Worst to First - The Sequel

[NYY #23]

The Yankees dominated Spring Training this year which left me encouraged, finishing in a first place tie with the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox's 4-13 record during April is a good reminder that Spring Training is a pretty meaningless predictor of regular season success.

However, I'm pleased with our 10-6 start. While Johnny Bench has been splitting catching duties with Charlie Lau, he's off to a fast start, hitting .407 in27 at-bats. I'm sure his playing time will increase if he keeps this up.

[NYY #23]

The Yankees went 14-13 for the month and are one of five teams over .500 in the American League. Once again the Twins are running away with the American League.

With the return of Lou Piniella, Rick Monday went out with injury the next day. It appears to be a minor injury though.

Frank Robinson of the Mets collected the 2000th hit of his career this month.

[NYY #23]

With a 20-12 month the Yankees sit within striking distance of first place, five games behind the Twins and 2 games behind the Athletics. Rick Monday returned from injury, and went right back out. He'll be tough to replace, but Bob Perry was recalled and will get an opportunity to try.

Frank Robinson of the Mets reached another milestone, hitting the 400th home run of his career.

[NYY #23]

The Yankees cooled off with an 11-20 month falling into fourth place, a distant 13 games out of first place.

Centerfield continues to be problematic, with both Rick Monday out, and his replacement Bob Perry down with injury.

Larry Dierker, Johnny Bench, and Bobby Murcer were our All-Star representatives this year.

Bill Skowron of the Indians hit his 300th career home run this month.

[NYY #23]

The Yankees had a return to winning this month going 17-13, although injuries to both Denny McLain and Larry Dierker both dampened our expectations and put a strain on our pitching staff. We really have no depth among starters, so relievers Tug McGraw and Lindy McDaniel will get their shot in the rotation.

Harvey Kuenn of the Red Sox picked up career hit number 2000 this month.

[NYY #23]

Year 2 in the Bronx wraps up with the Yankees going 11-14 in September, and 0-1 in October to finish the year on a downward slide. The injuries to Denny McClain and Larry Dierker were just too much to overcome, although I was pleased finishing over .500 in year two.

The Kansas City Athletics went out with a bang, winning 103 games and then defeating the Giants 4 games to 2 in their final season in Kansas City before they pack up and move to Oakland.

I can't help but feel a little bad for the Minnesota Twins who finished the year with 101 wins, the second best record in the majors, but the defending champions went home empty finishing two games back.

Norm Cash hit his 300th career home runs for the Twins, while Willie McCovey hit his 300th for the Athletics.

Robin Roberts was inducted to the Hall of Fame after spending his entire career with the Phillies:



Two players announced their retirement from the Yankees, 1B Julio Becquer and SS Coot Veal. Coot did get a hit in his only at-bat this year in the majors, while Becquer spent his time on the reserve roster.

We'll also be looking for a new bench coach and trainer, as both of their contracts expired.

New York Yankees - 64-98 (.395) 35 GB
1966 - New York Yankees 77-85 (.475) 27 GB (Season Score - 3)
1967 - New York Yankees 83-79 (.512) 20 GB (Season Score - 28)

[NYY #23]

Entering the draft the Yankees were selecting 14th overall, but also had the benefit of an extra second round pick from last year's draft. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up a couple of decent pieces in the draft.

In the first round the Yankees selected third baseman Bill Melton. We added left fielder Carlos May and second baseman Dave Nelson in the second round. Starting pitcher Tom Murphy was picked in the third round, and rounding out the draft was reliever Alan Foster, 2B Jose Arcia, and LF Jimmy McMath.

I'm pretty confident we'll be able to sign all of our picks this year.

One additional note, Lou Piniella won a Gold Glove in left field.

[NYY #23]

Year 3 in New York is set to begin after a quiet offseason. All of our draft picks have been signed, but it was a quiet offseason as we were unable to make any deals.

I still haven't been able to make head's or tail's of our finances. We had enough money to sign draft picks, but according to the league finance report we finished with a $151,851 balance, but our owner keeps taking more money out of the team than we make so our budget deficit increased to -$701,200.

So I guess my point is we have money somehow to sign draft picks, but we lose money each year, and can't make a trade unless we lower our payroll. So I'm banking on our players to get better from year to year and hopefully draw some more fans to cut our deficit.

[NYY #23]

The Yankees begin the year with a 9-9 record in April, with our pitching staff really missing Denny McLain. Dick Drott is off to a poor start going 0-3 with a 5.82 ERA, while Mickey Lolich is 0-3 with a 5.82 ERA, and suffering from control problems, walking 13 batters in his first 13 innings.

What I thought was our strength hasn't been as strong as I thought it would, and while Denny McLain should be coming back soon it's worth noting he's already suffered two setbacks and is at least five weeks away.

[NYY #23]

The Yankees had a rough time in May, going 11-19 to move us 8 games under .500 for the season. We've been dealing with a lot of minor injuries with our offense, but combined with poor pitching it's giving us major problems. Denny McLain should be back very soon though.

[NYY #23]

Denny McLain returned from his lengthy stint on the disabled list to pitch 7 innings of 2 hit ball to win his first game of the year. He pitched a 6 hit shutout with 9 strikeouts his next game, and went 3-1 for the month with a 2.83 ERA.

We returned to winning in June going 16-14 although we still sit in 8th place.

[NYY #23]

The Yankees had two All-Star representatives this year, Larry Dierker, and shortstop Bobby Murcer.

At one point this month the Yankees were hot, pulling in third place and five games above .500. But we got bad news when Denny McLain tore an elbow ligament and will be out the next 10-11 months, ending his season with a 7-1 record and 1.96 ERA.

We still went 16-14 for the month though, but it was a frustrating blow and even though he's been great when healthy I will have to consider moving McLain when he returns from injury.

For now last year's third round pick, Tom Murphy, will get his shot in the rotation. He looked horrible in the spring, but at the back end of the rotation he's gone 3-0 with a 2.16 ERA.

[NYY #23]

I was hoping that the Yankees would be able to improve on last year's record at a minimum, and for some reason I thought that we could potentially be competitive this year. Maybe not win it all, but at least come close. But after going 12-19 in August and being 24 1/2 games out of first place I think it's safe to say that isn't going to happen.

But Minnesota has really built a juggernaut, and they appear well on their way to their third straight 100 win season with a 88-50 record, and at a minimum their fourth straight 90 win season. 24 year old Jim Merritt is 20-4 this year with a 2.02 ERA and appears on his way to his third straight Cy Young. Norm Cash leads the league in home runs, and Dick Allen is hitting .369. They'll be a tough team to overcome.

But we have enough problems of our own that we need to fix in the meantime. After going 3-17 this year Mickey Lolich is going to need to be replaced in the rotation. Our catcher of the future, Johnny Bench, hit just .198 this year, forcing us to keep around the pricey 35 year old Charlie Lau who hit .241.

Bill Melton also had a rough year as our third baseman of the future, especially defensively. But we've got 23 games left this season, and we'll see what happens because we could easily leapfrog a few teams in the standings.

[NYY #23]

With a 14-9 finish to the season the Yankees moved into 6th place, jumping over two American League teams in the final month, and one National League team to finish in a three way tie for the 7th worst record. I'm not sure if we'll pick 7th, 8th, or 9th yet, but I'd rather play well than purposely tank on the season.

Both Bobby Murcer and Bill Melton won Player of the Week Awards this month.

The Twins won another 101 games this year, and fast forwarding a couple of days ended up defeating the Reds 4-2 in the World Series.

Year 3 is officially in the books now, and my season score wasn't pretty -

New York Yankees - 64-98 (.395) 35 GB
1966 - New York Yankees 77-85 (.475) 27 GB (Season Score - 3)
1967 - New York Yankees 83-79 (.512) 20 GB (Season Score - 28)
1968 - New York Yankees 78-84 (.481) 23 GB (Season Score - 1)

[NYY #23]

With four teams entering the league in the 1969 season it was time to get ready for the expansion draft, and submitting a list of 15 players to protect.

This was a tough one, and I'm pretty sure we're going to end up losing some important players, but the list of 15 protected players was:

SP - Denny McLain
SP - Denny Lemaster
SP - Larry Dierker
SP - Dick Drott
MR - Alan Foster
MR - Steve Carlton
C - Johnny Bench
1B - George Scott
2B - Sandy Alomar, Jr.
3B - Bill Melton
SS - Bobby Murcer
LF - Carlos May
LF - Lou Piniella
CF - Rick Monday
RF - Jose Cardenal

[NYY #23]

I had to give in and go back to pre-expansion draft after seeing the initial results, and luckily I could go back to after the season was ended and before the expansion draft lists were submitted. I changed the default of 'Auto Protect Players with less than X Pro Service Years from 3 to 0 before the draft, thinking that would be the most fair.

The results were less than desired though as the first two players selected were Tom Seaver and Jim Merritt who went 23-6 with a 2.04 ERA last year. Perhaps I did it too late in the process, but the AI didn't handle their protection lists well and teams lost too many players they shouldn't have.

In reality the Yankees would have made out pretty well, but some other teams would have been hurt too much. For round two of the expansion draft (this time for real) the Yankees protected:

SP - Larry Dierker
SP - Denny McLain
SP - Denny Lemaster
SP - Dick Drott
SP - Mickey Lolich
MR - Lindy McDaniel
MR - Ken Sanders
C - Charlie Lau
2B - Sandy Alomar, Jr.
3B - George Banks
LF - Lou Piniella
LF - Walt Williams
CF - Bob Perry
RF - Jose Cardenal
RF - Phil Gagliano

The end result was losing a trio of middle relievers in the draft - Lee Gregory, Tom Parsons, and Bob Duliba. The four expansion teams didn't make out very well in round two, but I do think this will work out better in the end.

[NYY #23]

With the addition of the four expansion teams the Yankees will be selecting 14th out of 26th with two teams getting an extra first round pick including the National League Champion Reds who will pick 13th and 25th.

With our first pick in the draft the Yankees selected 21 year old catcher Thurman Munson. Reliever Vida Blue was picked with our second pick, with reliever Bill Lee picked third. Right fielder Bill Russell with picked in the fourth round, with relievers Ron Klimkowski and Don Secrist rounding out the draft. While both Vida Blue and Bill Lee are nice names, they don't have the stamina needed to start, but hopefully will be valuable members of the bullpen.

Pitching coach Tony Pacheco decided to retire, and will be replaced by Bill Miller.

Chuck Daniel and Hank Izquierdo both retired, although neither played a role on last year's team.

[NYY #23]

With the addition of Thurman Munson we made a deal to improve our rotation, sending catcher Johnny Bench and left fielder Walt Williams to the Giants in exchange for 29 year old starting pitcher Dennis Bennett, who was 13-13 last year with a 2.40 ERA.

Our second deal of the offseason was sending SP Mickey Lolich, 2B Dave Nelson, and catcher Tom Patton to the Montreal Expos for 20 year old prospect Clay Kirby.

I think the first deal helps make us a better team, while the second deal primarily frees up some payroll, and gives us a pitcher who could help us down the road.

[NYY #23]

Offensively the Yankees are off to a good start, but our pitching is struggling, particularly Denny Lemaster and Tug McGraw. They've combined for a 1-7 record, and although we've outscored our opponents 100-94, you can't tell by our 10-13 record.

The return of Denny McLain is getting closer to returning though, which will help move Tug McGraw out of the rotation, where he doesn't belong. Rick Monday returning will also help stabilize centerfield, and hopefully we'll be able to string some wins together.

[NYY #23]

With an 18-10 record this month the Yankees managed to turn their season around, and are sitting 5 games above .500 and in third place. We now trail the Indians by a game, and Washington by 2 1/2.

Our offense was bolstered by the return of Rick Monday, who was honored with the Batter of the Month after hitting .364 with 9 home runs and 18 RBI in the 21 games since being activated.

While our pitching hasn't gotten as big of a boost from Denny McClain, he is starting to round into shape. He's given up 5 runs in each of his three starts, but he's showing some signs of improving, cutting down on walks, and got the complete game win in his last start, striking out 8. If he can round into form I feel good about our chances in the American League.

We may need to consider going out and picking up another starter though, so I'll be paying close attention to the trade market.