By the time you pick up this paper, the New York Yankees' postseason run will have come to an end. You may be forgiven for not realizing the significance of their elimination. In the grand scheme of things, it's just this year's American League Championship Series coming to an end, with the red-hot Detroit Tigers advancing to the World Series. But in the even grander(son?) world of Yankees baseball, it's only the beginning. The Yanks' exit from the postseason launches another installment of the Yankees Off-Season Trade Rumor Mill series, and their first order of business will be to conduct the Yankees' postseason post-mortem. And since baseball media fixates on the Bronx Bombers - as evidenced by the fact that this column's focus is on the Yankee collapse and not the Tigers' triumph - you can expect a lot more of this in the coming months.
But it's the early bird that catches the worm, or the early bird that catches Alex Rodriguez flirting with a worm, where the worm is the desperate New York tabloid reporter. Before we had even seen their backs, there was already speculation about some of the Yankees' big name superstars being off-loaded in the winter. And as much as I would love to pin this one on pathetic rumor-milly Yankees writers, in truth, a chain of events has led us to where we are today. First, A-Rod ended the season in a slump which, by the way, has happened before. It's just bad luck that this slump had to coincide with a postseason where everyone else in the Yankees lineup (save Raul Ibanez) was terrible as well.
So, naturally, A-Rod's failures at the plate were magnified in the press. It was either that magnification, or the slump itself, that forced Manager Joe Girardi to bench him. But uh-oh, you can't just bench someone who's being paid $30 million this year. That's bad business, even if it's perfectly sound baseball management. If you do in fact bench him, not only will he get bored grabbing some pine and start chatting with fans (which, last time I checked, was not a bad thing), they will also make the news. And everyone knows that when you make the news, the headlines are bound to contain words like "Marlins" and "trade," which are absolutely not good things.
As someone who knows how New York media rolls, I can handle the daily rumor. But when experts (read ex-players in jackets and ties) nod in agreement with what the papers are saying, you know it won't go away any time soon. Realistically, though, the A-Rod to the Miami Marlins trade makes no sense for the Yankees no matter how you look at it. It would not give them any salary relief, and Rodriguez isn't blocking immediate prospects over there at third. Most importantly, he is still a good hitter.
Everyone seems to be likening this A-Rod saga to the A.J. Burnett one from last postseason. The popular belief is that Rodriguez will suffer a similar fate. Let's just see how the Burnett trade to the Pittsburgh Pirates worked out. New York paid Burnett $5 million to stay away from the Yankees' rotation this season, and he actually pitched better than the majority of the new rotation. So, I do not expect history to repeat itself here, especially since the guy in the driver's seat, General Manager Brian Cashman, is a smart cookie.
It would be seriously unfair, disrespectful even, to not mention one of the chief causes of this Yankee collapse, and that is the Tigers' pitching rotation. They have certainly earned a place in the Fall Classic, and I can't wait to see how they match up against the senior circuit's best. And though I am mighty happy about the Yankees' exit, it does also end this postseason's TBS broadcast, which means the comedic stylings of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver will take us through the end of the NLCS all the way to the end of the World Series. So make sure those mute buttons are working, and look for the ESPN Radio stream online.
