So What to Do About Joba Chamberlain?

There's been a whole to-do this week about the Yankees and weight. First, CC Sabathia said he lost 25 pounds after he dropped his habit of devouring full boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal (hey, maybe that's what the CC stands for in his name!) Now Joba Chamberlain admits to packing on a few pounds, but claims it's all muscle. Right.

I'm of two minds about Joba. On the one hand, I think the Yankees did him a tremendous disservice with moving him from the bullpen to the starting rotation and back. And I think it was ridiculous for Brian Cashman to characterize anybody who disagreed with the Yankees' strategy as "stupid."

However, there's also some real questions, I think, about Chamberlain's work ethic. And showing up to spring training packing on a few extra pounds doesn't help. If you're working in a cubicle farm, it doesn't matter how much you weigh. But if you're a professional athlete struggling to keep his job, you might want to take a cue from your veteran teammates and show up in shape. Or at least pitch well enough so that your weight isn't an issue.

When I slammed the Yankees last month for the way they handled Joba, I got a lot of responses from Yankee fans who were angry at Chamberlain for his work ethic, for him not being in shape, etc. and who felt that he was the only one to blame for his predicament.

On the other hand, it seems like the Yanks have let him get away with that for a long time; it's interesting that only now Cashman mentions using the minor league options with Joba when he flat-out last year said they wouldn't do it.

Wally Matthews made a point I have wondered about myself when he wrote:

Fans ask me all the time if the Yankees know something about Joba Chamberlain that the rest of us don't, some unflattering bit of information that makes them continue to treat him as if he is fragile, or unstable, or in some way unreliable.

Clearly, they know the Joba Chamberlain who chose to reveal himself on Wednesday: the 25-year-old who already knows so much about pitching he no longer needs to bother with the little things anymore.

Like getting in shape.

I don't expect to hear the inside story, if there is one, anytime soon, though. Heck, I'm still waiting to hear how A.J. Burnett got that black eye!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Mets back on 'E' train in Subway Series

The first Subway Series game Squawker Lisa and I attended this year ended with the infamous error by Luis Castillo. Tonight, Luis was flawless in the field, but EVERY OTHER MET INFIELDER made an error in the SAME INNING and the game was over by the middle of the second. The Lisa jinx is back!

As annoying as the errors were, I can't get too upset over them for a couple of reasons. First of all, CC Sabathia was going to win tonight whatever the Mets did. I'm just glad he didn't pitch a no-hitter.

Also, the errors came from players who belonged in the lineup and were playing at their proper positions, which has not always been the case this year with the Mets. The five-error L.A. game culminating in Jeremy Reed forced to play first base and making a bad throw to end the game was a lot worse. Tonight, you had David Wright, doing something that is all too familiar - a nice pickup followed by a bad throw. But Wright leads the league in hitting, which more than makes up for a few bad throws.

Alex Cora's error was particularly costly since it could have been a double play, but Cora gets a pass from me because of what he has meant to the Mets this year. When Jose Reyes went down, Cora filled in ably until tearing ligaments in his thumb. He was supposed to be out for six weeks. Instead, with apparently no other qualified shortstops in the entire organization, Cora rushed back as soon as his 15-day DL stint was up and has had only one day off since returning three weeks ago.

The third error came from Nick Evans, just back in the bigs and suddenly playing before a sellout crowd. And after the first two errors, bad fielding could have been getting contagious.

What's less excusable is Mike Pelfrey giving up a solid run-scoring single to an American League pitcher.

My biggest gripe of the game came when Jerry Manuel pinch-hit Argenis Reyes in the fifth with two on and two outs. The way Sabathia was pitching, it was the biggest opportunity the Mets were likely to have, and Manuel was right to hit for Pelfrey. But he had to use his best available hitter, and that was Daniel Murphy.

Murphy has consistently gotten pinch hits this year against both righty and lefty pitchers. In fact, Murphy's overall numbers this year are BETTER against lefties, against whom he is hitting .276 and slugging .414. His numbers against righties are .249 and .367.

Argenis Reyes is a career .218 hitter. And he's much worse against lefties, with a career average of .167 as opposed to .241 against righties.

There is no way A. Reyes was going to get a hit off of Sabathia. Murphy would have at least had a chance. But Manuel seems to have a blind spot with Murphy. It took him a long time to try him at first base, when Murphy was actually a better fielder than Carlos Delgado. And Manuel does not seem to realize that on this roster, Murphy is one of his better hitters, certainly a lot better than Argenis Reyes.

Murphy pinch-hit in the eighth with two outs, none on, and the Mets down, 7-1. He flied out.

The Mets were down 7-1 because mop-up man Elmer Dessens gave up three runs in the top of the eighth, including two homers. Note to Dessens: This game was at Citi Field, not Yankee Stadium. Start getting those headlines ready about Elmer going to the glue factory.

The worst thing about Dessens' lousy performance is that he made Lisa's prediction of a homer by A-Rod come true. (Granted, Lisa predicted a homer every time A-Rod came up tonight.)

The Mets are still only half a game out of first. But it's no fun to lose two games in a row to the Yankees by a combined score of 24-1. I'll be back out at Citi Field on Sunday night with Lisa the jinx, hoping for a better result.

Yanks swat those pesky Nats

While I'm glad the Yanks won last night, this game shouldn't have even been as close as it was. You have the Yankees' ace on the mound vs. the worst team in baseball, and it was still a nail-biter of a game for most of it, thanks in no small part to the Yankee lineup - again - only eking out four hits against an unfamiliar pitcher, Shairon Martis.

It's a good thing old Yankee Ron Villone was pitching for the Nationals, and Elijah Dukes was playing center, or this game could have been a tough loss for CC Sabathia. As Squawker Jon noted, former Met Anderson Hernandez doubled his career home run total with a three-run blast off CC. My cat C.C. was hissing over it!

On the bright side, Robinson Cano did go 4-for-4, and Brian Bruney looked fine in his return to the Yankees bullpen.

But Derek Jeter left the game after hurting his ankle. As for myself, I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday, so I wasn't giving the game my full attention. Hopefully, Jeter - and I -will be feeling better tonight!

* * *

Squawker friend Bernadette Palsey - aka Lady at the Bat - wrote a story for mlb.com about the new A&E Home Video set The New York Yankees: Essential Games of Yankee Stadium- Perfect Games and No Hitters
. Congrats!

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

Yankees get swept away by Red Sox in the worst loss of the season

Worst. Loss. Ever. Or at least for this season.

Yes, I think tonight is the worst loss of the year. More horrible than Tuesday's A.J. Burnett debacle. More gruesome than Wednesday's Chien-Ming Wang implosion. More nauseating than even that 22-4 loss (with the 14-run inning) in April.

Here's why tonight is the most brutal, torturous, gut-wrenching loss of the year:

• You expect to win a game when you finally have an ace who shuts down the other team. While I think CC Sabathia should have exited the game after the Dustin Pedroia walk, I'm not going to kill him - or Joe Girardi - for that. Even with that, CC pitched very, very well - one run through the first seven innings. He should have gotten the win. And no, I don't think having Mariano Rivera get six outs would have been the answer.
• Alex Rodriguez, who has been in a horrendous slump, gets a huge, clutch double to give the Yankees the lead. It seemed like a hit we would see as Yankees Classic moment. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way.
• It's one thing to get shut out by Josh Beckett. It's another thing to get shut out by Brad Penny. (And what is it with the Yankees and the 2003 Florida Marlins pitchers, anyway? They're helpless against Beckett, Penny, and Carl Bleeping Pavano. And the one Marlin the Yanks have, A.J. Burnett, can't get the Sox out. Go figure.
• A-Rod's hit was the only hit the Yankees had with runners in scoring position the entire night. Unacceptable.
  
• Mark Teixeira made a reference after Wednesday's game about how the Sox were doing the little things the Yankees weren't. Like not making dopey baserunning moves, the way Nick Swisher did for the second night in a row. Or like catching fly balls, the way Johnny Damon didn't do.
  
• What was all that about David Ortiz having a lousy year? All he needed was Yankee pitching to put him back in the groove! Good grief.
• A-Rod gets plunked in the first inning, and the Yankees aren't able to retaliate, thanks to the umpire's warning. Typical.
• Need I mention the fact that the Yankees are 0-8 against the Red Sox? The mind boggles at that number.
  

Like many Met fans, Squawker Jon is a Jets fan. There's an expression fans of Gang Green use about their team when they falter: Same Old Jets. Sadly, even though the Yanks had been the best team in baseball for the past month, when it comes to the Boston Red Sox, they're the Same Old Yankees.

Is this the worst loss of the year? Leave us a comment!

From Soup to Putz

Squawker Lisa, I see you've named the new Yankee pitchers Alphabet Soup because they are CC and A.J. But the Mets also introduced a new pitcher Thursday, J.J. Putz., so you can't have Alphabet Soup all to yourself. Instead, how about these soup-related nicknames for your new pitchers: Chicken Soup for the always-ailing Burnett and Souper-Size for Sabathia.

And here's a nickname for Yankee fans after they shell out for tickets to the new Yankee Stadium: Soup Kitchen.

I also had some suggestions for numbers for the new Yanks, if only these numbers were not retired. Sabathia could have worn 3 for the number of years after which he can opt out of his contract. Also, his body type is similar to the Babe's. Burnett could have worn 10, for the number of times he has been on the disabled list.

And Lisa, I'm just fine with calling Francisco Rodriguez K-Rod instead of F-Rod. After all, Dwight Gooden wasn't called Dr. G. (That would have sounded like a weatherman or a dermatologist in subway ads.)

As for Sabathia saying he got chills when telling his real estate agent that he is a Yankee, I suspect it was really the other way around!

Only the Yankees could take the two biggest signings of the free-agent season in terms of contract size and combine them into one news conference. What, they didn't want to spring for a second carving board? Even the Mets had two separate welcomes for K-Rod and Putz.

If Putz sticks with number 40 (there was a report that he might try to get 20 from Howard Johnson), that number could have a couple of meanings. 40 is the number of saves Putz had in 2007, the year he made the All-Star team. And 40 is the number of games the Mariners were under .500 in 2008, when they went 61-101, and why I believe him when he says he's happy to be a setup man for a contender.

Finally, Lisa, thanks for ruining my night by letting me know that mlb.com's "Moment of the Year" was Derek Jeter's speech after the last game played at the old Yankee Stadium.

Look, even I think it was a special day, but did the 2008 Yankees really need to take a victory lap around the Stadium? After all, it was the last game only because they were missing the playoffs after 13 straight appearances.

I suppose we shouldn't take this list all that seriously, considering that second place went to something that happened in the Home Run Derby. But as long as the voters don't seem interested in things that actually happened during a game, goodness gracious, where's Roger Clemens testifying before Congress?

I have a new nickname for the Yankees' free agent pitchers

A few thoughts while we wait for this afternoon's big press conference (I'm assuming this is a carving board sort of day at the Stadium, with prime rib. Yum!) Alas, I have other plans this afternoon, and will have to record the presser and watch it later. Bummer.

But I do have a suggestion. Nicknames are vitally important in baseball, and I think the Bombers' new Yankee pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett need one. My suggestion? Alphabet Soup for CC and A.J. Hey, it's better than calling them, say, 243 (for the combined millions the Bombers will be paying them) or 570 (their estimated combined weight.)

Readers, if you have a better suggestion for nicknames, please post a comment here, or email us at subwaysquawkers@gmail.com.

* Squawker Jon, I see that your Mets did their own wingding for "Krancisco" Rodriguez, as I like to call him. (He shouldn't be K-Rod if his name begins with an F!) And he will be taking the unusual uniform number of 75. Is that for how many wins the Mets will get next year?

* Derek Jeter was on XM Radio the other day, and he had this to say about Red Sox MVP Dustin Pedroia (oh, how I hate to put those words together!) Peter Abraham's blog has the words from the transcript. Here's a snippet:

“He’s a great player. More importantly, he’s a good person. He was fun to be around (at the All-Star Game). The thing about Dustin that I like is every game he’s playing all out. I mean, he’s a player that you really enjoy to watch play. I mean, I really don’t enjoy it because we see enough of him but you really appreciate the way he goes about playing the game everyday.

While I am positively cringing hearing Jeter say all that praise, I am also jealous that the Yanks really don't have a kid like Pedroia right now. I guess Joba counts as far as pitching excitement (and getting other opposing fans' skin the way Pedroia does), but there is not hot young position player on the Yanks who is an equivalent to Dustin. And I wish they did.

Once upon a time, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera appeared to be up-and-coming stars. But Melky's star faded so much he first was demoted to the minors, and then was supposed to be traded for Mike Cameron. However, it looks like that trade is dead. It would be nice if in 2009, Cano and Cabrera could be the exciting young players they projected to be. Dare to dream!

* One other note - Subway Squawkers is now part of Facebook's blog network. If you belong to Facebook, click here to join the fun with us.

What do you think about the state of the Yankees? Leave us a comment!

On CC's rider and the Melkman delivering Mike Cameron to the Yankees

The baseball hot stove is bubbling over with a plethora of signings and trades. So there's a lot to squawk about. Let's get it started.

The latest news out of Yankeeland is that Melky Cabrera is set to go to Milwaukee for Mike Cameron. So much for the Yanks' youth movement, eh? The Bergen Record is reporting the following:

On the condition of anonymity, the source said the Yankees would be willing to extend Cameron to a two-year contract through the 2010 season. The Brewers had picked up Cameron’s 2009 option for $10 million, and a two-year deal with the Yanks could be worth about $17 million total.

How Melky Cabrera sunk from being one of the more pleasurable players to watch on the Yanks over the past few seasons to being the easiest out on the roster is a big mystery to me. But what's even more head-scratching is why the Yanks would even consider extending Mike Cameron's contract, given that he's nearly 36 now. Not to mention what will happen to Brett Gardner. What, exactly, is to be gained in giving Cameron another year?

Speaking of head-scratching moves, why the Yankees are even thinking about signing A.J. Burnett is beyond me, let alone offering him $80 million, considering they've already been burned by one injury-prone former Marlin pitcher with Carl Pavano. (Of course, the Red Sox didn't get burned by their own injury-prone former Marlin pitcher, Josh Beckett, but I digress!)

It's strange times to think that I would prefer Derek Lowe to Burnett and Sheets, but I do. At least Lowe is a healthy big-game pitcher (albeit one who makes those, well, Derek Lowe faces when things go wrong!) Don't think Derek is worth a four-year, $66 million deal, though.

And yes, the numbers the Yanks are willing to shell out this year are simply mind-boggling. Given 1) the recession we're currently in, and 2) the fact that the Yanks just went back to the city of New York to beg for more cash for their stadium, I have to say that even this Yankee fan finds these contract numbers a bit unseemly and over the top. Don't mean to get all Joe Hill here, but there it is.

Oprah Winfrey toned down her yearly Favorite Things extravaganza to reflect the economic realities this country is facing. Not the Yanks. A few days ago, I thought that $10 million for Andy Pettitte was reasonable. But given the money the Bombers are willing to throw around this week, that figure now looks awfully cheap.

Am I happy the Yanks got CC Sabathia? Of course. He's a heck of a pitcher. But I am a bit concerned that they overpaid for him, given that they were essentially bidding against themselves. And his three-year opt out clause worries me - if he's already planning an escape hatch before he's even come to New York, that's a real concern. He does seem like a very likeable guy, though - hopefully he'll fit right in with the Yanks, pitch great, and all these concerns will be moot next year.

While the Yanks are on a spending spree, the Mets are making deals, like getting J.J. Putz. Congrats, Squawker Jon - your team's bullpen looks pretty awesome. And in keeping with that era of good feeling. I'm going to resist making a joke about your new reliever's last name!

* * *

I was on three radio programs over the course of 23 hours squawking about the winter meetings, and I had a terrific time on all three shows. Thanks to Dos Amigos, Sound-Off with Sinkoff, and NYBaseball Digest for having me on.

Coming later today, my thoughts on where Manny Ramirez will end up. But in the meantime, tell us what you think about all these moves.

Shocker! CC Sabathia reportedly agrees to terms with Yankees

It looks like CC Sabathia wasn't so reluctant to be a Yankee after all.

The New York Post's Joel Sherman is reporting that Sabathia has accepted the Yanks' 6-year, $140 million offer to make him the richest pitcher in history, after Brian Cashman met with him for the third day in a row. (Update: CC is getting a 7-year, $161 million deal. Yikes!)

According to Sherman:

Cashman had met with Sabathia on both Sunday and Monday in Vegas. He then slipped out of the Winter Meetings yesterday to fly to San Francisco to meet again with Sabathia and also this time Sabathia's wife, Amber. It was in this meeting that Sabathia fully expressed that he wanted to come East and play in the AL, that he wanted the responsibility that comes with being the big man for the biggest team.

Squawker Jon is going to have a fit!

I had been trying to be optimistic that Sabathia's apparent reluctance was a negotiation ploy, but Jon had been teasing me, both on this board and in public, that CC didn't really want to be a Yankee.

Fortunately, it looks like money still talks. CC seemed to be the Yankees' Plan A, B, C, and D this year, so getting him is of course vitally important to their future.

But Squawker Jon isn't the only person in my life who will be unhappy about this signing. My cat C.C. is a bit peeved as well. She doesn't like Sabathia's aversion to punctuation marks, and she's also not thrilled that somebody else with her name is coming to town. Oh well.

What do you think about the Yanks getting CC Sabathia? Tell us about it!

Strategies of Omar Minaya and Brian Cashman

Jon Heyman of CNNSI and SNY is reporting that the Mets are going to get their man - Francisco Rodriguez - the only free-agent closer worth signing to a substantial multiyear deal. This is great news!

Some argue that Kerry Wood is a better pitcher, but he's so injury-prone he'd be lucky to last one year. Brian Fuentes lost his closer job only a year ago. And Trevor Hoffman is nearing the end of his career and is best suited as a setup man, if that.

The Mets didn't want to pay K-Rod the five years and $75 million he was seeking, and, fortunately for them, Omar Minaya read the market correctly and is now looking at a deal for half that amount over three years.

I'm so happy about getting K-Rod that I'm willing to forget for a short while that the Mets still have some other major issues to deal with. At least the top one is out of the way, and early enough in the winter meetings that maybe there will be more good news by the end of the week.

*

If Brian Cashman were in the market for a closer, then judging by his strategy with CC Sabathia, he would have made a pre-emptive bid at K-Rod's original asking price as soon as the free-agent market opened. And Cashman, who has not had a long-term pitching contract work out since Mike Mussina, would have been on the hook for such a contract at double the price he could have paid a few weeks later.

Cashman has one strategy: We're the Yankees and we can pay more than anyone. But, unlike Minaya, Cashman seems unable to adapt to changing conditions. The pre-emptive bid for Sabathia should have had two purposes. The main one of course is to win his services. But the second one should have been to gauge Sabathia's interest in being a Yankee.

This is a player who supposedly would rather play somewhere besides New York. Now that the offer has been on the table for over three weeks with barely a mention of any other team, can there be any doubt that Sabathia would prefer an alternative to the Bronx?

The Mets are fortunate that K-Rod wants to be a Met, and at their price. But Cashman might not be so fortunate with Sabathia. He needs to have a Plan B.

When the Yankees lost out on Daisuke Matsuzaka, Cashman responded by paying $46 million (including posting fee) for Kei Igawa. Will Cashman have a better Plan B this time?

Who would you rather have in pinstripes - CC or Manny?

Viva Las Vegas! As MLB descends on Sin City for the Winter Meetings, Brian Cashman has been attempting to woo free agent pitcher CC Sabathia. They reportedly met this weekend, three weeks after the Yanks first attempted to blow him away with that staggering six-year, $140 million contract offer.

Should we be concerned that it's taken so long to meet with CC? I say yes. As another GM put it in a New York Times article the other day:

"If they went to Sabathia with $140 million, he could go back to them and say, 'Give me $170 million and I'm there,'" said one major league general manager, who was granted anonymity so he could freely discuss another team's plans. "He hasn't done that. The Yankees aren't his first choice. Why isn't he jumping on their offer?"

I'm glad Cashman is meeting with Sabathia, and I won't fault the GM if the Bombers fail to sign CC. The Yanks' offer, which would make him the highest-paid pitcher of all time, is more than fair.

That being said, if CC is reluctant to be a Yankee for non-monetary reasons, I don't know if it's such a great idea to try to talk him into it. The last pitcher the Yanks had to do that sort of convincing with was Randy Johnson, and that didn't exactly work out too well.

So what's Plan B if CC doesn't want to wear NY on his cap? It's possible the Yanks will spend money upgrading the bats - Mark Teixeira is considered an option. Today's Ken Davidoff column in Newsday suggests another option - Manny Ramirez!

Here's what I want to know from our readers - who would you most rather see the Yanks spend their free agent money on? Is it CC, Manny, or Mark? Or maybe Derek Lowe, A.J. Burnett, or some other option?

As for my own opinion, my first choice would be for the Yanks to go back in a time machine to a year ago and swoop up Johan Santana. But since time travel isn't an option, I'd most rather see the Bombers spend the money on Sabathia, but only if he really wants to be a Yankee. If he doesn't, the Yanks should say C-ya to CC.

* * *

In other news, I have signed up for Facebook, and will be setting up a Subway Squawkers page in the near future. In the meantime, shoot me an email at subwaysquawkers@gmail.com if you'd like to be my Facebook friend.

Coming soon - an announcement of the winners in the A&E Essential Games giveway. But in thee meantime, tell us who you think the Yanks should sign. Leave us a comment!