Hank Steinbrenner Strikes Back at Derek Jeter and St. Jetersburg

Oh, snap. Hank Steinbrenner is at it again. He seemed to take a direct shot at Derek Jeter, who is building a Florida mansion the size of a Best Buy, in saying that some Yankees were "too busy building mansions" to concentrate on winning it all last year.

Here's the full Hank quote:

"I think, maybe, they celebrated too much last year," Steinbrenner said Monday. "Some of the players, too busy building mansions and doing other things and not concentrating on winning. I have no problem saying that."

I think Yammering Hank can forget an invite to St. Jeterburg's housewarming party!

Now, do I think the building of Jeter's new home was a distraction for him? Absolutely not -- it's not like he was at the property with a hardhat hammering nails or something.

However, I do think that the 2010 Yankees were a little complacent, especially evidenced by Joe Giradi lah-de-dahing the last few months into a Wild Card, when they should have won the division. You keep the pedal off the metal for too long, sometimes it's hard to get the engine going again.

And I do think Jeter should have asked for help from Kevin Long months before. Instead, he spent literally half the season in the hitting doldrums before finally approaching the hitting coach in mid-September. Was that complacency or pride? Maybe a little of both. But I have been predicting a big 2011 for Jeter, with the Angry Jeter taking over.

That wasn't all Hank said today -- he compared revenue sharing and luxury tax money to socialism and communism!

"We've got to do a little something about that, and I know Bud wants to correct it in some way," Steinbrenner said. "Obviously, we're very much allies with the Red Sox and the Mets, the Dodgers, the Cubs, whoever in that area."

"At some point, if you don't want to worry about teams in minor markets, don't put teams in minor markets, or don't leave teams in minor markets if they're truly minor," Steinbrenner said. "Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer."

The funniest part of this wasn't him getting all Milton Friedman here. No, the thing that made me chortle was comparing the Yanks as being the same boat as the Mets! Heh.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

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!