazquez could have, in Girardi’s words, given them 100 pitches if need be–fortunately, this was not the case.

Tomorrow, the Yankees, I guess, might have Chamberlain, Robertson and Mariano available, assuming all are healthy, and I don’t know about the others. Thus, the forecast for rain and more rain may very well be a blessing.

Bullpen management is not easy, since bullpens themselves are often fluid. In 2008 and 2009, Girardi proved to us, no matter how much we went ‘buuh, that makes no sense!’, that he knows what he’s doing on this point (Certain games of the ALCS excepted). Girardi has taken, the past two seasons, a bullpen that looked like an arson squad in April, and turned it into a solid core for the team. While we might rail against his overmanaging, the fact is, when he does it, he’s doing his best to keep arms from falling off of guys–which doesn’t just hurt the team that game, but can ruin careers. Ask Scott Proctor (et al).

When a bullpen is compromised because of rainouts and injury, managing it becomes even harder. Can you honestly say that you would avoid the temptation to go to Chamberlain in the eighth tonight? Really? Especially when you consider that it was, after all, a Yankees-Red Sox game?

I’ll admit that at first the Vazquez-to-the-bullpen-for-this-week move didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but after the course of tonight’s game, it’s a lot easier to see why it was done.

You can argue about bullpen construction–if having two lefties is really ultimately necessary–all you want, but as it turns out, Girardi’s got a pretty good handle on this managing thing.

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I was going to attempt this post in the vein of Jay-Z’s “99 problems and a bitch ain’t one”, but the thing is, the Yankees don’t actually have 99 problems.

Well, I’m sure they do, but I got stuck after 34–and that was with the majority of them being completely nonsensical.

So where does a manager who brought the Yankees a 100+-win season and their 27th World title in his second year with the team–and third, overall–rank in terms of issues the Yankees may deign to consider as the dawn of the 2010 season approaches?

Pretty far down. I can think of a lot others–both serious and not-so-serious–(these are only in the order they occur to me)

Oh. And for the record, since this seems to sail over some people’s head: If the following is all that plagues your franchise, you are in remarkably good shape.

For instance,

1) Nick Johnson, who history tells us will probably get hurt at some point, is supposed to be the fulltime DH.

What happens when Johnson goes down? Right now your fillers are Randy Winn and Jamie Hoffman; otherwise you’re talking Posada DHing and Cervelli catching, and if Cervelli goes down, you’re rushing Jesus Montero. Johnny Damon would be the perfect fit here, of course, but it looks like both sides blew that one.

2) Jeter’s 36, Mo’s 40, A-Rod’s 35, Posada’s…you know what? I’d rather not know.

For a team that prides itself on getting younger, many of the most important players–Jeter, Mo, A-Rod, Posada, Pettitte–are all on the wrong side of 35.

I’d hate to be considered agist, but the older you are after your mid-20s, the easier it is to wear-and-tear and get hurt, and the Yankees, as 2008 showed us, can ill-afford a slate of injuries. To keep them healthy, Girardi needs to rest them, but when he does rest them, he gets hammered Jim Caldwell-style for sitting his starters…

3) Our best prospect is a 20 year old kid who’s never played above AA.

Yeah, sure, trades are fun, but we’ve more or less gutted the upper levels of our farm system. Sure, Kelvin DeLeon and Slade Heathcott and Manny Banuelos may turn out to be studs, but they are a long, long way off.

2009 worked as well as it did because we had guys like Cervelli and Peña who, though not All-Stars, could still come up and do their fill, what was needed of them, and not be completely overmatched. It meant that hurt guys, like Posada and A-Rod, could take their time coming back, instead of risking re-aggravating their injury.

4) In the time it takes Joba to set between pitches, I managed to finish, print, revise, print, publish and ship my novel.

Speaking of which, there’s the whole Joba-vs-Phil debate, and then someone is bound to bring up the 8th inning thing again, and meanwhile you want to tear your hair out because you remember that good pitchers aren’t built in a day–even though the rest of the media seems to have forgotten this.

5) That (rhymes with duck)-ing moat.

And Kate Smith. And Cotton Eye’d Joe. And YMCA. And fans doing the wave. And everything that says “let’s be cheesy” instead of just letting fans enjoy the game that’s played on the field, like the main attraction it’s supposed to be.

6) The fact that if Granderson and Winn hit back to back, there exists a potential “Grandy and Randy go back-to-back, ain’t that dandy?” from Sterling.

‘Nuff said.

Yeah, there are a lot more problems, I’m sure, but the point is, all things considered, Joe Girardi isn’t really a worry.

Yes, if the Yankees miss the playoffs it will be 2-of-3 years that they missed, but let us not forget that in 2008 the team lost many of its best players due to injury for extended time and still managed to win 89 games–which would have made the playoffs in at least two other divisions.

Then, last year, Girardi and his team won over 100 games, far and away the best team in the league, and virtually steamrolled through the postseason.

Honestly, there are other New York coaches–Tortorella, Coughlin, whatever dude manages the Mets–that should find their seats a whole lot hotter…

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I don’t want to see complaints about Girardi. Ever. Again. Until April.

Check this out.

On his way home from the World Series, Girardi stopped to help the victim of a car accident–and could have very well risked his life doing so.

It’s one thing to be a good manager. There are many good managers in baseball and good coaches in other sports.

It is entirely another thing to be a good man.

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